Death Masks

Chapter Ten

I got up the ladder in time to hear a car door shut outside my apartment. I'd lost my.357 during a battle between the Faerie Courts hosted on clouds over Lake Michigan the previous midsummer, so I'd moved my.44 from the office to home. It hung on a gun belt on a peg beside the door, just over a wire basket I'd attached to the wall. Holy water, a couple cloves of garlic, vials of salt, and iron filings filled the basket, intended to be door prizes for anything that showed up in an attempt to suck my blood, carry me off to faerieland, or sell me stale cookies.

The door itself was reinforced steel, and could stand up to punishment better than the wall around it. I'd had a demon come a-knocking before, and I didn't want an encore performance. I couldn't afford new furniture, even secondhand.

I belted on the gun, shook out my shield bracelet, and took up my staff and blasting rod. Anything that came through my door would have to contend with my threshold, the aura of protective energy around any home. Most supernatural things didn't do so well with thresholds. After that, they'd have to force their way past my wards-barriers of geometrically aligned energy that would block out physical or magical intrusion, turning that energy back upon its source. A small, gentle push at my wards would result in a similar push against whatever was trying to get in. A swift or heavy push would result in more energy feeding back onto the attacker. Within the wards were sigils of fire and ice, which were designed to deliver bursts of destructive energy about as powerful as your average land mine.

It was a solid and layered defense. With luck, it should be enough to stop a considerable amount of threat from even reaching my door.

And since I'm such a lucky guy, I took a deep breath, pointed my blasting rod at the door, and waited.

It didn't take long. I expected flashes of magical discharge, demon howls, maybe some kind of pyrotechnics as evil magic clashed against my own defensive spells. Instead I got seven polite knocks.

I peered at the door suspiciously and then asked, "Who's there?"

A low, rough man's voice growled, "The Archive."

What the hell. "The Archive who?"

Evidently the speaker didn't have a sense of humor. "The Archive," the voice repeated firmly. "The Archive has been appointed emissary in this dispute, and is here to speak to Wizard Dresden about the duel."

I frowned at the door. I vaguely remembered mention of an Archive of some sort during the last White Council meeting I'd attended, as a neutral party. At the time, I'd assumed it had been some sort of arcane library. I'd had other things on my mind at the time, and I hadn't been listening too closely. "How do I know who you are?"

There was a rasp of paper on stone, and an envelope slid under my door, one corner poking out. "Documentation, Wizard Dresden," the voice replied. "And a pledge to abide by the laws of hospitality during this visit."

Some of the tension left my shoulders, and I lowered the gun. That was one good thing about dealing with the supernatural community. If something gave you its word, you could trust it. Within reason.

Then again, maybe that was just me. Of all the things I'd encountered, I'd been more of a weasel about keeping my word than any of them. Maybe that's why I was leery about trusting someone else.

I picked up the envelope and unfolded a sheet of plain paper certifying that its bearer had been approved by the White Council to act as emissary in the matter of the duel. I passed my hand over it and muttered a quick charm with the last password I'd gotten from the Wardens, and in response a brief glowing pentacle appeared centered on the paper like a bioluminescent watermark. It was legit.

I folded the paper closed again, but I didn't set my rod and staff aside just yet. I undid the dead bolt, muttered my wards back, and opened the door enough to see outside.

A man stood on my doorstep. He was nearly as tall as me but looked a lot more solid, with shoulders wide enough to make the loose black jacket he wore fit tightly on his upper arms. He wore a navy blue shirt and stood so that I could see the wrinkles caused by the straps of a shoulder rig. A black ball cap reined in dark golden hair that might have fallen to his shoulders. He hadn't shaved in a few days, and had a short, white scar below his mouth that highlighted the cleft in his chin. His eyes were grey-blue and empty of any expression in a way I had seldom seen. Not like he was hiding what he felt. More like there was simply nothing there.

"Dresden?" he asked.

"Yeah." I eyed him up and down. "You don't look very Archive-esque."

He lifted his eyebrows, a mildly interested expression. "I'm Kincaid. You're wearing a gun."

"Only when company comes over."

"I haven't seen any of the Council's people carrying a gun. Good for you." He turned and waved his hand. "This shouldn't take long."

