Shadowed Souls Read online

  PRAISE FOR JIM BUTCHER AND THE DRESDEN FILES

  “Butcher is the dean of contemporary urban fantasy.”

  —Booklist

  “Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Philip Marlowe.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  PRAISE FOR SEANAN MCGUIRE

  “The plot is strong, the characterization is terrific, the tragedies hurt . . . and McGuire’s usual beautiful writing and dark humor are present and accounted for. This has become one of my favorite urban fantasy series.”

  —Fantasy Literature

  PRAISE FOR KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  “Anderson’s skill in delivering taut action scenes and creating well-rounded human and alien characters adds depth and variety to a series opener that belongs in most SF collections.”

  —Library Journal

  PRAISE FOR ROB THURMAN

  “Thurman continues to deliver strong tales of dark urban fantasy.”

  —SFRevu

  ROC

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Kerrie Hughes and Jim Butcher

  Introduction copyright © 2016 by Kerrie L. Hughes

  Foreword copyright © 2016 by Jim Butcher

  “Cold Case” copyright © 2016 by Jim Butcher

  “Sleepover” copyright © 2016 by Seanan McGuire

  “If Wishes Were” copyright © 2016 by Tanya Huff

  “Solus” copyright © 2016 by Anton Strout

  “Peacock in Hell” copyright © 2016 by Kat Richardson

  “Eye of Newt” copyright © 2016 by Kevin J. Anderson

  “What Dwells Within” copyright © 2016 by Lucy A. Snyder

  “Hunter, Healer” copyright © 2016 by Jim C. Hines

  “Baggage” copyright © 2016 by Erik Scott de Bie

  “Sales. Force.” copyright © 2016 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Impossible Monsters” copyright © 2016 by Rob Thurman

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ROC with its colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Butcher, Jim, 1971– editor. | Hughes, Kerrie, editor.

  Title: Shadowed souls/edited by Jim Butcher, Kerrie L. Hughes.

  Description: New York, New York: Roc, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016025491 (print) | LCCN 2016033135 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451474995 (paperback) | ISBN 9780698192607 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Fantasy fiction, American. | Science fiction, American. |

  American fiction—21st century. | BISAC: FICTION/Fantasy/Urban Life. | FICTION/Fantasy/Contemporary. | FICTION/Anthologies (multiple authors). | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS648.F3 S49 2016 (print) | LCC PS648.F3 (ebook) | DDC 813/.0876608—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025491

  First Edition: November 2016

  Cover illustration by Chris McGrath

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction | by Kerrie L. Hughes

  Foreword | by Jim Butcher

  COLD CASE | by Jim Butcher

  SLEEPOVER | by Seanan McGuire

  IF WISHES WERE | by Tanya Huff

  SOLUS | by Anton Strout

  PEACOCK IN HELL | by Kat Richardson

  EYE OF NEWT | by Kevin J. Anderson

  WHAT DWELLS WITHIN | by Lucy A. Snyder

  HUNTER, HEALER | by Jim C. Hines

  BAGGAGE | by Erik Scott de Bie

  SALES. FORCE. | by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS | by Rob Thurman

  About the Authors

  About the Editors

  INTRODUCTION

  I love Harry Dresden. Seriously. He’s the perfect guy: deep, dark, somewhat handsome but with a geeky streak. He knows all kinds of magick and he stands up for his friends and family. He also has really awesome pets. Mind you, there’s always the possibility of becoming collateral damage.

  My love for Harry isn’t just a crush; I respect his journey in life. He started off as an orphan, learned to fight off bullies, and then became a force to be reckoned with. I also respect that he hasn’t become a monster along the way.

  Harry might argue, though, that he is a monster. Mainly because of that collateral-damage thing, but what he has slowly come to realize is that many of the people who pretend to be good are not, and the ones who do bad things are often the ones protecting everyone, and that’s where the heart of Shadowed Souls lies.

  I invited the authors to write a story based on the idea that good and evil are just two aspects of a complicated and very human story. I wanted the plots to play with the concept and invite the reader to explore the edges of their own darkness. I wasn’t disappointed.

  The stories get dark—some of them get really dark—and a few of the protagonists are truly monsters. I’d still invite them to tea, though, maybe not in my home, but definitely someplace safe—perhaps at Mac’s for a beer; I hear he brews some really good stuff.

  Welcome to Shadowed Souls, and remember something Jim told me: Good isn’t always light, and evil isn’t always dark.

  —Kerrie L. Hughes

  FOREWORD

  A pack of coyotes circled my house last night.

  My little dog is old and sick. His time could be close, and I imagine that they could smell that on the scents he left around the yard. They circled the house, yipping and barking, territorial-challenge barks that were supposed to make him want to come out and defend his territory. Coyote sounds, but maybe an octave deeper than I was used to from coyotes.

