Proven Guilty

Chapter Thirty-three

"This is Thomas," I told Charity, waving a hand at my brother, who had fallen into step beside me as I left the church. "He's more dangerous than he looks."

"I have a black belt," Thomas explained.

Charity arched an eyebrow, looked at Thomas for about a second, and said, "You're the White Court vampire who took my husband to that strip bar."

Thomas gave Charity a toothy smile and said, "Hey, it's nice to be remembered. And to work with someone who has a clue." He hooked a thumb at me and added, sotto voce, "For a change."

Charity's regard didn't change. It wasn't icy, nor friendly, nor touched by emotion. It was simply a remote, steady gaze, the kind one reserves for large dogs who pass nearby. Cautious observation, unexcited and deliberate. "I appreciate that you have fought beside my husband before. But I also want you to understand that what you are gives me reason to regard you with suspicion. Please do nothing to deepen that sentiment. I do not remain passive to threats."

Thomas pursed his lips. I half expected anger to touch his gaze, but it didn't. He simply nodded and said, "Understood, ma'am."

"Good," she said, and we reached her van. "You ride in the rearmost seat."

I started to protest, but Thomas put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head. "Her ride, her rules," he murmured to me in passing. "I can respect that. So can you."

So we all got in and headed for the Carpenters' house.

"How's Mouse?" Thomas asked.

"Leg's hurt," I said.

"Took one hell of a shot to do it," he noted.

"That's why I left him back there," I said. "Could be he's pushing his luck. Besides, he can help Forthill keep an eye on the kids."

"Uh-huh," Thomas said. "Am I the only one who is starting to think that maybe Mouse is something special?"

"Always thought that," I said.

"I wonder if he's an actual breed."

Charity glanced over her shoulder and said, "He looks something like a Caucasian."

"Impossible," I said. "He has rhythm and he can dance."

Charity shook her head and said, "It's a dog bred by the Soviet Union in the Caucasus Mountains for use in secured military installations. It's one of the only breeds that grows so large. But they tend to be a great deal more aggressive than your dog."

"Oh, he's aggressive enough for anybody, when he needs to be," I said.

Thomas engaged Charity in a polite conversation about dogs and breeds, and I leaned my head against the window and promptly fell asleep. I woke up briefly when the van stopped. Charity and Thomas spoke, and I dozed as they loaded some things into the van. I didn't wake up again until Thomas touched my shoulder and said, "We're at your apartment, Harry."

"Yeah," I mumbled. "Okay." I blinked a couple of times and hopped out of the van. "Thomas," I said. "Get in touch with Murphy for me, and tell her I need her at my place, now. And... here..." I fumbled in my duster's pockets and found a white napkin and a marker. I wrote another number. "Call this number. Tell them that I'm calling in my personal marker."

Thomas took the paper and arched a brow. "Can't you be any more specific?"

"I don't have to be," I said. "They'll know why I want them. This will just tell them that it's time for them to get together with me."

"Why me?" Thomas asked.

"Because I don't have time," I said. "So unless you want to play with dangerous magic divinations, call the damned number and stop making me waste energy explaining myself."

"Heil, Harry," Thomas said, his tone a bit sullen. But I knew he'd do it.

"Hair?" I asked Charity.

She passed me an unmarked white envelope, her expression a mask.

"Thank you." I took it and headed for my apartment, the two of them following after me. "I'll be working downstairs. The two of you should stay in the living room. Please be as quiet as you can and don't walk around too much."

"Why?" Charity asked.

I shook my head tiredly and waved a hand. "No, no questions right now. I'll need everything I've got to find where they took Molly, and I'm already rushing this thing. Let me concentrate. I'll explain it later." If I survive it, I thought.

I felt Charity's eyes on me, and I glanced back at her. She gave her head a brief, stiff nod. I took down the wards and we went inside. Mister came over and rammed his shoulder against my legs, then wound his way around between Thomas's legs, accepting a few token pats from my half brother. Then he surprised me by giving Charity the same treatment.

I shook my head. Cats. No accounting for taste.

Charity looked around my apartment, frowning, and said, "It's very well kept up. I had expected more... debris."

"He cheats," Thomas said, and headed for the refrigerator.

I ignored them. There wasn't time for the full ritual cleansing and meditation, but my day had exposed me to all kinds of stains, external and otherwise, and I considered the shower to be the most indispensable portion of the preparation. So I went into my room, stripped, lit a candle, and got into the shower. Cool water sluiced over me. I scrubbed my skin until it was pink, and washed my hair until it got sore.

The whole while I sought out a quiet place in my mind, somewhere sheltered from pain and guilt, from fear and anger. I pushed out every sensation but for the bathing, and without conscious effort my motions took on the steady rhythm of ritual, something commonplace transformed into an act of art and meditation, like a Japanese tea ceremony.

I longed for my bed. I longed for sleep. Warmth. Laughter. I pinned down those longings one at a time and crucified them, suspending them until such time as my world was a place that could afford such desires. One last emotion was too big for me, though. Try though I might, I could not keep fear from finding a way to slither into my thoughts. Little Chicago's maiden run was an enormous unknown quantity. If I'd done it all right, I would have myself one hell of a tool for keeping track of things in my town.

If I'd made even a tiny mistake, Molly was dead. Or worse than dead. And I'd get to find out what the light at the end of the long tunnel really was.

I couldn't escape the fear. It was built in to the situation. So instead I tried to make my peace with it. Fear, properly handled, could be turned into something useful. So I made a small, neat place for its use in my head, a kind of psychic litter box, and hoped that the fear wouldn't start jumping around at the worst possible moment.

