Dead Beat

Chapter Eleven

I clipped my old iron mailbox with the front fender of the stupid SUV as I pulled into the driveway at my apartment. The box dented one corner of the vehicle's hood and toppled over with a heavy clang. I parked the SUV and shoved the pole the mailbox was mounted on back into the ground, but the impact had bent the pole. My mailbox leaned drunkenly to one side, but it stayed upright. Good enough for me.

I gathered up my gear, including the sawed-off shotgun I'd removed from the Beetle, and got indoors in a hurry.

I set things down and locked up my wards and the heavy steel door I'd had installed after a big, bad demon had huffed and puffed and blown down the original. It wasn't until I had them all firmly secured that I let out a slow breath and started to relax. The living room was lit only by the embers of the fire and a few tiny flames. From the kitchen alcove, I heard the soft thumping sound of Mouse's tail wagging against the icebox.

Thomas sat in the big comfy recliner next to the fire, absently stroking Mister. My cat, curled up on Thomas's lap, watched me with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Thomas," I said.

"All quiet on the basement front," Thomas murmured. "Once Butters wound down he just about dropped unconscious. I told him he could sleep in the bed."

"Fine," I said. I took my copy of Erlking, lit a few candles on the end table, and flopped down onto the couch.

Thomas arched an eyebrow.

"Oh," I said, sitting up. "Sorry, didn't think. You probably want to sleep."

"Not especially," he said. "Someone should keep watch, anyway."

"You all right?" I asked him.

"I just don't feel like sleeping right now. You can have the couch."

I nodded and settled down again. "You want to talk?"

"If I did, I'd be talking." He went back to staring at the fire and stroking the cat.

He was still upset, obviously, but I'd learned that it was pointless to start pushing Thomas, no matter how well-intentioned I might be. He'd dig in his heels from sheer obstinacy, and the conversation would get nowhere.

"Thanks," I said, "for looking out for Butters for me."

Thomas nodded.

We fell into a relaxed silence, and I started reading the book.

A while later I fell asleep.

I dreamed almost immediately. Threatening trees, mostly evergreens, rose up around a small glade. In its center a modest, neat camp-fire sparked and crackled. I could smell a lake somewhere nearby, moss and flowers and dead fish blending in with the scent of mildewed pine. The air was cold enough to make me shiver, and I hunched a little closer to the fire, but even so I felt like my back was to a glacier. From somewhere overhead came the wild, honking screams of migrating geese under a crescent moon. I didn't recognize the place, but it somehow seemed perfectly familiar.

A camping rig straddled the fire, holding a tin coffee mug and a suspended pot of what smelled like some kind of rich stew, maybe venison.

My father sat across the fire from me.

Malcolm Dresden was a tall, spare man with dark hair and steady blue eyes. His jeans were as heavily worn as his leather hiking boots, and I could see that he was wearing his favorite red-and-white flannel shirt under his fleece-lined hunting jacket. He leaned forward and stirred the pot, then took a sip from the spoon.

"Not bad," he said. He picked up a couple of tin mugs from one of the stones surrounding the fire and grabbed the coffeepot by its wooden handle. He poured coffee into both cups, hung the coffeepot back over the fire, and offered me one of them. "You warm enough?"

I accepted the mug and just stared at him for a moment. Maybe I had expected him to look exactly like I remembered, but he didn't. He looked so thin. He looked young, maybe even younger than me. And… so very, very ordinary.

"You go deaf, son?" my father asked, grinning. "Or mute?"

I fumbled for words. "It's cold out here."

"It is that," he agreed.

He pulled a couple of packs of powdered creamer from a knapsack, and passed them over to me along with a couple of packs of sugar. We prepared the coffee in silence and sipped at it for a few moments. It filled me with an earthy, satisfying warmth that made the terrible chill along my spine more bearable.

"This is a nice change of pace from my usual dream," I said.

"How so?" my father asked.

"Fewer tentacles. Fewer screams. Less death."

Just then, out in the blackness beneath the trees, something let out an eerie, wailing, alien cry. I shivered and my heart beat a little faster.

"The night is young," my father said dryly.

There was a rushing sound out in the woods, and I saw the tops of several trees swaying in succession as something, something big, moved among them. From tree to tree, the unseen threat moved, circling the little glade. I looked down and saw ripples on the surface of my coffee. My hand was trembling.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son," he said. He took a sip of his coffee and regarded the motion in the trees without fear. "You know what it is. You know what it wants."

I swallowed. "The demon."

He nodded, blue eyes on mine.

"I don't suppose-"

"I'm fresh out of vorpal swords," my father said. He reached into the pack and tossed me a miniature candy bar. "The closest I can get is a Snickers snack."

"You call that a funny line?" I asked.

"Look who's talking."

"So," I said. "Why haven't I dreamed about you before?"

"Because I wasn't allowed to contact you before," my father said easily. "Not until others had crossed the line."

"Allowed?" I asked. "What others? What line?"

He waved a hand. "It isn't important. And we don't have much time here before it returns."

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. "Okay, I'm done with the stupid nostalgia dream. Why don't you go back to wherever you came from and I'll have a nice soothing dream of going to work naked."

He laughed. "That's better. I know you're afraid, son. Afraid for your friends. Afraid for yourself. But know this: You are not alone."

I blinked at him several times. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm not a part of your own subconscious, son. I'm me. I'm real."

"No offense, but of course the dream version of you would say that," I said.

He smiled. "Is that what your heart tells you I am? A dreamed shadow of memory?"

I stared at him for a minute and then shook my head. "It can't be you. You're dead."

He stood up, walked around the fire, then dropped to one knee beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder. "Yes. I'm dead. But that doesn't mean that I'm not here. It doesn't mean that I don't love you, boy."

The light of the fire blurred in front of my eyes, and a horrible pang went through my chest. "Dad?"

His hand squeezed tighter. "I'm here."

"I don't understand it," I said. "Why am I so afraid?"

"Because you've got more to lose than you ever have before," he said. "Your brother. Your friends. You've opened yourself up to them. Loved them. You can't bear the thought of someone taking them away from you."

"It's getting to be too much," I said. My voice shook. "I just keep getting more wounded and tired. They just keep coming at me. I'm not some kind of superhero. I'm just me. And I didn't want any of this. I don't want to die."

He put his other hand on my other shoulder and faced me intently. I met his eyes while he spoke. "That fear is natural. But it is also a weakness. A path of attack for what would prey upon your mind. You must learn to control it."

"How?" I whispered.

"No one can tell you that," he said. "Not me. Not an angel. And not a fallen angel. You are the product of your own choices, Harry, and nothing can change that. Don't let anyone or anything tell you otherwise."

"But… my choices haven't always been very good," I said.

"Whose have?" he asked. He smiled at me and rose. "I'm sorry, son, but I have to go."

"Wait," I said.

He put his hand on my head, and for that brief second I was a child again, tired and small and utterly certain of my father's strength.

"My boy. There's so much still ahead of you."

"So much?" I whispered.

"Pain. Joy. Love. Death. Heartache. Terrible waters. Despair. Hope. I wish I could have been with you longer. I wish I could have helped you prepare for it."

"For what?" I asked him.

"Shhhhh," he said. "Sleep. I'll keep the fire lit until morning."

And darkness and deep, silent, blissfully restful night swallowed me whole.