“People who violated my territory, nonetheless,” Marcone said quietly.
“While helping you get your vengeance,” I said. “Go after Nicodemus as hard as you want. Leave the rest of them out of it. They took nothing from you.”
“They took the life of one of my employees,” Marcone said.
“The woman who did that is dead already,” I said. And I tossed the cash box onto the conference table. It landed with an impressive thump.
Mab frowned.
Marcone raised his eyebrows briefly. “And what is this?”
“It’s weregild,” I said. “You know the word?”
“Salic Code,” he replied, instantly. “Blood money.”
“That’s right,” I said. “That’s for your dead employee’s family. Take care of them with it. And leave my people out of it. It ends here.”
Marcone considered the box and then me. “And if I should disagree with your terms?”
“Then you and I are going to have a serious problem,” I said. I turned to Mab and added, “Right here. Right now.”
Mab’s eyes widened.
If I threw down on Marcone, any number of things could happen—but one of them would certainly be a major disgrace for Mab. She was a guest under Marcone’s roof. For her Knight and instrument to betray that trust would utterly destroy her name in the world—and what’s more, she knew it.
“Come, now, Baron,” Molly said, her voice smooth, soothing. “Consider how much you have gained. You are in the process of destroying the man who truly wronged you. What does it matter if his hirelings go about their business? After all, you might need their services yourself, one day. The offer is a reasonable one.” And on those last words, she reached over to the cash box, unlocked it, and opened it.
Marcone’s expression rarely showed much—but his eyes widened, if only for an instant, as he saw the stones.
I stared at Marcone without blinking or looking away.
Marcone looked up from the diamonds and returned the stare for a long time.
I put my hands on the table, leaned in close to his face, and said, “Just you remember who pulled your ass out of the fire when those maniacs grabbed you. You owe me.”
Marcone considered that for a moment. Then he said quietly, “You did so as a favor to Mab. Not to me.” He reached out and smoothly closed the cash box, then drew it to his side of the table and squared it with the table’s edge. His voice was almost silken—but there was a blade hidden within the folds of it. “However, the fact that there is a debt remains—and I would not see Mab’s name suffer any childish diminishment when she has kept such excellent faith with me. I accept your offer, Dresden. This balances our account. Do you understand my meaning?”
I understood it, all right. It meant that the next time I crossed him, he would feel perfectly free to waste me.
Which was fine. The feeling was pretty much mutual.
Mab was far too contained to give any reaction to the resolution of the situation, beyond a very, very small nod to Marcone. But she regarded me with a look of displeasure that promised me a reckoning later. Molly got the same glare.
I doubt that my former apprentice looked any more chagrined than I did.
*
“. . . the point of having a squadron of angels around the place if they aren’t going to do anything to protect it,” Molly said, exasperated.
We were walking up to Karrin’s room in the hospital. Visiting hours were almost over, but I didn’t want the day to go by before I’d seen her.
“Any kind of supernatural threat, they’d have been all over it,” I said. “Nick obviously knew that, too. That’s why he sent purely vanilla mortals in, with purely mortal weaponry.”
Molly scowled. “It’s a pretty darned huge loophole. That’s all I’m saying.”
“So do something about it,” I said.
“I already have,” she said. “The house is being watched now. And I’m buying the place for sale down the street.”
“You can afford that?” I asked. “Mab pays that well?”
“The account balance I have now has eight zeroes in it,” Molly said. “I could buy the neighborhood if I wanted. There will be someone keeping an eye on my parents’ place, twenty-four seven in case anyone tries the same thing again.”
“Unseelie bodyguards.” I grunted. “Not sure they’re going to like that.”
“They don’t have to like it,” Molly said. “In fact, they don’t even have to know about it.”
“I’m sensing a pattern here, Molly.”
She gave me a quick glance, and for a second, I could see the worry in her eyes. “Harry . . . if you hadn’t been there today . . .” She swallowed. “They’re my family. I have to do whatever I can to protect them.”
I walked for a few steps, thinking, and said, “Yeah. You do.”
She smiled faintly as Karrin’s room came into sight and her steps slowed. “You go ahead. I’ve got some things to arrange. I’ll be back later tonight.”
“Cool,” I said, and offered her my closed fist.
She shook her head and said, “Not very respectful of you, sir Knight.”
I waggled my fist and said, “Come on. You know you want it.”
That drew a quick, merry laugh from her. She bumped my fist with hers, and turned away—and as she walked away from me, I saw her pull a cell phone out of her pocket and turn it on.
That stopped me in my tracks.
Cell phones were some of the technology that was absolutely the most sensitive to the unbalanced fields of energy around a mortal wizard. When one of us got near a powered-up cell phone, it was likely to kick the bucket right there.
Inhuman practitioners, on the other hand, had no problem with that effect whatsoever.
And I suddenly felt very afraid for Molly.
She was hiding a lot of things from her parents. And now I had to wonder how many things she might be hiding from me.
More things to keep an eye on in the future.
I traded a greeting with Rawlins and walked into Karrin’s room, to find Butters sitting in the chair by her bed, his feet on the seat, his butt on the back, waving his hands animatedly as he spoke. “. . . and I looked at him and said, ‘Mister, where I come from there is no try.’ And I went straight at him, and the evil son of a bitch bailed.”
Karrin looked like she’d been beaten with rubber hoses after a double triathlon, but she was sitting up, and if she looked a little bleary, she also looked composed. One of her arms had been wrapped up and immobilized in a sling fixed to her body. Her hair was a lank mess, and she had an IV line running to her unwounded arm. “You are telling me lie after lie, Waldo Butters,” she said. She turned to me and her smile widened. “Hey, Harry. You look terrible.”
“I’m in good company,” I said, and put my hand on her head for a second, grinning.
“Tell her,” Butters said. “Harry, you were there, right? Tell her.” He blinked. “Oh, God, you were pretty out of it. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
“I remember,” I said. “Butters went full-on Jedi Knight on us. Sword. Vomm. Vroom, krsoom, kazark, skreeow.”
Karrin gave me a suspicious glance, and looked back and forth between us. “You can’t be serious.”
“Got it with you?” I asked Butters.
“Are you kidding?” he said, grinning. “I may never put it down again.”
“So show her,” I said.
“You think that’s . . . you know. Okay? To show it off like that?”
“You aren’t showing off,” I said. “You’re confirming her faith.”
Butters screwed up his face and then said, “Yeah. I guess that’s okay, then.” He reached into his coat and produced the hilt of Fidelacchius. The moment he drew it from his coat, the blade of light hissed out to its full length, banishing shadows from the room and humming with power.
Karrin’s eyes widened. “Mary, Mother of God,” she said. “And . . . he just ran?”
“Not right away,” I said. “He took a swing at Butters here, first. And that thing sliced through Nick’s sword like it was made of pasta.”
“Yeah,” Butters said. “Seemed to catch him totally off guard. And even if he’d still had a sword, I don’t think it would have helped him much. I mean, lightsaber. Actually, it was kinda unfair.”
“That guy’s earned it,” I said.
“Butters,” Karrin said, shaking her head. “That’s . . . that’s really amazing. I’m so proud of you.”