Jim Butcher - Cold Days

“Okay,” I said, settling down on the arm of a chair. “The island. Who else knows about it?”

“Lea,” Molly said. “Presumably she told Mab. I assumed word would get to you.”

“Mab,” I said, “is apparently the sort of mom who thinks you need to find things out for yourself.”

“Those are real?”

I grunted. “Have you had any contact with Demonreach?”

“The spirit itself?” Molly shook her head. “It . . . tolerates my presence, but it isn’t anything like cordial or friendly. I think it knows I’m connected to you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure it does. If it wanted you off the island, you’d be gone.” I shook my head several times. “Let me think.”

Molly did. She went into the kitchen, to the fridge. She came out with a couple of cans of Coca-Cola, popped them both open, and handed me one. We tapped the cans together gently and drank. I closed my eyes and tried to order my thoughts. Molly waited.

“Okay,” I said. “Who else knows?”

“No one,” she said.

“You didn’t tell the Council?”

Molly grimaced at the mention of the White Council of Wizards. “How would I do that, exactly? Given that according to them, I’m a wanted fugitive, and that no one there would blink twice if I was executed on sight.”

“Plenty of them would blink twice,” I said quietly. “Why do you think you’re still walking around?”

Molly frowned and eyed me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Lea’s clearly taught you a lot, Molly, and it’s obvious that your skills have matured a lot in the past year. But there are people there with decades’ worth of years like the one you’ve had. Maybe even centuries. If they really wanted you found and dead, you’d be found and dead. Period.”

“Then how come I’m not?” Molly asked.

“Because there are people on the Council who wouldn’t like it,” I said. “My g— Ebenezar can take anyone else on the Council on any given day, if he gets mad at them. That’s probably enough—but Ramirez likes you, too. And since he’d be the guy who would, theoretically, be in charge of capturing you, anyone else who did it would be walking all over his turf. He’s young, too, but he’s earned respect. And most of the young guns in the Wardens would probably side with him in an argument.” I sighed. “Look, the White Council has always been a gigantic mound of assorted jerks. But they’re not inhuman.”

“Except sometimes,” Molly said, her voice bitter.

“Humanity matters,” I said. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“No thanks to them,” she said.

“If they hadn’t shown up at Chichén Itzá, none of us would have made it out.”

Molly frowned at that. “That wasn’t the White Council.”

True, technically. That had been the Grey Council. But since the Grey Council was mostly made up of members of the White Council working together in secret, it still counted, in my mind. Sort of.

“Those guys,” I said, “are what the Council should be. And might be. And when we needed help the most, they were there .” I sipped some more Coke. “I know the world seems dark and ugly sometimes. But there are still good things in it. And good people. And some of them are on the Council. They haven’t been in contact with you because they can’t be—but believe me, they’ve been shielding you from getting in even more trouble than you’ve already had.”

“You assume,” she said stubbornly.

I sighed. “Kid, you’re going to be dealing with the Council your whole life. And that could be for three or four hundred years. I’m not saying you shouldn’t get in their faces when they’re in the wrong. But you might want to consider the idea that burning your bridges behind you could prove to be a very bad policy a century or two from now.”

Molly looked like she wanted to disagree with me—but she looked pensive, too. She drank some more of her Coke, frowning.

Damn. Why couldn’t I have figured out that particular piece of advice to give to myself when I was her age? It might have made my life a whole lot simpler.

“Back to the island,” I said. “How sure are you about the level of energy involved?”

She considered her answer. “I was at Chichén Itzá,” she said. “It’s all pretty blurry, but I remember a lot of fragments really well. One of the things I remember is the tension that had built up under the main ziggurat. Do you remember?”

I did, though it had been pretty far down on my list of priorities at the time. The Red King had ordered dozens, maybe hundreds of human sacrifices to build up a charge for the spell he was going to use to wipe me and everyone connected to me by blood from the face of the earth. That energy had been humming inside the very stones of the city. Go to a large power station sometime, and stand near the capacitors. The air is full of the same kind of silently vibrating potential.

“I remember,” I said.

“It’s like that. Maybe more. Maybe less. But it’s really, really big . It’s scaring the animals away.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

Molly checked a tall old grandfather clock, ticking steadily away in a corner. “Three fifteen.”

“Ten minutes to the marina. An hour and change to the island and back. Call it an hour for a service call.” I shook my head and snorted. “If we leave right now, that puts us back here in town right around sunrise, wouldn’t you say?”

“More or less,” she agreed.

“Mab,” I said, in the same tone I reserved for curse words.

“What?”

“That’s why the lockdown,” I said. Then clarified. “Mab closed the border with Faerie until dawn.”

Molly was no dummy. I could see the wheels turning as she figured it out. “She’s giving you time to deal with it unmolested.”

“Relatively unmolested,” I corrected her. “I’m starting to think that Mab mainly helps those who help themselves. Okay. Once Maeve gets to start moving pieces in and out of Faerie in the morning, things are going to get busy, fast. Also, I don’t want to be working with the magical equivalent of a reactor core the next time Hook and his band of minipsychos catch up with me. So.”

Molly nodded. “So we go to the island first?”

“We go to the island now .”

Molly had the apartment building’s security call us a cab on the theory that it would be slightly less noticeable than the monster car now in the parking lot. They took her orders as if she were some kind of visiting dignitary. Whatever she’d done for the svartalves, they had taken it very, very seriously. I left Toot sleeping off the fight, with some junk food left out where he would find it when he woke up. Bob was in a cloth messenger bag I had slung over one shoulder, still buttoned up tight. Molly glanced at the bag, then at me, but she didn’t ask any questions.

I felt like wincing. Molly hadn’t ever exactly been shy about pushing the boundaries of my authority in our relationship as teacher and apprentice. Her time with my faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe, Mab’s girl Friday, was starting to show. Lea had firm and unyielding opinions about boundaries. People who pushed them got turned into dogs—or something dogs ate.

The marina was one of several in the city. Lake Michigan provided an ideal venue for all kinds of boating, sailing, and shipping, and there was a nautical community firmly established all around the shores of the Great Lake. I’m not really part of it. I say “wall” instead of “bulkhead,” and I’m not quite sure if port is left, or if it’s something best left until after dinner. I get the terms wrong a lot. I don’t care.

Marinas are parking lots for boats. Lots of walkways were built on piers or were floating pontoon bridge–style in long, straight rows. Boats were parked in individual lots much like in any automobile parking lot. Most of the boats showed signs of being prepared for winter—November can be a dangerous time for pleasure boating on Lake Michigan, and most people pack it in right around Halloween. Windows and hatches were covered, doors closed, and there were very few lights on in the marina.