Jim Butcher - Cold Days

“City officials, sure. A few key state bureaucrats. And she kept it gentle and invisible—manipulation, influence. But now she’s going for something different.”

“What?”

“Control.”

It’s funny how chilling one little word can be.

“I’ll stick her on my to-do list, then,” I said.

Thomas snorted.

“Not like that,” I said. “Pervert.”

“Yeah. Because you think she’s hideous.”

“She’s too scary to be pretty,” I lied.

“If she knew I’d told you even that much, bad things would happen,” Thomas said.

“To you?”

“Not me. I’m family.” His jaw tensed. “To Justine.”

“No, it won’t,” I said. “Because if she tries it, we’ll protect Justine.”

My brother looked at me. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

“Whatever,” I said. “It’s getting cloying in here. Are we there yet?”

He smiled. “Jerk.”

“Wuss.”

“Jackass.”

“Pansy.”

“Philistine.”

“Dandysprat.”

“Butthead.”

“Whiner . . .”

Thomas had just pulled the Hummer into a parking space in a garage across from his apartment building in the Loop when a gold SUV roared up and came to a sudden halt behind the Hummer. Thomas and I traded a fast look, and we were both thinking the same thing. A car meant that an attacker would probably be a mortal, using mortal weapons. That meant guns. That meant that if they started shooting at us while we were still in the car, Molly, asleep in the backseat, wouldn’t have a prayer.

Both of us rolled out of the front seat, getting clear of the Hummer as fast as possible. Thomas had his handgun with him. I took the Winchester with me.

The occupants of the gold SUV didn’t come leaping out with guns blazing. The engine stopped. Then, several seconds later, the driver’s door opened, and someone got out. He walked calmly around the front of the SUV.

It was a slender man, a bit below average height. His hair was a blond so pale that it was nearly white. He wore faded blue jeans and a green silk shirt. He had a gun belt a lot like Thomas’s number, fitted with an automatic pistol on one hip and a sword on the other. He wasn’t a particularly good-looking man, and he didn’t carry himself aggressively, but his jaw and his eyes were both hard. He stopped at a point where he could see both of us and stood there, his arms akimbo, his hands not quite entirely relaxed by his sides—and near his weapons.

“Harry,” he said quietly.

“Fix,” I said. I knew him. He was my opposite number on the Summer side of things. His predecessor had been murdered by my predecessor.

“I heard that Mab had recruited you to be the new Winter Knight,” he said. “I was sure that it was a wild rumor. The man I knew would never have bowed to a creature like Mab.”

“I had my reasons,” I said.

He looked me up and down, slowly. Then he said, “You’ve been given instructions.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“You have,” he said. “Mab’s sent you to kill someone, hasn’t she?”

“It’s none of your concern,” I said quietly.

“The hell it isn’t,” Fix said. “The Winter Knight exists to execute people Mab can’t kill herself. You think I don’t know that?”

“I think that there’s an awful lot of glass in your house, Fix,” I said. “You’re in the same business as me.”

“Never,” Fix said. “The Summer Knight’s job isn’t to do Titania’s killing.”

“No? What is it, then?”

“To stop you,” he said simply. “Not even Mab should get to decide who lives and who dies, Harry. Life is too precious to be wasted that way. So when she sends you to kill someone, someone gets in the way. That’s me.”

I didn’t say anything for a minute. I had assumed that the Summer Knight would have the same job I did, just for a different crew. I hadn’t really thought about actually crossing swords with Fix—metaphorically or otherwise. Ten years ago, that possibility wouldn’t have fazed me. But Fix wasn’t the same guy he had been back then. He was the Summer Knight, and he was currently standing up to a champion of the White Court and the Winter Knight without batting an eye. I recognized the calm in him, the stillness that was almost like serenity—it was focus and confidence. He knew the danger, he didn’t want to fight, but he was quietly ready for it, and ready to accept whatever consequences it might bring.

It’s generally a really bad idea to fight guys who are in that particular mental space.

“You want me to run him off?” Thomas asked.

Fix’s eyes didn’t move from me, but he directed his words at Thomas. “Come try it, vampire.”

“Stars and stones.” I sighed. I took the Winchester and put it gently back into the Hummer. “Fix, can we stop the High Noon routine? I’m not going to fight you .”

He frowned slightly. “That sort of remains to be seen.”

“Thomas,” I said, “get back in the truck, please.”

“What?”

“I want to talk to Fix, and it isn’t going to be a real productive conversation if he has to keep one eye on each of us and his fingers by his gun in case you draw on him.”

Thomas grunted. “Suppose he draws and shoots you as soon as I’m not backing you up.”

“If that happens, and if it’ll make you feel better, you can come fight him, I suppose.” I regarded Fix for a moment and then said, “But he won’t.”

“Harry,” Thomas said.

“He won’t,” I said quietly. “I know him. He won’t.”

Thomas let out a low growling grumble—but he got back into the Hummer and shut the door.

Fix eyed me warily, and checked his surroundings quickly, as though expecting some kind of ambush.

I sighed and sat down on the rear bumper of the Hummer. “Fix,” I said. “Look, I’ve been doing this job for about six hours now. I haven’t gone all dark side. Yet.”

Fix folded his arms. His fingers were still close to his weapons, but a little farther away than they’d been a moment before. “You’ve got to understand. Lloyd Slate was a real monster, man.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know. Because you never had to face him without power, the way we did.”

I spread my hands. “I didn’t always have power, Fix. And even with it, there are plenty of big, scary things out there that I’m just as helpless against. I know.”

“Then you know what my problem is,” he said.

“Let’s assume for a moment that I’m sometimes an idiot,” I said. “What’s your problem?”

He gave me a brief smile. “You were dangerous enough without Mab’s hand on you. Now? You can make Lloyd Slate look like a grade-school bully.”

“But I haven’t,” I said.

“But you could.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

“Maybe you will.”

“If I’m as powerful as you seem to think,” I said, “then what makes you think you can stand up to me?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I can’t. But at least I have a chance. The people behind me wouldn’t.”

“Ah,” I said. We both sat for a moment. Then I said, “So I guess it won’t be enough for me to assure you that I’m not up to no good.”

“You know how you could tell when Slate was lying?”

“How?”

“His lips were moving.”

I smiled briefly. “Well. It seems to me you’ve got a couple of choices.”

“Oh?”

“You do the math. You see what I have the potential to do, and you plan for what I could do, rather than what you think I will do.”

“Might be smart,” Fix said. “Von Clausewitz would say so.”

“If this was a war and I was the enemy, sure.”

“What else do you think I could do?”