Cold Days (14 page)

Heh. Why should I be any different?

The
Water Beetle
was definitely not battened down for winter, not yet. She was a sturdy, tough little craft—not fast, but not afraid of much of anything nature would throw at her, either. Her gangplank was down, and “batten” and “gangplank” are about the only boat words I’m comfortable with. I moved up it without hesitation, even in the shadowy dimness of late night on the marina. I was familiar with the boat. I’d visited the island on it on multiple occasions.

I went aboard and up onto the roof of the wheelhouse, where the driver’s position was. I flicked on a couple of tired old bulbs and checked the gauges. Fuel, oil, good. She had more than enough for the trip out to the island and back. The key wasn’t in the ignition—it would be in the small safe down in the boat’s cabin, but I knew the combination.

“We’re good,” I called softly. “Come on.”

Molly came up the gangplank while I went down into the cabin.

I got no warning whatsoever, no sound, no visible motion, nothing. One second I was going down the stairs, and the next my face and chest were being crushed against the wall and something extremely sharp was pressing against my neck, just beneath my right ear. Cool, iron-strong fingers were spread over my whole head, pressing it to the wall. The message was clear—if I struggled or made any sound, something pointy would go into my brain.

I froze. It seemed smart. If my attacker wanted me dead, I wouldn’t still be able to reason that he could already have killed me.

“Hello, precious,” murmured a man’s very soft voice. “I think you’re on the wrong boat.”

I sagged suddenly in relief. “Stars and stones,” I breathed. “Thomas, you scared the hell out of me.”

The power of the cold fingers against my head did not falter in the slightest, but there was a short, stunned silence. Then the pressure against my skull became furious. “Do you think this is funny?” my half brother said, his voice becoming louder, fairly boiling with anger. “Do you think I am amused by this kind of prank?”

“Thomas,” I said. “It’s
me
.”

“Sure it is,” Thomas snarled, the pressure against me surging for a second. “Harry Dresden is
dead
.”

I thought my eyeballs were trying to squeeze their way out of their sockets. “Glurk!”

“Now,” he growled. “I’m going to give you exactly three seconds to start telling me the truth, or I swear to God they will never find enough pieces of you to identify the body.”

He meant it, Hell’s bells. He was furious. If I were the kind of guy who ever got scared by anything, ever, which of course I am not, I would have been feeling extremely nervous at that moment.

“Mab!” I ground out. “Dammit, Thomas, you lunatic. It was Mab!”

“Mab sent you?” Thomas demanded.

“Mab
saved
me!” I rasped. “Hell’s bells, man, it’s
me
!”

Thomas growled, lower, but he didn’t pancake my skull or stick something sharp and metal into my brain. Thomas was strong—stronger than me. A vampire of the White Court can bring out that kind of strength only on special occasions, but Thomas was a very well-fed vampire. I knew that if he wanted to do it, Winter Knight steroids or no, he could twist me like a congressman’s logic.

“Molly!” he called out. “I know you’re out there. I can smell you.”

A few seconds later, there were soft steps on the gangplank, and then the shadows moved at the door. “I’m here.”

“What the fuck is
this
?” he demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Molly said. “It’s dark. But if I could see, I’d tell you that I try not to put myself between two siblings when they’re fighting. It never seems to help.”

Two or three flabbergasted seconds passed. Then the pressure against my skull was gone so fast that I all but fell over. I grabbed myself before I could and shook my head. “Ow. Nice to see you again, too, man.”

He moved silently across the cabin and something clicked. A battery-powered tap light came to life, bringing a dim if adequate level of light to the compartment.

My brother was a hair shy of six feet tall. He looked much as I remembered him: dark, glossy hair fell to his shoulders. His skin was even paler than mine. His eyes were storm-cloud grey, though they looked brighter than that now, glinting with little metallic flecks that revealed his anxiety and anger. He and I shared a similar scowl, all dark brows and intense eyes, and his mouth was twisted into a silent snarl as he stared at me. He was wearing a pair of jeans, and that was it. The cabin’s bunk had been folded down and slept in. I’d woken him when I came aboard. In his right hand he held a metal tent stake. There was both dirt and rust on it. Can you get gangrene in your brain?

“Oh,” Molly said. She stared at Thomas for a moment. “Oh, um. My.”

Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative
packs
. I’d say he was model pretty, except that as far as I could tell, there weren’t any models as pretty as he was. He had muscles that rippled even when he was motionless and relaxed, and it was utterly unfair.

