Blood Rites

Chapter Thirty-six

I sat in the silence of the old man's departure and felt a lot of things. I felt tired. I felt afraid. And I felt alone. The puppy sat up and displayed some of the wisdom and compassion of his kind. He wobbled carefully over to me, scrambled up onto my lap, and started licking the bottom of my chin.

I petted his soft baby fur, and it gave me an unexpected sense of comfort. Sure, he was tiny, and sure, he was just a dog, but he was warm and loving and a brave little beast. And he liked me. He kept on giving me puppy kisses, tail wagging, until I finally smiled at him and roughed up his fur with one hand.

Mister wasn't about to let a mere dog outdo him. The hefty torn promptly descended from his perch on my bookshelf and started rubbing himself back and forth under my hand until I paid attention to him, too.

"I guess you aren't nothing but trouble," I told the dog. "But I already have a furry companion. Right, Mister?"

Mister blinked at me with an enigmatic cat expression, batted the puppy off the couch and onto the floor, and promptly lost interest in me. Mister flowed back down onto the floor, where the puppy rolled to his feet, tail wagging ferociously, and began to romp clumsily around the cat, thrilled with the game. Mister flicked his ears with disdain and went back up onto his bookshelf.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. The world might be vicious and treacherous and deadly, but it couldn't kill laughter. Laughter, like love, has power to survive the worst things life has to offer. And to do it with style.

It got me moving. I dressed for trouble-black fatigue pants, a heavy wool shirt of deep red, black combat boots. I put on my gun belt with one hand, clipped my sword cane to the belt, and covered it with my duster. I made sure I had my mother's amulet and my shield bracelet, sat down, and called Thomas's cell phone.

The phone got about half of a ring out before someone picked it up and a girl's frightened voice asked, "Tommy?"

"Inari?" I asked. "Is that you?"

"It's me," she confirmed. "This is Harry, isn't it."

"For another few hours anyway," I said. "May I speak to Thomas, please?"

"No," Inari said. It sounded like she had been crying. "I was hoping this was him. I think he's in trouble."

I frowned. "What kind of trouble?"

"I saw one of my father's men," she said. "I think he had a gun. He made Thomas drop his phone in the parking lot and get into the car. I didn't know what I should do."

"Easy, easy," I said. "Where was he taken from?"

"The studio," she said, her voice miserable. "He gave me a ride here when we heard about the shooting. I'm here now."

"Is Lara there?" I asked.

"Yes. She's right here."

"Put her on, please."

"Okay," Inari said.

The phone rustled. A moment later Lara's voice glided out of the phone and into my ear. "Hello, Harry."

"Lara. I know your father is behind the curse on Arturo, along with Arturo's wives. I know they've been gunning for his fianc§ڥ so that Raith can get Arturo back under his control. And I have a question for you."

"Oh?" she said.

"Yeah. Where is Thomas?"

"It excites me when a man is so subtle," she said. "So debonair."

"Better brace yourself, then," I said. "I want him in one piece. I'm willing to kill anyone who gets in the way. And I'm willing to pay you to help me."

"Really?" Lara said. I heard her murmur something, presumably to Inari. She waited a moment, I heard a door close, and the tone of her voice changed subtly, becoming businesslike. "I am willing to hear you out."

"And I'm willing to give you House Raith. And the White Court with it."

Shocked silence followed. Then she said, "And how would you manage such a thing?"

"I remove your father from power. You take over."

"How vague. The situation isn't a simple one," she said, but I could hear a throbbing note of excitement in her voice. "The other Houses of the White Court follow House Raith because they fear and respect my father. It seems unlikely that they would transfer that respect to me."

"Unlikely. Not impossible. I think it can be done."

She made a slow, low purring sound. "Do you? And what would you expect from me in return? If my father has decided to remove Thomas, I am hardly capable of stopping him."

"You won't need to. Just take me to him. I'll get Thomas myself."

"After which, my father will be so impressed with your diplomatic skills that he cedes the House to me?"

"Something like that," I said. "Get me there. Then all you have to do is watch from the sidelines while Cat's-paw Dresden handles your father."

"Mmm," she said. "That would certainly raise my status among the Lords of the Court. To arrange for a usurpation isn't so unusual, but very few manage to have good seats to it as well. A firsthand view of it would be a grace note few have attained."

