To Face the Night for lirial89
Author: hollow_echos
Recipient: lirial89
Title: To Face the Night
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,900
Pairing/Character(s): Marcone/Harry
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers through Ghost Story. A thanks to my beta, rusting_roses.
Summary: Harry came back thinking he was alone in it all. Marcone shows him otherwise.
Death is usually where the sidewalk ends. It's the place where the car plunges off the cliff into the great depths of the dark sea below. Death is usually the end of things. That had been the idea, at least, when I'd arranged my own assassination. It was to be a curtain call before I could start my descent down a road where I'd no longer like what I saw in the mirror. Call me a coward, perhaps, for going back on my word to the Winter Queen of Fae. I took the easy way out, I admit that.
Well, I tried to at least.
So it was with great surprise to find myself standing in a darkened alley in the depths of Chicago after a few days spent in faerie going through what I can only describe as a Winter Knight boot camp. It hadn't been physically taxing, but mentally I was spent. It was from days spent with my dear old godmother, going over exactly what my duties to the queen would be. It had been days of analyzing every word I wanted to say before I spoke them, checking and double checking that my intent was perfectly clear. That was one thing about the fae: give them a chink in the armor, the smallest of loopholes, and they'd be through the gap and at your throat before you could utter a gasp of surprise.
And I'd signed away my life to them.
I pulled my jacket tighter around me, shivering at the chill, silently wishing for my duster instead of the long coat I'd been given that probably hadn't seen use since the eighteen hundreds. The frilly silk shirt was out of place too. The Winter Court, much like the Summer, favored archaic clothing like that.
That was the crux of things, though. When you die, the pieces of your life tend to be scattered about in the wind, snatched up by the people who wish to remember you by them. Mister was with Karrin. My daughter and my dog were safe with the Carpenters.
So where do you go, a man who'd been bounced between life and death and back again? I didn't really have an answer for that question. Standing here, watching my breaths puff out in little clouds in the air before dissipating, well; the novelty of the snippy weather was certainly wearing off fast. So I did what any man in my situation would do. I put one foot in front of the other and started walking.
*
Ask a tourist what they think of Chicago, and they'd wax eloquent about Michigan Avenue and the shopping and the steel and glass that dominate the sky line. Ask five natives and you'd get five different answers depending on which part of town they were from. I didn't choose the location of my apartment for its ability to grace the cover of a brochure. I had blown into town so many years ago, stumbled onto the place by luck or happenstance and over the years the place had become my own. It was my home.
Sure, there was a racket from the street sometimes, the typical ensemble of car alarms and odd sounds at odder hours. Despite that, though, the people in my neighborhood had a pride to them. They cared for it. People put Christmas lights in their windows during the holidays and the streets were normally kept to a manageable chaos.
It means something, then, when I say that when I walked down the street, it looked disorderly, like somehow had dropped a bomb onto one of the buildings. Or a Molatov cocktail. The details don't matter. People come in and out of Chicago every day, old faces departing for calmer pastures and starry eyed kids abandoning their country homes for the glamour of The Windy City.
People leave and the traces of their existence are wiped away only to be replaced with something new. Except for this time, apparently. I stood in front of the stairs that led down into my apartment, or what was left of it. The building had collapsed down on itself, leaving a hole in an otherwise solid line of buildings along the block. This wasn't the wealthiest neighborhood, by any means, but it was a decent one. A large part of me was questioning why the wreckage still remained after all this time. I hadn't expected it to still be here.
I had my own plot and a tombstone in a graveyard across town. Somehow, this was worse, seeing so much of my life in ruins. Every time I blinked the flames licked at the corner of my vision. I swallowed, running a hand along the cracked and broken stone railing that ran down into the apartment.
As I approached where the door used to stand, I felt the familiar hum of magic against my skin. After everything, some vestige of my threshold still remained. Maybe there was something still here. The corner of my lip twitched into a slight smile. It had been awhile since I'd had cause to do so.
It melted away as I felt something cold pressed into the small of my back. A low voice whispered from behind me as he jabbed the barrel of the gun at me a little hard. "This isn't the sort of place you should be creeping around in the dark, don't you think?"
"What-"
"Quiet. I talk; you listen and obey very carefully. Nod if you understand."
I gave a quick bob of my head in the affirmative.
"Good. Now we're going to back away from the building here. No sudden moves, got it?"
