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Chapter Twelve

"I don&039;t like it," Morgan growled, as I pushed the wheelchair over the gravel toward the street and the van Thomas had rented

"Gee There&039;s a shock," I said Morgan was a lot to push around, even with the help of the chair "You upset with how I operate"

"He&039;s a vaan said "He can&039;t be trusted"

"I can hear you," Thomas said from the driver&039;s seat of the van

"I know that, vaain

"He owes me a favor," I said, "frolowered at ," he said

"For all you know it&039;s true"

"No, it isn&039;t," he said flatly "You&039;re lying to me"

"Well, yes"

He looked froree," I said

"Idiot," he said, though he sounded like his heart wasn&039;t in it "Even when a White Court vampire is sincere, you can&039;t trust it Sooner or later, its de but food It&039;s what they are"

I felt a little surge of anger and clubbed it down before it could"You ca you, feel free to roll yourself right out of usted look, folded his arms-and shut his hts as the van idled on the street; then he caan and picked up the wheelchair the wounded Warden sat in with about as roceries from the cart into my car&039;s trunk Thoan held the IV bag steady on its little metal pole claan a grudging h son of a bitch Obviously in agony, obviously exhausted, obviously operating in the shah to be paranoid and annoying If he wasn&039;t ai it all at me, I probably would have admired hian, rolled his eyes at ot back into the driver&039;s seat

Molly ca one end of Mouse&039;s leash I held out my hand, and she tossedother things, it contained food, water, a ht sticks, duct tape, two changes of clothing, a multitool, two hundred dollars in cash, my passport, and a couple of favorite paperbacks I always kept the trouble kit ready and available, in case I need toI would need to survive about ninety percent of the planet&039;s environments for at least a couple of days

Molly, acting on her own initiative, had begun putting her own trouble kit together the same day she&039;d learned about mine Except that her backpack was pink

"You sure about this?" I asked her, pitching an wouldn&039;t hear

She nodded "He can&039;t stay there alone You can&039;t stay with hirunted "Do I need to search your bag for candlesticks?"

She gave rined shake of her head

"Don&039;t feel too bad, kid," I told her "He had a couple of hours to work you up to that And he&039;s the guy who nearly cut your head off, during that mess around SplatterCon"

"It wasn&039;t that," she said quietly "It&039;s what he said to you What he&039;s done to you"

I put ently

She smiled faintly at me "I&039;ve never never really felt hate before Not like that"

"Your eot the better of you That&039;s all"

"But it isn&039;t," she insisted, folding her ar a little "Harry, I&039;ve seen you all but kill yourself to help people ere in trouble But for Morgan, that doesn&039;twrong once, and you&039;ll never, ever be anything else"

Aha

"Kid," I said quietly, "ry with back there"

"What do you ed "I mean there&039;s a reason you snapped when he started in on an just happened to be coincidental"

She blinked her eyes several tih to stop one tear

"You did a bad thing once," I said "It doesn&039;t make you a monster"

Two more tears fell "What if it does?" She wiped at her cheeks with a brusque frustrated motion "What if it does, Harry?"

I nodded "Because if Morgan&039;s right, and I&039; to rehabilitate you, you haven&039;t got a chance in hell I get it"

She pressed her lips together, and it made her words sound stiff "Just before Mouse knocked an To his ry, and it felt right"

"Feeling sos"

She shook her head "But ould want to do that, Harry? What kind ofthe pack over one shoulder so that I could put my hands on either side of her face and turn her eyes to mine Her tears made theood person Don&039;t let anyone take that away from you Not even yourself"

She didn&039;t even try to stop the tears Her lip quivered Her eyes ide and her cheeks were fever-warers "A-are you sure?"

"Yes"

She bowed her head, and her shoulders shook I leaned down to rest ainst hers We stayed that way for a minute "You&039;re okay," I told her quietly "You aren&039;t a rasshopper"

A series of sharp, rapping sounds interrupted us I looked overat old pocket watch-and jabbed a forefinger at it i "Big fat, grumpy jerk"

"Yes But he has a point Tick-tock"

She swiped a hand at her nose and collected herself "Okay," she said "Let&039;s go"

The storage rental facility was located a couple of blocks frohborhood north of Chicago proper Most of the buildings nearby were residential, and it was tough to goa patrol car

I&039;d picked it as the spot for my bolt hole for one reason: shady characters would stand out against the upper-ht

Granted, it would probably work even better if I wasn&039;t one of theate, and Thoe unit the size of a two-car garage I unlocked the steel door and rolled it up while Thoan out of the van Molly followed, and when I beckoned, she wheeled Morgan into the storage space Mouse got down out of the van and followed us I rolled the door back down, and called wizard light to the alow filled the unit

The interior of the place wasand pillow, placedwith a footlocker I had filled with food, bottled water, candles, and supplies A second footlocker sat next to the first one, and was filled with hardware androd, and all manner of useful little itely broad spectrus of cleaning liquid sat on the opposite side of the cot

The floor, the walls, and the ceiling were covered in sigils, runes, and ical formulae They weren&039;t proper wards, like the ones I had on my home, but they worked on the sale one of the formulae was particularly powerful-but there were lots of the fro slowly around her "What is this place, Harry?"

