Jim Butcher - Dresden 08 - Proven Guilty
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2024-12-18
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5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10.Chapter Ten
11.Chapter Eleven
12.Chapter Twelve
13.Chapter Thirteen
14.Chapter Fourteen
15.Chapter Fifteen
16.Chapter Sixteen
17.Chapter Seventeen
18.Chapter Eighteen
19.Chapter Nineteen
20.Chapter Twenty
21.Chapter Twenty-one
22.Chapter Twenty-two
23.Chapter Twenty-three
24.Chapter Twenty-four
25.Chapter Twenty-five
26.Chapter Twenty-six
27.Chapter Twenty-seven
28.Chapter Twenty-eight
29.Chapter Twenty-nine
30.Chapter Thirty
31.Chapter Thirty-one
32.Chapter Thirty-two
33.Chapter Thirty-three
34.Chapter Thirty-four
35.Chapter Thirty-five
36.Chapter Thirty-six
37.Chapter Thirty-seven
38.Chapter Thirty-eight
39.Chapter Thirty-nine
40.Chapter Forty
41.Chapter Forty-one
42.Chapter Forty-two
43.Chapter Forty-three
44.Chapter Forty-four
45.Chapter Forty-five
46.Chapter Forty-six
47.Chapter Forty-seven
•AUTHOR’S NOTE
Chapter One
^ »
Blood leaves no stain on a Warden’s grey cloak. I didn’t know that until the day I
watched Morgan, second in command of the White Council’s Wardens, lift his
sword over the kneeling form of a young man guilty of the practice of black magic.
The boy, sixteen years old at the most, screamed and ranted in Korean underneath
his black hood, his mouth spilling hatred and rage, convinced by his youth and
power of his own immortality. He never knew it when the blade came down.
Which I guess was a small mercy. Microscopic, really.
His blood flew in a scarlet arc. I wasn’t ten feet away. I felt hot droplets strike
one cheek, and more blood covered the left side of the cloak in blotches of angry
red. The head fell to the ground, and I saw the cloth over it moving, as if the boy’s
mouth were still screaming imprecations.
The body fell onto its side. One calf muscle twitched spasmodically and then
stopped. After maybe five seconds, the head did too.
Morgan stood over the still form for a moment, the bright silver sword of the
White Council of Wizards’ justice in his hands. Besides him and me, there were a
dozen Wardens present, and two members of the Senior Council—the Merlin and
my one-time mentor, Ebenezar McCoy.
The covered head stopped its feeble movements. Morgan glanced up at the
Merlin and nodded once. The Merlin returned the nod. “May he find peace.”
“Peace,” the Wardens all replied together.
Except me. I turned my back on them, and made it two steps away before I threw
up on the warehouse floor.
I stood there shaking for a moment, until I was sure I was finished, then
straightened slowly. I felt a presence draw near me and looked up to see Ebenezar
standing there.
He was an old man, bald but for wisps of white hair, short, stocky, his face half
covered in a ferocious-looking grey beard. His nose and cheeks and bald scalp were
all ruddy, except for a recent, purplish scar on his pate. Though he was centuries old
he carried himself with vibrant energy, and his eyes were alert and pensive behind
gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore the formal black robes of a meeting of the
Council, along with the deep purple stole of a member of the Senior Council.
“Harry,” he said quietly. “You all right?”
“After that?” I snarled, loudly enough to make sure everyone there heard me. “No
one in this damned building should be all right.”
I felt a sudden tension in the air behind me.
“No they shouldn’t,” Ebenezar said. I saw him look back at the other wizards
there, his jaw setting stubbornly.
The Merlin came over to us, also in his formal robes and stole. He looked like a
wizard should look—tall, long white hair, long white beard, piercing blue eyes, his
face seamed with age and wisdom.
Well. With age, anyway.
