Page 22 of Changes (The Dresden Files 12)

Chapter 22

I needed sleep.

I rode back to my place with Molly in the midmorning. Mouse came padding up the stairs from the apartment as we got out of the car, his alert, wary stance relaxing into the usual waving of a doggy tail and enthusiastic sniffs and nudges of greeting. I shambled on into my apartment calmly. All was obviously well.

Susan and Martin were both inside, both busy, as Mister looked on from his lordly peak atop the highest bookshelf. Susan had been shaking out all the rugs and carpets that cover the floor of my living room, and was now rolling them back into place, probably not in the same order as they had been before. She picked up one end of a sofa with a couple of fingers of one hand to get an edge into place.

Martin was alphabetizing my bookshelves.

They used to kill men for sacrilege like that.

I suppressed my twitches as best I could, and told myself that they thought they were helping.

"Success," Susan said. "Or at least a little of it. Our people found out exactly who is tailing us up here."

"Yeah?" I asked. "Who?"

"The Eebs," she said.

Molly came in and frowned severely at what they were doing. Granted, the place was kind of a mess after the FBI and cops got done, but still. She was probably as used to the place as I was. "Sounds like the Scoobies, only less distinctive."

Martin shook his head. "Esteban and Esmerelda Batiste," he clarified. "One of the husband-wife teams the Red Court uses for fieldwork."

"One of?" I asked.

"Couples traveling together attract less attention," Susan said. "They're often given the benefit of the doubt in any kind of judgment call made by various officers of the law. It smooths things out a little more than they would be otherwise."

"Hence you and Martin," I said.

"Yes," said Martin. "Obviously."

"Esteban and Esmerelda are notorious," Susan said. "They're unorthodox, difficult to predict, which is saying something when you're talking about vampires. They'll throw away their personnel, too, if that is what it takes to get results. Personally, I think it's because they have some kind of gruesome variation of love for each other. Makes them more emotional."

"They have complementary insanities," Martin said. "Don't dignify it with anything more."

"The one you said got away, Harry?" Susan said. "Esteban, probably. He rabbits early and often, which probably explains why he's still alive. Esmerelda would have been the spotter on top of a nearby building - also the one who probably triggered the explosives."

"Gotta figure they're behind the hit outside the FBI building, too," I said. "Tinted windows on the car. Shooter was way back inside the backseat, away from the window."

"Maybe, sure," Susan said. "They'll suit up in all-over coverage and head out in the daytime if they think it's really necessary."

I grunted. "So Esteban and Esmerelda . . ."

"Eebs," Susan said firmly.

"So the Eebs aren't really fighters. They're planners. Fair to say?"

"Very much so," said Martin. There might have been a faint note of approval in his voice.

I nodded. "So they and their vampire gang were supposed to follow you, only when they saw you heading into the data center, they were forced to do more than shadow you. They tried to protect the data. All rational."

Susan began to frown and then nodded at me.

"Of course," Martin said. "Difficult to predict but never stupid."

"So why," I said, "if they were here operating under orders from the duchess to foil your efforts, would they take the trouble to try an assassination on me?"

Martin opened his mouth, and then closed it again, frowning.

"I mean, Arianna wants to see me suffer, right? Thank God for clich¨¦d mind-sets, by the way. I can't do that if I'm dead. I go early, it cheats her of the fun."

"There's division in the ranks of the Red Court," Susan murmured. "It's the only thing that would explain it. Countervailing interests - and at the summit of their hierarchy, too."

"Or," Martin said, "it was not the" - he sighed - "Eebs . . . who made the attempt."

"But I haven't seen any of the other people who want to kill me lately," I said. "I saw the Eebs just the other night. They're the simplest explanation."

Martin tilted his head slightly in allowance. "But remember that what you have is a theory. Not a fact. You are not blessed with a shortage of foes, Dresden."

"Um, Harry?" Molly asked.

I turned to her.

"I don't know if I'm supposed to jump in with this kind of thing or not, but . . . if there's some sort of internal schism going on inside the Red Court . . . what if the kidnapping and so on is . . . like a cover for something else she's doing, inside her court? I mean, maybe it isn't all about you. Or at least, not only about you."

I stared at her blankly for a moment. "But for that to be true," I said, "I would have to not be the center of the universe."

Molly rolled her eyes.

"Good thought, grasshopper," I said. "Something to keep in mind. Maybe we're the diversion."

"Does it matter?" Susan asked. "I mean, as far as our interests go?"

I shrugged. "We'll have to see, I guess."

She grimaced. "If the Eebs are working for a different faction than Arianna, then there goes our only lead. I was hoping I could convince them to tell us where Maggie was being held."

"Worth a try in any case," Martin said. "If we can catch them."

