Jim Butcher - Dresden 03 - Grave Peril

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Grave Peril by Jim

Butcher

Chapter One

There are reasons I hate to drive fast. For one, the Blue Beetle,

the mismatched Volkswagen bug that I putter around in, rattles

and groans dangerously at anything above sixty miles an hour.

For another, I don't get along so well with technology. Anything

manufactured after about World War II seems to be susceptible

to abrupt malfunction when I get close to it. As a rule, when I

drive, I drive very carefully and sensibly.

Tonight was an exception to the rule.

The Beetle's tires screeched in protest as we rounded a corner,

clearly against the NO LEFT TURN sign posted there. The old

car growled gamely, as though it sensed what was at stake, and

continued its valiant puttering, moaning, and rattling as we

zoomed down the street.

"Can we go any faster?" Michael drawled. It wasn't a

complaint. It was just a question, calmly voiced.

"Only if the wind gets behind us or we start going down a

hill," I said. "How far to the hospital?"

The big man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He

had that kind of salt-and-pepper hair, dark against silver, that

some men seem lucky enough to inherit, though his beard was

still a solid color of dark brown, almost black. There were worry

and laugh lines at the corners of his leathery face. His broad,

lined hands rested on his knees, which were scrunched up due to

the dashboard. "I don't know for certain," he answered me. "Two

miles?"

I squinted out the Beetle's window at the fading light. "The

sun is almost down. I hope we're not too late."

"We're doing all we can," Michael assured me. "If God wills it,

we'll be there in time. Are you sure of your …" his mouth twisted

with distaste, "source?"

"Bob is annoying, but rarely wrong," I answered, jamming on

the brakes and dodging around a garbage truck. "If he said the

ghost would be there, it will be there."

"Lord be with us," Michael said, and crossed himself. I felt a

stirring of something powerful, placid energy around him—the

power of faith. "Harry, there's something I've been meaning to

talk to you about."

"Don't ask me to Mass again," I told him, uncomfortable.

"You know I'm just going to say no." Someone in a red Taurus

cut me off, and I had to swerve around him, into the turn lane,

and then ahead of him again. A couple of the Beetle's wheels

lifted off the ground. "Jerk!" I howled out the driver's window.

"That doesn't preclude asking," Michael asked. "But no. I

wanted to know when you were going to marry Miss Rodriguez."

"Hell's Bells, Michael," I scowled. "You and I have been

chasing all over town for the past two weeks, going up against

every ghost and spirit that has all of a sudden reared its ugly

head. We still don't know what's causing the spirit world to go

postal."

"I know that, Harry, but—"

"At the moment," I interrupted, "we're going after a nasty old

biddy at Cook County, who could kill us if we aren't focused. And

you're asking me about my love life."

Michael frowned at me. "You're sleeping with her, aren't you,"

he said.

"Not often enough," I growled, and shifted lanes, swerving

around a passenger bus.

The knight sighed. "Do you love her?" he asked.

"Michael," I said. "Give me a break. Where do you get off

asking questions like that?"

"Do you love her?" he pressed.

"I'm trying to drive, here."

"Harry," he asked, smiling. "Do you love the girl or don't you?

It isn't a difficult question."

"Speaks the expert," I grumbled. I went past a blue-and-white

at about twenty miles an hour over the speed limit, and saw the

police officer behind the wheel blink and spill his coffee as he

saw me go past. I checked my rearview mirror, and saw the blue

bulbs on the police car whirl to life. "Dammit, that tears it. The

cops are going to be coming in right after us."

"Don't worry about them," Michael assured me. "Just answer

the question."

I flashed Michael a glance. He watched me, his face broad and

honest, his jaw strong, and his grey eyes flashing. His hair was

cropped close, Marine-length, on top, but he sported a short,

warrior's beard, which he kept clipped close to his face. "I

suppose so," I said, after a second. "Yeah."

"Then you don't mind saying it?"

"Saying what?" I stalled.

"Harry," Michael scolded, holding on as we bounced through

a dip in the street. "Don't be a child about this. If you love the

woman, say so."

