Life After Death

Chapter 18

Harry Dresden is dead. Yeah that is what they all wanted to tell me so what was I doing about it? I was trying to take a nap.

One of the cool sides about being a sensitive wizard is the ability to affect the mind. I could make others feel afraid, feel brave, or even just laugh hysterically. Of course that was violating one of those pesky Laws of Magic if I took away their will, but I had gotten better about walking up to that particular line without crossing it.

On the up side I was allowed by the wording of that law to affect my own mind as much as I wanted to. Now this did not give me super powers or anything. I could not command my mind to make me 'fly' and suddenly I would be Supergirl or anything; at least not that I was willing to attempt and stake my life on. I could not give myself x-ray vision. I could just encourage myself to things I was capable of.

I had found this skill was a great power to have to fight off insomnia without having to resort to pills of the worst possible movies on the late, late show. A quick self-induced spell to fall asleep and nine out of ten times I would find myself drifting into unconsciousness in just a few moments time. So with The Archive keeping watch and currently not trying to escape this is exactly what I did.

Molly are you out of your mind you are probably asking. Am I not violating one of the Evil Overlord's most important laws of what not to do when you have captured your enemy and have them helpless? And why the heck did I want to take a nap right now?

Good questions…all of them.

You see Ivy was right about one little thing. I needed to know where the dragon was keeping her lair and without Ivy providing this information the best way I had reasoned to get this was by going back to sleep and dream walking again to spy upon the dragon and her guests. I mean she had established this great magical connection so I figured a quick nap would allow me to find her lair, get a general layout of the situation and any traps it may have, and maybe even do a quick check on her captives to ensure they were all relatively healthy and whole was worth the risk of sleeping around Ivy.

See, it is really not such a bad idea considering all the potential upside I could gather. Of course there are numerous failed super villains who likely thought the same thing.

I will not bore you with the details of the journey back to the courtyard where the Mercedes still sat as a magical anchor holding on to me as a means of tracking. More important to the situation though, this time there were no living beings wandering around or standing guard in the courtyard. Okay by living I am including the former golems who had hung out here but the point remains that the place was almost deserted; enough so that I almost panicked a bit and wondered if the dragon had moved on to somewhere else. But then I figured she would have taken the car with her as well, right?

With limited options I chose to enter the big steel doors that I had watched her and Death emerge from the last time I was here and was immediately overcome by the odor that wafted past me when they opened. It was a combination of old swamp and older sweat. I'm not sure an astral projection or whatever the hell I was at the moment could vomit, but I will admit I was damn close to providing scientific research on that subject. Who knew spirits had to breathe at all?

The room beyond was a small area with what appeared to be a few offices shooting off to each side and a desk surrounded by thick glass and steel walls. The layout was familiar for only a few facilities had this type of structure but I was not going to jump to conclusions on my location just yet. I needed to confirm where I thought I was. Of course the second big steel door standing open just opposite of where I came in seemed a good confirmation even if the smells seemed to grow stronger as I headed in that direction. I tossed on a veil and cautiously strode in watching for traps or alarms but lured by the sounds of desperation coming further ahead.

The next 'room' was truly more like a grand hall or even a vaulted courtyard rather than a room. It could easily hold hundreds; in fact it likely did back when this building was in use as originally intended. Of course in those days the residents would spend most of their time lining the alcoves along walls to either side. The central areas would have been for foot traffic though now it surely looked nothing like in had in those years past.

I will start by explaining this was once a jail, a two story one with the cells along each side and railed hallways above the floor. If you have seen The Shawshank Redemption that prison set was a pretty close representation of where I was standing. Well of course that was before the dragon put her rather unique touches on the place.

I already mentioned the musky, swampy smell so let me state that it originated from this location and was not because a marsh had popped up through the concrete floor. Instead the smell was all based upon a combination of a temperature spell that kept this room a rather moist one hundred degrees or so and the rather unique smell of the dragon's natural body odor that had seeped into the very cement and steel bars. Do you have any idea how bad you have to smell to sink into concrete?