A second nod and he spun around, me rotating with him, until we had reversed positions and he was standing between me and the building. I didn't dare turn my head to examine my new friend, lest he get a little trigger happy in the process.
We were walking toward the curb then, pulling up short just shy of the street.
"I honestly didn't believe this gig when I first got it. Babysit a building in a decent area of town. It was supposed to be walk in the park. No one mentioned the creeps that like to wander through now and then. Fuck, they brought bloody animal parts for some ritual last time."
I tried to interject. This was obviously some sort of grave misunderstanding. "This is my-"
"I thought I told you to shut up." Another jab to the back. I resisted the urge to throw an elbow back into the kid's gut. Had to be a kid. He had that nervous energy about him, in his voice, that you lose with experience in this sort of thug work. I bit my tongue and sighed.
A black sedan with tinted windows pulled up to the curb. He popped the rear door open with one hand and motioned me inside with one last poke. Going to an undisclosed place with undisclosed people had yet to be a good life decision in my book.
If I had even a few feet, a few seconds free, I'd have tried. The fact of the matter was there was a gun pressed to my spine. I'd already taken spine damage on my last trip home. I had no desire to repeat the experience. With a shake of my head and a silent prayer that I could figure this out along the way, I climbed into the car. The door was slammed behind me and the car pulled away from the curb.
I took a moment to buckle my seatbelt. Safety first.
*
"Well, Dresden. It seems rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated."
I turned to the man sitting beside me in the back of the car. There was a figure up front driving the car, but apparently I warranted a backseat babysitter too. I didn't know whether to be worried or a little bit flattered that they were taking my abilities seriously. A sitting position generally makes people seem at least marginally less intimidating. For Hendricks, there was no such illusion. The man was muscle stacked on muscle. He didn't have to be actively pointing a weapon in my general direction to be a threat. The man was a walking arsenal. It was kind of like what you'd get if you put a pit bull in a suit.
"Hendricks. How nice to see you again, it's been awhile since we last got to have one of these little chats. As for my startling reappearance, guess I still had that ninth life on retainer."
He scoffed. "More like a cockroach. Every time someone thinks they've stamped you crawl out from beneath the rubble"
"So, any chance I could get clued in on where we are taking this lovely little joyride?"
"To see the boss."
"I'm assuming Marcone? What does he want with me?"
"The boss generally doesn't take too kindly to people creeping around his property."
"His property?" No way. There was just no way.
"Yes, Dresden. His property. He bought the building and the ones abutting it on either side."
I swallowed the growl that bubbled up from my throat. Marcone was a man of many means. He had a hand in almost every industry in the city and had more than a few politicians and city officials in his pocket. The man liked to think he owned the city. There were some places that weren't his to claim. "My neighborhood? He bought my apartment in my neighborhood? Why would he do that?"
"I'm paid for to fulfill a variety of roles, Dresden. Speculating about my employers motives isn't one of them."
The rest of the car ride passed in silence. I took the opportunity to examine the city streets as we passed. There were a few differences that I noted. A bakery that had been Molly's favorite in the shopping district had been replaced by a Starbucks. The rates for the parking garage had gone up a buck or two. The world really had gone on in my absence.
Eventually we curved into an area of town I wasn't so familiar with and the car slowed before an office building I'd never seen.
I went to pull the door handle only to find that it wouldn't budge. Hendricks sighed, shaking his head, before sliding out from the door on his side and motioning me over. "Child locks are engaged. You'd be surprised at how many people think jumping out of a moving car a better option than facing a pissed off Marcone."
I met the man's steely gaze. "I've been back in town less than a day. There's no way I've stepped on Marcone's toes in that length of time."
Hendrick's face dipped into a frown. He stepped closer, speaking low. "An absence can do just as much damage. I'm a man who follows orders, and for that I haven't harmed you against my better judgment. For what you put Marcone through these past few months..." He shook his head as if he'd said too much already.
*
Hendricks put me in front, directing me into the building, as if I were a flight risk. Marcone deserved confrontation. I thought of my neighbors, of the possibility that some of his riff raff had been waging war just outside their windows. We passed the receptionist and the elevator, since Hendricks knew of my track record with technology.
Three flights of stairs later we went down a hallway and stopped outside the door. Hendricks knocked and waited for a muffled response from the other side before opening the door. "We brought him in for you, just like you asked."
