Even Hand Read online

  EVEN HAND

  By JIM BUTCHER

  A successful murder is like a successful restaurant: ninety percent of it is about location, location, location.

  Three men in black hoods knelt on the waterfront warehouse floor, their wrists and ankles trussed with heavy plastic quick-ties. There were few lights. They knelt over a large, faded stain on the concrete floor, left behind by the hypocritically-named White Council of Wizards during their last execution.

  I nodded to Hendricks, who took the hood off the first man, then stood clear. The man was young and good-looking. He wore an expensive yet ill-fitting suit and even more expensive yet tasteless jewelry.

  “Where are you from?” I asked him.

  He sneered at me. “What’s it to y-“

  I shot him in the head as soon as I heard the bravado in his voice. The body fell heavily to the floor.

  The other two jumped and cursed, their voices angry and terrified.

  I took the hood off the second man. His suit was a close cousin of the dead man’s, and I thought I recognized its cut. “Boston?” I asked him.

  “You can’t do this to us,” he said, more angry than frightened. “Do you know who we are?”

  Once I heard the nasal quality of the word “are,” I shot him.

  I took off the third man’s hood. He screamed and fell away from me. “Boston,” I said, nodding, and put the barrel of my .45 against the third man’s forehead. He stared at me, showing the whites of his eyes. “You know who I am. I run drugs in Chicago. I run the numbers, the books. I run the whores. It’s my town. Do you understand?”

  His body jittered in what might have been a nod. His lips formed the word “yes,” though no sound came out.

  “I’m glad you can answer a simple question,” I told him, and lowered the gun. “I want you to tell Mr. Morelli that I won’t be this lenient the next time his people try to clip the edges of my territory.” I looked at Hendricks. “Put the three of them in a sealed trailer and rail-freight them back to Boston, care of Mr. Morelli.”

  Hendricks was a large, trustworthy man, his red hair cropped in a crew cut. He twitched his chin in the slight motion that he used for a nod when he disapproved of my actions but intended to obey me anyway.

  Hendricks and the cleaners on my staff would handle the matter from here.

  I passed him the gun and the gloves on my hands. Both would see the bottom of Lake Michigan before I was halfway home, along with the two slugs the cleaners would remove from the site. When they were done, there would be nothing left of the two dead men but a slight variation on the outline of the stain in the old warehouse floor, where no one would look twice in any case.

  Location, location, location.

  Obviously, I am not Harry Dresden. My name is something I rarely trouble to remember, but for most of my adult life, I have been called John Marcone.

  I am a professional monster.

  It sounds pretentious. After all, I’m not a flesh-devouring ghoul, hiding behind a human mask until it is time to gorge. I’m no vampire, to drain the blood or soul from my victim, no ogre, no demon, no cursed beast from the spirit world dwelling amid the unsuspecting sheep of humanity. I’m not even possessed of the mystic abilities of a mortal wizard.

  But they will never be what I am. One and all, those beings were born to be what they are.

  I made a choice.

  I walked outside of the warehouse and was met by my consultant, Gard – a tall blond woman without any makeup whose eyes continually swept her surroundings. She fell into step beside me as we walked to the car. “Two?”

  “They couldn’t be bothered to answer a question in a civil manner.”

  She opened the back door for me and I got in. I picked up my personal weapon and slipped it into the holster beneath my left arm while she settled down behind the wheel. She started driving and then said, “No. That wasn’t it.”

  “It was business.”

  “And the fact that one of them was pushing heroin to thirteen-year-old girls and the other was pimping them out had nothing to do with it,” Gard said.

  “It was business,” I said, enunciating. “Morelli can find pushers and pimps anywhere. A decent accountant is invaluable. I sent his bookkeeper back as a gesture of respect.”

  “You don’t respect Morelli.”

  I almost smiled. “Perhaps not.”

  “Then why?”

  I did not answer. She didn’t push the issue, and we rode in silence back to the office. As she put the car in park, I said, “They were in my territory. They broke my rule.”

