Jim Butcher - Blood Rites

"Yeah," Murphy said, her voice annoyed. "It's never the nice guys who get a girl worked up."

Apparently not. "Oh," I said again.

"I'll call a cab," Murphy said. "Get some clothes and my bike. The car's still back at the park, and there might still be family there. Give me about an hour, and I'll be ready to take you where you need to go, if you're able."

"I have to be," I said.

Murphy called the cab, and just as it got there Ebenezar opened the door, carrying a brown paper grocery sack. I looked up at him, feeling a sudden blend of emotions-relief, affection, suspicion, disappointment, betrayal. It was a mess.

He saw the look. He stopped in the doorway and said, "Hoss. How's the hand?"

"Starting to feel things again," I said. "But I figure I'll pass out before it comes all the way back."

"I might be able to help a little, if you want me to."

"Let's talk about that."

Murphy had pretty obviously picked up on the tension between us back at the shelter. She kept her tone and expression neutral and said, "My cab's here, Harry. See you in an hour."

"Thanks, Murph," I said.

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Murphy," Ebenezar said. He corrected himself almost instantly. "Lieutenant Murphy."

She almost smiled. Then she gave me a look, as if to ask me if it was all right to leave me with the old man. I nodded and she left.

"Close the door," I told Ebenezar.

He did, and turned to face me. "So. What do you want me to tell you?"

"The truth," I said. "I want the truth."

"No, you don't," Ebenezar said. "Or at least not now. Harry, you have to trust me on this one."

"No. I don't," I responded. My voice sounded rough and raw. "I've trusted you for years. Completely. I've built up some credit. You owe me."

Ebenezar looked away.

"I want answers. I want the truth."

"It will hurt," he said.

"The truth does that sometimes. I don't care."

"I do ," he said. "Boy, there is no one, no one, I would hate to hurt as much as you. And this is too much to lay on your shoulders, especially right now. It could get you killed, Harry."

"That isn't your decision to make," I said quietly. It surprised me how calm I sounded. "I want the truth. Give it to me. Or get out of my home and never come back."

Frustration, even true anger flickered across the old man's face. He took a deep breath, then nodded. He put the grocery sack down on my coffee table and folded his arms, facing my fireplace. The lines on his face looked deeper. His eyes focused into the fire, or through it, and they were hard, somehow frightening.

"All right," he said. "Ask. I'll answer. But this could change things for you, Harry. It could change the way you think and feel."

"About what?"

"About yourself. About me. About the White Council. About everything."

"I can take it."

Ebenezar nodded. "All right, Hoss. Don't say I didn't warn you.

"Let's start simple," I said. "How do you know Kincaid?"

He blew out a breath, cheeks puffing out. "He's in the trade."

"The trade?"

"Yes." Ebenezar sat down on the other end of the couch. The puppy got up on wobbling legs and snuffled over to examine him. His tail started wagging. Ebenezar gave the little dog a brief smile and scratched his ears. "Most of the major supernatural powers have someone for that kind of work. Ortega was the Red Court's, for example. Kincaid and I are contemporaries, of a sort."

"You're assassins," I said.

He didn't deny it.

"Didn't look like you liked him much," I said.

"There are proprieties between us," Ebenezar said. "A measure of professional courtesy and respect. Boundaries. Kincaid crossed them about a century ago in Istanbul."

"He's not human?"

Ebenezar shook his head.

"Then what is he?"

"There are people walking around who carry the blood of the Nevernever in them," Ebenezar said. "Changelings, for one, those who are half-Sidhe. The faeries aren't the only ones who can breed with humanity, though, and the scions of such unions can have a lot of power. Their offspring are usually malformed. Freakish. Often insane. But sometimes the child looks human."

"Like Kincaid."

Ebenezar nodded. "He's older than I am. When I met him, I still had hair and he had been serving the creature for centuries."

"What creature?" I asked.

" The creature," Ebenezar said. "Another half mortal like Kincaid. Vlad Drakul."

I blinked. "Vlad Tepesh? Dracula?"

Ebenezar shook his head. "Dracula was the son of Drakul, and pretty pale and skinny by comparison. Went to the Black Court as a kind of teenage rebellion. The original creature is… well. Formidable. Dangerous. Cruel. And Kincaid was his right arm for centuries. He was known as the Hound of Hell. Or just the Hellhound."

"And he's afraid of you," I said, my voice bitter. "Blackstaff McCoy. I guess that's your working name."

"Something like that. The name… is a long story."

"Get started, then," I said.

He nodded, absently rubbing the puppy behind the ears. "Ever since the founding of the White Council, ever since the first wizards gathered to lay down the Laws of Magic, there has been someone interested in tearing it apart," he said. "The vampires, for one. The faeries have all been at odds with us at one time or another. And there have always been wizards who thought the world would be a nicer place without the Council in it."

"Gee," I said. "I just can't figure why any wizard would think that."

Ebenezar's voice lashed out, harsh and cold. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy. You don't know what you're saying. Within my own lifetime, there have been times and places where even speaking those words could have been worth your life."

"Gosh, I'd hate to for my life to be in jeopardy. Why did he call you Blackstaff?" I asked, my voice hardening. An intuition hit me. "It's not a nickname," I said. "Is it. It's a title."

"A title," he said. "A solution. At times, the White Council found itself bound by its own laws while its enemies had no such constraints. So an office was created. A position within the Council. A mark of status. One wizard, and only one, was given the freedom to choose when the Laws had been perverted, and turned as weapons against us."

I stared at him for a moment and then said, "After all that you taught me about magic. That it came from life. That it was a force that came from the deepest desires of the heart. That we have a responsibility to use it wisely-hell, to be wise, and kind, and honorable, to make sure that the power gets used wisely. You taught me all of that. And now you're telling me that it doesn't mean anything. That the whole time you were standing there with a license to kill."

The lines in the old man's face looked hard and bitter. He nodded. "To kill. To enthrall. To invade the thoughts of another mortal. To seek knowledge and power from beyond the Outer Gates. To transform others. To reach beyond the borders of life. To swim against the currents of time."

"You're the White Council's wetworks man," I said. "For all their prattle about the just and wise use of magic, when the wisdom and justice of the Laws of Magic get inconvenient, they have an assassin. You do that for them."

He said nothing.

"You kill people."

"Yes." Ebenezar's face looked like something carved in stone, and his voice was quietly harsh. "When there is no choice. When lives are at stake. When the lack of action would mean-" He cut himself off, jaw working. "I didn't want it. I still don't. But when I have to, I act."

"Like at Casaverde," I said. "You hit Ortega's stronghold when he escaped our duel."

"Yes," he said, still remote. "Ortega killed more of the White Council than any enemy in our history during the attack at Archangel." His voice faltered for a moment. "He killed Simon. My friend. Then he came here and tried to kill you, Hoss. And he was coming back here to finish the job as soon as he recovered. So I hit Casaverde. Killed him and almost two hundred of his personal retainers. And I killed nearly a hundred people there in the house with them. Servants. Followers. Food."