"Bolt hole I set up last year, in case I needed soet h his face was pale and draith pain He swept his eyes around and said, "What&039;s the mix?"

"Conceale"

Morgan nodded, glancing around "It looks adequate"

"What&039;s that mean?" Molly asked me "A Faraday what?"

"It&039;s what they call it when you shield equipnetic pulses," I told her "You build a cage of conductiveyou want to protect, and if a pulse sweeps over it, the energy is channeled into the earth"

"Like a lightning rod," Molly said

"Pretty much," I said "Only instead of electricity, this is built to stop hostile an corrected runted "Without a threshold to ith, there&039;s only so much you can do The idea is to protect you froo out the back door and run"

Molly glanced at the back of the storage unit and said, "There&039;s no door there, Harry That&039;s a wall It&039;s kind of the opposite of a door"

Morgan nodded his head at the back corner of the space, where a large rectangular area on the floor was clear of any runes or other s "There," he said "Where&039;s it co steps froe on in Unseelie territory," I said I nodded at a cardboard box sitting in the rectangle "It&039;s cold there There&039;re a couple of coats in the box"

"A passage to the Nevernever," Molly breathed "I hadn&039;t thought of that"

"Hopefully whoever was co after an eyed ," he said, "that this place seeitive from the Wardens"

"Hunh," I said "Now that you mention it, yeah Yeah it does seean an innocent look "Just an odd coincidence, I&039;m sure, since I happen to be one of those paranoid lunatics, lowered

"You came to me for a reason, Chuckles," I said "Besides I wasn&039;t thinking about the Wardens nearly so much as I was" I shook my head and shut my mouth

"As who, Harry?" Molly asked

"I don&039;t knoho they are," I said "But they&039;ve been involved in several things lately The Darkhallow, Arctis Tor, the White Court coup They&039;re way too handy withthem the Black Council"

"There is no Black Council," Morgan snapped, with the speed that could only have been born of reflex

Molly and I traded a look

Morgan let out an impatient breath "Any actions that ades," he said "There is no organized conspiracy against the White Council"

"Uh-huh," I said "Gosh, I&039;d have thought you&039;d be right on board with the conspiracy thing"

"The Council is not divided," he said, his voice as hard and cold as I had ever heard it "Because the moment we turn upon one another, we&039;re finished There is no Black Council, Dresden"

I lifted both eyebrows "Fro on me for most of my life," I said "And I&039;"

"You," Morgan spat, "are" He al before he blew out a breath and finished, " vastly irritating"

I beamed at him "That&039;s the Merlin&039;s line, isn&039;t it?" I said "There is no conspiracy against the Council"

"It is the position of the entire Senior Council," Morgan shot back

"Okay, suy," I said "Explain what happened to you"

He glowered again, only with ely, then turned to Molly "This place should protect you fro spells," I said "And the avoidance wards should keep anyone froan estions, not co e and you know it"

"What do I do if someone does come?" she asked

"Veil and run," I said

She shook her head "I don&039;t kno to open a way to the Nevernever, Harry You haven&039;t shown an said

Both of us stopped and blinked at him

He was very still for a second and then said, "I can do it If she watches, lared atcoh it?"

Mouse went over to the open space and settled down about six inches away froht a bit, and went to sleep again, though his ears twitched at every noise

I went to the first footlocker and opened it, took out a boxed fruit drink, and passed it to hi you gruet an unexpected visitor from the other side" I went to the second locker, opened it, and drew out a puun, its barrel cut to well below the th I checked it, and passed the weapon to Molly "It&039;s loaded with a mix of steel shot and rock salt Between that and Mouse, it should discourage anything that coht," Molly said She checked the weapon&039;s cha a shell She double-checked the safety, and then nodded at an said "But not how to open passages to the Nevernever"

"There&039;s enough trouble right here in the real world," I said

Morgan grunted "True enough Where are you going?"

"Only one place I can go"

He nodded "Edinburgh"

I turned toward the door and opened it I looked froun "You two play nice"

Chapter Thirteen

Wizards and technology don&039;t get on so well, and that makes travel sort of complicated Soy than others, and if any of them were harder on machinery than me, I hadn&039;t met them yet I&039;d been on a jet a couple of times and had one bad experience-just one After the plane&039;s couidance syste on a tiny coer to repeat the experience

Buses were better, especially if you sat toward the back, but even they had probleer than three or four hundred hway in the middle of nowhere Cars could work out, especially if they were fairly old models-the fewer electronics involved, the better Even those h, tended to provide you with chronic problems I&039;d never owned a car that ran more than maybe nine days in ten-and most of them orse than that