Yeah, you might, but for those who do not or think it could not be that bad let's just say I immediately compared it to being caught between a leather couch and a four hundred pound naked and hairy backed man on an August day as he watches football and eats nachos. And like I said, I was just an astral projection at the moment so I could only assume the real smell if I had a nose would be even worse!

Now we have already shown that the dragon was pretty impressive where magic was concerned, certainly above my own skill levels. She also had demonstrated an ability to cast a veil spell so she could confuse or mask senses if she so chose to; at least until sunrise every day. Therefore that meant the smell was here by her choice. And that was only a hint of the sensory abuse I was about to face.

Instead of something cold, powerful, and intimidating that your average evil warlord would be satisfied with she decided to 'decorate' in a style that was probably unique to dragons; well them and perhaps the cheapest cathouses ever built by desperate men. Let's start with the totally obnoxious and then move to the gaudiest shall we so you can experience the same level of enjoyment I was privileged to?

The walls and former cells were covered in a patchwork of cloth draperies ranging from ragged tapestries, or more likely worn out scenic rugs, to bolts of once fine cloth such as silk or virgin cashmere wool. And let it not be thought that these were restored, well treated, and that careful consideration had been given to their exact placement to enhance the overall ambiance of the room. No these were draped about wherever they seemed to snag and land in what can only be the famous early teenage boy laundry style. I had younger brothers and avoided their rooms for this very reason as I was growing up. It was a Feng Suay nightmare in the making!

And to add insult to injury of course all the material smelled and the random placement served only to channel that particular smell and the associated humidity into the central part of this room even more and from that through whatever door happened to open. I could not help but think that one of Harry's fire blasts would set this whole place fully ablaze and likely kill everyone from the noxious smoke it would create. All in all that would probably be considered mercy killing, especially if there were any artists or interior designers on the jury.

Okay so the cloth is the obnoxious, then the truly gaudy is how she reworked the ceiling and no it was not also cloth covered. Let me start by saying it was mirrored.

Molly do you mean it has those wonderful gold and silver gilded sheets of glass across the length of the ceiling that sparkled and reflected light like the palace at Versailles, the Louvre, and the other great castles and ancestral homes of Europe?

Ummm…no.

Okay, Molly, step it down. So I guess it is just plain glass mirrors like what some swarthy guy might hang over his bed to admire himself?

Yeah…I only wish it was this classy, though I'm pretty certain that was the same intended purpose.

No instead it was a collage of mirrors, and when I say mirrors I am speaking in general terms of reflective panes of silver backed glass not anything elaborate. There were few full-sized pieces like what would hang in a small bathroom in evidence and most of these were incomplete. These were many also showing their age as the silver was fading around the edges and gave the glass a non-reflective cloudy look. But these were the 'quality' exceptions to the rule.

The vast majority of the panes looked like side mirrors from various cars and trucks making me want to ask Murphy at that moment if the cops who work auto thefts had received reports of an unusual number of car vandalisms in the past few weeks. And still mixed in with these were also dozens of rearview mirrors as well, and all seemed to be adjusted so that if you sat right in the middle of the room and looked up you would see your own reflection from pretty much every angle. As I stepped to this point and looked up for a glance reminded me I needed to work out a bit more.

Okay, I know what you are probably thinking I am hinting at. I grew up hearing all the old stories and watching Bugs Bunny cartoons where a magic spell is reflected back at the caster by use of a mirror. I once asked Harry if that would work on one of his fire spells for example and he immediately informed me that whoever tried would be found charred to death holding a melted piece of glass when they finally sorted out the body. So no, this is not some convenient self-induced trap that I could use to my advantage when the time came to fight the dragon.

A scream from a voice rather familiar to me was enough to take my thoughts away from her décor and onto the true matters at hand. I stepped cautiously down the middle of the open aisle to not disturb the cloth and possibly set off any hidden alarms as I made my way to the sound of someone I knew in obvious pain.

As I wandered past her bed, nothing more than another large mound of stinking rags that probably once were valuable, I nearly tripped over one of those metal buckets they chill champagne in. Champagne is not my drink so no I do not know the name of the stupid thing they use to hold it. Sue me! What I did notice as I grabbed to not let the contraption fall over, however, was that the bucket was cold, I mean ice cold…no make that Winter Court ice cold. And of course that meant magic.

