Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

“Ma’am,” Murphy said quietly. “Practice is very different from the real thing.”

Charity nodded. “This won’t be my first fight.”

Murphy frowned for a moment, and then turned a troubled glance to me. I glanced at Thomas, who was facing away, a little apart from the rest of us, staying out of the decision-making process.

Charity stood there with that warhammer over one shoulder, her weight planted, her eyes determined.

“Hell’s bells,” I sighed. “Okay, John Henry, you’re on the team.” I waved a hand and went back to the briefing. “Faeries hate and fear the touch of iron, and that includes steel. It burns them and neutralizes their magic.”

“There are extra weapons in the tub, as well as additional coats of mail,” Charity offered. “Though they might not fit you terribly well, Lieutenant Murphy.”

Charity had thought ahead. I was glad one of us had. “Mail coat is just the thing for discouraging nasty faerie beasties with claws.”

Murphy looked skeptical. “I don’t want to break up the Battle of Hastings dress theme, Harry, but I find guns generally more useful than swords. Are you serious about this?”

“You might not be able to rely on your guns,” I told her. “Reality doesn’t work the same way in the Nevernever, and it doesn’t always warn you when it’s changing the rules. It’s common to find areas of Faerie where gunpowder is noncombustible.”

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“Nope. Get some steel on you. There’s not a thing the faeries can do about that. It’s the biggest edge mortals have on them.”

“The only edge,” Charity corrected. She passed me a sleeveless mail shirt, probably the only one that would fit me. I dumped my leather duster, armored myself, and then put the duster back on over the mail. Murphy shook her head, then she and Thomas collected mail and weaponry of their own.

“Couple more things,” I said. “Once we’re inside, don’t eat or drink anything. Don’t accept any gifts, or any offers from a faerie interested in making a deal. You don’t want to wind up owing favors to one of the Sidhe, believe you me.” I frowned, thinking. Then I took a deep breath and said, “One thing more. Each of us must do everything possible to control our fear.”

Murphy frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“We can’t afford to carry in too much fear with us. The fetches feed on it. It makes them stronger. If we go in there without keeping our fear under control, they’ll sense a meal coming. We’re all afraid, but we can’t let it control our thoughts, actions, or decisions. Try to keep your breathing steady and remain as calm as you can.”

Murphy nodded, frowning faintly.

“All right, then. Everyone hat up and sing out when you’re good to go.”

I watched as Murphy got her gear into place. Charity helped her secure the armor. Her mail was a short-sleeved shirt, maybe one of Charity’s spare suits. She’d compensated for the oversize armor by belting it in tight, but the short sleeves fell to her elbows, and the hem reached most of the way to her knees. Murphy looked like a kid dressing up in an adult’s clothes.

Her expression grew calm and distant as she worked, the way it did when she was focused on shooting, or in the middle of one of her five trillion and three formal katas. I closed my eyes and tentatively pushed my magical senses toward her. I could feel the energy in her, the life, pulsing and steady. There were tremors in it, here and there, but there was no screaming beacon of violent terror that would trumpet our approach to the bad guys.

Not that I thought there would be. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in guts. On the other hand, Murphy had never been in the Nevernever, and even though Faerie was as normal a place as you can find there, it could get pretty weird. Despite training, discipline, and determination, novice deepwater divers can never be sure that they will remain free from the onset of the condition called “pressure sickness.” The Nevernever was much the same. You can’t tell how someone is going to react the first time they fall down the rabbit hole.

Thomas, being Thomas, made the mail into a fashion statement. He wore black clothing, black combat boots, and the arming jacket and mail somehow managed to go with the rest of his wardrobe. He had his saber on his belt on his left side, carried the shotgun in his right hand, and made the whole ensemble look like an upper-class version of The Road Warrior .

I checked on Thomas with my wizard’s senses, too. His presence had never been fully human, but like the other members of the White Court the vampiric aspects of him were not obvious to casual observation, not even to wizards. There was something feline about his aura, the same quality I would expect in a hungry leopard waiting patiendy for the next meal to approach; enormous power held in perfect balance. There was a darker portion of him, too, the part I’d always associated with the demonic presence that made him a vampire, a black and bitter well of energy, equal parts lust, hunger, and self-loathing. Thomas was no fool-he was certainly afraid. But the fear couldn’t be sensed under that still, black surface.

Charity, after she finished helping Murphy, stepped back from her and went to her knees in the parking lot. She folded her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and continued praying. Around her I felt a kind of ambient warmth, as though she knelt in her own personal sunbeam, the same kind of energy that had always characterized her husband’s presence. Faith, I suppose. She was afraid, too, but it wasn’t the primitive survival fear the fetches required. Her fear was for her daughter; for her safety, her future, her happiness. And as I watched her, I saw her lips form my name, then Thomas’s, then Murphy’s.

Charity was more afraid for us than herself.

Right there, I promised myself that I would get her back home with her daughter, back to her family and her husband, safe and sound and whole. I would not, by God, hesitate for a heartbeat to do whatever was necessary to make my friend’s family whole again.

I checked myself out, taking inventory. Leather duster, ill-fitting mail shirt, staff, and blasting rod, check. Shield bracelet and amulet, check. My abused left hand ached a little, and what I could feel of it felt stiff-but I could move my fingers. My head hurt. My limbs felt a little bit shaky with fatigue. I had to hope that adrenaline would kick in and make that problem go away when it counted.

“Everyone good to go?” I asked.

Murphy nodded. Thomas drawled, “Yep.”

Charity rose and said, “Ready.”

“Let me sweep the outside of the building first,” I said. “This is their doorway home. It’s possible that they’ve got the place booby-trapped, or that they’ve set up wards. Once I clear it, we’ll go in.”

I trudged off to walk a slow circle around Pell’s theater. I let my fingertips drag along the side of the building, closed my eyes most of the way, and extended my wizard’s senses into the structure. It wasn’t a quick process, but I tried not to dawdle, either. As I walked, I sensed a kind of trapped, suffocated energy bouncing around inside the building-leakage from the Nevernever probably, from when the fetches took Molly across. But several times I also felt tiny, malevolent surges of energy, too random and mobile to be spells or wards. Their presence was disturbingly similar to that of the fetch I’d destroyed in the hotel.

I came back to where I’d begun about ten minutes later.

“Anything?” Thomas asked.

“No wards. No mystic land mines,” I told him. “But I think there’s something in there.”

“Like what?”

“Like fetches,” I said. “Smaller than the big ones we’re after, and probably set to guard the doorway between here and the Nevernever.”