Peace Talks (The Dresden Files 16)

The power of Demonreach was vast and terrible—and not much good for surgery. The only chance I’d have would be something that killed Freydis so fast that she didn’t have time to react, and the Valkyrie was damned quick. I’d be aiming trees (for God’s sake, I should have practiced smashing things with trees) at targets on a floating, bobbing platform, and an inch’s difference in any direction could mean Murphy’s life or death.

So I backed off, the trees groaning threateningly as they retreated.

“Trade time, seidrmadr,” Freydis called to me. “Yours for mine.”

“Why should I?” I called back.

Freydis tightened her hand, and I saw Murphy tense up with pain.

“This is not the fight that is destined to be her last,” the Valkyrie called. “Unless you make me kill her.”

Murphy simply lifted her arms. There were a couple of clinking sounds, and a pair of metal bits flew up from her hands and arched out to either side of the Water Beetle, landing in the water with little splashes.

They were little metal handles. Soldiers called them spoons.

Murphy was holding a live grenade to either side of their heads.

Freydis’s eyes went very wide.

“Frags,” Murphy said calmly. “Your move, bitch.”

There was an instant of frozen silence.

“Gods, that’s hot,” Freydis said, and blurred as she dove over the railing, hitting the water like a thrown spear.

Murphy turned and pitched the grenades over the far side of the Water Beetle. She had to lob one of them underhand, with her wounded arm. They hit the drink maybe seven or eight yards out, and a couple of seconds later they went off with a roar of displaced liquid that sent a geyser of water twenty feet in the air.

I ignored that. The frags were no danger to anything when they were surrounded by that much water, and instead I tracked the evasive Valkyrie, until I found her.

I raised my voice and called out to where Freydis had tried to swim silently back to shore in the shadows and shelter of some huge old shaggy willows. She came out of the water and picked up a rock and was about to start through the trees and rocks on a least-time course for the back of my skull.

“Hey, Red!” I called. “Your client is fine, there’s no reason to fight me, and if you make me spend what’s left of my money on weregild for your boss, I’m going to be really annoyed.”

Freydis paused in the darkness in confusion. I didn’t blame her. There was no way I could have seen her from where I was standing, no way I could have heard her stealthy movements. But while I stood on Demonreach, I was as aware of the island as of my own body. I could have chucked a rock, bounced it off a couple of trees, and landed it right on the Valkyrie’s head.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words. I lifted a hand and willed the earth of the island to cooperate. Freydis found herself sunk to her waist in the ground in the space of a heartbeat. I heard her let out a short choked sound.

“See?” I called to her. “This is … just a terrible idea. Just awful. For you, I mean. Maybe we can talk instead.”

Freydis’s voice came out a little breathless. “Lara?”

I looked at Lara and made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Come on.”

“I’m alive,” Lara called back to her. Then she looked at me and said evenly. “You traitor.”

“Hey,” I said, lifting an annoyed finger. “I’m not the one who came running at you with a knife.”

“What did you do to him?” Lara asked, her voice cold and measured.

I’d heard the tone before. Back when I’d had to put the fear of, well, me, into a vampire named Bianca. We’d sort of been amicable opponents up until that point. Things changed when I’d made her feel helpless. Things had gotten a little complicated.

And I’d just repeated history.

Only Lara was smarter and stronger and a great deal more dangerous than Bianca had ever thought about being.

This was one of those situations where it would maybe be wise to use my words.

I walked over to Lara and settled down on my haunches next to her. “I did exactly what I said I would do,” I said. “He’s safe. Locator spells won’t be able to lock onto him here. His demon can’t hurt him. The svartalves can’t get to him. We did it.”

“I want to see him,” Lara hissed. “I want to talk to him.”

I rubbed at my eyes. “You can’t,” I said. I frowned and reached for my intellectus of the island.

I felt what my brother felt. Which was not much. There was distant pain, but mostly he had simply sunk into an exhausted stupor. His mind had been overwhelmed by physical stimuli. Now he sought blessed shelter in oblivion. “He’s … unconscious.”

She stared at the middle distance, refusing to look up at me. “Unconscious?”

“He’s locked in one of the cells,” I said. “He’s safe. But he’s stuck, too. And right now he’s exhausted. Resting.”

“You never said anything about locking him in a cell.”

“I said he’d have to stay here.”

Lara let out a small bitter laugh. “You did. And you kept your word. To think I believed you’d come into Mab’s service as a result of misfortune rather than aptitude.”

I winced at that one.

Ow.

“You’ve made your point, I believe, Dresden,” Lara said somewhat stiffly. “The current balance of power does not favor me. Is it really necessary to keep me in this … position?”

“Are you done with the knife play?” I asked.

“I am ready to negotiate rationally,” she said.

I gave her a professionally suspicious look.

Her poker face was much better than mine.

“Fine,” I said. I stepped back and gestured.

The ground just sort of slid away from her, bringing her back to her feet without any effort needed on her part. As her right hand came free, she lifted a small practical knife that she’d been hiding … somewhere. She put it back into the sheath she held in the other hand and then tossed the knife down onto the ground between us.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I’d appreciate it if we could deal frankly with one another at this point.”

“Sure,” I said.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“For what?”

“Don’t be coy, Dresden,” Lara said. “You hold my brother’s life in your hand now. What is your price?”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Wait—you think that … Wow.”

She tilted her head.

“Lara, look,” I said. “I’m slowly growing more aware of things, but … you’re giving me too much of what you probably think is credit. I don’t play the game like that.”

“A cursory review of your defeated foes begs to differ, wizard.”

“I’ll play hardball,” I acknowledged. “But I play it clean. Or at least, I don’t sell my own damned brother up the river for gain.”

“You’re not that much of an idealist, Dresden,” Lara said with a faint hard smile on her mouth. “At the end of the day, you’ll commit genocide if you think it’s the proper thing to do.”