  It worked. Poor little guy was frantic, pacing back and forth around the house, desperate to do his duty as he had his whole life and go to bark at them and defend the home territory.

  Well. I heard three different animals, which probably meant there were more like five of them—some making noise, while others slipped around all sneaky-like. Coyotes are smart like that. But even if there were only three of them—three of the new, larger coyote-dog-wolf hybrids that seem to be emerging, maybe—it seemed an awful lot to ask of a twenty-pound bichon frise. My dog thinks he’s darned near a wolf, but I’ve never had the heart to tell him that he’s a bichon.

  So I went out to confront them instead. I yelled at them, let them know that this was my territory and their presence was not desired.

  They yelled back at me. Louder. Got more excited, enough that I could hear them breathing as they ran in the dark and the woods outside. I’d approached the source of the first sounds boldly and with confidence, the way you’re supposed to confront potential predators, to let them know that you’re not weak and not afraid of them.

  But as I stood the
re facing the woods, I heard sounds of movement in the woods to my right. And more sounds over in the woods to my left. And I realized that the coyotes were moving into position all around me. I’d seen one of them a few days before—it had approached to within twenty feet of me, golden eyes and a black nose at the edge of the forest. It was big. German shepherd–sized, maybe seventy or eighty pounds. I’d seen a young adult just wandering around my yard a few days before that, definitely a wild creature, but maybe fifty pounds of canine.

  And I realized that if I continued acting the way I was, I was in potential danger.

  So I fell back to the house while the coyotes continued yelling and barking and trying to taunt my sick old little warrior out to be a meal.

  So instead of yelling and screaming, I turned out all the lights in the house. And I slipped outside, very quietly, with a loaded rifle.

  And in seconds, all the noise from the coyotes stopped.

  Yeah.

  That’s what I thought.

  Within a minute of my coming back inside, the dog had relaxed. He went to sleep and almost immediately had dreams where he was barking and growling very bravely, from the sound of it.

  At the time, I was coldly furious with the creatures who were trying to hurt my little buddy. But, looking back on it, I can’t really think that I was justified in feeling that way.

  Coyotes aren’t evil. They’re predators, and they’re awfully intelligent and very, very good at their jobs. They’ve thrived even in the face of expanding human civilization. But they aren’t monsters. It’s their place in the natural world to prey upon the old and weak. It keeps prey species strong, helps prevent the spread of disease, and grants a swift end to creatures that might otherwise linger in pain for days or weeks or months.

  As frightened as I was on behalf of my little fuzzy buddy and, for a few seconds, for myself, those creatures weren’t monsters. They have a place in the world and a job to do, and they were doing that job faithfully.

  In turn, I was doing my job as a protector of my dog, and the moment I let them know that I was serious about my position, they honored it and left. They made their intentions clear, and I made mine clear in terms they could respect.

  And yet, for a while, I had to be concerned about maybe getting eaten. If you haven’t ever had that concern confront you in such a primal and visceral fashion, I highly recommend it. It gives you a whole new perspective on the world.

  We all like to think that we’d be the people to fight off the coyotes when they come for ones too weak to defend themselves, but in thinking that, we often miss an important point: Coyotes aren’t monsters.

  But they are made of shadow.

  They live in a part of the world that we don’t like to think about or look at—even though the world needs them there, doing that job.

  A lot of the people in these stories you’re about to read are made of shadow, too. They aren’t good. But they aren’t necessarily evil, either. They need to be where they are, doing what they do. So come along and take some time to consider the darkness, and those who spend their lives moving in and out of it.

  —Jim Butcher

  COLD CASE

  by Jim Butcher

  “You understand what you must do,” said Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness.

  It wasn’t phrased as a question.

  I gripped the handrail on the side of the yacht and held on as it whumped and thumped through choppy water on the way toward a bleak shore. “I get it,” I told her. “Collect the tribute from the Miksani.”

  Mab stared at me for a long moment, and that made me uncomfortable. It takes a lot to make that happen. I mean, you should see the stares my mother can give—Charity Carpenter is terrifying. And I got to where I could shake those off like nothing.

  “Lady Molly,” Mab said. “Regard me.”

  Not Look at me. Oh no. Not nearly dramatic enough.

  I looked up at her.

  We weren’t around any mortals at the moment, but we were technically moving through the mortal world, among the Aleutians, and Mab was dressed in mortal clothing. The Queen of the Winter Court of the Fey wore white furs and a big, poufy white hat like you might see on a Northern European socialite in an old Bond movie. No mortal alive would have been wearing white heels on the frozen, dripping, bucking deck of the yacht in those seas, in the beginnings of a howling winter storm, but she was Mab. She would take the path of least resistance when practical, but her willingness to tolerate the possible alarm and outrage of the human race extended only so far. She would wear what she felt like wearing. And at the moment, it would seem that she mostly felt like wearing an expression of stern disapproval.

