Marcone considered that for a moment. Then he said quietly, “You did so as a favor to Mab. Not to me.” He reached out and smoothly closed the cash box, then drew it to his side of the table and squared it with the table’s edge. His voice was almost silken-but there was a blade hidden within the folds of it. “However, the fact that there is a debt remains-and I would not see Mab’s name suffer any childish diminishment when she has kept such excellent faith with me. I accept your offer, Dresden. This balances our account. Do you understand my meaning?”
I understood it, all right. It meant that the next time I crossed him, he would feel perfectly free to waste me.
Which was fine. The feeling was pretty much mutual.
Mab was far too contained to give any reaction to the resolution of the situation, beyond a very, very small nod to Marcone. But she regarded me with a look of displeasure that promised me a reckoning later. Molly got the same glare.
I doubt that my former apprentice looked any more chagrined than I did.
* * *
“. . the point of having a squadron of angels around the place if they aren’t going to do anything to protect it,” Molly said, exasperated.
We were walking up to Karrin’s room in the hospital. Visiting hours were almost over, but I didn’t want the day to go by before I’d seen her.
“Any kind of supernatural threat, they’d have been all over it,” I said. “Nick obviously knew that, too. That’s why he sent purely vanilla mortals in, with purely mortal weaponry.”
Molly scowled. “It’s a pretty darned huge loophole. That’s all I’m saying.”
“So do something about it,” I said.
“I already have,” she said. “The house is being watched now. And I’m buying the place for sale down the street.”
“You can afford that?” I asked. “Mab pays that well?”
“The account balance I have now has eight zeroes in it,” Molly said. “I could buy the neighborhood if I wanted. There will be someone keeping an eye on my parents’ place, twenty-four seven in case anyone tries the same thing again.”
“Unseelie bodyguards.” I grunted. “Not sure they’re going to like that.”
“They don’t have to like it,” Molly said. “In fact, they don’t even have to know about it.”
“I’m sensing a pattern here, Molly.”
She gave me a quick glance, and for a second, I could see the worry in her eyes. “Harry. . if you hadn’t been there today. .” She swallowed. “They’re my family. I have to do whatever I can to protect them.”
I walked for a few steps, thinking, and said, “Yeah. You do.”
She smiled faintly as Karrin’s room came into sight and her steps slowed. “You go ahead. I’ve got some things to arrange. I’ll be back later tonight.”
“Cool,” I said, and offered her my closed fist.
She shook her head and said, “Not very respectful of you, sir Knight.”
I waggled my fist and said, “Come on. You know you want it.”
That drew a quick, merry laugh from her. She bumped my fist with hers, and turned away-and as she walked away from me, I saw her pull a cell phone out of her pocket and turn it on.
That stopped me in my tracks.
Cell phones were some of the technology that was absolutely the most sensitive to the unbalanced fields of energy around a mortal wizard. When one of us got near a powered-up cell phone, it was likely to kick the bucket right there.
Inhuman practitioners, on the other hand, had no problem with that effect whatsoever.
And I suddenly felt very afraid for Molly.
She was hiding a lot of things from her parents. And now I had to wonder how many things she might be hiding from me.
More things to keep an eye on in the future.
I traded a greeting with Rawlins and walked into Karrin’s room, to find Butters sitting in the chair by her bed, his feet on the seat, his butt on the back, waving his hands animatedly as he spoke. “. . and I looked at him and said, ‘Mister, where I come from there is no try.’ And I went straight at him, and the evil son of a bitch bailed.”
Karrin looked like she’d been beaten with rubber hoses after a double triathlon, but she was sitting up, and if she looked a little bleary, she also looked composed. One of her arms had been wrapped up and immobilized in a sling fixed to her body. Her hair was a lank mess, and she had an IV line running to her unwounded arm. “You are telling me lie after lie, Waldo Butters,” she said. She turned to me and her smile widened. “Hey, Harry. You look terrible.”
“I’m in good company,” I said, and put my hand on her head for a second, grinning.
“Tell her,” Butters said. “Harry, you were there, right? Tell her.” He blinked. “Oh, God, you were pretty out of it. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
“I remember,” I said. “Butters went full-on Jedi Knight on us. Sword. Vomm. Vroom, krsoom, kazark, skreeow.”
Karrin gave me a suspicious glance, and looked back and forth between us. “You can’t be serious.”
“Got it with you?” I asked Butters.
“Are you kidding?” he said, grinning. “I may never put it down again.”
“So show her,” I said.
“You think that’s. . you know. Okay? To show it off like that?”
“You aren’t showing off,” I said. “You’re confirming her faith.”
Butters screwed up his face and then said, “Yeah. I guess that’s okay, then.” He reached into his coat and produced the hilt of Fidelacchius. The moment he drew it from his coat, the blade of light hissed out to its full length, banishing shadows from the room and humming with power.
Karrin’s eyes widened. “Mary, Mother of God,” she said. “And. . he just ran?”
“Not right away,” I said. “He took a swing at Butters here, first. And that thing sliced through Nick’s sword like it was made of pasta.”
“Yeah,” Butters said. “Seemed to catch him totally off guard. And even if he’d still had a sword, I don’t think it would have helped him much. I mean, lightsaber. Actually, it was kinda unfair.”
“That guy’s earned it,” I said.
“Butters,” Karrin said, shaking her head. “That’s. . that’s really amazing. I’m so proud of you.”
If Butters could have floated up off the floor, Karrin’s words would have made him do so. “Yeah, I. . Thanks, Murph.”
Murph.
Well, look at you, Butters. One of the boys.
“Well deserved,” she said. “But. .” Her face turned grim. “You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to, you know.”
Butters frowned and moved to return the handle to his coat. The blade vanished seemingly of its own accord. “Why wouldn’t I keep it?”
“Lot of responsibility, bearing one of those,” Karrin said.
“Lot of travel, too,” I said, just as seriously.
“Bad guys,” Karrin noted.
“Hopeless situations you’ll be expected to overcome,” I said.
“Monsters, ghosts, ghouls, vampires,” Karrin said.
“And all the Knights of the Blackened Denarius will want to stuff you and mount you on the wall,” I said, my voice harder. “Butters, you took Nicodemus by surprise on what was probably the worst day he’s had in a couple of thousand years, when his only backup was a woman twisty enough to marry him, who had spent the past two days trying to derail his plans. He retreated because he was facing a new and unknown threat and it was the smart thing to do. Next time you see him, he won’t be running away. He’ll be planning to kill you.”
Butters looked at me uncertainly. “Do. . do you guys not think I can do it?”
I stared at him, expression suitably grave. Karrin too.
“Michael and Charity said they’d train me,” he said seriously. “And Michael said he’d show me how to work out and eat right and help me figure out what the Sword can do. I mean. . I know I’m just a little guy but”-he took a deep breath-“I can do something. Make a difference. Help people. That’s a chance a lot of people never get. I want it.”