"V for Vengeance"
Chapter 13
Authors Note: I'm really sorry it's taken this long to update, but things have been hectic. So I wanted to thank you for bearing with me and reading my story. I do appreciate all who read my stories, it's very gratifying and any feedback you care to offer is appreciated. I just hope you enjoy the rest of the story.
I slept fitfully, dreams came some as a blur of nonsense images half remembered, others complete and vivid. Some elements of my past and the current situation somehow weaved themselves into a coherent story while I simply observed the actions take place. I saw my first apprentice die at the hands of a werewolf and then Susan pushing past me at Bianca's masquerade party, only to dissipate into a mist as she pressed into the crowd. Then I saw myself on a dinosaur directing it to destroy legions of the living dead and then things shifted to the Raith depths where human and vampires alike were destroyed by large, enhanced ghouls before the place blew up. Then just before I woke I saw Megan's face looking at me, desperate and lost, begging for my help.
"Harry… You said to wake you if anything changed. Harry, are you awake?" Toots voice broke into my consciousness as my heavy eye lids began to part and the early morning sunlight stung my eyes.
"Yeah, I'm awake Toot." I said giving the room a quick scan. Lash was sitting up in her bed with a gentle smile looking at me and the pixie like it was a scene from a Rockwell painting.
"Well, we've found the people you asked about. The second Red Court group, I told you about last night and we found the Black Court group just after sunrise. They are easier to find during the day." He said with a pleased smile on his face.
"Outstanding Toot, where is the Black Court at?" I asked suddenly awake and wiping the sleep out of my eyes.
"They are in a basement of an old building that nobody uses anymore. I've been meaning to ask you about that Harry. Why do humans build buildings then not use them and just leave them empty? It seems like a bad use of time and building stuff, if nobody's going to use it…" He said scratching his head.
"Long story Toot, they planned to use it or did use it for a while, and then things changed. Companies closed, people got other jobs and went to work someplace else." I said trying to explain as best I could in simple terms.
"Toot, you'll find humans are short lived and capricious. That has much to do with their behavior." Lash said with a knowing look.
"Oh… I see. That makes a lot of sense." Toot said giving Lash a thankful look.
"So says the mortal wizard recovering from her injuries." I said with a smirk.
"It doesn't change the fact that compared to the Fae and other races, you're life even as a wizard will be but a space of a time compared to their longevity." Lash said a little defensively.
"I get it, but capricious?" I said.
"Comparatively speaking yes, but that's because WE mortals have to squeeze as much living as we can into the precious time we are given." She said with a grin and a wink that made me blush and Toot's nimbus turned a light shade of pink.
"I see…" Toot said with a scholarly look on his face that was as out of place as horns on a bunny rabbit.
"So where is this building?" I asked turning back to Toot.
"It's down by the big water and surrounded by a bunch of other smelly buildings, most don't look like they get used much either." He said. The faeries are good at finding things but since they tend to spend most of their time in the Nevernever they aren't really good about getting addresses.
"Is there a name on the building or some way that I could tell it from the others, besides having the undead in its basement?" I asked trying to sound diplomatic.
"I thought you'd ask so I grabbed this paper from upstairs in one of the rooms." He said offering me an old rumpled and faded sheet of paper. At closer inspection it was a delivery receipt and had the buildings address and a list of materials shipped. From the list it appeared that the company was a manufacturing company and had received a list of chemicals and parts. I wasn't sure if the list of materials could help or not, but the address was more than I'd hoped for.
"That's great Toot. It's just what I needed. If we move on the black court before they are up and about we will stand a better chance of taking them down. Worst case, if we have to make a break for it, we can escape into daylight and they won't be able to follow." I said scratching my head trying to draw a plan together.
Okay, so I knew who the players were and where they could be found. The question now was who to hit first, when and where. Then there was the additional problem of Lash and Murphy being hurt, which didn't help matters. I had to come up with a plan and didn't have a lot of time or resources to throw at it.
"Good work Toot, you and your men are doing a wonderful job! Keep an eye on them and let me know if anything changes." I said getting up out of the chair.
