Chapter Thirty

I got out of the van, too shocked to see anything but the destruction. It made no sense. It made no sense at all. How in the hell could this have happened? How could my spell have turned the phages and sent them here?

I stood on the sidewalk outside the house with my mouth hanging open. The streetlights were all out. Only the lights of the van showed the damage, and Thomas turned them off after only a moment. There was no disturbance on the street, no outcry, no police presence. Whatever had happened, something had taken steps to keep it from disturbing the neighbors.

I don't know how long I stood there. I felt Mouse's presence at my side. Then Thomas's, on the other side of me.

"Harry?" he said, as if he was repeating himself. "What is this place?"

"It's Michael's house," I whispered. "His family's home."

Thomas flinched. He looked back and forth and said, "Those things came here?"

I nodded. I felt unsteady.

I felt so damned tired.

Whatever happened here, it was over. There was nothing I could do at this point, except see who had been hurt. And I did not want to do that. So I stood there staring at the house until Thomas finally said, "I'll keep watch out here. Circle the house, see if there's anything to be seen."

"Okay," I whispered. I swallowed, and my stomach felt like I'd swallowed a pound of thumbtacks. I wanted nothing in the world so much as to run away.

But instead, I dragged my tired ass over the damaged lawn and through the house's broken doorway. Mouse, walking on three legs, followed me.

There were sprinkles of blood, already dried, on the inside of the doorway.

I went on inside the house, through the entry hall, into the living room. Furniture lay strewn all over the place, discarded and broken and tumbled. The television lay on its side, warbling static on its screen. A low sound, all white noise and faint interference, filled the room.

There was utter silence in the house, otherwise.

"Hello?" I called.

No one answered.

I went into the kitchen.

There were school papers on the fridge, most of them written in exaggerated, childish hands. There were crayon drawings up there, too. One, of a smiling stick figure in a dress, had a wavering line of letters underneath that read: I LOW OU MAMA.

Oh, God.

The thumbtacks in my belly became razor blades. If I'd hurt them... I didn't know what I would do.

"Harry!" Thomas called from outside. "Harry, come here!"

His voice was tense, excited. I went out the kitchen door to the backyard, and found Thomas climbing down from a tree house only a little nicer than my apartment, built up in the branches of the old oak tree behind the Carpenters' house. He had a still form draped over his shoulder.

I drew out my amulet and called wizard light as Thomas laid the oldest son, Daniel, out on the grass in the backyard. He was breathing, but looked pale. He was wearing flannel pajama pants and a white T-shirt soaked with blood. There was a cut on his arm; not too deep, but very messy. He had bruises on his face, on one arm, and the knuckles on both his hands were torn and ragged.

Michael's son had been throwing punches. It hadn't done him any good, but he'd fought.

"Coat," I said, terse. "He's cold."

Thomas immediately took off my duster and draped it over the boy. I propped his feet up on my backpack. "Stay here," I told him. I went in the house, fetched a glass of water, and brought it out. I knelt down and tried to wake the boy up, to get him to drink a little. He coughed a little, then drank, and blinked open his eyes. He couldn't focus them.

"Daniel," I said quietly. "Daniel, it's Harry Dresden."

"D-dresden?" he said.

"Yeah. Your dad's friend. Harry."

"Harry," he said. Then his eyes flew open wide and he struggled to sit up. "Molly!"

"Easy, easy," I told him. "You're hurt. We don't know how bad yet. Lie still."

"Can't," he mumbled. "They took her. We were... is Mom okay? Are the little ones okay?"

I chewed on my lip. "I don't know. Do you know where they are?"

He blinked several times and then he said, "Panic room."

I frowned. "What?"

"S-second floor. Safe room. Dad built it. Just in case."

I traded a look with Thomas. "Where is it?"

Daniel waved a vague hand. "Mom had the little ones upstairs. Molly and me couldn't get to the stairs. They were there. We tried to lead them away."

"Who, Daniel? They who?"

"The movie monsters. Reaper. Hammerhand." He shuddered. "Scarecrow."

I snarled a furious curse. "Thomas, stay with him. Mouse, keep watch." I stood up and stalked into the house, crossed to the stairs, and went up them. The upstairs hallway had a bunch of bedrooms off it, with the oldest children's rooms being at the opposite end of the hall from the master bedroom, the younger children being progressively closer to mom and dad. I looked inside each room. They were all empty, though the two nearest the head of the stairs had been torn up pretty well. Broken toys and shattered, child-sized furniture lay everywhere.

