Chapter Seventeen
Chapter
Seventeen
“Uh-oh,” I said.
Lara’s face went from pale to absolutely white.
Molly eyed me and Lara and she looked confused. She straightened and brushed a hand irritably at her face, and the glamour vanished, revealing her own features. “What am I not getting here?”
“He was invited?” I demanded of Lara.
“He’s always invited,” Lara said. “It would be an insult not to. But he never shows up.”
“Hello?” Molly said.
“Drakul,” I said to her.
She blinked. “Wait. Dracula?”
“No,” I said. “Dracula is like his spoiled drama-queen kid,” I said.
“This is the original. During the battle, he took everything River Shoulders and Listens-to-Wind could throw at him, everything the crew from the Red Court war could do, then he and his minions killed Chandler, Wild Bill, and Yoshimo and walked away smiling. He’s some kind of elder being. ”
“Jesus,” Molly breathed. “Why is he here?”
“Hell if I know,” I said, which was more than half true.
Drakul had told me that he was starborn and knew I was, too.
He seemed to think we had some kind of weird camaraderie as a result, and the fact that I still knew almost nothing about what being starborn meant was beginning to drive me a little nuts.
But there was some kind of connection between us, based on that. He wanted something from me. I just had no idea what it might be.
Drakul paused at the top of the stairway.
The shadows around him all seemed…darker, somehow, flowing around him like an honor guard.
He was a tall man, six and a half feet at least, wearing close-fit black pants and a vest, with a billowing black shirt beneath.
He was corpse pale, and shoulder-length black hair was swept back from an epic widow’s peak.
Drakul stopped at the top of the stairs. Eyes like black holes raked over the ballroom, unimpressed with the hedonism—and locked on me.
My stomach did a little panicked flip on me. My hand tightened on my staff.
Molly was just staring at him. “Is this…a fight?”
“No,” Lara said firmly. She swallowed. “No. He’s here as a guest. He’s one of the reasons the old laws of hospitality exist. He won’t violate that. He’s here to talk.”
“Very true,” said a smooth, mellow, accented voice from behind us, and we all whirled to find Drakul simply there.
One second, he’d been a good thirty yards off.
The next he’d been behind us. No flash, no pop of displaced air, no surge of shadows, no telltale vibration of magical energy, nothing.
It was like the concept of space simply didn’t apply to him.
All three of us twitch-jumped except for Molly and Lara.
He smiled slowly and showed us pointed canines. “Little Lara Raith. You’ve come a long way, and very quickly. I warned your father about you, you know. In…eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, I believe. He never was a good listener.”
“Lord Drakul,” Lara said, inclining her head slightly. “I confess, this is a delightful surprise.”
Drakul smiled warmly, took her hand, and bowed over it. “Please. You’ve personally done more damage to me than any three supernatural nations through that writer. Call me Vlad.”
“Vlad,” she said, and her voice was both tense and lower, throatier. “I would have thought you’d be more…hostile.”
“Nonsense,” Drakul said. “The challenge was an unexpected delight. It kept me busy for decades and pruned away the useless baggage from my creations. I am well content with the long-term results. Only fools see such challenges as insults, when they result in so much growth.” He brushed his lips over her knuckles and released her gently.
Then he turned his attention to Molly. “And the new Winter Lady. Considerably more disciplined and dangerous already than her predecessor. I am told you turned the tide of the battle against the Titan’s forces.
I am Lord Vlad Drakul, and I am at your service. ”
Molly extended her hand, a small smile on her lips. “What a pleasure, Lord Drakul. I am Molly Carpenter.”
He took her hand and touched it to his lips, his eyes never leaving hers. “The pleasure is mine, I assure you. Welcome to the society of immortals. I look forward to many such meetings, in time.”
I wanted to punch the guy already.
Before he even straightened from the bow, Drakul’s black eyes flicked over to my face, and whatever he saw there seemed to amuse him.
“And you,” he said, looking me up and down. “The mortal who managed to overcome a Titan.”
“It was a team effort,” I said. “I was just batting cleanup.”
Drakul’s face went blank for a moment. Evidently, he wasn’t up on his baseball parlance.
“Right place, right time,” I clarified generously. “Harry Dresden.”
“The man I’m here to see,” Drakul said.
“Because I fought a Titan?” I asked.
Drakul laughed. It was a warm, genuine sound. “Goodness, no. That certainly makes you interesting, but I always make it a point to survey the rest of the field before the game begins.”