And . . . I didn’t do a lot of appraising myself in the mirror, typically, but I suddenly realized that sometime in the past few years, Thomas had stopped looking like my older brother. He looked younger than me. Wizards can live a long time, but we don’t look youthful while we do it. Thomas was a vampire. He’d look this good until he stopped breathing.

The guy barely works out, eats whatever he wants, and gets to look that good
and
that young his whole life. How is that fair?

“You can’t be my brother,” Thomas said, staring hard at me. “My brother is dead. You know how I know?”

“Thomas,” I began.

“Because my
brother
would have contacted me,” Thomas snarled. “If he were alive, he would have gotten in
touch
with me. He would have let me know.”

Molly winced and looked away as though she’d just heard a very loud and very unpleasant sound. I’m not sensitive to the emotions of others the way Molly is, but I didn’t need to be to know that Thomas was boiling over in reaction to seeing me there.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Molly said. “I can’t . . . It hurts.”

“Go,” I said softly.

She nodded and withdrew onto the deck of the boat, shutting the door behind her.

My brother stayed where he was, staring at me. “All this time,” he said. “And not a word.”

“I was dead,” I said quietly. “Or the next-best thing to it. Maybe it was more like a coma. Hell, I thought I was dead.”

“When did you wake up?” he asked. His voice was carefully neutral.

“About three months ago,” I said. “Wasn’t in good shape. I’ve been recovering since then.”

“Three months,” he said. “No phones there?”

“No, actually. I was in a cave on the island for a while. Then Arctis Tor.”

“No way for you to make contact?” he asked calmly.
“You?”

Silence fell heavily. Thomas knew the kinds of things I could do. If I want someone to get a message, I can generally make sure it gets done—one way or another.

“What do you want me to say, man?” I responded. “I sold out, Thomas.”

“Yeah, when you hurt your back. You told us. For Maggie. To get her home safe.”

“Right.”

He was silent for a second. Then he said, “Empty night, why didn’t I put that together . . . ?” He sighed. “Let me guess. You tried to kill yourself after she was home safe, right?”

I snorted through my nose. “Something like that.”

He shook his head in silence for several seconds. Then he took a deep breath, looked up at me again, and said, “You.
Moron.
”

“Hey,” I said.

“You.
Idiot.
”

“Dammit, Thomas,” I said. “I haven’t lived my life the way I have to watch myself get turned into—” I broke off suddenly, and looked away.

“Into what, Harry?” he asked. “Say it.”

I shook my head.

“No, you don’t get a pass on this one, little brother,” Thomas said. “Say it.”

“Into a monster,” I snapped.

“Right,” Thomas said. “A monster. Like me.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“It is exactly what you meant,” he spat, angry. “You arrogant . . .” He flung the tent spike in a fit of pure frustration. It tumbled end over end once, and sank two inches into a wooden beam. “You were going to be tempted, eh? Going to have to deal with monstrous urges? Going to have to face the possibility that you might change if you lost focus for a minute? Lose control of yourself? Maybe hurt somebody you care about?” He shook his head. “Cry me a fucking river, man. Boo-fucking-hoo.”

I couldn’t look at him.

“You’d rather be
dead
than be like me,” he said. “That’s one hell of a thing to say to your brother.”

“It wasn’t about that,” I said.

“It kind of was,” he snapped back. “Dammit, Harry.”

“I can’t go back and change it,” I said. “Maybe I would if I could. But it’s done. I’m sorry, but it is.”

“You should have talked to me,” he said.

“Thomas.”

“You should have
trusted
me,” he said. “Dammit, man.”

The memory of those desperate hours hit me hard. I felt so helpless. My daughter had been taken away from her home, and for all the times I had gone out on a limb for others, no one had seemed willing to do the same for me. The White Council for whom I had fought a war had turned its back on me. Time had been running out. And the life of a little girl who had never known her father was on the line.

“Why?” I asked him tiredly. “What would it have changed? What could you possibly have said that would have made a difference?”

“That I was your brother, Harry,” he said. “That I loved you. That I knew a few things about denying the dark parts of your nature. And that we would get through it.” He put his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead on his hands. “That we’d figure it out. That you weren’t alone.”

Stab.

Twist.

He was right. It was just that simple. My brother was right. I had been self-involved and arrogant. Maybe it was understandable, given the pressures on me at the time, but that didn’t mean that I hadn’t made bad calls of colossal proportion.