Marcone looked up from whatever document he had been pouring over, a half-bored expression melting away as he focused. He stacked the papers and slid them into a drawer.
"Sit," he said. It wasn't a request.
"I think I'll stand just fine, thank you very much."
Hendricks growled and took a step toward me.
"Leave him be, Hendricks. And leave us please. I'll call you if you're needed."
Hendricks looked back and forth between Marcone and me, as if daring me to do something in his absence. He nodded and begrudgingly stepped out of the office. "I'll be right outside."
"Thank you, Hendricks," Marcone offered as the man shut the door. Then it was him and me. I met his stern gaze with one of my own.
"You bought my apartment. I swear if you did anything to endanger them-"
Marcone sounded positively bored. "It was to protect them, Dresden."
The angry words died before I could speak them. That didn't mean I relented. Instead of resorting to outright hostilities, my voice just took on a deeply suspicious tone. "What do you mean?"
"You want to know how many people, magical and otherwise in nature, that came creeping around after you were declared dead? Looking to pillage your place for magical artifacts or anything of interest. I put a stop to it."
"You mean you were protecting your own ability to scour the place, right? I don't want to sit here and listen to some bullshit about how this was some sentimental memorial to my life. You're a pragmatic man, Marcone. A man doesn't get to be where you're at by making heartfelt gestures that would get people questioning your leadership."
He paused, as if pondering my words. I barely the gesture, it lasted only a moment, the way he bit his lip and looked away. Shit. My mouth really did get me in trouble sometimes. I'd seen contrasting sides of Marcone. I'd seen him with a gun in his hand pressed against another man's throat. I'd seen him traverse hell and high water to protect the ones he cared for. For the life of me, I had never expected that to extend to me.
"Why?"
"For all the times I wished you dead..."
There was a hitch in his voice then. It had been the last conversation we'd had before my death.
"I never meant it. You were - are - a good force in this city."
I nodded, raising an eyebrow. He didn't actually expect me to believe him. How many times had Marcone made it clear that I was a weapon for him to wield, if at all possible. "Good for business, right? Can't hurt that I smoked your enemies out of the city now and then. An on call exterminator when the need arose or our purposes aligned."
"It was never just that-you're bleeding," he observed, his keen eyes zeroing in on my shirt.
I looked down. Red was spotting through at a few points on my arm and chest. Souvenirs from my body's stint on life support by a sentient island in the middle of Lake Erie. I rolled my eyes, impatient. "You wouldn't believe the story if I told you."
He rose from behind the desk, quickly covering the distance around the desk until he was standing in front of me. "Sit," he ordered.
I went to protest but a solid hand pressed down on my shoulder, lowering me into the seat. His body was warm and firm near mine. He calmly gave a call for Hendricks through the door. The man bolted through the door with his weapon drawn, immediately pointing it at me.
"Whoa, easy Fido," I muttered, sticking my hands up where he could clearly see them.
"Dresden's hurt. I need our first aid kit. And call for Damien, would you?"
There was a tug as he started pulling at my shirt, trying to visualize the wounds. "Seriously, Dresden...this thing looks like it's a hundred years old. This cannot be sanitary," he finished with a hint of disgust in his voice. As his impatience wore out he pulled harder, popping buttons as the shirt fell away exposing my torso.
I flinched at the cold.
"Jesus, Dresden. What happened?
I looked down at the open welts that dotted my flesh from where the vines had punctured my body, nourishing it as my soul wandered the streets of Chicago. You would think a queen would take better care of her peons. Mab, however, wasn't one to be trifled with. The little painful reminder was her way of putting me in my place for trying to outwit her.
"I've had worse," I said.
"God knows that. You got yourself in with the Queen of Air and Darkness. You signed on as her lap dog, didn't you? And it got you killed."
Of course he knew. This was Gentleman Johnny Marcone. You couldn't litter in this city without him knowing.
Hendricks returned, momentarily interrupting the conversation as he laid out the first aid kit on the desk.
Marcone rolled on a pair of gloves and went to work cleaning the wounds. I swallowed my pride and sat through that. When he pulled out the needle and thread, I went to stand up.
Hendrick's stood behind me, a hand clamping on my shoulder and preventing my escape. "Stay still."
"Dresden, you will sit there until I'm done taking care of this, understood?"