I got out of the shower, dried, and slipped into my white robe again. I kept my thoughts focused, picked up my backpack and the white envelope, and went down to the basement lab. I shut the door behind me. If Little Chicago went nova, preventative spells I'd laid to keep energies from escaping the lab should mitigate the damage significantly. It wasn't a perfect plan, by any means, but I'm only human.

Which was a disturbing thought as I stared at the model on the table. Even a tiny mistake. Only human.

I set the envelope at the edge of the table, my backpack on a shelf, and went around the basement lighting candles with a match. A spell would have been faster and neater, but I wanted to save every drop of power for managing the divination. So I made lighting each candle a ritual of its own, focusing on my movements, on precision, on nothing but the immediate interplay of heat and cold, light and darkness, fire and shadow.

I lit the last candle and turned to the model city.

The buildings shone silver in the candlelight, and the air quivered with the power I'd built into the model. Some tiny voice of common sense in my head told me that this was a horribly bad idea. It told me that I was making decisions because I was in pain and exhausted, and that it would be far wiser to get some sleep and attempt the spell when I stood a reasonable chance of pulling it off.

I crucified that little voice, too. There was no room for doubts. Then I turned to the table, and to the elongated circle of silver I'd built into its surface.

Lasciel appeared between me and the table, in her usual white tunic, her red hair pulled back into a tight braid. She held up both hands and said, quietly, "I cannot permit you to do this."

"You," I said in a quiet, distant voice, "are almost as annoying as a sudden phone call."

"This is pointless," she said. "My host, I beg you to reconsider."

"I don't have time for you," I said. "I have a job to do."

"A job?" she asked. "Evading your responsibilities, you mean?"

I tilted my head slightly. In my current mental state, the emotions I felt seemed infinitely far away and all but inconsequential. "How so?"

"Look at yourself," she replied, her voice that low, quiet, reasonable tone one uses around madmen and ugly drunks. "Listen to yourself. You're tired. You're injured. You're wracked by guilt. You're frightened. You will destroy yourself."

"And you with me?" I asked her.

"Correct," she said. "I do not fear the end of my existence, my host but I would not be extinguished by one too self-deluded to understand what he was about."

"I'm not deluded," I said.

"But you are. You know that this effort shall probably kill you. And once it has done so, you will be free from any onus of what happened to the girl. After all, you heroically died in the effort to find her and retrieve her. You won't have to attend her funeral. You won't have to explain yourself to Michael. You won't have to tell her parents that their daughter is dead because of your incompetence."

I did not reply. The emotions grew a little closer.

"This isn't anything more than an elaborate form of suicide, chosen during a moment of weakness," Lasciel said. "I do not wish to see you destroy yourself, my host."

I stared at her.

I thought about it.

She might be right.

It didn't matter.

"Move," I murmured. "Before I move you." Then I paused and said, "Wait a minute. What am I thinking? It isn't as though you can stop me." Then I simply stepped through Lasciel's image to the table, and reached for the white envelope.

The white envelope began to spin in place on the table, and abruptly became dozens of envelopes, each identical, each whirling like a pinwheel.

"But I can," Lasciel said quietly. I looked up to find her standing on the opposite side of the table from me. "I witnessed the birth of time itself. I watched the mortal coil spring forth from perfect darkness. I watched the stars form, watched this world coalesce, watched as life was breathed into it and as your kind rose to rule it." She put both hands on the table and leaned toward me, her blue eyes cold and hard. "Thus far, I have behaved as a guest ought. But do not mistake propriety for weakness, mortal. I beg you not to oblige me to take further action."

I narrowed my eyes and reached for my Sight.

Before I could use it, my left hand exploded into flame.

Pain, pain, PAIN. Fire, scorching, parboiling my hand as I tried to hold it back with my shield bracelet. The memory of my injury in that vampire-haunted basement came rushing back to me in THX, and my nerve endings were listening.

I fought down a scream, breathing, my teeth snapping together so suddenly and sharply that a fleck of one of my molars chipped away.

It was an illusion, I told myself. A memory. It's a ghost, nothing more. It cannot harm you if you do not allow it to do so. I pushed hard against that memory, turning the focus of my will against it.

I felt the illusion-memory wobble, and then the pain was gone, the fire out. My body pumped endorphins into my bloodstream a heartbeat later, and I drifted on them as my focus started to collapse. I leaned hard against the table, my left hand held close to my chest in pure reflex, my right supporting my weight. I turned my attention to the envelopes and forced my will against them until the illusions grew translucent. I picked up the real envelope.

Lasciel regarded me steadily, her beautiful face unyielding, determined.

"Sooner or later I'll push through anything you throw," I panted. "You know that."

"Yes," she said. "But you will not be able to focus on the divination until you are quit of me. I may force you to exhaust yourself resisting me, in which case you will not attempt the divination. Even if I only delay you until dawn, there will be no need for you to attempt it." She lifted her chin. "Whatever happens, the divination will not be successful."

I let out a low chuckle, which made Lasciel frown at me. "You missed it," I said.

"Missed what?"

"The loophole. I can kill myself trying it while you rock the boat. And after all, this entire exercise is nothing more than a suicide attempt in any case. Why not go through with it?"

Her jaw clenched. "You would murder yourself rather than yield to reason?"

"More manslaughter than murder, I'd say."

"You're mad," the fallen angel said.