  “No children,” she said.

  “No children,” I said. “I do not tolerate challenges, Ms. Gard. They’re bad for business.”

  She looked at me in the mirror, her blue eyes oddly intent, and nodded.

  There was a knock at my office door, and Gard thrust her head in, her phone’s earpiece conspicuous. “There’s a problem.”

  Hendricks frowned from his seat at a nearby desk. He was hunched over a laptop that looked too small for him, plugging away at his thesis. “What kind of problem?”

  “An Accords matter,” Gard said.

  Hendricks sat up straight and looked at me.

  I didn’t look up from one of my lawyer’s letters, which I receive too frequently to let slide. “Well,” I said, “we knew it would happen eventually. Bring the car.”

  “I don’t have to,” Gard said. “The situation came to us.”

  I set aside the finished letter and looked up, resting my fingertips together. “Interesting.”

  Gard brought the problem in. The problem was young and attractive. In my experience, the latter two frequently lead to the former. In this particular case, it was a young woman holding a child. She was remarkable – thick, rich, silver white hair, dark eyes, pale skin. She had very little makeup, which was fortunate in her case, since she looked as if she had recently been drenched. She wore what was left of a gray business skirt-suit, had a towel from one of my health clubs wrapped around her shoulders, and was shivering.

  The child she held was too young to be in school and was also appealing, with rosy features, white blond hair, and blue eyes. Male or female, it hardly mattered at that age. They’re all beautiful. The child clung to the girl as if it would not be separated, and was also wrapped in a towel.

  The girl’s body language was definitely protective. She had the kind of beauty that looked natural and… true. Her features and her bearing both spoke of gentleness and kindness.

  I felt an immediate instinct to protect and comfort her.

  I quashed it thoroughly.

  I am not made of stone, but I have found it is generally best to behave as if I am.

  I looked across the desk at her and said, “My people tell me you have asked for sanctuary under the terms of the Unseelie Accords, but that you have not identified yourself.”

  “I apologize, sir,” she answered. “I was already being indiscreet enough just by coming here.”

  “Indeed,” I said calmly. “I make it a point not to advertise the location of my business headquarters.”

  “I didn’t want to add names to the issue,” she said, casting her eyes down in a gesture of submission that did not entirely convince me. “I wasn’t sure how many of your people were permitted access to this sort of information.”

  I glanced past the young woman to Gard, who gave me a slow, cautious nod. Had the girl or the child been other than they appeared, Gard would have indicated in the negative. Gard costs me a fortune and is worth every penny.

  Even so, I didn’t signal either her or Hendricks to stand down. Both of them watched the girl, ready to kill her if she made an aggressive move. Trust, but verify – that the person being trusted will be dead if she attempts betrayal.


  “That was most considerate of you, Justine.”

  The girl blinked at me several times. “Y-you know me.”

  “You are a sometimes associate of Harry Dresden,” I said. “Given his proclivities about those he considers to be held under his aegis, it is sensible to identify as many of them as possible. For the sake of my insurance rates, if nothing else. Gard.”

  “Justine, no last name you’ll admit to,” Gard said calmly. “Currently employed as Lara Raith’s secretary and personal aide. You are the sometimes lover of Thomas Raith, a frequent ally of Dresden’s.”

  I spread my hands slightly. “I assume the ‘j’ notation at the bottom of Ms. Raith’s typed correspondence refers to you.”

  “Yes,” Justine said. She had regained her composure quickly – not something I would have expected of the servitor of a vampire of the White Court. Many of the… people, I suppose, I’d seen there had made lotus-eaters look self-motivated. “Yes, exactly.”

  I nodded. “Given your patron, one is curious as to why you have come to me seeking protection.”

  “Time, sir,” she replied quietly. “I lacked any other alternative.”

  Someone screamed at the front of the building.