I glanced past him. "What do you mean?"

A second later, a little girl started down my stairs, one hand carefully on the guide rail. She was adorable, maybe seven years old, her blond hair still baby-fine and straight, clipped neatly at her shoulders and held back with a hairband. She wore a plain little corduroy dress with a white blouse and shiny black shoes, and her coat was a puffy down-filled jacket that seemed like a bit of overkill for the weather.

I looked from the kid to Kincaid and said, "You can't be bringing a child into this."

"Sure I can," Kincaid said.

"What, couldn't you find a babysitter?"

The child stopped a couple of steps up so that her face was even with my own and said, her voice serious and marked with a faint British accent, "He is my baby-sitter."

I felt my eyebrows shoot up.

"Or more accurately my driver," she said. "Are you going to let us in? I prefer not to remain outdoors."

I stared at the kid for a second. "Aren't you a little short for a librarian?"

"I am not a librarian," the child said. "I am the Archive."

"Hang on a minute," I said. "What do you-"

"I am the Archive," the child said, her voice steady and assured. "I assume that your wards detected my presence. They seemed functional."

"You?" I said. "You've got to be kidding." I extended my senses gingerly toward her. The air around her fairly hummed with power, different from what I would expect around another wizard, but strong all the same, a quiet and dangerous buzz like that around high-tension power lines.

I had to suppress a sudden rush of apprehension from showing on my face. The girl had power. She had a hell of a lot of power. Enough to make me wonder if my wards would be enough to stop her if she decided to come through them. Enough to make me think of little Billy Mumy as the omnipotent brat on that old episode of The Twilight Zone.

She regarded me with implacable blue eyes I suddenly did not want to take the chance of looking into. "I can explain it to you, wizard," she said. "But not out here. I have neither an interest nor an inclination to do you any harm. Perhaps the opposite."

I frowned at her. "Promise?"

"Promise," the child said solemnly.

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

She drew an X over her puffy jacket with one index finger. "You don't know how much."

Kincaid took a couple of steps up and glanced warily around the street. "Make up your mind, Dresden. I'm not keeping her out here for long."

"What about him?" I asked the Archive, and nodded toward Kincaid. "Can he be trusted?"

"Kincaid?" the girl asked, her voice whimsical. "Can you be trusted?"

"You're paid up through April," the man replied, his eyes still scanning the street. "After that I might get a better offer."

"There," the girl said to me. "Kincaid can be trusted until April. He's an ethical man, in his way." She shivered and put her hands into the pockets of her puffy coat. She hunched up her shoulders and watched my face.

Generally speaking, my instincts about people (who weren't women who might potentially end up doing adult things with me) were pretty good. I trusted the Archive's promise. Besides, she was darling and looked like she was starting to get cold. "Fine," I said. "Come inside."

I stepped back and opened the door. The Archive came in and told Kincaid, "Wait with the car. Come fetch me in ten minutes."

Kincaid frowned at her, and then me. "You sure?"

"Quite." The Archive stepped in past me, and started taking off her coat. "Ten minutes. I want to head back before rush hour begins."

Kincaid fixed his empty eyes on me and said, "Be nice to the little girl, wizard. I've handled your kind before."

"I get more threats before nine a.m. than most people get all day," I responded, and shut the door on him. Purely for effect, I locked it too.

Me, petty? Surely not.

I lit a couple of candles in order to get a little more light into the living room and stirred up the fire, adding more wood to it as soon as the embers were glowing. While I did, the Archive took off her coat, folded it neatly over the arm of one of my lumpy comfy chairs, and sat down, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Her little black shoes waved back and forth above the floor.

I frowned at her. It's not like I don't like kids or anything, but I hadn't had much experience with them. Now I had one sitting there wanting to talk to me about a duel. How the hell did a child, no matter how large her vocabulary, manage to get appointed an emissary?

"So, uh. What's your name?"

She said, "The Archive."

"Yeah, I got that part. But I meant your name. What people call you."

"The Archive," she repeated. "I do not have a familiar name. I am the Archive, and have always been the Archive."

"You're not human," I said.

"Incorrect. I am a seven-year-old human child."

"With no name? Everybody has a name," I said. "I'm can't go around calling you the Archive."