"Will do Harry!" He said and vanished with a pop.
"Harry what was that?" Murphy's voice came from the hallway.
"What was what?" I asked giving her an innocent look as I turned to see her standing in the hallway, pulling the door open all the way.
"I'm not crazy. I heard voices and peeked in the door and saw something hovering in the air in front of you. You talked to it and it told you where the vampires were." She said with a puzzled look on her face. "I want to know what it was and how it got into my house."
"Technically it's a pixie and it flew in." I said in a reasonable voice.
"He's a Pixie? Like faerie dust and mischief pixies?" She asked.
"Yeah, he works with me on occasion." I said pointing to the glittery dust on the floor next to the bed that was evaporating quickly.
"They aren't going to start hanging around my house now are they?" She asked looking around as if waiting to catch a glimpse of one out of the corner of her eye.
"No… Probably not. Unless they like you." I said giving it some thought.
"Harry!" Murphy said with a growl in her voice.
"I don't control the faeries. I just work with some now and then." I said.
"They aren't going to start moving stuff around my house now are they?" Murphy asked worried.
"No, they usually only hang around if you really tick them off or leave food out for them."
"Next time please ask before inviting faeries or magical creatures into my home." Murphy said with a slightly frazzled look on her face as she limped into the kitchen.
"Right then, no faeries without prior approval." I said pretending to write it down on an imaginary note pad.
Murphy was up and getting ready for work as Molly and I made breakfast. Sausage and potatoes were cooking when there was a knock on the door. Murphy came out of her room in her slacks and white button up shirt and socks and gave me a funny look.
"Expecting company?" She said as there was a second, louder set of raps on her door.
"None that use the door." I said moving to my duster to draw my blasting rod as Murphy pulled a 45 out of the coat closet next to the door.
"One second." She said as she released the safety and cocked the hammer as she slowly turned the door knob and opened the door.
"Karin, how are you? You look lovely as ever." Said a puzzled but nonplussed Carlos Ramirez. "Do you welcome all your guests with a large caliber hand gun?" He asked giving her a dazzling smile.
"Carlos? What the hell are you doing here?" She asked lowering the weapon and waving him inside, her cheeks blushing as her posture suddenly became better.
"Harry called in for backup, which has never happened before. So I rushed over as soon as I could. When he wasn't at home I thought to try here and the Carpenters before calling in a search party." He said stepping into the house looking around, taking in the Murphy abode.
"So Harry was expecting you?" She asked giving me a dirty look.
"I didn't call for backup. I just thought you could use some excitement in your life." I said putting my blasting rod away and walking down the hall to shake his hand.
"Call it what you like but when Harry Dresden asks another warden to go along on one of his little adventures, you either hide well or grab every weapon you have then come quickly before you miss all the action." He said with a contagious laugh.
"Carlos? Is that you?" Molly said from the end of the hall with a sheepish grin.
"It's me Miss Carpenter." He said with a grin. "You've changed since I last saw you." He said approvingly.
"She does that." I said giving him a warning glance.
"We were just making breakfast, are you hungry?" She asked, turning to head back into the kitchen.
"I could eat. With the time difference it's still pretty early for me." He said heading down the hall to the kitchen.
Murphy secured the gun and quickly headed back into her bedroom to finish getting ready.
I handed Warden Ramirez a hot cup of coffee as I joined him at the dining table.
"What did Luccio tell you?" I asked as he sipped his coffee.
"She said you had two or three groups of vampires in your city and one took a high profile hostage." He said giving me his serious look.
"That's partly true. The hostage is a Senator's daughter and she's been infected by the Red Court. From what I've heard she could be very powerful both politically and otherwise if fully turned. The Black Court is there to claim her and take her for themselves, in which case she would be even more powerful and basically Marva's puppet. We can't let that happen." I said flatly.
"If she's already infected by the Red Court what does Marva think she'll do with her?" Carlos asked.
"I have it on good authority that the Black Court can still turn her until she's fully turned." I told him as I added more sugar to my cup.
"I didn't know they could do that." He said with a worried look on his face.
