Unbound (65 page)

“After this long, there’s nothing left,” I said. “Too many rains, too many sunrises. Not even Molly could get much.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“Get furry again. We might be here a while.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I think the girl might come by in the next few hours.”

“Why?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “Let’s assume Luther’s telling the truth.”

“Sure.”

“This little guy grabs a little girl and drags her into the alley. Luther jumps him from behind and gets thrown into a wall. Fights him, hard, and beats him to death with a bowling pin. What can we deduce?”

“That Black was stronger than normal and tougher than normal,” Will said. “Some kind of supernatural.”

I nodded. “A predator. Maybe a ghoul or something.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So a predator, operating in the middle of a town? They don’t tend to openly grab little girls off the street, because someone might see it happen.”

“Like Luther.”

“Like Luther. But this guy did. He didn’t go after a transient sleeping in an abandoned building, or someone wandering down a dark alley to buy some drugs, a prostitute, any of the usual targets. He went with something dicier. He’s going to do that, he’s going to cut down on every random factor he can.”

“You think he stalked her.”

I nodded. “Stalked her, learned her pattern, and was waiting for her.”

Will squinted up and down the alley. “Why do you think that?”

“It’s how something from Winter would do it,” I said. “How I would take someone in a busy part of town, if I had to.”

“Well. That’s not creepy or anything, Harry.”

I showed my teeth. “Not much difference between wolves and sheepdogs, Will. You should know.”

He nodded. “So we wait here and see if she’s still going by?”

“Figure if she still goes by here, she’ll do it fast and she’ll be worried. Should make her stand out.”

“You know what else stands out on a busy Chicago street? A timber wolf.”

“Thought of that,” I said, and produced a roll of fabric from my duster’s large pockets.

“You’re kidding,” Will said.

I smiled.

“And what’s in the guitar case?”

I smiled wider.

* * * * *

A few minutes later, I was sitting on the sidewalk with my back against a building, with an old secondhand guitar in my lap, the case open beside me with a handful of a change and an old wadded dollar bill in it. Will settled down beside me, wearing a service dog’s jacket, resting his chin on his front paws. He made a little groaning sound.

“It’ll be fine, boy.”

Will narrowed his eyes.

“Just keep your nose open,” I said, and started playing.

I started with the Johnny Cash version of “Hurt,” which was pretty simple. I sang along with it. I’m not good, but I can hit the notes and keep the rhythm going, so it more or less worked out. I followed it up with “Behind Blue Eyes,” which gets a little harder, and then “Only Happy When It Rains.” Then I followed it up with “House of the Rising Sun,” and completely mangled “Stairway to Heaven.”

There wasn’t a ton of foot traffic on a weekday evening on this street, not in a fairly brisk late March, but nobody really looked at me twice. I made about two and a half bucks in change the first hour. The life of a musician is not easy. A patrol car went by, and a cop gave me the stink-eye, but he didn’t stop and roust me. Maybe he had things to do.

The light started fading from the sky, and I was repeating my limited set for the fifth or sixth time when I started to think about giving up. The girl, if she was still following the same pattern, definitely wouldn’t be running around town alone after it became fully dark.

I was singing about how you’d get the message by the time I’m through when Will suddenly lifted his head, his eyes focused.

I followed the direction of his gaze and spotted a girl of about the right age getting off of a bus. She started walking right away, down the street, though she stayed on the other side, directly toward the El station a block away.

“There we go,” I said. “Kid walking a regular route alone gets jumped in Chicago, kid’s probably using public transit, running on a schedule. Makes her real predictable. Perfect mark for a predator.”

Will made a low growling sound.

“I think I’m kinda smart, yeah,” I said to him. “Get her scent?”

Will nudged me with his shoulder and growled again.

I frowned and looked around until I spotted a rather large and rough looking man descending from the bus at the last second before it left for the next stop. He started down the sidewalk, in pursuit of the girl. He wasn’t maniacally focused on her or anything, but he wasn’t moving like someone coming home tired after a day of work, either. I recognized his pace, his stance, his tension, just as Will had. He was a predator in covert pursuit of his prey.