"Plus if you were standing right there and things went badly for me, you'd be in a good spot to backstab me and keep your father's goodwill."

"Of course," she said, without a trace of shame. "You understand me rather well, wizard."

"Oh, there's one other thing I want."

"Yes?" she asked.

"Leave the kid alone. Don't push her. Don't pressure her. You come clean with Inari. You tell her the deal with her bloodline and you let her make up her own mind when it comes to her future."

She waited for a beat and then said, "That's all?"

"That's all."

She purred again. "My. I am not yet sure if you are truly that formidable or simply a vast and mighty fool, but for the time being I am finding you an extremely exciting man."

"All the girls tell me that."

She laughed. "Let us assume for a moment that I find your proposal agreeable. I would need to know how you intend to overthrow my father. He's somewhat invincible, you see."

"No, he isn't," I said. "I'm going to show you how weak he really is."

"And how do you know this?"

I closed my eyes and said, "Insight."

Lara lapsed into a thoughtful silence for a moment. Then she said, "There is something else I must know, wizard. Why? Why do this?"

"I owe Thomas for favors past," I said. "He's been an ally, and if I leave him hanging out to dry it's going to be bad for me in the long term, when I need other allies. If the plan comes off, I also get someone in charge of things at the White Court who is more reasonable to work with."

Lara made a soft sound that was probably mostly pensive but that would have been a lot more interesting in the dark. Uh. I mean, in person.

"No," she said then. "That's not all of it."

"Why not?"

"That would be sufficient reason if it were me," she said. "But you aren't like me, wizard. You aren't like most of your own kind. I have no doubt that you have reasonable skill at the calculus of power, but calculation is not at the heart of your nature. You prepare to take a terrible risk, and I would know why your heart is set to it."

I chewed on my lip for a second, weighing my options and the possible consequences. Then I said, "Do you know who Thomas's mother was?"

"Margaret LeFay," she said, puzzled. "But what does that-" She stopped abruptly. "Ah. Now I see. That explains a great deal about his involvement in political matters over the past few years." She let out a little laugh, but it was somehow sad. "You're much like him, you know. Thomas would sooner tear off his own arm than see one of his siblings hurt. He's quite irrational about it."

"Is that reason enough for you?" I asked.

"I am not yet entirely devoid of affection for my family, wizard. It satisfies me."

"Besides," I added, "I've just handed you a secret with the potential for some fairly good blackmail down the line."

She laughed. "Oh, you do understand me."

"Are you in?"

There was silence. When Lara finally spoke again, her voice was firmer, more eager. "I do not know precisely where my father would have had Thomas taken."

"Can you find out?"

Her voice took on a pensive tone. "In fact, I believe I can. Perhaps it was fate."

"What was fate?"

"You'll see," she said. "What sort of time frame did you have in mind?"

"An immediate one," I said. "The immediater the better."

"I'll need half an hour or a little more. Meet me at my family's home north of town."

"Half an hourish," I said. "Until then."

I hung up the phone just as a loud, low rumble approached my house. A moment later Murphy came back in. She was decked out in biker-grade denim and leather again. "I guess we're going somewhere."

"Rev up the Hog," I said. "You ready for another fight?"

Her teeth flashed. She tossed me a red motorcycle helmet and said, "Get on the bike, bitch."

Chapter Thirty-seven

Motorcycles aren't safe transport, as far as it goes. I mean, insurance statistics show that everyone in the country is going to wind up in a traffic accident of some kind and most of us are going to be involved in more than one. If you're driving around in a beat-up old Lincoln battleship and someone clips you at twenty miles an hour, it probably is going to frighten and annoy you. If you're sitting on a motorcycle when it happens, you'll be lucky to wind up in traction. Even if you aren't in an accident with another vehicle, it's way too easy to get yourself hurt or killed on a bike. Bikers don't wear all that leather around simply for the fashion value or possible felony assaults. It's handy for keeping the highway from ripping the skin from your flesh should you wind up losing control of the bike and sliding along the asphalt for a while.

All that said, riding a motorcycle is fun.

I put on the bulky, clunky red helmet, fairly certain that I had never before disguised myself as a kitchen match-stick. Murphy's black helmet, by comparison, looked like something imported from the twenty-fifth century. I sighed as the battered corpse of my dignity took yet another kick in the face and got on the bike behind Murphy. I gave her directions, and her old Harley growled as she unleashed it on the unsuspecting road.