"I didn't either until recently, evidently she's still human enough for the Black Court to kill her and the Red Court virus and turn her to the Black Court." I told him.
"Like the Black Court wasn't scary enough to begin with." Carlos said shaking his head. "Any idea how to get her away from them?"
"Getting her away from the Red Court isn't going to be the hard part, it's keeping her and getting them to leave her alone that will be the tough part. As long as she's alive they'll be hunting her." I said sadly.
"So you don't have many options, give her to them or kill her." He said. "This doesn't sound like your typical Dresden plan."
From the other room I could hear Murphy's cell phone go off, then her muffled voice answering it.
"It's not the plan I had hoped for and hopefully we can come up with another option, but until then we have to go with plan B." I said tasting stomach acid in my mouth as I said it.
"Not necessarily." Lash said from behind me.
"Miss Lash! Good to see you." Carlos said looking up from the table, beaming at Lash. "If you have another idea, I'd love to hear it."
"Harry, that was the senator." Murphy said from the doorway to her room. "He needs to talk to you and will call you on the house phone. He sounded upset." She said stepping into the hallway. Her hair and makeup were now done properly and she was wearing a pair of black sensible shoes and her badge was prominently displayed next to her belt buckle.
"Did he say what he wanted?" I asked.
"No he just said he had to talk to you ASAP." She replied as the house phone on the wall next to me began to ring.
"I got it." I said, turning to the phone and yanking it from the cradle.
It was the senator and over the course of a brief and heated conversation I got the impression that he needed to meet with me and it had something to do with his daughter and wife. I couldn't make out exactly what he was trying to say but he was very upset and needed to see me. So I gave him directions to someplace we could meet in private away from the mainstream eyes of the public.
I asked Lash to elaborate on what she meant when she said we didn't necessarily have to kill the girl to get her out of this mess. She briefly outlined a simple, yet elegant plan that could work. The more I thought about it the more I liked it. Lash, Molly, Carlos and I hashed out a few rough spots in the plan and decided to discuss it more after I met with the Senator.
I made a call to Mac and asked if he could meet us at his pub, so we could have a private meeting there. It didn't take much convincing once he heard there was a young woman in trouble and her father was a senator. Mac had a big heart and was a stand up guy. Although he was a man of few words, his actions spoke volumes about who he was.
As the truck rolled into the alley way the building walls reverberated and the engine sounded like something between a hurricane and symphony. We found a parking spot in the small and empty lot and made our way into the bar whose sign read Closed.
The door to McNally's pub was open and inside was a tired but amicable Mac and a quite shake senator sitting at the bar with a cup of coffee and a bottle of Mac's latest microbrew. He was favoring the brew at the moment.
"Mac, thanks for opening so early. I really appreciate it." I said as I sat at the bar. Mac just nodded as Carlos took the stool next to me. Carlos waved at Mac and two bottles of Mac's latest microbrew appeared in front of Carlos and I, the lids laying next to the bottles. Mac gave me a quizzical look.
"We're fine, thanks again. We'll leave a big tip." I said giving him a grateful smile.
"Eh." Mac said as he grabbed his clipboard with an inventory list on it and headed into the back room.
"Harry, who's your friend?" The senator asked, keeping his head down as he suckled at the beer.
"He's a good friend and we work together. He's a wizard too, his name's Calos Ramirez." I said pointing to the gentleman in his mid twenties by my side.
"He looks young." Senator Forthright said to the bar.
"Looks can be deceiving." I said. "Now what brings us down here?" I asked getting to the point.
"They took her." He said not looking away from the bottle.
"Megan?" I said. We knew that, "I have people watching her she's not moved since we last spoke."
"No damnit, my wife. Those monsters have My Wife!" he said slamming the bottle down on the surprisingly resilient bar top. It should have left a dent or at least a scratch in the varnish, but I didn't see any… I'd have to ask Mac about that later.
"When did this happen?" I asked incredulously.
"Sometime last night as best I can tell. I heard a noise and went to investigate. As I came down the stairs something hit me in the face, like slime. I went to wipe it off and got all woozy and passed out. When I woke up a few hours ago she was gone." He said, his eyes glistening with tears.