“Warden Dresden,” he said. He had the sonorous voice of a trained speaker, and
spoke English with a high-class British accent. “If you had some evidence that you
felt would prove the boy’s innocence, you should have presented it during the trial.”
“I didn’t have anything like that, and you know it,” I replied.
“He was proven guilty,” the Merlin said. “I soulgazed him myself. I examined
more than two dozen mortals whose minds he had altered. Three of them might
eventually recover their sanity. He forced four others to commit suicide, and had
hidden nine corpses from the local authorities, as well. And every one of them was a
blood relation.” The Merlin stepped toward me, and the air in the room suddenly felt
hot. His eyes flashed with azure anger and his voice rumbled with deep, unyielding
power. “The powers he had used had already broken his mind. We did what was
necessary.”
I turned and faced the Merlin. I didn’t push out my jaw and try to stare him down.
I didn’t put anything belligerent or challenging into my posture. I didn’t show any
anger on my face, or slur any disrespect into my tone when I spoke. The past
several months had taught me that the Merlin hadn’t gotten his job through an ad on
a matchbook. He was, quite simply, the strongest wizard on the planet. And he had
talent, skill, and experience to go along with that strength. If I ever came to magical
blows with him, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to fill a lunch sack. I did not
want a fight.
But I didn’t back down, either.
“He was a kid,” I said. “We all have been. He made a mistake. We’ve all done
that too.”
The Merlin regarded me with an expression somewhere between irritation and
contempt. “You know what the use of black magic can do to a person,” he said.
Marvelously subtle shading and emphasis over his words added in a perfectly clear,
unspoken thought: You know it because you’ve done it. Sooner or later, you’ll slip
up, and then it will be your turn. “One use leads to another. And another.”
“That’s what I keep hearing, Merlin,” I answered. “Just say no to black magic.
But that boy had no one to tell him the rules, to teach him. If someone had known
about his gift and done something in time—”
He lifted a hand, and the simple gesture had such absolute authority to it that I
stopped to let him speak. “The point you are missing, Warden Dresden,” he said,
“is that the boy who made that foolish mistake died long before we discovered the
damage he’d done. What was left of him was nothing more nor less than a monster
who would have spent his life inflicting horror and death on anyone near him.”
“I know that,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the anger and frustration out of my
voice. “And I know what had to be done. I know it was the only measure that could
stop him.” I thought I was going to throw up again, and I closed my eyes and leaned
on the solid oak length of my carved staff. I got my stomach under control and
opened my eyes to face the Merlin. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve just
murdered a boy who probably never knew enough to understand what was
happening to him.”
“Accusing someone else of murder is hardly a stone you are in a position to cast,
Warden Dresden.” The Merlin arched a silver brow at me. “Did you not discharge a
firearm into the back of the head of a woman you merely believed to be the
Corpsetaker from a distance of a few feet away, fatally wounding her?”
I swallowed. I sure as hell had, last year. It had been one of the bigger coin tosses
of my life. Had I incorrectly judged that a body-transferring wizard known as the
Corpsetaker had jumped into the original body of Warden Luccio, I would have
murdered an innocent woman and a law-enforcing member of the White Council.
I hadn’t been wrong—but I’d never… never just killed anyone before. I’ve killed
things in the heat of battle, yes. I’ve killed people by less direct means. But
Corpsetaker’s death had been intimate and coldly calculated and not at all indirect.
Just me, the gun, and the limp corpse. I could still vividly remember the decision to
shoot, the feel of the cold metal in my hands, the stiff pull of my revolver’s trigger,
the thunder of the gun’s report, and the way the body had settled into a limp bundle
of limbs on the ground, the motion somehow too simple for the horrible significance
of the event.
I’d killed. Deliberately, rationally ended another’s life.
And it still haunted my dreams at night.
