Chapter Twenty-One
I woke up with the midmorning sun burning my eyes, and a headache that made me want to whimper. This pain thing was getting to be a nasty habit. The deck of the yacht rolled gently beneath me.
"Fair morning, George," a voice said to me.
It was Angel.
"Thought you went to Chicago," I forced my swollen jaw to open and let words out.
"I did. Came back behind the hit crew. But some asshole beat us to the target."
I grunted. "Didn't kill him," I said.
"Come on, get up," Angel said. "You don't want to miss this."
"Miss what? I'm very happy where I am, thank you," I said without moving.
"You get to see what Marcone has in store for Nawang," he answered.
I pictured a bullet in the back of a bald head. "Uh, maybe not," I said.
"Up to you," Angel shrugged.
"Anyway, he's not Marcone's prisoner. He's Ava's."
"That's not the way Marcone is playing it. Who's Ava?"
I looked up at Angel. "The one who captured him."
Angel shook his head. "It was just you and Nawang on the boat, kid. You were both knocked out cold. We just helped ourselves to the pickings."
"So he's my prisoner, you're saying. Your boss is dicking around with my prisoner."
"No offense, kid, but you're a mess, and Nawang wasn't. He was asleep and we took him. Somehow, I'm not seeing you as his captor. And even if you were, kid, I don't think you could handle him."
I sat up stiffly, my head spinning around wildly. I turned to one side and threw up some bile. The makeshift shackles of fiberglass and teak were open, although they were still curled slightly around my limbs. The sunrise had destroyed the spell.
"You need a doctor, kid," Angel offered.
"I know." I grabbed Angel's outstretched hand and slowly pulled my wrecked body up. "Oh, holy scones," I whined.
In the bright sunlight, I got a much better view of the state of the yacht. It looked the way I felt. We were standing in what used to be the salon, only the roof had been blown away, leaving the cloudless sky above us. The wall separating the salon from the galley was obliterated, giving me an intimate view of the small cooking area. Glass, slivers of wood, and bits of boat were just everywhere. Dots of black blood and congealed ectoplasm from the demon were splattered liberally over everything. The yacht was totaled.
I had just never seen anything like it on a watercraft.
Just, wow.
Angel led the way around the right side of the galley, through a narrow hallway that led to the owner's cabin in the forward section of the yacht. It had survived the blast. I walked into the room a few steps behind Angel.
The queen-sized bed that normally would have occupied the center of the room was gone, removed. In its place stood the awkwardly repaired dining room table, its center leaf set aside to make the table smaller. A trio of candles sat on the table, their flames bobbing and dancing. There was also an empty chair behind the table, facing the center of the room. In another chair, to the left side of the table, sat Marcone, his legs crossed, a smoldering cigar balanced between the fingers of his left hand while his elbow rested comfortably on the table's edge. He was casually observing a pair of men in the other side of the room.
One of the men was Nawang. He was on his knees. His hands were tied behind his back, and he had a gag held in place by a bridle of rope. His head was bowed. He was silent, and his eyes seemed far away.
Behind him stood a tall man wearing a thick blackish leather duster and heavy black boots. He was so tall that he had to bend his head down slightly to account for the room's low ceiling. And he was holding a double-edged straight-sword in his hand, the blade of which was resting gently on Nawang's right shoulder blade, where the prisoner could see the sharp tip as a constant reminder of his status in life.
What kind of idiot wears a leather duster in Miami? I thought.
And then my brain caught up with me, and I thought, Oh, crap, that's a Warden.
He turned his head and saw me, giving me the once-over. But he just grunted and shook his head, dismissing me as quickly as he noticed me.
If I weren't so damned afraid of them, I'd almost choose to be offended. But the smart part of me decided to just be grateful, instead. For the moment. Because now I really needed to get off the boat. I wished that Angel had been a little more specific about who was in the room before he lured me in. Holy Scones.
