White Night (The Dresden Files #9) - Jim Butcher Page 0,155

thoughtfully and then said, "And you have no way of proving otherwise."

I stared at her for a long moment. Then I said, "I don't need proof to act on my own."

"Is that a threat, dear wizard?"

I looked slowly around the ruined room. There was a hole in the house, almost perfectly round, right through the floors above us and the roof four stories above. Bits and pieces were still falling. "What threat could I possibly be to you, Lara?" I drawled.

She took in a slow breath and said, "What makes you think I won't kill you right here, right now, while you are weary and weakened? It would likely be intelligent and profitable." She lifted her sword and ran a fingertip languidly down the flat of the blade. "Why not finish you right here?"

I showed her my teeth. "You gave me your word of safe passage."

Lara threw back her head in a rich laugh. "So I did." She faced me more directly, set the sword aside, and rose. "What do you want?"

"I want those people returned to life," I spat at her. "I want to undo all the pain that's been inflicted during this mess. I want children to get their mothers back, parents their daughters, husbands their wives. I want you and your kind never to hurt anyone ever again."

Right in front of my eyes, she turned from a woman into a statue, cold and perfectly still. "What do you want," she whispered, "that I might give you?"

"First, reparations. A weregild to the victims' families," I said. "I'll provide you with the details for each."

"Done."

"Second, this never happens again. One of yours starts up with genocide again, and I'm going to reply in kind. Starting with you. I'll have your word on it."

Her eyes narrowed further. "Done," she murmured.

"The little folk," I said. "They shouldn't be in cages. Free them, unharmed, in my name."

She considered that for a moment, and then nodded. "Anything else?"

"Some Listerine," I said. "I've got a funny taste in my mouth."

That last remark drew more anger out of her than anything else that had happened the entire night. Her silver eyes blazed with rage, and I could feel the fury roiling around her. "Our business," she said in a whisper, "is concluded. Get out of my house."

I forced myself to my feet. One of the walls had fallen down, and I walked creakily over to it. My neck hurt. I guess being moved around at inhuman speed gives you whiplash.

I stopped at the hole in the wall and said, "I'm glad to preserve the peace effort," I said, forcing the words out. "I think it's going to save lives, Lara. Your people's lives, and mine. I've got to have you where you are to get that." I looked at her. "Otherwise, I'd settle up with you right now. Don't get to thinking we're friends."

She faced me, her face all shadowed, the light of slowly growing fires lighting her from behind. "I am glad to see you survived, wizard. You who destroyed my father and secured my own power. You who have now destroyed my enemies. You are the most marvelous weapon I have ever wielded." She tilted her head at me. "And I love peace, wizard. I love talking. Laughing. Relaxing." Her voice dropped to a husky pitch. "I will kill your folk with peace, wizard. I will strangle them with it. And they will thank me while I do."

A cold little spear slid neatly into my guts, but I didn't let it show on my face or in my voice. "Not while I'm around," I said quietly.

Then I turned and walked away from the house. I looked blearily around me, got my directions, and started limping for the front gate. On the way there, I fumbled Mouse's whistle out of my pocket and started blowing it.

I remember my dog reaching my side, and holding on to his collar the last fifty yards or so down the road out, until Molly came sputtering up in the Blue Beetle and helped me inside.

Then I collapsed into sleep.

I'd earned it.

* * *

CHAPTER

Forty-Three

I didn't wake up until I was back home, and then only long enough to shamble inside and fall down on my bed. I was out for maybe six hours, and then I woke up with my whole back fused into one long, enormous muscle cramp. I made some involuntarily pathetic noises, and Mouse rose up from the floor beside my bed and jogged out of