  My headquarters shifts position irregularly, as I acquire new buildings. Much of my considerable wealth is invested in real estate. I own more of the town than any other single investor. In Chicago, there is always money to be had by purchasing and renovating aging buildings. I do much of my day-to-day work out of one of my most recent renovation projects, once they have been modified to be suitable places to welcome guests. Then, renovation of the building begins, and the place is generally crowded with contractors who have proven their ability to see and hear nothing.

  Gard’s head snapped up. She shook it as if to rid herself of a buzzing fly and said, “A presence. A strong one.” Her blue eyes snapped to Justine. “Who?”

  The young woman shuddered and wrapped the towel more tightly about herself. “Mag. A cantrev lord of the fomor.”

  Gard spat something in a Scandinavian tongue that was probably a curse.

  “Precis, please,” I said.

  “The fomor are an ancient folk,” she said. “Water dwellers, cousins of the jotuns. Extremely formidable. Sorcerers, shape changers, seers.”

  “And signatories,” I noted.

  “Yes,” she said. She crossed to the other side of the room, opened a closet, and withdrew an athletic bag. She produced a simple, rather crude-looking broadsword from it and tossed it toward Hendricks. The big man caught it by the handle and took his gun into his left hand. Gard took a broad-bladed axe out of the bag and shouldered the weapon. “But rarely involved in mortal affairs.”

  “Ms. Raith sent me to the fomor king with documents,” Justine said, her voice coming out quietly and rapidly. Her shivering had increased. “Mag made me his prisoner. I escaped with the child. There wasn’t time to reach one of my lady’s strongholds. I came to you, sir. I beg your protection, as a favor to Ms. Raith.”

  “I don’t grant favors,” I said calmly.

  Mag entered in the manner so many of these self-absorbed supernatural cretins seem to adore. He blasted the door into a cloud of flying splinters with what I presumed was magic.

  For God’s sake.

  At least the vampires would call for an appointment.

  The blast amounted to little debris. After a few visits from Dresden and his ilk, I had invested in cheap, light doors at dramatic (as opposed to tactical) entry points.

  The fomor was a pale, repellent humanoid. Seven feet tall, give or take, and distinctly froglike in appearance. He had a bloated belly, legs several inches too long to be proportionately human, and huge feet and hands. He wore a tunic of something that resembled seaweed beneath a long, flapping blue robe covered in the most intricate embroidery I had ever seem. A coronet of coral was bound about his head. His right hand was extended dramatically. He carried a twisted length of wood in his left.

  His eyes bulged, jaundice yellow around septic green, and his teeth were rotted and filthy. “You cannot run from me,” he said. His wide mouth made the words seem somehow slurred. “You are mine.”

  Justine looked up at me, evidently too frightened to turn her head, her eyes wide with fear. A sharper contrast would have been hard to manage. “Sir. Please.”

  I touched a button on the undersurface of my desk, a motion of less than two inches, and then made a steeple of my hands again as I eyed Mag and said, “Excuse me, sir. This is a private office.”

  Mag surged forward half a step, his eyes focused on the girl. “Hold your tongue, mortal, if you would keep it.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  Is it so much to ask for civility?

  “Justine,” I said calmly, “if you would stand aside, please.”

  Justine quickly, silently, moved out from between us.

  I focused on Mag and said, “They are under my protection.”

  Mag gave me a contemptuous look and raised the staff. Darkness lashed at me, as if he had simply reached into the floorboards and cracks in the wall and drawn it into a sizzling sphere the size of a bowling ball.

  It flickered away to nothingness about a foot in front of my steepled hands.

  I lifted a finger and Hendricks shot Mag in the back. Repeatedly.

  The fomor went down with a sound like a bubbling teakettle, whipped onto his back as if the bullets had been a minor inconvenience, and raised the stick to point at Hendricks.

  Gard’s axe smashed it out of his grip, swooped back up to guard, and began to descend again.

  “Stop,” I said.

  Gard’s muscles froze just before she would have brought down the axe onto Mag’s head. Mag had one hand uplifted, surrounded in a kind of negative haze, his long fingers crooked at odd angles – presumably some kind of mystic defense.