Worse, he had a smart phone. His thumbs were rapping over it as he walked after the girl.

“Damn,” I said. “Whoever Black was, he was connected. I’m on the creep. You stick with the girl.”

Will gave me one brief, incredulous look.

“I’m six-nine and scarred, you’re furry and cute. She’s eleven, she’s going to like you.”

Will gave me a flat look, his gold eyes utterly unamused. On a wolf, that’s unsettling.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Wag your tail and paw your nose or something. Go!”

I’ll give Will this much, he knows when actions matter more than questions. He took off at once, vanishing into the oncoming evening.

Meanwhile, I put my guitar in the case, set it back into the alley, rose, and focused my will and my attention on the thug. Wizards and modern technology don’t get on well, and nothing dies as fast as cell phones when a wizard means to shut them down. I gathered up enough power to get the job done without taking out the lights on the whole block, flicked a finger at the man pacing the girl, and murmured, “
Hexus
.”

A wave of disruptive energy washed out across the street and over the man and his smart phone. There was a little flash of light and a shower of sparks from the phone, and the man flinched and dropped the device. Most people would have stared at it or looked wildly around. This guy did neither. He sank into a defensive crouch and started scanning his surroundings with wide eyes.

He knew he was being threatened, which meant he had some kind of idea that a wizard might be about. That meant he was no mere thug. He was clued in enough to the supernatural world to know the players and how they might operate. That meant he was elite muscle, and there were only so many players who he might be working for.

I checked the street, hurried through an opening in traffic, and went straight for him. He spotted me in under a second and ran without hesitation, both of which impressed me with his judgment—but he took off after the girl, which meant that he wasn’t giving up, either. I swerved to pursue him, leaped and pulled my knees up to my chin in the air, hitting the hood of a blue Buick with my hands as I flew over it, and came down still running.

We rounded a corner, and I understood what was happening.

The thug I was pursuing wasn’t the grabber. He was just riding drag, making sure the girl didn’t bolt back the way she came. I saw the girl ahead, being hurried into a doorway by three more men, and my guy poured it on when he saw them.

I slowed down a little, taking stock. The goons ahead had seen me coming behind their buddy, and hands were going into coats. I flung myself into the doorway of an office supply store, now closed for the evening, and the thugs all hustled through their own door, without producing guns on the street.

Suited me. I had been hoping to get them somewhere out of the way anyhow.

I waited until they were inside, gave them a five count, and then paced down the street. The door they’d gone through belonged to a small nightclub. A sign, hanging up on the door, read “Closed for Remodeling.”

The door was locked.

It was also made of glass.

I smiled.

* * * * *

I huffed and I puffed and I blew the door in with a pretty standard blast of telekinetic force. I tugged my sleeve up to reveal the shield bracelet I’d thrown together out of a strip of craft copper and carefully covered with the appropriate defensive runes and sigils. I channeled some of my will down into the bracelet, and the runes hissed to life, spilling out green-gold energy and the occasional random spark.

“All right, people!” I called into the club as I stepped through the door. “You know who I am. I’m here for the girl. Let her go, or so help me God I will bring this building down around your ears.” I wouldn’t, not while the girl was still in here, but they didn’t know that.

There was silence for a long moment. And then music started playing from deeper inside the club. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga.

“Okay,” I muttered. “Have it your way.”

I advanced into the darkened club, my shield bracelet throwing out a faint haze of light from the runes—just enough to keep me from bumping into walls. I went through the entry hall, past a collection window where I supposed cover fees would be paid, to double doors that opened onto the bar and dance floor.

I raised my left arm as if wielding an actual shield, the bracelet glowing, and stepped forward into the club.

The little girl was sitting in a booth against the far wall. The four thugs were fanned out on either side of her, guns in hand but pointing at the floor. Sitting with the little girl in the booth was the ADA’s pretty assistant. When I came through the door, she lifted a hand, clicked a remote, and Lady Gaga’s voice cut off in the midst of wanting my bad romance.