"Get me some Alka-Seltzer and I'll foam at the mouth, too." This time I hit Lasciel with the hard look. "There's a child out there who needs me. I'd rather die than let her down. I'm doing the spell, period. So fuck off."

She shook her head in frustration and looked away, frowning. "You are quite likely to die."

"Broken record much?" I asked. I got out the lock of baby-fine hair, set my knife down on the table, and lit the ceremonial candles there. The fallen angel was correct, dammit. The fear stirred dangerously inside me and my fingers shook hard enough to break the first kitchen match instead of kindling it to life.

"If you must do this," Lasciel said, "at least attempt to survive it. Let me help you."

"You can help me by shutting the hell up and going away," I told her. "Hellfire isn't going to be any use to me here."

"Perhaps not," Lasciel said. "But there is another way."

There was a shimmer of light in the corner of my eye, and I turned to see a slowly pulsing silver glow upon the floor in the middle of my summoning circle. Two feet beneath it lay the Blackened Denarius where the rest of Lasciel was imprisoned.

"Take up the coin," she urged me. "I can at least protect you from a backlash. I beg you not to throw your life away."

I bit my lip.

I didn't want to die, dammit. And the thought of failing to save Molly was almost worse than death. The holder of one of the thirty ancient silver coins had access to tremendous power. With that kind of boost, I could probably pull the spell off, and even if it went south I could survive it under Lasciel's protection. Somehow, I knew that if I chose to do it I could get the coin out from under the concrete in only a moment, too.

I stared at the silver glow for a moment.

Then I rolled my eyes and said, "Are you still here?"

Lasciel's face smoothed into an emotionless mask, but there was a subtle, ugly tone of threat in her voice. "You are much easier to talk to when you are asleep, my host."

And she was gone.

Fear rattled around inside me. I tried to calm it, but I couldn't regain my earlier detachment-not until I thought of young Daniel, mangled beneath my wizard Sight, wounded defending his family from something I had sent after them.

I thought of Molly's brothers and sisters. I thought of her mother, her father. I thought of the laughter, the sheer, joyous, rowdy life of Michael's family.

Then I pinked my fingertip with my ritual knife, touched the lock of baby hair to it, and laid it down within Little Chicago. I used a second drop of blood and an effort of will to touch the circle on the tabletop, closing it up and beginning the spell. I closed my eyes, focusing, murmuring a stream of faux Latin as I reached out to the model and brought it to life.

My senses blurred, and suddenly I was standing on the tabletop, at the model of my own boardinghouse. I thought the silver-colored model had grown to life size at first, then realized that the inverse was more accurate. I had shrunk to scale with Little Chicago, my awareness now within the spell rather than in my own body, which stood over the table like Godzilla, murmuring the words of the spell.

I closed my eyes and thought of Molly, my blood touched upon her lock of hair, and to my utter surprise I shot off down the street with no more effort than it took to peddle a bicycle. The streets beneath me and the buildings around me glowed with white energy, the whole of the place humming like high-power tension lines.

Stars and stones, Little Chicago worked. It worked well. A surge of jubilation went through me, and my speed increased in proportion. I flashed through the streets, seeing faint images of people, like ghosts, the unsteady reflections of those now moving through the real Chicago around me. But then the spell wavered, and I found myself moving in a circle like a baffled hound trying to pick up a scent trail.

It didn't work.

I made an effort and stood back in my own body, staring down at Little Chicago, badly fatigued.

Exhausted, I reached for my backpack, sat down, and fumbled Bob into my lap.

His eyes lit up at once and he said, "Don't get me wrong, big guy, I like you. But not that way."

"Shut up," I growled at him. "Just tried to use Little Chicago to find Molly's trail. It fizzled."

Bob blinked. "It worked? The model actually worked? It didn't explode?"

"Obviously," I said. "It worked fine. But I used a simple tracking spell, and it couldn't pick up her trail. So what's wrong with the damned thing?"

"Put me on the table," Bob said.

I reached up and did so. He was quiet for a minute before he said, "It's fine, Harry. I mean, it's working just fine."

"Like hell," I growled. "I've done that tracking spell hundreds of times. It must be the model."

"I'm telling you, it's perfect," Bob said. "I'm looking at the darn thing. If it wasn't your spell, and it wasn't the model... Hey, what did you use to focus the tracking spell?"

"Lock of her hair."

"That's baby hair, Harry."

"So?"

Bob let out a disgusted sound. "So it won't work. Harry, babies are like one big enormous blank slate. Molly has changed quite a bit since that lock was taken. She doesn't have much to do with the person it got snipped from. Naturally the spell couldn't track her."

"Dammit!" I snarled. I hadn't thought of that, but it made sense. I hadn't ever used a lock of baby hair in the spell before, except once, to find a baby. "Dammit, dammit, dammit."

A tiny mistake.

I was only human.

And I had failed Molly.

Chapter Thirty-four

I turned away from the table and hauled myself laboriously up the ladder to my living room.

Charity sat on the edge of the couch with her head bowed, her lips moving. As I emerged, she stood up and faced me, tension quivering through her. Thomas, who had a kettle on my little wood-burning stove, glanced over his shoulder.

I shook my head at them.

Charity's face went white and she slowly sat down again.

I went to the kitchen, found my bottle of aspirin, and chewed up three of them, grimacing at the taste. Then I drank a glass of water. "You make those calls?" I asked Thomas.

"Yeah," he said. "In fact, Murphy should be here in a minute."

I nodded at him and walked over to settle into one of the easy chairs by the fireplace with my glass of water, and told Charity, "I thought I could find her. I'm sorry. I..." I shook my head and trailed off into silence.