Harry had a spell or two that could draw heat out of moisture either in pools of water or the air itself. Certainly with the humidity level in here there was enough base material for ice, but the amount of magic required to overcome the one hundred degree temperature was certainly worth noting as well. Probably only a handful of the Winter Court would have the power to accomplish this feat and ice was their base element and they were good at making it! That meant this dragon had power enough of the bad guys I do not want to fight to rival Maeve or so. Not a good observation for the home team.

I lifted the bottle, not to see if it was expensive or anything, which it wasn't since I do not think something called 'Pearson's Pink Champagne' is all that fancy, but instead I wanted to determine how much was left. The bottle was empty which told me the dragon had guzzled it down. It was also reasonable to assume that she had done so in human form as the amount in a single bottles, there were no other empties lying around, was unworthy of something as big as a dragon.

Harry always told me it was important to think things through, even though I can't recall many times that he actually did that himself. Still from the evidence before me it seemed like the dragon was celebrating another victory, and probably did so in human form. A full bottle might not be enough to create a wad of spit for a dragon, but the alcohol in it probably had her tipsy in her human form as alcohol consumption is all based on mass.

Another all too familiar sounding scream made me drop the bottle back in the bucker and head further into the prison especially when it was immediately followed by the cackling laughter of the cloaked woman that I recognized and come to loathe.

I passed slowly through a curtained wall and entered the next section of cell blocks which was also decorated. Instead of 1930s whorehouse this area seemed to be going for the look of the creepy dining room at the haunted mansion. The cells along each side were covered in thick black canvas to obscure views of who or what lay within then, or perhaps to prevent those within from seeing what was happening in the corridor and only getting the sounds for their entertainment. The only lighting was provided by a series of candelabras flickering and casting movie-like shadows onto the canvas walls that were also a mishmash collection.

And of course in the center of the room was the required large banquet table.

It was a dark and ghastly thing to be sure made of some black hardwood and lacquered so deeply at its original creation that the portions undamaged still seemed to suck the very light from the room around it. The legs, all six of them, were stump-sized affairs carved to resemble monstrously clawed feet, likely those of a dragon, sitting up on the toes so that the individual talons on each claw stabbed into the stone beneath it. I had no doubt that had this table been set upon wood, tile, or carpet the claws would have pierced right through this material from the weight of the piece alone. I guess that is sort of a neat way to prevent it from getting that off balance rocking you find in all the finer Denny's restaurants.

The six legs were required because the table appeared to be fifteen feet or more in length and six or so in width. This was impressive considering that the top seemed to be made originally of a single piece of wood as I could see no signs of any seam, at least not from where I was standing and how the table was currently set.

Interestingly there was only a single chair, more akin to a throne if the truth be told, and that was pushed back from the table at the moment so that the owner had the freedom of movement to walk all around the table wherever she chose. This was what I found her doing as I made my way carefully into the room.

Even guarded by my best veil I froze upon reaching the edges of this chamber so not to draw attention to myself with sudden movements if she could somehow sense my presence. My own eyes though bounced back and forth between the dragon and her entertainment of the moment.

Billy, or rather Will the werewolf lay chained upon the table's surface in obvious pain. His body was neither man nor wolf at present but something trapped in between. Yeah, I have seen those movies too and I am not talking about the hybrid werewolf that walks on two legs and is really intimidating as it tears out your throat with one claw. This was instead like Will had been trapped in mid-transformation between his two forms, having for example human feet but the upper leg of a wolf. His right arm seemed to ripple as the shoulder blade was trying to finish converting like the wolf arm below it but could not move forward and complete the process or reverse it.

I had never watched Will, Georgia, or any of the other Alphas transform, but I knew they could do it in mere seconds rather than the long drawn out and obviously painful process you see in horror movies. That meant either the dragon had found a means to lock Will in place halfway through that transformation process, the timing of which would be nearly impossible to achieve, or she had the ability to invoke a partial change in him herself, which was a pretty scary concept as well. But knowing her demonstrated abilities where bats and rats were concerned this second option seemed the more likely one.