I gulped at the sharp tone of his voice and gave a curt nod. I gave a slight hiss as he injected some sort of numbing solution around a welt on my shoulder. "So Dresden, you were about to tell me how it didn't occur to you to come to me for help. How you couldn't ask me to help you save your own daughter and had to resort to asking for Fae assistance instead."
I felt the dull sensation as he tied off the first stitch. I flinched. Not due to pain, no, I'd had my fair share of that and this hardly registered. He knew about Maggie. That wasn't the sort of information I had wanted to advertise. I had a lot of enemies and the fewer people that knew of her, the better.
"It's a long story."
"I'm counting upwards of fifteen welts on your upper body alone. It's not like we've been left wanting for time."
I sighed. "You helped me find the allies I needed, isn't that enough?"
"You went into a Red Court stronghold with every ally you had in this city." The last words had been left out, but I knew what he was thinking all the same. Without me. You left to save your daughter without me.
"And we all got out alive, all of them. Isn't that enough?" I asked.
"Except for you, you mean, right? You didn't quite escape unscathed."
I turned my gaze to the wall. "I did what needed doing."
"We didn't know for months, Dresden. I don't need to tell you how Karrin Murphy came storming in here, gun drawn, accosting me up and down about how I had murdered you in cold blood. That's how I found out that you were dead, by the way."
The last few words stung. His voice was low and raw in a way I'd never heard it before. I twisted to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry how it all happened and for all the battles of mine that I've left others to fight. I can't help that. If you're asking me though, whether I'd do it all again, I would. She's my daughter."
There was a wounded glint in his eye. "Because I couldn't appreciate that, now could I? I may not have a flesh and blood family, but I sure as hell have the network I've built around me. I take care of my associates and my friends...and yes, even my sometimes-enemies."
I knew that last designation had been mine. He'd bought the ruins of my apartment. Partially out of some strange concern for my legacy. The darker part of my mind whispered that he had wanted to sift through the ruins himself. I thought back to standing in front of the smoke-stained ruins. It had hurt. Somehow I imagined that seeing something new erected in its place would have hurt even more. I owed this man for preserving what little of my legacy remained my own. A small part that I could reclaim and rebuild. Mister was happy, I'd seen that. Maggie and Mouse were in a place I knew they were safe. I wouldn't drag them away from that and put them in the direct line of fire again.
Phoenix from that ashes and all that jazz. I had a long way to go.
"I endangered so many people for my own goals...I didn't want to drag you into it too."
"I would've preferred that you had, Dresden," he said as he moved onto another welt. "Maybe I could've-"
"Stop there. What happened, happened. I brought my death on myself, Marcone. There were too many enemies." The man was already angry enough as it was, telling him about how I had arranged my own death would just move me one step closer to drawing his full ire.
The room was silent except for our steady breaths for a moment. I shied away just enough to be noticeable as he went to clean another of the wounds.
"Who did this, Dresden? I won't ask again."
I sighed. "My new employer. A slight reminder about what stepping out of line will earn me."
He growled low under his breath. "We're going to find a way out of it. No way are you stuck doing her dirty work."
Marcone had lawyers who could let a man walk away from a murder in broad daylight scot free, but this wasn't the sort of contract you could wiggle your way out of with a creative interpretation of the fine print. Blood, bone, and body, I was hers. Wholly hers. I didn't have the heart to argue against Marcone otherwise. There was such steadfast determination in his voice. "I've made a mess of things, you know?" I asked him.
He sighed. "There's time to untangle all the knots. Tomorrow."
"And tonight?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm going to finish here and have the physician I keep on retainer look you over. I have a spare room you can sleep in at my place and some clothes that should fit you."
"God, what I would give to get rid of this ridiculous get up. You are a saint, Jonny Marcone." There was only a little bit of dryness in my voice. Mostly I was just glad for the sense of normalcy: this banter back and forth, which had become layered and rich in ways I'd never even thought possible.
He smirked. "Well at least someone thinks so."
He tied off another stitch. Discarding the gloves, I watched him place the needle and thread down on his desk. That's it for now; we can do the rest later. "Let's go home. I'll take care of you there."
He lowered a hand, pulling me to my feet. Looking around the room, I saw that Hendricks had snuck out silently sometime during Marcone's administrations. Someone had snuck back in with a shirt that fit me surprisingly well. Gentleman Jonny Marcone held the door for me. Together, we went out to face the night.