"Thank you for trying, Mister Dresden," she said quietly. She didn't look up.

"It was the baby hair," I said to Charity. "It didn't work. Hair was too old. I couldn't..." I sighed. "Just too tired to think straight, maybe," I said. "I'm sorry."

Charity looked up at me. I expected fear, anger, maybe a little bit of contempt in her features. But none of that was there. There was instead something that I'd seen in Michael when the situation was really, really bad. It was a kind of quiet calm, a surety totally at odds with the situation, and I could not fathom its source or substance.

"We will find her," she told me quietly. "We'll bring her home." Her voice held the solid confidence of someone stating a fact as simple and obvious as two plus two is four.

I didn't quite break out into a bitter laugh. I was too tired to do that. But I shook my head and stared at the empty fireplace.

"Mister Dresden," she said quietly. "I don't pretend to know as much about magic as you do. I'm quite certain you have a great deal of power."

"Just not enough," I said. "Not enough to do any good."

In the corner of my eye, I saw Charity actually smile. "It's difficult for you to realize that you are, at times, as helpless as the rest of us."

She was probably right, but I didn't say as much out loud. "I made a mistake, and Molly might be hurt because of it. I don't know how to live with that."

"You're only human," she said, and there was a trace of pensive reflection in her voice. "For all of your power."

"That answer isn't good enough," I said quietly. I glanced at her, to find her watching me, her dark eyes intent. "Not good enough for Molly."

"Have you done all that you can to help her?" Charity asked me.

I racked my brain for a useless moment and then said, "Yeah."

She spread her hands. "Then I can hardly ask you for more."

I blinked at her. "What?"

She smiled again. "Yes. It surprises me to hear myself say it, as well. I have not been tolerant of you. I have not been pleasant to you."

I waved a tired hand. "Yeah. But I get why not."

"I realize that now," she said. "You saw. But it took all of this to make me see it."

"See what?"

"That much of the anger I've directed at you was not rightfully yours. I was afraid. I let my fear become something that controlled me. That made me harm others. You." She bowed her head. "And I let it worsen matters with Molly. I feared for her safety so much that I went to war with her. I drove her toward what I most wished her to avoid. All because of my fear. I have been afraid, and I am ashamed."

"Everyone gets scared sometimes," I said.

"But I allowed it to rule me. I should have been stronger than that, Mister Dresden. Wiser than that. We all should be. God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of self-control."

I absorbed that for a moment. Then I asked, "Are you apologizing to me?"

She arched an eyebrow and then said, her tone wry, "I am not yet that wise."

That actually did pull a quiet laugh from me.

"Mister Dresden," she said. "We've done all that we can do. Now we pray. We have faith."

"Faith?" I asked.

She regarded me with calm, confident eyes. "That a hand mightier than yours or mine will shield my daughter. That we will be shown a way. That He will not leave his faithful when they are in need."

"I'm not all that faithful," I said.

She smiled again, tired but unwavering. "I have enough for both of us." She met my eyes steadily and said, "There are other powers than your magic, or that of the dark spirits that oppose us. We are not alone in this fight, Mister Dresden. We need not be afraid."

I averted my eyes before a soulgaze could get going. And before she could see them tear up. Charity, regardless of how she'd treated me in the past, had been there when the chips were down. She'd cared for me when I'd been injured. She'd supported me when she didn't have to do so. As abrasive, accusatory, and harsh as she could be, I had never for an instant doubted her love for her husband, for her children, or the sincerity of her faith. I'd never liked her too much-but I had always respected her.

Now more than ever.

I just hoped she was right, when she said we weren't in this alone. I wasn't sure I really believed that, deep down. Don't get me wrong; I've got nothing against God, except for maybe wishing He was a little less ambiguous and had better taste in hired help. People like Michael and Charity and, to a lesser extent, Murphy, had made me take some kind of faith under consideration, now and again. But I wasn't the sort of guy who did well when it came to matters of belief. And I wasn't the sort of guy who I thought God would really want hanging around his house or his people.

Hell. There was a fallen angel in my brain. I counted myself lucky that I hadn't met Michael or one of the other Knights from the business end of one of the Swords.

I looked at the gift popcorn tin in the corner by the door, where my staff and rod were settled, along with my practice fighting staff, an unearned double of my wizardly tool, my sword cane, an umbrella, and the wooden cane sheath of Fidelacchius, one of the three swords borne by Michael and his brothers in arms.

The sword's last wielder had told me that I was to keep it and pass it on to the next Knight. He said I would know who, and when. And then the sword sat there in my popcorn tin for years. When my house had been in-vaded by bad guys, they'd overlooked it. Thomas, who had lived with me for almost two years, had never touched it or commented on it. I wasn't sure that he'd ever noticed it, either. It just sat there, waiting.

I glanced at the sword, and then up at the roof. If God wanted to throw a little help our way, now would be a good time to get that foreordained knowledge of who to give the sword to, at least. Not that it would do us all that much good, I supposed. With or without Fidelacchius, we had a fair amount of power of the ass-kicking variety. What we needed was knowledge. Without knowledge, all the ass kicking in the world wouldn't help.

I watched the sword for a minute, just in case.

No light show. No sound effects. Not even a burst of vague intuition. I guess that wasn't the kind of help Heaven was dishing out at the moment.

I settled back in my chair. Charity had returned to her quiet prayers. I tried to think thoughts that wouldn't clash, and hoped that God wouldn't hold it against Molly that I was on her side.