Unfortunately for Will the movies must have been correct and the transformation must be an incredibly painful process if slowed down, or at least that seemed a reasonable guess from the way his muscles were straining and convulsing. I'm afraid to imagine that it was probably only a quick sharp pain normally, and now that moment of pain was being drawn out over minutes or hours.

"Why…are…you…doing…this…to…me?" Will asked through clenched teeth, his face still mostly human though needing a shave and his eyes more sunken than normal.

"I did not know I required a reason to destroy lesser beings." The dragon replied as she ran her fingernails along the arm transformed to a wolf and even across the footpad at the end. Will seemed to strain at her teasing touch and try to strike her but the silver chord bindings used to secure him were too strong and tight to allow him the movement necessary. Technically silver was not required for containing his kind of transformation beast, but I guess she was smart and not taking any unnecessary chances.

At the end of her journey her hand found a black rounded dinner knife still sitting somehow in its natural position next to a fork on a cloth dinner napkin of black as well. With a sudden sense of joy and inspiration no doubt accompanied by a likely smile hidden under the hood of her cloak she picked up the knife in a single smooth movement and stabbed it dull, rounded blade mind you, through the flesh of his forearm right between the bones and embedded it into the wood beneath. The sound of it scraping through the heavy varnish was instantly overwhelmed by Will's accompanying scream.

"Take that as your introductory punishment for not addressing me as 'Master' before asking me a question." She said sternly and then began to move around the table letting her claws play over Will's naked body and especially into the rather private areas. "I prefer the masculine version over 'Mistress' in situations like this so there is no lingering doubts that I never play games when it comes to domination of another."

When Will's screaming finally died out he turned to look and follow her movements as she circled the table again with his eyes. "Why?" He said and then quickly added 'Master' as she started to reach for a spoon lying by his head this time.

Don't judge him too poorly for not spitting in her face or something equally foolhardily brave. Those types of things happen when you have nothing to lose, and Will now had Georgia and his soon to be born child to consider. And there was nothing more than a few words he could toss at her at the moment anyway so resistance, as they say, was futile.

"Better." She said approvingly as she walking around the table some more before reaching the end and pulling the throne like chair. She sat down and cupped her head in her hands right beside his head so their faces were mere inches apart.

"So we may be clear when having this discussion, are you asking me why have I made you my captive or are you inquiring why am I doing all that I have accomplished so far?" She gently stroked the hair out of his eyes as if he was her lover and while her touch repulsed him, he accepted it so not to suffer more pain.

"Both." He replied through clenched teeth.

"Ah, that would make you a seeker of knowledge." She said approvingly cupping his face and leaning down to kiss him on the forehead. "I always had a weak spot for those who value knowledge as much as I do." She looked down the length of his body. "In fact it is so rare these days that I must admit it even excites me. Perhaps if I satisfy this curiosity in you I might convince you to do something similar for me." There was nothing subtle about the way she said that or what her intentions were with this 'lesser being' but still Will had the good sense not to react.

After a moment she turned her gaze back to his face. "As to the first part of your question then, that is best answered simply and philosophically. Have you by chance ever studied the works of the great theorist and logician dragon Acherion? No? Pity." She said with a tsk of mild disapproval. "Oh well if you were likely to live beyond the next six hours I might lend you my copy of his work on the nature of 'existence of medium-level beings' though I am not sure you would be capable of turning the stone pages as each one weights close to three hundred pounds."

"None the less he would explain to you that your lives are no more than the sum of your decisions." She explained patiently. "Each choice we make creates a change in us, much like each stone tossed into a river changes the current of flow ever so slightly."

"Therefore you are here because in some small ways you chose inevitably to be here. It was beyond your ability to influence greatly to prevent." The dragon continued. "You, like the rest of your kind, are literally a prisoner of your own choices and devices, like water running down hill to the sea. It might humor you to know that I, a higher-being, am your master and yet a prisoner of my own choices as well."

"Free…will…" Billy said between gasps of pain.