I thought the bike was going to jump out from underneath me for a second, and my balance wobbled.

"Dresden!" Murphy shouted back to me, annoyed. "Hang on to my waist!"

"With what?" I shouted back. I waved my bandaged hand to one side of her field of vision and the hand holding the staff to the other.

In answer, Murphy took my staff and shoved the end of it down into some kind of storage rack placed so conveniently close to the rider's right hand that it couldn't have been mistaken for anything but a holster for a rifle or baseball bat. My staff stuck up like the plastic flagpole on a golf cart, but at least I had a free hand. I slipped my arm around Murphy's waist, and I could feel the muscles over her stomach tensing as she accelerated or leaned into turns, cuing me to match her. When we got onto some open road and zoomed out of the city, the wind took the ends of my leather duster, throwing them back up into the air of the bike's passage, and I had to hold tight to Murphy or risk having my coat turn into a short-term parasail.

We rolled through Little Sherwood and up to the entrance of Chateau Raith. Murphy brought the Harley to a halt. It might have taken me a few extra seconds to take my arm from around her waist, but she didn't seem to mind. She had her bored-cop face on as she took in the house, the roses, and the grotesque gargoyles, but I could sense that underneath it she was as intimidated as I had been, and for the same reasons. The enormous old house reeked of the kind of power and wealth that disdains laws and societies. It loomed in traditional scary fashion, and it was a long way from help.

I got off the bike and she passed me my staff. The place was silent, except for the sound of wind slithering through the trees. There was a small flickering light at the door, another at the end of the walk up to it, and a couple of splotches of landscape lighting, but other than that, nothing.

"What's the plan?" Murphy asked. She kept her voice low. "Fight?"

"Not yet," I said, and gave her the short version of events. "Watch my back. Don't start anything unless one of the Raiths tries to physically touch you. If they can do that, there's a chance they could influence you in one way or another."

Murphy shivered. "Not an issue. If I could help it they weren't going to be touching me anyway."

An engine roared and a white sports car shot through the last several hundred yards of Little Sherwood. It all but flew up the drive, narrowly missed Murphy's bike, spun, and screeched to a neat stop, parallel-parked in the opposite direction.

Murphy traded a glance with me. She looked impressed. I probably looked annoyed.

The door opened and Lara slid out, dressed in a long, loose red skirt and a white cotton blouse with embroidered scarlet roses. She walked purposefully toward us. Her feet were bare. Silver flashed on a toe and one ankle, and as she drew closer I heard the jingle of miniature bells. "Good evening, wizard."

"Lara," I said. "I like the skirt. Nice statement. Very Carmen."

She flashed me a pleased smile, then focused her pale grey gaze on Murphy and said, "And who is this?"

"Murphy," she said. "I'm a friend."

Lara smiled at Murphy. Very slowly. "I can never have too many friends."

Murph's cop face held, and she added a note of casual disdain to her voice. "I didn't say your friend," she said. "I'm with Dresden."

"What a shame," Lara said.

"I'm also with the police."

The succubus straightened her spine a little at the words, and studied Murphy again. Then she inclined her head with a little motion half suggesting a curtsy, a gesture of concession.

The other door of the white sports car opened and Reformed Bully Bobby got out, carsick and a little wobbly on his feet. Inari followed him a second later, slipping underneath one of his arms to help hold him steady despite her own broken arm and sling.

Lara raised her voice. "Inari? Be a darling and fetch her for me right away. Bobby, dear, if you could help her I would take it as a kindness."

"Yeah, sure," Bobby said. He looked a little green but was recovering as he hurried toward the house with Inari.

"We'll bring her right down," Inari said.

I waited until they had gone inside. "What the hell are they doing here?" I demanded of Lara.

She shrugged. "They insisted and there was little time for argument."

I scowled. "Next time you're practicing the sex appeal, maybe you should spend some time working up some 'go-thither' to go with all the 'come-hither."

"I'll take it under advisement," she said.

"Who are they bringing out?" I asked.

Lara arched a brow. "Don't you know?"

I gritted my teeth. "Obviously. Not."

