Chapter One
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Blood leaves no stain on a Wardens grey cloak. I didnt know that until the day I watched Morgan, second in command of the White Councils Wardens, lift his sword over the kneeling form of a young man guilty of the practice of black magic. The boy, sixteen years old at the most, screamed and ranted in Korean underneath his black hood, his mouth spilling hatred and rage, convinced by his youth and power of his own immortality. He never knew it when the blade came down.
Which I guess was a small mercy. Microscopic, really.
His blood flew in a scarlet arc. I wasnt ten feet away. I felt hot droplets strike one cheek, and more blood covered the left side of the cloak in blotches of angry red. The head fell to the ground, and I saw the cloth over it moving, as if the boys mouth were still screaming imprecations.
The body fell onto its side. One calf muscle twitched spasmodically and then stopped. After maybe five seconds, the head did too.
Morgan stood over the still form for a moment, the bright silver sword of the White Council of Wizards justice in his hands. Besides him and me, there were a dozen Wardens present, and two members of the Senior Councilthe Merlin and my one-time mentor, Ebenezar McCoy.
The covered head stopped its feeble movements. Morgan glanced up at the Merlin and nodded once. The Merlin returned the nod. May he find peace.
Peace, the Wardens all replied together.
Except me. I turned my back on them, and made it two steps away before I threw up on the warehouse floor.
I stood there shaking for a moment, until I was sure I was finished, then straightened slowly. I felt a presence draw near me and looked up to see Ebenezar standing there.
He was an old man, bald but for wisps of white hair, short, stocky, his face half covered in a ferocious-looking grey beard. His nose and cheeks and bald scalp were all ruddy, except for a recent, purplish scar on his pate. Though he was centuries old he carried himself with vibrant energy, and his eyes were alert and pensive behind gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore the formal black robes of a meeting of the Council, along with the deep purple stole of a member of the Senior Council.
Harry, he said quietly. You all right?
After that? I snarled, loudly enough to make sure everyone there heard me. No one in this damned building should be all right.
I felt a sudden tension in the air behind me.
No they shouldnt, Ebenezar said. I saw him look back at the other wizards there, his jaw setting stubbornly.
The Merlin came over to us, also in his formal robes and stole. He looked like a wizard should looktall, long white hair, long white beard, piercing blue eyes, his face seamed with age and wisdom.
Well. With age, anyway.
Warden Dresden, he said. He had the sonorous voice of a trained speaker, and spoke English with a high-class British accent. If you had some evidence that you felt would prove the boys innocence, you should have presented it during the trial.
I didnt have anything like that, and you know it, I replied.
He was proven guilty, the Merlin said. I soulgazed him myself. I examined more than two dozen mortals whose minds he had altered. Three of them might eventually recover their sanity. He forced four others to commit suicide, and had hidden nine corpses from the local authorities, as well. And every one of them was a blood relation. The Merlin stepped toward me, and the air in the room suddenly felt hot. His eyes flashed with azure anger and his voice rumbled with deep, unyielding power. The powers he had used had already broken his mind. We did what was necessary.
I turned and faced the Merlin. I didnt push out my jaw and try to stare him down. I didnt put anything belligerent or challenging into my posture. I didnt show any anger on my face, or slur any disrespect into my tone when I spoke. The past several months had taught me that the Merlin hadnt gotten his job through an ad on a matchbook. He was, quite simply, the strongest wizard on the planet. And he had talent, skill, and experience to go along with that strength. If I ever came to magical blows with him, there wouldnt be enough left of me to fill a lunch sack. I did not want a fight.
But I didnt back down, either.
He was a kid, I said. We all have been. He made a mistake. Weve all done that too.
The Merlin regarded me with an expression somewhere between irritation and contempt. You know what the use of black magic can do to a person, he said. Marvelously subtle shading and emphasis over his words added in a perfectly clear, unspoken thought: You know it because youve done it. Sooner or later, youll slip up, and then it will be your turn . One use leads to another. And another.
Thats what I keep hearing, Merlin, I answered. Just say no to black magic. But that boy had no one to tell him the rules, to teach him. If someone had known about his gift and done something in time
He lifted a hand, and the simple gesture had such absolute authority to it that I stopped to let him speak. The point you are missing, Warden Dresden, he said, is that the boy who made that foolish mistake died long before we discovered the damage hed done. What was left of him was nothing more nor less than a monster who would have spent his life inflicting horror and death on anyone near him.
I know that, I said, and I couldnt keep the anger and frustration out of my voice. And I know what had to be done. I know it was the only measure that could stop him. I thought I was going to throw up again, and I closed my eyes and leaned on the solid oak length of my carved staff. I got my stomach under control and opened my eyes to face the Merlin. But it doesnt change the fact that weve just murdered a boy who probably never knew enough to understand what was happening to him.
Accusing someone else of murder is hardly a stone you are in a position to cast, Warden Dresden. The Merlin arched a silver brow at me. Did you not discharge a firearm into the back of the head of a woman you merely believed to be the Corpsetaker from a distance of a few feet away, fatally wounding her?
I swallowed. I sure as hell had, last year. It had been one of the bigger coin tosses of my life. Had I incorrectly judged that a body-transferring wizard known as the Corpsetaker had jumped into the original body of Warden Luccio, I would have murdered an innocent woman and a law-enforcing member of the White Council.
I hadnt been wrongbut Id neverhellip; never just killed anyone before. Ive killed things in the heat of battle, yes. Ive killed people by less direct means. But Corpsetakers death had been intimate and coldly calculated and not at all indirect. Just me, the gun, and the limp corpse. I could still vividly remember the decision to shoot, the feel of the cold metal in my hands, the stiff pull of my revolvers trigger, the thunder of the guns report, and the way the body had settled into a limp bundle of limbs on the ground, the motion somehow too simple for the horrible significance of the event.
Id killed. Deliberately, rationally ended anothers life.
And it still haunted my dreams at night.
Id had little choice. Given the smallest amount of time, the Corpse-taker could have called up lethal magic, and the best I could have hoped for was a death curse that killed me as I struck down the necromancer. It had been a bad day or two, and I was pretty strung out. Even if I hadnt been, I had a feeling that Corpsetaker could have taken me in a fair fight. So I hadnt given Corpsetaker anything like a fair fight. I shot the necromancer in the back of the head because the Corpsetaker had to be stopped, and Id had no other option.
I had executed her on suspicion.
No trial. No soulgaze. No judgment from a dispassionate arbiter. Hell, I hadnt even taken the chance to get in a good insult. Bang. Thump . One live wizard, one dead bad guy.