"I take it you are referring to the metaphysical belief of your grand thinkers and religious theocrats that your kind can make choices and set your own course, rather than that being some plea for your release in a pain induced third person context." She teased him as she stroked his hair. Will only nodded in response through gritted teeth.

"It is a myth for your kind as much as it is a myth for the cattle you slaughter deciding which patch of grass to munch upon." She said matter of factly. "Beings as short lived as your species only have illusions of freedom to choose. Your mortality set boundaries upon your free will as you are granted only limited time in this existence. Therefore what you think of as your freedom of choice is nothing more than a prioritization discussion of experiences so that you may metaphorically pack centuries of living into the time it takes for a single candle to burn itself out."

Will could not respond for the pain beyond shaking his head in denial of her statement.

"Oh?" She smiled though now the emotion she was radiating was more predatorily than one based upon sexually interests; yes there is a difference for those who did not know this. "Would you care for me to prove it to you with a little experiment?"

Will tensed up to keep from thrashing as his body convulsed again. "How?" He asked rightfully expecting that she would add some new burden of pain to his tortured body.

"Simple." She replied sitting back a bit in her chair but stroking patches of fur on his torso where they existed within her reach. "You are more wolf-like in nature than you understand and therefore are trapped in the instincts of that nature. For example, you can no more abandon your pack of friends and family than the true four-legged variety of you kind that is by your religion and philosophy without free will."

"To prove my point I offer you a chance to be freed from my control and live whatever is left of your life if you wish this course. All you need to do is ask it of me and I shall grant you this." She said with the obvious Sword of Damocles lilting tone that meant something bad was coming.

"But know if you do accept this you are agreeing that you can never have contact with those you call family or friend again. You must give up your 'pack' to save yourself. And I will place upon you a magical binding that will cause your death and those around you if you violate this promise." She said lifting a second steel knife from another place setting and holding it over the bicep of his left arm, letting the dull point dent the flesh below. "So prove to me your argument. Free yourself by exerting your 'free will' to abandon your friends and family and save yourself additional pain and certain eventual death at my hands." She teased but spoke with a deadly seriousness.

For some this might have been a course worth considering. Heck I know some people who would look upon this chance to erase connections with their family as a gift rather than a punishment. But none of those people were like Will and had a new baby just a few days away from being born. None of them had a wife they adored and would willingly give their life for. None of them had the hundreds of other reasons Will had to stay. So there was no surprise when he closed his eyes and shook his head denying her offer.

"See I told you that you were not free to choose and merely trapped by the decisions you have made in the past." The dragon said as she slowly pushed the blade through the muscle in Will's arm with an initial spray of blood and finally into the hard wood beneath as the flow continued to seep around the black metal. Will screamed in wordless agony something this time more akin to a bestial howl of tormented pain than I had ever heard before.

"Do not worry my little pet beast." The dragon stroked Will's forehead again leaving a smudge of his own blood upon the bare skin. "I will not allow you to die, not yet at least." His only response was to gasp and suck in another breath to howl again.

I tensed, wanting to do something but knowing there was nothing I could do against a being so powerful. Nor am I proud to admit that I had no stomach to stay and bear further witness to her sadistic streak. So I turned and began to flee.

I had to get out of there now. I had to get back to my body so that I could come back here and either make the trade or find a way to destroy the dragon. I had to do something!

But before I had taken two steps I felt a hand upon my shoulder holding me in place and I turned to find Death staring at me once more. "Relax young wizard." He said but his fingers or some power of his kept me from taking another step.

"I need to get out of here!" I whispered in response as I glanced over his shoulder to make sure the dragon's attention was not on the pair of us.

He merely chuckled. "Do you know how many times throughout eternity I have heard that same sentiment as I came to collect a soul?" He whispered, his breath literally cold as death in a room sweltering at one hundred degrees? "You may think you have the power to escape this child, your kind always wishes to believe it, but you cannot leave." He said deadly serious, pardon the recurring pun.

I wanted to counter him but really there is only so much you can say to death about the nature of eternity as so forth. "Nor should you depart just yet as there is information about to be revealed here that will be important to you in the very near future."