If I hadn't been looking for it, I wouldn't have noticed the extra space between the linen closet and the master bedroom. I checked the closet in the master bedroom and turned up nothing. Then I opened the door to the linen closet, and found the shelves in complete disarray, sheets and towels and blankets strewn on the floor. I hunkered down and held up my mother's amulet, peering closely, and then found a section of the back wall of the closet just slightly misaligned with the corner it met. I reached out and touched that part of the wall, closed my eyes, extending my senses through my fingertips.

I felt power there. It wasn't a ward, or at least it was unlike any ward I had ever encountered. It was more of a quiet hum of constant power, and was similar to the power I'd felt stirring around Michael on several occasions-the power of faith. There was a form of magic protecting that panel.

"Lasciel," I murmured quietly. "You getting this?"

She did not appear, but her voice rolled through my thoughts. Yes, my host. Angelic work.

I exhaled. "Real angels?"

Aye. Rafael or one of his lieutenants, from the feel of it.

"Dangerous?"

There was an uncertain pause. It is possible. You are touched by more darkness than my own. But it is meant to conceal the room beyond, not to strike out at an intruder.

I took a deep breath and said, "Okay." Then I reached out and rapped hard on the panel, three times.

I thought I heard a motion, weight shifting on a floorboard.

I knocked again. "Charity!" I called. "It's Harry Dresden!"

This time, the motion was definite. The panel clicked, then rolled smoothly to one side, and a double-barreled shotgun slid out, aimed right at my chin. I swallowed and looked down the barrel. Charity's cold blue eyes faced me from the other end of the gun.

"You might not be the real Dresden," she said.

"Sure I am."

"Prove it," she said. Her tone was quiet, balanced, deadly.

"Charity, there's no time for this. You want me to show you my driver's license?"

"Bleed," she said instead.

Which was a good point. Most of the things who could play doppel-ganger did not have human plumbing, or human blood. It wasn't an infallible test by any means, but it was as solid as anything a nonwizard could use for verification. So I pulled out my pen knife and cut my already mangled left hand, just a little. I couldn't feel it in any case. I bled red, and showed her.

She stared at me for a long second, and then eased the hammers on the shotgun back down, set the weapon aside, and wriggled out of the space beyond the panel. I saw a candle lit back there. The rest of the Carpenter children, sans Molly, were inside. Alicia was sitting up, awake, her eyes worried. The rest were sacked out.

"Molly," she said, once she'd gained her feet. "Daniel."

"I found him hiding in the tree house," I said. "He's hurt."

She nodded once. "How badly?"

"Bruised up pretty good, groggy, but I don't think he's in immediate danger. Mouse and a friend of mine are with him."

Charity nodded again, features calm and remote, eyes cold and calculating. She had a great cool-headed act going, but it wasn't perfect. Her hands were trembling badly, fingers clenching and unclenching arrhyth-mically. "And Molly?"

"I haven't found her yet," I said quietly. "Daniel might know what happened to her."

"Were they Denarians?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Definitely not."

"Is it possible that they may return?"

I shrugged. "It isn't likely."

"But possible?"

"Yes."

She nodded once, and her voice had the quality of someone thinking aloud. "Then the next thing to do is to take the children to the church. We'll make sure Daniel is cared for. I'll try to send word to Michael. Then we'll find Molly."

"Charity," I said. "Wait."

Charity thrust the heel of her hand firmly into my chest and pushed my shoulders back against the opposite wall. Her voice was quiet and very precise. "My children are vulnerable. I'm taking them to safety. Help me or stand aside."

Then she turned from me and began bringing her children out. Alicia helped as much as she could, her studious features tired and worried, but the littlest ones were sleepy to the point of hibernation, and remained limp as dishrags. I pitched in, picking up little Harry and Hope, carrying one on each hip. Charity's expression flashed briefly with both worry and thanks, and I saw her control slip. Tears formed in her eyes. She closed them again, jaw clenched, and when she looked up she had regained her composure.

"Thank you," she said.

"Let's move," I replied, and we did.

Tough lady. Very tough. We'd had our differences, but I had to respect the proud core of her. She was the kind of mother you read about in the paper, the kind who lifts a car off of one of her kids.

It was entirely possible that I'd just killed her oldest daughter. If Charity knew that, if she knew that I'd put her children in danger, she'd murder me.

If Molly had been hurt because of me, I'd help.

