JIM BUTCHER - SMALL FAVOR

I said nothing.

“You asked me to respect your limits and I have,” she said quietly. “I expect you to return the favor. If for one second I think that letting you handle this is going to cost innocent lives, I’m not going to stand quietly in the wings. I’m going in and bringing everything I can get my hands on with me. And if I do that, I expect your complete support.”

“And you’re the one who gets to decide when that is?” I demanded.

She faced me without flinching, not a millimeter. “Apparently.”

I leaned back in my seat and sipped beer with my eyes closed.

Murphy didn’t know everything that was at stake here. More than anyone else on the force, sure, but she was operating under only partial knowledge. If she made the wrong call, she could really screw things up beyond all ability to conceive.

She’d probably had that same exact thought about me, and on more than one occasion.

I’d asked Murphy for a lot when I’d asked her to trust me.

How could I not return the favor and still call myself her friend?

Simple.

I couldn’t.

Hell, if she decided to go in, she’d do it with or without me. In that circumstance my presence could mean the difference between a bloody victory and a disaster, and…

And I suddenly felt a lot more empathy for Michael’s confusion.

I opened my eyes again and said quietly, “You decide to bring CPD in, you’ll have my cooperation. But you’ve got to believe me: This isn’t the time for that kind of solution.”

She ran her thumb over a scar in the wooden table. “What if that building had been full of people, Harry? Families. These Denarians could have killed hundreds.”

“Give me time,” I said.

She put her hands on the table’s edge and rose, facing me with those same neutral eyes again. As she started to speak I got a twisty feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I wish I could,” she said, “but-”

The door to the pub slammed open hard enough to strain its hinges and leave marks against the old wooden wall.

A…thing…came through the door. It was hard for me to tell what it was at first. Imagine a big man trying to squeeze into a doghouse. He has to crouch down and go in sideways, one shoulder at a time, moving very carefully to avoid harming himself on the door frame. That’s what this huge, grey-furred thing looked like. But with horns and cloven hooves.

The enormous gruff-several feet taller than any ogre or troll I’d ever seen-squeezed all the way through the door and then rose to a crouch. His head, shoulders, and the top part of his back pressed against the ceiling. Hunched awkwardly, he slowly scanned the room, his golden eyes gleaming around their rectangular pupils. Each knuckle of his closed fists was the size of a freaking cantaloupe, and a heavy, pungent animal scent filled the air.

Thanks to the snow, the pub wasn’t crowded-just a few regulars, plus Murphy and me. But even so, this wasn’t something you saw every day, and the room went totally still.

The gruff ’s gaze settled on me.

Then he duckwalked toward my table. Mac raced for the switch that turned off the fans, but the first couple of spinning blades the gruff passed struck sharply against his curling horns-and shattered. He did not so much as blink. He stopped beside my table and surveyed Murphy, then turned his huge, heavy gaze to me.

“Wizard,” he rumbled in a voice so deep that I could feel it better than I could hear it. “I have come hence to speak to thee about mine younger brothers.” The gruff ’s huge eyes narrowed, and its knuckles creaked like shipping hawsers as its fists tightened. “And the harms thou hast wrought upon them.”

I picked up my staff and rose to face the enormous gruff.

Murphy watched me with very, very wide eyes.

“This is neutral ground,” I said quietly.

“Aye,” the gruff agreed. “The Accords alone keep thy neck unbroken, thy skull uncracked.”

“Or your enormous ass uncooked,” I replied, staring up and setting my jaw. “Don’t start thinking it would be easy, Tiny.”

“Mayhap, and mayhap not,” the gruff rumbled. “’Tis a question answered only by the field.”

I breathed as shallowly as I could. The huge gruff didn’t smell bad , precisely-but he sure as hell smelled a lot . “Speak.”

“We find ourselves at odds, friend of Winter,” the gruff rumbled.

“Friend of Summer, too,” I said. “They gave me jewelry and everything.”

“Aye,” the huge gruff said. “You have done good service to my Court, if not to my Queen. I am surprised, then, at your use of the bane ’pon two of my younger kin.”

“The bane?” Murphy said quietly.

“Iron,” I clarified. I turned back to the gruff. “They were trying to kill me. I wanted to survive.”

“No friend of either Court would so employ the bane, wizard,” the gruff growled. “Did you not know this? It is more than a mere weapon, and the pain it causes more than simple discomfort. It is a poison, body and spirit, that you have used ’pon us.”

I glared at the big idiot. “They were trying to kill me,” I repeated, only more slowly, you know, so it would be all insulting. “I wanted to survive.”

The gruff narrowed its eyes. “Then you intend to continue as you have begun?”

“I intend to survive,” I replied. “I didn’t ask for this fight. I didn’t begin it.”

“Thou’rt fated to die in any case, mortal, soon or late. Why not face it with honor and make thy passing more peaceful thereby?”

“Peaceful?” I asked, barely containing a laugh. “If I go down fighting, Tiny, I plan for it to be about as unpeaceful as things get .” I jabbed a finger at him. “I’ve got nothing against you and your brothers, Tiny, except that you keep trying to freaking kill me. Back off, and it won’t have to get any uglier than it already has.”

The gruff growled. It sounded like a dump truck grinding its gears. “That I will not do. I will serve my Queen.”

“Then don’t expect anything but more of the same from me,” I replied.

“You would behave this way in the service of Winter ?” the gruff demanded, incredulous. “You, who struck the heart of Arctis Tor? What hold has the Dark Queen ’pon you, mortal?”

“Sorry, Tiny, but you aren’t nearly as special as you think you are. This is pretty much the way I behave every time someone tries to whack me.” I gestured at him with my staff. “So if you came here to try to talk me into lying down and dying, you can leave the way you came in. And if you’re the one coming after me next, you’d better have more brains than your brothers did, or I’m going to leave you as a great big pile of cold cuts and spare ribs.”

The gruff growled again and gave me a stiff nod. “Then come out. And let us settle this.”

Uh. Uh-oh.

Showing bravado to the bad guys-or the not-so-bad guys, as the case may be-is a given, a part of the territory. But I’d never taken on anything with the sheer mass of Tiny the gruff, and I really didn’t think I’d care to try my hand against him without one hell of a lot of preparation first. I also had to remember that big didn’t necessarily equal stupid, not given the circles he apparently moved in.

In fact, most of the higher reaches of the Summer Court knew a formidable amount of countermagic. If Tiny here had half the ability I’d seen demonstrated in the past, I would be in real trouble in a straight fight. All he had to do was stand outside and wait. Mac’s place had only the one door.

Worse, Thomas and Molly were waiting outside in Thomas’s barge, and they would be sure to join in. I wasn’t sure what could happen at that point. Leaving totally aside the fact that we’d be brawling in the middle of Chicago in broad daylight, I had to think that the gruff might have backup waiting nearby to intervene if anyone outside the business of the Courts of Winter and Summer tried to interfere. Molly was of limited capability in a fight, and Thomas tended to believe that the best way to approach any given combat was with a maximum of power, speed, and aggressive ferocity.