"About to be revealed?" I asked not liking the implications. Moving through time was one of the inviolate laws of magic, even more so that messing with another's free will. Some people had the power to catch limited glances of the future at times, heck Little Harry had glimpses of this which is why he was involved in this, but the tone of conviction of Death's words made me sure that he was speaking of something far more certain than just dream-based prophecy. He was speaking of knowing the future.

"I am Omega…the final stage of everything." He said without a sense of pride. "There are no secrets that remain at the end of all things." He turned my body to look back upon Will and the dragon before I could offer up any other words of protest.

"You also asked why this game is playing out and how you became a pawn in its workings." She returned to stroking his hair but her posture told me she was entering deep in memories of another time and place. "It ironically is the result of doing the greatest good for my kind through a true exercise of free will, and now correcting that mistake."

"Because dragons are related by blood and small in number, when one of my kind is injured all of us feel it." She explained. "And like your kind claims, the closer the bond of blood that exists between us, the stronger the pain that we feel. Therefore when the Carpenter elder knight stabbed my father in the eye with that cursed sword of his I felt it acutely myself though I was half a world away at the time."

"The knight foolishly thought that he had killed my father, not understanding the nature of true immortality and what it takes to end such an existence. Were he any lesser creature than a dragon then surely such a wound would have done so. But in truth even such a mighty blade empowered by magic cannot slay one of my kind so easily with just a single wound, no matter how deep or where the blade strikes." She seemed proud of this fact but it made me wonder what the hell could kill a dragon if a sword in the brain was not enough to do so?

"I arrived minutes after their departure and found my father where the knight had left him bleeding out. I could sense that already he was healing his body from the blow." The dragon spoke to Will not even noticing that she continued to stroke him like some fond pet as she told her story. "It would certainly take decades before he even awoke, and a century or more on top of that before he would be able to move again, but my father was still alive, his spirit still inhabited his body, though the knight did not know this."

"So…you…killed…" Will sputtered an accusation between spasms of pain and strokes on his skin.

"Yes." The dragon admitted stopping her stroking and looking into Will's eyes to openly face the accusation and admit her guilt. "But judge me not by your mortal standards. It was not from greed, or vengeance, or any of those human emotions that drove me to take this action."

"Why…Love…?"

"That is merely another creation of your kind." The dragon scoffed him. "No I did it to perform him a kindness as well as for my kind and for the rest of the world as well." She elaborated further.

"Mercy?"

"Hardly." She answered. "Or at least not in the sense you are using that word." She took a few deep breaths but Will did not seem to have the strength to question her further. Eventually she continued her story.

"My father was a ruler of our kind as he was one of the strongest and oldest. He would be what your histories refer to as a desert Caliph, a title that originated with us that your kind has stolen from mine." She began to stroke his hair again. "As I said there were others of my kind, along with many other powers in this world, that had sensed the damage the knight had inflicted upon my father. Were he allowed to live and recover over time it would not have showed others he was strong but rather that he was weak to be so grievously injured and immobilized. And by extension that meant all of his blood, perhaps all dragons, were weak. Other beings that we had cowed for millennia without counts and perhaps even some of my own kind would seek out our numbers to destroy us because we were weak."

"Even if he were left alone to heal, eventually he would be forced to restore his standing among us before he would be offered respect once more. To do so he would have to start by killing all of the blood of the knight. Think of how many lives that would be in a family that has demonstrated in just its first pairing such rapid commitment to reproduction." Okay so I did have more than the average number of brothers and sisters, but still…

"Add to that the mother's bloodline that carried the gift of magic and the possibility was great that his forced action to restore his standing would start a war between the future White Council and my kind." She said stopping the stroking.

"We are strong as a race, but we are few in number. The Red Court of vampires with their hundreds of thousands considered our kind its equal, and now they are no more. Perhaps human wizards could destroy us given time to find such a solution as they did to the Red Court."

"Therefore these were the things I pondered as I stood over his comatose form. Were my father to live not only would my race become lesser in the eyes of our rivals, but even the only path to restore himself and our kind would make others rise up against us just as assuredly. Neither option was a situation I could allow for it endangered us all and millions of lives beyond my kind as well."

