Seven
We got out of Karrin’s little SUV and headed toward the creepy old slaughterhouse full of dangerous beings. Which . . . pretty much tells you what kind of day I was having, right there.
You know, sometimes it feels like I don’t have any other kind of day.
Like, ever.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what I would really do with any other kind of day. I mean, at some point in my life, I had to face it—I was pretty much equipped, by experience and inclination, for mayhem.
“Too bad,” Karrin mused.
“Too bad what?”
“We didn’t have time to get you an actual haircut,” she said. “Seriously, did you do it yourself? Maybe without a mirror?”
I put a hand up to my head self-consciously and said, “I had some help from the General. And, hey, I didn’t say anything about your man-shoes.”
“They’re steel-toed,” she said calmly. “In case I need to plant them in anyone’s ass as a result of him calling them man-shoes. And seriously, you let Toot help you with your hair?”
“Sure as hell wasn’t going to let Alfred try it. He’d probably scrape it off with a glacier or something.”
“Alfred?”
“Demonreach.”
Karrin shuddered. “That thing.”
“It’s not so bad,” I said. “Not exactly charming company, but not bad.”
“It’s a demon that drove an entire town full of people insane to keep them away.”
“And it could have done much, much worse,” I said. “It’s a big, ugly dog. A cop should know about those.”
“You’re glad it’s there when someone breaks into your house,” she said, “because then it can drive them so freaking crazy that the city erases all record of the incident.”
“Exactly. And then no one remembers your ugly man-shoes.”
By then, we’d reached the door. Both of us knew why we were giving each other a hard time. There was nothing mean-spirited in it.
We were both scared.
I would go through the door first. My spell-wrought black leather duster was better armor than the vest Karrin would be wearing beneath her coat. I gripped my new staff and readied my mind to throw up a shield if I needed one. We’d done this dance before: If something was ready to come at us, I’d hold it off, and she would start putting bullets in it.
Karrin folded her arms over her chest, which happened to put her hand near the butt of her gun, and nodded at me. I nodded back, made sure my duster was closed across my front, and opened the door.
Nothing came screaming out of the shadows at us. Nobody started shooting at us. So far, so good.
The door opened onto a long hallway with light at the far end, enough to let us walk by. The interior walls of the building were old and cracked and covered in decades of graffiti. The night had brought a cold wind off the lake and the building creaked and groaned. The air smelled like mildew and something else, something almost beneath the threshold of perception that set my teeth on edge—old, old death.
“These evil freaks,” Karrin said. “They always pick the most charming places to hang out.”
“Dark energy here,” I said. “Keeps people from wandering in and randomly interfering. And it feels homey.”
“I know you haven’t burned down any buildings in a while,” she said, “but if you start feeling the need . . .”
When we reached the end of the hallway, it turned into a flight of stairs. We followed those up, silently, and at the top of them a door opened onto a balcony over a large factory floor two stories high, running three or four hundred feet down the length of the building. The remains of an overhead conveyor line were still there; it had probably once carried sides of beef from the slaughter pen to various processing stations, but the machinery that had been there was all gone. All that was left were the heavy metal frames, empty now, which had once held the machines in place, and a few rusted, lonely old transport dollies that must once have been loaded up with packaged ribs and steaks and ground beef.
In the middle of the floor were a dozen brand-new work lights, blazing away, and an enormous wooden conference table complete with big leather chairs, brightly illuminated in the glow of the lamps. There was a second table loaded with what looked like a catered dinner, covered with dishes, drinks, and a fancy coffee machine. A few feet away from that was a small pen of wire mesh, and inside it were a dozen restless brown-and-tan goats.
Goats. Huh.
Nicodemus was sitting with one hip on the conference table, a Styrofoam coffee cup in his hands, smiling genially. Ascher was just being seated in a chair, which one of Nicodemus’s guards held out for her solicitously. Binder sat down in the chair beside her, nodded to Nicodemus, and folded his arms with the air of a man prepared to be patient. Deirdre approached the table in her girl disguise, holding a cup of coffee in each hand, offering them to the new arrivals, smiling pleasantly.
There were half a dozen of Nicodemus’s tongueless guards in sight on catwalks above the floor, and Squire Jordan, now all cleaned up, was waiting for us at the far end of the balcony. He had a sidearm, but it was holstered.
“Hi, Jordan,” I said. “What’s with the goats?”
He gave me a level look and said nothing.
“I don’t like having guns above us and all around us,” Karrin said. “Screw that.”
“Yep,” I said. “Go tell your boss we’ll come down there when the flunkies go find something else to do.”
Jordan looked like he might take umbrage at the remark.
“I don’t care what you think, Jordan,” I said. “Go tell him what I said, or I walk. Good luck explaining to him how you lost him a vital asset.”
Jordan’s jaw clenched. But he spun stiffly on one heel, descended an old metal stairway to the floor, and crossed to Nicodemus. He wrote something on a small notepad and passed it to his boss.
Nicodemus looked up at me and smiled. Then he handed the notepad back to Jordan, nodded, and said something.
Jordan pursed his lips and let out three piercing whistles, which got the instant attention of the guards. Then he waved a finger over his head in a circular motion, and they all descended from the catwalks to join him. They headed out, toward the far end of the floor.
Ascher and Binder turned to regard me as this happened, the former bright-eyed and interested, the latter justifiably apprehensive. Once the guards were out of sight, I started down the stairs, with Karrin walking a step behind me and slightly to one side.
“You’ve grown more suspicious, Mr. Dresden,” Nicodemus said as I approached.
“There’s no such thing as too suspicious with you, Nicky,” I said.
Nicodemus didn’t like the familiar nickname. Irritation flickered over his face and was gone. “I suppose I can’t blame you. We’ve always been adversaries in our previous encounters. We’ve never worked together as associates.”
“That’s because you’re an asshole,” I said. I picked the chair two down from Binder and sat. I gave him a steady look and then said to Nicodemus, “We’ve already got a conflict of interest going.”
“Oh?”