I should have talked to him. Trusted him. I hadn’t even tried to consider anyone other than Maggie, hadn’t even thought to start seeking support from my family. I’d just moved right along to the part of the plan where I hired one of the world’s premier supernatural assassins to whack me. That probably said something about the state of despair I’d been in at the time.

But it didn’t say as much as I had about my brother. He was right about that, too. It wasn’t something I had ever consciously faced before, but I had told Thomas, with my actions, that it was better to be dead than a monster—a monster like him. And actions speak far more loudly than words.

I always thought it would get easier to be a person as I aged. But it just gets more and more complicated.

“I’m sorry. I should have talked to you then,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse. “I should have talked to you three months ago. But I couldn’t because I made the wrong call. I didn’t think I should contact anyone.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking up.

“Because I didn’t deserve to do it,” I said quietly. “Because I sold out. Because I was ashamed.”

He came to his feet, angry. “Oh, absolutely, I get that. I mean, you had to stay away. Otherwise we all would have known that you
aren’t perfect
, you gawking, stupid, arrogant, egotistical . . .”

He hit my chest and wrapped his arms around me so hard that I felt my ribs creaking.

“. . . clumsy, short-tempered, exasperating, goofy, useless . . .”

I hugged my brother back and listened to a steady string of derogatory adjectives until he finished it.

“. . . asshole.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I missed you, too.”

   Chapter   

Fifteen

T
homas got us to the island navigating by the stars.

I kept checking the ship’s compass. Not because I didn’t trust my brother, but because I had no freaking idea how he managed to keep the
Water Beetle
on course without one. Molly had spent the first part of the trip down in the cabin, wrapped up in some blankets: It was a chilly night out on the lake. Thomas and I were comfortable in shirts. I suspected my apprentice was still feeling the aftereffects of standing too close to my reunion with Thomas.

I filled Thomas in on recent events on the way out, omitting only the details on the immortal-killing thing. I had a sinking feeling that knowing something that important about beings that powerful was an excellent way to get yourself killed horribly on any night of the year that
wasn’t
Halloween.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Thomas said, when I finished the briefing. “Have you seen her yet?”

I scowled. “Seen who?”

“You tell me,” he said.

“Just you and Molly,” I said.

He gave me a look of profound disappointment, and shook his head.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said.

“You’re alive,” he said. “You owe it to her to go see her.”

“Maybe when this is done,” I said.

“You might be dead by then,” he said. “Empty night, Harry. Didn’t your little adventure in the lake teach you a damned thing?”

I scowled some more. “Like what?”

“Like life is short,” he said. “Like you don’t know when it’s going to end. Like some things, left unsaid, can’t ever be said.” He sighed. “I’m a freaking vampire, man. I rip out pieces of people’s souls and eat them, and make them happy to have it happen.”

I didn’t say anything. That was what my brother was. He was more than that, too, but it would have been stupid to deny that part of him.

“I’m mostly a monster,” he said. “And even I know that she deserves to hear you tell her you love her. Even if she never gets anything more than that.”

I frowned. “Wait. Who are we talking about here?”

“Either,” he said. “Stop being an idiot. Stop flagellating yourself about how you endanger her by being in her life. You’re the only you
in
her life, Harry. Believe me. They don’t make replacements for a guy like you.”

“They don’t make replacements for anybody,” I said tiredly. “We’ll see.”

Thomas looked at me like he wanted to push. But he didn’t.

“So what about you?” I asked. “Justine and her playmate keeping you company?”

“Playmates,” Thomas said absently. “Plural.”

Totally not fair.

“Hmph,” I said.

He frowned. “Hey. How did you know about that?”

“Ghost me was there the night Justine decided she’d had enough of you moping,” I said.

“Ghost you was there for how long, exactly?” he asked.

“I left before it got to an NC-17.”

He snorted. “Yeah, well, Justine . . . has sort of become a dietitian.”

“Uh, what?”

He shrugged. “You are what you eat, right? Same principle applies to vampires. Justine thinks I’m sad, she brings home someone happy. She thinks I’m too tense, someone laid-back and calm.” He pursed his lips. “Really . . . it’s been kind of nice. Balanced, like.” His eyes narrowed and flickered through a few paler shades. “And I get to be with
Justine
again. Even if it was hell, that would make it worthwhile.”

“Dude,” I said, making the word a disgusted sound. “Single guys everywhere hate you. Starting with me.”

