Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)(108)

He shoved the staff a quarter inch forward.

“Glurk,” I said.

His face was red. Too red. The veins stood out sharply in his head, his neck.

And the ground was shaking. I could feel it through the dock.

When he spoke, his voice came out in a register so calm and measured that it completely terrified me. If he was doing that, it was because he was employing mental discipline techniques to contain his, gulp, rage.

“I will ask you a question,” he said. “You will answer me, clearly and honestly. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded. Glurk.

“How did they get to you, boy?” he asked, his voice still unnaturally calm. “What do they have on you? It can’t be so bad that I can’t help you get out of it.” His eyes softened for just a second. “Talk to me.”

I glanced down at the end of his staff.

“Ah,” he said, and took the pressure off.

I swallowed a couple of times. Then I croaked, “They don’t have anything on me.”

His eyes went furious again, and …

And tears formed in them.

Oh God.

“Then why?” he demanded. The calm in his voice was fraying. “Why are you doing this? Why are you destroying yourself for that thing?”

I knew exactly what I was about to do.

But he deserved the truth. Had to have it, really.

“Because I’ve only got one brother,” I said. “And I’m not going to lose him.”

The old man went very still.

“Mom,” I said in a dull, flat voice. “She gave each of us one of her amulets, with a memory recorded on them, so we’d know each other.”

Ebenezar’s mouth opened and closed a few times.

“Half brother, technically,” I said. “But blood all the same. He’s got my back. I’ve got his. That’s all there is to it.”

The old man closed his eyes.

“You’ re … saying … that pig, Raith … with my daughter.”

The ground shook harder. The surface of the lake began to dance, droplets flying up.

“Sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, “you have a second grandson.”

If I’d punched him, I don’t think I could have staggered him more. He fell back a step. He started shaking his head.

I sat up. “Look, whatever happened, it’s over now. Thomas didn’t have anything to do with that. But he has saved my life on multiple occasions. He is not your enemy, sir.” I blinked my eyes a couple of times. “He’s family.”

And the night went still.

“Family,” came the old man’s voice, a primordial growl lurking in it. “One. Of those things.”

He whirled toward the retreating boat, barely visible from the shore by now, and his staff burst into incandescent blue flame as he lifted it in his right hand, the hand that projects energy, drawing it back.

“No!” I shouted, and lurched toward him.

He spun, eyes surrounded by white, his face scarlet, his teeth bared in a snarl, snapping his staff out …

And what looked like a comet about the size of a quarter, blazing like a star, leapt from the staff, like some kind of bizarre random static spark, and plunged into my ribs and out my spine.

I tumbled down to the dock on my back, the stars suddenly unusually bright above me.

I tried to breathe.

Nothing much happened.

“Ach, God,” the old man whispered, his breath creaking.

His staff clattered to the dock. It sounded like it came from very far away.

“Harry?” he said. “Harry?”

His face appeared at the end of a little black tunnel.

“Oh, lad,” he said, tears in his eyes. “Oh, lad. Didn’t think you were going to come at me again. Didn’t think it would trigger.”

I could feel his hands on my face, distantly.

“That’s why you were so big on teaching me control,” I slurred dully. “You’re barely holding it together yourself.”

“I’m a hotheaded fool,” he said. “I’m trying to help you.”

“You knew you were losing it,” I said weakly. “And you kept going anyway. You could have backed me up.” Blood came out of the hole in my chest in rhythmic little spurts. “And instead it ends like this.”

Shame touched his eyes.

And he looked away from mine.

The pain we feel in life always grows. When we’re little, little pains hurt us. When we get bigger, we learn to handle more and more pain and carry on regardless.

Old people are the hands-down champions of enduring pain.

And my grandfather was centuries old.

This pain, though.

This hurt him.

This broke him.

He bowed his head. His tears fell to the dock.

Then he paused.

Then his expression changed.

He looked up at me. His eyes widened, and then his face twisted into rage and disbelief. “Why, you sneaky—”

“Good talk,” I said, “Wizard McCoy.”

And I let go of the Winter glamour Lady Molly had crafted for me.

I felt my consciousness retreating back down that black tunnel, down to where I had laid Molly’s opal pinky ring on the dock, while I felt the ultimate construct of glamour, my doppelg?nger, collapsing and deflating into ectoplasm behind me. My awareness rushed into the stone in the ring, found the thread of my consciousness I’d bound to it, and then went rushing swiftly back toward my body.