Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher Page 0,13

more likely that I take this case."

"You will take it, emissary," Mab said, her voice confident. "Expect to meet your counterpart this evening."

"What counterpart?"

"As you are Winters emissary in this matter, Summer, too, has sought out one to represent her interests."

"I got plans tonight," I growled. "And I havent taken the case."

Mab tilted her dark glasses down, cat eyes on mine. "Wizard. Do you know the story of the Fox and Scorpion?"

I shook my head, looking away.

"Fox and Scorpion came to a brook," Mab murmured, her voice low, sweet. "Wide was the water. Scorpion asked Fox for a ride on his back. Fox said, Scorpion, will you not sting me? Scorpion said, If I did, it would mean the death of us both. Fox agreed, and Scorpion climbed onto his back. Fox swam, but halfway over, Scorpion struck with his deadly sting. Fox gasped, Fool, you have doomed us both. Why? I am a scorpion, said Scorpion. It is my nature. "

"Thats the story?" I said. "Dont quit your day job."

Mab laughed, velvet ice, and it sent another shiver through me. "You will accept this case, wizard. It is what you are. It is your nature." Then she turned and walked down the hall, aloof, reserved, cold. I glowered after her for a minute before I shut the door.

Maybe Id been shut away in my lab too long, but Spenser never mentions that the Faerie Queen has a great ass.

So I notice these things. So sue me.

Chapter Four

I leaned against my door with my eyes closed, trying to think. I was scared. Not in that half-pleasant adrenaline-charged way, but quietly scared. Wait-on-the-results-of-medical-tests scared. Its a rational sort of fear that puts a lawn chair down in the front of your thoughts and brings a cooler of drinks along with it.

I was working for the queen of wicked faerieswell, Queen of Winter, of the Unseelie faeries, at any rate. The Unseelie werent universally vicious and evil, any more than the Seelie, the Summer fae, were all kind and wise. They were much like the season for which they had been namedcold, beautiful, pitiless, and entirely without remorse. Only a fool would willingly associate with them.

Not that Mab had given me much of a choice, but technically speaking there had been one. I could have turned her down flat and accepted whatever came.

I chewed on my lip. Given the kind of business I was in, I hadnt felt the need to spend too much time hunting for a good retirement plan. Wizards can live a long, long time, but most of the ones that do tend to be the kind that stick at home in their study. Not many tossed their gauntlets into as many faces as I had.

Id been clever a couple of times, lucky a couple of times, and Id come out ahead of the game so farbut sooner or later the dice were going to come up snake eyes. It was as simple as that, and I knew it.

Fear. Maybe that was why Id agreed to Mabs bargain. Susans life had been twisted horribly, and that was my fault. I wanted to help her before I went down swinging.

But some little voice in the back of my head told me that I was being awfully noble for someone who had flinched when push had come to shove. The little voice told me that I was making excuses. Some part of me that doesnt trust much and believes in even less whispered that I had simply been afraid to say no to a being who could probably make me long for death if I denied her.

Either way, it was too late for questions now. Id made the bargain, for better or worse. If I didnt want it to end badly, Id better start figuring out how to get out of it without getting swallowed up in faerie politics. I wouldnt do that by taking the case of Ronald Reuel, I was pretty damn sure. Mab wouldnt have offered it if she hadnt thought it would get me further entangled than I already was. Maybe she had me in a metaphysical armlock, but that didnt mean I was going to jump every time she said "frog." I could figure out something else. And besides, I had other problems on my mind.

There wasnt much time to spare before the Council meeting that evening, so I got my things together and got ready to leave. I paused at the door, with that nagging