"Perhaps you"d care to reminisce over old times," mewled the eerie voice. Mab winked at me.
c.r.a.p. She"d done that the last time I"d b.u.mped into her. And once again, no one else knew anything about it. I"d been indulging in wishful thinking, hoping she was fake. She was the real Mab. She"d done that the last time I"d b.u.mped into her. And once again, no one else knew anything about it. I"d been indulging in wishful thinking, hoping she was fake. She was the real Mab.
Mab showed me her teeth. "Three favors you owed me," Mab said-sort of. "Two yet remain. I am here to create an opportunity for you to remove one of them from our accounting."
"Uh-huh," I said. "How are you going to do that?"
Her smile widened, showing me her delicately pointed canines. "I am going to help you."
Yeah.
This couldn"t be good.
I tried to keep my voice steady and calm. "What do you mean?"
"Behold." Mab gestured with her right hand, and the layer of snow on the ground stirred and moved until it had risen into a sculpture of a building, about eighteen inches high. It was like watching a sand castle melt in reverse.
I thought I recognized the building. "Is that...?"
"The building the lady knight asked you to examine," confirmed Mab"s surrogate voice. It"s amazing what you can get used to if your daily allowance of bizarre is high enough. "As it was before the working that rent it asunder."
Other shapes began to form from the snow. Rather disconcertingly detailed shapes of cars rolled smoothly by beside the building, typical Chicago traffic-until one of them, an expensive town car, turned down the alley beside the building, the one I"d walked down not an hour before. I had to take a couple of steps to follow it as it came to a halt and stopped. The snow car"s doors opened, and human shapes the size of the old Star Wars Star Wars action figures came hurrying out of the vehicle. action figures came hurrying out of the vehicle.
I recognized them. The first was a flat-top, no-neck bruiser named Hendricks, Marcone"s personal bodyguard and enforcer. His mother was a Kodiak bear; his father was an Abrams tank, and after he got out of the car, he reached back into it and came out with a light machine gun that he carried in one hand.
While Hendricks was doing that, a woman got out of the other side of the car. Gard was tall, six feet or so, though Hendricks made her look pet.i.te. She wore a smart business suit with a long trench coat, and as I watched she opened the car"s trunk and removed a broadsword and an all-metal shield maybe two feet across. She pa.s.sed her hand over the surface of the shield, and then quickly covered it with a section of cloth that had apparently been cut to fit it.
Both of them moved in a tense, precise, professionally concerned cadence.
The third man out of the car was Marcone himself, a man of medium height and build, wearing a suit that cost more than my car, and he looked as relaxed and calm as he always did. Marcone was criminal sc.u.m, but I"ll give the rat his due-he"s got b.a.l.l.s that drag the ground when he walks.
Marcone"s head whipped around abruptly, back down the alley the way they"d just come, though neither Hendricks nor Gard reacted with a similar motion. He produced a gun with such speed that it almost seemed magical, and little puffs of frost blazed out from the muzzle of the snow-sculpted weapon.
Hendricks reacted immediately, turning to bring that monster weapon to bear, and tiny motes of blue light flashed down the alley, representing tracer fire. Gard put her shield and her body between Marcone and whatever was at the end of the alley. They hurried into a side door of the building, one that had been destroyed in the collapse. Hendricks followed, still spraying bursts of fire down the alley. He, too, vanished into the building.
"h.e.l.l"s bells," I breathed. "Marcone was inside inside?"
Mab flicked her hand in a slashing gesture, and the top two-thirds of the little snow building disintegrated under a miniature arctic gale. I was left with a cutaway image of the building"s interior. Marcone and his bodyguards moved through the place like rats through a maze. They sprinted down a flight of stairs. At the bottom Marcone stabbed at some kind of keypad with short, sharp, precise motions and then looked up.
Heavy sheets of what looked like steel fell into place at the top and bottom of the stairs simultaneously, and I could all but hear the ominous boom! boom! as they settled into place. Gard reached up and touched the center of the near door, and there was a flash of light bright enough to leave little spots in my vision. Then they hurried down a short hallway to another keypad and repeated the process. More doors, more flashes of light. as they settled into place. Gard reached up and touched the center of the near door, and there was a flash of light bright enough to leave little spots in my vision. Then they hurried down a short hallway to another keypad and repeated the process. More doors, more flashes of light.
"Locking himself in..." I muttered, frowning. Then I got it. "Wards. Blast doors. It"s a panic room. He built a panic room."
