In this Corner... (part two)
Part One
I felt a lot better with my shield bracelet back on and my blasting rod hanging in my duster. I still needed to replace the .44 old Nicky had knocked out of my hand and into the cornfields, but at least I had my shotgun. Silver linings.
Since I had a little cash, at least until I buckled down and got a lawyer to defend me against, of all things, Larry Fowler, I beefed up my wards, and not just the ones around my own apartment. In the past year or so, I'd put wards around the entire boarding house. After all, fires, as I have reason to know, spread. Not to mention it would be really lousy thanks to Mrs Spunklecrief if I let her get blown up by somebody aiming at me.
Speaking of aim, Bob and I sketched out some protective sigils to lay on my leather duster. I inked them on with a tattoo needle, then juiced the whole thing up. Bob wanted me to test it by having Murphy shoot me while I wore it, but I declined.
Unfortunately, we got the duster finished about a week too late. Or a month and a week, depending on how you're counting.
But let me skip ahead. It was about a month and a week after Bob and I had finished designing the wards for my duster. I was on a mission of mercy, tracking down a library book that had fallen out of Andi's bag when she'd had to transform in a hurry the night before. She needed to cite it for a paper she was writing, apparently. College kids.
I was already looking ahead to collected babysitting IOUs, so I'd agreed to help her out. Actually, the Alphas all thought it was both fantastic and hilarious. They'd smelled it on me the first time I came by after the whole Denarian fiasco. Supersenses. Seriously, my friends are all weird.
The tracking spell was leading me down the Midway Plaisance, this weird park like an overgrown median strip that runs along the southern edge of the UChicago campus between the main quad and all the grad school buildings. There were sports fields sunken down in the middle; I was passing an open-air ice rink, in this season pulling double duty as three basketball courts. I was on the other side of a modernistically geometrical garden from where I was walking, the stadium lights just visible through the trees.
I passed a bus going in the opposite direction and its marquee flickered. I winced; my radius of magical disturbance had been expanding. As the bus pulled out, a man crossed the street, coming towards me. I didn't let go of the tracking spell, but I did shake out my shield bracelet and watch the fellow out the corner of my eye. Most supernatural beings wouldn't risk a confrontation in public in daylight, even the ones who don't mind going out in it in the first place. It wouldn't be the first time, though.
The only thing supernatural, it turned out, was my bad luck. The man resolved into a tall, athletic figure in an expensive grey pinstripe suit that wasn't a stitch out of place exiting one of the most prestigious law schools in the country. He had dark hair, silvering at the temples, and I knew before I saw them that his eyes were the green of old money.
"Miss Dresden," said John Marcone, "fancy meeting you here."
"Can we do this while we walk, Marcone? I've got a spell going." I said it a little abstractedly, recovering the focus that had begun to fray. It was hard enough doing this with the kid turning summersaults on my pancreas.
"Of course." Marcone fell in beside me, easily matching my somewhat reduced pace. "I'd hate to inter-Harry! You're pregnant!"
Ha, Marcone didn't know everything after all. "Don't call me Harry. Excellent powers of deduction there, by the way. I'm due in December; you can put that in the disturbing and possibly actionable stalker-file you keep on me."
"You've seen Mister Rodriguez since the events of last winter, then," Marcone said, clearly doing the math.
"Nah, just got stuck dicking around in Faerie. Ah-ha!" I'd been ignoring the slight northward pull on the spell, since I'd discovered earlier that it straightened out as soon as I took about a half a step to my right; and at six months pregnant even my anti-establishment tendencies didn't extend to ignoring a perfectly good sidewalk.
I stepped off it now and onto the grass, squatting down to rifle through the low, leafy, shrub-like things. "Ha. Got it."
I straightened up a little awkwardly, between my stomach and Andi's book, the latter being almost as large as the former. If I may say, I do think I carried it well, even that far along. I've always been skinny and too tall, except when I was a little kid and I was skinny and too short. My metabolism is the real reason it occasionally seems that Murphy has it out for me, by the way. I'd been having an increasing amount of trouble affording the inflated grocery bills it was taking to stave off seeming starvation. I maintain that it was really big (no pun intended) of Murphy to keep throwing me cases even though I was eating approximately her bodyweight every day and only expanding incrementally at the waist.