Recipient: lirial89
Title: To Face the Night
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,900
Pairing/Character(s): Marcone/Harry
Notes/Warnings: Spoilers through Ghost Story. A thanks to my beta, rusting_roses.
Summary: Harry came back thinking he was alone in it all. Marcone shows him otherwise.
Death is usually where the sidewalk ends. It's the place where the car plunges off the cliff into the great depths of the dark sea below. Death is usually the end of things. That had been the idea, at least, when I'd arranged my own assassination. It was to be a curtain call before I could start my descent down a road where I'd no longer like what I saw in the mirror. Call me a coward, perhaps, for going back on my word to the Winter Queen of Fae. I took the easy way out, I admit that.
Well, I tried to at least.
So it was with great surprise to find myself standing in a darkened alley in the depths of Chicago after a few days spent in faerie going through what I can only describe as a Winter Knight boot camp. It hadn't been physically taxing, but mentally I was spent. It was from days spent with my dear old godmother, going over exactly what my duties to the queen would be. It had been days of analyzing every word I wanted to say before I spoke them, checking and double checking that my intent was perfectly clear. That was one thing about the fae: give them a chink in the armor, the smallest of loopholes, and they'd be through the gap and at your throat before you could utter a gasp of surprise.
And I'd signed away my life to them.
I pulled my jacket tighter around me, shivering at the chill, silently wishing for my duster instead of the long coat I'd been given that probably hadn't seen use since the eighteen hundreds. The frilly silk shirt was out of place too. The Winter Court, much like the Summer, favored archaic clothing like that.
That was the crux of things, though. When you die, the pieces of your life tend to be scattered about in the wind, snatched up by the people who wish to remember you by them. Mister was with Karrin. My daughter and my dog were safe with the Carpenters.
So where do you go, a man who'd been bounced between life and death and back again? I didn't really have an answer for that question. Standing here, watching my breaths puff out in little clouds in the air before dissipating, well; the novelty of the snippy weather was certainly wearing off fast. So I did what any man in my situation would do. I put one foot in front of the other and started walking.
*
Ask a tourist what they think of Chicago, and they'd wax eloquent about Michigan Avenue and the shopping and the steel and glass that dominate the sky line. Ask five natives and you'd get five different answers depending on which part of town they were from. I didn't choose the location of my apartment for its ability to grace the cover of a brochure. I had blown into town so many years ago, stumbled onto the place by luck or happenstance and over the years the place had become my own. It was my home.
Sure, there was a racket from the street sometimes, the typical ensemble of car alarms and odd sounds at odder hours. Despite that, though, the people in my neighborhood had a pride to them. They cared for it. People put Christmas lights in their windows during the holidays and the streets were normally kept to a manageable chaos.
It means something, then, when I say that when I walked down the street, it looked disorderly, like somehow had dropped a bomb onto one of the buildings. Or a Molatov cocktail. The details don't matter. People come in and out of Chicago every day, old faces departing for calmer pastures and starry eyed kids abandoning their country homes for the glamour of The Windy City.
People leave and the traces of their existence are wiped away only to be replaced with something new. Except for this time, apparently. I stood in front of the stairs that led down into my apartment, or what was left of it. The building had collapsed down on itself, leaving a hole in an otherwise solid line of buildings along the block. This wasn't the wealthiest neighborhood, by any means, but it was a decent one. A large part of me was questioning why the wreckage still remained after all this time. I hadn't expected it to still be here.
I had my own plot and a tombstone in a graveyard across town. Somehow, this was worse, seeing so much of my life in ruins. Every time I blinked the flames licked at the corner of my vision. I swallowed, running a hand along the cracked and broken stone railing that ran down into the apartment.
As I approached where the door used to stand, I felt the familiar hum of magic against my skin. After everything, some vestige of my threshold still remained. Maybe there was something still here. The corner of my lip twitched into a slight smile. It had been awhile since I'd had cause to do so.
It melted away as I felt something cold pressed into the small of my back. A low voice whispered from behind me as he jabbed the barrel of the gun at me a little hard. "This isn't the sort of place you should be creeping around in the dark, don't you think?"
"What-"
"Quiet. I talk; you listen and obey very carefully. Nod if you understand."
I gave a quick bob of my head in the affirmative.
"Good. Now we're going to back away from the building here. No sudden moves, got it?"