"Why?" I demanded.

"You haven't told her, have you. You've never said it."

I glared at him. "So what if I haven't? She knows. What's the

big deal?"

"Harry Dresden," he said. "You, of all people, should know the

power of words."

"Look, she knows," I said, tapping the brakes and then

flattening the accelerator again. "I got her a card."

"A card?" Michael asked.

"A Hallmark."

He sighed. "Let me hear you say the words."

"What?"

"Say the words," he demanded. "If you love the woman, why

can't you say so?"

"I don't just go around saying that to people, Michael. Stars

and sky, that's … I just couldn't, all right?"

"You don't love her," Michael said. "I see."

"You know that's not—"

"Say it, Harry."

"If it will get you off my back," I said, and gave the Beetle

every ounce of gas that I could. I could see the police in traffic

somewhere behind me. "All right." I flashed Michael a ferocious,

wizardly scowl and snarled, "I love her. There, how's that?"

Michael beamed. "You see? That's the only thing that stands

between you two. You're not the kind of person who says what

they feel. Or who is very introspective, Harry. Sometimes, you

just need to look into the mirror and see what's there."

"I don't like mirrors," I grumbled.

"Regardless, you needed to realize that you do love the

woman. After Elaine, I thought you might isolate yourself too

much and never—"

I felt a sudden flash of anger and vehemence. "I don't talk

about Elaine, Michael. Ever. If you can't live with that, get the

hell out of my car and let me work on my own."

Michael frowned at me, probably more for my choice of words

than anything else. "I'm talking about Susan, Harry. If you love

her, you should marry her."

"I'm a wizard. I don't have time to be married."

"I'm a knight," Michael responded. "And I have the time. It's

worth it. You're alone too much. It's starting to show."

I scowled at him again. "What does that mean?"

"You're tense. Grumpy. And you're isolating yourself more all

the time. You need to keep up human contact, Harry. It would be

so easy for you to start down a darker path."

"Michael," I snapped, "I don't need a lecture. I don't need the

conversion speech again. I don't need the 'cast aside your evil

powers before they consume you' speech. Again. What I need is

for you to back me up while I go take care of this thing."

Cook County Hospital loomed into sight and I made an illegal

U-turn to get the Blue Beetle up into the Emergency entrance

lane.

Michael unbuckled his seat belt, even before the car had come

to a stop, and reached into the back seat to draw an enormous

sword, fully five feet long in its black scabbard, from the

backseat. He exited the car and buckled on the sword. Then he

reached back in for a white cloak with a red cross upon the left

breast, which he tossed over his shoulders in a practiced motion.

He clasped it with another cross, this one of silver, at his throat.

It clashed with his flannel workman's shirt, blue jeans, and

steel-toed work boots.

"Can't you leave the cloak off, at least?" I complained. I

opened the door and unfolded myself from the Beetle's driver's

seat, stretching my long legs, and reached into the backseat to

recover my own equipment—my new wizard's staff and blasting

rod, each of them freshly carved and still a little green around

the edges.

Michael looked up at me, wounded. "The cloak is as much a

part of what I do as the sword, Harry. Besides, it's no more

ridiculous than that coat you wear."

I looked down at my black leather duster, the one with the

large mantle that fell around my shoulders and spread out as it

billowed in a most heavy and satisfactory fashion around my

legs. My own black jeans and dark Western shirt were a ton and

a half more stylish than Michael's costume. "What's wrong with

it?"

"It belongs on the set of El Dorado," Michael said. "Are you

ready?"

I shot him a withering glance, to which he turned the other

cheek with a smile, and we headed toward the door. I could hear

police sirens closing in behind us, maybe a block or two away.

"This is going to be close."

"Then we best hurry." He cast the white cloak back from his

right arm, and put his hand on the hilt of the great broadsword.

Then he bowed his head, crossed himself, and murmured,

"Merciful Father, guide us and protect us as we go to do battle

with the darkness." Once more, there was that thrum of energy

around him, like the vibrations of music heard through a thick

wall.