I twitched my skirt around. All those increments had started adding up, though. I hate skirts most of the time: they cost too much and they don't hold up and they get in the way. But they just don't make maternity pants for six and a half foot tall women. Actually, they don't make pants at all for six and a half foot tall women: I've been wearing men's jeans since I was in high school. Charity had donated some of her old things to me, which was a life-saver because I'd had to buy the leggings to go under them outright, plus new bras when my boobs started ballooning out. Bob was being disturbingly helpful lately.
I missed my pants. I'm not a purse girl unless I'm trying to hide something kind of big, so I like jeans with pockets that are actually designed to hold things. It was a good thing my duster was more or less made of pockets, or I'd have run out of room. For a while, I'd been able to get away with just popping the button on my jeans and letting the zipper down halfway, but that look doesn't inspire clients with boundless confidence in my professionalism. So skirts it was, and a couple dresses, with leggings underneath to keep me from freezing to death as it got chillier.
I looked back over my shoulder to find Marcone watching me with the sort of attention he usually employed about ten hours before my life got really hairy. He always made a point of looking me in the eye, even though it meant looking up-Murphy had forgiven me for being so unnaturally fucking tall the first time she saw me face to face with Marcone and realised I had a couple inches on the son of a bitch. No lie. When Marcone paid that much attention to the rest of me, it meant he was leading up to something.
I clomped back to the cement. Marcone's predatory gaze shifted to watch...my stomach. "Don't tell me-you want to be her godfather."
"So you're having a girl." Marcone smiled a little, just enough to wrinkle up his smile lines and crow's feet, giving him that fatherly, all-American air that put people so at ease before he had them shot in the head; but his eyes said he was doing it because it annoyed me.
I scowled and started walking again, curious how long I could run him around the South Side before he either caught wise or I had to stop to pee. No way was I taking him right up to Andi's door, just on principle. At least the kid was settling down.
"Did you want something, Marcone? God knows I'd hate to save you the aggravation on tracking me down."
"Shall we play hide-and-go-seek? I assure you, I was merely relieved to see you returned from your extended absence. You were in the Nevernever, you say?" Marcone did politely inquiring very well, with his coat over his arm in case the mild October day decided to turn. "I trust from your presence here, producing historical tomes from under plant-life, you are not expecting mayhem on an immediate and wide-spread scale."
"No-one expects the Unseelie Incursion," I said brightly, because I could be petty, too. I wondered briefly what kind of aneurism Marcone would have if Chicago disappeared for a couple hours.
"I could scarcely believe my ears when the reports told me you were, if you'll pardon me, keeping a low profile. I believe now I understand rather better."
I stopped and stared at him. "Are you trying to butter me up, Marcone?" That wasn't just a bad pun; that was a horrible pun. I started looking around for lycanthropes and psychotic FBI agents.
Marcone's eyes flicked over my distinctly un-low profile. Hell's bells, he was getting acquisitive again, wasn't he? I resisted the urge to tell Marcone that I already had a devil on my shoulder.
"It honestly hadn't occurred to me," Marcone averred, eyes wide. "But I suppose a flexible schedule and comprehensive health-care might be convenient to you in your current circumstances. And a generous salary, of course."
"What a lovely long leash," I said acidly. "Sorry, John; I enjoy pissing on the flowers too much."
Marcone twitched the way he almost never did anymore when I used him first name. "Of course; I should have known your Mister Rodriguez would be providing for you."
"Cheap shot, Marcone. So far as I know, you don't have 'vampire hunter' on your résumé. 'Werewolf bait', now..."
"You disappoint me, Harry." Everything about Marcone had suddenly gone sharp. "I had hoped we'd come further."
"I'll admit that this is the most blatant you've ever been about implying I need a big, strong man to look after me," I sneered.
Marcone actually blinked. His face went abruptly blank and pointed straight ahead; I could almost see the gears turning behind it. Stars, had I actually just called John Marcone on something and he listened?
Wait, had I just called Marcone on a reaction he hadn't thought out ten steps ahead? Stars and stones.