Now it was my turn to have a blank face. Dammit. Getting information about whatever large-scale shenanigans were supposed to happen (that I had apparently been cosmically voluntold to be a part of) was harder than stacking marbles in a corner.
Drakul looked faintly disappointed and offered me a consoling smile. “Ah. It has come to my attention that there are members of the White Council seeking my location.”
“You killed some of their people,” I said. “Took their bodies and talents and turned them into your personal lackeys. My friends.”
“Such things happen in war,” Drakul said calmly.
“Children take it personally.” He dipped two fingers into a vest pocket and produced a black card marked with gold-leaf lettering.
“Still, such things can be settled in only one way.” He offered me the card, his black eyes bottomless and empty.
“My location. Please inform whichever passionate fools the White Council boasts this month that they may call upon me at their convenience. I shall be ready. Alternatively, I can make time for a meeting of their choosing. Anytime. Anyplace.”
Wow.
No one did that.
No one just dropped an open challenge to wizards of the White Council.
I took the card warily. I checked. There was no evident enchantment about it.
“Why?” I asked him.
He considered me for a breath. “Is it not obvious, wizard?” he asked.
“To duel me openly under the Accords would be suicide. You people will clearly take alternative action, as is your pattern—one I respect, if it matters to you. But I would find the entanglements of any resulting war inconvenient, as would the leadership of the other supernatural nations.” He nodded toward Molly and Lara.
“Children seldom see the advantage in tidying up their messes. I do. So in the interests of order, I extend the invitation, here and now, and hereby waive the protection of the Accords before two witnesses.” He leaned a little closer, smiling.
“Unless you would rather display a minute scrap of sanity and allow the matter to drop as part of the fortunes of war.”
“Show up or shut up, huh?” I asked him.
He considered the phrasing. “Just so.”
“I’m not a member of the Council anymore,” I said. “But I’ll pass the word along.”
“Most courteous,” Drakul said, bowing slightly. “I do hope you yourself will take a more mature view of what happened, wizard. It would be a shame to be forced to remove you from the board before you are even truly prepared for the great game.”
“Oh, I’m well-known for that,” I said. “My maturity.”
He smiled again, though there was regret in it, and only a hint of fang. “Ah. To each his nature.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’ve talked to a lot of blowhards like you,” I said. “I’m still standing. They aren’t.”
Drakul’s eyes wrinkled at the corners. He inhaled through his nose, as though enjoying the scent of a meal that had not yet been served.
“You have never,” he said, in a dead voice, “talked to one like me.”
Molly gripped my forearm and squeezed, holding me in place.
“Ladies,” Drakul said, breaking into a wider smile. He took a step back and bowed elegantly. “A magnificent gathering, but I regret that I must take my leave. Thank you for the courtesy of an invitation.”
And, without even a whoosh, he simply wasn’t there anymore.
I stood there for a moment, reaching out with my magical senses. But there was no enchantment around me, no hint of a veil or a tear in the veil between the mortal world and the Nevernever. Nothing. Just music and the dancing and laughter of the intoxicated guests.
I exhaled slowly.
“My,” Lara said. She lifted her champagne flute to her mouth and took a quick drink. I almost couldn’t see her hand trembling.
“Right?” Molly agreed. She adjusted her dress absently.
“He seems like a wimp,” I said calmly.
“Careful,” Lara said suddenly.
I looked around and saw why she had. Carter LaChaise, wearing a chef’s hat and kitchen outfit, which was quite a choice given his muttonchops, was approaching us, a broad smile on his beefy face.
He stopped to lean over and murmur something into the ear of a girl too young for me, much less him, and she turned happy, glassy eyes to him and gave him the kind of smile that was likely to get her killed.
He laughed and held up a finger to her as he approached us.
“Well, well,” the ghoul said. “If the two of you ladies don’t make the most delicious sight.”
“Lord LaChaise,” Molly said, inclining her head slightly.
“LaChaise,” Lara said with a polite nod and no emotion at all in her tone or expression. “So glad you could come.”
“I’m not,” I said cheerfully, beaming. “Get fucked and die, ghoul.”
LaChaise let out a rumbling laugh, answering my smile with one of his own. “I heard what happened the other evening. Mighty big talk for someone dipped in stupid and rolled in lucky, Dresden,” he drawled. “Well. That’s all right. Every dog has his day.”
I narrowed my eyes and took a step toward him.