"I don't know what you're talking about," he lied. "Get these things away from me, Dresden. Let me go."
"I'm running late, Ace, or I'd have the patience for more chitchat." I nodded at the nearest wolf and said, "Tear his nose off."
Ace screamed and fell back, covering his face with both arms. I winked at the wolf and stepped forward to stand over the changeling. "Or maybe his ears. Or toes. What do you think, Ace? What's going to make you talk fastest? Or should I just try them all one at a time?"
"Go to hell," Ace gasped. "You can do whatever you want, but I'm not talking. Go to hell, Dresden."
Footsteps came up behind us. Meryl limped close enough to see Ace, and then just stood there for a minute, staring at him. Fix followed her, staring.
"Ace," Fix said. "You? You shot Meryl?"
The bearded changeling swallowed and lowered his arms, looking at Meryl and Fix. "I'm sorry. Meryl, it was an accident. I wasn't aiming at you."
The green-haired changeling stared at Ace and said, "You were trying to kill Dresden. The only one besides Ron who has ever taken a step out of his way to help us. The only one who can help Lily."
"I didn't want to. But that was their price."
"Whose price?" Meryl asked in a monotone.
Ace licked his lips, eyes flicking around nervously. "I can't tell you. They'll kill me."
Meryl stepped forward and kicked him in the belly. Hard. Ace doubled over and threw up, gasping and twitching and sobbing. He couldn't get enough breath to cry out.
"Whose price?" Meryl asked again. When Ace didn't speak, she shifted her weight as though to repeat the kick and he cried out.
"Wait," he whimpered. "Wait."
"I'm done waiting," Meryl said.
"God, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, Meryl. It was the vampires. The Reds. I was trying to get protection from Slate, from that bitch Maeve. They said if I got rid of the wizard, they'd fix it."
"Bastards," I muttered. "So you hired the Tigress."
"I didn't have a choice," Ace whined. "If I hadn't done it, they'd have taken me themselves."
"You had a choice, Ace," Fix said quietly.
I shook my head. "How did you know we'd be coming here?"
"The Reds," Ace said. "They told me where you'd show up. They didn't say you wouldn't be alone. Meryl, please. I'm sorry."
She faced him without expression. "Shut up, Ace."
"Look," he said. "Look, let's get out of here. All right? The three of us, we can get clear of this. We need to before we can't help it anymore."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Meryl said.
"You do," Ace said, leaning up toward Meryl, his eyes intent. "You feel it. You hear her Calling us. You feel it just like I do. The Queen Calls us. All of Winter's blood."
"She Calls," Meryl said. "But I'm not answering."
"If you don't want to run, then we should think about what we're going to do. After this battle is over, Maeve and Slate are just going to come for us again. But if we declare a loyalty, if we Choose - "
Meryl kicked Ace in the stomach again. "You worthless trash. All you ever think of is yourself. Get out of my sight before I kill you."
Ace gagged and tried to protest. "But - "
Meryl snarled, "Now!"
The force of the word made Ace flinch away, and he turned it into a scramble before rising to run. The wolves all looked at me, but I shook my head. "Let him go."
Meryl shrugged her shoulders and lifted her face to the rain.
"You okay?" Fix asked her.
"Have to be," she said. Maybe it was just me, but her voice sounded a little lower, rougher. Trollier. Gulp. "Let's move, wizard."
"Yeah," I said. "Uh, yeah." I lifted the Gatekeeper's stone and followed it down the wharf to the last pier, then down to the end of the last pier, empty of any ships or boats. A dozen wolves and two changelings followed me. Nothing but the cold waters of Lake Michigan and a rolling thunderstorm surrounded me at the end of the pier, and the stone twitched, swinging almost to the horizontal on its pale thread.
"No kidding," I muttered. "I know it's up." I reached out a hand and felt something, a tingle of energy, dancing and swirling in front of me. I reached a bit further, and it became more tangible, solid. I drew up a little of my will and sent it out, toward that force, a gentle surge of energy.
Brilliant light flickering through opalescent shades rose up in front of me, as bright as the full moon and as solid as ice. The light resolved itself into the starry outline of stairs, stairs that began at the end of the pier and climbed into the storm above. I stepped forward and put one foot on the lowest step. It bore my weight, leaving me standing on a block of translucent moonlight over the wind-tossed waters of Lake Michigan.
"Wow," Fix breathed.
"We go up that?" Meryl asked.
"Woof," said Billy the Werewolf.
"While we're young," I said, and took the next step. "Come on."
Chapter Thirty
Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that has seams tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears, and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.
But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks.
The drinks, people.
That was me on the staircase to Chicago-Over-Chicago. Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.