"I apologise," Marcone said, further blowing my mind. "It was not my intention to imply any slight on your capabilities, Miss Dresden. I merely wished to extend an offer of assistance in what would constitute, for anyone, difficult circumstances."
"Wait a minute. You really do want to be her godfather!"
Marcone just smiled at me with his tiger's eyes. "I'll leave you to your walking tour of Washington Park. Who knows? Perhaps you'll find a treatise on game theory under a bush. A pleasure as always."
Someone, I assumed it was Hendricks, had been tailing us on the other side of the Midway in a dark grey sedan with tinted windows. I waited until Marcone had gotten in and they'd driven away before cutting left and making my way to Andi's apartment.
"He wants you, you know," a voice said in my ear as I jaywalked.
"Not news," I growled. A couple of college kids gave me a double-take. Talking to yourself while being pregnant and wearing a big, black coat will have that effect, although Hyde Park is a bit more forgiving about that sort of oddity than your usual Chicago neighbourhood.
"You think he's attractive, too."
"Did I ask for your opinion? Get back in your box," I told Lasciel's shadow. John Marcone's sexy voice did not, now or in the past, effect my decision-making process. I mean, there was getting fucked, and then there was getting fucked over. Marcone didn't want my body. He wanted to own me the same way my hitchhiker did. The main difference between the two was that when I saw Lasciel, I was hallucinating and when I saw Marcone, I was only wishing I was.
Andi thanked me effusively for the book, but only spent a minute cooing over my stomach before retreating back into her study-cave. I still found it astounding how otherwise rational human beings could be transformed into gibbering half-wits by an only indirectly-perceptible foetus. Myself included. I wondered how much worse the effect would be once I had an actual baby.
Marcy, who was still living with Andi after the breakup, made me sit and put my feet up and got me a glass of water. She had the story of where I'd been last month out of me. I regaled her with tales of glorious adventure for a while, peed again (you are always peeing when you're pregnant), then headed back to the office.
It wasn't a long story. What happened was, Murphy gave me a call about some property damage, people's yards getting dug up, a couple of dogs disappearing. I called up Toot-toot and got down to cases.
Turns out it was a wyldfae. I ended up chasing it into the Nevernever and teaching it a lesson about respecting personal property. Toot led me in and back out again, but somewhere along the way we must have crossed a patch of seriously slow time because I left in August, and when I got back it was almost October.
Luckily, I had let Mister out before I left. Murphy all but decked me when I got back, which meant she'd been worried, even though I'd told Bob where I was going and Murphy had a key and an amulet to get her into my place.
Sadly, that was not the last I heard about it.
It also wasn't the last I heard from Marcone.
The next three months went, briefly, like this:
"Marcone, what is this?"
"A rather abrupt telephone conversation, Miss Dresden. Or did you mean something else?"
"You sent me a bush."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with your office's horticultural contents?"
"One, it was waiting for me on my desk inside my locked office this morning. Two, there's a book underneath it."
"Really?"
"It's a book on parenting."
"How appropriate."
"Three, the thing the book is under is a bush."
"A bonsai tree, in point of fact. The Japanese regard their cultivation as a meditative exercise in patience."
"I'll be sure to contemplate that while I'm burning it for firewood."
__ __ __
"Marcone, I told you to stop sending me things. In case you missed it the last three hundred times: You. Can't. Buy. Me."
"If I had sent anything, Harry, it would simply be a gift between friends."
"We're not friends, John."
"Then how would you define our relationship?"
"We don't have a relationship!"
"...I see. I wouldn't burn the cushion, if I were you. The fumes from synthetics are usually noxious."
"Thanks for the tip. I'll make sure the wind's blowing in your direction first."
__ __ __
"I had my locks changed."
"Yes, it's quite good work. I've contracted with the same company myself."
__ __ __
"Marcone, I am not going to help any more of your goons find their lucky socks."
__ __ __
"What do you mean, you've lost your car keys?"
"I would think that would be obvious," Marcone said irritably.
"Mm, nah. Not buying it. You have as many cars as you have goons to drive them."