"We could do that," I said. "Or we could make sure we've got Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢ staked out and grab her when the Reds bring her there for their ¨¹ber-magic shindig."

Susan whirled to face me, her eyes wide. "What?"

"They're pulling off their big ceremony at Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢," I said. I met Susan's eyes and nodded. "I found her. She'll be there. And we'll go get her."

Susan let out a fiercely joyful cry and pounced upon me clear from the other side of the room. The impact drove my back up against one of the bookshelves. Susan's legs twined around my waist and her mouth found mine.

Her lips were fever-hot and sweet, and when they touched mine silent fire spread out into my body and briefly consumed all thought. My arms closed around her - around Susan, so warm and real and . . . and so very, very here. My heart lurched into double time, and I started to feel a little dizzy.

Mouse's growl rolled through the room, sudden and deep in his chest.

"Rodriguez," Martin barked, his voice tense.

Susan's lips lifted from mine, and when she opened her eyes, they were solid black, all the way across - just like a Red vampire's. My lips and tongue still tingled at the touch of her mouth, a very faint echo of the insidious venom of one of the Reds. Bright red tattoos showed on her face, her neck, and winding down one arm. She stared at me for a moment, dazed, then blinked slowly and looked over her shoulder at Martin.

"You're close," he said, in a very quiet, very soothing voice. "You need to back down. You need to take some time to breathe."

Something like rage filled Susan's face for an instant. Then she shuddered, glancing from Martin to me and back, and then began disentangling herself from me.

"Sun's out, and it's warm," Martin said, taking her elbow gently. "Come on. We'll get some sun and walk and sort things out."

"Sun," Susan said, her voice still low and husky with arousal. "Right, some sun."

Martin shot me a look that he probably hoped would kill me, and then he and Susan left the apartment and walked up into the morning's light.

Molly waited until they were well away from the front door and said, "Well. That was stupid of you both."

I looked over my shoulder at her and frowned.

"Call it like I see it," my apprentice said quietly. "You know she has trouble controlling her emotions, her instincts. She shouldn't have been all over you. And you shouldn't have kissed her back." Her mouth tightened. "Someone could have gotten hurt."

I rubbed at my still-tingling lips for a moment and suppressed a flash of anger. "Molly . . ."

"I get it," she said. "I do. Look. You care about her, okay. Maybe even loved her. Maybe she loved you. But it can't be like that anymore." She spread her hands and said, "As messed up as that is, it's still the reality you have to live with. You can't ignore it. You get close to her, and there's no way for it to come out good, boss."

I stared hard at her, all the rage inside me coming out in my voice, despite the fact that I tried to hold it in. "Be careful, Molly."

Molly blanched and looked away. But she folded her arms and stood her ground. "I'm saying this because I care, Harry."

"You care about Susan?" I asked. "You don't even know her."

"Not Susan," she said. "You."

I took a step toward her. "You don't know a goddamned thing about me and Susan, Molly."

"I know that you already blame yourself for what happened to her," she said, spitting out the words. "Think about what it'll be like for her if she gets lost in a kiss with you and realizes, later, that she ripped your throat open and drank your blood and turned herself into a monster. Is that how you want your story, Susan and Harry, to end?"

The words made me want to start screaming. I don't know what kept me from lashing out at the girl.

Other than the fact that she would never believe me capable of such a thing.

And she was right. That might have something to do with it.

So I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and fought down the rage again. I was getting tired of that.

When I spoke, a moment later, my voice sounded raw. "Study with a wizard has made you manipulative."

She sniffed a couple of times, and I opened my eyes to see her crying silently. "N-no," she said. "That was my mom."

I made a sound of acknowledgment and nodded.

She looked at me, and made no move to wipe the tears from her face. "You look awful."

"I found out some things," I said.

She bit her lip. "It's bad. Isn't it."

I nodded. I said, "Real bad. We're . . ." I shook my head. "Without the Council's support, I don't see how it can be done."

"There's a way," she said. "There's always a way."

"That's . . . sort of the problem," I said. I looked at the hopelessly organized bookshelf nearest me. "I . . . think I'd like to be by myself for a while," I said.

Molly looked at me, her posture that of someone being careful, as if they're concerned that any move might shatter a delicate object. "You're sure?"

Mouse made a little whining noise in his throat.

"I'm not going to do anything desperate," I told her. Not yet, anyway. "I just need some time."

"Okay," she said. "Come on, Mouse."

Mouse watched me worriedly, but padded out of the apartment and up the stairs with Molly.

I went to my shower, started it up, stripped, and got under the cold water. I just stood there with it sheeting over me for a while and tried to think.