"Patience then, darling," she said, and walked around to the back of the sports car, hips and dark hair swaying. She opened the trunk and drew out a sheathed rapier-a real one, not one of those skinny car-antenna swords most people think of when they hear the word. The blade alone was better than three feet long, as wide as a couple of my fingers at the base, tapering to a blade as wide as my pinkie nail and ending in a needle tip. It had a winding guard of silver and white-lacquered steel that covered most of the hand, adorned with single red rose made of tiny rubies. Lara drew out a scarlet sash, tied it on, and slipped the sheathed weapon through it. "There," she said, and sauntered over to me again. "Still Carmen!"

"Less Carmen. More Pirates of Penzance," I said.

She put the spread fingers of one hand over her heart. "Gilbert and Sullivan. I may never forgive you that."

"How will I find the will to go on?" I asked, and rolled my eyes at Murphy. "And hey, while we're on the subject of going on..."

Inari slammed the door of the house open and held it that way. Bobby came out a minute later, carrying an old woman in a white nightgown in his arms. The kid was big and strong, but he didn't look like he needed to be to carry her. There was an ephemeral quality to the woman. Her silver hair drifted on any wisp of air, her arms and legs hung weakly, and she was almost painfully thin.

The kid came to us, and I got a better look. It wasn't an old woman. Her skin was unwrinkled, even if it had the pallor of those near death, and her arms and legs weren't wasted, but were simply slender with youth. Her hair, though, was indeed silver, white, and grey. The evening breeze blew her hair away from her face, and I knew it had gone grey literally overnight.

Because the girl was Justine.

"Hell's bells," I said quietly. "I thought she was dead."

Lara stepped up beside me, staring at the girl, her features hard. "She should be," she said.

Anger flickered in my chest. "That's a hell of a thing to say."

"It's a matter of perspective. I don't bear the girl any malice, but given the choice I would rather she died than Thomas. It's the way of things."

I shot her a look. "What?"

Lara moved a shoulder in a shrug. "Thomas pulled himself away from her at the last possible instant," she said. "Truth be told, it was after that instant. I don't know how he managed it."

"And that bothers you?" I demanded.

"It was an unwarranted risk," she said. "It was foolish. It should have killed him to draw away."

I gave her a look that managed to be both blank and impatient.

"It's the intensity of it," she said. "It's... a unification. Thomas's store of life energy was all but gone. Forcibly breaking away from a vessel-"

"From Justine," I interrupted.

Lara looked impatient now. "Forcibly breaking away from Justine was an enormous psychic trauma, and he was at his weakest. Taking only lightly and breaking the contact isn't difficult. In fact, it's normally the way of things. But he'd been feeding regularly from the girl for several years. He could draw energy from her with a simple caress. To take her fully..." Lara's eyes grew a shade paler, and the tips of her breasts tightened against her blouse. "There's no thought involved in it. No judgment. No hesitation. Only need."

"That's horrible," Murphy said, her voice a whisper. "To force that on her."

Lara's pale eyes drifted to Murphy. "Oh, no. It isn't coerced, dear officer. She was more than willing to give. When prey has been taken so many times, they stop caring about death. There's only the pleasure of being fed upon. They're eager to give more, and they care nothing about the danger."

Murphy sounded sickened. "Maybe she broke it off instead."

Lara's mouth curled into a smirk. "No. By the time my brother took enough to restore him to his senses, the girl was little more than an animal in season."

Murphy's eyes narrowed as she stared at Lara. "And talking about it excites you. That's sick."

"Have you never made yourself hungry by talking about food, Officer Murphy?" Lara asked.

Murphy scowled, but didn't answer.

"In any case," Lara said, "what Thomas did was cruel. Justine cared for him as much as any of our prey ever can. There was little left when he drew away, of her body or her mind. Strictly speaking, she survived, Officer. But I'm not sure one could say that she is alive."

"I get it," I said. "She and Thomas had... made an impression on each other. A sort of psychic bond. And you think Justine might be able to tell us where he is."

Lara nodded. "It happens when we keep someone too long. Though I'm surprised you know of it."

"I didn't," I said. "But when Bianca took Justine from him, Thomas knew that she was being held in Bianca's manor. He wouldn't say how."

Lara nodded. "If there is enough of her mind left, she might be able to lead us to my brother. I do not think he will be far from here. Father does not often travel far outside the property he controls."

