Dead Beat (The Dresden Files 7)

"Yeah," I said.

"But that's... that's insane."

"So are these people," I said. "What you tell me could stop it from happening. It could save a lot of lives-not least of which is my own."

She folded her arms over her stomach as if chilled. Her face looked pale and worried. "I need the poems because I'm going to summon the Erlking before they can do it and make sure that I sidetrack him long enough to ruin their plans."

"Isn't that dangerous?" she asked.

"Not as dangerous as doing nothing," I said. "So now you know why. Will you help me?"

She fretted her lower lip, as though mulling it over, but her eyes were sparkling. "Say please."

"Please," I said.

Her smile widened. "Pretty please?"

"Don't push me," I half growled, but I doubt it came out very intimidating.

She smiled at me. "It might take me few minutes. I haven't looked at that book in some time. I'll have to prepare. Meditate."

"Is it that complicated?" I asked.

She sighed, the smile fading. "There's so much of it, sometimes my head feels like a library. I don't have a problem remembering. It's finding where I've put it that's a challenge. And not all of it is very pleasant to remember."

"I know what that's like," I said. "I've seen some things I would rather weren't in my head."

She nodded, and paced over to settle down on the couch next to me. She drew her feet up underneath her and wriggled a bit to get comfortable. The wriggling part was intriguing. I tried not to be too obviously interested, and fumbled my notebook and trusty pencil from my duster's pocket.

"All right," she said, and closed her eyes. "Give me a moment. I'll speak it to you."

"Okay," I said.

"And don't stare at me."

I moved my eyes. "I wasn't."

She snorted delicately. "Haven't you ever seen br**sts before?"

"I wasn't staring," I protested.

"Of course." She opened one eye and gave me a sly oblique glance. Then she closed her eyes with a little smile and inhaled deeply.

"That's cheating," I said.

She smiled again, and then her expression changed, her features growing remote. Her shoulders eased into relaxation, and then her eyes opened, dark, distant, and unfocused. She stared into the far distance for several moments, her breathing slowing, and her eyes started moving as if she were reading a book.

"Here it is," she said, her voice slow, quiet, and dreamy. "Peabody. He was the one to compile the various essays."

"I just need the poems," I said. "No need for the cover plate."

"Hush," she said. "This isn't as easy as it looks." Her fingers and hands twitched now and then while her eyes swept over the unseen book. I realized after a moment that she was turning the pages of the book in her memory. "All right," she said a minute later. "Ready?"

I poised my pencil over my notepad. "Ready."

She started quoting poetry to me, and I started writing it down. It wasn't in the first poem or the second, but in the third one I recognized the rhythms and patterns of a phrase of summoning, each line innocent on its own, but each building on the ones preceding it. With the proper focus, intent, and strength of will, the simple poem could reach out beyond the borders of the mortal world and draw the notice of the deadly faerie hunter known as the ErIking, the lord of goblins.

"That's the one," I said quietly. "I need you to be completely sure of your accuracy of recollection."

Shiela nodded, her eyes faraway. Her hand made a reverse of the page-turning motion she used and she spoke the poem to me again, more slowly. I double-checked that I'd written it all down correctly.

It doesn't do to mangle a summoning. If you get the words wrong, it can have all kinds of bad effects. Best-case scenario, the summoning doesn't work, and you pour all the effort into it for nothing. One step worse, a bungled summoning could call up the wrong being-maybe one that would be happy to rip off your face with its tentacle-laden, extendable maw. Finally, at the extreme end of negative consequences, the failed summons might call up the being you wanted-in this case the Erlking-only it would be insulted that you hadn't bothered to get it right. Uber-powerful beings of the spirit world had the kind of power and tempers that horror movies are made of, and it was a bad idea to get one of them mad at you.

If you called up a being incorrectly, there was very little you could do to protect yourself from them. That was the job hazard of summoning. If I chanted the Erlking to Chicago, I had to be damned sure I did it correctly, or it would be worth as much as my life.

"Once more," I told Shiela quietly when she was finished. I had to be sure.

She nodded and began again. I checked my written version. They all came out the same for the third time in a row, so I was as sure as I reasonably could be that it was accurate.

I stared at the notepad for a moment, trying to absorb the summoning, to remember its rhythm, the rolling sound of consonant and verb that were only incidentally related to language. This wasn't a poem-it was simply a frequency, a signal of sound and timing, and I committed it with methodical precision to memory, the same way I stored the precise inflections required to call upon a spirit being using its true name. In a sense, the poem was a name for the Erlking. He would respond to it in the same way.

When I looked up again a few moments later, I felt the gentle pressure of Shiela's gaze. She was watching me, her eyes worried. "You're either incredibly stupid or one of the most courageous men I've ever seen."

"Go with stupid," I said lightly. "In my experience, you can't go wrong assuming stupid."

"If you use the summoning," she said quietly, not smiling at my tone, "and something bad happens to you, I will be to blame."

I shook my head. "No," I said. "I know what I'm doing. It will be my own damned fault."

"I'm not sure that your acceptance can absolve me of responsibility," she said, frowning. "Is there anything else I can do to help you?"

"There's no need to offer," I said.

"Yes," she said earnestly. "There is. I need to know that I've done whatever I can. That if something happens to you, it won't be because of something I didn't do."

I studied her face for a moment, and found myself smiling. "You take this whole responsibility thing very seriously," I said.

"Is there some reason I shouldn't?" she asked.