JIM BUTCHER - SMALL FAVOR

Nowhere has as many walls as big cities do, and walls keep you from seeing things. They help make things less real. Sure, maybe you hear loud, sharp noises outside some nights. But it’s easy to tell yourself that those aren’t gunshots, that there’s no need to call the police, no need to even worry. It’s probably just a car backfiring. Sure. Or a kid with fireworks. There might be loud wailing or screams coming from the apartment upstairs, but you don’t know that the drunken neighbor is beating his wife with a rolling pin again. It’s not really any of your business, and they’re always fighting, and the man is scary, besides. Yeah, you know that there are cars coming and going at all hours from your neighbor’s place, and that the crowd there isn’t exactly the most upright-looking bunch, but you haven’t seen him dealing drugs. Not even to the kids you see going over there sometimes. It’s easier and safer to shut the door, be quiet, and turn up the TV.

We’re ostriches and the whole world is sand.

Newbies who are just learning about the world of wizards and the unpleasant side of the supernatural always think there’s this huge conspiracy to hide it from everyone. There isn’t. There’s no need for one, beyond preventing actual parades down Main Street. Hell’s bells, from where I’m standing, it’s a miracle anyone ever notices.

Which is why I was fairly sure that our parley with the Archive and the Denarians in the Shedd Aquarium was going to go unremarked. Oh, sure, it was right in the middle of town, within a stone’s throw of the Field Museum and within sight of Soldier Field, but given the weather there wasn’t going to be a lot of foot traffic-and the Aquarium was in its off-season. There might be a handful of people there caring for the animals, but I felt confident that Kincaid would find a way to convince them to be somewhere else.

Murphy had rented a car, since hers was so busted-up. The past few days of snow had seen a load of accidents, and there weren’t any compact cars left, so she’d wound up with a silver Caddy the size of a yacht, and I’d called shotgun. Hendricks and Gard rode in the backseat. Gard had gotten to the car under her own power, though she had been moving carefully. Luccio sat beside Gard with her slender staff and her silver rapier resting on the floorboards between her feet, though my own staff was a lot longer and had to slant back between the front seats and past Gard’s head, up into the rear window well.

City work crews were still laboring to clear roads and access to critical facilities. An off-season tourist attraction was not high on anyone’s priority list. For that matter, the Field Museum had been closed due to the weather, which meant that there really weren’t any functioning public buildings for several hundred yards in any direction.

That could be a problem. Michael’s white truck wasn’t going to be able to get anywhere close without being spotted, which meant that he and Sanya were going to be two, maybe three minutes away from helping, provided they could be signaled at all. That was practically the other side of the world, where a violent confrontation is concerned. On the other hand, it also meant that the bad guys weren’t going to be able to bring in any help without being spotted, either.

Provided they were driving cars, of course.

Glass half-full, Harry, glass half-full. There was no profit to be had in a fight-not yet, anyway. Whatever Nicodemus was after, he’d have to make his demands before he had a chance to double-cross us out of whatever he wanted us to bring him. Besides, given what I’d seen of the Archive in action, he’d be freaking insane to try anything where she was officiating. She didn’t brook slights to her authority lightly.

The nearest street had been cleared by city trucks, but none of the parking lots had been done, and the excess snow from the streets formed small mountains on either side of the road.

“Looks like we’re going to have to walk in,” Murphy said quietly.

“Keep circling. They keep the animals here year-round,” I said quietly. “And they’ve got to be fed every day. The staff will have broken a trail in somewhere.”

“Perhaps they let the exhibits go hungry during the storm,” Gard suggested. “Few would venture into this for the sake of their paychecks.”

“You don’t do oceanography for the money,” I said. “And you sure as hell don’t take up working with dolphins and whales for the vast paycheck and the company car.” I shook my head. “They love them. Someone’s gone in every day. They’ll at least have broken a foot trail.”

“There,” Murphy said, pointing. Sure enough, someone had hacked a narrow opening into the mounded snow at the side of the road and dug out a footpath on the other side. Murph had to park at the side of the road, with the doors of the rental car just an inch from the snow walls. If someone came along going too fast, given the condition the streets were in, the Caddy was going to get smashed, but it wasn’t like she had a lot of choice.

We all piled out of the driver’s side of the car into the wan light of early afternoon. Luccio and I both paused to put on our grey Warden’s cloaks. Cloaks look cool and everything, but they don’t go well with cars. Luccio buckled on a finely tooled leather belt that held a sword on her left hip and a Colt on her right.

My.44 was back in my duster pocket, and the weight of both the coat and the gun felt greatly comforting. The wind caught my coat and the cloak both, and almost knocked me over until I got them gathered in close to my body again and under control. Hendricks, stolid and huge in his dark, sensible London Fog winter coat, went by me with a small smile on his face.

Hendricks took point, and the rest of us followed him through what could only generously be called a trail. Instead of the snow being up to our chests, on the trail we sank only to our knees. It was a long, cold slog up to the Aquarium, and then around the entire building, where the snow had piled up to truly impressive depths in the lee of the wind on the south side of the structure. Wind hustling in over the frozen lake felt like it had come straight from outer space, and everyone but Gard hunched up miserably against it. The trail led us to an employee’s door in the side of the building, which proved to have had the lock housing on its frame covered in duct tape, leaving it open.

Hendricks opened the door, and I stuck my head in and took a quick look around. The building was dark beneath its smothering blanket of snow, except for a few dim night-lights set low on the walls. I didn’t see anyone, but I took an extra moment or two to extend my senses into the building, searching for any lurking presences or hostile magicks.

Nothing.

But a little paranoia never hurts in a situation like this.

“Captain,” I said quietly, “what do you think?”

Luccio moved up beside me and studied the hall beyond the doorway, her dark eyes flickering alertly back and forth. “It seems clear.”

I nodded, said, “Excuse me,” and went through the door in a burst of raging anticlimax. I stomped the snow off my boots and jeans as best I could as the others came in behind me. I moved farther down the hall, straining to sense anyone approaching, which meant that I heard the soft scuff of deliberately obtrusive footsteps two or three seconds before Kincaid rounded the far corner. He was dressed in his customary black clothing again, fatigue pants, and a hunting jacket over body armor, and he had enough guns strapped to his body to outfit a terrorist cell, or a Texan nuclear family.

He gave his chin a sharp little lift toward me by way of greeting. “This way, ple…” His eyes focused past me and his voice died in midcourtesy. He stared over my shoulder for a second, sighed, and then told me, “She can’t be here.”