Small Favor (The Dresden Files 10)

"Not bad," I said, barely resisting the temptation to turn the second word into a barnyard sound. "Sorry I wasn't much use to you once you waded in."

"It couldn't have happened without your help," Michael said seriously. "Thank you."

"De nada," I replied.

I went up the last few stairs and got a look at what the hobs had been after.

Children.

There must have been thirty kids around ten years old up at the top of the stairs, all of them in school uniforms, all of them huddled together in a corner, all of them frightened, most of them crying. There was one dazed-looking woman in a blazer that matched those of the children, together with two women dressed in the casual uniforms of Amtrak stewards.

"A train had just arrived," I murmured to Michael as I realized what had happened. "It must have gotten in through the weather somehow. That's why the hobs were here now."

Michael flicked Amoracchius to one side, shaking off a small cloud of fine black powder from the blade as he did. Then he put the weapon away. "It should be safe now, everyone," he said, his voice calm. "The authorities should be here any minute." He added in a quieter tone, "We should probably go."

"Not yet," I said quietly. I walked into the Great Hall far enough to see the area behind the first of the row of Corinthian pillars that lined the walls.

Three people stood there.

The first was a man, of a height with Michael, but built more leanly, more dangerously. He had hair of dark gold that fell to his shoulders, and the shadow of a beard resulting from several days without shaving. He wore a casual, dark-blue sports suit over a white T-shirt, and he held the bronze sword of a hob, stained with their dark blood, in either hand. He regarded me with the calm, remote eyes of a great cat, and he showed me some of his teeth when he saw me. His name was Kincaid, and he was a professional assassin.

Next to him was a young woman with long, curling brown hair and flashing dark eyes. Her jeans were tight enough to show off some nice curves, but not too tight to move in, and she held a slender rod maybe five feet long in one hand, carved with runes and sigils not too unlike mine. Captain Luccio had a long plastic tube hanging from a strap over one of her shoulders, its top dangling loose. Odds were good her silver sword was still stowed inside it. I knew that when she smiled, she had killer dimples-but from the expression on her face I wasn't going to be exposed to that hazard anytime soon. Her features were hard and guarded, though they did not entirely hide a fierce rage. I hoped it was reserved for the attacking hobs and not for me. The captain was not someone I wanted angry at me.

Standing between and slightly behind the two adults was a girl not much older than all the other children who had taken refuge in the Hall. She'd grown more than a foot since the last time I'd seen her, about five years ago. She still looked like a neatly dressed, perfectly groomed child-except for her eyes. Her eyes were creepily out of place in that innocent face, heavy with knowledge and all the burdens that come with it.

The Archive put a hand on Kincaid's elbow, and the hired killer lowered his swords. The girl stepped forward and said, "Hello, Mister Dresden."

"Hello, Ivy," I responded, nodding politely.

"If these creatures were under your command," the little girl said in a level tone, "I'm going to execute you."

She didn't make it a threat. There wasn't enough interest in her voice for it to be that. The Archive just stated it as a simple and undeniable fact.

The scary part was that if she decided to kill me, there'd be little I could do about it. The child wasn't simply a child. She was the Archive, the embodied memory of humanity, a living repository of the knowledge of mankind. When she was six or seven I'd seen her kill a dozen of the most dangerous warriors of the Red Court. It took her about as much effort as it takes me to open the wrapper on a stack of crackers. The Archive was Power with a capital P, and operated on an entirely different level than I did.

"Of course they weren't under his command," Luccio said. She glanced at me and arched an eyebrow. "How could you even suspect such a thing?"

"I find it unlikely that an attack of this magnitude could be anything but a deliberate attempt to abduct or assassinate me. Mab and Titania have involved themselves in this business," the Archive said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Mister Dresden is currently Winter's Emissary in this affair-and need I remind you that hobs are beholden to Winter-to Mab?"

She hadn't needed to remind me, though I'd been putting that thought off for a while. The fact that the hobs were Mab's subjects meant that matters were even murkier than I thought, and that now was probably a reasonably good time to start panicking.

But first things first: Prevent the scary little girl from killing me.

"I have no idea who was ordering these things around," I said quietly.

The Archive stared at me for an endless second. Then that ancient, implacable gaze moved to Michael. "Sir Knight," she said, her tone polite. "Will you vouch for this man?"

Maybe it was just my imagination that it took Michael a second longer to answer than he might have done in the past. "Of course."

She stared at him as well, and then nodded her head. "Mister Dresden, you remember my bodyguard, Kincaid."

"Yeah," I said. My voice didn't exactly bubble with enthusiasm. "Hi, tough guy. What brings you to Chicago?"

Kincaid showed me even more teeth. "The midget," he said. "I hate the snow. If it was up to me, I'd much rather be somewhere warm. Say, Hawaii, for example."

"I am not a midget," the Archive said in a firmly disapproving tone. "I am in the seventy-fourth percentile for height for my age. And stop trying to provoke him."

"The midget's no fun," Kincaid explained. "I tried to get her to join the Girl Scouts, but she wasn't having any of it."

"If I want to glue macaroni to a paper plate, I can do that at home," said the Archive. "It's hours past my bedtime, and I have no desire to entangle ourselves with the local authorities. We should leave." She frowned at Kincaid. "Obviously our movements have been tracked. Our quarters here are probably compromised." She turned her eyes back to me. "I formally request the hospitality of the White Council until such time as I can establish secure lodgings."

"Uh," I said.

Luccio made a quick motion with one hand, urging me to accept.

"Of course," I said, nodding at the Archive.

"Excellent," the Archive said. She turned to Kincaid. "I'm soaked. My coat and a change of clothes are in my bag on the train. I'll need them."