Marcone had caught me on the street again, confirming everything I'd ever said about his being a maladjusted stalker-type. It was probably some sort of cosmic message that he'd found me while I was waiting for Michael to pick me up. Michael would bitch at me for waiting out of doors, but unless I'm head-down in magical research (which, okay, happens pretty frequently), I don't really like to be cooped up inside all the time. That's one of the advantages of my line of work: interesting places and interesting people.
And I was about to get cooped up for probably several days. That was why Michael was picking me up: I was almost due, and Charity was supposed to deliver the baby. They'd tried to talk me into a hospital, but my effect on technology always got worse when I was stressed. This past month or so, the range at which I'd hex a cellphone or a streetlamp had about doubled. The Beetle was always in the shop. At this rate, I'd end up taking out whatever wing of the hospital they stuck me in.
I'd put in a half-day at the office, waiting for a client to show up for her dream-catcher and sitting in one of my ratty armchairs with my feet up on my desk, wishing I hadn't donated Marcone's back-support cushion to the Good Will. The dream-catcher had been a delicate piece of magic and outside my usual range; I was pretty proud of pulling it off and eager to see how it worked. The task had been rendered even more challenging by the fact that the baby kicked me in the liver every time I did magic. There was no way she wasn't going to be a wizard, was there? The thought was either wonderful or terrifying. I'd sat for a full ten minutes trying to decide which before Bob had interrupted to ask me if I was all right.
I peered around Marcone, up the street: no sign of Michael's truck. Damn.
"Expecting someone?"
I scowled. "None of your business. This is harassment, you know."
"I really have lost my car keys," Marcone objected.
I rolled my eyes. "Really? That's what you're going with? Fine. I'll get you your stupid keys, just to get rid of you; but I'm not touching your filthy money. Where's your car?"
"This way."
Marcone put a hand on the aching small of my back to steer me. It's not that I don't appreciate a little chivalry-what can I say? I'm a bad feminist; odd as it seems, sometimes I like to be treated like a lady-but Marcone was not my freaking boyfriend. I did not want his hands on me. I shrugged him off, lumbering as briskly as I could manage. Like I really needed to feel larger and more awkward even than I normally did.
"This isn't up to your usual standards, you know."
"I'm so terribly sorry to disappoint," Marcone said drily.
"I mean, car keys? Lucky socks?" If Marcone thought he'd fool me with those, I was genuinely insulted.
"I'm afraid certain of my employees have become somewhat superstitious. I can't imagine why."
I resisted the urge to rub my back; now Marcone had drawn attention to it, it had started complaining again. But Marcone could smell weakness like blood in the water. Thankfully, what I mostly felt was irritated.
We turned the corner, and Marcone stopped short. There was a tension to his stillness that had me shelving my next cutting remark and reaching around my protruding belly and into the folds of my duster for my blasting rod. My eyes fixed on a patch of gouged asphalt next to the sidewalk.
"Ah. It appears I have also misplaced my car."
I didn't quite manage to stifle a groan. "You don't have a dog, do you Marcone?"
A spine-chilling, snuffling sound like laughter drifted out of the shadows.
__ __ __
Yeah, okay, so that hadn't been as done as I thought. I guess yoinking me through the time-stream and ungagging the fallen angel in my head just hadn't been enough.
We chased the wyldfae to Undertown-and aren't we all glad Gentleman Johnny knows about that now? Anyway, I couldn't shake Marcone, and when Maeve moved the party to the Nevernever he tagged along. We sort of stumbled over Maeve in a way that made it clear that, while butter wouldn't melt in her mouth (actually not that useful a metaphor in her case), she was behind it all. Fucking faeries.
The only good thing about all the plausible deniability was that I didn't have to go toe-to-toe with another Faerie Queen. Just a wyldfae with too many appendages and a really twisted sense of humour.
At first I didn't pay any attention to it, because I was kind of busy blasting the crap out of the tentacle thing. Then, running from that pack of hairy, toothy, snarly things we just happened to bump into on out way out, I thought for a second it was a cramp.
"Oh, hell's bells. Marcone!" I grabbed him by the sleeve of his wool coat. With the other arm, he was slashing at one of the beasties with a steel knife. "C'mon, time to go!"
