Jim Butcher - Ghost Story

“Focus,” said the calm woman’s voice. “Use the pain. Make the shield real with your will. Know that it will protect you. Again.”

Molly looked up with her teeth clenched. But instead of talking, she raised her left hand once more, and another ball of ice flew at her. This one hit the shield and went through—but its path was attenuated more significantly than the last. It flew past her, barely clipping one arm.

She gasped and sank to one knee, panting. Magic taxes the endurance of anyone who uses it—and if you use magic you aren’t particularly skilled with, you get worn down even faster.

I shivered to see Molly like that. I knew how she felt. When Justin began teaching me how to create protective shields, he threw baseballs at me at top speed. When I failed, I was hit with a fastball moving at more than eighty miles an hour. Justin said pain was an excellent motivator, and that the activity was good training.

When I had been teaching Molly how to shield, I hadn’t used anything more painful than fluffy snowballs and rotten fruit.

“That will do for now,” said the woman’s voice. “Tomorrow we will move up to knives.”

Molly shuddered and looked down.

The speaker came walking calmly down the alley to stand over Molly.

It was my faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe.

Lea was beautiful beyond the loveliness of mere humanity, but it was a stark, hungry, dangerous beauty that always reminded me of a hunting cat. She was tall and pale, her hair the color of autumn leaves at sunset. Her ears were very slightly pointed, though I wasn’t sure she hadn’t done that to herself in order to conform to mortal expectations. She wore a long gown of green silk, wholly unsuitable to the task of protecting a mortal from the weather, but as she was one of the most powerful Sidhe of the Winter Court, I doubted she even noticed the cold.

She reached out a hand and touched Molly’s hair with her fingertips.

“Why?” Molly asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Obligation, child,” Lea replied. “Favors owed and loyalties given.”

“You owed it to Harry to do this to me?” Molly asked.

“Nay, child, not me. But my queen is committed to him through ancient law and custom. She dispatched me to continue your training in the Art—and pain is an excellent teaching tool.”

“Harry didn’t believe that,” Molly said, her voice brittle. “He never hurt me.”

The Leanansidhe stooped and seized Molly’s chin, jerking my apprentice’s face up to meet her inhuman gaze. “Then he wronged you badly, child,” Lea replied, enunciating each word sharply. “He cheated you of the legacy he lived—and suffered to acquire. I am not teaching you how to tie knots in rope or to bake pastries. I am making you ready to face battle and emerge alive.”

“I have faced battle,” Molly said.

“In which you were shot, of all things, by a mere mortal foot soldier,” Lea said, contempt flavoring her words. “You nearly died, which would have been greatly humiliating to your mentor and by extension to my queen.”

“What does it matter to Mab?” Molly said, her voice bitter. “He’s dead.”

Lea sighed. “Mortals can be so obsessed with useless detail. It grows tiresome.”

“I don’t understand,” Molly said.

“Your mentor took an oath of fealty to my queen. Such oaths are not to be made lightly—and they place mutual obligations on both parties. Minor details do not excuse either party from its responsibilities.”

“His death is a minor detail?”

“As these things go,” Lea said, “of course it is. You’re all mortals. Even the life length of a wizard is something brief and transitory to an immortal. Similarly, extending her hand to the assistance of those her vassal knew in life is a minor detail. If you live another three centuries, it is little more than a long season to the Queen of Air and Darkness.”

Molly closed her eyes. “He made her promise to take care of me?”

Lea blinked at her, politely baffled. “No, of course not, child. He took an oath of fealty. She is one of the Sidhe. The oath binds her as tightly as it does him. Just as when I was”—Lea shivered—“unable to perform my duties to young Dresden, Mab assumed those responsibilities until I could be restored to them. Thus does she now do for you, through me.”

Molly wiped a hand over her eyes. She shook her head and rose to her feet, moving slowly. “Did he know? I mean . . . did he know Mab would do this?”

“I should have,” I said quietly. “If I’d stopped to think about it for two minutes. I should have known.” But neither of them heard me.

“I knew the boy well,” Lea said. “Better than ever he realized. Many a night did I watch over him, protecting him, and he none the wiser. But I was not privy to his mind or his heart.”

Molly nodded slowly. She looked at Lea for a long moment. My godmother simply watched her, waiting until Molly nodded to herself and said, “His shade is in town, looking for the person who killed him.”

The Leanansidhe’s pale red-gold eyebrows flew up. It was one of the most drastic reactions I’d ever seen from her. “That . . . seems unlikely.”

Molly shrugged. “I used my Sight. It’s his ghost, all right. A construct couldn’t have hidden from me.”

“Six months after his death?” the Leanansidhe murmured. “It is rare for a shade to arise after the season in which it was made—and he was slain last autumn. . . .” Her eyes narrowed. “Interesting.” She tilted her head, studying Molly. “What is your condition?”

Molly blinked dully once before she said, “I need to curl into a ball and sleep for a week. I’m starving. I’m cold. I think I’m getting a cold. I hurt everywhere. I would—” Molly paused and eyed Lea. “Why do you ask?”

The Sidhe only smiled in answer.

Bootsteps sounded, heavy and quick, and a small crowd appeared at the far end of the alley. They were all rough-looking men, carrying an assortment of guns, blades, clubs, and axes. They dressed exclusively in black, to the extent that it looked like they all shopped in the same store. They were also wearing turtlenecks—every single one of them. Talk about weird.

Molly let out a hiss. “Servitors. How did they find me here?”

“I told them where to look,” Lea said calmly.

Molly whirled to her. “You what ?”

“I didn’t share your location with the Fomor themselves, child. Just with some of their guard dogs. They think that if they catch you and return you to the Fomor, they will gain great honor—and I did not give them enough time to contact their masters for instructions.” She smiled, showing daintily pointed canines. “Initiative in an underling can be such a troubling thing.”

Molly made a disgusted sound. “I don’t believe this.”

Twenty armed thugs kept striding forward, exuding the calm that comes only from professionals who are not hurrying, keeping their spacing smooth. They were all glaring at Molly.

Lea smirked, already fading out of sight. “It is good training, child.” She vanished Cheshire Cat style, only she left her voice behind instead of her smile. “Let us see what you have learned.”

“What I’ve learned,” Molly muttered, mostly under her breath. “So help me, one of these days, I’ll show you what I’ve learned, you skinny bitch.”

Then she focused on the enemy, took a breath, just as I’d taught her to do under stress, and calmed herself. She began to withdraw, calmly, slowly, one pace at a time. That was smart. Had she turned and sprinted, it would have provoked immediate pursuit. Instead, the guys in turtlenecks kept their professional cool, moving steadily forward in a solid block of muscles and weapons. All of them ready to kill a lone, exhausted young woman.