* * *
Saint Mary of the Angels is more than just a church. It's a monument. It's huge, its dome rising to seventeen stories, and covered in every kind of accessory you could name, including angelic statues spread over the roof and ledges. You could get a lot of people arguing over exactly what it's a monument to, I suppose, but one cannot see the church without being impressed by its size, by its artistry, by its beauty. In a city of architectural mastery, Saint Mary of the Angels need bow its head to no one.

That said, the back of the place, the delivery doors, looked quite modestly functional. We went there, Charity driving her family's minivan, Thomas, me, and Mouse in Madrigal's battered rental van. Mouse and I got out. Thomas didn't. I frowned at him.

"I'm going to find someplace to park this," he said. "Just in case Madrigal decides to report it as stolen or something."

"Think he'll make trouble for us?" I asked.

"Not face-to-face," Thomas said, his voice confident. "He's more jackal than wolf."

"Look on the bright side," I said. "Maybe the Scarecrow turned around and got him."

Thomas sighed. "Keep dreaming. He's a greasy little rat, but he survives." He looked up at the church and then said, "I'll keep an eye on things from out here. Come on out when you're done."

I got it. Thomas didn't want to enter holy ground. As a vampire of the White Court, he was as close to human as vampires got, and as far as I knew, holy objects had never inconvenienced him. So this wasn't about supernatural allergies. It was about his perceptions.

Thomas didn't want to go into the church because he wasn't optimistic that the Almighty and his institutions would smile on him. Like me, he favored maintaining a low profile with regards to matters temporal. And if he had gone back to older patterns, doing what came naturally to his predator's nature, it might incline him to stay off the theological radar. Worse, entering such a place as the church might force him to face his choices, to question them, to be confronted with the fact that the road he'd chosen kept getting darker and further from the light.

I knew how he felt.

I hadn't been in a church since I'd smacked my hand down on Lasciel's ancient silver coin. Hell, I had a freaking fallen angel in my head-or at least a facsimile of one. If that wasn't a squirt of lemon juice in God's eye, I didn't know what was.

But I had a job to do.

"Be careful," I told him quietly. "Call Murphy. Tell her what's up."

"You'd better get some rest soon, Harry," he replied. "You don't look good."

"I never look good," I said. I offered him my fist. He rapped my knuckles gently with his own.

I nodded and walked over to knock on the delivery doors while he drove off in Madrigal's van. I'd taken my duster back, once Daniel had a blanket on him. Screw the heat. I wanted the protection. Its familiar weight on my shoulders and motion against my legs were reassuring.

Forthill answered my knock, fully dressed, the white of his clerical collar easily seen in the night. His bright blue eyes looked around the parking lot once, and he hurried toward the van without a word being exchanged. I followed him. Forthill moved briskly, and we unloaded the van, Alicia shepherding the mobile kids indoors while he and Charity carried Daniel in between them. I followed with the two little wet dishrags, trying to keep my tired muscles from shaking too obviously.

Forthill led us to the storage room that sometimes doubled as refugee housing. There were half a dozen folded cots against one wall, and another one already opened, set out, and occupied by a lump under a blanket. Forthill and Charity got the wounded Daniel onto a cot first, and then opened the rest of them. We deposited tired children on them.

"What happened?" Forthill asked, his voice quiet and calm.

I didn't want to hear Charity talk about it. "Got a cramp," I told them. "Need to walk it off. Come find me when Daniel gets coherent."

"Very well," Charity said.

Forthill looked back and forth between us, frowning.

Mouse rose with a grunt of effort to limp after me. "No, boy. Stay and keep an eye on the kids."

Mouse settled down again, almost gratefully.

I beat it, and started walking. It didn't matter where. There were too many things flying around in my head. I just walked. Motion wasn't a cure, but I was tired enough that it kept the thoughts, the emotions, from drowning me. I walked down hallways and through empty rooms.

I wound up in the chapel proper. I've been in smaller stadiums. Gleaming hardwood floors shine over the whole of the chapel. Wooden pews stand in ranks, row upon row upon row, and the altar and nave are gorgeously decorated. It seats more than a thousand people, including the balcony at the rear of the chapel, and every Sunday they still have to run eight masses in four different languages to fit everyone in.

More than size and artistry, though, there is something else about the place that makes it more than simply a building. There's a sense of quiet power there, deep and warm and reassuring. There's peace. I stood for a moment in the vast and empty room and closed my eyes. Right then, I needed all the peace I could get. I drifted through the room, idly admiring it, and wound up in the balcony, all the way at the top, in a dark corner.

