Jim Butcher - Changes

I screamed in rage. It came out as a sort of vocalized seethe.

The Red King took a swift step back as Martin attacked, his eyes intent. Then, when Susan appeared, his head tilted as he worked through what he was seeing.

“Please excuse me, my lord,” Martin murmured, giving a slight bow of his head to the Red King. “Drop it,” he said in a flat voice to Susan. He twisted his body more, bending her painfully, and pressing the machete’s edge against her throat even harder, until Susan’s fingers opened and Amoracchius fell to the floor, its light slowly dying.

“A trick,” said the Red King. Anger began to pour off of him. “A charlatan’s trick.” His eyes moved from Susan up to Martin. “And you have revealed yourself.”

“I beg your forgiveness, my lord,” Martin said. “It seemed the proper time. On my initiative, strike teams began removing Fellowship personnel and safe houses two hours ago. By this time tomorrow, there won’t be an operative left alive south of the United States. And our financial division will have taken or destroyed well over ninety percent of their accounts.”

“You son of a bitch,” Susan said, her voice overflowing with pain. “You fucking traitor.”

Martin’s expression flickered at her words. But his eyes never left the Red King. “I give you the Fellowship of St. Giles, my lord,” he said. “And I beg you to grant me my reward.”

“Reward,” Susan said, loading more contempt and hate into the word than should have been possible. “What could they possibly give you, Martin, to make it worth what you’ve done?”

The Red King stared at Susan and said, “Explain it to her.”

“You misunderstand,” Martin said calmly. “I have not betrayed the Fellowship, Susan. This was the plan from the moment I joined it. Think. You’ve known me for less than a decade and you’ve seen how near some of our scrapes have been. Did you truly believe I had survived a hundred and fifty years of battle against the Red Court, outlived every other operative ever to serve the Fellowship on my own merits?” He shook his head. “No. Escapes were provided. As were targets. It took me fifty years and I had to personally kill two of my fellows and friends working much as I was, to win the trust of the Fellowship. Once they admitted me to the inner circle, their time had come. Trust is a poison, Susan. It took another century to ferret out their secrets, but it is finally done. And our people will finish removing the Fellowship, in every meaningful sense, by tomorrow. It is over.”

Susan’s eyes flickered over to me, and Maggie continued to weep quietly, huddling in on herself. Susan’s face was twisted with pain. There were furious tears in her eyes as she looked at me.

And I couldn’t even speak to her.

“And what do you get?” Susan asked her, voice shaking.

“Ascension,” said the Red King. “I have no interest in admitting bloodthirsty lunatics to the nobility of my Court. Martin has proven himself—his dedication, his self-control, and, most important, his competence, over the course of decades. He was a priest for fifty years before he was even permitted to attempt this service.”

“Honestly, Susan,” Martin said. “I told you many times that you can never let emotion interfere with your duties. If you had listened to me, I’m certain you would have caught on. I would have been forced to kill you, as I have several others who were too wise for their own good, but you would have known.”

Susan closed her eyes. She was shaking. “Of course. You could make contact as often as you wished. Every time I visited Maggie.”

“Correct,” he said quietly. He turned back to the Red King. “My lord, I beg your forgiveness. I sought only to give you that which you wished, and the timing made it necessary for me to act, or see the opportunity pass us by.”

“Under the circumstances, I think I will not object, priest,” the Red King said. “If the strike teams are as successful as you predict, you will have your reward and my gratitude.”

Martin bowed his head to the Red King, and then looked up at me. He studied my face for a moment before he said, “The wizard has Alamaya’s dagger in his sash, my lord, should you wish to complete the ritual.”

The Red King took a deep breath and then blew it out, his expression becoming almost benevolent. “Martin, Martin, the voice of practicality. We’ve been lost without you.”

“My lord is too kind,” Martin said. “Please accept my condolences on the loss of Arianna, my lord. She was a remarkable woman.”

“Remarkably ambitious,” the Red King said. “Determined to cling to the past, rather than exploring new opportunities. She and her entire coterie, determined to undermine me. Had she destroyed this animal and then made good upon her promise to break the back of the accursed White Council, she would have been a real threat to my power. I take no pleasure in thinking on it, but her death was meant to be.”

“As you say, my lord,” Martin said.

The Red King approached me, smiling, and reached for the dagger in my sash.

Susan bared her teeth, still straining, but Martin was more than her equal, it seemed.

There was nothing I could do. The deck had been stacked so hard against me that even with Martin on our side, things had looked grim. His treachery had come at the ideal moment, damn him. Damn them all. There was nothing I could . . .

Long ago, when I was little more than a child, my first lover and I had devised a spell to let us speak silently to each other in class. It was magic much like the speaking stone Ebenezar had crafted, but simpler, with a much shorter range. I had never used to it communicate with anyone but Elaine, but Susan had been intimate with me—and I thought that at that moment, the only thought on our minds was Maggie.

It might be enough to establish the link, even if it was only one-way.

I grasped for the minor magic, fighting to pull it together through the dragging chains of the wills of the Lords of Outer Night, and cast my thought at Susan as clearly as I could. He doesn’t know all of it , I sent to her desperately. He doesn’t know about the enchantment protecting your skin. He only knows about the cloak because he saw you use it when we got here.

Susan’s eyes widened briefly. She’d heard me.

The altar , I thought. The ritual meant to kill us can be turned back upon them. If one of them dies on that knife, the curse will go after their bloodline, not ours.

Her eyes widened more. I saw her thinking furiously.

“Martin,” she asked quietly. “Why did Arianna target my daughter?”

Martin looked down at Susan, at Maggie, and then away. “Because the child’s father is the son of Margaret LeFay, the daughter of the man who killed her husband. By killing her, this way she would avenge herself upon all of you.”

If I hadn’t already been more or less motionless, I would have frozen in place.

Margaret LeFay. Daughter of the man who had killed Arianna’s husband (and vampire child), Paolo Ortega.

Duke Ortega. Who had been destroyed by the Blackstaff.

Ebenezar McCoy.

One of the most dangerous wizards in the world. A man of such personal and political power that she would never have been able to take him down directly. So she had set out to strike at him through his bloodline. From him to my mother. From her to me. From me to Maggie. Kill the child and kill us all.

That was what Arianna had meant when she said it wasn’t about me.

It was about my grandfather.

Suddenly it made sense that the old man had put his life on the line by declaring himself my mentor when the Council would have killed me for slaying Justin DuMorne. Suddenly it made sense why he had been so patient with me, so considerate, so kind. It hadn’t just been an act of random kindness.