“Far enough,” the woman said. “It would be a shame if someone panicked and this situation devolved. Innocents could be hurt.”

I stopped. “Who are you?” I asked.

“Tania Raith,” she replied, and gave me a rather dizzying smile.

House Raith was the foremost house of the White Court of Vampires. They were seducers, energy drainers, and occasionally a giant pain in the ass. The White Court was headed up by Lara Raith, the uncrowned queen of vampires, and one of the more dangerous persons I’d ever met. She wielded enormous influence in Chicago, maybe as much as the head of the Chicago outfit, Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, gangster lord of the mean streets.

I made damned sure to keep track of the thugs and precisely what they were doing with their hands as I spoke. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. Let her go.”

She rolled her eyes, and spun a finger through fine, straight black hair. “Why should I?”

“Because you know what happened the last time some vampires abducted a little girl and I decided to take her back.”

Her smile faltered slightly. As it should have. When bloodsucking Red Court had taken my daughter, I took her back—and murdered every single one of them in the process. The entire species.

I’m not a halfway kind of person.

“Lara likes you,” Tania said. “So I’m going to give you a chance to walk out of here peacefully. This is a White Court matter.”

I grunted. “Black was one of yours?”

“Gregor Malvora,” she confirmed. “He was Malvora scum, but he was our scum. Lara can’t allow the mortal buck who did it to go unpunished. Appearances. You understand.”

“I understand that Gregor abducted a child. He did everything he could to frighten her, and then fed on her fear. If Luther hadn’t killed him, what would he have done to the little girl?”

“Oh, I shudder to think,” Tania replied. “But that is, after all, what they do.”

“Not in my town,” I said.

She lifted her eyebrows. “I believe Baron Marcone has a recognized claim on this city. Or am I mistaken?”

“I’ve got enough of a claim to make me tickled to dump you and your brute squad into the deepest part of Lake Michigan if you don’t give me back the girl.”

“I think I’ll keep her for a day or two. Just until the trial is over. That will be best for everyone involved.”

“You’ll give her to me. Now.”

“So that she can testify and exonerate Mister Luther?” Tania asked. “I think not. I have no desire to harm this child, Dresden. But if you try to take her from me, I will reluctantly be forced to kill her.”

The girl’s lower lip trembled, and tears started rolling down her face. She didn’t sob. She did it all in silence, as if desperate to draw no attention to herself.

Yeah, okay.

I wasn’t going to stand here and leave a little kid to a vampire’s tender mercies.

“Chicago is a mortal town,” I said. “And mortal justice is going to be served.”

“Oh my God,” Tania said, rolling her eyes. “Did you really just say that out loud? You sound like a comic book.”

“Comic book,” I said. “Let’s see. Do I go for ‘Hulk smash,’ or ‘It’s clobberin’ time . . .’”

Tania tensed, though she tried to hide it, and her voice came out in a rush. “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think, that Chicago’s only professional wizard wound up on that jury?”

I tilted my head and frowned. She was right. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more this felt like a turf war. “Oh. Oh, I get it. Luther was one of Marcone’s soldiers.”

“So loyal he went to prison for ten years rather than inform on Marcone,” Tania confirmed. “Or maybe just smart enough to know what would happen to him if he did. He went straight after he got out, but . . .”

“When he got in trouble, Marcone stood up for one of his own,” I said. “He pulled strings to get me on the jury.”

“Luther was getting nailed to a wall,” Tania said. “Marcone controls crime, but Lara has a lot of say over the law, these days. I suppose he thought someone like you might be the only chance Luther had. Gutsy of him, to try to make a catspaw of Harry Dresden. I hear you don’t like that.”

Dammit. Marcone had put me where there’d been a guy getting fast-tracked to an unjust sentence and known damned well how I would react. He could have asked me for help, but I’d have told him to take a flying . . . leap. And he’d have known that. So he set it up without me knowing.

Or hell. He and Mab had been in cahoots lately. Maybe he’d asked her to arrange it. This had her fingerprints all over it.