"So you killed him…" Will got the whole sentence out in an actual single breath rather than through gasps of pain for once.

"Indeed." She acknowledged with a slow nod of her head. "And then I spent the next few years passing along that story, telling how a valiant Knight of the Cross with a sword bestowed in power by his God slew the mighty dragon. My only option was for me to increase the stature of the knight in order to protect the stature of my kind as well."

I had to admit that was a rather twisted outlook but it did match all the details of the events, at least as far as I knew them to be. And since she said she was there it's not like I had a lot of room to question her – or a desire to at the moment anyhow.

"Then…why…" Will asked again as a spasm struck his body.

"Why all this?" She asked waving her arm to indicate the fruits of her labor. Will tensed but nodded quickly in response.

"Because even with my actions to build up the knight's reputation, a shadow of doubt about the strength of my kind still resides in those who would consider themselves our rivals." She explained. "Though I did much to balance the tally, many being now believe the three Swords of the Cross hold the secret to destroying my kind forever. It provides a tempting consideration for those who would like to see us no more."

"As one of my kind dedicated to increasing knowledge and learning I have watched the interest other have shown in these swords increase over the past decade. Mostly it was hints of conversations, casual so not to strike up too much awareness but it was there all the same. And over time I traced this interest back to some beings who have no love for my kind. They have begun their own effort to acquire these relics and test this theory. Therefore I must correct this final error before they try this power for themselves and learn the truth of the situation for themselves."

"By killing us?" He asked again before the pain overtook him once more. "How…is…that…"

"Different?" She finished for him. Will nodded to get her to finish her story.

"It is simple child." She explained. "Put yourself in the position of those who now think they can destroy us when they learn that my father has returned from the dead? Think of the prestige it will provide him among my kind. Think of how such a feat will make our enemies second guess themselves before they dare to take action. In one fell swoop I will have achieved the vengeance my father would require and my kind's reputation for power would be raised up even higher than before his death."

My god she was right. Harry had told me that a being's reputation was every bit as critical as their actual power when dealing with others. This is why Queen Mab could brook no challenges to her authority from wherever they arose but must instead utterly destroy those who took such liberties. She could not show mercy because mercy was considered weakness, and weakness meant challenge and death.

"So now you begin to understand the game you play in?" Death asked from behind me but I could only nod my head in response.

"I have to get back." I whispered wanting him to free me now that I witness what he had expected me to hear. Time was of the essence if I was going to throw a monkey wrench in her plans. And if so I had to get all my allies together and get back here to the abandoned Chicago prison she made her home.

"You may depart in a moment. We have two last points to discuss." He said and I turned to look at him once more though avoided connecting with his eyes.

"What?" I asked wanting just to flee.

"You should know that she has another prisoner that you are currently unaware of but who may provide you a key to understanding this event even more than I." He said to me. "One whose interference she feared so when their paths crossed she removed him from the picture even though dares not destroy him for that would unleash horrible repercussions for her plans."

Harry? I could not stop myself from thinking this but I knew it was a pipe dream, or just wishful thinking. Over the past few days I had thought all of this related in some way to Harry, but it was getting harder and harder to lie to myself. But was it impossible?

I mean Harry certainly would have thrown a wrench in the dragon's plans if he somehow learned of them; he had proven that to the city of Chicago for years and now to the magical world, much to the dismay of the Red Court. Putting myself in the dragon's shoes I certainly would not have wanted him around if I were planning something this big in Chicago. But that would mean according to Death he was still alive. Was that possible? Could he still be alive at this moment?

My head hurt and I had to push that idea aside because even if he was alive, he was also beyond the ability to provide me any help at the moment. If I got too sidetracked thinking about all of this right now, the fact that he might not be dead, I might not do what had to get done. I blinked away my tears and turned back to Death.

"Fine. Not a lot I can do about that at the moment so what else do you have to tell me?" I asked.

"Only to remind you once more that I promised to release a soul, the soul desired by whoever brings me the elixir, not just the father's soul, providing all the other conditions are met." He said repeating his earlier offers much more bluntly.