A second nod and he spun around, me rotating with him, until we had reversed positions and he was standing between me and the building. I didn't dare turn my head to examine my new friend, lest he get a little trigger happy in the process.
We were walking toward the curb then, pulling up short just shy of the street.
"I honestly didn't believe this gig when I first got it. Babysit a building in a decent area of town. It was supposed to be walk in the park. No one mentioned the creeps that like to wander through now and then. Fuck, they brought bloody animal parts for some ritual last time."
I tried to interject. This was obviously some sort of grave misunderstanding. "This is my-"
"I thought I told you to shut up." Another jab to the back. I resisted the urge to throw an elbow back into the kid's gut. Had to be a kid. He had that nervous energy about him, in his voice, that you lose with experience in this sort of thug work. I bit my tongue and sighed.
A black sedan with tinted windows pulled up to the curb. He popped the rear door open with one hand and motioned me inside with one last poke. Going to an undisclosed place with undisclosed people had yet to be a good life decision in my book.
If I had even a few feet, a few seconds free, I'd have tried. The fact of the matter was there was a gun pressed to my spine. I'd already taken spine damage on my last trip home. I had no desire to repeat the experience. With a shake of my head and a silent prayer that I could figure this out along the way, I climbed into the car. The door was slammed behind me and the car pulled away from the curb.
I took a moment to buckle my seatbelt. Safety first.
*
"Well, Dresden. It seems rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated."
I turned to the man sitting beside me in the back of the car. There was a figure up front driving the car, but apparently I warranted a backseat babysitter too. I didn't know whether to be worried or a little bit flattered that they were taking my abilities seriously. A sitting position generally makes people seem at least marginally less intimidating. For Hendricks, there was no such illusion. The man was muscle stacked on muscle. He didn't have to be actively pointing a weapon in my general direction to be a threat. The man was a walking arsenal. It was kind of like what you'd get if you put a pit bull in a suit.
"Hendricks. How nice to see you again, it's been awhile since we last got to have one of these little chats. As for my startling reappearance, guess I still had that ninth life on retainer."
He scoffed. "More like a cockroach. Every time someone thinks they've stamped you crawl out from beneath the rubble"
"So, any chance I could get clued in on where we are taking this lovely little joyride?"
"To see the boss."
"I'm assuming Marcone? What does he want with me?"
"The boss generally doesn't take too kindly to people creeping around his property."
"His property?" No way. There was just no way.
"Yes, Dresden. His property. He bought the building and the ones abutting it on either side."
I swallowed the growl that bubbled up from my throat. Marcone was a man of many means. He had a hand in almost every industry in the city and had more than a few politicians and city officials in his pocket. The man liked to think he owned the city. There were some places that weren't his to claim. "My neighborhood? He bought my apartment in my neighborhood? Why would he do that?"
"I'm paid for to fulfill a variety of roles, Dresden. Speculating about my employers motives isn't one of them."
The rest of the car ride passed in silence. I took the opportunity to examine the city streets as we passed. There were a few differences that I noted. A bakery that had been Molly's favorite in the shopping district had been replaced by a Starbucks. The rates for the parking garage had gone up a buck or two. The world really had gone on in my absence.
Eventually we curved into an area of town I wasn't so familiar with and the car slowed before an office building I'd never seen.
I went to pull the door handle only to find that it wouldn't budge. Hendricks sighed, shaking his head, before sliding out from the door on his side and motioning me over. "Child locks are engaged. You'd be surprised at how many people think jumping out of a moving car a better option than facing a pissed off Marcone."
I met the man's steely gaze. "I've been back in town less than a day. There's no way I've stepped on Marcone's toes in that length of time."
Hendrick's face dipped into a frown. He stepped closer, speaking low. "An absence can do just as much damage. I'm a man who follows orders, and for that I haven't harmed you against my better judgment. For what you put Marcone through these past few months..." He shook his head as if he'd said too much already.
*
Hendricks put me in front, directing me into the building, as if I were a flight risk. Marcone deserved confrontation. I thought of my neighbors, of the possibility that some of his riff raff had been waging war just outside their windows. We passed the receptionist and the elevator, since Hendricks knew of my track record with technology.
Three flights of stairs later we went down a hallway and stopped outside the door. Hendricks knocked and waited for a muffled response from the other side before opening the door. "We brought him in for you, just like you asked."