Mostly, I thought about how good Susan's mouth had felt. I waited for the cold water to sluice that particular thought down to a bearable level. Then I thought about Vadderung's warning about the Red Court.

I've taken on some tough customers in my time. But none of them had been godlike beings - or the remnants of them, or whatever the Lords of Outer Night and the Red King were. You couldn't challenge something like that in a direct confrontation and win. I might have powers, sure. Hell, on a good day I'd go along with someone who said that I was one of the top twenty or thirty wizards on the planet, in terms of sheer magical muscle. And my finesse and skill continued to improve. Give me a couple of hundred years and I might be one of the top two or three wizards on the planet.

Of course, if Marcone was right, I'd never make it that high. And the boss predator of the concrete jungle was not stupid. In fact, I'd say that there was an excellent chance I wouldn't live another two or three days.

I couldn't challenge the masters of the Red Court and win.

But they had my little girl.

I know. It shouldn't matter that she was my little girl in particular. I should have been just as outraged that any little girl was trapped in such monstrous hands. But it did matter. Maggie was my child, and it mattered a whole hell of a lot.

I stood in the shower until the cold water had muted away all the hormones, all the emotion, all the mindless power of blood calling to blood. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that three courses lay open to me.

The enemy was strong. So I could show up with more muscle on my side. I could round up every friend, every ally, every shady character who owed me a solid. Enough assistance could turn the tide of any battle - and I had no illusions that it would be a battle of epic proportions.

The problem was that the only people who would show up to that kind of desperate fight were my friends. And my friends would die. I would literally be using them to shield myself against the crushing power of the Red King and his court, and I had no illusions of what such a struggle would cost. My friends would die. Most of them. Hell, probably all of them, and me with them. Maybe I could get to the kid and get out, while my friends gave their lives to make it possible. But after that, then what? Spend my life running with Maggie? Always looking over my shoulder, never stopping in one place for longer than a few days?

The second thing I could do was to change the confrontation into something else. Find some way to sneak up close enough to grab the girl and vanish, skipping the whole doomed-struggle part of option one. That plan wouldn't require me to get my friends killed.

Of course, to pull it off, I'd have to find some way to get more clever and sneakier than beings with millennia of practice and experience at just such acts of infiltration and treachery. You didn't survive for as long as they had among a nation of predators without being awfully smart and careful. I doubted it would be as simple as bopping a couple of guards over the head, then donning their uniforms and sneaking in with my friends the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Woodsman.

(I had cast myself as the Scarecrow in that one. If I only had a brain, I'd be able to come up with a better plan.)

So, the stand-up fight with an all-star team was a bad idea. It probably wouldn't work.

The sneaky smash-and-grab at the heart of Red Court power was a bad idea. It probably wouldn't work, either.

And that left option three. Which was unthinkable. Or had been, a few days ago. Before I knew I was a father.

My career as a wizard has been . . . very active. I've smacked a lot of awfully powerful things in the kisser. I've mostly gotten away with it, though I bear the scars, physical and otherwise, of the times I didn't. A lot of the major players looked at me and saw potential for one kind of mayhem or another.

Some of them had offered me power.

A lot of power.

I mean, if I went out, right now, and gathered together everything I could - regardless of the price tag attached to it - it would change the game. It would make me more than just a hotshot young wizard. It would give my power an intensity, a depth, a scope I could hardly imagine. It would give me the chance to call upon new allies to fight beside me. It would place an almost unlimited number of new weapons at my disposal, open up options that could never otherwise exist.

But what about after?

I wouldn't have to go on the run with Maggie to protect her from the monsters.

I'd be one.

Maybe not that day. Maybe not that week. But one day before too long, the things I had taken into me would change me. And I probably wouldn't mind, even if I bothered to notice it happening. That was the nature of such power. You didn't feel it changing you.

There is no sensation to warn you when your soul turns black.

Option three shared one commonality with options one and two: I wouldn't survive it. Not as the man I was. The one who tried to make the world a little brighter or more stable. The one who tried to help, and who sometimes screwed things up. The one who believed in things like family, like responsibility, like love.

But Maggie might survive it. If I did it right - only to be orphaned again, in one way or another.

I felt so tired.

Maybe there isn't a way, whispered a voice in the back of my head.

I snapped the water off and reached for a towel. "Screw that kind of thinking, Dresden," I ordered myself. "There's a way through this. There's a way. You've just got to find it."

I dried myself off and stared intently at my stark, scarred, unshaven face in the mirror. It didn't look like the kind of face a child would love. Kid would probably start crying when she got a good look at me.

But it might be the kind of face that belonged to a man who could pull her safely out of a mob of bloodthirsty beasts. It was too early to throw in the towel.

I had no idea what I was going to do.

I just knew that I couldn't give up.

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