Peace Talks (The Dresden Files 16)

“Easy,” Chandler said, his voice extremely calm and smooth. “Easy, everyone. Let’s not make this into something it doesn’t have to be.”

“What the hell is going on here, people?” I asked.

“We’re trying to help you, Harry,” Ramirez said, his voice like stone. “But you sure as hell aren’t making it easy.”

“Putting a tracker on me?” I asked, much more mildly than I felt at the moment. “Pulling over my car. Pointing weapons at me. You’ve got a damned peculiar idea of what help looks like, Carlos.”

“We have to know that you haven’t been compromised,” Chandler said in that same soothing tone. “Dresden, be reasonable. The last time a member of the Council operating at your level went bad, he bound the head of the Wardens under a geas, provided untold amounts of intelligence to our enemies resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, and summoned a mistfiend that could have wiped out most of the White Council.”

“You think I’m another Peabody,” I snarled.

“I think everyone here wants to show the Council that you aren’t,” Chandler said. He held up his hands helplessly. “We’re living in unstable times and playing for very high stakes, Harry.”

“We’re friends,” I said.

“Then let us be your friends,” Chandler said, his voice all but pleading.

“Yoshimo is just gathering evidence,” Ramirez said. “She isn’t going to hurt you.”

I clenched my jaw a couple of times.

The last time I’d faced off with this many Wardens, they’d been there to arrest me, after the death of Justin DuMorne. I’d been sixteen. I remember how frightening those grim spartan figures had been.

And those people hadn’t been through a war like these guys had. Fighting like mad against a relentless Red Court, always on the back foot, struggling to survive—and eventually turning the tide to a long and ugly stalemate. It was possible that I was looking at the most combat-experienced, dangerous team of Wardens on the planet.

I knew them.

They knew me.

A fight between us would be something swift and ugly, and no one would play fair or pull punches. I’d taught them better than that.

“Bear in mind,” I said in a very quiet voice, “that any spell you cast upon me, you’re also casting upon Mab’s left hand and personal headsman. If this is a sucker punch, she might take it personally. She might even get angry about it.”

For several seconds after that, you could hear the trees breathing. Wild Bill and Chandler traded a look.

“Do it,” Ramirez said.

Yoshimo lowered her rifle until it hung from its strap. Then she lifted her hands, made a few sharp-cornered passes with them, and murmured something low and harsh sounding. There was, as I had expected, a fluttering of breeze around me in time with the movements of her hands, and then a rush of air and a reciprocal fluttering around Yoshimo. She made a few more precise, geometric movements with her hands, and the air around her flickered with sparkles of red and amber light. Yoshimo studied the flickers for a moment and frowned, then slashed a hand at the air and ended the spell. She looked away from me.

“Well?” Ramirez said.

“He’s been with at least one sexual partner in the past several hours,” Yoshimo said. Her voice was smooth and calm on the surface, but there was boiling, acidic anger underneath.

And, as I realized what they’d been doing, my own anger started swelling dangerously. The Council had poked its nose in my business my entire adult life. It didn’t need to start poking it there. My heart started beating faster.

“Who was it?” Ramirez asked me, voice hard.

“The nerve,” I snarled.

“Was it Lara?” he pressed. His jaw set like stone. “Harry, has she gotten to you?”

My fingers tightened on my staff until the wood creaked. “You’re crossing a goddamned line, Carlos.”

“Harry,” Chandler began, his tone soothing. He reached out to put a companionable hand on my shoulder.

I struck it away.

Chandler hissed and withdrew his arm, holding it close to his body.

“We have to know, Dresden,” Ramirez said. “Who did you sleep with tonight?”

“Because your sex life is a disaster, you pull this crap on me,” I growled.

Carlos’s face drained of color, but his expression never changed. “Believe it. Who?”

“Suddenly I remember why I have authority issues,” I said. “Go fuck yourself, Ramirez. And tell whoever ordered you to do this to me to pound sand while you’re at it.”

“Captain Luccio ordered me to do this,” Ramirez said quietly. “She’s still your friend. She wants to help you, too.”

“I don’t need this kind of help,” I said. “We’re supposed to be on the same side.”

“We are,” Chandler said emphatically. Then his face fell. “ Unless … we aren’t, I suppose.”

“Every word I’ve said to you is true,” I snapped. Or at least not a lie. “I’ve had enough bullshit from the White Council for one night.”

“Harry, let’s sort this out with the captain,” Chandler said. “Come back to Edinburgh with us. Let’s talk this out, yes?”

It was a rational suggestion, and it was completely unacceptable—because Thomas did not have time for me to spend a full day in a hostile debriefing back in Edinburgh. Those things were thorough and exhausting. It was possible that I’d gone through them maybe once or twice.

That gave me little choice.

“I’ve been talking,” I said. “You aren’t listening. The problem is on your end.” I glared at Ramirez. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Get out of the road. Or arrest me.” I grounded my staff and shook my shield bracelet clear of my sleeve. “If you can.”

Things got real quiet. No one took their eyes off me, but everyone’s attention was on Ramirez.

He exhaled slowly. Then he said, “My God, Harry, you don’t make it easy, do you?”

“Of the two of us here,” I said, “which of us has definitely wronged the other? You suspect that I might have done something wrong. You’ve definitely wronged me, trying to find out. And you did it first.”

“We’ve both done things we’d rather not have, as Wardens,” he answered. “That’s the job.” He shook his head and, leaning heavily on the cane, limped out of the road. “Six o’clock tomorrow, security meeting at the Four Seasons before the mixer. We’re registered under McCoy.”

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “I’m still on the team, eh?”

“Keep your friends close,” Ramirez said.

I huffed out a breath in a parody of a laugh and turned back toward the Munstermobile.

“Harry,” Ramirez said.

I paused without looking back at him.

“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “I hope I need to apologize to you later. God, I would love to do that. Please believe that much is true.”

For a second, I felt nothing but tired.

Secrets are heavy, heavy things. Carry around too many of them for too long and the weight will crush the life out of you.