Jim Butcher - Changes

“Pretty sure that Roman Catholic priests don’t have peeps,” I said gravely. “Too trendy and ephemeral. Like automobiles. And the printing press.”

Molly didn’t return fire against my comments, though I’d made them lightly. She was conflicted on the whole issue of the Church, which I thought was probably a fine state for her mind to be in. People who ask questions and think about their faith are the last ones to embrace dogma—and the last to abandon their path once they’ve set out on it. I felt fairly sure that the Almighty, whatever name tag He had on at the moment, could handle a few questions from people sincerely looking for answers. Hell, He might even like it.

“Harry,” she said. “We could talk to my father.”

“No,” I said in a calm and final tone. “That isn’t even on the table.”

“Maybe it should be. Maybe he could help you find Maggie.”

I felt a sharp stab of anger and pain go through me—a vivid memory. Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Sword and unflagging friend, had gotten his body torn and beaten to bits trying to help me with one of my cases. Bearing a Sword melded to one of the nails of the Crucifixion, given him by an archangel, he had been a bulwark against very real, very literal forces of evil in the world. It was incredibly comforting to have him on your side. We’d waded into all kinds of ridiculously lethal situations together and come out of them again.

Except that last time.

He was retired now, and happy, walking only with the aid of a cane, out of the evil-smiting business and spending his time building houses and being with his family, the way he’d always wanted to. So long as he stayed retired, I gathered that he had a certain amount of immunity against the powers of supernatural evil. It would not surprise me at all if there were literally an angel standing over his shoulder at all times, ready to protect him and his family. Like the Secret Service, but with swords and wings and halos.

“No,” I said again. “He’s out of the fight. He deserves to be. But if I ask for his help, he’ll give it, and he’ll have chosen to accept the consequences. Only he can’t protect himself or your family from them anymore.”

Molly took a very deep breath and then nodded, her worried eyes focused on the road. “Right,” she said. “Okay. It’s just . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I’m used to him being there, I guess. Knowing that . . . if I need him, he’s there to help. I guess I always had it in my head that if things ever went really, truly bad, he’d Show Up,” she said, putting gentle emphasis on the last words.

I didn’t answer her. My father had died when I was young, before I learned that there was anything stronger than he was. I’d been operating without that kind of support for my whole life. Molly was only now realizing that, in some ways, she was on her own.

I wondered if my daughter even knew that she had a father, if she knew that there was someone who wanted, desperately, to Show Up.

“You get yourself an apartment and your plumbing goes bad, he’ll still be there,” I said quietly. “Some guy breaks your heart, he’ll come over with ice cream. A lot of people never have a dad willing to do that stuff. Most of the time, it matters a hell of a lot more.”

She blinked her eyes several times and nodded. “Yeah. But . . .”

I got what she didn’t say. But when you need someone to break down the door and commence kicking ass, you really need it. And Michael couldn’t do that for his daughter anymore.

“Tell you what, Molly,” I said. “You ever need a rescue, I’ll handle that part. Okay?”

She looked at me, her eyes blurred with tears, and nodded several times. She clasped my hand with hers and squeezed tight. Then she turned her face back to the road and pressed down on the accelerator.

We hit a drive-through and went on back to my apartment.

At the top of the stairs that led down to my door, I felt myself starting to get angry. They’d hammered the door flat. There were some scuff marks on it, but not much more than that. Tough door. But the wooden frame around it was shattered. There would be no way to get the door mounted again without extensive repairs that were probably beyond my skill level.

I stood there shaking with rage. It wasn’t like I lived in an ivory tower or Bag End. It was just a dingy little hole in the ground. It wasn’t much of a place, but it was the only home I had, and I was comfortable there.

It was my home.

And Rudolph and company had trashed it. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

Molly touched my shoulder for a second. “It’s not so bad. I know a good Carpenter.”

I sighed and nodded. I already knew that when all this was over, Michael would be Showing Up for me.

“Just hope Mister will be back soon. Might have to board him somewhere until the door is fixed.” I started down the stairs. “I just hope that—”

Mouse let out a sudden, deep growl.

I had my blasting rod out and my shield up in less than two seconds. Mouse is not an alarmist. I’ve never heard him growl outside the presence of danger of one kind or another. I checked to my right, and saw no Molly standing there. The grasshopper had vanished from view even more quickly than I’d readied my defenses.

I swallowed. I’d heard many variants on my dog’s snarl. This one wasn’t as threatening as it might have been—as it would be, in the presence of dark threats. His body posture was a balance of tension and relaxation, simple wariness rather than the fighting crouch he had exhibited before. He’d smelled something that he thought was extremely dangerous, but not necessarily something that had to be immediately attacked and destroyed.

Slowly, I went down the steps, shield at the ready, my left hand extended before me, my fingers in a warding gesture, my thumb, pinkie, and index fingers stiff and spread wide apart, center fingers folded. My right hand held the blasting rod extended before me, seething scarlet power boiling out from the carved runes and the tendril of bright flame at its tip, simultaneously ready to destroy and lighting my way. Mouse came down the stairs with me, his shoulder against my right hip. His growl was a steady tone, like the engine of a well-tuned car.

I came down the stairs and saw that there was a fire crackling in the fireplace. Between that and my blasting rod and the stray bits of afternoon sunlight, I could see fairly well.

The FBI could have done worse to my apartment, I supposed. Books had been taken off my bookshelves, but at least they had been stacked in piles, more or less, rather than tossed on the floor. They’d moved my furniture around, including taking the cushions off, but they’d put them back. Incorrectly, but they were back. Similarly, my kitchen had been dismantled with a kind of cursory courtesy, but not destroyed.

All of that was secondary in my mind, next to the pair of coffin-sized cocoons of what looked like green silk. One of the cocoons was stuck to my ceiling, the other to the wall beside the fireplace. Susan’s face protruded from the second cocoon, sagging in something near unconsciousness, her dark hair hanging limply. On the ceiling, I could see only a man’s mouth and part of his chin, but I was pretty sure it was Martin. They’d come back to my apartment, presumably after the feds left, and been captured.

“Mouse,” I murmured. “You smell any cordite?”

The dog shook his head as if to shed it of water, and his tags jingled.

“Me neither,” I said. So. Whatever had been done to them, it had happened fast, before an extremely quick Susan or an extremely paranoid Martin could employ a weapon.

One of my old recliners was faced away from the door. As I stepped across the threshold, it spun around (completely ignoring the fact that it was neither meant to spin nor mounted on any kind of mechanism that would make such a thing possible) and revealed, in firelight and shadow, an intruder and my cat.