“I know, right?” he asked, nodding and smiling. Then he looked ahead and pointed. “There, see it?”

I peered ahead into the black and found a giant block of more solid black. We were at the island.

The cabin door opened and Molly emerged, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. Her face still looked drawn, but not as pale as it had before we left the marina. She came up the steps to the top of the wheelhouse and stood beside me. “Thomas,” she asked. “Why were you down at the boat tonight?”

Thomas blinked and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean why were you sleeping on board?”

“Because you didn’t tell me what time you’d be there, and I got sleepy,” he said.

Molly glanced aside at Thomas, and then at me. “I asked you to do it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Thomas said, snorting. “You called around ten.”

Molly kept looking at me, frowning. “No. No, I didn’t.”

Thomas promptly cut the throttle on the boat. The
Water Beetle
began coasting to a halt, and the sound of the water hitting her hull resurfaced as the rattle of her engines died.

“Okay,” Thomas said. “Uh. What the hell is going on, then?”

“Molly,” I said, “are you sure?”

“None of my issues have included memory loss or unconscious actions,” she said.

Thomas squinted back at her. “If they had, how would you know it?”

Molly frowned. “Valid point. But . . . there’s been no evidence of that, to my knowledge. I’m as confident about that as anything else I perceive.”

“So if Molly didn’t call me . . .” Thomas began.

“Who did?” I finished.

Water slapped against the hull.

“What do we do?” Molly asked.

“If someone set us up to be here,” Thomas said, “it’s a trap.”

“If it’s a trap, they sure as hell didn’t try very hard to hide it,” I said. “All we really know is that someone wanted us here.”

Molly nodded. “Do you think . . . ?”

“Mab’s work?” I asked. “Having my ride prepared? Yeah, maybe.”

“If your new boss wanted you on the island, wouldn’t she just have told you to go there?” Thomas asked.

“Seems like,” I said. “Taking her orders is pretty much my job now.”

Molly snorted softly.

“Maybe I’ll grow into it,” I said. “You don’t know.”

Thomas snorted softly.

More water sounds.

We didn’t have a lot of choice, really. Whether or not we’d been manipulated into showing up, there was still a giant potential problem with the island, something that had to be addressed as soon as possible. If I waited, dawn would be upon us, and it was entirely possible I’d be too busy—or dead—to fix the problem before it went boom. Which meant that the only time I had to take real action was right now.

“Just once,” I growled, “I’d like to save the goddamned day without a shot clock. You know?”

“The monster business is an easier gig,” Thomas said, nodding. “Way, way easier.”

Which was my brother’s backhanded way of telling me what he thought of me.

“I think we all know I’m not smart enough for that,” I said. “Eyes open, everyone. Thomas, pull her up to the dock. Let’s see who’s waiting for us.”

* * *

The island had once been host to a small town, back in the late nineteenth century. It had been home to docks, warehouses, and what might have been a fishery or cannery or something. Probably no more than a couple of hundred people had lived there, at most.

But the people weren’t there anymore. And what was left of the town was like some kind of skeleton lying among the trees that had grown up through the floorboards. I don’t know what happened to the town. Stories from the time mention only mysterious events in the lake, and an influx of new customers to what passed for a psychiatric care facility of the day. The town itself had been expunged from any records, and not even its name remained to be found. The island, likewise, had vanished from the official record—though if I had to guess, I would say that the reigning authorities at the time decided that covering up the island’s existence was the best way to protect people from exposure to it.

Actually, knowing what I know now, I’d guess that the island
made
them come to that conclusion. The island I’d named Demonreach was very much alive.

Most of the world is, actually. People think that civilization and organized religion have somehow erased the spirits that exist in nature, in all the world. They haven’t. People aren’t the omnipotent force for destruction that we arrogantly believe we are. We can change things, true, but we never really destroyed those old spirits and presences of the wild. We aren’t that powerful. We
are
very loud and very self-involved, though, so most people never really understand when they’re in the presence of a spirit of the land, what the old Romans called a genius loci.

So, naturally, they also didn’t understand when they were in the presence of a truly powerful spirit of the land—a potent spirit like that of, say, Vesuvius.

Or Demonreach.

I’d been to the island on most weekends up until I got shot, and Thomas had often come with me. We’d used some fresh lumber, some material salvaged from the ruined town, and some pontoons made from plastic sheathing and old tractor-tire inner tubes to construct a floating walkway to serve as a dock, anchored to the old pilings that had once supported a much larger structure. Upon completion, I had dubbed it the Whatsup Dock, and Thomas had chucked me twenty feet out into the lake, thus proving his utter lack of appreciation for reference-oriented humor.