Grimalkin made a low, lazy yowling sound that I took for a murmur of agreement.
My own apartment was set up with a similar set of protections, which I could invoke if absolutely necessary-though, granted, my setup was a little more Merlin and a little less Bond. But I had to wonder what the h.e.l.l had rattled Marcone enough to send him scurrying for a deep hole.
Then Gard"s head snapped up, looking directly at where Mab currently stood, as if the little snow sculpture could somehow see the t.i.tanic form of the Winter Queen looking down upon her. Gard reached into her suit pocket, drew out what looked like a slender wooden box, the kind that really high-end pen sets come in sometimes, and took a small, rectangular plaque of some kind from the box. She lifted it, facing Mab again, and snapped the little plaque in her fingers.
The entire snow sculpture collapsed on itself and was gone.
"They saw the hidden camera," I muttered.
"Within her limits, the Chooser is resourceful and clever," Mab replied. "The Baron was wise to acquire her services."
I glanced up at Mab. "What happened?"
"All Sight was clouded for several moments. Then this."
At another gesture the building re-formed-but this time little clouds of frost simulated thick smoke roiling all around it, obscuring many details. The whole image, in fact, looked hazier, grainier, as if Mab had chosen to form it out of snowflakes a few sizes too large to ill.u.s.trate details.
Even so, I recognized Marcone when he came stumbling out the front door of the building. Several forms hurried out behind him. They surrounded him. A plain van appeared out of the night, and the unknown figures cast him through its open doors. Then they entered and were gone.
As the van pulled away, the building shuddered and collapsed in on itself, sliding down into the wreckage and ruin I"d seen.
"I have chosen you to be my Emissary," Mab said to me. "You will repay me a favor owed. You will find the Baron."
"The h.e.l.l I will," I said before my brain had time to weigh in on the sentiment.
Mab let out a low, throaty laugh. "You will, wizard child. An you wish to survive, you have no choice."
Anger flared in my chest and shoved my brain aside on its way to my mouth. "That wasn"t our deal," I snapped. "Our bargain stipulated that I would choose which favors to repay and that you would not coerce me."
Mab"s frozen-berry lips lifted in a silent snarl, and the world turned into a curtain of white agony that centered on my eyes. Nothing had ever ever hurt so much. I fell down, but I wasn"t lucky enough to hit my head and knock myself unconscious. I couldn"t move. I couldn"t breathe. I couldn"t scream. hurt so much. I fell down, but I wasn"t lucky enough to hit my head and knock myself unconscious. I couldn"t move. I couldn"t breathe. I couldn"t scream.
Then there was something cold beside me. And something very soft and very cold touched my ear. I recognized the sensation, from the far side of the pain. Lips. Mab"s lips. The Queen of Air and Darkness placed a gentle row of kisses down the outside ridge of my ear, then sucked the lobe into her mouth and bit down quite gently.
In the other ear I heard Grimalkin"s voice speaking in a low, tense, hungry whisper. "Mortal brute. Whatever your past, whatever your future, know this: I am Mab, and I keep my bargains. Question my given word again, ape, and I will finish freezing the water in your eyes."
The pain receded to something merely torturous, and I clenched my teeth down hard over a scream. I could move again. I flinched away from her, scrambling until my back hit a wall. I covered my eyes with my hands and felt some of my frozen eyelashes snap.
I sat there for a minute, struggling to control the pain, and my vision gradually faded from white to a deep red, and then to black. I opened my eyes. I could barely focus them. I felt a wetness on my face, touched it with a finger. There was blood in my tears.
"I have not coerced you, nor dispatched any agent of mine to do so," Mab continued, as if the break in the conversation had never happened. "Nonetheless, if you wish to survive, you will serve me. I a.s.sure you that Summer"s agents will not rest until you are dead."
I stared at her for a second, still half-dazed from the pain and once again deeply, sincerely, and wisely frightened. "This is another point of contention between you and t.i.tania."
"When one Court moves, the other perforce moves with it," Mab said.
I croaked, "t.i.tania wants Marcone dead?"
"Put simply," she replied. "And her Emissary will continue to seek your death. Only by finding and saving the Baron"s life will you preserve your own." She paused. "Unless..."
"Unless?"
"Unless you should agree to take up the mantle of the Winter Knight," Mab said, smiling. "I should be forced to choose another Emissary if you did, and your involvement in this matter could end." Her eyelids lowered, sleepily sensual, and her surrogate voice turned liquid, heady, an audible caress. "As my Knight you would know power and pleasure that few mortals have tasted."