I glanced back over my shoulder. Thomas had listened to the whole thing with an almost supernatural quality of noninvolvement. He was watching Charity with troubled eyes. He traded a glance with me that seemed to mirror most of what I was feeling. Then he brought everyone a cup of tea, and faded immediately back to the kitchen alcove again while Charity prayed.

Maybe ten minutes later, Murphy knocked at the door and then opened it. Besides Thomas, she was the only person I'd entrusted with an amulet that would let her through my wards without harm. She wore one of her usual work outfits: black jacket, white shirt, dark pants, comfortable shoes. Grey predawn light backlit her. She took a look around the place, frowning, before she shut the door. "What's happened?"

I brought her up to speed, finishing with my failure to locate the girl's trail.

"So you're trying to find Molly?" Murphy asked. "With a spell?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I thought that was pretty routine for you," Murphy said. "I mean, I can think of four or five times at least you've done that."

I shook my head. "That's tracking down where something is. I'm looking for where Molly's been. It's a different bag of snakes."

"Why?" Murphy asked. "Why not go straight to her?"

"Because the fetches have taken her back home with them," I said. "She's in the Nevernever. I can't zero in on her there. The best I can do is to try to find where they crossed over, follow them across, and use a regular tracking spell once I'm through."

"Oh." She frowned and walked over to me. "And for that you need her hair?"

"Yeah," I said. "Which we don't have. So we're stuck."

She chewed on her lip. "Couldn't you use something else?"

"Nail clippings," I said. "Or blood, if it was fresh enough."

"Uh-huh," Murphy said. She nodded at Charity. "What about her blood?"

"What?" I said.

"She's the girl's mother," Murphy said. "Blood of her blood. Wouldn't that work?"

"No," I said.

"Oh," Murphy said. "Why not?"

"Because..." I frowned. "Uh..." I looked up at Charity for a moment. Actually, there was a magical connection between parents and children. A strong one. My mother had worked a spell linked to Thomas and me that would confirm to us that we were brothers. The connection had been established, even though she had been the only common parent between us. The blood connection was the deepest known to magic. "It might work," I said quietly. I thought about it some more and breathed, "Stars and stones, not just work. Actually, for this spell, it might work better."

Charity said nothing, but her eyes glowed with that steady, unmovable strength. I thought to myself, That's what faith looks like.

I nodded my head to her in a bow of acknowledgment.

Then I turned to Murphy and gave her a jubilant kiss on the mouth.

Murphy blinked in total surprise.

"Yes!" I whooped, laughing. "Murphy, you rock! Go team Dresden!"

"Hey, I'm the one who rocks," she said. "Go team Murphy."

Thomas snorted. Even Charity had a small smile, though her eyes were closed and her head was bowed again, murmuring thanks, presumably to the Almighty.

Murphy had asked the exact question I'd needed to hear to tip me off to the answer. Help from above? I was not above taking help from on high, and given whose child was in danger it was entirely possible that divine intervention was precisely what had happened. I touched the brim of my mental hat and nodded my gratitude vaguely heavenward, and then turned to hurry back to the lab. "Charity, I presume you're willing to donate for the cause?"

"Of course," she said.

"Then we're in business. Get ready to move, people. This will only take me a minute."

I stopped and put a hand on Charity's shoulder. "And then we're going to get your daughter back."

"Yes," she murmured, looking up at me with fire in her eyes. "Yes, we are."

This time, the spell worked. I should have known where the fetches had found the swiftest passage from their realm to Chicago. It was one of those things that, in retrospect, was obvious.

Charity's minivan pulled into the little parking lot behind Clark Pell's rundown old movie theater. It was out of view of the street. The sun had risen on our way there, though heavy cloud cover and grumbling thunder promised unusually bad weather for so early in the day. That shouldn't have surprised me either. When the Queens of Faerie were moving around backstage, the weather quite often seemed to reflect their presence.

Murphy pulled her car in right behind the minivan and parked beside it.

"All right Murph, Thomas," I said, getting out of the van. "Faerie Fighting 101."

"I know, Harry," Thomas said.

"Yeah, but I'm going to go over it anyway, so listen up. We're heading into the Nevernever. We've got some wicked faeries to handle, which means we have to be prepared for illusions." I rummaged in my backpack and came out with a small jar. "This is an ointment that should let you see through most of their bullshit." I went to Thomas and slapped some on him, then did Murphy's eyes, and then did my own. The ointment was my own mixture, based on the one the Gatekeeper used. Mine smelled better, but stained the skin it touched with a heavy brown-black tone. I started to put the jar away. "After we-"

Charity calmly took the jar from my hands, opened it, and put ointment on her own eyes.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"I'm preparing to take back my daughter," she said.

"You aren't going with us," I told her.

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not. Charity, this is seriously dangerous. We can't afford to babysit you."

Charity put the lid back on the jar and dropped it into my backpack. Then she opened the sliding door on the minivan and drew out a pair of heavy-duty plastic storage bins. She opened the first, and calmly peeled out of her pullover jersey.

I noted a couple of things. First, that Charity had won some kind of chromosomal lottery when it came to the body department. She wore a sports bra beneath the sweater, and she looked like she could have modeled it if she cared to do so. Molly had definitely gotten her looks from her mother.

The second thing I noticed was Charity's arms. She had broad shoulders, for a woman, but her arms were heavy with muscle and toned. Her forearms, especially, looked lean and hard, muscles easily seen shifting beneath tight skin. I traded a glance with Murphy, who looked impressed. I just watched Charity for a minute, frowning.

