Jim Butcher - Dresden 01 - Storm Front

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2024-12-19 0 0 527.53KB 229 页 5.9玖币
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Storm Front by Jim
Butcher
For Debbie Chester, who taught me everything I really needed
to know about writing. And for my father, who taught me
everything I really needed to know about living. I miss you dad.
Chapter One
I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour
earlier than usual. He didn't sound right. His footsteps fell more
heavily, jauntily, and he whistled. A new guy. He whistled his
way to my office door, then fell silent for a moment. Then he
laughed.
Then he knocked.
I winced. My mail comes through the mail slot unless it's
registered. I get a really limited selection of registered mail, and
it's never good news. I got up out of my office chair and opened
the door.
The new mailman, who looked like a basketball with arms and
legs and a sunburned, balding head, was chuckling at the sign on
the door glass. He glanced at me and hooked a thumb toward the
sign. "You're kidding, right?"
I read the sign (people change it occasionally), and shook my
head. "No, I'm serious. Can I have my mail, please."
"So, uh. Like parties, shows, stuff like that?" He looked past
me, as though he expected to see a white tiger, or possibly some
skimpily clad assistants prancing around my one-room office.
I sighed, not in the mood to get mocked again, and reached for
the mail he held in his hand. "No, not like that. I don't do
parties."
He held on to it, his head tilted curiously. "So what? Some
kinda fortune-teller? Cards and crystal balls and things?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not a psychic." I tugged at the mail.
He held on to it. "What are you, then?"
"What's the sign on the door say?"
"It says 'Harry Dresden. Wizard.' "
"That's me," I confirmed.
"An actual wizard?" he asked, grinning, as though I should let
him in on the joke. "Spells and potions? Demons and
incantations? Subtle and quick to anger?"
"Not so subtle." I jerked the mail out of his hand and looked
pointedly at his clipboard. "Can I sign for my mail please."
The new mailman's grin vanished, replaced with a scowl. He
passed over the clipboard to let me sign for the mail (another
late notice from my landlord), and said, "You're a nut. That's
what you are." He took his clipboard back, and said, "You have a
nice day, sir."
I watched him go.
"Typical," I muttered, and shut the door.
My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by
it at your own risk. I'm a wizard. I work out of an office in
midtown Chicago. As far as I know, I'm the only openly
practicing professional wizard in the country. You can find me in
the yellow pages, under "Wizards." Believe it or not, I'm the only
one there. My ad looks like this:
HARRY DRESDEN—WIZARD
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other
Entertainment
You'd be surprised how many people call just to ask me if I'm
serious. But then, if you'd seen the things I'd seen, if you knew
half of what I knew, you'd wonder how anyone could not think I
was serious.
The end of the twentieth century and the dawn of the new
millennium had seen something of a renaissance in the public
awareness of the paranormal. Psychics, haunts, vampires—you
name it. People still didn't take them seriously, but all the things
Science had promised us hadn't come to pass. Disease was still a
problem. Starvation was still a problem. Violence and crime and
war were still problems. In spite of the advance of technology,
things just hadn't changed the way everyone had hoped and
thought they would.
Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had
become somewhat tarnished by images of exploding space
shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent
Americans who had allowed the television to raise their children.
People were looking for something—I think they just didn't know
what. And even though they were once again starting to open
their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been
with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of
joke.
Anyway, it had been a slow month. A slow pair of months,
actually. My rent from February didn't get paid until the tenth of
March, and it was looking like it might be even longer until I got
caught up for this month.
My only job had been the previous week, when I'd gone down
to Branson, Missouri, to investigate a country singer's possibly
haunted house. It hadn't been. My client hadn't been happy with
that answer, and had been even less happy when I suggested he
lay off of any intoxicating substances and try to get some
exercise and sleep, and see if that didn't help things more than
an exorcism. I'd gotten travel expenses plus an hour's pay, and
gone away feeling I had done the honest, righteous, and
impractical thing. I heard later that he'd hired a shyster psychic
to come in and perform a ceremony with a lot of incense and
black lights. Some people.
I finished up my paperback and tossed it into the DONE box.
There was a pile of read and discarded paperbacks in a
cardboard box on one side of my desk, the spines bent and the
pages mangled. I'm terribly hard on books. I was eyeing the pile
of unread books, considering which to start next, given that I
had no real work to do, when my phone rang.