"Sounds like the Red Court if you ask me." Carlos chimed in. I gave him a, "Shut up and let me handle this" look and he rolled his eyes and sipped his beer.
"That's who took Megan right?" he asked.
"Yeah, that's them. I think I know why they took her and if I'm right she's in no danger." I said reassuringly.
"No danger, like Megan is in no danger but can't ever come home? Do you mean that kind of no danger?" He half yelled back at me.
"Calm down John, they won't do that to her. They don't have a reason to do that and they have every reason to leave her untouched." I said calmly.
"They won't hurt her, because they need her whole and healthy to give to their king." I said rationally.
"Really and why's that? She's not the virgin!" He said mockingly.
"But she is their offering, their sacrifice." I said watching him as his head jerked up to face me for the first time today.
"That kind of No Danger… Well isn't that good to know. So she's fine until she's given to their king. What then? Will he rip out her heart or just drink her blood?" He said sarcastically.
"He has to taste her blood to confirm your daughters royal bloodline." I told him calmly. "But they have to get her out of the city to do that and we aren't going to let that happen. There's a lot going on behind the scenes on this one and you have to trust me on this." I said firmly looking into his terrified face.
"Look I know it's not in vogue for a politician to love his wife but call me old fashioned. I've never cheated on her and would do anything to keep her safe. Is there any way I could buy them off? Maybe trade political favors and foreign aid to get her back? I could call in the National Guard or turn Homeland Security loose on them?" He said. "We have to get her back!" he half cried half yelled.
"Don't worry. We have a plan." I said resolutely.
"You have a plan. Two wizards… My God I must be going nuts." He said tipping his bottle high as he drank the last of his beer.
"Look, there are two rival factions in town each wanting your daughter. If they took your wife they are planning on moving soon and when they do, we grab her." I said calmly.
"Assuming you can get past their security and the other two factions and get out cleanly." He said with a smirk.
"This isn't our first rodeo." I said firmly. "We'll get her out."
"What's to stop me from calling the FBI and getting them to raid his place and getting her back?" He said reasonably.
"Well first off, there are his guards, some vampire, some human and all heavily armed. Do you want to put your daughter in the middle of a fire fight?" I asked.
"Now let's assume you succeed in getting her back. How long do you think it will take before the next in line comes to call with more 'people' and more guns? How many times do you want to go through this? How many times do you want to risk your wife and daughters lives?" I said giving him a firm look.
"So what's your plan?" He asked point blank in an authoritarian sort of way.
"We go in before they move her and kill her in front of them, grab your wife and run like hell." I said calmly. "Once your daughter is dead, they will have no need for your wife so that part of the plan should go easily."
The conversation got much louder for a while. Eventually we were able to convince the senator to leave his wife and daughter in our hands. If we failed to get his wife back to him in 24 hours he was going to call in the marines and every law enforcement and intelligence agency with an acronym to get them back.
We did however get him to agree to help us with our plan but for it to work properly we had to call on someone with special abilities who I really hated to work with. John went home and Carlos and I headed downtown for our next appointment.
"Do you have an appointment?" The young capable woman asked from behind the receptionist desk.
"We have a standing appointment with Mr. Marcone. Just tell him Harry Dresden is here and it's important." I said in a calm and unyielding manner.
The young woman relayed my message and after what seemed like a long pause, followed by a brief conversation that confirmed what I looked like and that there was another person with me who had on a gray cloak and sword, she hung up.
"He said he'll be right with you Mr. Dresden. Won't you have a seat?" She said indicating a small private sitting area with a full coffee pot and a basket full of pastries.
Carlos and I grabbed some coffee and although I wasn't hungry I grabbed a pastry, just because I knew John Marcone was paying for it. True to his word we were shortly ushered down a hall and to a large set of glass double doors. The woman knocked twice and turned and left.
The doors to the office opened and there in the doorway stood Hendricks. Hendricks was a granite mountain of a man with thick stumpy legs and arms. He had a large round head sitting directly on his shoulders with no discernable neck.
Hendricks frisked us, took Carlos's sword, and then nodded to let us pass into the room.