Charity took an arming jacket from the first tub. It wasn't some beat-up old relic, either. It was a neat, quilted garment, heavy black cotton over the quilting, which was backed by what looked a lot like Kevlar ballistic fabric. She pulled it on, belted it into place, and then withdrew an honest-to-God coat of mail from the tub. She slipped into it and fastened half a dozen clasps with the swift assurance of long practice. A heavy sword belt came next, securing the mail coat. Then she pulled on a tight-fitting cap made in the same manner as the jacket, tucking her braided hair up into it, and then slipped a ridged steel helmet onto her head.

She opened the second tub and drew out a straight sword with a cruciform hilt. The weapon was only slightly more slender and shorter than Michael's blessed blade, but after she inspected the blade for notches or rust, she flicked it around a few times as lightly as she would a rolled-up newspaper, then slid the weapon into the sheath on the sword belt. She tucked a pair of heavy chain gloves through the belt. Finally, she took a hammer from the big tub. It had a steel-bound handle about four feet long, and mounted a head almost as large as a sledgehammer's, backed by a wicked-looking spike.

She put the hammer over her shoulder, balancing its weight with one arm, and turned to me. She looked ferocious, so armed and armored, and the heavy black stain around her eyes didn't do anything to soften the image. Ferocious, hell. She looked competent-and dangerous.

Everyone just stared at her.

She arched a golden eyebrow. "I make all of my husband's armor," she said calmly, "as well as his spare weaponry. By hand."

"Uh," I said. No wonder she was buff. "You know how to fight, too?"

She looked at me as though I was a dim-witted child. "My husband didn't become a master swordsman by osmosis. He works hard at it. Who did you suppose he's practiced against for the last twenty years?" Her eyes smoldered again, a direct challenge to me. "These creatures have taken my Molly. And I will not remain here while she is in danger."

"Ma'am," Murphy said quietly. "Practice is very different from the real thing."

Charity nodded. "This won't be my first fight."

Murphy frowned for a moment, and then turned a troubled glance to me. I glanced at Thomas, who was facing away, a little apart from the rest of us, staying out of the decision-making process.

Charity stood there with that warhammer over one shoulder, her weight planted, her eyes determined.

"Hell's bells," I sighed. "Okay, John Henry, you're on the team." I waved a hand and went back to the briefing. "Faeries hate and fear the touch of iron, and that includes steel. It burns them and neutralizes their magic."

"There are extra weapons in the tub, as well as additional coats of mail," Charity offered. "Though they might not fit you terribly well, Lieutenant Murphy."

Charity had thought ahead. I was glad one of us had. "Mail coat is just the thing for discouraging nasty faerie beasties with claws."

Murphy looked skeptical. "I don't want to break up the Battle of Hastings dress theme, Harry, but I find guns generally more useful than swords. Are you serious about this?"

"You might not be able to rely on your guns," I told her. "Reality doesn't work the same way in the Nevernever, and it doesn't always warn you when it's changing the rules. It's common to find areas of Faerie where gunpowder is noncombustible."

"You're kidding," she said.

"Nope. Get some steel on you. There's not a thing the faeries can do about that. It's the biggest edge mortals have on them."

"The only edge," Charity corrected. She passed me a sleeveless mail shirt, probably the only one that would fit me. I dumped my leather duster, armored myself, and then put the duster back on over the mail. Murphy shook her head, then she and Thomas collected mail and weaponry of their own.

"Couple more things," I said. "Once we're inside, don't eat or drink anything. Don't accept any gifts, or any offers from a faerie interested in making a deal. You don't want to wind up owing favors to one of the Sidhe, believe you me." I frowned, thinking. Then I took a deep breath and said, "One thing more. Each of us must do everything possible to control our fear."

Murphy frowned at me. "What do you mean?"

"We can't afford to carry in too much fear with us. The fetches feed on it. It makes them stronger. If we go in there without keeping our fear under control, they'll sense a meal coming. We're all afraid, but we can't let it control our thoughts, actions, or decisions. Try to keep your breathing steady and remain as calm as you can."

Murphy nodded, frowning faintly.

"All right, then. Everyone hat up and sing out when you're good to go."

I watched as Murphy got her gear into place. Charity helped her secure the armor. Her mail was a short-sleeved shirt, maybe one of Charity's spare suits. She'd compensated for the oversize armor by belting it in tight, but the short sleeves fell to her elbows, and the hem reached most of the way to her knees. Murphy looked like a kid dressing up in an adult's clothes.

Her expression grew calm and distant as she worked, the way it did when she was focused on shooting, or in the middle of one of her five trillion and three formal katas. I closed my eyes and tentatively pushed my magical senses toward her. I could feel the energy in her, the life, pulsing and steady. There were tremors in it, here and there, but there was no screaming beacon of violent terror that would trumpet our approach to the bad guys.

Not that I thought there would be. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in guts. On the other hand, Murphy had never been in the Nevernever, and even though Faerie was as normal a place as you can find there, it could get pretty weird. Despite training, discipline, and determination, novice deepwater divers can never be sure that they will remain free from the onset of the condition called "pressure sickness." The Nevernever was much the same. You can't tell how someone is going to react the first time they fall down the rabbit hole.

Thomas, being Thomas, made the mail into a fashion statement. He wore black clothing, black combat boots, and the arming jacket and mail somehow managed to go with the rest of his wardrobe. He had his saber on his belt on his left side, carried the shotgun in his right hand, and made the whole ensemble look like an upper-class version of The Road Warrior.