I’d had little choice. Given the smallest amount of time, the Corpse-taker could
have called up lethal magic, and the best I could have hoped for was a death curse
that killed me as I struck down the necromancer. It had been a bad day or two, and I
was pretty strung out. Even if I hadn’t been, I had a feeling that Corpsetaker could
have taken me in a fair fight. So I hadn’t given Corpsetaker anything like a fair fight. I
shot the necromancer in the back of the head because the Corpsetaker had to be
stopped, and I’d had no other option.
I had executed her on suspicion.
No trial. No soulgaze. No judgment from a dispassionate arbiter. Hell, I hadn’t
even taken the chance to get in a good insult. Bang. Thump. One live wizard, one
dead bad guy.
I’d done it to prevent future harm to myself and others. It hadn’t been the best
solution—but it had been the only solution. I hadn’t hesitated for a heartbeat. I’d
done it, no questions, and gone on to face the further perils of that night.
Just like a Warden is supposed to do. Sorta took the wind out of my
holier-than-thou sails.
Bottomless blue eyes watched my face and he nodded slowly. “You executed
her,” the Merlin said quietly. “Because it was necessary.”
“That was different,” I said.
“Indeed. Your action required far deeper commitment. It was dark, cold, and you
were alone. The suspect was a great deal stronger than you. Had you struck and
missed, you would have died. Yet you did what had to be done.”
“Necessary isn’t the same as right” I said.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But the Laws of Magic are all that prevent wizards from
abusing their power over mortals. There is no room for compromise. You are a
Warden now, Dresden. You must focus on your duty to both mortals and the
Council.”
“Which sometimes means killing children?” This time I didn’t hide the contempt,
but there wasn’t much life to it.
“Which means always enforcing the Laws,” the Merlin said, and his eyes bored
into mine, flickering with sparks of rigid anger. “It is your duty. Now more than
ever.”
I broke the stare first, looking away before anything bad could happen. Ebenezar
stood a couple of steps from me, studying my expression.
“Granted that you’ve seen much for a man your age,” the Merlin said, and there
was a slight softening in his tone. “But you haven’t seen how horrible such things
can become. Not nearly. The Laws exist for a reason. They must stand as written.”
I turned my head and stared at the small pool of scarlet on the warehouse floor
beside the kid’s corpse. I hadn’t been told his name before they’d ended his life.
“Right,” I said tiredly, and wiped a clean corner of the grey cloak over my
blood-sprinkled face. “I can see what they’re written in.”
Chapter Two
« ^ »
I turned my back on them and walked out of the warehouse into Chicago’s best
impression of Miami. July in the Midwest is rarely less than sultry, but this year had
been especially intense when it came to summer heat, and it had rained frequently.
The warehouse was a part of the wharves down at the lakeside, and even the chill
waters of Lake Michigan were warmer than usual. They filled the air with more than
the average water-scent of mud and mildew and eau de dead fishy.
I passed the two grey-cloaked Wardens standing watch outside and exchanged
nods with them. Both of them were younger than me, some of the most recent
additions to the White Council’s military-slash-police organization. As I passed
them, I felt the tingling presence of a veil, a spell they were maintaining to conceal the
warehouse from any prying eyes. It wasn’t much of a veil, by Warden standards, but
it was probably better than I could do, and there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of
Wardens to choose from since the Red Court’s successful offensive the previous
autumn. Beggars can’t be choosers.
I tugged off my robe and my cloak. I was wearing sneakers, khaki shorts, and a
red tank top underneath. It didn’t make me any cooler to remove the heavy
clothes—just marginally less miserable. I walked hurriedly back to my car, a battered
old Volkswagen Beetle, its windows rolled down to keep the sun from turning the
interior into an oven. It’s a jumble of different colors, as my mechanic has replaced
damaged portions of the body with parts from junked Bugs, but it started off as a
shade of powder blue, and that had earned it the sobriquet of the Blue Beetle.
I heard quick, solid footsteps behind me. “Harry,” Ebenezar called.
I threw the robe and cloak into the Beetle’s backseat without a word.