I stared at it in a somewhat surly fashion. We wizards are
terrific at brooding. After the third ring, when I thought I
wouldn't sound a little too eager, I picked up the receiver and
said, "Dresden."
"Oh. Is this, um, Harry Dresden? The, ah, wizard?" Her tone
was apologetic, as though she were terribly afraid she would be
insulting me.
No, I thought. It's Harry Dresden the, ah, lizard. Harry the
wizard is one door down.
It is the prerogative of wizards to be grumpy. It is not,
however, the prerogative of freelance consultants who are late on
their rent, so instead of saying something smart, I told the
woman on the phone, "Yes, ma'am. How can I help you today?"
"I, um," she said. "I'm not sure. I've lost something, and I think
maybe you could help me."
"Finding lost articles is a specialty," I said. "What would I be
looking for?"
There was a nervous pause. "My husband," she said. She had a
voice that was a little hoarse, like a cheerleader who'd been
working a long tournament, but had enough weight of years in it
to place her as an adult.
My eyebrows went up. "Ma'am, I'm not really a
missing-persons specialist. Have you contacted the police or a
private investigator?"
"No," she said, quickly. "No, they can't. That is, I haven't. Oh
dear, this is all so complicated. Not something someone can talk
about on the phone. I'm sorry to have taken up your time, Mr.
Dresden."
"Hold on now," I said quickly. "I'm sorry, you didn't tell me
your name."
There was that nervous pause again, as though she were
checking a sheet of written notes before answering. "Call me
Monica."
People who know diddly about wizards don't like to give us
their names. They're convinced that if they give a wizard their
name from their own lips it could be used against them. To be
fair, they're right.
I had to be as polite and harmless as I could. She was about to
hang up out of pure indecision, and I needed the job. I could
probably turn hubby up, if I worked at it.
"Okay, Monica," I told her, trying to sound as melodious and
friendly as I could. "If you feel your situation is of a sensitive
nature, maybe you could come by my office and talk about it. If
it turns out that I can help you best, I will, and if not, then I can
direct you to someone I think can help you better." I gritted my
teeth and pretended I was smiling. "No charge."
It must have been the no charge that did it. She agreed to
come right out to the office, and told me that she would be there
in an hour. That put her estimated arrival at about two-thirty.
Plenty of time to go out and get some lunch, then get back to the
office to meet her.
The phone rang again almost the instant I put it down, making
me jump. I peered at it. I don't trust electronics. Anything
manufactured after the forties is suspect—and doesn't seem to
have much liking for me. You name it: cars, radios, telephones,
TVs, VCRs—none of them seem to behave well for me. I don't
even like to use automatic pencils.
I answered the phone with the same false cheer I had
summoned up for Monica Husband-Missing. "This is Dresden,
may I help you?"
"Harry, I need you at the Madison in the next ten minutes. Can
you be there?" The voice on the other end of the line was also a
woman's, cool, brisk, businesslike.
"Why, Lieutenant Murphy," I gushed, overflowing with
saccharine, "It's good to hear from you, too. It's been so long. Oh,
they're fine, fine. And your family?"
"Save it, Harry. I've got a couple of bodies here, and I need you
to take a look around."
I sobered immediately. Karrin Murphy was the director of
Special Investigations out of downtown Chicago, a de facto
appointee of the Police Commissioner to investigate any crimes
dubbed unusual. Vampire attacks, troll mauraudings, and faery
abductions of children didn't fit in very neatly on a police
report—but at the same time, people got attacked, infants got
stolen, property was damaged or destroyed. And someone had to
look into it.
In Chicago, or pretty much anywhere in Chicagoland, that
person was Karrin Murphy. I was her library of the supernatural
on legs, and a paid consultant for the police department. But two
bodies? Two deaths by means unknown? I hadn't handled
anything like that for her before.
"Where are you?" I asked her.
"Madison Hotel on Tenth, seventh floor."
"That's only a fifteen-minute walk from my office," I said.
"So you can be here in fifteen minutes. Good."
"Um," I said. I looked at the clock. Monica No-Last-Name
would be here in a little more than forty-five minutes. "I've sort
of got an appointment."
"Dresden, I've sort of got a pair of corpses with no leads and no
suspects, and a killer walking around loose. Your appointment
can wait."
My temper flared. It does that occasionally. "It can't, actually,"
I said. "But I'll tell you what. I'll stroll on over and take a look
around, and be back here in time for it."