Trains and ships were the ideal, especially if you could keep yourself a good way froines Most wizards, when they traveled, stuck with ships and trains Either that or they cheated-like I was about to do

Back at the beginning of the ith the Vampire Courts, the White Council, with the help of a certain wizard private investigator frootiated the use of Ways through the near reaches of the Nevernever controlled by the Unseelie Court The Nevernever, the world of ghosts and spirits and fantastic beings of every description, exists alongside our own mortal reality-but it isn&039;t the same shape That meant that in places, the mortal world touched upon the Nevernever at two points that could be very close together, while in the mortal realm, they were very far apart In short, use of the Ways meant that anyone who could open a path betorlds could use a major shortcut

In this case, it o, Illinois, to Edinburgh, Scotland, in about half an hour

The closest entry point to where I wanted to go in the Nevernever was a dark alley behind a building that had once been used for , not all of them cleanly and not all of them cows There&039;s a dark sense of finality to the place, a sort of ephehtly on the air that the unobservant ht not notice it at all In the middle of the alley, a concrete staircase led down to a door that was held shut with both boards and chains-talk about overkill

I walked down the steps to the bottom of the stairs, closed my eyes for a moment, and extended my otherworldly senses, not toward the door, but toward the section of concrete beside it I could feel the thinness of the world there, where energy pulsed and huid surface of reality

It was a hot night in Chicago, but it wouldn&039;t be on the Ways I wore a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, and a couple of pairs of socks beneath athered up my will, reached out my hand, and with a whisper of "Aparturum," I opened a Way betorlds

Honestly, it sounds quite a bit more dramatic than it looks The surface of the concrete wall rippled with a quick flickering of color and began to put out a soft glow I took a deep breath, gripped my staff in both hands, and stepped directly forward into the concrete

My flesh passed through what should have been stone, and I eed in a dark wood that lay covered in frost and a thin layer of snow At least this tio had been round in the Nevernever Last time, I&039;d had a three-inch drop I hadn&039;t expected, and I&039;d fallen on my ass into the snow No harm done, I suppose, but this part of the Nevernever was just chock-full of things you did not want to think you were clus with a quick look around The woods were the sah them A hillside sank down ahead of ht behind me At the top of the small mountain I stood upon, I was told, was a narrow and bitterly cold pass that led into the interior of the Unseelie Mountains, to Mab&039;s stronghold of Arctis Tor Below me, the land sank into foothills and then into plains, where Mab&039;s authority ended and that of Titania the Suan

I stood at a crossroads-which was only sensible, since I&039;d arrived froreat crossroads of the world One trail led upslope and down The other crossed it at al the face of the hillside I took a left, following the face of the hillside in a counterclockwise direction, also known as widdershins, in the parlance of the locals The trail ran between frozen trees, their branches bowed beneath their burden of frost and snow

I h to slip and blow out an ankle or brainbranch The White Council had Mab&039;s perh the woods, but they were by no means safe

I found that out for myself about fifteen minutes into my walk, when snow suddenly fell softly from the trees all around, and silent black shapes descended to encircle me It happened quickly, and in perfect silence-maybe a dozen spiders the size of ponies alit upon the frozen ground or clung to the trunks and branches of the surrounding trees They were s-li They moved with an alrey and blue and white that blended flawlessly with the snowy night

The spider who had come down onto the trail directly in front of er thanwith ," said the creature

That was actually scarier than the s, I could see a ly hulea thing "Halt, he whose blood arm us Halt, intruder upon the Wood of the Winter Queen"

I stopped and looked around the circle of spiders None of theer or sht my way clear, there wasn&039;t any obvious weak link to exploit "Greetings," I said, as I did "I am no intruder, honored hunters I am a Wizard of the White Council, and I and my folk have the Queen&039;s permission to tread these paths"

The air around me shivered with chitters and hisses and clicks

"Man-things speak often with false tongues," said the lead spider, its foreliitation

I held up uess they always have one of these, too, huh?"

The spider hissed, and veno bears such a long stick, s," I said "I&039; terms with Queen Mab herself I don&039;t think you want to play it like this"

The spider&039;s legs shifted in an undulating motion, and the spider rippled two or three feet closer toa bit nearer I didn&039;t like that, not even a little If one of them jumped, they&039;d be all over s to defend hed, the sound hollow and"Mortals do not speak to the Queen and live to tell the tale"

"It lies," hissed the other spiders, the phrase a low buzzing around me "And its blood is wars and had an acutely uncoh the top of that damn juice box

The spider in front of ht, the graceful otten about a foot closer to , how are we to knohat you truly are?"

In ht line that good

I thrust the tip ofit into an area the size of my own clenched fist as I shouted, "Forzare!"

An invisible force ha ht of its feet, drove it fifteen feet backward through the air, and ended at the trunk of an enormous old oak The spider s a hideous splattering sound upon iround, its legs all quivering and jerking spasmodically Maybe three hundred pounds of snow shaken loose by the i down from the oak tree&039;s branches and half buried the body