The car’s interior had been stripped to its metal bones a couple of years back,
and I had made hurried repairs with cheap lumber and a lot of duct tape. Since then,
I’d had a friend redo the inside of the car. It wasn’t standard, and it still didn’t look
pretty, but the comfortable bucket seats were a lot nicer than the wooden crates I’d
been using. And I had decent seat belts again.
“Harry,” Ebenezar said again. “Damnation, boy, stop.”
I though about getting into the car and leaving, but instead stopped until the old
wizard approached and shucked off his own formal robes and stole. He wore a
white T-shirt beneath denim Levi’s overalls, and heavy leather hiking boots.
“There’s something I need to speak to you about.”
I paused and took a second to get some of my emotions under control. Those
and my stomach. I didn’t want the embarrassment of a repeat performance.
“What is it?”
He stopped a few feet behind me. “The war isn’t going well.”
By which he meant the war of the White Council against the Red Court of
vampires. The war had been a whole lot of pussyfooting and fights in back alleys for
several years, but last year the vampires had upped the ante. Their assault had been
timed to coincide with vicious activity from a traitor within the Council and with the
attack of a number of necromancers, outlaw wizards who raised the dead into angry
specters and zombies—among a number of other, less savory things.
The vampires had hit the Council. Hard. Before the battle was over, they’d killed
nearly two hundred wizards, most of them Wardens. That’s why the Wardens had
given me a grey cloak. They needed the help.
Before they’d finished, the vampires killed nearly forty-five thousand men,
women, and children who happened to be nearby.
That’s why I’d taken the cloak. That wasn’t the sort of thing I could ignore.
“I’ve read the reports,” I said. “They say that the Venatori Umbrorum and the
Fellowship of St. Giles have really pitched in.”
“It’s more than that. If they hadn’t started up an offensive to slow the vamps
down, the Red Court would have destroyed the Council months ago.”
I blinked. “They’re doing that much?”
The Venatori Umbrorum and the Fellowship of St. Giles were the White
Council’s primary allies in the war with the Red Court. The Venatori were an ancient,
secret brotherhood, joined together to fight supernatural darkness wherever they
could. Sort of like the Masons, only with more flamethrowers. By and large, they
were academic sorts, and though several of the Venatori had various forms of
military experience, their true strength lay in utilizing human legal systems and
analyzing information brought together from widely dispersed sources.
The Fellowship, though, was a somewhat different story. Not as many of them as
there were of the Venatori, but not many of them were merely human. Most of them,
so I took it, were those who had been half turned by the vampires. They’d been
infested with the dark powers that made the Red Court such a threat, but until they
willingly drank another’s lifeblood, they never quite stopped being human. It could
make them stronger and faster and better able to withstand injury than regular folks,
and it granted them a drastically increased life span. Assuming they didn’t fall prey
to their constant, base desire for blood, or weren’t slain in operations against their
enemies in the Red Court.
A woman I’d once cared for very much had been taken by a Red Court vampire.
In point of fact, I’d kicked off the war when I went and took her back by the most
violent means at my disposal. I brought her back, but I didn’t save her. She’d been
touched by that darkness, and now her life was a battle—partly against the vampires
who had done it to her, and partly against the blood-thirst they’d imposed upon her.
Now she was a part of the Fellowship, whose members included those like her and,
I’d heard, many other people and part-people with no home anywhere else. St.
Giles, patron of lepers and outcasts. His Fellowship, while not a mil-blown
powerhouse like the Council or one of the Vampire Courts, was nonetheless proving
to be a surprisingly formidable ally.
“Our allies can’t challenge the vampires in face-to-face confrontations,” Ebenezar
said, nodding. “But they’re wreaking havoc on the Red Court’s supply chains,
intelligence, and support, attacking from the mortal end of things. Red Court
infiltrators within human society are unmasked. Humans controlled by the Red Court
have been arrested, framed, or killed—or else abducted to be forcibly freed of their
addiction. The Fellowship and the Venatori continue to do all in their power to
provide information to the Council, which has enabled us to make a number of
successful raids against the vampires. The Venatori and the Fellowship haven’t
appreciably weakened the vampires, but the Red Court has been slowed down.
