Now, that was interesting enough to notice. Places like this were full of your usual blue-collar crowd. You wouldn’t find many philosophers or intellectuals here, but there would be plenty of basically decent people who wouldn’t think twice about taking a swing at an aggressor.
Except no one was even looking at me. Not one eye in the entire room. Everyone was staring at a tiny TV screen on a wall, playing a sports broadcast so grainy and blurred that I couldn’t even tell which game it was. Or they were focused on their drinks. Or at random spots on the wall. And the whole place filled with the sudden, sour psychic stench of fear. I turned my eyes to the two men at the bar next to me, and they only traded a look with the bartender, one that practically screamed out the words, Oh no, not this again.
What? Was Clint really that scary?
Apparently.
Certainly no help was coming. Which meant it was up to me.
“Let’s do this the fun way,” I said. “I’m going to count down from three to one, and when I get to one, if you are still touching me, I’m going to put you on a therapist’s couch for the rest of your natural life.”
“With me,” Clint insisted, breathing harder. I’m not even sure he realized I had said anything.
“Three,” I said.
“Show you something,” Clint growled.
“Two,” I replied, drawing out the number, the way Mary Poppins might have to unruly children.
“Yeah,” Clint said. “Yeah. Show you something.”
“O—” I began to say.
I didn’t get to finish the word. A man seized the middle finger of Clint’s hand, the one on my shoulder, snagged the other fingers with his other hand, and bent the single finger back. There was a snapping sound like a small tree branch breaking, and Clint let out a scream.
The newcomer moved with calm efficiency. Before Clint could so much as turn to face him, the new guy lifted a foot and drove his heel down hard at a downward angle into the side of Clint’s knee. There was a second crack, louder, and Clint dropped to the floor in a heap.
“I don’t think the lady likes you doing that,” the newcomer said, his voice polite. He was a little over medium height, maybe an inch or two shorter than me, and built like a gymnast, all compact muscle and whipcord. He wore nondescript clothes much like my own, his features were darkly handsome, and his black eyes glittered with a feverish, intelligent heat.
I also knew him. Carlos Ramirez was a wizard, and a Warden of the White Council. He was only a couple of years older than me, and hotter than a boy-band bad boy’s mug shot, and I instantly wanted to jump him.
Whoa. Down, girl. Just because you’re the Winter Lady doesn’t mean you have to behave like your predecessor did. Look where it got her.
“Miss?” he asked me. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine,” I said.
“I apologize for that,” he said. “Some things just shouldn’t happen. Excuse me for a moment.”
And with that, Carlos reached down, snagged Clint by the back of his coat, and dragged him to the door. Clint started feebly thrashing and swatting at Carlos, but the young wizard didn’t seem to notice. He dragged Clint to the door and tossed him out into the sleet. Then he shut the door again and turned back to face the room.
Everyone was staring at him. The jukebox was wailing a song about broken hearts, but the talk in the room had died completely. The fear I’d sensed earlier had ratcheted up a notch. For a frozen moment, no one moved. Then one of the customers reached for his wallet and started counting bills onto his table. Everyone else started following suit.
Within five minutes the place was empty except for us and the bartender.
“What the hell is this about?” Carlos murmured, watching the last patrons depart. He looked over his shoulder at the bartender. “Was that guy the sheriff’s kid or something?”
The bartender shook her head and said, “I’m closing. You two need to leave.”
Carlos held up a twenty between two fingers. “Beer first?”
The bartender gave him an exasperated look, took a step to her left, and then said, “Do you understand me, mister? You need to leave. Both of you.”
“That a pistol or shotgun you got back there?” Carlos asked.
“Stick around. You’ll find out,” the bartender said.
The fear coming off her was nauseating, a mortal dread. I shook my head and said to Carlos, “Maybe we should.”
“Mostly frozen water is falling from the sky, I’m starving, and I haven’t had a drink yet,” Carlos said. He asked the bartender, “There another place for one?”
“Charlie’s,” she replied instantly. “Other side of the bay. Green neon sign. Good burgers.”
Carlos squinted his eyes and studied the bartender, as if weighing the value of heeding her words versus the personal pleasure he would take in being contrary.
Harry Dresden has had a horrible influence on far too many people, and has much to answer for.
“Okay,” he said mildly. “Miss, would you care to join me for a meal?”
“That would be lovely,” I said.
SO WE LEFT and started trudging through the sleet.
The sound of it hitting the ground and the sidewalks and roads was a wet rattle. I didn’t need to, but I hunched my shoulders as if against the cold and dropped my chin down to my neck as much as I could. “Goodness, this is brisk,” I said.
“Is it?” Carlos asked.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“Of course I am,” Carlos said. “But I figured the Winter Lady would think this was a balmy day.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared at him for a moment.
He offered me a sudden, mischievous smile. “Hi, Molly.”
I tilted my head to one side. “Mmm. What gave it away?”
He gestured toward his eyelids with two fingertips. “Seeing ointment,” he said. “Cuts right through glamour. I’ve got eyes all over this town. When they spotted a lone young woman walking in from the far side of the island, I figured it was worth taking a peek.”
“I see,” I said. “Carlos, tell me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you mean to arrest me and take me before the White Council? Because that isn’t going to fit into my schedule.”
I’d had some issues with the White Council’s Laws of Magic in the past. The kind of issues that would have gotten my head hacked off if Harry hadn’t interceded on my behalf. But then he mostly died, and I’d been on my own, outside of his aegis. The Wardens, including Carlos Ramirez, had hunted me. I’d evaded them—always moving, always watching, always afraid that one of the grim men and women in grey cloaks would step out of a tear in the fabric of reality right in front of me and smite me. I’d had a recurring nightmare about it, in fact.
But they’d never caught up with me.
“Molly, please,” Ramirez said. “If I’d wanted to find you and take you to the Council, I would have found you. Give me that much credit. I even sandbagged a couple of the ops sent to bring you in.”
I frowned at him. “Why would you do that?”
“Because Harry liked you,” he said simply. “Because he thought it was worth sticking his neck out to help you. Besides, I had my own area to cover, and in the absence of a Warden, you were giving the Fomor hell.”
They hadn’t been the only ones with a surplus of hell. I hadn’t been having much fun, either. “Why didn’t the Council appoint a replacement, then?”
“They tried. They couldn’t get anyone to volunteer to take Dresden’s place as the Warden of the Midwest.”
“Why not, I wonder.”
“Lots and lots of problems and not enough Wardens,” Carlos replied. “With the Fomor going nutballs, we’re up to our necks and sinking already. Plus, everyone they asked had a good opinion of Harry, and nobody wanted to inherit the enemies he’d made.”
“So, to clarify,” I said, “you’re not here to bring me in.”
“Correct, Miss Carpenter. It would be a little awkward now that you’re royalty. And, frankly, I have no intention of crossing Mab if I can possibly help it. Ever.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
A boyish smile flickered over his face, and something inside me did a little quivering barrel roll. “Maybe I just wanted to meet the famous new Queen of the Winter Court,” he said.