The Winter Knight. The mortal champion of the Winter Court. The previous guy who had that job was, when last I knew, still crucified upon a frozen tree within bonds of ice, tortured to the point of death and then made whole, only to begin the process again. He"d lost his sanity somewhere in one of the cycles. He wasn"t a real nice guy when I knew him, but no human being should have to suffer like that.
"No," I said. "I don"t want to end up like Lloyd Slate."
"He suffers for your decision," she said. "He remains alive until you take up the mantle. Accept my offer, wizard child. Give him release. Preserve your life. Taste of power like none you have known." Her eyes seemed to grow larger, becoming almost luminous, and her not-voice was a narcotic, a promise. "There is much I can teach you."
A decent person would have rejected her offer out of hand.
I"m not always one of those.
I could offer you some excuses, if you like. I could tell you that I was an orphan by the time I was six. I could tell you that the foster father who eventually raised me subjected me to more forms of psychological and physical abuse than you could shake a stick at. I could tell you that I"d been held in unjust suspicion for my entire adult life by the White Council, whose principles and ideals I"d done my best to uphold. Or maybe I could say that I"d seen too many good people get hurt, or that I"d looked upon a lot of nasty things with my indelible wizard"s Sight. I could tell you that I"d been caught and abused by the creatures of the night myself, and that I hadn"t ever really gotten over it. I could tell you that I hadn"t gotten laid in a really long time.
And all of those things would be true.
But the fact of the matter is that there"s simply a part of me that isn"t so nice. There"s a part of me that gets off on laying waste to my enemies with my power, that gets tired of taking undeserved abuse. There"s this little voice inside my head that sometimes wants to throw the rules away, stop trying to be responsible, and just take take what I want. what I want.
And for a minute, I wondered what it might be like to accept Mab"s offer. Life among the Sidhe would be...intense. In every sense a mortal could imagine. What would it be like to live in a house? h.e.l.l, probably a big big house, if not a freaking castle. Money. Hot showers every day. Every meal a feast. I"d be able to afford whatever clothes I wanted, whatever cars I wanted. Maybe I could do some traveling, see places I"d always wanted to see. Hawaii. Italy. Australia. I could learn to sail, like I always wanted. house, if not a freaking castle. Money. Hot showers every day. Every meal a feast. I"d be able to afford whatever clothes I wanted, whatever cars I wanted. Maybe I could do some traveling, see places I"d always wanted to see. Hawaii. Italy. Australia. I could learn to sail, like I always wanted.
Women, oh, yeah. Hot and cold running girls. Inhumanly beautiful, sensuous creatures like the one before me. The Winter Knight had status and power, and those are even more of an aphrodisiac to the fae than they are to us mortals.
I could have...almost anything.
All it would cost me was my soul.
And no, I"m not talking about anything magical or metaphysical. I"m talking about the core of my ident.i.ty, about what makes Harry Dresden who and what he is. If I lost those things, the things that define me, then what would be left?
Just a heap of bodily processes-and regret.
I knew that. But all the same, the touch of Mab"s chilled lips on my ear lingered on, sending slow, pleasant ripples of sensation through me when I breathed. It was enough to make me hesitate.
"No, Mab," I said finally. "I don"t want the job."
She studied my face with calm, heavy eyes. "Liar," she said quietly. "You want it. I can see it in you."
I gritted my teeth. "The part of me that wants it doesn"t get a vote," I said. "I"m not going to take the job. Period."
She tilted her head to one side and stared at me. "One day, wizard, you will kneel at my feet and ask me to bestow the mantle upon you."
"But not today."
"No," Mab said. "Today you repay me a favor. Just as I said you would."
I didn"t want to think too hard about that, and I didn"t want to openly agree with her, either. So instead I nodded at the patch of ground where the sculptures had been. "Who took Marcone?"
"I do not know. That is one reason I chose you, Emissary. You have a gift for finding what is lost."
"If you want me to do this for you, I"m going to need to ask you some questions," I said.
Mab glanced up, as if consulting the stars through the still-falling snow. "Time, time, time. Will there never be an end to it?" She shook her head. "Wizard child, the hour has nearly pa.s.sed. I have duties upon which to attend-as do you. You should rise and leave this place immediately."
"Why?" I asked warily. I got to my feet.
"Because when your little retainer warned you of danger, wizard child, he was not referring to me."
On the street outside the alley, the gale-force wind and the white wall of blowing snow both died away. On the other side of the street, two men in long coats and big Stetson hats stood facing the alley. I felt the sudden weight of their attention, and got the impression that they had been surprised to see me.
