Turn Coat (The Dresden Files 11)

Chapter Forty

We worked for three hours before I started dropping things, tripping on nice flat ground, and bumping into other people because I'd forgotten to keep an eye out for them.

"That's it, Harry," Georgia said firmly. "Your sleeping bag is in the cottage. Get some more sleep."

"I'll be all right," I said.

"Harry, if anything happens to you, we aren't going to have anyone we know looking out for us. You need to be able to focus. Go rest."

It sounded awfully good, but my mouth opened on its own. "We've still got to lay out the-"

Will had come up behind me in complete silence. He pulled my arm behind my back in a capable, strong grip, and twisted carefully. It didn't hurt, until he leaned gently into me and I had to move forward to keep the pressure off. "You heard the lady," he said. "We can finish the rest of it on our own. We'll wake you up if anything happens."

I snorted, twisted at the waist, bumping Will off balance with my hip, and broke the lock. Will could have broken my arm and kept hold of me, but instead he let go before it could happen. "All right, all right," I said. "Going."

I shambled into the cottage and collapsed onto a sleeping bag that lay on top of a foam camp pad.

Four hours later, when Will shook me awake, I was lying in the exact same position. Late-afternoon light slanted into the half-ruined cottage from the west. Morgan lay on his own pallet, made by stripping the foam mattress from the bunk on the Water Beetle. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady. Will must have carried him up from the boat.

"Okay," I slurred. "I'm up. I'm up."

"Georgia has been patrolling the shoreline," he said. "She says there's a boat approaching."

My heart began beating a little faster, and my stomach fluttered. I swallowed, closed my eyes for a moment, and imagined a tranquil tropical beach in an effort to calm my thoughts. But the beach kept getting overrun by shapeshifting zombie vampires with mouths on the palms of their hands.

"Well, that's useless," I said in sleepy disgust. I got to my feet and gathered my things. "Where's it coming from?"

"West."

"He'll have to sail a third of the way around the island then, to get through the reefs," I yawned. "Where's Georgia?"

Claws scraped on hard-packed earth, and a large tawny wolf appeared in the doorway. She sat down and looked at me, her ears perked forward.

"Good work," I told her. "Molly?"

"Here, Harry," she called, as she hurried into the cottage. She held a crystal of white quartz about two inches thick and a foot long in her hands.

"Get to work, grasshopper. Don't hesitate to use the crystal if things get dicey. And good luck to you."

She nodded seriously and went to Morgan's side. She reached out and took his limp hand, frowned in mild concentration, and they both vanished behind one of her wonder veils. "God be with you, Harry," she said, her voice coming out of nowhere.

"Will," I said. "Get your game face on." I turned to Will to find the young man gone and a burly dark-furred wolf sitting in his place next to a pile of loose clothes. "Oh," I said. "Good."

I checked my gear, my pockets, my shoelaces, and realized that I had crossed the line between making sure I was ready and trying to postpone the inevitable. I straightened my back, nodded once, and began to stride toward the cottage door. "Let's go, people. Party time."

It was getting darker over the enormous expanse of the lake. Twilight is a much different experience when you're far away from the lights of a city or town. Modern civilization bathes us in light throughout the hours of darkness-lighted billboards, streetlights, headlights, airplane lights, neon decorations, the interior lights of homes and businesses, floodlights that strobe across the sky. They're so much a part of our life that the darkness of night is barely a factor in our daily thinking anymore. We mock one another's lack of courage with accusations of being afraid of the dark, all the while industriously making our own lights brighter, more energy efficient, cheaper, and longer-lasting.

There's power in the night. There's terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to makes us cry out in fear.

Get a good ways out from civilization-say, miles and miles away on a lightless lake-and the darkness is there, waiting. Twilight means more than just time to call the children in from playing outside. Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood. Night is when unseen beings with no regard for what our people have built and no place in what we have deemed the natural order look in at our world from outside, and think dark and alien thoughts.

And sometimes, just sometimes, they do things.

I walked down the ancient hillsides of Demonreach and felt acutely aware of that fact; night wasn't falling, so much as sharpening its claws.

I walked out to the end of the floating dock alone. Billy and Georgia remained behind, in the woods. You would not believe how sneaky a wolf is capable of being until you've seen one in action. Wolves acting with human-level intelligence-and exceptional human intelligence at that-are all but invisible when they choose to be.

A boat was rounding the buoy that marked the opening in the reef. It was a white rental boat, like any number available to tourists in the area, a craft about twenty feet long and rigged for waterskiing. The wind had risen, coming in from the southwest, and the lake was getting choppier. The rental boat was wallowing a little, and bouncing irregularly against the waves, throwing up small shocks of spray.

I watched it come in over the last few hundred yards, until I could see who was on board. The boat was fairly new. Its engine made an odd, clattering noise, which served to identify the occupants. The White Council, it seemed, had arrived on time.

Ebenezar McCoy was at the wheel of the boat, his bald head shiny in the rain. Listens-to-Wind sat in the passenger seat, wearing a rain poncho, one hand gripping the side of the boat, the other holding on to the dashboard in front him. His weather-seamed face was grim.

In the center of the rear bench was a tiny figure in white silk embroidered with red flowers. Ancient Mai was Chinese, and looked as delicate and frail as an eggshell teacup. Her hair was pure white and long, held up with a number of jade combs. Though she was now old, even by the standards of the White Council, she was still possessed of a sizable portion of what would have been a haunting, ethereal beauty in her youth. Her expression was serene, her dark eyes piercing and merciless.