Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

“Enough with the rhetoric. You know it isn’t.”

He nodded. “Then maybe it’s something you’ve done. Maybe something you should talk about with a friend.”

The fallen angel’s sigil on my left palm throbbed. I started to say “no,” but stopped myself. I drove for another block or two. I should tell him. I really should. Michael was my friend. He deserved my trust and respect. He deserved to know.

But I couldn’t.

Then my mouth started moving, and I realized that what was bothering me the most had nothing to do with coins or fallen angels. “Last Halloween,” I said quietly, “I killed two people.”

He drew in a slow breath and nodded, listening.

“One of them was Cassius. Once he was beaten, I had Mouse break his neck. Another was a necromancer called Corpsetaker. I shot her in the back of the head.” I swallowed. “I murdered them. I’ve never killed, man… not like that. Cold.” I drove a while more. “I have nightmares.”

I heard him sigh. For a moment, his voice was bleak. Pained. “I’ve been in this business longer than you have. I know some of what you’re feeling.”

I didn’t answer him.

“You feel like nothing is ever going to be right again,” he said. “You remember it perfectly, and it won’t leave you alone. You feel like you’re walking around with a sharp rock in your shoe. You feel stained.”

Stupid damned streetlights, getting all blurry like that. I blinked a lot and stayed quiet. My throat was too tight to speak, anyway.

“I know what it’s like,” he said. “There isn’t any way to make it disappear. But it gets better with time and distance.” He studied me for a moment. “If you had it to do again, would you?”

“Twice as hard,” I said at once.

“Then what you did was a necessity, Harry. It might be painful. It might haunt you. But at the end of the day, so long as you did what you believed right, you’ll be able to live with yourself.”

“Yeah?” I asked, chewing on my lower lip.

“I promise,” he said.

I darted a glance at him. “You don’t… think less of me? Knowing that I’m a murderer?”

“It isn’t my place to judge what you’ve done. I regret that those lives were lost. That their owners never found redemption. I worry for the pain you’ve inflicted on yourself in retrospect. But I don’t for an instant think that you would choose to take a human life unless you absolutely had to.”

“Seriously?”

“I trust you,” Michael said, his voice calm. “I would never have left my family in your protection if I didn’t. You’re a decent man, Harry.”

I exhaled slowly and my shoulders loosened. “Good.” And then, before my brain could get in the way, I added, “I picked up one of the Blackened Denarü, Michael. Lasciel.”

My heart skipped several beats as I made the admission.

I expected shock, horror, outrage, maybe with a side order of contempt.

But instead, Michael nodded. “I know.”

I blinked at him. “You what?”

“I know,” he repeated.

“You know. You knew? ”

“Yes. I was taking the trash around the house when Nicodemus’s car went by. I saw the whole thing. I saw you protecting my youngest.”

I chewed on my lip. “And… I mean, you aren’t going to slug me and drag me off to a private suite in the Asylum for Wayward Denarians?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michael said. “Remember that the Knights of the Cross were not founded to destroy the Denarians. We were founded to save them from the Fallen. It is therefore my duty to help you in whatever way I can. I can help you discard the coin if that is what you wish to do. It’s best if you choose to do it yourself.”

“I don’t need to discard it, actually,” I said. “I haven’t really taken the coin up. I buried it. Never used it.”

Michael looked surprised. “No? That is good news, then. Though it means that the Fallen’s shadow is still attempting to persuade you, I take it?”

This time the mental chuckle was a little more clear. I thought Oh, shut up very hard and sent it in Lasciel’s direction.

“Trying,” I said.

“Keep in mind that Lasciel is a deceiver,” he said quietly. “One with thousands of years of practice. It knows people. It knows how to tell you lies you want to believe are true. But it exists for a single purpose-to corrupt the will and beliefs of mankind. Don’t ever forget that.”

I shuddered. “Yeah.”

“May I ask what it’s told you?” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “No, wait. Let me guess. It’s appeared to you as an attractive young woman. She offers you knowledge, yes? The benefit of her experience.”

“Yeah.” I paused and added, “And Hellfire. Makes my spells hit harder when I need them to. I try not to use it much.”

Michael shook his head. “Lasciel isn’t called the Temptress for nothing. She knows you. Knows what to offer you and how to offer it.”

“Damn right she does.” I paused a moment, then added, “It scares me sometimes.”

“You’ve got to get rid of the coin,” he said with gentle urgency.

“Love to,” I said. “How?”

“Give up the coin of your own will. And set aside your power. If you do, Lasciel’s shadow will dwindle with it and waste away.”

“What do you mean, set aside my power?”

“Walk away from your magic,” he said. “Forsake it. Forever.”

“Fuck that.”

He winced and looked away.

The rest of the trip to his home passed in silence. When we got there, I told Michael, “Molly’s stuff is back at my place. I’d like to take her back there to get it. I need to have a talk with her, tonight, while everything is fresh. I’ll have her back here in a couple of hours, tops.”

Michael glanced at his sleeping daughter with a worried frown, but nodded. “Very well.” He got out and shut the door, then leaned back in the window to speak to me. “May I ask you two things?”

“Shoot.”

He glanced back at his house and said, “Have you ever considered the possibility that the Lord did not send me out on my most recent mission so that I could protect my daughter? That it was not His intention to use you to protect her?”

“What’s your point?”

“Only that it is entirely possible, Harry Dresden, that this entire affair, beginning to end, is meant to protect you . That when I went to the aid of Luccio and her trainees, I did so not to free Molly, but to prevent you from coming to blows with the Council. That her position as your new apprentice had less to do with protecting her than it did protecting you ?”

“Eh?” I said.

He glanced at his daughter. “Children have their own kind of power. When you’re teaching them, protecting them, you are more than you thought you could be. More understanding, more patient, more capable, more wise. Perhaps this foster child of your power will do the same for you. Perhaps it’s what she is meant to do.”

“If the Lord was all that interested in helping out, how come he didn’t send someone to help me against Cassius? One of old Nick’s personal yes-men? Seems to be a solid rescue scenario.” Michael shrugged and opened his mouth. “And don’t give me any of that mysterious ways tripe.” He shut his mouth and smiled. “It’s a confusing sort of thing,” he said.

“What is?”

“Life. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” He offered me his hand. I shook it.

“I don’t know of another way to end Lasciel’s influence, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there. If you should change your mind about the coin, Harry, if you want to get rid of it, I promise that I’ll be there for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.