I whirled to speak to Mab-only to find her gone. Grimalkin, too, both of them vanished without a trace or a whisper of power to betray it.
I turned back to the street in time to see the two figures step off the sidewalk and begin moving toward me with long strides. They were both tall, nearly my own height, and thickly built. The snowfall hadn"t lightened, and the street was a smooth pane of unbroken snow.
They were leaving cloven footprints on it.
"c.r.a.p," I spat, and fled back down the narrow, featureless alley.
Chapter Seven.
A t this sign of retreat, the two men threw back their heads and let out shrill, bleating cries. Their hats fell off when they did, revealing the goatlike features and curling horns of gruffs. But they were bigger than the first attack team-bigger, stronger, and faster. t this sign of retreat, the two men threw back their heads and let out shrill, bleating cries. Their hats fell off when they did, revealing the goatlike features and curling horns of gruffs. But they were bigger than the first attack team-bigger, stronger, and faster.
And as they closed the distance on me, I noticed something else.
Both of them had produced submachine guns from beneath their coats.
"Oh, come on," I complained as I ran. "That"s just not fair."
They started shooting at me, which was bad news. Wizard or not, a bullet through the head will splatter my brains just as randomly as the next guy"s. The really really bad news was that they weren"t just spraying bullets everywhere. Even with an automatic weapon, it isn"t easy to hit a moving target, and the old "spray and pray" method of fire relied upon blind luck disguised as the law of averages: Shoot enough bullets and eventually you have to hit something. Do your shooting like that and sometimes you"ll hit the target, and sometimes you won"t. bad news was that they weren"t just spraying bullets everywhere. Even with an automatic weapon, it isn"t easy to hit a moving target, and the old "spray and pray" method of fire relied upon blind luck disguised as the law of averages: Shoot enough bullets and eventually you have to hit something. Do your shooting like that and sometimes you"ll hit the target, and sometimes you won"t.
But the gruffs shot like professionals. They fired in short, burping little bursts, aimed fire, even if it suffered from the fact that they were moving while they did it.
I felt something hit my back, just to the left of my spine, an impact that felt somewhat like getting slugged in the back by someone with a single knuckle extended. It was a sharp, unpleasant sensation, and the way my balance wavered was more due to the fact that it surprised and frightened me than to the actual force it imparted. I kept running, ducking my head down as far as I could, hunching up my shoulders. The defensive magics woven into my coat could evidently stop whatever rounds the gruffs were using, but that didn"t mean an unlucky ricochet couldn"t bounce some lead into me from the front or sides, around the coat-and getting shot in the lower legs, ankles, or feet would probably kill me as certainly as one through the head. It would just take a little more effort on the gruffs" part to make it stick.
It"s hard to think when someone"s trying to kill you. We human beings aren"t wired to be rational and creative when we know our lives are in danger of a swift and violent end. The body has definite ideas of which survival strategies it prefers to embrace, and those are generally limited to "rip threat to pieces" or "run like h.e.l.l." No thinking need be involved, as far as our instincts are concerned.
Our instincts were a long time in the making, though, and the threats that can come after us now have outpaced them. You can"t outrun a bullet, and you don"t go hand-to-hand with a gunman unless you"re certain you are about to die anyway. Speed and mindless aggression weren"t going to keep me alive. I needed to figure a way out.
I felt another bullet hit the lower part of my coat. It caught spell-strengthened leather and tugged it forward, just the way a thrown rock might have done. Admittedly, though, the rock wouldn"t have made that angry-hornet buzzing noise as it struck. I dumped a garbage can over behind me, hoping it might trip up the gruffs for a second and buy me a little time.
Hey, you you try coming up with a cogent, rational course of action when you"re running down a frozen alley with genuine fairy-tale creatures chasing you, spitting bullets at your back. It"s way harder than it looks. try coming up with a cogent, rational course of action when you"re running down a frozen alley with genuine fairy-tale creatures chasing you, spitting bullets at your back. It"s way harder than it looks.
I didn"t dare turn to face them. I could have raised a shield to stop the gunfire, but once I had stopped moving, I figured odds were fantastic that one of them would just hop over me like a Kung Fu Theater extra, and they"d come at me from two directions at once.
In fact, if I were them, and had tracked me to that alley...
The chattering gunfire from behind me ceased, and I realized what was happening.
I raised my staff as I neared the far end of the alley, pointed it ahead of me, and screamed, "Forzare!"