Marcone looked up from whatever document he had been pouring over, a half-bored expression melting away as he focused. He stacked the papers and slid them into a drawer.
"Sit," he said. It wasn't a request.
"I think I'll stand just fine, thank you very much."
Hendricks growled and took a step toward me.
"Leave him be, Hendricks. And leave us please. I'll call you if you're needed."
Hendricks looked back and forth between Marcone and me, as if daring me to do something in his absence. He nodded and begrudgingly stepped out of the office. "I'll be right outside."
"Thank you, Hendricks," Marcone offered as the man shut the door. Then it was him and me. I met his stern gaze with one of my own.
"You bought my apartment. I swear if you did anything to endanger them-"
Marcone sounded positively bored. "It was to protect them, Dresden."
The angry words died before I could speak them. That didn't mean I relented. Instead of resorting to outright hostilities, my voice just took on a deeply suspicious tone. "What do you mean?"
"You want to know how many people, magical and otherwise in nature, that came creeping around after you were declared dead? Looking to pillage your place for magical artifacts or anything of interest. I put a stop to it."
"You mean you were protecting your own ability to scour the place, right? I don't want to sit here and listen to some bullshit about how this was some sentimental memorial to my life. You're a pragmatic man, Marcone. A man doesn't get to be where you're at by making heartfelt gestures that would get people questioning your leadership."
He paused, as if pondering my words. I barely the gesture, it lasted only a moment, the way he bit his lip and looked away. Shit. My mouth really did get me in trouble sometimes. I'd seen contrasting sides of Marcone. I'd seen him with a gun in his hand pressed against another man's throat. I'd seen him traverse hell and high water to protect the ones he cared for. For the life of me, I had never expected that to extend to me.
"Why?"
"For all the times I wished you dead..."
There was a hitch in his voice then. It had been the last conversation we'd had before my death.
"I never meant it. You were - are - a good force in this city."
I nodded, raising an eyebrow. He didn't actually expect me to believe him. How many times had Marcone made it clear that I was a weapon for him to wield, if at all possible. "Good for business, right? Can't hurt that I smoked your enemies out of the city now and then. An on call exterminator when the need arose or our purposes aligned."
"It was never just that-you're bleeding," he observed, his keen eyes zeroing in on my shirt.
I looked down. Red was spotting through at a few points on my arm and chest. Souvenirs from my body's stint on life support by a sentient island in the middle of Lake Erie. I rolled my eyes, impatient. "You wouldn't believe the story if I told you."
He rose from behind the desk, quickly covering the distance around the desk until he was standing in front of me. "Sit," he ordered.
I went to protest but a solid hand pressed down on my shoulder, lowering me into the seat. His body was warm and firm near mine. He calmly gave a call for Hendricks through the door. The man bolted through the door with his weapon drawn, immediately pointing it at me.
"Whoa, easy Fido," I muttered, sticking my hands up where he could clearly see them.
"Dresden's hurt. I need our first aid kit. And call for Damien, would you?"
There was a tug as he started pulling at my shirt, trying to visualize the wounds. "Seriously, Dresden...this thing looks like it's a hundred years old. This cannot be sanitary," he finished with a hint of disgust in his voice. As his impatience wore out he pulled harder, popping buttons as the shirt fell away exposing my torso.
I flinched at the cold.
"Jesus, Dresden. What happened?
I looked down at the open welts that dotted my flesh from where the vines had punctured my body, nourishing it as my soul wandered the streets of Chicago. You would think a queen would take better care of her peons. Mab, however, wasn't one to be trifled with. The little painful reminder was her way of putting me in my place for trying to outwit her.
"I've had worse," I said.
"God knows that. You got yourself in with the Queen of Air and Darkness. You signed on as her lap dog, didn't you? And it got you killed."
Of course he knew. This was Gentleman Johnny Marcone. You couldn't litter in this city without him knowing.
Hendricks returned, momentarily interrupting the conversation as he laid out the first aid kit on the desk.
Marcone rolled on a pair of gloves and went to work cleaning the wounds. I swallowed my pride and sat through that. When he pulled out the needle and thread, I went to stand up.
Hendrick's stood behind me, a hand clamping on my shoulder and preventing my escape. "Stay still."
"Dresden, you will sit there until I'm done taking care of this, understood?"