"Have you had lunch yet?" she asked.
"What?"
She repeated the question.
"No," I said.
"Don't." There was a pause, and when she spoke again, there
was a sort of greenish tone to her words. "It's bad."
"How bad are we talking here, Murph?"
Her voice softened, and that scared me more than any images
of gore or violent death could have. Murphy was the original
tough girl, and she prided herself on never showing weakness.
"It's bad, Harry. Please don't take too long. Special Crimes is
itching to get their fingers on this one, and I know you don't like
people to touch the scene before you can look around."
"I'm on the way," I told her, already standing and pulling on
my jacket.
"Seventh floor," she reminded me. "See you there."
"Okay."
I turned off the lights to my office, went out the door, and
locked up behind me, frowning. I wasn't sure how long it was
going to take to investigate Murphy's scene, and I didn't want to
miss out on speaking with Monica Ask-Me-No-Questions. So I
opened the door again, got out a piece of paper and a
thumbtack, and wrote:
Out briefly. Back for appointment at 2:30. Dresden
That done, I started down the stairs. I rarely use the elevator,
even though I'm on the fifth floor. Like I said, I don't trust
machines. They're always breaking down on me just when I need
them.
Besides which. If I were someone in this town using magic to
kill people two at a time, and I didn't want to get caught, I'd
make sure that I removed the only practicing wizard the police
department kept on retainer. I liked my odds on the stairwell a
lot better than I did in the cramped confines of the elevator.
Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't
mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.
Chapter Two
Karrin Murphy was waiting for me outside the Madison.
Karrin and I are a study in contrasts. Where I am tall and lean,
she's short and stocky. Where I have dark hair and dark eyes,
she's got Shirley Temple blond locks and baby blues. Where my
features are all lean and angular, with a hawkish nose and a
sharp chin, hers are round and smooth, with the kind of cute
nose you'd expect on a cheerleader.
It was cool and windy, like it usually is in March, and she wore
a long coat that covered her pantsuit. Murphy never wore
dresses, though I suspected she'd have muscular, well-shaped
legs, like a gymnast. She was built for function, and had a pair of
trophies in her office from aikido tournaments to prove it. Her
hair was cut at shoulder length and whipped out wildly in the
spring wind. She wasn't wearing earrings, and her makeup was
of sufficient quality and quantity that it was tough to tell she had
on any at all. She looked more like a favorite aunt or a cheerful
mother than a hard-bitten homicide detective.
"Don't you have any other jackets, Dresden?" she asked, as I
came within hailing distance. There were several police cars
parked illegally in front of the building. She glanced at my eyes
for a half second and then away, quickly. I had to give her credit.
It was more than most people did. It wasn't really dangerous
unless you did it for several seconds, but I was used to anyone
who knew I was a wizard making it a point not to glance at my
face.
I looked down at my black canvas duster, with its heavy
mantling and waterproof lining and sleeves actually long enough
for my arms. "What's wrong with this one?"
"It belongs on the set of El Dorado."
"And?"
She snorted, an indelicate sound from so small a woman, and
spun on her heel to walk toward the hotel's front doors.
I caught up and walked a little ahead of her.
She sped her pace. So did I. We raced one another toward the
front door, with increasing speed, through the puddles left over
from last night's rain.
My legs were longer; I got there first. I opened the door for her
and gallantly gestured for her to go in. It was an old contest of
ours. Maybe my values are outdated, but I come from an old
school of thought. I think that men ought to treat women like
something other than just shorter, weaker men with breasts. Try
and convict me if I'm a bad person for thinking so. I enjoy
treating a woman like a lady, opening doors for her, paying for
shared meals, giving flowers—all that sort of thing.
It irritates the hell out of Murphy, who had to fight and claw
and play dirty with the hairiest men in Chicago to get as far as
she has. She glared up at me while I stood there holding open the
door, but there was a reassurance about the glare, a relaxation.
She took an odd sort of comfort in our ritual, annoying as she
usually found it.
How bad was it up on the seventh floor, anyway?
We rode the elevator in a sudden silence. We knew one another
well enough, by this time, that the silences were not
uncomfortable. I had a good sense of Murphy, an instinctual
grasp for her moods and patterns of thought—something I
develop whenever I'm around someone for any length of time.
Whether it's a natural talent or a supernatural one I don't know.