Let me just say this: John Marcone in action is a sight to see. I mean, he spends a lot of time playing the respectable, paper-pushing corporate mogul, wearing nice suits and going to charity functions, but it's a sham. Everybody's heard the rumours about how he is with a knife; I've seen him hit an inch-thick rope with nothing to aim by but moonlight, while suspended over a pit, with only one arm free, waiting for a monster werewolf to snap him up like a big-mouth bass chomping a worm on a hook.
Marcone moved like a tiger, fast, graceful in the economy of his movement, and utterly confident. He was tangling with fae-beasts, creatures of the Nevernever of unknown intelligence and power, moving more quickly than I would have thought possible for a vanilla mortal. Whatever those things were, they didn't like Marcone's steel knives, and he was using that advantage ruthlessly. This, I knew, was his element; something I'd glimpsed in his soul but hardly ever witnessed. As I watched, he sacrificed one of his knives to drive the most slavering of the fangy things back, his green eyes alight.
Let's just say I had more than one reason to be wary of Marcone.
We ran after the twinkling light of the guide Toot-toot had dispatched to me-he was getting to be a pretty big noise among Chicago's little folk-and turning every few minutes to fight a rear-guard action. Once, a really bad contraction hit me and I froze, almost doubling over. Marcone asked me if I was okay-I don't think I'll ever forget the fear pumping off him or the wild look in his eyes.
"I am not-having my kid-in fucking-Faerie," I ground out, and forced my legs to start moving again.
When Toot's guide circled, signalling a safe Way out, I put my head down and put on as much speed as I could, supporting my distended belly with the hand not wielding my blasting rod. I tore a hole in the barrier between the worlds without so much as a second thought for where it would open out.
The snarly creatures were right on our heels, threatening to drag us down. The strain of doing so much magic in the Nevernever was telling on me, but I dug down into my anger and fear, mining my ungodly terror for the power to hold them off. Another contraction rippled through me, and I fought my body's demands to stop and push.
I screamed-at our attackers and whatever queens might be listening and Faerie itself and myself and the baby trying to ram her way out of me-and called the wind, pushing us forward and them back.
Marcone and I sailed through the open portal, hit the ground, and rolled.
"Gya-occluderum!" I gasped, sealing the Way behind us and collapsing on the forest floor.
Wait, what?
__ __ __
"My phone is completely dead."
Marcone was looking at the little machine with an expression that was equal parts annoyed and bemused.
"Fried?" I panted. I was still lying in the snow at the other side of the clearing where we'd come out, trying to remember how to make my lungs reinflate.
"No. It seems it continued searching for a signal while we were in the Nevernever and ran out of batteries."
My shoulders started shaking with weak, crackling laughter.
Marcone frowned. "I fail to see what you could possibly find entertaining in this situation."
I stopped snickering long enough to say, "My water just broke."
Right, so, back where we started: labour was a bitch. I was stranded outdoors fuck knows where, the middle of some forest, with snow on the ground and John Marcone staring up my vagina. Of all the people I did not want to be on my back for, of all the people I did not want touching me there, Gentleman John Marcone was damned close to topping the list, pulling ahead of vampires for the moment, because at least most vampires come with built-in painkillers.
I could- I heard Lasciel start.
"Don't even think about it," I snapped.
Marcone looked at me curiously.
"Never mind, you goddamned motherfucking sonuvabitch," I snarled.
He handled it pretty well, but I could definitely see him cracking around the edges. I took a perverse satisfaction in it; there was very, very little to smile about that night.
I was supposed to have a midwife. I was supposed to have a bed, possibly drugs, drugs would be fantastic right about now, and how about a roof? walls? I was lying on my duster in the dirt next to a bonfire Marcone had fucking had to light himself, because despite all the spell-slinging I'd already done that night, my labour-pains completely incinerated the first one we'd tried to build. I was still working on my theories about gestation and magic-generation, but either way that was kind of impressive. The blackened-glass crater made a really dry fire-pit for the next one, though.