(And I’d thrown him
forty
feet out with magic, once I got dry. Because come on, he’s my brother. It was the only thing to do.)

The
Water Beetle
came drifting slowly into the dock, and bumped it gently. You had to be a little bit nimble to get over the side of the boat and onto the floating dock, but fortunately for me you didn’t need to be a gymnast. We’d limned the outer boards of the floating dock in phosphorescent paint, and in the darkness it was a gently glowing, clearly visible outline. I hit the dock and secured the first line on the ring we’d installed, then walked down the dock and caught the second when Thomas threw it to me. Once the boat had been made fast, Thomas lowered the gangplank (a pirate’s life for me!), and Molly padded down it. Thomas came last, buckling on his gun belt, which was currently hung with his ridiculously huge Desert Eagle, just in case we were attacked by a rabid Cape buffalo, and a big old bolo-style machete.

Watching him put the weapons on, I started to feel a little bit naked. I didn’t have any of my usual gear, and I’d survived a bunch of nasty situations because I’d had it. I rubbed my hands against the thighs of my jeans, scowling, and tried not to think of how the only gear I had now consisted of a messenger bag and a talking skull.

Thomas noticed. “Oh. Hey, you need a piece, man?”

“They’re just so fashionable,” I said.

He slipped back aboard and came out with a freaking relic. He tossed it to me.

I caught it, frowning. It was a repeating rifle, a Winchester, complete with the large rounded hoop handle on the lever action. It was seriously heavy, with an octagonal barrel, walnut wood fixtures, and shining brass housing. Elkhorn sights. The gun had a certain comforting mass to it, and I felt like even if it ran out of ammunition, I would still be holding a seriously formidable club. Plus, whatever it was chambered in, a gun that heavy would hardly kick at all. It’d be more like handling a shotgun that pushed against your shoulder, rather than trying to jar it off.

“What am I?” I complained. “John Wayne?”

“You aren’t that cool,” Thomas said. “It’s quick, easy to instinct-shoot, and good to way out past the effective range of a handgun. Lever action, it’ll be reliable, keep working right through the apocalypse.”

Which was a point in its favor, the way my life had been lately. “Rounds?”

“Traditional, forty-five Colt,” he said. “Knock a big man down in one hit and keep him there. Catch.”

He tossed me an ammo belt heavy with metallic shells that were nearly as big around as my thumb. I slung the belt across my chest, made sure the chamber was empty, but with a shell ready to be levered into it, and balanced the heavy gun up on one shoulder, keeping one hand on the stock.

Molly sighed. “Boys.”

Thomas hooked a thumb back at the boat. “I got a machine gun you can have, Molly.”

“Barbarian,” she said.

“I don’t rate a machine gun?” I asked.

“No, you don’t,” Thomas said, “because you can’t shoot. I just gave you that to make you feel better.”

“You ready?” I asked them.

Molly had her little wands out, one in each hand. Thomas swaggered down the gangplank and looked bored. I nodded at them, turned, and took several quick steps off the dock and onto the stony soil of the island.

My link with the island was an extremely solid and powerful bond—but it existed only when I was actually standing on it. Now that I was, knowledge flooded into me, through me, a wave of absolute information that should have inundated my senses and disoriented me entirely.

But it didn’t.

That was the beauty of intellectus, pure universal knowledge. While I stood on the island, I understood it in a way that was breathtakingly simple to experience and understand, but practically impossible to explain properly. Knowledge of the island just flowed into me. I could tell you how many trees stood upon it (17,429), how many had been taken down by the summer’s storms (seventy-nine), and how many of the apple trees currently bore fruit (twenty-two). I didn’t have to focus on an idea, or wrest the knowledge from the island. I just thought about it and
knew
, the way I knew what my fingers were touching, the way I knew what scents belonged to what foods.

We were alone on the island. That much I knew. But I could also sense a profound unease in the place. Molly’s description had been perfectly accurate. Something was wrong; some kind of horrible strain was upon the island, a pressure so pervasive that the trees themselves had begun to lean away from the island’s heart, stretching their branches toward the waters of the lake. Without my heightened awareness of the island, I never would have been able to sense the shift of inches across thousands and thousands of branches, but it was real and it was there.