  “As a freeholding lord of the Unseelie Accords,” I said, “it would be considered an act of war if I killed you out of hand, despite your militant intrusion into my territory.” I narrowed my eyes. “However, your behavior gives me ample latitude to invoke the defense of property and self clause. I will leave the decision to you. Continue this asinine behavior, and I will kill you and offer a weregild to your lord, King Corb, in accordance with the conflict resolution guidelines of section two, paragraph four.”

  As I told you, my lawyers send me endless letters. I speak their language.

  Mag seemed to take that in for a moment. He looked at me, then Gard. His eyes narrowed. They tracked back to Hendricks, his head hardly moving, and he seemed to freeze when he saw the sword in Hendricks’ hand.

  His eyes flicked to Justine and the child and burned for a moment – not with adoration or even simple lust. There was a pure and possessive hunger there, coupled with a need to destroy that which he desired. I have spent my entire life around hard men. I know that form of madness when I see it.

  “So,” Mag said. His eyes traveled back to me and were suddenly heavy-lidded and calculating. “You are the new mortal lord. We half believed that you must be imaginary. That no one could be as foolish as that.”

  “You are incorrect,” I said. “Moreover, you can’t have them. Get out.”

  Mag stood up. The movement was slow, liquid. His limbs didn’t seem to bend the proper way. “Lord Marcone,” he said, “this affair is no concern of yours. I only wish to take the slaves.”

  “You can’t have them. Get out.”

  “I warn you,” Mag said. There was an ugly tone in his voice. “If you make me return for her – for them – you will not enjoy what follows.”

  “I do not require enjoyment to thrive. Leave my domain. I won’t ask again.”

  Hendricks shuffled his feet a little, setting his balance.

  Mag gathered himself up slowly. He extended his hand, and the twisted stick leapt from the floor and into his fingers. He gave Gard a slow and well-practiced sneer and said, “Anon, mortal lordling. It is time you learned the truth of the wo
rld. It will please me to be your instructor.” Then he turned, slow and haughty, and walked out, his shoulders hunching in an odd, unsettling motion as he moved.

  “Make sure he leaves,” I said quietly.

  Gard and Hendricks followed Mag from the room.

  I turned my eyes to Justine and the child.

  “Mag,” I said, “is not the sort of man who is used to disappointment.”

  Justine looked after the vanished fomor and then back at me, confusion in her eyes. “That was sorcery. How did you…?”

  I stood up from behind my desk and stepped out of the copper circle set into the floor around my chair. It was powered by the sorcerous equivalent of a nine-volt battery, connected to the control on the underside of my desk. Basic magical defense, Gard said. It had seemed like nonsense to me – it clearly was not.

  I took my gun from its holster and set it on my desk.

  Justine took note of my reply.

  Of course, I wouldn’t give the personal aide of the most dangerous woman in Chicago information about my magical defenses.

  There was something hard and not at all submissive in her eyes. “Thank you, sir, for…”

  “For what?” I said very calmly. “You understand, do you not, what you have done by asking for my help under the Accords?”

  “Sir?”

  “The Accords govern relations between supernatural powers,” I said. “The signatories of the Accords and their named vassals are granted certain rights and obligations – such as offering a warning to a signatory who has trespassed upon another’s territory unwittingly before killing him.”

  “I know, sir,” Justine said.

  “Then you should also know that you are most definitely not a signatory of the Accords. At best, you qualify in the category of ‘servitors and chattel.’ At worst, you are considered to be a food animal.

  She drew in a sharp breath, her eyes widening – not in any sense of outrage or offense, but in realization. Good. She grasped the realities of the situation.

  “In either case,” I continued, “you are property. You have no rights in the current situation, in the eyes of the Accords – and more to the point, I have no right to withhold another’s rightful property. Mag’s behavior provided me with an excuse to kill him if he did not depart. He will not give me such an opening a second time.”