I leaned my head back against a wall.

Lasciel's voice came to me, very quietly, and sounded odd. Sad. It is beautiful here.

I didn't bother to agree. I didn't tell her to get lost. I leaned my head back against the rear wall and closed my eyes.

I woke up when Forthill's steps drew near. I kept my eyes closed, half hoping that if I didn't seem to waken he would go away.

Instead, he settled a couple of feet down the pew from me, and remained patiently quiet.

The act wasn't working. I opened my eyes and looked at him.

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

I pressed my lips together and looked away.

"It's all right," Forthill said quietly. "If you wish to tell me, I'll speak of it to no one."

"Maybe I don't want to talk to you," I said.

"Of course," he said, nodding. "But my offer stands, should you wish to talk. Sometimes the only way to carry a heavy burden is to share it with another. It is your choice to make."

Choices.

Sometimes I thought it might be nice not to make any choices. If I never had one, I could never screw it up.

"There are things I don't care to share with a priest," I told him, but I was mostly thinking out loud.

He nodded. He took off his collar and set it aside. He settled back into the pew, reached into his jacket, and drew out a slender silver flask. He opened it, took a sip, and offered it to me. "Then share it with your bartender."

That drew a faint, snorting laugh from me. I shook my head, took the flask, and sipped. An excellent, smooth Scotch. I sipped again, and I told him what happened at the convention, and how it had spilled over onto the Carpenter household. He listened. We passed the flask back and forth. I finished by saying, "I sent those things right to her door. I never meant it to happen."

"Of course not," he said.

"It doesn't make me feel any better about it."

"Nor should it," he said. "But you must know that you are a man of power."

"How so?"

"Power," he said, waving a hand in an all-encompassing gesture. "All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action."

"I guess," I said. "So?"

"So," he said. "You have more choices. Which means that you have much improved odds of making mistakes. You're only human. Once in a while, you're going to screw the pooch."

"I don't mind that," I said. "When I'm the only one who pays for it."

"But that isn't in your control," he said. "You cannot see all outcomes. You couldn't have known that those creatures would go to the Carpenter house."

I ground my teeth. "So? Daniel's still hurt. Molly could be dead."

"But their condition was not yours to ordain," Forthill said. "All power has its limits."

"Then what's the point?" I snarled, suddenly furious. My voice bounced around the chapel in rasping echoes. "What good is it to have power enough to kill my friend's family, but not power enough to protect them? What the hell do you expect from me? I've got to make these stupid choices. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?"

"Sometimes," he replied, his tone serious, "you just have to have faith."

I laughed, and it came out loud and bitter. Mocking echoes of it drifted through the vast chamber. "Faith," I said. "Faith in what?"

"That things will unfold as they are meant to," Forthill said. "That even in the face of an immediate ugliness, the greater picture will resolve into something all the more beautiful."

"Show me," I spat. "Show me something beautiful about this. Show me the silver fucking lining."

He pursed his lips and mused for a moment. Then he said, "There's a quote from the founder of my order: There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"That the good that will come is not always obvious. Nor easy to see. Nor in the place we would expect to find it. Nor what we personally desire. You should consider that the good being created by the events this night may have nothing to do with the defeat of supernatural evils or endangered lives. It may be something very quiet. Very ordinary."

I frowned at him. "Like what?"

He finished off the little flask and then rose. He put it away and put his collar back on. "I'm afraid I'm not the one you should ask." He put a hand on my shoulder and nodded toward the altar. "But I will say this: I've been on this earth a fair while, and one way or another, this too shall pass. I have seen worse things reverse themselves. There is yet hope for Molly, Harry. We must strive to do our utmost, and to act with wisdom and compassion. But we must also have faith that the things beyond our control are not beyond His."

I sat quietly for a minute. Then I said, "You almost make me believe."

He arched an eyebrow. "But?"

"I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if it's possible for me."

The corners of his eyes wrinkled. "Then perhaps you should try to have faith that you might one day have faith." His fingers squeezed and then released my shoulder. He turned to go.

"Padre," I said.

He paused.

"You... won't tell Charity?"

He turned his head, and I could see sadness in his profile. "No. You aren't the only one too afraid to believe."

Sudden footsteps clattered into the chapel, and Alicia hurried in, accompanied by Mouse. The big grey dog sat down and stared up at the balcony. Alicia, panting, looked up. "Father?"

"Here," Forthill said.

"Come quick," she said. "Mama said to tell you Daniel's awake."