I checked on Thomas with my wizard's senses, too. His presence had never been fully human, but like the other members of the White Court the vampiric aspects of him were not obvious to casual observation, not even to wizards. There was something feline about his aura, the same quality I would expect in a hungry leopard waiting patiendy for the next meal to approach; enormous power held in perfect balance. There was a darker portion of him, too, the part I'd always associated with the demonic presence that made him a vampire, a black and bitter well of energy, equal parts lust, hunger, and self-loathing. Thomas was no fool-he was certainly afraid. But the fear couldn't be sensed under that still, black surface.

Charity, after she finished helping Murphy, stepped back from her and went to her knees in the parking lot. She folded her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and continued praying. Around her I felt a kind of ambient warmth, as though she knelt in her own personal sunbeam, the same kind of energy that had always characterized her husband's presence. Faith, I suppose. She was afraid, too, but it wasn't the primitive survival fear the fetches required. Her fear was for her daughter; for her safety, her future, her happiness. And as I watched her, I saw her lips form my name, then Thomas's, then Murphy's.

Charity was more afraid for us than herself.

Right there, I promised myself that I would get her back home with her daughter, back to her family and her husband, safe and sound and whole. I would not, by God, hesitate for a heartbeat to do whatever was necessary to make my friend's family whole again.

I checked myself out, taking inventory. Leather duster, ill-fitting mail shirt, staff, and blasting rod, check. Shield bracelet and amulet, check. My abused left hand ached a little, and what I could feel of it felt stiff-but I could move my fingers. My head hurt. My limbs felt a little bit shaky with fatigue. I had to hope that adrenaline would kick in and make that problem go away when it counted.

"Everyone good to go?" I asked.

Murphy nodded. Thomas drawled, "Yep."

Charity rose and said, "Ready."

"Let me sweep the outside of the building first," I said. "This is their doorway home. It's possible that they've got the place booby-trapped, or that they've set up wards. Once I clear it, we'll go in."

I trudged off to walk a slow circle around Pell's theater. I let my fingertips drag along the side of the building, closed my eyes most of the way, and extended my wizard's senses into the structure. It wasn't a quick process, but I tried not to dawdle, either. As I walked, I sensed a kind of trapped, suffocated energy bouncing around inside the building-leakage from the Nevernever probably, from when the fetches took Molly across. But several times I also felt tiny, malevolent surges of energy, too random and mobile to be spells or wards. Their presence was disturbingly similar to that of the fetch I'd destroyed in the hotel.

I came back to where I'd begun about ten minutes later.

"Anything?" Thomas asked.

"No wards. No mystic land mines," I told him. "But I think there's something in there."

"Like what?"

"Like fetches," I said. "Smaller than the big ones we're after, and probably set to guard the doorway between here and the Nevernever."

"They'll try to ambush us when we go in," Murphy said.

"Probably," I said. "But if we know about it, we can turn it against them. When they come, hit them fast and hard, even if it seems like overkill. We can't afford any injuries."

Murphy nodded.

"What are we waiting for?" Thomas asked.

"More help," I replied.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not strong enough to open a stable passage to deep Faerie," I said. "Even if I wasn't tired, and I managed to get it open, I doubt it would stay that way for more than a few seconds."

"Which would be bad?" Murphy asked.

"Yeah."

"What would happen?" Charity asked quietly.

"We'd die," I said. "We'd be trapped in deep Faerie, near the strongholds of all kinds of trouble, with no way to escape but to try to find our way to the portions of Faerie that are near Earth. The locals would eat us and spit out the bones before we got anywhere close to escape."

Thomas rolled his eyes and said, "This isn't exactly helping me keep my mind off my fear, man."

"Shut up," I told him. "Or I'll move to my second initiative and start telling you knock-knock jokes."

"Harry," Murphy said, "if you knew you couldn't open the door long enough to let us get the girl, how did you plan to manage it?"

"I know someone who can help. Only she's totally unable to help me."

Murphy scowled at me, then said, "You're enjoying this. You just love to dance around questions and spring surprises when you know something the rest of us don't."

"It's like heroin for wizards," I confirmed.

An engine throbbed nearby, and tires made a susurrus on asphalt. A motorcycle prowled around the theater to its rear parking lot, bearing two helmeted riders. The rearmost rider swung down from the bike, a shapely woman in leather pants and a denim jacket. She reached up, took off her green helmet, and shook out her snow-white hair. It fell at once into a silken sheet without the aid of a brush or a comb. The Summer Lady, Lily, paused to give me a slight bow, and she smiled at me, her green eyes particularly luminous.

The bike's driver proved to be Fix. The Summer Knight wore close-fitting black pants and a billowing shirt of green silk. He bore a rapier with a sturdy guard on his hip, and the leather that wrapped its handle had worn smooth and shiny. Fix put both helmets on a rack on the motorcycle, nodded at us, and said, "Good morning."

I made introductions, though I went into few details beyond names and titles. When that was done, I told Lily, "Thank you for coming."

She shook her head. "I am yet in your debt. It was the least I could do. Though I feel I must warn you that I may not be able to give you the help that you require."

Meaning Titania's compulsion to prevent Lily from helping me was still in force. But I'd thought of a way to get around that.

"I know you can't help me," I said. "But I wish to tell you that the onus of your debt to me has been passed to another in good faith. I must redress a wrong I have done to the girl named Molly Carpenter. To do so, I offer her mother your debt to me as payment."

Fix barked out a satisfied laugh. "Hah!"

Lily's mouth spread into a delighted smile. "Well done, wizard," she murmured. Then she turned to Charity and asked, "Do you accept the wizard's offer of payment, Lady?"

