Peace Talks (The Dresden Files 16)

I wanted to tell everyone to take a walk, talk to Ramirez alone, and tell him everything. Carlos was a good man. He’d do the right thing. But the professional paranoia of the White Council made that impossible. Hell, if they thought I’d been subverted, they would regard the fact that I wanted to talk to him alone as proof that I was, myself, trying to isolate Ramirez so that he could be subverted as well. The other Wardens might not even let me have the conversation. And even if I did, if Carlos really thought I’d been made into someone’s sock puppet, he might talk with me and report everything I’d said back to the Council in an effort to discover what disinformation I’d been trying to give them. If he knew I meant to free Thomas, he’d have excellent reason to have me detained, to prevent an incident that could rapidly spiral out of control.

Fear is a prison. But when you combine it with secrets, it becomes especially toxic, vicious. It puts us all into solitary, unable to hear one another clearly.

“You are,” I said tonelessly. “You do.”

Then I got into my car and got moving again.

Alone.

16

I was tired and sick, which isn’t the best frame of mind to be in when you’re doing detail-oriented work, but I wasn’t sure how else to proceed.

Screw it. If I had to do this alone, I would.

I started planning ahead.

So after eating some fast food, I stopped at the trucker station at the highway and bought a shower. I rinsed off meticulously and at length, until I was sure that Ramirez’s tracking spell had lost its hold on me. I also scrubbed off the ink spot, along with a couple of layers of skin so that he wouldn’t be able to get it to lock on again. Once that was done, I made some purchases and headed back out.

I needed some isolation, so I picked a random direction away from the crowds and started following my instincts, doing so until I was damned sure I wasn’t being physically followed. I wound up at the Illinois Beach State Park as the sky in the east was just turning deep blue after several hours of black. It’s about seven miles of the shoreline of Lake Michigan, mostly pebbles and dunes and marshes with low scrub brush and the occasional larger stand of trees. I found parking in a church lot not too far from the park, took my stuff, and headed in. The park wasn’t due to open until well after sunrise, so I’d have to keep an eye out for rangers and other amateur meddlers. The professionals were at work here.

Which was just as well—when you summon a powerful extradimensional being, you’re taking on a lot of responsibility.

First of all, you’re bringing something powerful and dangerous into the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to call down an angel or whistle up one of the Fallen; you’ve got to take that into account. Even benevolent beings, if they’re big enough, can kill you without even realizing it’s happening until it’s too late. Malicious creatures are going to want to kill you as a matter of course. So location is pretty important, so you can maybe have a chance to run for it, first of all. If you can get a location that somehow parallels the nature of the creature you’re summoning, it gives you an edge against them, costs less energy to bring them in.

Next, containment. In keeping with the theme of part one, you need some way to make sure that the thing you’re calling can’t just get out and do as it pleases. Most things will simply leave, rendering all that travel to the middle of nowhere a waste of time.

Finally, you need some motivation. Beings from beyond the mortal world don’t generally work for free. After you talk them out of either leaving or murdering you outright, you’ll need something to sweeten the pot.

I found the perfect spot after I’d hiked all the way in and reached the lakeshore, with the light changing, announcing the approach of dawn without actually getting any brighter. I wound up at the base of a spit of sandy, pebbly beach that met harshly with a stand of thick trees. At the base of the largest tree were the crumbled remains of a clearly illegal tree house someone had built a decade or two in the past. I could still find what was left of slats that had been nailed into the tree trunk to provide an improvised ladder up.

Perfect.

I set my bag of things down and began laying them out in a circle I drew in the sandy soil with my staff. At the top of the circle went a storm candle and a magazine featuring an image of the weirdest female pop singer operating at the time—she was wearing an outfit made mostly out of old tires and did not look any too warm. The next candle featured a can of cold Dr Pepper. I popped it open and listened to it hiss out the pressure, then crackle in the quiet of predawn, bubbles bubbling enthusiastically. Beside the next candle, I placed a watermelon Ring Pop in its plastic wrapper. I opened the wrapper, leaving the jewel-like candy atop it, and the smell of its sweetness and the tangy scent of artificial watermelon filled the air.

The next candle featured a sheet of coarse sandpaper, rough side up. I laid my hand on it and moved my palm slowly over the grit and adhesive, feeling it tear gently at my skin. And beside the fifth and last candle went a jar of Nutella.

I double-checked the positioning of the ingredients, made sure the circle was closed, and then leaned down and touched it with one finger and an effort of will. The energy whirled about the circle in the sand and sprang up at once in an invisible curtain, enclosing the ground within it, cutting off the circle’s interior from the mortal world behind an insulative firewall.

Then I closed my eyes, cleared my head, and began whispering a Name.

“Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter,” I chanted rhythmically, “I call you.”

The candles flickered and danced, though there was no wind. Their colors began to shift and change, seemingly at random, through the spectrum.

“Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter,” I whispered, “I need you.”

Behind me, the trees exploded with movement, and I flinched and whirled. A flock of vultures, disturbed from their evening rest, burst into the air, wings flapping in miniature thunder. It took them several seconds to clear out, and then they were gone into the darkness of the air, leaving behind jitters and a few falling black feathers.

I took a deep breath and braced my will. “Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter,” I said, louder and firmer. “We need to talk. Come on, Molls.”

At the third Naming, energy rushed out of me and into the circle. The candles there burst into showers of sparks in a dozen colors, and I had to blink my eyes and look away.

When I looked back, the youngest Queen of Faerie stood in the circle of power.

Molly Carpenter was a tall young woman, and when I looked at her, I always thought of swords and knives, these days. She’d gone very lean, living on the streets and fighting the incursions of the Fomor, back when I’d been mostly dead, and though her situation had improved, apparently her diet hadn’t. Her cheekbones looked like something the TSA would be nervous about letting onto a plane, and that leanness extended to her neck, creating shadows that were a little too deep and sharp. Her blue eyes had always been beautiful, but were they a hint more oblique than they had been, or was that just clever makeup?

The Winter Lady wore a grey business skirt suit with sensible heels and stood with one hip shot out to one side, her fist resting on it. Her silver-white hair was drawn back into a painstakingly neat braid that held it close to her head with no strands escaping. Her expression was nonplussed, and she held a smoldering cell phone in one hand.