The girl tilted her head to one side, arching a pale gold eyebrow. "Then what would you call me?"

"Ivy," I said at once.

"Why Ivy?" she asked.

"You're the Archive, right? Arch-ive. Arch-ivy. Ivy."

The girl pursed her lips. "Ivy," she said, and then nodded slowly. "Ivy. Very well." She regarded me for a moment and then said, "Go ahead and ask the question, wizard. We might as well get it out of the way."

"Who are you?" I asked. "Why are you called the Archive?"

Ivy nodded. "The thorough explanation is too complex to convey to you here. But in short, I am the living memory of mankind."

"What do you mean, the living memory?"

"I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. I take in all that is written and spoken. I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge."

"So you're saying that if it's been written down, you know it?"

"I know it. I understand it."

I sat down slowly on the couch, and stared at her. Hell's bells. It was almost too much to comprehend. Knowledge is power, and if Ivy was telling me the truth, she knew more than anyone alive. "How did you get this gig?"

"My mother passed it on to me," she replied. "As I was born, just as she received it when she was born."

"And your mother lets a mercenary drive you around?"

"Certainly not. My mother is dead, wizard." She frowned. "Not dead, technically. But all that she knew and was came into me. She became an empty cup. A persistent vegetative state." Her eyes grew a little wistful, distant. "She's free of it. But she certainly isn't alive in the most vital sense."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I wouldn't know why. I know my mother. And all before her." She put a finger to her temple. "It's all in here."

"You know how to use magic?" I asked.

"I prefer calculus."

"But you can do it."

"Yes."

Yikes. If the reaction of my wards was any indication, it meant that she was at least as strong as any Wizard of the White Council. Probably stronger. But if that was true -

"If you know that much," I said, "if you are that powerful, why did you hire a bodyguard to bring you here?"

"My feet don't reach the pedals."

I felt like smacking myself on the forehead. "Oh, right."

Ivy nodded. "In preparation for the duel, I will need some information. Namely, where I might contact your second and what weapon you prefer for the duel."

"I don't have a second yet."

Ivy arched an eyebrow. "Then you have until sundown this evening to gain one. Otherwise the match, and your life, will be forfeit."

"Forfeit? Uh, how would the forfeit be collected?"

The little girl stared at me for a silent moment. Then she said, "I'll do it."

I swallowed, a cold chill rippling over me. I believed her. I believed that she could, and I believed that she would. "Um. Okay. Look, I haven't exactly chosen a weapon yet, either. If I-"

"Simply choose one, Mister Dresden. Will, skill, energy, or flesh."

"Wait," I said. "I thought I got to pick swords or guns or something."

Ivy shook her head. "Read your copy of the Accords. I choose what is available, and I choose the ancient ways. You may match wills with your opponent to gauge which of you is the most determined. You may match your skill at arms against his, each of you with weaponry of your individual choosing. You may wield energy forces against each other. Or you may challenge him to unarmed combat." She considered. "I would advise against the last."

"Thanks," I muttered. "I'll take magic. Energy."

"You realize, of course, that he will decline in that venue and you will be forced to choose another."

I sighed. "Yeah. But until he does, I don't have to pick another one, right?"

"Indeed," Ivy acknowledged.

There was a knock on the door, and I got up to open it. Kincaid nodded to me, then leaned in and said, "Ten minutes."

"Thank you, Kincaid," Ivy said. She rose, drew a business card from her pocket, and passed it to me. "Have your second call this number."

I took the card and nodded. "I will."

Just then, Mister emerged from my bedroom and lazily arched his back. Then he padded over to me and rubbed his shoulder against my shin by way of greeting.

Ivy blinked and looked down at Mister, and her child's face was suddenly suffused with a pure and uncomplicated joy. She said, "Kitty!" and immediately knelt down to pet Mister. Mister apparently liked her. He started purring louder, and walked around Ivy, rubbing up against her while she petted him and spoke to him quietly.

Hell's bells. It was adorable. She was just a kid.

A kid who knew more than any mortal alive. A kid with a scary amount of magical power. A kid who would kill me if I didn't show up to the duel. But still a kid.

I glanced up at Kincaid, who stood frowning down at Ivy fawning all over Mister. He shook his head and muttered, "Now, that's just creepy."