Jim Butcher: Turn Coat

Now imagine that your eyes can experience those things, all at once, in excruciating detail.

That’s what I saw: a stomach-churning, nightmare-inducing mass, blazing like a lighthouse beacon upon one of the buildings above me. I could vaguely make out a physical form behind it, but it was like trying to peer through raw sewage. I couldn’t get any details through the haze of absolute wrongness that surrounded it as it bounded from the edge of one rooftop to another, moving more than fast enough to keep pace with me.

Someone screamed, and I dimly noted that it was probably me. The car hit something that made it shriek in protest. It jounced hard up and down, wham-wham . I’d drifted into the curb. I felt the front wheels shimmy through the steering wheel, and I slammed on the brakes, still screaming, as I fought to close my Third Eye.

The next thing I knew, car horns were blaring an impatient symphony.

I was sitting in the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel until my knuckles were white. The engine had died. Judging from the dampness on my cheeks, I must have been crying—unless I’d started foaming at the mouth, which, I reflected, was a distinct possibility.

Stars and stones. What on God’s green earth was that thing?

Even brushing against the subject in my thoughts was enough to bring the memory of the thing back to me in all its hideous terror. I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut, shoving hard against the steering wheel. I could feel my body shaking. I don’t know how long it took me to fight my way clear of the memory—and when I did, everything was the same, only louder.

With the clock counting down, I couldn’t afford to let the cops take me into custody for a DWI, but that’s exactly what would happen if I didn’t start driving again, assuming I didn’t actually wreck the car first. I took a deep breath and willed myself not to think of the apparition—

I saw it again.

When I came back, I’d bitten my tongue, and my throat felt raw. I shook even harder.

There was no way I could drive. Not like this. One stray thought and I could get somebody killed in a collision. But I couldn’t remain there, either.

I pulled the Beetle up onto the sidewalk, where it would be out of the street at least. Then I got out of the car and started walking away. The city would tow me in about three point five milliseconds, but at least I wouldn’t be around to get arrested.

I stumbled down the sidewalk, hoping that my pursuer, the apparition, wasn’t—

When I looked up again, I was curled into a ball on the ground, muscles aching from cramping so tight. People were walking wide around me, giving me nervous sidelong glances. I felt so weak that I wasn’t sure I could stand.

I needed help.

I looked up at the street signs on the nearest corner and stared at them until my cudgeled brain finally worked out where I was standing.

I rose, forced to lean on my staff to stay upright, and hobbled forward as quickly as I could. I started calculating prime numbers as I walked, focusing on the process as intently as I would any spell.

“One,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Two. Three. Five. Seven. Eleven. Thirteen . . .”

And I staggered through the night, literally too terrified to think about what might be coming after me.

By the time I’d reached twenty-two hundred and thirty-nine, I’d arrived at Billy and Georgia’s place.

Life had changed for the young werewolves since Billy had graduated and started pulling in serious money as an engineer, but they hadn’t moved out of the apartment they’d had in college. Georgia was still in school, learning something psychological, and they were saving for a house. Good thing for me. I wouldn’t have been able to walk to the suburbs.

Georgia answered the door. She was a tall woman, lean and willowy, and in a T-shirt and loose, long shorts, she looked smarter than she did pretty.

“My God,” she said, when she saw me. “Harry.”

“Hey, Georgia,” I said. “Twenty-two hundred and . . . uh. Forty-three. I need a dark, quiet room.”

She blinked at me. “What?”

“Twenty-two hundred and fifty-one,” I responded, seriously. “And send up the wolf-signal. You want the gang here. Twenty-two hundred and, uh . . . sixty . . . seven.”

She stepped back from the door, holding the door open for me. “Harry, what are you talking about?”

I came inside. “Twenty-two hundred and sixty . . . not divisible by three, sixty-nine. I need a dark room. Quiet. Protection.”

“Is something after you?” Georgia said.

Even with the help of Eratosthenes, when Georgia asked the question and my brain answered it, I couldn’t keep the image of that thing from invading my thoughts, and it drove me to my knees and would have sent me all the way to the floor—except that Billy caught me before I could get there. He was a short guy, maybe five six, but he had the upper body of a professional wrestler and moved with the speed and precision of a predator.

“Dark room,” I gasped. “Call in the gang. Hurry.”

“Do it,” Georgia said, her voice low and urgent. She shut the door and locked it, then slammed down a heavy wooden beam the size of a picnic table’s bench that they had installed themselves. “Get him into our room. I’ll make the calls.”

“Got it,” Billy said. He picked me up the way you’d carry a child, barely grunting as he did. He carried me down the hall and into a dark bedroom. He laid me down on a bed, then crossed to the window—and pulled and locked a heavy steel security curtain over it, evidently another customization that he and Georgia had installed.

“What do you need, Harry?” Billy asked.

“Dark. Quiet. Explain it later.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Right.” Then he padded out of the room and shut the door.

It left me in the dark with my thoughts—which is where I needed to be.

“Come on, Harry,” I muttered to myself. “Get used to the idea.”

And I thought about the thing I’d Seen.

It hurt. But when I came back to myself, I did it again. And again. And again.

Yes, I’d Seen something horrible. Yes, it was a hideous terror. But I’d Seen other things, too.

I called up those memories, too, all of them just as sharp and fresh as the horror pressing upon me. I’d Seen good people screaming in madness under the influence of black magic. I’d Seen the true selves of men and women, good and bad, Seen people kill—and die. I’d Seen the Queens of Faerie as they prepared for battle, drawing all their awful power around them.

And I’d be damned if I was going to roll over for one more horrible thing doing nothing but jumping from one rooftop to another.

“Come on, punk,” I snarled at the memory. “Next to those others, you’re a bad yearbook picture.”

And I hit myself with it, again and again, filling my mind with every horrible and beautiful thing I had ever Seen—and as I did, I focused on what I had bloody well done about it. I remembered the things I’d battled and destroyed. I remembered the strongholds of nightmares and terrors that I had invaded, the dark gates I’d kicked down. I remembered the faces of prisoners I’d freed, and the funerals of those I’d been too late to save. I remembered the sounds of voices and laughter, the joy of loved ones reunited, the tears of the lost and bereaved.

There are bad things in the world. There’s no getting away from that. But that doesn’t mean nothing can be done about them. You can’t abandon life just because it’s scary, and just because sometimes you get hurt.

The memory of the thing hurt like hell—but pain wasn’t anything special or new. I’d lived with it before, and would do it again. It wasn’t the first thing I’d Seen, and it wouldn’t be the last.