On the plus side, I felt way less bad about cussing out Gentleman Johnny and thirty generations of his ancestors than I would Charity. I think it's a little unreasonable to expect circumspection from a woman in labour, but Charity Carpenter had not mellowed that much in her attitude toward me. At about generation eight, Marcone started swearing back at me, which I really appreciated. It's not nearly as satisfying to scream at someone who insists on being nice to you the whole time.
The Great Oracle Television tells us that giving birth hurts, and it does not lie. But it does leave out a lot of other gross stuff, which for all our sakes I am also going to omit. One witness with that seared into his brain is enough, thanks. Let's just say that after I pushed, squeezed, and screamed Maggie out (after which she took over the screaming, which was fine since I was wiped) and Marcone cut the cord with his fighting knife, the one he'd been jabbing into monstrous eyesockets and whatnot all night-he did wave it around in the fire to cauterise it first, at least-I rolled off my duster and told Marcone to throw the whole thing in the fire to burn clean.
I just lay there, staring up at the stars like I had a million times before, the same crystal clarity I remembered-
"Hey!"
Marcone, who had started staring at the baby like he wasn't actually sure what it was-it had been a long day for both of us-jerked visibly and went for his knife again. I shook my head.
I remembered. Not just these stars, this sky, but the feel of the land around me, the way the air moved in these mountains, how the trees whispered to one another, ash, hickory, pine, oak.
"I know where we are."
Marcone blinked. "And where would that be?" From the tone of his voice, he was expecting more swearing.
"Give me my daughter first," I demanded.
Marcone disappeared the knife once more and knelt down next to me. He handed the baby over almost reverently, his hands-as big as mine and more powerfully built-somehow gentle. I caught a suspiciously human light in his eye as he did it, but I looked away quickly.
"Maggie," I said. Margaret Dorothy Ellinor Dresden. Family tradition. Momma's got you, baby girl. Now and always.
"Your mother's name," Marcone murmured approval.
I glared at him because one, Marcone was still a stalker and I still didn't like it and he needed to be reminded and take heed; and two, like hell I needed his approval. But I couldn't sustain an interest in Marcone right then; my attention slid back to Maggie with a force that was almost magnetic. Her eyes and hair-that was a lot of hair! was she supposed to have that much hair?-were dark; her colour was hard to tell in the firelight, but she looked kind of squished. Marcone had wrapped her in his coat, which had acquired a few holes during our night's entertainment but was clean-ish now the ectoplasm had had a chance to evaporate.
Maggie let out a noise so loud I knew she'd be a wizard because it defied all the laws of physics for something so small to get up that kind of volume. Had she seemed big before? She was tiny. I winced. Marcone chuckled.
The last thing I wanted to do right then was stay conscious, and the second-to-last thing I wanted to do was move; but after I had a few minutes to recover I managed both. My duster was nice and toasty, at least.
Which is how I ended up having to explain to Eb how I'd come to find myself on his doorstep around dawn with a skirt that kept trying to fall off, a baby, and an astonishingly filthy mob boss.
__ __ __
Eb was waiting for us at the door. "Wards told me you'd come 'round. Happy Solstice, Hess."
It had been December twentieth when we'd retreated to the Nevernever eighteen hours ago.
"FUCKING FAERIES," I cursed them all. Loudly.
"Hess?" Eb looked concerned.
I pulled myself together. "Sorry, sir."
Much as I have to say about Marcone-and if you say I've said plenty already, well, I'll say that's just a drop in the bucket-he's pretty sturdy. This, though, was apparently too much for him. He frankly boggled at me. I mean flat-out gaped, like I'd just slapped him in the mouth with a haddock. It was kind of nice. Sadly, I was too exhausted to enjoy it properly. It still gives me a warm feeling on cold nights, though.
"Harry-" Miss Dresden, I hissed, maybe irrationally, but I was worn pretty thin, too, "-over the course of our association, I have heard you disrespect officers of the law, rabid werewolves, fallen angels, a Valkyrie, and, most recently, a Queen of Faerie. I didn't think that word was in your vocabulary.
"Some of those are by definition women, John."
Ebenezar was listening with thinly-veiled amusement. "I see Hess has brought out her company manners for you, young man. You going to introduce us, girl?"
I heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I'd think you'd be more interested in meeting my daughter than making up to the criminal element, sir."
Ebenezar blinked, finally seeming to register that the bulge under my coat was too high up to be my pregnancy-swollen belly.
"Eb, meet Maggie. I'd introduce you properly, but she's decided it's breakfast time." I winced, already nostalgic for the time when my nipples had been an erogenous zone.
Eb blinked, and then there was a grin on his face a mile wide. I swear I saw water standing in his eyes. "Well, I'll be-" He shook his head. "Ain't it just like you, Hess? You'll have to give me the tale over breakfast."
"Gladly." Both Eb and Marcone were looking at me expectantly. Right. Eb wasn't going to let Marcone past his threshold before he knew who he was; we'd only gotten this far because, flatteringly, the outer wards were still set to know me. "Uh, sir, this is John Marcone. He's a heartless criminal thug, but he had my back while I worked some things out with a wyldfae.
"Not a wizard," Eb said.
"Straight."
Marcone almost raised an eyebrow at that. I snickered.
"Marcone, this is Ebenezar McCoy, my teacher," I said. "Sir, Marcone will undertake to abide by the laws of hospitality. That means no strong-arming, threats, or snooping around, Marcone. You pull any of your shit with him, I will take you apart with my bare hands."
"I promise to behave myself. Wizard McCoy, it's both a surprise and an honour to meet someone Wizard Dresden holds in such high esteem," Marcone said, recovering his aplomb.
Eb eyed him measuringly. "Best come in then," he allowed, stepping back to let us through.
__ __ __
I woke up disoriented and not knowing why. I was in my room, in my own bed, and all of Eb's wards were quiet. There was too much light. I groaned and rolled over to bury my face in the pillow, and every muscle in my body screamed.
There was something...I panted through the pain; something smelled terrible. Like smoke and sweat and...brimstone? I curled around my aching stomach, which felt like I'd maybe swallowed a stick of dynamite last night. My knees came up too far.
Oh.
Oh.
Memory came rushing back, and I pushed myself upright, ignoring my abused body's protests. Eb was sitting in the room's only chair, the one behind my old desk. He was holding a bundle wrapped all in a sheepskin blanket, rocking it a little, almost unconsciously.
"Morning, Hess."
"Timezzit?" I asked muzzily. Yeuch. My mouth tasted horrible, too.
"Late afternoon, actually. You want to tell me what's going on now, or you want a wash first?"
Stars, Eb's wood-heated bath. The last hot water I'd had regular access to in my adult life. Eb saw the look on my face and chuckled. "Wash first, then. I take it I shouldn't be expecting any other visitors."
I shook my head. "No. Just had to get out of Dodge in a hurry." I swung my legs off the bed. "She asleep?"
Eb nodded. "Been giving her sheep's milk. Surprised the caterwauling didn't wake you; seems to have inherited someone's big mouth."
I stood cautiously and wobbled over to look at them. In this light, I could see Maggie's skin was a little darker than mine, although not as burnished as Hawk's. No sign yet that she'd inherited my somewhat beaky nose, but I had a vague idea that you couldn't really tell about things like that for several years. Right now, she looked tiny and delicate and perfect, although objectively I knew most babies look more or less alike.
It was strange to think that someday this round-edged little thing would be a walking, talking member of the human race. It was even stranger to think that less than twenty-four hours ago she'd been inside me. I rubbed my flaccid stomach: that was going to take some getting used to. I wondered if I could fit into my pants again.
"You did good, Hess," Ebenezar told me in a peculiarly gentle voice, and I had to bite my tongue hard to keep the tears from welling up. Oh, good: more hormones. "I'm proud of you."
I extended one finger to trace the curve of Maggie's sleeping face but didn't quite touch her. My hands were still filthy. I cleared my throat. "Better get cleaned up."
Eb nodded. "You go ahead. I've got things under control here."
"Thank you, sir."
__ __ __
In the bath house, I threw some more wood on the fire and lowered myself into the big, barrel-like tub. The hot water hurt like lemon juice on a paper-cut, but I continued doggedly until I was completely submerged. I sat for a short eternity, soaking the stiffness out of my muscles before even attempting to wash the dirt off.