My instincts told me that Murphy was tense, stretched as tight
as piano wire. She kept it off her face, but there was something
about the set of her shoulders and neck, the stiffness of her back,
that made me aware of it.
Or maybe I was just projecting it onto her. The confines of the
elevator made me a bit nervous. I licked my lips and looked
around the interior of the car. My shadow and Murphy's fell on
the floor, and almost looked as though they were sprawled there.
There was something about it that bothered me, a nagging little
instinct that I blew off as a case of nerves. Steady, Harry.
She let out a harsh breath just as the elevator slowed, then
sucked in another one before the doors could open, as though she
were planning on holding it for as long as we were on the floor
and breathing only when she got back in the elevator again.
Blood smells a certain way, a kind of sticky, almost metallic
odor, and the air was full of it when the elevator doors opened.
My stomach quailed a little bit, but I swallowed manfully and
followed Murphy out of the elevator and down the hall past a
couple of uniform cops, who recognized me and waved me past
without asking to see the little laminated card the city had given
me. Granted, even in a big-city department like Chicago P.D.,
they didn't exactly call in a horde of consultants (I went down in
the paperwork as a psychic consultant, I think), but still.
Unprofessional of the boys in blue.
Murphy preceded me into the room. The smell of blood grew
thicker, but there wasn't anything gruesome behind door
number one. The outer room of the suite looked like some kind of
a sitting room done in rich tones of red and gold, like a set from
an old movie in the thirties—expensive-looking, but somehow
faux, nonetheless. Dark, rich leather covered the chairs, and my
feet sank into the thick, rust-colored shag of the carpet. The
velvet velour curtains had been drawn, and though the lights
were all on, the place still seemed a little too dark, a little too
sensual in its textures and colors. It wasn't the kind of room
where you sit and read a book. Voices came from a doorway to
my right.
"Wait here a minute," Murphy told me. Then she went through
the door to the right of the entryway and into what I supposed
was the bedroom of the suite.
I wandered around the sitting room with my eyes mostly
closed, noting things. Leather couch. Two leather chairs. Stereo
and television in a black glossy entertainment center.
Champagne bottle warming in a stand holding a brimming tub
of what had been ice the night before, with two empty glasses set
beside it. There was a red rose petal on the floor, clashing with
the carpeting (but then, in that room, what didn't?).
A bit to one side, under the skirt of one of the leather recliners,
was a little piece of satiny cloth. I bent at the waist and lifted the
skirt with one hand, careful not to touch anything. A pair of
black-satin panties, a tiny triangle with lace coming off the
points, lay there, one strap snapped as though the thong had
simply been torn off. Kinky.
The stereo system was state of the art, though not an expensive
brand. I took a pencil from my pocket and pushed the PLAY
button with the eraser. Gentle, sensual music filled the room, a
low bass, a driving drumbeat, wordless vocals, the heavy
breathing of a woman as background.
The music continued for a few seconds more, and then it began
to skip over a section about two seconds long, repeating it over
and over again.
I grimaced. Like I said, I have this effect on machinery. It has
something to do with being a wizard, with working with magical
forces. The more delicate and modern the machine is, the more
likely it is that something will go wrong if I get close enough to it.
I can kill a copier at fifty paces.
"The love suite," came a man's voice, drawing the word love
out into luuuuuuuv. "What do you think, Mister Man?"
"Hello, Detective Carmichael," I said, without turning around.
Carmichael's rather light, nasal voice had a distinctive quality.
He was Murphy's partner and the resident skeptic, convinced
that I was nothing more than a charlatan, scamming the city out
of its hard-earned money. "Were you saving the panties to take
home yourself, or did you just overlook them?" I turned and
looked at him. He was short and overweight and balding, with
beady, bloodshot eyes and a weak chin. His jacket was rumpled,
and there were food stains on his tie, all of which served to
conceal a razor intellect. He was a sharp cop, and absolutely
ruthless at tracking down killers.
摘要：

StormFrontbyJimButcherForDebbieChester,whotaughtmeeverythingIreallyneededtoknowaboutwriting.Andformyfather,whotaughtmeeverythingIreallyneededtoknowaboutliving.Imissyoudad.ChapterOneIheardthemailmanapproachmyofficedoor,halfanhourearlierthanusual.Hedidn'tsoundright.Hisfootstepsfellmoreheavily,jauntily...

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