The shadows of movement drew my attention to the doorway behind me. I looked back, and saw a thirty-five year-old woman walking briskly into the room. She had paper-white skin and long, straight black hair that went to the bottom of her shoulder blades. She was wearing an expensive dark blue business suit with medium length black heels. In her left hand was a slim executive briefcase. She wore dark glasses. Designer. Black as midnight. They looked opaque to me.
She brushed by me, evidently already certain of where she was going. She headed straight for the empty chair behind the table, but didn't sit down in it. She lay the briefcase in the center of the desk and looked around the room, taking us all in.
"Gentlemen," she said.
Marcone casually put out his cigar on the table, but he didn't extend his hand to her. He shifted his attention to Nawang, measuring him.
"I take it this is the subject?" she asked, nodding her head in Nawang's direction.
Nawang lifted his head, furrowed his brows at her.
She turned her head to Marcone. "The chair, sir?"
"Of course," Marcone stood up, grabbed the chair that he had been sitting in by the top of its back, and turned it to face the table in front of the woman. He nodded at the man holding the sword.
"Sit," the Warden said to Nawang.
Nawang made a noise through his gag.
"You may ungag and release him, now," the woman said.
The man with the sword whispered something. The ropes that had bound Nawang unraveled on their own and fell to the carpet. The gag followed with a soft plop.
"You were saying?" the man bent closer to Nawang.
"I shall not cooperate," Nawang said in a monotone.
The man in the duster bent even closer to Nawang and whispered something into his ear. Nawang seemed to sigh, but he got up and sat in the chair, his shoulders slightly slumped, his head lowered again.
"Kalden Nawang?" the woman said, facing him. "It is my pleasure to be doing business with you, today. Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Chandra Seovic." She sat down in her chair and straightened the tight-fitting skirt of her suit. She took off her sunglasses and laid them down on the table next to her closed briefcase.
That's when I looked at her eyes.
Chandra Seovic had no irises.
Buddha's piss. Just the whites, and pinprick pupils. Just like a praying mantis. Just like Bouknight's.
Oh, gods below.
"Shall we begin?" she said lightly, with the hint of a smile.
Nawang raised his head and saw.
They say that people could hear his screams as far as a mile away.
I sat at the bow of the yacht, the midmorning wind blowing hotly across my scalp. The sound of the waves and distant gulls wound around me. But I still shivered, my soul alone and frozen. Nothing had happened the way I had imagined it would. Hell, what I really imagined was that I would be found dead by Marcone's crew. Everything else was out of my reckoning. I had gone through and out the other side, only to realize that the other side was empty wilderness, sans landmarks, sans road signs.
Boots crunched along the debris, ambling toward my sanctuary. The Warden with the duster calmly walked along the outer deck until he reached the bow, stopping when he saw me. He tossed his sword to one side and sat down near me, contemplating the surf. As he settled in, his duster opened up, revealing a grungy black tee shirt that read, "ASK ME ABOUT MY CRYSTAL BALLS." We spent the next few moments reading each other's shirt, surreptitiously sizing each other up.
"I don't get it," I spoke after I realized that he wasn't planning on going first.
"What's that? The crystal balls?" he pulled a toothpick out from some pocket and picked at his teeth with it.
"No, I get that. What's a Warden doing handing over a guy like Nawang to a guy like Marcone?"
He looked over at me. "Funny you should ask," he said, flicking the toothpick to one side. "Marcone told me a lot about you. Angel filled in the rest of the details. For what it's worth, I remember your parents a little. I saw them in Edinburgh once."
"So? What's who I am got to do with Nawang?"
"It's simple math," he threw a piece of loose fiberglass into the water. "I didn't turn Kalden Nawang in to the Council because then I'd have to turn in Dorje Saga."
We sat in silence for a while, while I worked on that.
"I have traded a death for a life," he added helpfully.
I shifted around unhappily. "I hope you didn't get a raw deal in that."
"Your job is to make sure I didn't."
He extended a large hand toward me. "Dresden. My friends call me Harry."
I shook his hand, not knowing what else to do.
"But Nawang? Working for Marcone?" I shook my head incredulously.