Bobby reached us with the girl, and Inari ducked into the house and came out with a wheelchair. She rushed it over to Justine, and Bobby settled her into it.

I knelt down by the wheelchair. Justine lay almost bonelessly, barely holding her head up. Her dark eyes were heavy and unfocused. A small smile touched her mouth. Her eyes were sunken and her skin was almost translucent. She took slow, shallow breaths, and I heard her make a soft, pleased sound on each exhalation.

"Man," I breathed. "She looks out of it."

"Tick- tock," Murphy reminded me.

I nodded and waved my hand in front of Justine's eyes. No reaction. "Justine?" I said quietly. "Justine, it's Harry Dresden. Can you hear me?"

A faint line appeared on her forehead, though her expression did not quite become a frown. But it was something.

"Justine," I said. "Listen to me. Thomas is in trouble. Do you hear me? Thomas is in danger, and we need you to find him."

A slow shudder rolled through her. She blinked her eyes, and though they didn't quite focus, they stirred, looking around her.

"Thomas," I said again. "Come on, Justine. I need you to talk to me."

She took a deeper breath. The languid pleasure on her face faded, replaced with a portion of both sadness, and desire. "Thomas," she whispered.

"Yeah," I said. "Where is he? Can you tell me where he is?"

This time her eyes lost focus completely, then closed. Her lovely face smoothed into an almost meditative concentration. "Feel."

"Where?" Frustration threatened to overwhelm me. "What do you feel?"

She moved a hand and touched the opposite wrist. Then her knee. "Chains. Cold."

Lara leaned over her and asked, "Is he far away?"

Justine shivered. "Not far."

"Which direction?" I asked.

She made a feeble, vague motion with her hand, but frowned at the same time.

"I don't think she's strong enough to point," I said to Lara.

Lara nodded and told Inari, "Turn the chair around slowly, please."

"Justine," I said, "can you tell us when he's in front of you?"

The girl opened her eyes. They met mine for a heartbeat, and boy howdy did I chicken out and look away fast. No soulgaze, please. I'd had too many dying sheep tattooed into my memory for one day. But as Inari turned the chair, Justine suddenly lifted her head and her hand and pointed out into the darkness. The motion was weak, but in comparison to the others it was nearly forceful.

Lara stared out at the night for a moment and then said, "The Deeps. He's in the Deeps."

"What?" Murphy asked.

Lara frowned. "It's an old cave on the northern edge of the property. There's a shaft, a natural chasm, and no one is sure how far down it goes. We use it for..."

"Disposing of things," I said quietly. "Like corpses."

"Yes."

"How long will it take us to get there?"

"There's a service road to the groundskeeper's cottage," she said. "Go around the manor and head north. There's a white fence on the far side of the lawn. Look for the gate."

"I won't have to. You're coming with us," I said.

Lara didn't get to answer, because the night abruptly filled with deadly thunder, and a major-league pitcher planted a fastball directly between my shoulder blades. I went down hard, and concrete skinned my face. I heard Murphy grunt and hit the ground half of a heartbeat later.

I managed to move my head a second later, in time to see one of the Bodyguard Kens standing on the front porch of the manor. He worked the slide on a shotgun, the barrel tracking Lara. The succubus darted to her left, as swift and graceful as a deer, and the bodyguard followed her. The barrel of the gun found Inari before it caught up to Lara, and the girl stood frozen, her eyes as wide as teacups.

"Look out!" Bobby screamed. He hit Inari in a flying tackle that would have rattled the teeth of a professional fullback, and the gun went off. Blood scattered into the air in a heavy red mist.

Bodyguard Ken started pumping another round into the weapon, and the nearest target was Justine. The girl sat staring toward where she'd said Thomas was. I didn't think she could even hear the shots, much less move to avoid them, and I knew that she was going to die.

That is, until Murphy popped up into a kneeling firing stance, gun in hand. The gunman spun to aim at her and fired. He'd rushed himself, and the blast went wide of Murphy. It tore into the white sports car and shredded its left front tire.

Murphy didn't shoot back right away. She aimed her pistol for an endless half second while Bodyguard Ken ejected the previous shell and began to squeeze the trigger again. The spent shell hit the ground. Murphy's gun barked.

Bodyguard Ken's head jerked to one side, as if someone had just asked him a particularly startling question.

