Jim Butcher - White Night

I sat with him for the rest of the night, until Senior Council Member Listens-to-Wind arrived with his team of medical types before dawn the next morning.

You don't leave an injured friend all alone.

The next day, I knocked on the door to the office at Executive Priority and went in without waiting for an answer.

"Tonight you will be visited by three spirits," I announced. "The ghosts of indictment past, present, and future. They will teach you the true meaning of 'you are still a scumbag criminal.'"

Marcone was there, sitting behind the desk with Helen Beckitt, or maybe Helen Demeter, I supposed. She wore her professionally suggestive business suit—and was sitting across Marcone's lap. Her hair and suit looked slightly mussed. Marcone had his third shirt button undone.

I cursed my timing. If I'd come ten minutes later, I'd have opened the door in medias res. It would have been infinitely more awkward.

"Dresden," Marcone said, his tone pleasant. Helen made no move to stir from where she was. "It's nice to see you alive. Your sense of humor, of course, remains unchanged, which is unsurprising, as it seems to have died in your adolescence. Presumably it entered a suicide pact with your manners."

"Your good opinion," I said, "means the world to me. I see you got out of the Nevernever."

"Simple enough," Marcone said. "I had to shoot a few of the vampires, once we were clear of the fight. I did not appreciate the way they were attempting to coerce my employees."

"Hell's bells." I sighed. "Did you kill any of them?"

"Unnecessary. I shot them enough to make my point. After that, we had an adequate understanding of one another—much as you and I do."

"I understand that you settled matters with Anna's killers, Mister Dresden," Helen said. "With help, of course."

Marcone smiled his unreadable little smile at me.

"The people who did the deed won't be bothering anyone anymore," I said. "And most of the people who motivated them have gone into early retirement." I glanced at Marcone. "With help."

"But not all of them?" Helen asked, frowning.

"Everyone we could make answer," Marcone said, "has answered. It is unlikely we could accomplish more."

Something made me say, "And I'm taking steps to prevent or mitigate this kind of circumstance in the future. Here and elsewhere."

Helen tilted her head at me, taking that in. Then she nodded and said, very quietly, "Thank you."

"Helen," Marcone said. "Would you be so good as to excuse us for a few moments."

"Won't take long," I added. "I don't like being here."

Helen smiled slightly at me and rose smoothly from Marcone's lap. "If it makes you feel any better, Mister Dresden, you should know that he dislikes having you here as well."

"You should see how much my insurance premiums go up after your visits, Dresden." He shook his head. "And they call me an extortionist. Helen, could you send Bonnie in with that file?"

"Certainly."

Helen left. Healthy brunette Bonnie, in her oh-so-fetching exercise outfit, bounced in with a manila folder, gave me a Colgate smile, and departed again. Marcone opened the folder, withdrew a stack of papers, and started flicking through them. He got to the last page, turned it around, slid it across the desk, and produced a pen from his pocket. "Here is the contract you faxed me. Sign here, please."

I walked over to the desk, took the entire stack, and started reading it from page one. You never sign a contract you haven't read, even if you aren't a wizard. If you are one, it's even more important than that. People joke about signing away their soul or their firstborn. In my world, it's possible.

Marcone seemed to accept that. He made a steeple of his fingers and waited with the relaxed patience of a well-fed cat.

The contract was the standard one for approving a new signatory of the Accords, and though he'd had it retyped, Marcone hadn't changed a word. Probably. I kept reading. "So you suggested the name Demeter for Helen?" I asked as I read.

Marcone's expression never changed. "Yes."

"How's Persephone?"

He stared at me.

"Persephone," I said. "Demeter's daughter. She was carried away by the Lord of the Underworld."

Marcone's stare became cold.

"He kept her there in Hades, but Demeter froze the whole world until the other gods convinced him to return Persephone to her mother." I turned a page. "The girl. The one in the coma, who you're keeping in a hospital somewhere, and visiting every week. That's Helen's daughter, isn't it. The one who got caught in the cross fire of one of your shoot-outs."

Marcone didn't move.

"Newspaper file on it said she was killed," I said.

I read several more pages before Marcone answered. "Tony Vargassi, my predecessor, I suppose, had a son. Marco. Marco decided that I had become a threat to his standing in the organization. He was the shooter."

"But the girl," I said, "didn't die."

Marcone shook his head. "It put Vargassi in an awkward position. If the girl recovered, she might identify his son as the shooter, and no jury in the world would fail to send a thug to jail who'd shot a pretty little girl. But if the girl died, and it came back on Marco, he'd be looking at a murder charge."

"And someone who murders little girls gets the needle in Illinois," I said.

"Exactly. There was a great deal of corruption at the time—"

I snorted.

Marcone's little smile returned for a moment. "Pardon me. Say instead that the Vargassis exerted their influence on official matters with a heavy hand. Vargassi had the little girl declared dead. He convinced the medical examiner to sign false paperwork, and he hid the girl away in another hospital."

I grunted. "If Marco got identified as the shooter and put up for trial, Vargassi could produce the little girl. Look, she's not dead. Mistrial."

"One possibility," Marcone replied. "And if things went quietly for a while, he could simply delete her records."

"And her," I said.

"Yes."

"Whatever happened to old Tony Vargassi?" I asked.

I saw a flash of Marcone's teeth. "His whereabouts are unknown. As are Marco's."

"When did you find out about the girl?"

"Two years later," he said. "Everything was set up through a dummy corporation's trust fund. She could have just…" He looked away from me. "Just lain there. Indefinitely. No one would have known who she was. Known her name."

"Does Helen know?" I asked him.

He shook his head. He was quiet for a moment more. "I can't return Persephone from Hades. The child's death almost destroyed Helen—and her world is still frozen. If she knew her daughter was… trapped… just lying there in a half-life…" He shook his head. "It would shatter her world, Dresden. And I shouldn't wish that."

"I've noticed," I said quietly, "that most of the young ladies working here would be about the same age as her daughter."

"Yes," Marcone said.

"That isn't exactly a healthy recovery."

"No," Marcone said. "But it's what she has."

I thought about it while I kept reading. Maybe Helen deserved to know about her daughter. Hell, she probably did. But whatever else Marcone was, he was no fool. If he thought news of her daughter's fate might shatter Helen, he was probably right. Sure, she should know. But did I have the right to make that decision?

Probably not—even if Marcone wouldn't do his best to have me killed if I tried. Hell, I probably had less right to decide than Marcone. He had way more invested in the girl and her fate than I did.

Because that was the secret I'd seen in a soulgaze with Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, years ago. The secret that gave him the strength and the will to rule the mean streets.

He felt responsible for the little girl who'd taken a bullet meant for him.