White Night (The Dresden Files 9)

Murphy shook her head. "And you were able to set him up for it?"

"You have to have three current members of the Accords vouch for you to sign on," I said. "I told him I'd be one of them."

"You can speak for the Council in this?"

"When it comes to defending and protecting my area of responsibility as a Warden, I damned well can. If the Council doesn't like it, they shouldn't have dragooned me into the job."

Murphy chewed on some Cheerios, scrunched up her nose in thought, and then gave me a shrewd look. "You're using Marcone."

I nodded. "It's only a matter of time before someone like Lara Raith tries to push for more power in Chicago. Sooner or later they'll swamp me in numbers, and we both know SI will always have their hands tied by red tape and politics. If Marcone signs the Accords, he'll have a strong motivation to oppose any incursion - and the means to do so."

"But he's going to use his new means to secure his position here even more firmly," Murphy said quietly. "Make new allies, probably. Gain new resources."

"Yeah. He's using me, too." I shook my head. "It isn't a perfect solution."

"No," Murphy said. "It isn't"

"But he's the devil we know."

Neither of us said anything for several minutes.

"Yes," Murphy admitted. "He is."

Murphy dropped me off at the hospital and I headed straight for Elaine's room.

I found her inside, dressing. She was just pulling a pair of jeans up over strong, slender legs that looked just as good as I remembered. When I opened the door, she spun, thorn-wand in hand.

I put my hands up and said, "Easy there, gunslinger. I'm not looking for any trouble."

Elaine gave me a gentle glare and slipped the wand into a small leather case that clipped to the jeans. She did not look well, but she looked a lot weller than she had the last time I'd seen her. Her face was still quite pale and her eyes were sunken and bruised, but she moved with brisk purpose for all of that. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that," she said.

"If I'd knocked, I might have woken you up."

"If you'd knocked, you'd have missed out on an outside chance of seeing me getting dressed," she shot back.

"Touche." I glanced around and spotted her bag, all packed. My stomach twisted a little in disappointment. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

She shook her head. "Have you ever tried to watch daytime television? I was glad when the set finally blew. I'd lose my mind just lying here."

"How you feeling?"

"A lot better," Elaine said. "Stronger. Which is another reason to leave. I don't want to have a nightmare and have my powers kill some poor grampa's respirator."

I nodded. "So it's back to California?"

"Yes. I've done enough damage for one trip."

I folded my arms and leaned against the door, watching her brush back her hair enough to get it into a tail. She didn't look at me when she asked, "Did you get them?"

"Yeah," I said.

She closed her eyes, shivered, and exhaled. "Okay." She shook her head. "That shouldn't make me feel better. It won't help Anna."

"It will help a lot of other people in the long run," I said.

She abruptly slammed the brush against the rail of the bed, snapping it. "I wasn't here trying to help a lot of other people, dammit." She glanced down at the brush's handle and seemed to deflate for a moment. She tossed it listlessly into a corner.

I went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "This just in. Elaine isn't perfect. News at eleven."

She leaned her cheek on my hand.

"You should know," I said. "I got reparations out of the White Court. A weregild for their dependents."

She blinked at me. "How?"

"My boyish charm. Can you get me contact information for the victims' families? I'll get somebody to get the money to them."

"Yes," she said. "Some of them didn't have any dependents. Like Anna."

I grunted and nodded. "I thought we might use that money to build something."

Elaine frowned at me. "Oh?"

I nodded. "We use the money. We expand the Ordo, build a network of contacts. A hotline for middle-class practitioners. We contact groups like the Ordo in cities all around the country. We put the word out that if people are in some kind of supernatural fix, they can get word of it onto the network. Maybe if something like this starts happening again, we can hear about it early and stomp on the fire before it grows. We teach self-defense classes. We help people coordinate, cooperate, support one another. We act."

Elaine chewed on her lip and looked up at me uncertainly. "We?"

"You said you wanted to help people," I said. "This might. What do you think?"

She stood up, leaned up onto her toes, and kissed me gently on the lips before staring into my eyes, her own very wide and bright. "I think," she said quietly, "that Anna would have liked that."

Ramirez woke up late that evening, swathed in bandages, his injured leg in traction, and I was sitting next to his bed when he did. It was a nice switch for me. Usually I was the one waking up into disorientation, confusion, and pain.

I gave him a few minutes to get his bearings before I leaned for-ward and said, "Hey, there, man."

"Harry," he rasped. "Thirsty."

Before he was finished saying it, I picked up the little sports bottle of ice water they'd left next to his bed. I put the straw between his lips and said, "Can you hold it, or should I do it for you?"

He managed a small glare, fumbled a hand up, and held on to the bottle weakly. He sipped some of the water, then laid his head back on the pillow. "Okay," he said. "How bad is it?"

"Alas," I said. "You'll live."

"Where?"

"Hospital," I said. "You're stable. I've called Listens-to-Wind, and he's going to come pick you up in the morning."

"We win?"

"Bad guys go boom," I said. "The White King is still on his throne. Peace process is going to move ahead."

"Tell me."

So I gave him the battle's last few minutes, except for Lash's role in things.

"Harry Dresden," Ramirez murmured, "the human cannonball."

"Bam, zoom, right to the moon."

He smiled a little. "You get Cowl?"

"Doubt it," I said. "He was right by his gate. When he saw me running for the exit, ten to one he just stepped back through it and zipped it shut. In fact, I'm pretty sure he did. If there'd been an open gate there, the blast would have been able to spread into it. I don't think we would have been thrown so far."