Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

That drew a faint, snorting laugh from me. I shook my head, took the flask, and sipped. An excellent, smooth Scotch. I sipped again, and I told him what happened at the convention, and how it had spilled over onto the Carpenter household. He listened. We passed the flask back and forth. I finished by saying, "I sent those things right to her door. I never meant it to happen."

"Of course not," he said.

"It doesn't make me feel any better about it."

"Nor should it," he said. "But you must know that you are a man of power."

"How so?"

"Power," he said, waving a hand in an all-encompassing gesture. "All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action."

"I guess," I said. "So?"

"So," he said. "You have more choices. Which means that you have much improved odds of making mistakes. You're only human. Once in a while, you're going to screw the pooch."

"I don't mind that," I said. "When I'm the only one who pays for it."

"But that isn't in your control," he said. "You cannot see all outcomes. You couldn't have known that those creatures would go to the Carpenter house."

I ground my teeth. "So? Daniel's still hurt. Molly could be dead."

"But their condition was not yours to ordain," Forthill said. "All power has its limits."

"Then what's the point?" I snarled, suddenly furious. My voice bounced around the chapel in rasping echoes. "What good is it to have power enough to kill my friend's family, but not power enough to protect them? What the hell do you expect from me? I've got to make these stupid choices. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?"

"Sometimes," he replied, his tone serious, "you just have to have faith."

I laughed, and it came out loud and bitter. Mocking echoes of it drifted through the vast chamber. "Faith," I said. "Faith in what?"

"That things will unfold as they are meant to," Forthill said. "That even in the face of an immediate ugliness, the greater picture will resolve into something all the more beautiful."

"Show me," I spat. "Show me something beautiful about this. Show me the silver fucking lining."

He pursed his lips and mused for a moment. Then he said, "There's a quote from the founder of my order: There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"That the good that will come is not always obvious. Nor easy to see. Nor in the place we would expect to find it. Nor what we personally desire. You should consider that the good being created by the events this night may have nothing to do with the defeat of supernatural evils or endangered lives. It may be something very quiet. Very ordinary."

I frowned at him. "Like what?"

He finished off the little flask and then rose. He put it away and put his collar back on. "I'm afraid I'm not the one you should ask." He put a hand on my shoulder and nodded toward the altar. "But I will say this: I've been on this earth a fair while, and one way or another, this too shall pass. I have seen worse things reverse themselves. There is yet hope for Molly, Harry. We must strive to do our utmost, and to act with wisdom and compassion. But we must also have faith that the things beyond our control are not beyond His."

I sat quietly for a minute. Then I said, "You almost make me believe."

He arched an eyebrow. "But?"

"I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if it's possible for me."

The corners of his eyes wrinkled. "Then perhaps you should try to have faith that you might one day have faith." His fingers squeezed and then released my shoulder. He turned to go.

"Padre," I said.

He paused.

"You... won't tell Charity?"

He turned his head, and I could see sadness in his profile. "No. You aren't the only one too afraid to believe."

Sudden footsteps clattered into the chapel, and Alicia hurried in, accompanied by Mouse. The big grey dog sat down and stared up at the balcony. Alicia, panting, looked up. "Father?"

"Here," Forthill said.

"Come quick," she said. "Mama said to tell you Daniel's awake."

Chapter Thirty-one

We listened to Daniel's recounting of the attack. It was simple enough. He'd heard Molly moving around downstairs and had come down to talk to his sister. There had been a knock at the door. Molly had gone to answer it. There had been an exchange of words, and then Molly had screamed and slammed the door.

"She came running into the living room," Daniel said. "And they broke down the door behind her and came in." He shivered. "They were going upstairs and Molly said we had to distract them, so I grabbed the poker from the fireplace and just sort of jumped them." He shook his head. "I thought they were just costumes. You know. Like... really stupid burglars or something. But the Reaper grabbed me. And he was going to... you know. Cut me with that curved knife." He gestured vaguely at his wounded arm. "Molly hit him and he dropped me."

"With what?" I asked him.

He shook his head. His thin, awkward, adolescent features were hollow with pain, weariness, and a kind of lingering disbelief. His words were all slightly stiff, wooden, as if reporting events in an unappealing motion picture, rather than actual experiences. "I couldn't see. I think she must have had a bat or something. He dropped me."

"Then what?" I asked him.

He swallowed. "I fell, and bumped my head on the floor. And they grabbed her. The Reaper and the Scarecrow. And they carried her out the door. She was screaming..." He bit his lip. "I tried to stop them, but Hammerhand chased me. So I ran out the back and up into the tree house, cause I figured, you know. He doesn't have any hands. Just hammers. So how's he going to climb up after me?"

He looked to Charity and said, shame in his voice, "I'm sorry, Mom. I wanted to stop them. They were just... too big." Tears welled up in his eyes and his thin chest heaved. Charity caught him in a fierce hug, squeezing him hard and whispering to him. Daniel broke down, sobbing.

I got up and walked to the far side of the room. Forthill joined me there.

"These creatures," I told him quietly, "inflict more than simple physical damage. They rip into the psyches of those they attack."