Jim Butcher: Proven Guilty

I narrowed my eyes, clenched my fist, and hissed a single word. The fireplace flared up in a sudden, fiery cyclone. Molly flinched back from it, one arm lifted to protect her eyes.

When she lowered it, I was hunkered down right in her face. “I’m not your parents, kid,” I said. “And you don’t have time to play teenage rebel anymore. This is the deal. You do what I say or you don’t survive.” I leaned closer and gave her the look I usually save for rampaging demons and those survey people at malls. “Molly. Is there any doubt in your mind-any doubt at all -that I can’t damn well make you do it?”

She swallowed. The hard knot of defiance in her eyes suddenly shattered like a diamond struck at precisely the correct angle, and she shivered in the blanket. “No, sir,” she said in a tiny voice.

I nodded at her. She sat there shivering and frightened, which had been the point of the exercise; to knock her off balance while she was still unsteady from recent events and drive home the notion of what she faced. It was absolutely necessary that she understand how things had to play out until she got her power under control. Anything less than willing cooperation would kill her.

But it was hard to remember that, staring down at her as she shivered and stared at the fire, its light turning tears to gold on her cheeks. Heartbreaking, really. She was still so damned young.

So I crouched down and gave her that hug. “It’s all right to be scared, kid. But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

She leaned against me, shivering. I let her for a moment, and then got up and said, “Get dressed and get your things.”

“Why?” she asked.

I arched an eyebrow at her. She flushed, took the robe, and hurried back into the bedroom. I had my coat on and was ready to go when she was. I led her out to the car and we took off.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“I hope so. It’s going to take you a long time to learn if you can’t.”

She smiled a little. “Where are we going?”

“Your new digs,” I said.

She frowned at me, but settled back in her seat. “Oh.”

We pulled up to the Carpenter house, ablaze with lights despite the hour.

“Oh, no” Molly muttered. “Tell me you’re kidding me.”

“You’re moving back in.”

“But-”

I continued over her as if she hadn’t spoken. “Not only that, but you’re going to do everything in your power to be the most respectful, loving, respectful, considerate, and respectful daughter in the whole wide world. Especially where your mom is concerned.”

She stared at me with her jaw hanging.

“Oh,” I added. “And you’re going back to high school until you’re finished.”

She stared at me for a long time, then blinked and said, “I died. And this is Hell.”

I snorted. “If you can’t control yourself well enough to finish a basic education and get along with a houseful of people who love you, then you sure as hell can’t control yourself enough to use what I need to teach you.”

“But… but…”

“Think of your homecoming as an extended lesson in respect and self-control,” I said cheerfully. “I’ll be checking up with your parents at least weekly. You’ll do lessons with me every day until school is back in, and then I’ll give you reading and homework for the-”

“ Homework ?” she half wailed.

“Don’t interrupt. The homework will only be on weekdays. We’ll do lessons on Friday and Saturday evenings.”

“Friday and Satur…” She trailed off into a sigh and slumped. “Hell. I am in Hell.”

“It gets better. I take it that you’re sexually active?”

She stood there with her mouth hanging open.

“Come on, Molly, this is important. Do you boink?”

Her face turned pink and she hid her face in her hands. “I… I… well. I’m a virgin.”

I arched an eyebrow at her.

She glanced up at me, blushed more, and added, “Technically.”

“Technically,” I said.

“Urn. I’ve… explored. Most of the bases.”

“I see,” I said. “Well, Magellan, no baserunning or boldly going where no man has gone before for you-not until you get yourself grounded. Sex makes things complicated, and for you that could be bad.”

“But…”

“And no, ah, solo exploration either.”

She blinked at me and asked in a blank tone, “Why?”

“You’ll go blind,” I said, and walked up to her front porch.

“You’re joking,” she said, and then hurried to catch up. “That’s a joke, right? Harry?”

I marched her up to her house without answering her. Molly wore a hopeless look on her face, as though she envied a condemned criminal, who could at least hope that the governor might call at the last minute. But when the doors opened and her family’s delight washed over her in a roar like a breaking wave, she smiled from her eyes all the way down to her toes.

I made polite chat for a minute, until Mouse limped over to me, smiling and wagging his tail. There was something on his muzzle that I suspected to be honey mustard, or maybe buffalo sauce, doubtless slipped to him by a young accomplice. I clipped his lead on him and took my leave, heading back to my car.

Before I got there, Charity caught up with me. I arched an eyebrow at her and waited while she fidgeted and finally asked, “Did you tell them? About what I was?”

“Of course not,” I said.

She slumped a little in relief. “Oh.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

She frowned at me and said, “If you hurt my little girl, I’ll come down to that little closet you call an office and throw you out the window. Do you understand?”

“Death by defenestration, gotcha.”

A few tiny cracks developed in her frown, and then she shook her head sharply, once, caught me in a hug that made my ribs ache, and went back into the house without another word.

Mouse sat there panting and grinning happily.

I went home and got some sleep.

I was working in my lab the next day, trying to make notes of all that had happened so that I wouldn’t forget anything. Bob sat on the table next to me, helping me with the details.

“Oh,” he said. “I found something wrong with Little Chicago’s design.”

I swallowed. “Oh. Wow. Bad?”

“Extremely. We missed a transition coupling in the power flow. The stored energy was all going to the same spot.”

I frowned. “That’s… like a surge of electricity going through a circuit breaker, right? Or a fuse box.”

“Exactly like that,” Bob said. “Except that you were the fuse. That much energy in one spot will blow your head off your shoulders.”

“But it didn’t,” I said.

“But it didn’t,” Bob agreed.

“How is that possible?”

“It isn’t,” he said. “Someone fixed it.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“It didn’t fix itself,” Bob said. “When I looked at it a few nights ago, the flawed section was in plain sight, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time. When I looked again tonight, it was different. Someone changed it.”

“In my lab? Under my house? Which is behind my wards? That’s impossible.”

“No it isn’t,” Bob said. “Just really, really, really, really, really, really difficult. And unlikely. He would have had to know that you had a lab down here. And he would have had to know how to get around your wards.”

“Plus intimate knowledge of the design to tinker with it like that,” I said. “To say nothing of the fact that he would have to know it existed at all , and no one does.”

“Really, really unlikely,” Bob agreed.

“Dammit.”

“Hey, I thought you loved a good mystery, Harry.”