I tried to banish this idea as well but he made the offer too enticing not to at least consider his words. "Think of how the same prestige the dragon seeks for her kind could be bestowed upon one of your choosing and all that would likely mean to those who oppose them." He said in a voice dripping with temptation.

"You are asking me to make a deal to trade one life for another." I said bluntly to which he merely nodded a single time. "And still you will not tell me if you have Harry Dresden's soul or not…"

"I do not reply to questions when the answer is already known." He repeated his earlier mantra.

"…yet you expect me to offer his daughter's life for his?" I finished putting on the table what he tried all along to remain obscure about. "This is the very same daughter that we all went to Mexico to rescue. The one that I nearly got killed trying to save. And the one that Harry probably did die to save? Is that the sacrifice you are speaking of? After everything we gave up, the things he was forced…we were forced to do?"

"That sacrifice would indeed fit the conditions of the spell in question." He answered without emotion leaving me speechless.

I wanted to strike him, not with magic but just punch him right in the face, however that immediately flashed as one of the ten stupidest things a mortal could probably do. So instead I just stood there trembling in rage, and while I shook I thought. And no matter how hard I wanted to deny it, the offer he had placed before me kept coming back to the center of my mind.

I do not know how long it took before I stopped trembling, only that I was spiritually exhausted but I was no longer as clear on what was right anymore. "To do this I would have to betray Harry and all he taught me." I said defensively and in a voice just above a whisper as I tried to build up my wall of determination. "I cannot see his memory destroyed like that."

"I understand." He said changing his form to look like Father Forthill. "Sometimes events ask more from us than we can give and we chance losing ourselves to such choices, becoming the very monsters that we seek to destroy." His voice had the same care and concern I had heard throughout my life in his sermons. "It is times like these we must ask ourselves what we truly believe in."

Death's image faded again to rearrange itself this time as my father. "Sometimes the conflict moves beyond those around us and we must accept that it is time to put down our sword and surrender the field of battle. We have done everything we can in this life and must place it in God's hands that others will take up where we left off." He said with a voice that sounded like my father's but words I never heard him speak. I wondered if perhaps they were secret ones inside of him or if Death was merely trying to manipulate me. "There is no shame in giving up."

No way! My dad would never say anything like that.

Death changed a third time to look like Harry Dresden. "And sometimes the risks we ask others to take for us or for the world are unfair. No one should ever be forced to live with the results of having to make as terrible a choice as I offer to you. The damage would tear them apart. You are right to not even consider such a thing Molls."

The way he said Molls, a name he'd never called me before, still it reminded me of something that seemed to hang out just on the edge of my consciousness. I was being manipulated by Death. I was not ignorant of that. But knowing it and denying the allure are two separate things especially when he smiled at me like Harry did, offering a simple nod that he was forgiving me for not being strong like he was.

I thought about how he had the chance to turn away from facing the truly horrible things we had seen and accomplished in Mexico. He could have denied Susan the help she asked for and no one would have thought less of him for it, or likely even known. When the vampire assassins torched his place he could have saved himself and not tried to rescue his neighbors which resulted in a broken back. He could have accepted this fate took away the chance to rescue her and not become the Winter Knight. And most of all he could have….

"The hell with it!" I screamed at Death and found myself yanked along the silver chord and right back to my body, blinking my eyes a few times as I felt the all too real tears streaming down my living face.

I turned to look at Ivy, still trapped in my circle, and wondered if she was judging me for my weakness. Instead I found her eyes were fluttering and her body seemed lethargic as the last of the oxygen was draining away. She would be unconscious soon and then without defenses. She would be mine for the taking, and time was of the essence.

I stood up and cast a calming spell upon myself to balance out my emotions and the effect they would have on my magic and therefore technology. Thankfully the phone was in the other room so by the time I reached it I was as under control as could be expected under the circumstances. I dialed a number from memory.

Mom picked up the phone before the first ring had completed.

"Molly?" Her voice was at once both comforting and still made me ashamed at what I was going to say.

"Mom, listen carefully." I started. "I need you and the others to meet me as soon as you can across from the old city prison…"