Jim Butcher - Skin Game

Also, it illustrated pretty clearly why I was never, ever going to be a Knight. Aside from the fact that I was working for the queen of the wicked faeries and getting into bed with jerks like Nicodemus, I mean.

Karrin’s eyes flicked up to her rearview mirror and sharpened. “Car,” she said quietly.

In a spy movie, I would have watched them coolly in the rearview mirror, or perhaps in my specially mirrored sunglasses. But as I am neither cool nor a spy, nor did I feel any particular need for stealth, I twisted my upper body around and peered out the back window of Karrin’s car.

A white sedan with a rental agency’s bumper sticker on it pulled up to the curb halfway down the block. It was shuddering as it did, as if it could barely get its engine to turn over, even though it was a brand-new vehicle. Before it had entirely stopped moving, the passenger door swung open and a woman stepped out onto the street as though she just couldn’t stand to be stuck in one place.

She was striking-rangy and nearly six feet tall, with long and intensely curled dark hair that fell almost to her waist. She wore sunglasses, jeans, and a thick, tight scarlet sweater that she filled out more noticeably than most. Her cowboy boots struck the street decisively in long strides as she crossed it, heading toward the old slaughterhouse. Her sharp chin was thrust forward, her mouth set in a firm line, and she walked as though she felt certain that the way was clear-or had better be.

“Hot,” Karrin said, her tone neutral, observational. “Human?”

I wasn’t getting any kind of supernatural vibe off of her, but there’s more than one way to identify a threat. “Can’t be sure,” I said. “But I think I know who she is.”

“Who?”

“A warlock,” I said.

“That’s a rogue wizard, right?”

“Yeah. When I was in the Wardens, they used to send out wanted posters for warlocks so the Wardens could recognize them. I didn’t hunt warlocks. But I was on the mailing list.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asked. “Word is that they’re dangerous.”

“Dangerous children, most of them,” I said. “Kids who no one ever taught or trained or told about the Laws of Magic.” I nodded toward the woman. “That one’s name is Hannah Ascher. She was on the run longer than any other warlock on recent record. She’s supposed to have died in a fire in. . Australia, I think, about six years ago.”

“You drowned once. How much pressure did the Council put on you after that?”

“Good point,” I said.

“What did she do?” Karrin asked.

“Originally? Ascher burned three men to death from the inside out,” I said.

“Jesus.”

“Killed one Warden, back before my time. She’s put three more in the hospital over the years.”

“Wizards trained to hunt rogue wizards, and she took them out?”

“Pretty much. Probably why she doesn’t look worried about walking in there right now.”

“Neither will we when we go in,” Karrin said.

“No, we won’t,” I said.

“Here comes the driver.”

The driver’s-side door opened and a bald, blocky man of medium height in an expensive black suit got out. Even before he reached up to take off his sunglasses to reveal eyes like little green agates, I recognized him. Karrin did too, and let out a little growling sound. He put the sunglasses away in a pocket, checked what was probably a gun in a shoulder holster, and hurried to catch up to Ascher, an annoyed expression on his blunt-featured face.

“Binder,” she said.

“Ernest Armand Tinwhistle,” I said. “Name that goofy, don’t blame him for wanting to use an alias.”

Though, honestly, he hadn’t chosen it. The Wardens had given it to him when they’d realized how he’d somehow managed to bind an entire clan of entities out of the Nevernever into his service. He could whistle up a modest horde of humanoid creatures who apparently felt nothing remotely like pain or fear, and who were willing to sacrifice themselves without hesitation. Binder was a one-man army, and I’d told the little jerk that if I saw him in my town again, I’d end him. I’d told him to stay out, and yet here he was.

For about three seconds, I couldn’t think about anything but ending him. I’d have to make it fast, take him out before he could call up any of his buddies, something quick, like breaking his neck. Open the car door. Call up a flash of light as I got out, something to dazzle his newly unshaded eyes. A dozen sprinting steps to get to him, then grab him by the jaw and the back of the head and twist sharply up and to one side, then bring up a shield around myself in case his brain stayed alive long enough to drop a death curse on me.

“Harry,” Karrin said, quiet and sharp.

I realized that I was breathing hard and that my breath was pluming into frost on the exhale as the mantle of power of the Winter Knight had begun informing my instincts in accord with the primal desire to defend my territory against an intruder. The temperature in the car had dropped as if she’d turned the AC up full blast. Water was condensing into droplets on the windows.

I closed my eyes as the Winter rose up in me and I fought it down. I’d done it often enough over the past year on the island that it was almost routine. You can’t stave off the howling, primitive need for violence that came with the Winter mantle with the usual deep-breathing techniques. There was only one way that I’d found that worked. I had to assert my more rational mind. So I ran through my basic multiplication tables in my head, half a dozen mathematical theorems, which took several seconds, then hammered out ruthless logic against the need to murder Binder in the street.

“One, witnesses,” I muttered. “Even deserted, this is still Chicago, and there could be witnesses and that would get their attention. Two, Ascher’s out there, and if she takes his side, she could hit me from behind before I could defend myself. Three, if he’s savvy enough to avoid the grab, I’d be out there with two of them on either side of me.”

The Winter mantle snarled and spat its disappointment, somewhere in my chest, but it receded and flowed back out of my thoughts, leaving me feeling suddenly more tired and fragile than before-but my breathing and body temperature returned to normal.

I watched as Binder broke into a slow jog until he caught up with Ascher. The two spoke quietly to each other as they entered the old slaughterhouse.

“Four,” I said quietly, “killing people is wrong.”

I became conscious of Karrin’s eyes on me. I glanced at her face. Her expression was tough to read.

She put her hand on mine and said, “Harry? Are you all right?”

I didn’t move or respond.

“Mab,” Karrin said. “This is about Mab, isn’t it? This is what she’s done to you.”

“It’s Winter,” I said. “It’s power, but it’s. . all primitive. Violent. It doesn’t think. It’s pure instinct, feeling, emotion. And when it’s inside you, if you let your emotions control you, it. .”

“It makes you like Lloyd Slate,” Karrin said. “Or that bitch Maeve.”

I pulled my hand away from hers and said, “Like I said. This is not the time to get in touch with my feelings.”

She regarded me for several seconds before saying, “Well. That is all kinds of fucked-up.”

I huffed out half a breath in a little laugh, which threatened to bring some tears to my eyes, which made the recently roused Winter start stirring down inside me again.

I chanced a quick look at Karrin’s eyes and said, “I don’t want to be like this.”

“So get out of it,” she said.

“The only way out is feetfirst,” I said.

She shook her head. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “There’s always a way out. A way to make things better.”