Jim Butcher - White Night

"Glad you're okay," I told Murphy.

"Yeah," she said. Her voice shook a little, even on that one word, and she took a deep breath and spoke more clearly. "That was fairly awful. Even by your usual standards. You made it out all right?"

"Nothing I won't get over," I told her. "You had any breakfast?"

"Don't think my stomach is up for much, after all that," she said.

"I have Cheerios," I said, as if I'd been saying "dark chocolate Caramel almond fudge custard."

"Oh, God." Murphy sighed. "How can I resist."

We sat down on the couch, with Murphy's heavy bag on the coffee table. Murphy snacked on dry Cheerios from a bowl with her fingers. "Okay," I told her. "First things first. Where is my gun?"

Murphy snorted and nodded at her bag. I got in and opened it. My .44 was inside. So was Murphy's boxy little submachine gun. I picked it up and eyed it, then lifted it experimentally to my shoulder. "What the hell kind of gun is this?"

"It's a P90," Murphy said.

"See-through plastic?" I asked.

"That's the magazine," she said. "You can always see how many rounds you have left."

I grunted. "It's tiny."

"On a hyperthyroid stork like you, sure," Murphy said.

I frowned and said, "Full automatic. Ah. Is this weapon precisely legal? Even for you?"

She snorted. "No."

"Where'd you get it?" I asked.

"Kincaid," she said. "Last year. Gave it to me in a box of Belgian chocolate."

I took the weapon down from my shoulder, flipped it over, and eyed a little engraved plate on the butt. " 'We'll always have Hawaii,' " I read aloud. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Murphy's cheeks turned pink. She took the gun from me, put it in the bag, and zipped it firmly closed. "Did we ever decide who blew up my car?"

"Probably Madrigal," I said. "You stood him up for that cup of coffee, remember?"

"Because he was busy kidnapping you and attempting to sell you on eBay," Murphy said.

I shrugged. "Vindictive doesn't equal rational."

Murphy frowned, the suspicious-cop look on her face something I was long used to seeing. "Maybe. But it doesn't feel right. He liked his vengeance personal."

"Who then?" I asked. "Vittorio wasn't interested in drawing out the cops. Neither was Lord Skavis's agent. Lara Raith and Marcone don't do bombs."

"Exactly," Murphy said. "If not Madrigal, then who?"

"Life is a mystery?" I suggested. "It was probably Madrigal. Maybe one of the others had a reason for it that we don't know. Maybe we'll never know."

"Yeah," she said. "I hate that." She shook her head. "Harry, wouldn't a decent human being be inquiring after his wounded friends and allies about now?"

"I assumed if there was bad news, you'd have told me already," I said.

She gave me a steady look. "That," she said, "is so archetypically male."

I grinned. "How is everyone?"

"Ramirez is in the hospital. Same floor as Elaine, actually, and we're watching them both. Unofficially, of course."

We meaning the cops. Murphy. Good people. "How is he?"

"Still had some surgery to go, when I left, but the doctor said his prognosis was excellent, as long as they can avoid infection. He got his guts opened up by that knife. That can always be tricky."

I grunted, and had my suspicions about where Molly had gone when she borrowed my car. "He'll make it. What about that poor no-neck you abused?"

"Mister Hendricks is there with two of those mercenaries. Marcone has some of his people guarding them, too."

"Cops and robbers," I said. "One big, happy family."

"One wonders," Murphy said, "why Marcone agreed to help."

I settled back on the couch and rubbed at the back of my neck Tilth one hand, closing my eyes. "I bribed him."

"With what?" Murphy asked.

"A seat at the table," I said quietly.

"Huh?"

"I offered Marcone a chance to sign on to the Unseelie Accords as a freeholding lord."

Murphy was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "He wants to keep expanding his power." She thought about it a minute more and said, "Or he thinks his power might be threatened from someone on that end."

"Someone like the vampires," I said. "The Red Court had defacto control of prostitution in Chicago until Bianca's place burned down. And an agent of the White Court has just shown up and killed one of his prostitutes."

"Are we sure it was Madrigal?"

"I am," I said. "No way to prove it, but he was the Raith involved in this mess."

"That was more or less an accident," Murphy said. "Taking out one of Marcone's people, I mean."

"She's just as dead," I replied. "And Marcone won't stand by when someone—anyone—kills one of his own."

"How does becoming a… what was it? And how does it help?"

"Freeholding lord," I said. "It means he's entitled to rights under the Accords—like rights of challenge when someone kills his employees. It means that if a supernatural power tries to move in on him, he'll have an opportunity to fight it and actually win."

"Are there many of these lords?"

"Nope," I said. "I had Bob look into it. Maybe twenty on the whole planet. Two dragons, Drakul—the original, not baby Vlad—the Archive, the CEO of Monoc Securities, some kind of semi-immortal shapeshifter guru in the Ukraine, people like that. The Accords let them sign on as individuals. They have the same rights and obligations. Most people who consider the idea aren't willing to agree to be a good, traditional host for, let's say, a group of Black Court vampires, and don't want to get caught up as a mediator in a dispute between the major powers. They don't want to make themselves the targets of possible challenges, either, so not many of them even try it." I rubbed at my jaw. "And no one who is just a vanilla human being has tried it. Marcone is breaking new ground."

Murphy shook her head. "And you were able to set him up for it?"

"You have to have three current members of the Accords vouch for you to sign on," I said. "I told him I'd be one of them."

"You can speak for the Council in this?"

"When it comes to defending and protecting my area of responsibility as a Warden, I damned well can. If the Council doesn't like it, they shouldn't have dragooned me into the job."

Murphy chewed on some Cheerios, scrunched up her nose in thought, and then gave me a shrewd look. "You're using Marcone."

I nodded. "It's only a matter of time before someone like Lara Raith tries to push for more power in Chicago. Sooner or later they'll swamp me in numbers, and we both know SI will always have their hands tied by red tape and politics. If Marcone signs the Accords, he'll have a strong motivation to oppose any incursion—and the means to do so."

"But he's going to use his new means to secure his position here even more firmly," Murphy said quietly. "Make new allies, probably. Gain new resources."

"Yeah. He's using me, too." I shook my head. "It isn't a perfect solution."

"No," Murphy said. "It isn't"

"But he's the devil we know."

Neither of us said anything for several minutes.

"Yes," Murphy admitted. "He is."

Murphy dropped me off at the hospital and I headed straight for Elaine's room.

I found her inside, dressing. She was just pulling a pair of jeans up over strong, slender legs that looked just as good as I remembered. When I opened the door, she spun, thorn-wand in hand.

I put my hands up and said, "Easy there, gunslinger. I'm not looking for any trouble."

Elaine gave me a gentle glare and slipped the wand into a small leather case that clipped to the jeans. She did not look well, but she looked a lot weller than she had the last time I'd seen her. Her face was still quite pale and her eyes were sunken and bruised, but she moved with brisk purpose for all of that. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that," she said.