Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

I went along with him. "When they talk to me at all," I said. "About the only other Warden I ever see is Ramirez. Decent guy. I like him."

"That says a lot for him."

"That the Council's ticking time bomb has a good opinion of him?" I waited for Morgan and the Merlin to leave, but they paused a little way off, still talking. I stared at the gravel for a long time, and then said, much more quiedy, "That could have been me in there today. I could have been that kid."

"It was a long time ago," Ebenezar said. "You were barely more than a child."

"So was he."

Ebenezar's expression became guarded. "I'm sorry you had to see that business."

"Is that why it happened here?" I asked him. "Why come to Chicago for an execution?"

He exhaled slowly. "It's one of the great crossroads of the world, Harry. More air traffic comes through here than anywhere else. It's an enormous port city for shipping of any kind-trucks, trains, ships. That means a lot of ways in and out, a lot of travelers passing through. It makes it difficult for any observers from the Red Court to spot us or report our movements." He gave me a bleak smile. "And then there's the way Chicago seems to be inimical to the health of any vampire who comes here."

"That's a pretty good cover story," I said. "What's the truth?"

Ebenezar sighed and held up his hand in a conciliatory gesture. "It wasn't my idea."

I looked at him for a minute and then said, "The Merlin called the meeting here."

Ebenezar nodded and arched a shaggy grey brow. "Which means...?"

I chewed on my lower lip and scrunched up my eyes. It never helped me think any better, but that was no reason not to keep trying it. "He wanted to send me a message. Kill two birds with one stone."

Ebenezar nodded. "He wanted you stripped of your position as a Warden, but Luccio is still the technical commander of the Wardens, though Morgan commands in the field. She supported you and the rest of the Senior Council overruled him."

"Bet he loved that," I said.

Ebenezar chuckled. "I thought he was having a stroke."

"Joy," I said. "I didn't want the job to begin with."

"I know," he said. "You got rocks and hard places, boy. Not much else."

"So the Merlin figures he'll show me an execution and scare me into toeing the line." I frowned, thinking. "I take it there's no word on the attack last year? No one found with mysterious sums of money dumped into their bank accounts that would incriminate a traitor?"

"Not yet," Ebenezar said.

"Then with the traitor running around loose, all the Merlin has to do is wait for me to screw something up. Then he can call it treason and squish me."

Ebenezar nodded, and I saw the warning in his eyes-another reason to take the job he was offering. "He genuinely believes that you are a threat to the Council. If your behavior confirms his belief, he'll do whatever is necessary to stop you."

I snorted. "There was another guy like that once. Name of McCarthy. If the Merlin wants to find a traitor, he'll find one whether or not one actually exists."

Ebenezar scowled, a hint of a Scots burr creeping into his voice, as it did anytime he was angry, and he glanced at the Merlin. "Aye. I thought you should know."

I nodded, still without looking up at him. I hated being bullied into anything, but I didn't get the vibe that Ebenezar was making an effort to maneuver me into a corner. He was asking a favor. I might well help myself by doing him the favor, but he wasn't going to bring anything onto my head if I turned him down. It wasn't his style.

I met his eyes and nodded. "Okay."

He exhaled slowly and nodded back, silent thanks in his expression. "Oh. One other thing," he said, and passed me an envelope.

"What's this?"

"I don't know," he answered. "The Gatekeeper asked me to give it to you." The Gatekeeper. He was the quietest of the wizards on the Senior Council, and even the Merlin showed him plenty of respect. He was taller than me, which is saying something, and he stayed out of most of the partisan politics of the Senior Council, which says even more. He knew things he shouldn't be able to know-more so than most wizards, I mean-and as far as I could tell, he'd never been anything but straight with me.

I opened the envelope. A single piece of paper was inside. Letters in a precise, flowing hand read:

Dresden,

In the past ten days there have been repeated acts of black magic in Chicago. As the senior Warden in the region, it falls to you to investigate and find those responsible. In my opinion, it is vital that you do so immediately. To my knowledge, no one else is aware of the situation.

Rashid

I rubbed at my eyes. Great. More black magic in Chicago. If it wasn't some raving, psychotic, black-hatted bad guy, it was probably another kid like the one who'd died a few minutes ago. There wasn't a whole lot of in-between.

I was hoping for the murderous madman-sorry, political correction; madperson. I could deal with those. I'd had practice.

I didn't think I could handle the other.

I put the letter back in the envelope, thinking. This was between the Gatekeeper and me, presumably. He hadn't asked me publicly, or told Ebenezar what was going on, which meant that I was free to decide how to handle this one. If the Merlin knew about this and officially gave me the assignment, he'd make damned sure I didn't have much of a choice in how to handle it-and I'd have to do the whole thing under a microscope.

The Gatekeeper had trusted me to handle whatever was wrong. That was almost worse. Man.

Sometimes I get tired of being the guy who is supposed to deal with un-deal-withable situations.

I looked up to find Ebenezar squinting at me. The expression made his face a mass of wrinkles. "What?" I asked.

"You get a haircut or something, Hoss?"

"Uh, nothing new. Why?"

"You look..." The old wizard's voice trailed off thoughtfully. "Different."

My heartbeat sped up a little. As far as I knew, Ebenezar was unaware of the entity who was leasing out the unused portions of my brain, and I wanted to keep it that way. But though he had a reputation for being something of a magical brawler, his specialty the summoning up of primal, destructive forces, he had a lot more on the ball than most of the Council gave him credit for. It was entirely possible that he had sensed something of the fallen angel's presence within me.

"Yeah, well. I've been wearing the cloak of the people I spent most of my adult life resenting," I said. "Between that and being a cripple, I've been off my sleep for almost a year."