Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

“Your work?” I asked.

“I make it look easy,” he said without a trace of modesty. “It’s a curse to be so damned talented when I’m already obscenely good-looking, but I try to soldier on as best I can.”

I laughed and offered him my hand. He shook it. “Dresden,” he said.

“Ramirez.” I nodded to my right. “This is Molly Carpenter.”

He glanced at the girl, looking her up and down. “Miss,” he said, without a polite bow of his head. He glanced at me, indicated a direction with his hand, and said, “They’re ready for you. But walk with me for a minute? I need to talk with you.” He glanced at Molly. “Privately.”

I arched a brow at him. “Molly, I’ll be right back.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “O-okay.”

“Miss,” Ramirez said with a somewhat apologetic smile. “I need you to remain exactly where you’re standing now. All right?”

“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “You think she’s that dangerous?”

“I think it’s security protocol,” Ramirez said. “If you didn’t want me doing it, you shouldn’t have asked me.”

I started to snarl an answer, but I choked it down and said, “Fine. Molly, just stand there for now. I won’t go out of sight of you.”

She nodded, and I turned with Ramirez. We walked several paces away over the gravel before he asked, “That the kid?”

Ramirez wasn’t old enough to get good car insurance rates himself, much less to refer to someone as “kid,” though he’d had to grow up awfully swiftly. He’d been an apprentice when the war with the Red Court erupted, and he’d done good service for the Council upon attaining status as a full wizard, fighting in several nasty engagements with the vampires. It was the kind of thing that made a man age in a hurry.

“That’s her,” I confirmed. “Did you get a chance to examine the victims?”

“Yeah.” He frowned and watched me for a moment before he said, “She’s someone you know.”

I nodded.

He glanced back at her. “Crud.”

I frowned at him. “Why?”

“I don’t think today is going to go well for her,” Ramirez said.

My stomach suddenly felt cold. “Why not?”

“Because of how the battle in Oregon played out,” he said. “Once the forces from Summer attacked their rear, we gave the vamps one hell of a beating. Morgan got within about twenty feet of the Red King himself.”

“Morgan killed him?”

“No. But it wasn’t for a lack of trying. He cut down a Duke and a pair of Counts before the Red King got away.”

“Damn,” I said, impressed. “But what does that have to do with Molly?”

“We had the Reds by the balls,” Ramirez said. “Sunrise was coming in the real world, and when they tried to retreat into the Nevernever the faeries were on them like a school of piranha. The Reds had to find a way to draw off some of our heavies and they found it. Luccio’s boot camp.”

I drew in a breath. “They attacked Luccio and the newbies?”

“Yeah. McCoy, Listens-to-Wind, and Martha Liberty led a force from the battle to relieve the camp.”

“They did, huh? How’d it go?”

He took a deep breath and said, “They haven’t reported in yet. And that means…”

“It means that my support in the Senior Council isn’t here to help me.”

Ramirez nodded.

“Who has their proxies?”

“We didn’t hear from you until after they had left, so they didn’t entrust their proxies to anyone.”

I sighed. “So the Merlin holds them by default. And he doesn’t much like me. He’d cast the votes to condemn her just to spite me.”

“It gets better,” he said. “Ancient Mai is still in Indonesia, and LaFortier is covering the Venatori while they relocate. The Merlin has their votes too-and I don’t think the Gatekeeper is coming.”

“So the only one whose opinion counts is the Merlin,” I said.

“Pretty much.” Then Ramirez frowned at me. “You don’t look surprised.”

“I’m not,” I said. “If something can go wrong, it does. I’ve accepted that by now.”

He tilted his head. “I’ve just told you the kid will probably be found guilty before she’s been tried.”

“Yeah,” I said. I chewed on my lip. This would make things more difficult. I had been counting on at least a little help from Ebenezar and his cronies. They knew the Council procedures better than I did, and how to manipulate them. They also knew the Merlin, who, magical talents aside, was a damned slippery fish when it came to maneuvering through a Council meeting.

The Merlin had every reason to oppose me, and therefore Molly. Now, if he wielded the votes of the people I’d been counting on to support me, he could literally be Molly’s judge, jury, and executioner.

Well. Judge and jury, anyway. Morgan would do the executing.

I ground my teeth. My plan could still work, theoretically, but there was very little I could do to alter the outcome from here on in. I glanced back at Molly. Here we were. I’d brought her to this turn. I’d see it through.

“Fine,” I said. “I can deal with this.”

Ramirez arched an eyebrow at me. “I thought you’d look more upset.”

“Would it help anything if I started foaming at the mouth?”

“No,” Ramirez said. “It might explain a few things, but it wouldn’t help, per se.”

“Water, bridge,” I said. “Spilt milk. Accept things you cannot change.”

“In other words, you have a plan,” Ramirez said.

I shrugged and smiled tightly at him, and just then a low, throbbing engine approached the old warehouse.

Ramirez’s hand went to the butt of his gun.

“Easy,” I told him. “I invited them.”

A motorcycle wound its way through the maze of alleys and potholes between warehouses, and then crunched to a stop in the gravel beside the Blue Beetle. Fix flipped the bike’s kickstand down, and then he and Lily got off the motorcycle. Fix flipped me a little salute, and I nodded back to him.

Ramirez arched an eyebrow and said, “Is that who I think it is?”

“Summer Knight and Lady,” I confirmed.

“Well, crap,” he said, and scowled at me. “You going to turn this into some kind of fight?”

“Los,” I chided him. “Would I do that?”

He gave me a steady look and then said, “You just had to ask me to handle security.”

“What can I say, man? No one else was pretty and talented enough.”

“No one is so talented that you couldn’t make him look bad, Dresden,” he muttered. Then he gave Lily and Fix a calculating look and said, “Well. This should be interesting, at any rate. Introduce me?”

“Yep.”

I did. Then Ramirez led us through the veil protecting the warehouse from perception. Two Wardens at the door searched everyone for weapons.

They even had one of the animate statues of a temple dog they used to detect hostile enchantments, veils, and concealed weaponry. The stone construct made me a little nervous-I had nearly been attacked by one over a false alarm once-but this time it passed me by without showing any interest. It lingered longest on Molly, once emitting a grindstone growl, but it subsided after a moment and returned to its post beside the door.

I started to go inside, but Ramirez touched my arm. I stopped and frowned at him. He glanced at Molly and drew a black cloth from his belt.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“It’s protocol, Harry.”

“It’s sadistic and unnecessary.”

He shook his head. “I’m not offering an option, here.” He lowered his voice so that only I could hear him. “I don’t like it either. But if you violate protocol now, especially in a case that involves mind-control magic, it will be all the excuse the Merlin needs to declare the proceedings potentially compromised. He’ll be able to pass summary judgment on the girl, and put you and me both on precautionary probation.”