Perhaps enough to give us a fighting chance to recover.”
“How’s the boot camp coming?” I asked.
“Luccio is confident of her eventual success in replacing our losses,” Ebenezar
replied.
“Don’t see what else I can do to help,” I said. “Unless you’re wanting someone
to go start fathering new wizards.”
He stepped closer to me and glanced around. His expression was casual, but he
was checking to see if anyone was close enough to overhear. “There’s something
you don’t know. The Merlin decided it was not for general knowledge.”
I turned to face him and tilted my head.
“You remember the Red Court’s attack last year,” he said. “That they called up
Outsiders and assaulted us within the realm of Faerie itself.”
“Bad move, so I’ve heard. The Faeries are going to take it out of their hides.”
“So we all thought,” the old man said. “In fact, Summer declared war upon the
Red Court and began preliminary assaults on them. But Winter hasn’t
responded—and Summer hasn’t done much more than secure its borders.”
“Queen Mab didn’t declare war?”
“No.”
I frowned. “Never thought she’d pass up the chance. She’s all about carnage and
bloodshed.”
“It surprised us as well,” he said. “So I want to ask a favor of you.”
I eyed him without speaking.
“Find out why,” he said. “You have contacts within the Courts. Find out what’s
happening. Find out why the Sidhe haven’t gone to war.”
“What?” I asked. “The Senior Council doesn’t know? Don’t you have an
embassy and high-level connections and official channels? Maybe a bright red
telephone?”
Ebenezar smiled without much mirth. “The general turbulence of the war has
stretched everyone’s intelligence-gathering abilities,” he replied. “Even those in the
spiritual realms. There’s another level entirely to the war in the conflict between
spiritual spies and emissaries of everyone involved. And our embassy to the Sidhe
has been…” He rolled a weathered, strong shoulder in a shrug. “Well. You know
them as well as anyone.”
“They’ve been polite, open, spoken with complete honesty, and left you with no
idea what is going on,” I guessed.
“Precisely.”
“So the Senior Council is asking me to find out?”
He glanced around again. “Not the Senior Council. Myself. A few others.”
“What others?” I asked.
“People I trust,” he said, and looked at me directly over the rims of his
spectacles.
I stared at him for a second and then said in a whisper, “The traitor.”
The vampires of the Red Court had been a little too on top of the game to be
merely lucky. Somehow, they had been obtaining vital secrets about the dispositions
of the White Council’s forces and their plans. Someone on the inside had been
feeding the vampires information, and a lot of wizards had died because of
it—particularly during their heaviest attack, last year, in which they’d violated Sidhe
territory in pursuit of the fleeing Council. “You think the traitor is someone on the
Senior Council.”
“I think we can’t take any chances,” he said quietly. “This isn’t official business.
I can’t order you to do it, Harry. I’ll understand if you don’t want to. But there’s no
one better for the job—and our allies cannot maintain the current pace of operations
for long. Their best weapon has always been secrecy, and their actions have forced
them to pay a terrible cost of lives to give us what aid they have.”
I folded my arms over my stomach and said, “We need to help them, sure. But
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ProvenGuilty JimButcher (ANOVELOFTHEDRESDENFILES) AlsobyJimButcherTheDresdenFilesSTORMFRONTFOOLMOONGRAVEPERILSUMMERKNIGHTDEATHMASKSBLOODRITESDEADBEAT TheCodexAleraFURIESOFCALDERON ACADEM’SFURY 1.ChapterOne2.ChapterTwo3.ChapterThree4.ChapterFour5.ChapterFive6.ChapterSix7.ChapterSeven8.ChapterEight9....
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