I shook my head, and fetched a leather sack, about the size of

my palm, from the pocket of my duster. I had to juggle staff,

blasting rod, and sack for a moment, and wound up with the

staff in my left hand, as was proper, the rod in my right, and the

sack dangling from my teeth. "The sun is down," I grated out.

"Let's move it."

And we broke into a run, knight and wizard, through the

emergency entrance of Cook County Hospital. We drew no small

amount of stares as we entered, my duster billowing out in a

black cloud behind me, Michael's white cloak spreading like the

wings of the avenging angel whose namesake he was. We pelted

inside, and slid to a halt at the first intersection of cool, sterile,

bustling hallways.

I grabbed the arm of the first orderly I saw. He blinked, and

then gawked at me, from the tips of my Western boots to the

dark hair atop my head. He glanced at my staff and rod rather

nervously, and at the silver pentacle amulet dangling at my

breast, and gulped. Then he looked at Michael, tall and broad,

his expression utterly serene, at odds with the white cloak and

the broadsword at his hip. He took a nervous step back.

"M-m-may I help you?"

I speared him into place with my most ferocious, dark-eyed

smile and said, between teeth clenched on the leather sack, "Hi.

Could you tell us where the nursery is?"

Chapter Two

We took the fire stairs. Michael knows how technology reacts

to me, and the last thing either of us wanted was to be trapped

in a broken elevator while innocent lives were snuffed out.

Michael led the way, one hand on the rail, one on the hilt of his

sword, his legs churning steadily.

I followed him, huffing and puffing. Michael paused by the

door and looked back at me, white cloak swirling around his

calves. It took me a couple of seconds to come gasping up behind

him. "Ready?" he asked me.

"Hrkghngh," I answered, and nodded, still clenching my

leather sack in my teeth, and fumbled a white candle from my

duster pocket, along with a box of matches. I had to set my rod

and staff aside to light the candle.

Michael wrinkled his nose at the smell of smoke, and pushed

open the door. Candle in one hand, rod and staff in the other, I

followed, my eyes flicking from my surroundings to the candle's

flame and back.

All I could see was more hospital. Clean walls, clean halls, lots

of tile and fluorescent lights. The long, luminescent tubes

flickered feebly, as though they had all gone stale at once, and

the hall was only dimly lit. Long shadows stretched out from a

wheelchair parked to the side of one door and gathered beneath

a row of uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs at an intersection

of hallways.

The fourth floor was a graveyard, bottom-of-the-well silent.

There wasn't a flicker of sound from a television or radio. No

intercoms buzzed. No air conditioning whirred. Nothing.

We walked down a long hall, our steps sounding out clearly

despite an effort to remain quiet. A sign on the wall, decorated

with a brightly colored plastic clown, read:

NURSERY/MATERNITY, and pointed down another hall.

I stepped past Michael and looked down that hallway. It

ended at a pair of swinging doors. This hallway, too, was quiet.

The nurse's station stood empty.

The lights weren't just flickering here—they were altogether

gone. It was entirely dark. Shadows and uncertain shapes

loomed everywhere. I took a step forward, past Michael, and as I

did the flame of my candle burned down to a cold, clear pinpoint

of blue light.

I spat the sack out of my mouth and fumbled it into my

pocket. "Michael," I said, my voice strangled to hushed urgency.

"It's here." I turned my body, so that he could see the light.

His eyes flicked down to the candle and then back up, to the

darkness beyond. "Faith, Harry." Then he reached to his side

with his broad right hand, and slowly, silently, drew

Amoracchius from its sheath. I found it a tad more encouraging

than his words. The great blade's polished steel gave off a

lambent glow as Michael stepped forward to stand beside me in

the darkness, and the air fairly thrummed with its

power—Michael's own faith, amplified a thousandfold.

"Where are the nurses?" he asked me in a hoarse whisper.

"Spooked off, maybe," I answered, as quietly. "Or maybe some

sort of glamour. At least they're out of the way."