Charity looked a little lost, and she glanced at me. I nodded my head at her.

"Y-yes," she said. "Yes."

"So mote it be," Lily said, bowing her head to Charity. "Then I owe you a debt, Lady. What may I do to repay it?"

Charity glanced at me again. I nodded and said, "Just tell her."

Charity turned back to the Summer Lady. "Help us retrieve my daughter, Molly," she said. "She is a prisoner of the fetches of the Winter Court."

"I will be more than happy to do all in my power to aid you," Lily said.

Charity closed her eyes. "Thank you."

"It will not be as much help as you might desire," Lily told her, her voice serious. "I dare not directly strike at the servants of Winter acting in lawful obligation to their Queen, except in self-defense. Were I to attack, the consequences could be grave, and retaliation immediate."

"Then what can you do?" Charity asked.

Lily opened her mouth to answer, but then said, "The wizard seems to have something in mind."

"Yep," I said. "I was just coming to that."

Lily smiled at me and bowed her head, gesturing for me to continue.

"This is where they took the girl across," I told Lily. "Must be why they attacked Pell first-to make sure the building was shut down and locked up, so that they would have an immediate passage back, if they needed it. I'm also fairly sure they left some guardians behind."

Lily frowned at me and walked over to the building. She touched it with her fingers, and her eyes closed. It took her less than a tenth of the time it had me, and she never moved from the spot. "Indeed," she said. "Three lesser fetches at least. They cannot sense us yet, but they will know when anyone enters, and attack."

"I'm counting on it," I said. "I'm going to go in first and let them see me."

Fix lifted his eyebrows. "At which point they tear you to bits? This is a craftier plan than I had anticipated."

I flashed him a grin. "Wouldn't want you to feel left out, Fix. I want Lily to hold a veil over everyone else. Once the fetches show up to rip off my face, Lily drops the veil, and the rest of you drop them."

"Yeah, that's a much better plan," Fix drawled, his fingertips tracing over the hilt of his sword. "And I can cut up vassals of Winter, so long as it is no inconvenience to you, of course, m'lady."

Lily shook her head. "Not at all, sir Knight. And I will be glad to veil you and your allies, Lady Charity."

Charity paused and said, "Wait a minute. Do I understand this situation correctly? You are not allowed to assist Harry, but because Harry has... what? Passed his debt to me?"

"Banks buy and sell mortgages all the time," I said.

Charity arched a brow. "And because he's given me your debt to him, you're doing whatever you can to help?"

Fix and Lily exchanged a helpless glance.

"They're also under a compulsion that prevents them from directly discussing it with anyone," I filled in. "But you've got the basics right, Charily."

Charity shook her head. "Aren't they going to be in trouble for this? Won't... who commands her?"

"Titania," I said.

Charity blinked at me, and I could tell she'd heard the name before. "The... the Faerie Queen?"

"One of them," I said. "Yeah."

She shook her head. "I don't... enough people are already in danger."

"Don't worry about us, ma'am," Fix assured her, and winked. "Titania has already laid down the law. We've obeyed it. Not our fault if what she decreed was not what she wanted."

"Translation," I said. "We got around her fair and square. She won't like it, but she'll accept it."

"Oh yeah," Thomas muttered under his breath. "This isn't coming back to bite anyone in the ass later."

"Ixnay," I growled at him, then turned and walked toward the theater's rear entrance. I took up my staff in a firm grip and put its tip against the chains holding the door shut. I took a moment to slow my breathing and focus my thoughts. This wasn't a gross-power exercise. I wouldn't have to put nearly as much oomph into shattering the chain if I kept it small, precise, focused. Blasting a door down was a relatively simple exercise for me. What I wanted here was to use a minimum of power to snap a single link in the chain.

I brought my thoughts to a pinpoint focus and muttered, "Forzare."

Power lashed through the length of the staff, and there was a hiss and a sharp crack nearly as loud as a gunshot. The chain jumped. I lowered my staff, to find one single link split into two pieces, each broken end glowing with heat. I nudged the heated links to the ground with the tip of my staff, faintly surprised and pleased with how little relative effort it had taken.

I reached out and tried the doorknob.

Locked.

"Hey, Murph," I said. "Look at that zeppelin."

I heard her sigh and turn around. I popped a couple of stiff metal tools out of my duster's pocket and started finagling the lock with them. My left hand wasn't much help, but it was at least able to hold the tool steady while my right did most of the work.

"Hey," Thomas said. "When did you get those?"

"Butters says it's good for my hand to do physical therapy involving the use of manual dexterity."

Thomas snorted. "So you started learning to pick locks? I thought you were playing guitar."

"This is simpler," I said. "And it doesn't make dogs start howling."

"I might have killed you if I'd heard 'House of the Rising Sun' one more time," Thomas agreed. "Where'd you get the picks?"

I glanced over my shoulder at Murphy and said, "Little bird."

"One of these days, Dresden," Murphy said, still stubbornly faced away.

I got the tumblers lined up and twisted with slow, steady pressure. The dead bolt slid to, and I pulled the door slightly ajar. I rose, put the tools away, and took up my staff again, ready for instant trouble. Nothing happened for a moment. I Listened at the door for half a minute, but heard not a sound.

"All right," I said. "Here we go. Everyone ready to-"

I glanced over my shoulder and found the parking lot entirely empty except for me.

"Wow," I said. "Good veil, Lily." Then I turned back around just as if my nerves weren't jangling like guitar strings and said, "Ding, ding. Round one."