Chapter Seven
Chapter
Seven
“What did you do to the Water Beetle?” I complained.
Molly and I had just gotten out of a Winter Court stretch limousine.
The waterfront roads hadn’t been busy when the EMP had gone off, and they had been cleared quickly so that supplies being shipped in via Lake Michigan could be distributed more efficiently.
I’d had to walk several blocks to meet the limo, and I’d gotten mildly motion sick riding in the back of the thing, but it had air-conditioning.
The summer noon was brutally hot, possibly as a result of the interaction of Summer and Winter power over the city back in June.
“Oh, come on, Harry,” Molly said, a faint smile on her face. “Can’t you just say ‘thank you’ and enjoy it?”
“Hmph,” I said, and folded my arms.
My old fishing tub, the Water Beetle, was almost a clone of the Orca in the movie Jaws. It wasn’t a terribly sexy vessel, but it had been practical, serviceable, and comfortable—at least until Justine had stolen it, torn open its belly on rocks, and sunk it in three feet of water.
Molly’s people had salvaged the Water Beetle and given it a makeover.
The hull had been cleaned up and repainted in clean white. Brass and stainless steel fittings and fastenings had been polished and shone in the summer sun. Smudged and dirty old glass windows had been switched out with mirror-tinted replacements.
It looked brand-new.
“Belowdecks is still like it was, right?” I asked.
Molly laughed. “Harry, it was sunk. We had to replace a lot. And it’s not as if you’ve been terribly communicative lately, so you don’t get to complain when I do something nice for you.”
“This is still America,” I said. “I can complain about anything I want, no matter how irrational.”
“It’s still practical,” Molly said soothingly. “For God’s sake, Harry. It’s just clean. We can’t have you taking a visiting head of state out in an old waterlogged rust bucket.” She brushed silver hair back from her eyes and studied my expression for a moment.
“What?” I asked her uncertainly.
“Harry,” she said quietly, “it’s okay for you to have some good things in your life. You know that, right? It’s okay for things to get better sometimes.”
I looked back at the city. At the skyline.
It had gaps in it, as unsettling and ugly as broken and missing teeth.
Part of that was on me. When I had struck down the Red Court, years ago, it had created the instability that had let the Fomor get ideas about asserting power. The city had been attacked as a result.
Molly watched me, her blue eyes intent, as if reading my thoughts. “You’re feeling bad because you’ve got a new house and a new boat when so many people have so little.”
“I’m feeling bad because I’m part of the reason they have so little,” I countered.
“That’s partly true,” Molly said. She came over and put a hand on my shoulder. “But if you hadn’t been here to defend Chicago, there wouldn’t be any buildings left, Harry. And hundreds of thousands more people would have died. I was there. I saw it.”
“Couldn’t have happened without me,” I said.
“Or me,” she said. “Or Vadderung. Or Mab. Or Titania. Or a lot of other people.” She shook her head.
“You’ve always been kind of arrogant about some things, Harry.
But claiming responsibility for something this big crosses a line somewhere.
Maybe it becomes hubris.” She squeezed my shoulder.
“Stop torturing yourself. Please. You aren’t the only one who gets hurt when you do it. ”
I frowned and glanced at her.
She smiled mostly with her eyes and held up both hands placatingly.
“Maybe just consider the idea that you did the best you could in a bad situation that nobody could have managed perfectly. And maybe take that anger you’re feeling toward yourself and direct it where it rightly belongs—with Ethniu and the Fomor.
You know. The ones who actually destroyed the town and murdered people. ”
“There are always predators, Molls,” I said quietly. “They always make the same choices. It’s up to us to make the ones that keep them from hurting anyone.”
“Hubris, Harry,” she said gently. “It’s not given to us to stop every bad thing that happens to anyone, anywhere. That’s not how it works. We don’t have that kind of power.”
“If not us,” I said, “who?”
“Maybe nobody,” Molly said. “Maybe there’s just power and choice and consequence.”