I gulped at the sharp tone of his voice and gave a curt nod. I gave a slight hiss as he injected some sort of numbing solution around a welt on my shoulder. "So Dresden, you were about to tell me how it didn't occur to you to come to me for help. How you couldn't ask me to help you save your own daughter and had to resort to asking for Fae assistance instead."
I felt the dull sensation as he tied off the first stitch. I flinched. Not due to pain, no, I'd had my fair share of that and this hardly registered. He knew about Maggie. That wasn't the sort of information I had wanted to advertise. I had a lot of enemies and the fewer people that knew of her, the better.
"It's a long story."
"I'm counting upwards of fifteen welts on your upper body alone. It's not like we've been left wanting for time."
I sighed. "You helped me find the allies I needed, isn't that enough?"
"You went into a Red Court stronghold with every ally you had in this city." The last words had been left out, but I knew what he was thinking all the same. Without me. You left to save your daughter without me.
"And we all got out alive, all of them. Isn't that enough?" I asked.
"Except for you, you mean, right? You didn't quite escape unscathed."
I turned my gaze to the wall. "I did what needed doing."
"We didn't know for months, Dresden. I don't need to tell you how Karrin Murphy came storming in here, gun drawn, accosting me up and down about how I had murdered you in cold blood. That's how I found out that you were dead, by the way."
The last few words stung. His voice was low and raw in a way I'd never heard it before. I twisted to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry how it all happened and for all the battles of mine that I've left others to fight. I can't help that. If you're asking me though, whether I'd do it all again, I would. She's my daughter."
There was a wounded glint in his eye. "Because I couldn't appreciate that, now could I? I may not have a flesh and blood family, but I sure as hell have the network I've built around me. I take care of my associates and my friends...and yes, even my sometimes-enemies."
I knew that last designation had been mine. He'd bought the ruins of my apartment. Partially out of some strange concern for my legacy. The darker part of my mind whispered that he had wanted to sift through the ruins himself. I thought back to standing in front of the smoke-stained ruins. It had hurt. Somehow I imagined that seeing something new erected in its place would have hurt even more. I owed this man for preserving what little of my legacy remained my own. A small part that I could reclaim and rebuild. Mister was happy, I'd seen that. Maggie and Mouse were in a place I knew they were safe. I wouldn't drag them away from that and put them in the direct line of fire again.
Phoenix from that ashes and all that jazz. I had a long way to go.
"I endangered so many people for my own goals...I didn't want to drag you into it too."
"I would've preferred that you had, Dresden," he said as he moved onto another welt. "Maybe I could've-"
"Stop there. What happened, happened. I brought my death on myself, Marcone. There were too many enemies." The man was already angry enough as it was, telling him about how I had arranged my own death would just move me one step closer to drawing his full ire.
The room was silent except for our steady breaths for a moment. I shied away just enough to be noticeable as he went to clean another of the wounds.
"Who did this, Dresden? I won't ask again."
I sighed. "My new employer. A slight reminder about what stepping out of line will earn me."
He growled low under his breath. "We're going to find a way out of it. No way are you stuck doing her dirty work."
Marcone had lawyers who could let a man walk away from a murder in broad daylight scot free, but this wasn't the sort of contract you could wiggle your way out of with a creative interpretation of the fine print. Blood, bone, and body, I was hers. Wholly hers. I didn't have the heart to argue against Marcone otherwise. There was such steadfast determination in his voice. "I've made a mess of things, you know?" I asked him.
He sighed. "There's time to untangle all the knots. Tomorrow."
"And tonight?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm going to finish here and have the physician I keep on retainer look you over. I have a spare room you can sleep in at my place and some clothes that should fit you."
"God, what I would give to get rid of this ridiculous get up. You are a saint, Jonny Marcone." There was only a little bit of dryness in my voice. Mostly I was just glad for the sense of normalcy: this banter back and forth, which had become layered and rich in ways I'd never even thought possible.
He smirked. "Well at least someone thinks so."
He tied off another stitch. Discarding the gloves, I watched him place the needle and thread down on his desk. That's it for now; we can do the rest later. "Let's go home. I'll take care of you there."
He lowered a hand, pulling me to my feet. Looking around the room, I saw that Hendricks had snuck out silently sometime during Marcone's administrations. Someone had snuck back in with a shirt that fit me surprisingly well. Gentleman Jonny Marcone held the door for me. Together, we went out to face the night.