Jim Butcher - Changes

“Janet, Brad, Rocky, ugh,” I said dutifully. I went to the shelf, picked the skull up off of it (“Wheee!” said Bob), and then carried it over to a mostly clean space on one of the worktables. I set the skull down on top of a stack of notebooks, and then put Martin’s manila folder down in front of him.

“Need your take on something,” I said. I opened up the folder and started laying out the photographs Martin had given me.

Bob regarded them for a moment, and asked, “What are we looking at, here?”

“Metacapacitors,” I said.

“That’s weird. ’Cause they look like a bunch of ritual objects.”

“Yeah. I figure metacapacitor is code language for ritual object .”

Bob studied the pictures and muttered to himself under his breath. He isn’t actually a talking skull—he’s a spirit of intellect who happens to reside inside a specially enchanted skull. He’s been assisting wizards since the Dark Ages, and if he hasn’t forgotten more than I ever knew about the wide world of magic, it’s only because he doesn’t forget anything, ever.

“They’re traveling in a single group. I need to get a ballpark estimate on what they might be used for.”

“Tough to tell from two-dimensional images,” Bob said. “I start getting confused when there are any fewer than four dimensions.” He rattled the skull’s teeth together a few times, thoughtfully. “Is there anything else? Descriptions or anything?”

I opened the folder. “Just the inventory list.” I put my finger on the picture of the stone knife and read, “ ‘Flint blade.’ ” I touched an old brick with crumbling edges. “ ‘Brick.’ ”

“Well, that’s just blindingly useful,” Bob muttered.

I grunted. “It’s possible that this is just miscellaneous junk. If you don’t think it has a specific purpose, then—”

“I didn’t say that,” Bob interrupted sourly. “Jeez, Harry. Ye of little faith.”

“Can you tell me anything or not?”

“I can tell you that you’re teetering on the edge of sanity, sahib.”

I blinked at that. “What?”

Bob didn’t look up from the pictures. “Your aura is all screwed up. It’s like looking at an exploding paint factory. Crazy people get that way.”

I grunted and considered Bob’s words for a moment. Then I shrugged. “I’m too close to this case, maybe.”

“You need some time in a quiet place, boss. Unkink your brain’s do. Mellow your vibe.”

“Thank you, Doctor Fraud,” I said. “I’ll take that under advisement. Can you tell me anything about those objects or what?”

“Not without getting to examine them,” Bob said.

I grunted. “Super. Another bad inning for the wizard gumshoe.”

“Sorry,” he said. “But all I can tell you from here is the trigger.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, those are objects of dark, dangerous magic,” Bob said. “I mean, obviously. Look at the angles. Nothing is proportional and balanced. They’re meant for something destructive, disruptive, deadly.”

I grunted. “That tracks. Rumor has it that the war is going to rev up again soon.” I ran my fingers tiredly through my hair. “What did you say the trigger was, again?”

“For something this dark?” Bob asked. “Only one thing’ll do.”

I felt myself freeze. My coffeeless gorge began to rise.

“Human sacrifice,” the skull chirped brightly. “The slaughter of an innocent.”

I leaned on a table with my eyes closed.

The Red Court was preparing a destructive act of high black magic.

The ritual, whatever it was, required a human sacrifice to succeed.

In my head, I watched a movie of Maggie being bled out like a slaughtered sheep within a ritual circle, surrounded by an army of vampires beneath a nightmare sky.

There was a hideous elegance in it. In a single stroke my daughter would die, and her death would be used to lash out against the Council. It was bald guesswork, but it fit what I’d seen of the duchess. She could inflict the maximum amount of personal agony on me and launch a sorcerous attack simultaneously. Revenge and war would both be served—all while she smiled and smiled and offered promises of peace and understanding, protected from me by the same idiots she was plotting to destroy.

I could try to warn them, but few would listen. Ebenezar, maybe, and Anastasia, and some of the young Wardens—but even if they listened and believed, they would still have to convince others. The freaking Council never does anything quickly, and I had a bad feeling that tempus was fugiting furiously.

So. I’d just have to do it myself.

But to do that, I needed information.

I looked at my summoning circle again and took a slow, deep breath. There were things I could do. Horrible things. There were beings I could call up, malicious mavens and entities of wicked wisdom who might make the unknowable as plain as daylight.

If I did, there would be a terrible price.

I tore my eyes from the circle and shook my head. I wasn’t that desperate.

Yet.

Someone knocked loudly on my apartment door.

I went upstairs, closed the lab, and picked up my blasting rod. I carried it to the door and looked out the peephole. Murphy stood outside, her hands in her coat pockets, her shoulders hunched.

“Couldn’t use the phone,” she said when I opened the door. She stepped in and I closed it behind her.

“Yeah, we figure the Red Court might be tapping them.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know about that, Harry. But Internal Affairs has got mine wired.”

I blinked at her. “Those IA idiots? Again? Can’t Rudolph just let it rest?” Rudolph the Brown- nosed Cop-cop, as he was affectionately known at SI, had managed to kiss enough ass to escape SI and get reassigned to IA. He seemed to hold a grudge against his former coworkers, irrationally blaming them for his (now concluded) exile among the proles of SI.

“Apparently not,” Murphy said. “He’s making quite a name for himself over there.”

“Murph, you’re a good cop. I’m sure that—”

She slashed a hand at the air and shook her head. “That’s not important right now. Listen. Okay?”

I frowned and nodded at her.

“There’s a full-scale investigation going into the bombing of your office building,” Murphy said. “Rudolph talked to the lead FBI agent and the local lead detective in charge of the case and convinced them that you’re a suspicious character and good perpetrator material.”

I groaned. “Forensics will bear them out. The explosives were on my floor, some of them in the walls of my office.”

Murphy pushed her hair back with one hand. The bags beneath her eyes had grown visibly darker. “They’re going to bring you in and question you in the next couple of hours. They’ll probably hold you for the full twenty-four. More if they can find a charge to stick you with.”

“I don’t have time for that,” I said.

“Then you’ve got to get scarce,” Murphy said. “And I’ve got to go. Neither of us will be helped if we’re seen together.”

“Son of a bitch,” I snarled. “I am going to throw Rudolph halfway across Lake Michigan and see if the slimy little turd floats.”

“I’ll bring the lead weights,” Murphy said. She drew the amulet I’d made to let her past my apartment’s magical defenses from her shirt and showed it to me. “Hopefully I won’t be able to find you. Get in touch with me when you need my help, huh?”

“Murph,” I said. “If the authorities are getting set to come down on me . . . you can’t be around.”

Her eyebrows climbed a tiny fraction. It was a danger signal. “Excuse me?” she said politely.