Murphy shot him three more times. The second shot made a fingertip-sized hole in the gunman's cheekbone. The third shattered against the brick of the house, and the fourth smacked into his chest. He must have been wearing armor, but the impact of the hit was enough to send him toppling limply backward. The shotgun went off as he fell, discharging into the air, but he was dead before the echoes faded away.

Murphy watched the gunman with flat, icy eyes for a second and then spun to me, setting her gun aside to reach under my coat.

"I'm okay," I wheezed. "I'm okay. The coat stopped it."

Murphy looked startled. "Since when has the duster been lined with Kevlar?"

"It isn't," I said. "It's magic. Hurts like hell but I'll be all right."

Murphy gripped my shoulder hard. "Thank God. I thought you were dead."

"Check the kid. I think he took a hit."

She went to over to Bobby and Inari, and was joined by Lara. I followed a moment later. Inari was whimpering with pain. Bobby was in shock, lying there quietly while he bled from his shredded shoulder and arm. He'd been lucky as hell. Only part of the blast had taken him, and while the wound would leave him with some nasty scars, it hadn't torn open any arteries. He'd live. Murphy grabbed a first-aid kit off of her bike and got the wound site covered up and taped down with a pressure bandage. Then she moved on to the girl.

"Is he all right?" Inari's voice was panicky. "He was so brave. Is he all right?"

"He should be," Murphy said. "Where's it hurt?"

"It's my shoulder," Inari said. "Oh, God, it hurts."

Murphy tore open the girl's T-shirt with ruthless practicality and examined the injury. "Not shot," she said. "Looks like she did it when the kid pulled her out of the line of fire." Murphy moved her hand and Inari went breathless and pale with pain. "Crap, it's her collarbone, Harry. Maybe a dislocated shoulder too. She can't move herself. Both of them need an ambulance, and now." She looked over at the bodyguard and shook her head. "And there's a fatality on the scene. This is getting bad, Dresden. We have to put this fire out before it goes wild."

"We don't have time to wait around while the cops sort things out," I said.

"And if we don't report the shooting along with the gunshot wounds, we're going to have police crawling through every inch of our lives."

"It was an accident," Lara said. "The boy and Inari were looking at my father's collection of guns. She slipped and fell. The shotgun went off."

"What about the body?" Murphy demanded.

Lara shrugged. "What body?"

Murphy glared at Lara and cast me a glance of appeal. "Harry?"

"Hey, telling the truth keeps getting me put in jail. And the last time I tried to engineer a cover-up, I wound up cleverly running off with the murder weapon and covering it with my prints before handing it over to someone who thought I was a murderer at the time. So don't look at me."

"There's no time to argue about this," Lara said. "If one of my father's guards saw you, he'll have reported you. The others will be on their way, and will be more heavily armed." She focused on Murphy. "Officer, let me handle this quietly. It will only protect the mortal officers who might get involved. And, after all, only the man who died committed any crime."

Murphy narrowed her eyes.

"I will owe you a favor," Lara said. "If matters go well tonight, it could be a considerable asset to you in the future. Dealing with the Raiths is a dark business. Let it stay in the dark."

Murphy hesitated. Then her mouth firmed into a line and she nodded once. She changed out the clip in her pistol to a fresh one. "Come on," she said. "Let's move before I start thinking about this."

"Moving before I think is my specialty," I said.

"The road," Lara said. "Through the gate behind the house I'll meet you at the groundskeeper's cottage."

"Why not squeeze onto the bike?" I said.

Murphy gave me an arch look.

"I'm just being practical," I said defensively.

"Someone has to call the ambulance and move the body," Lara said. "And I'd get there faster on my own in any case. I'll catch up to you when I can."

Which I figured was as much assurance as I'd get from her. It wasn't encouraging, but time was short, my options few, and standing around outdoors was likely to get everyone a bad case of deaditis.

So I strode to Murphy's bike. "Let's go."

Murphy came over to me, eyes on Lara. "She'll turn on us," she said quietly.

"She'll back the winning horse. So it had better be you and me. Can you handle the vigilante thing?"

She smiled at me, nervous but game. "Get on the bike, bitch."

She got on, I got on behind her, and, rebels that we were, neither of us put on a helmet.

What can I say? I like to live dangerously.