“There’s more,” I said. I stared at the clean white lines of the Water Beetle. “There has to be.”
“Harry,” she said. “You’re a dear friend.
I love you. I want you to be strong and happy.
” She shook her head. “But right now, you’re taking the weight of the whole world on your shoulders because you feel guilty about Karrin’s death, and you want to punish yourself. I grew up Catholic. I know the look.”
“What do you recommend?” I asked. “Confession?”
She thought for a moment before answering.
“Eventually,” she said carefully, “you’ll find more balance.
It’s hard to see very far past the end of your own nose when you’re in a lot of pain.
You need to take care of yourself. You need to heal.
” She exhaled through her nose. “Are you ready for today?”
I grunted. “Lara tries anything, I’ll dunk her in the lake until she calms down. I don’t think there will be an issue. Last time she tried something on the island, I sat her down pretty hard.”
“When she tried to kill you, you mean. And you still played nice.”
“You got a problem with that?” I asked her, genuinely curious.
“If it had been a man who had crossed that line, I think you’d have killed him,” Molly said.
My thoughts went unbidden to Detective Lieutenant Rudolph.
The man responsible for Karrin’s death. It had taken two Knights of the Cross to keep me from murdering him.
The burn on my arm ached and smoldered, the only real, unfiltered physical pain I’d felt since I’d taken up the mantle of the Winter Knight.
I thought of a number of Fomor soldiers who had been about to kill a bunch of the people who had risen up to defend Chicago. The enemy troops had all been male. I’d incinerated them.
“You don’t think about women the same way you think about men,” Molly said. “That’s partly because you see yourself as a protector. As a knight in shining armor.”
“Point of order,” I said. “I am in fact a Knight.”
Molly waved a hand, a little impatiently. “I’m serious, Harry. Tactically speaking, there’s no difference. Lara could kill you. So could Sarissa. So could Gard. So could I. It’s fucking foolish of you not to protect yourself with the same amount of prejudice just because the threat has breasts.”
“She tries something again,” I said, “you want me to kill her? The functioning head of the White Court?”
“I didn’t say that,” Molly said. “As Winter Lady, I can’t. But as Molly Carpenter, your friend, I worry about you.” She squinted out at the lake. “I still don’t think you should be alone with her, away from support, for that long.”
“She needs proof of life for Thomas,” I said. “Can’t blame her for that. And Demonreach isn’t a vacation spot.”
Molly nodded stiffly. “I have been commanded,” she said, as though the words were being forced out of her with the end of a sharp stick, “to advise you to make this entire matter simpler by allowing her to seduce you.”
I grunted. “Last thing Maggie needs, her father an addict.”
She blew out a breath through her nose and relaxed a little. “You’re not wrong. They’re here.”
I looked up as Lara’s classic silver limo pulled into the waterfront lot, looking like something out of the Golden Age of Hollywood. She got out wearing a white sundress with matching sandals, a broad black woven hat, and black sunglasses, and carrying a no-kidding pic-a-nick basket.
I was all Biffed-out, too: white leisure shorts, a winter-blue polo shirt, and grey boat shoes. Together, we’d look like a couple in a vacation commercial, except for all my scars.
“Molls,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry Mab is making you do this. Arrange everything.”
Molly had been unrequited by me for a long time.
She smiled faintly and said, “I’m sorry she’s making you do it, too.”
“I know you’re busy with your duties. But we need to talk privately,” I said.
Her expression went opaque. “Not really possible,” she said. “She has my ear.”
We were talking about Queen Mab, of course.
“I’ll look into it,” I said. “Maybe there’s something.”
Molly squared off on me, her face hardening.
“Harry,” she said. “Believe me. There isn’t.
I’m doing everything I can. Not want to.
Can.” She grimaced. “Sometimes getting more power means accepting more limits. This is one of those.” Her expression softened.
