Changes (The Dresden Files #12) - Jim Butcher Page 0,145

it. Think.”

“After I get the girl out.”

“Do you even know where she is?” Ebenezar demanded.

“Chichén Itzá,” I said. “She’s scheduled to be the centerpiece of one of the Red King’s shindigs in the next couple of hours.”

Ebenezar took a sharp breath, as if I’d poked him in the stomach with the end of a quarterstaff. “Chichén Itzá . . . That’s a confluence. One of the biggest in the world. The Reds haven’t used it in . . . Not since Cortés was there.”

“Confluence, yeah,” I said. “The Duchess Arianna is going to kill her and use the power to lay a curse on her bloodline—Susan and me.”

Ebenezar began to speak and then blinked several times, as if the sun had just come out of a cloud and into his eyes. “Susan and . . .” He paused and asked, “Hoss?”

“I meant to tell you the last time we spoke,” I said quietly. “But . . . the conversation wasn’t exactly . . .” I took a deep breath. “She’s my daughter by Susan Rodriguez.”

“Oh,” he said very quietly. His face looked grey. “Oh, Hoss.”

“Her name’s Maggie. She’s eight. They took her a few days ago.”

He bowed his head and shook it several times, saying nothing. Then he said, “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“H-how long have you known?”

“Since a day or so after she was taken,” I said. “Surprised the hell out of me.”

Ebenezar nodded without looking up. Then he said, “You’re her father and she needs you. And you want to be there for her.”

“Not want to be there,” I said quietly. “Going to be.”

“Aye-aye,” he said. “Don’t go back to the Edinburgh facility. We think Arianna laced it with some kind of disease while she was there. So far there are sixty wizards down with it, and we’re expecting more. No deaths yet, but whatever this bug is, it’s putting them flat on their backs—including Injun Joe, so our best healer isn’t able to work on the problem.”

“Hell’s bells,” I said. “They aren’t just starting back in on the war again. They’re going to try to decapitate the Council in one blow.”

Ebenezar grunted. “Aye. And without the Way nexus around Edinburgh, we’re going to have a hell of a time with that counterstroke.” He sighed. “Hoss, you got a damned big talent. Not real refined, but you’ve matured a lot in the past few years. Handle yourself better in a fight than most with a couple of centuries behind them. Wish you could be with us.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Ebenezar was generally considered the heavyweight champion of the wizarding world when it came to direct, face-to-face mayhem. And I was one of the relatively few people who knew he was also the Blackstaff—the White Council’s officially nonexistent hit man, authorized to ignore the Laws of Magic when he deemed it necessary. The old man had fought pretty much everything that put up a fight at one point or another, and he didn’t make a habit of complimenting anyone’s skills.

“I can’t go with you,” I said.

“Aye,” he said with a firm nod. “You do whatever you have to do, boy. Whatever you have to do to keep your little girl safe. You hear?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thank you, sir.”

“Godspeed, son,” Ebenezar said. Then he cut the connection.

I released my focus slowly until I was once more in my body in the back of the limo.

“Who was it?” Molly asked. The others let her take the lead. She must have explained the whole speaking-stone concept to them. Which made me look less crazy, but I felt twitchy about her handing out information like that to the entire car. It wasn’t a big deadly secret or anything, but it was the principle of the thing that—

I rubbed at my face with one hand. Ye gods. I was becoming my mentors. Next I’d be grumbling about those darned kids and their loud music.

“Uh, the Council,” I said. “Big shock, they aren’t helping.”

Murphy looked like she might be asleep, but she snorted. “So we’re on our own.”

“Yeah.”

“Good. It’s more familiar.”

Lea let out a peal of merry laughter.

Murphy opened an eye and gave Lea a decidedly frosty look. “What?”

“You think that this is like what you have done before,” my godmother said. “So precious.”

Murphy stared at her for a moment and then looked at me. “Harry?”

I leaned my head back against the window, so that the hood fell over my eyes. Murphy was way too good at picking up on it when I lied.