Peace Talks (The Dresden Files 16)

Butters had only had the Sword since the end of winter. He’d only been doing full-speed Knight work for about a month. But I’d seen him square off against maybe the scariest and most dangerous bad guy I personally knew—and Butters won.

And here he was, facing off with me like a grouchy badger. He told me to back off and made me want to do it.

Damn. Little guy had gotten all grown up on me.

I lifted my hands, palms out in a gesture of peace, and said, “Okay. But I reserve the right to talk to you about it later.”

“Oh God, can we not?” Butters said. He went to rummage in the fridge, restless and uncomfortable as a schoolboy caught with adult magazines. “We’re sort of keeping this low-key.”

“Low-key, huh?”

“Look,” he said plaintively, “I’m honestly not quite sure how this happened, and I am not going to let anyone screw it up.”

“Butters,” I said. I waited until he turned to look at me. Then I said, “You’re not sitting in my kitchen asking for my help, man. I’m pretty sure you can make the choices for your own damned life. And there’s too much glass in my house to throw stones at anyone.”

His eyes searched my expression for a moment before some of the tension went out of him. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sorry, man.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. I glanced back toward where the women had disappeared to and opened my mouth. Then I ran my tongue thoughtfully over my teeth and closed it.

Honestly, it’s really kind of startling how many problems that avoids. I should think about doing it more often.

“Well,” Butters said, in the tone of a man getting back to business. “The Paranet has sent out advance warning. Everyone’s been told to see something, say something. How about some details?”

I nodded and let him know what was up with the Accorded nations and their peace talks, and what had happened to Thomas.

He listened, his expression growing increasingly concerned. “That sounds, um, like it could get interesting.”

Something in his tone made me look up at him. “Oh?”

“Sanya’s in town,” Butters explained. “Hotel by the airport. He was just transferring through O’Hare, but his flight got delayed. Seven times.”

There were currently two Knights operating in the whole world. Two of them. And the Knights of the Sword (or Cross, depending on how you looked at their professional priorities) tended to wind up wherever they were needed most, always by pure coincidence. In fact, the coincidence was so freaking pure that it basically told me that it wasn’t. I have a dubious relationship with God—but judging from the timing of the entrances of the Knights He sponsored, He would have made one hell of a travel agent.

“Ah,” I said. “Um. Maybe Sanya could visit for a couple of days. You guys could swap some Knightly stories or something.”

Butters gave me a tight smile. “Right. How do I help you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve learned by now that you guys are gonna show up exactly where the Almighty wants you, and I’m probably smart not to bump anybody’s elbow. So it’s up to you. How do you think you’ll do the most good?”

He regarded me for a moment. Then he said quietly, “It’s the Paranet crowd I’m worried about.”

Magical talent is like the rest of it—not everybody gets the same amount. There are people like me who can sling around the forces of the universe as if they were their personal play toys. And then there are folks who, while gifted, just can’t do that much. The have-nots of the magical world had an unenviable position in life—aware of the world of the paranormal, but without sufficient personal power to affect it.

Until the Paranet, anyway. Use of the Internet had done something for the have-nots that nothing else had before—it had united them. Meeting people, making friends, coordinating activities, had all become more possible to do in relative safety, and it had created something just as powerful as tremendous inborn magical talent: a community. Supernatural predators were having less and less luck against the have-nots these days, as they coordinated actions, communicated with one another about possible threats—and joined their individually unimpressive talents into coordinated efforts that made them, in some senses, damned near as strong as a wizard themselves.

But though they had gathered enough strength to keep the vermin at bay, they still couldn’t stand against a storm like the one that was brewing.

“Agree,” I said quietly. “And they know you. Trust you. Work with them. Get all the intelligence you can and coordinate it with Murphy.”

“What about Thomas?” Butters didn’t know Thomas was my brother, but he knew he was an ally we’d fought beside on too many occasions to consider leaving him behind.

“What I’m working on,” I said. “Could be that a diplomatic solution is the best one.”

Butters slipped on the slime and nearly fell on his ass. He caught the countertop and held himself up instead. Then he stared at me, fighting back a smile, and said, “Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Dresden?”

I glowered at him and rose, careful to keep my balance amid the ectoplasm on the floor. It was already sublimating. Maybe half of it was gone. I shrugged back into my duster. “I don’t prefer to blow things up and burn things down. It just sort of works out that way.”

Butters nodded. “What’s your next move?”

“Diplomacy,” I said, “with a Vampire Queen.”

“You’re not going out to the château alone, are you?”

Château Raith was White Court headquarters in these parts. “Yeah.”

Butters sighed. “I’ll get my bag.”

“No need,” I told him. “Mab and Lara have a deal going, and Mab’s made it clear what Lara is and is not allowed to do. She’ll play nice.”

Butters frowned. “You sure?”

I nodded. “Rest up. Might need you for real in the next few days.”

He looked from me toward the bedroom, his conscience at war with the rest of him.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Good luck, Harry.”

“I only have one kind of luck.” I nodded my thanks to Butters, grabbed my staff, and set out to visit Lara Raith.

14

The Raith Estates are about an hour north of town, out in the countryside, where the nearest neighbor is too far away to hear you scream. The place is surrounded by a forest of old enormous trees, mostly oak, that look like they were transplanted from Sherwood Forest.

Hell, given how much money and power the White Court had, maybe they had been.

I pulled up to the gates of the estate in the Munstermobile to find them guarded by half a dozen men in full tactical gear and body armor. They weren’t kidding around. As I stopped the car, five men pointed assault rifles at me, and one approached the car. His spine was rigid, his shoulders square, his manner relaxed. Lara recruited her personal security almost exclusively from former military, mostly Marines.

The man who approached my car had a solid blend of the lean athleticism of youth and the weather-beaten edges of experience. He wasn’t even bothering with a friendly smile. I’d run into him before. His name was Riley.