John Marcone sat behind a ridiculously large carved desk. I'm sure it was a rare wood and the desk alone could buy half a suburban block of homes, but it didn't impress me any more than the man who sat behind it. He was Chicago's own personal crime lord and scumbag.
I sat down before being asked to and put my pastry and coffee on his desk as I pulled the chair closer to the desk. Marcone frowned and put the cup on a coaster as he glared at me.
"Harry Dresden, I see you're as polite as ever. The desk is new and very expensive. I'll thank you to not put your feet up. Now, what brings you to my office today?" He said putting the pastry on a napkin like a housewife with OCD.
"We've come to make you an offer, a deal if you will." I said giving him a mysterious look.
"Harry Dresden wants to make a deal with me? How quaint." He said sitting back in his chair. "What sort of deal Harry?"
"You do me a favor and my friend owes you a favor, it's just that simple." I said calmly.
"Well I'm afraid I don't know your friend here and so don't know what to think. Maybe you should be a little more specific." He said with a interested look in his eyes as the businessman in Johnny began to salivate.
"Not this friend, he's nobody for you to worry about. My other friend, Senator John Forthright would be the one to owe you the favor." I said calmly. Johnny's eyes lit up at the mention of the senator.
"I see. I've met the senator and played golf with him before and he wasn't interested in anything I had to say. What has changed his mind?" John asked smiling like a predator about to pounce on prey.
"John, really? Don't tell me the free baron of Chicago doesn't know what's going on in his own town! Didn't you know that a group from the Red Court has come to town and abducted and infected a young woman? That there is a second group of the same court and another from the Black Court also in town, and they're planning on causing a ruckus in your backyard. How is it that you didn't know any of this Johnny?" I asked with mock surprise. "I thought you were up on things Johnny, maybe you're slipping."
"Don't assume I'm not aware of what happens in this city Wizard!" Marcone spat, his cheeks turning red and angry. I could tell he knew some of what I had told him but at least part of it was news to him.
"So you sanctioned all of this did you?" I asked innocently.
"Of course I didn't! I heard about the red court taking the girl after the fact, and then I heard you were involved so I stayed out of it, assuming the great wizard Dresden could handle it. Now you're here asking for favors. Maybe it's not me who's slipping." He said giving me a cold look.
"Considering the insult and audacity of these groups I thought you may want to get a little payback and get a marker with the senator as a bonus." I said without flinching.
"What did you have in mind?" he asked, his interest perked.
We spent the next hour going over what Johnny's part in the plan would entail. I intentionally left him in the dark on a few matters like the Senator's wife being missing and what I planned on doing to get the girl back. I assumed he didn't need to know and was less likely to interfere with me if he didn't know what I was going to do ahead of time. It's the whole, better to ask forgiveness than permission sort of thing.
Before we left the office building where Johnny Marcone worked, I stopped and used the pay phone to make a few calls. I told the senator that the plan was in place and to sit tight. Then I called Murphy's house and told Molly that I'd need her help in a few hours and to get her gear together. I hated bringing her in on this but with Lash down and Murphy hurt, I couldn't bring them into this. Then I made one last call to an old friend whose help didn't come cheap, but I wasn't footing the bill and could use the help to make sure we got the women out safely. Once that was arranged all we had to do was prepare and wait.
"Are you sure this plan is going to work?" Carlos asked after a long silence as we drove through Chicago's late morning rush, heading back to my apartment.
"Sure, why shouldn't it?" I asked shocked that the brilliance of my plan wasn't apparent to my fellow warden.
"It just has a lot of holes and there are a ton of variables you aren't accounting for." He said sanely.
"I've learned its best not to over think these things. If you go in with a rigid plan and something goes wrong, it all falls apart. This way we know our objectives and if something goes sideways, we'll simply adjust and make it work." I said equally sanely.
"So we're doing this by the seat of our pants then?" He asked with a little disbelief in his voice.
"I wouldn't put it quite that way, but yes, we are a little flexible on the details. Trust me Carlos, it'll work!" I said reassuringly as I ran a light just turning red.
"If you say so…" He said in a less than convincing tone.