  My own clothing, I knew, disappointed her gravely, but I was used to doing that to mother figures. I was dressed in flannel-lined winter jeans and large warm boots, with several layers of sweaters, a heavy bomber jacket, and an old hunter’s cap with ear flaps that folded down. Practical, sturdy, and serviceable.

  I didn’t need them any more than Mab needed the furs, but it seemed like it would be simpler to blend in—to a point, anyway.

  “Appearances matter, young lady,” Mab said, her voice hard-edged. “First impressions matter.”

  “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  I might have sounded a bit like this guy I know. Maybe a little.

  Mab stared at me for a long second before she gave me a wintry smile. “Wisdom wrapped in witless defiance.”

  “Witless,” I sputtered.

  “I am offering you advice,” Queen Mab said. “You have been a Queen of Faerie for less than a week. You would be wise to listen.”

  The yacht began to slow and then slewed to one side, throwing a wave of icy spray toward the rocky shore. It handled too well to be a mortal craft, but out here, where few eyes could see, the Sidhe who piloted her were only so willing to be inconvenienced by seas that would have daunted experienced mortal captains and advanced mortal vessels.

  Not mortal, I told myself sternly, in my inner, reasonable voice. Human. Human. Just like me.

  “Thanks for that,” I said to Mab. “Look, I get it. My predecessor hasn’t performed her duties properly for, like, two hundred years. I’ve got a huge backlog. I’ve got a lot of work facing me. I understand already.”

  Mab gave me another long stare before saying, “You do not understand.” Then she turned and walked back toward her cabin, the one that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. “But you will.”

  I frowned after her for a second, then glanced at the thrashing twenty yards of sea between myself and the land and asked, “How am I supposed to go ashore?”

  Mab moved her eyes in what might have been an impatient glance, if she’d actually moved them all the way to me, and went into her cabin and shut the door behind her without a word.

  I was left standing on the pitching deck. I glanced up at the Sidhe piloting the yacht. They were both male, both tall, both dark of hair and eye. Which was not my type. Even a little, dammit. One noticed me and met my gaze boldly, his mouth curling up into a little smirk, and my heart went pitty-pat. Or something did. I mean, he was a damned attractive man.

  Except he’s not a man. He’s one of the Sidhe. He’s picked a look he knows you like for his glamour, and he’d cheerfully do things with you no human could possibly be flexible enough to manage, but he wouldn’t care.

  My reasonable voice sounded a lot like my mom’s, which was more than a bit spooky.

  Besides, I didn’t need him to care. I just needed him to look pretty while I tore his clothes off and . . .

  I shook my head and looked away, out at the ocean. Being the Winter Lady brought a host of challenges with it. One of the most annoying was what had happened to my libido, which had never exactly lacked for health. These days, I was like an adolescent boy bunny rabbit
. Everything had sex in it, no matter how much it didn’t or how hard I tried not to notice it. It was annoying, because I had a job to do.

  The two extremely sexy Sidhe stared at me, being all smoldery and distracting, but not doing a damned thing to help me get ashore or prove myself on my first mission for the Queen of Air and Darkness. And since the last Winter Lady who had failed Mab wound up with a bullet in her skull, I figured I’d better not screw it up.

  Which is what she’d meant about first impressions. It had been a polite threat, and, as I realized that, my legs felt a little wobbly.

  Fine, then.

  I called upon Winter. Big-time. I let the endlessly empty cold fill me, subsume me, and winds rose around me as the power of Winter flowed in. I let it freeze everything—my concerns of what would happen if I failed Mab, my curiosity about what was coming next, the lust inspired by the pilots (whom I suddenly realized had probably been placed where they had precisely to test my focus and resolve).

  And then I let it out.

  All my life, magically speaking, I had been used to being a spinner of cobwebs of illusion and mental magic. I’d always had enormous finesse, and always lacked the kind of power I had seen my mentor wield. I’d forced myself to adjust to the idea that I would always have to be subtle, indirect, manipulative—that that was the magic that was mine to command.

  That was no longer true.

  There was a thunder crack that thrummed from the surface of the sea as Winter’s ice froze the ocean ten feet down for half a mile in every direction. The yacht suddenly locked into place, no longer pitching and rolling.

  I’d have to do the math to be sure, but I thought that little trick had taken as much energy to accomplish as fairly large military-grade munitions. The two pilots just stared at me, suddenly uncertain about what they were attempting to play with.

  That’s right, pretty boys. Mess with me, I’ll hit you so hard your children will be born bruised.