I felt almost human afterwards. Wrapping myself in a towel, I went to scrounge up some clothes. A pair of jeans left over from my apprenticeship did not button, and barely made it up over my thighs. Well, when I left Ebezenar's, I'd barely finished growing and bore a marked resemblance to my wizard's staff in profile. Almost ten years later, I was still pretty scrawny but had put on some muscle, if nothing else. I stole a button-down shirt from Eb; untucked, the tails just covered my gaping fly.
After a moment's consideration, I decided against putting my bra back on. First, it was rank and sweaty; second, my boobs were tender to the point of leaking and had been since I woke up. This eased off after I found Maggie and let her belly up to the bar. The leaky, not the tender. I was ravenous too, but didn't trust myself to hold Maggie one-handed. Once she'd finished, I reluctantly let Eb take her again and attacked my own plate.
Between mouthfuls, I told Eb how I'd ended up here with the criminal kingpin of Chicago. Eb cradled Maggie gently but easily, with far more confidence than I felt. Her eyes were drifting shut again.
"Well, so far as I know, your heartless criminal is still sleeping in the guest room," Eb told me as I got up to do the dishes.
"He's not mine," I replied automatically. Thought it was better than the occasional idiot who still thought I was his.
Eb gave me an unreadable look, but changed the subject. "You heading back to Chicago, then?"
"Shit, that reminds me. I need to call some people before they kill me." Between Murphy, Michael, and Charity, I doubted there would be enough of me to go around. The flexible nature of time in the existence of a wizard had been much less of a big deal when there hadn't been all these people in my life.
"You know where the phone is," Eb said. He cleared his throat. "You know, Hess, I could look after the child. She'd be safe here with me. You too, if you wanted."
"I...don't know what to say, sir." My hands in the soapy water stilled. "It's very generous of you to offer."
"I could hardly do less for my great-granddaughter than I did for her mother."
My mouth fell open. I spun around, still holding a frying pan, splashing water everywhere. It took me a minute to find my voice.
"I'm...sorry. Your...what, sir?"
"Margaret was my daughter, Hess," Eb said gently.
And that was about when the yelling started. But I wasn't used to playing Don't Wake the Baby, so that sort of derailed my tirade; and then Marcone came in-hell's bells, just what I needed. My friendly neighbourhood eavesdropping mob boss. Who was staring at me. Like I didn't get that enough.
I escaped the field of fire and, going for the less perilous option, called the Carpenters to let them know Maggie and I were all right, and so they could tell everyone else to stop freaking out, too. I got Charity, who told me Michael was sorry for not picking me up, but he'd had to go smite something in Texas. The mind boggles.
She'd tried my office phone, then apparently loaded up the minivan with all the munchkins and come herself when she couldn't reach me. She must have got there just after Marcone and I had hot-footed it into the Nevernever. Which she couldn't believe I'd done, see what came of this kind of life? et cetera ad nauseum.
Michael was on his way back now; he'd been planning on breaking in Missouri overnight. Seemed like god was as bad a creepy stalker as John Marcone. I wondered if this meant we should expect demons on the way.
__________
In case anyone was wondering, I took Susan Rodriguez's name as an homage to Susan Silverman, girlfriend to Robert B. Parker's Spenser. Since there is no good male version of the name Susan unless you want to go the Johnny Cash route, I instead borrowed the name of Spenser's other sometimes-helper, Hawk. Not that if Hawk Rodriguez ever shows up he'll be a two-metre tall black boxer with shady morals and dubious fashion sense; I just needed a name.
For those of you not up on your female magicians: Margaret is of course Margaret LeFay, Harry's mother. Dorothy Dietrich is one of the world's greatest escape artists, frequently compared with Houdini (Bullet catch: Dietrich wins). She's also a stage magician and psychic debunker. Ellinor Redan was the first female member of the Society of American Magicians in the nineteenth century. Dell O'Dell, whose proper name was I think also a variant of Eleanor, was known as the "Queen of Magic" and pioneered televised magic in the fifties. Her trademark was witty banter.