Death Masks

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.