Peace Talks (The Dresden Files 16)

About eight million people would react with panic. With terror. With violence.

And my daughter would be in the middle of it.

The very thought gave my feet wings.

Only two things kept me from going to her. First, where she was staying. She was a guest in the house of Michael Carpenter, and under his protection. And that meant that while she was there, she had a mostly retired hero and a squad of literal guardian angels looking out for her. I don’t care how badass you might be, even on the kind of scales I use—you don’t want to tussle with an angel. Those beings are absolute forces of the universe, and they are freaking Old Testament.

Tangling with one would be less like getting into a street fight than like getting into a fight with the street—it’s difficult to picture, you’re almost certain to look incredibly foolish, and however you approach that fight, things are probably not going to go your way. Maggie could hardly be in a safer place in the city than under their protection.

And the second reason was my brother. I had been trying to keep cool while we executed the rescue plan, but I was terrified for him. He was in bad shape. I could … not save him, exactly, but I could keep him alive, on the island. That was the whole point. Out there, I had a lot more say about what happened. Out there, I could keep him shielded from tracking magic, from deadly spells, from hostile sendings, could forbid the presence of the svartalves and enforce it. Out there, he’d have a chance.

With luck, I could save my brother and make it back to town before Ethniu and Corb did. I hated the thought, but the imminent attack ought to provide us with a damned fine distraction. We just had to get him to the island before anyone caught us.

But he wasn’t there yet.

I rounded the last corner at my best pace, feet pounding hard against the concrete, dashed across the street, and made it to the entrance of the docks at Burnham Harbor, where the Water Beetle was moored. I flew through the gates, guided through the dark by the white paint on the stairs and floorboards of the walkway. There was no one else here, no one else trying to get away from the city.

Not yet.

My footsteps on the dock hammered out over the open water, loud and clear, and I didn’t bother trying to be quiet. Speed was everything.

I flew down the last length of dock to the boat and saw green glowing light coming from belowdecks and from the cabin. The Water Beetle was a worn-out little old blue-water fishing trawler, pretty much a twin to the Orca in Jaws. As I slowed, panting, my footsteps got even louder, and Freydis’s slim form appeared on the deck, holding a green chemical emergency light in her hand. Murphy came limping out of the cabin a second later, her P90 riding on its harness across her chest, holding a second glow light.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Harry,” she breathed. “That blast of light. Was it an EMP?”

“Or a hex,” I said. “Or both. Where’s Lara?”

“She took Thomas below,” Murphy said, her voice tense. “He’s in rough shape.”

I nodded and put a foot on the gangplank. “Okay, then let’s—”

And from behind me came a deep, warbling, throbbing hum, like nothing I’d heard before.

My dad, the illusionist. I slipped the dark opal ring I’d gotten from Molly off my hand and palmed it.

Then I turned.

Hovering maybe twenty feet up, with his feet planted firmly on a stone the size of a Buick, was the Blackstaff, Ebenezar McCoy. One hand was spread out to one side for balance, fingers crooked in a mystic sign, sort of a kinetic shorthand for whatever spell was keeping that boulder in the air.

The other gripped his staff, carved with runes like mine, and they glowed with sullen red-orange energy. His face had twisted into a rictus of cold, hard fury. Flickers of static electricity played along the surface of the stone.

“You fool,” he said. “You damned fool.”

I put my feet back on the dock. Then I knelt down and tied my shoe.

“Boy,” he said. “They’re using you.”

I set the palmed ring down behind my heel, out of sight. Breathed a word in barely a whisper.

There was a moment of dizziness and then I stood up and faced my grandfather. I gathered in my will. The shield bracelet on my left wrist began drizzling a rain of green and gold sparks of light. The runes of my staff began to glow with the same energy.

“Sir,” I said. “What are your intentions?”

“To salvage something out of this mess, boy,” he snapped. “The jaws of the trap are already closing in. I’m going to open your eyes.” His gaze flicked past me to the ship, and a flicker of electricity along the stone made a thrumming crack like a miniature thunderbolt. “The vampire’s in there, isn’t he?”

“You haven’t seen him there,” I said. “You have no idea.”

“Don’t play games with me, boy,” the old man spat. “I’m not one of your new Fae friends. And I’m not a lawyer.”

“He’s working for me,” came a clear, calm voice.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Lara Raith, still dressed in her party gown, standing on the Water Beetle’s deck, arms akimbo. I didn’t see any weapons on her. I didn’t see where the dress would have allowed her to hide any weapons. But she stood there like she was ready to draw and fire, and all things considered I would judge it the better part of valor to assume the implied threat was valid.

“I worked with Mab on some visa issues some of her people were having,” Lara said. “She owed me a favor. He’s it.”

The old man’s gaze remained on mine for a moment, growing harder and hotter and more hostile. I saw the rage gathering behind his eyes, before he moved them, slowly, to Lara.

“Vampire,” he said, “the Accords are the only reason I haven’t relieved you of your arms and legs and kicked you into the lake. Your brother stands accused of murder. He’s going to answer for that.”

The voice that came out of my grandfather when he said that … I’d heard it before.

I’d been that voice before.

I thought of ghouls buried to their necks in the earth. I thought of the savage satisfaction that had filled me while I did it. Because they had done wrong, and I had seen them do it. To children. And to deliver just retribution for that crime had been to be the right arm of the Almighty Himself, to be filled with pure, righteous, unarguably just hatred.

My God, I knew how he felt. I knew how bright and pure that fire burned. But when it was happening, I hadn’t been able to feel it burning me.

I just had to live with the scars afterward.

The vampires of the White Court had hurt my grandfather to the heart. And he was determined that it would not happen again. And that they would pay for what they had done.

If Mab had been standing there advising me, she would have said something like, It is his weakness. Use it against him.

And she wouldn’t have been wrong.

Ebenezar glared his hatred at Lara, and I realized with a sinking heart that there was only one way this was going to play out. His eyes were full of hate. It made him blind. There wasn’t room in them for anything else.

“Cast off,” I said in a calm, firm voice, my eyes never leaving my grandfather. “Go ahead with the plan. I’ll catch up.”

“Dresden?” Lara asked. “Are you sure?”