“I’m sorry. But she’s focused on this. You’ll have to find someone else. ”
I felt a little shock of pain go through me. I’d assumed that Molly would be my confidant as much as anyone could.
I could read her expression at my reaction. She didn’t like it any better than I did.
Which meant that she was being watched very, very closely.
Or worse, being kept on a very short leash. Mab could command beings of her Court, and they obeyed, period. Her word was literally law to them. It was entirely possible that Mab had laid down the law on Molly, maybe even forbidden her to speak about it.
I could just let myself be hurt by the fact that she wasn’t available to support me in the same way she had been in the past. Or I could accept that she was in a different place, and still doing whatever she could within the boundaries of what had been imposed on her.
Hell. That described me pretty well, too.
Maybe I just had to trust her. Sometimes friendships, especially long ones, get to places like that. She’d do what she could, when she could, because that’s who Molly was.
I gave her a lopsided smile and said, “We do what we can.”
She matched me, her eyes sad, and nodded. “That’s right.”
Lara came walking up, looking as delicious as she always did.
The dress showed off her shoulders and neck.
She smiled warmly at me and then at Molly.
“Harry. Lady Molly. My, the boat cleans up very nicely.” She looked over her shoulder at the security guys who had gotten out of the front of the limo and were watching her the same way Maggie’s dog, Mouse, did when she went into the bathroom by herself.
“Everyone advised me not to go out there with you alone, you know.”
“You bring a knife this time?” I asked.
Lara laughed. “Should I have?”
“Knife is often handy,” I mused. “Shall we?”
I traded a slow nod with Molly, offered Lara my arm, and we walked down to the boat together. Her hand was cool on my burned forearm. Even the light pressure made the burn from Sir Butters’s holy sword, Fidelacchius, ache.
Lara noticed me frowning down at my arm and asked quietly, “Is something wrong?”
“You’re not being burned when you touch me,” I noted quietly.
I held her hand to give her a point of balance as she went up the short ramp to the boat’s deck.
“I’ve been with someone who loved me.” I cleared my throat.
“Reasonably recently. In fact, the night of the battle, you got blistered. But you’re not getting scorched. Why not?”
She thought about it for a moment before answering.
“Likely because I’ve fed my Hunger and I’m keeping it well in check,” she replied.
“Like last time. If I allowed it to try to influence you or feed from you, that’s when the burns happen.
” She frowned down at my arm. “That’s not healing like the rest of your injuries from the battle, is it? ”
“Holy sword,” I said shortly, coming aboard. “Some kind of divine thing, I think. Isn’t bad.”
“I…see,” she said. “Can I help you cast off?”
“Get the ropes aft,” I said, heading to the bow.
We unmoored the Water Beetle and I climbed the ladder to the second steering wheel atop the wheelhouse, while Lara went up to the front of the boat and draped herself attractively across the new bench seating that had been installed there.
The engine started with a smooth rumble.
I checked the fuel and oil indicators and we pulled slowly out of dock, out of the marina, and onto Lake Michigan.
Michigan is a cold-water lake. Though the sun beat down on us, the spray the boat began to kick up as I turned it into the wind leeched the worst of the heat out of the air. Lara took her hat off and let her head fall back to bare her throat to the light.
My instincts told me to lock the wheel, go down to her, and see if her throat would feel as soft against my lips as it looked like it would.
Supported by the primal power of the Winter mantle, my instincts spoke very loudly—but I’d been working out so hard earlier in the morning precisely to give them less weight in my decision-making process, and I ignored them.
Lara was playing polite and cautious with me. I was doing the same with her. As long as that balance was maintained, things would remain convivial.
If it started slipping, I wasn’t sure what would happen.
She seemed to feel my gaze on her. Her head tilted, and she opened her eyes though she didn’t look directly at me.
I wondered if she was thinking along the same lines I was.
Perhaps it would be wisest not to find out.
We cleared the markers close to shore and I opened up the throttle, setting course for Demonreach.