I glanced at the sword, and at the long, slender spike of metal

set into its cross guard. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but

I thought I could see flecks of red still upon it. Probably rust, I

reasoned. Sure, rust.

I set the candle down upon the floor, where it continued to

burn pinpoint-clear, indicating a spiritual presence. A big one.

Bob hadn't been lying when he'd said that the ghost of Agatha

Hagglethorn was no two-bit shade.

"Stay back," I told Michael. "Give me a minute."

"If what the spirit told you is correct, this creature is

dangerous," Michael replied. "Let me go first. It will be safer."

I nodded toward the glowing blade. "Trust me, a ghost would

feel the sword coming before you even got to the door. Let me see

what I can do first. If I can dust the spook, this whole contest is

over before it begins."

I didn't wait for Michael to answer me. Instead, I took my

blasting rod and staff in my left hand, and in my right I grasped

the pouch. I untied the simple knot that held the sack closed, and

slipped forward, into the dark.

When I reached the swinging doors, I pressed one of them

slowly opened. I remained still for a long moment, listening.

I heard singing. A woman's voice. Gentle. Lovely.

Hush little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna buy you a

mockingbird.

I glanced back at Michael, and then slipped inside the door,

into total darkness. I couldn't see—but I'm not a wizard for

nothing. I thought of the pentacle upon my breast, over my

heart, the silver amulet that I had inherited from my mother. It

was a battered piece of jewelry, scarred and dented from uses for

which it was never intended, but I wore it still. The five-sided

star within the circle was the symbol of my magic, of what I

believed in, embodying the five forces of the universe working in

harmony, contained inside of human control.

I focused on it, and slid a little of my will into it, and the

amulet began to glow with a gentle, blue-silver light, which

spread out before me in a subtle wave, showing me the shapes of

a fallen chair, and a pair of nurses at a desk behind a counter,

slumped forward over their stations, breathing deeply.

The soothing, quiet lullaby continued as I studied the nurses.

Enchanted sleep. It was nothing new. They were out, they weren't

going anywhere, and there was little sense in wasting time or

energy in trying to break the spell's hold on them. The gentle

singing droned on, and I found myself reaching for the fallen

chair, with the intention of setting it upright so that I would

have a comfortable place to sit down for a little rest.

I froze, and had to remind myself that I would be an idiot to

sit down beneath the influence of the unearthly song, even for a

few moments. Subtle magic, and strong. Even knowing what to

expect, I had barely sensed its touch in time.

I skirted the chair and moved forward, into a room filled with

dressing hooks and little pastel hospital gowns hung upon them

in rows. The singing was louder here, though it still drifted

around the room with a ghostly lack of origin. One wall was little

more than a sheet of Plexiglas, and behind it was a room that

attempted to look sterile and warm at the same time.

Row upon row of little glass cribs on wheeled stands stood in

the room. Tiny occupants, with toy-sized hospital mittens over

their brand-new fingernails, and tiny hospital stocking caps over

their bald heads, were sleeping and dreaming infant dreams.

Walking among them, visible in the glow of my wizard's light,

was the source of the singing.

Agatha Hagglethorn had not been old when she died. She

wore a proper, high-necked shirt, as was appropriate to a lady of

her station in nineteenth-century Chicago, and a long, dark,

no-nonsense skirt. I could see through her, to the little crib

behind her, but other than that she seemed solid, real. Her face

was pretty, in a strained, bony sort of way, and she had her right

hand folded over the stump at the end of her left wrist.

If that mockingbird don't sing, mama's going to buy you …

She had a captivating singing voice. Literally. She lilted out

her song, spun energy into the air that lulled listeners into

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GravePerilbyJimButcherChapterOneTherearereasonsIhatetodrivefast.Forone,theBlueBeetle,themismatchedVolkswagenbugthatIputteraroundin,rattlesandgroansdangerouslyatanythingabovesixtymilesanhour.Foranother,Idon'tgetalongsowellwithtechnology.AnythingmanufacturedafteraboutWorldWarIIseemstobesusceptibletoab...

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Jim Butcher - Dresden 03 - Grave Peril

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