Dresden shrugged. "I arranged it so that Nawang is forbidden in his Contract from using any kind of magic, or from teaching it. He can give advice about Nevernever. That's about it. It's still a plus for Marcone, and it puts a leash on Nawang, which is all Marcone really wanted in the first place. With a little luck, it'll work out."
"You take some crazy risks, Mister," I said. "So, you work for Marcone?"
He lowered he voice to a deep growl. "I do not work for Marcone. Sometimes we do things together, if it suits us. But that's all. Someday—someday, I'll take him down for the murdering thug he is."
"Everyone works for Marcone, eventually. That's what everyone tells me. He's one of the predators. And the sheep always go to work for the predators."
"You shouldn't listen to people," Dresden looked out at the water.
"Think of all those regular guys out there," I said, waving my hand towards the shore, towards the waves of ordinary human beings back in Miami and beyond, leading their ordinary lives. "How is it that they can live in such peace, while I am drawn into so much violence? All I ever wanted was to be like anyone else on my block."
"I'm not going to agree with you that those people are sheep, George," Dresden sat back, his hands clasped behind his head. "They aren't. The world only looks peaceful from outer space. When you get up close, you see the scar tissue. It's old, and it runs deep. The difference between you and those people is only a matter of degree, the fact that you were given sharper teeth. And that means that when a predator bites at you, it's going to be in your nature to bite back. You can't help it, George, any more than your parents could. And neither can I."
"But that means that I'm going to spend the rest of my life biting and biting and biting."
"Yeah, I guess so. You can't always pick your enemies, George, not unless you want to be a predator yourself."
"Can't you?" I asked. "I chose not to be enemies with the Red Court."
"And you may eventually pay for that. The war with the Red Court is raging harder than ever, and now the word is spreading around that you're a wizard. If the Red Court runs into you, they will see you as a legitimate target. They'll attack you, or worse, they may get clever and try to use you against the rest of us. And when that happens—whether you like it or not—you are going to be very alone, and very vulnerable."
Dresden didn't know that I had already run into the Red Court, or what had happened. I wasn't going to tell him, either. It was none of his business. It wasn't that he was totally wrong. He was right about how the Red Court would react to me. The next time I met them, there may not be a double-dealing vampiress to stay them from killing me. But that wasn't the point. The point was, I wasn't going to meet them. I was going to stay they hell away from them. Far, far away.
I crossed my arms. "When that day comes, I'll face it. But I am not going to make it come faster by running to the Council for protection at the first sign of trouble."
The wizard sighed. "So be it. For what it's worth, I understand. Up to a point."
Dresden reached into his leather overcoat and pulled a business card out of an inside pocket. He handed it to me.
HARRY DRESDEN—WIZARD
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations.
Office: XXXXXXX
Home: 312-958-0877
"When the war is over, and you are ready to be something more than an apprentice, give me a call," he simply said.
"Like a paranormal investigator? Gee, that's great," I pushed the card into my pocket. It bent in half on the way in, and I didn't care.
"Like a Warden," he looked out at the shimmering water.
"And that's your big motivational speech? I got better from the Onyx Lama. Come to think of it, I got better from Marcone. Ever since I dodged the draft, I've been stepping on eggshells around the White Council. I'm fed up with it."
He shrugged, unimpressed. "Hey, I walked around with the Doom of Damocles over my head for years. If you don't trust the White Council, I'd be the first person not to blame you. But dammit, they're still family. They're still worth fighting for."
I sat in silence for a while. "Yeah, well, I don't see it."
"Let me put it this way. You've gone up against a demon. You've seen the monsters that stalk the night. And then you've seen a dark wizard at work. You've seen with your own eyes that a dark wizard puts all the demons and monsters to shame when he's on his game.
"I'll tell you this—without the White Council, the wizards of the world would all be like Nawang. It would be a very scary world, I can promise you. The White Council is where we all come together to agree to be something better than the hellish thugs that we secretly want to be. And while in reality the Council might suck, the idea that created it is still worth a shot."
He got up and picked up his sword from its resting place.
"Give it a thought," he said. "I don't ask for anything else."
I did.