Small Favor

From down here you could also see the far wall of the big tank, which was a curved wall of glass that faced the open waters of Lake Michigan. That always seemed a little sadistic to me. I mean, here were animals whom nature had equipped to roam the open vastness of the deep blue sea, being kept in a mere three million gallons or so of water. Bad enough to do that to them without giving them a window seat onto all that open water too.

Or maybe it wasn’t. I hear it kind of sucks to be a whale or a dolphin in the open ocean these days, given the state of the fishing industry.

"I guess they’re looking at a can one way or another," I muttered.

"Hmmm?" Kincaid said.

"Nothing."

Ivy let out her breath in a satisfied sigh a moment later as the otters vanished into their den. Then she turned toward us and blinked. "Oh," she said. Her cheeks colored slightly, and for a moment she looked very much like a young girl. "Oh." She smoothed wrinkles that didn’t exist in her trousers, nodded at Kincaid, and said, "Yes?"

Kincaid nodded toward me. "Local law enforcement wants a representative present to observe. Dresden’s supporting it."

She took that in for a moment. "Sergeant Murphy?"

"Yes," I said.

"I see." She frowned. When she spoke, her tone was careful, as if she was considering each word before she spoke it. "Speaking as arbiter, I have no objection, provided both parties involved in the parley give their assent."

"Right," Kincaid said. He turned and started walking.

I nodded to Ivy, who returned the gesture. Then I turned and hurried to catch up to Kincaid. "So?" I asked him as we climbed the stairs.

"So," he said, "let’s go talk to Nicodemus."

Kincaid led me down the way from the Oceanarium and out to the main entry hall. It’s another grandiose collection of shining stone floor and towering Corinthian columns, arranged around a huge tank the size of a roller rink. It’s full of salt water and coral and seaweed and all kinds of tropical fish. Sometimes there’s a diver with a microphone built into his or her mask feeding the little sharks and fish and talking to gawking tourists. Diffused light floods in through an enormous, triangular-paneled cupola overhead.

The recent snow had blackened the panes of the cupola and drifted up over most of the glass front doors, so the only light in the room came from the little colored lights in the huge tank. Fish glided through the tank like wraiths, the odd light casting sinister shades over their scales, and their shadows drifted disembodied over the walls of the room, magnified by the distance and the glass walls of the aquarium.

It was eerie as hell.

One of the shadows drew my attention as some instinct picked out a strong, subtle sense of menace about it. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that this particular shadow disturbed me because it was human, and moving in a perfect, gliding pace around the wall, behind the shadow of one of the tank’s small but genuine sharks-even though the man who cast the shadow was standing perfectly still.

Nicodemus turned from contemplating the fish swimming in the tank so that I could see the outline of his profile against the softly colored lights. His teeth gleamed orange-red in the light of the nearest underwater lamp.

I stopped myself from taking an involuntary step back, but just barely.

"It is a metaphor," he said quietly. He had a good voice, mellow and surprisingly deep. "Look at them. Swimming. Eating. Mating. Hunting, killing, fleeing, hiding, each to its nature. All of them so different. So alien to one another. Their world in constant motion, always changing, always threatening, challenging." He moved one arm, sweeping it in a wider gesture. "They cannot know how fragile it is, or that they are constantly surrounded by beings with the power to destroy their world and kill them all with the twitch of a finger. It is no fault of theirs, of course." Nicodemus shrugged. "They are simply…limited. Very, very limited. Hello, Dresden."

"You’re playing the creepy vibe a little hard," I said. "Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music."

He laughed quietly. It didn’t sound evil as much as it did rich and supremely confident. "There’s some irregularity with the meeting, I take it?"

Kincaid glanced at me and nodded.

"Local law enforcement wishes a representative to be present," I said.

Nicodemus’s head tilted. "Really? Who?"

"Does it matter?" Kincaid asked, his tone bored. "The Archive is willing to permit it, if you have no objections."

Nicodemus turned all the way around finally. I couldn’t see his expression, just his outline against the tank. His shadow, meanwhile, kept circling the room behind the shark. "Two conditions," he said.

"Go on," Kincaid said.

"First, that the representative be unarmed, and that the Archive guarantee his neutrality in the absence of factors that conflict with matters of law-enforcement duty."

Kincaid glanced at me. Murphy wouldn’t like the "unarmed" part, but she’d do it. If nothing else, she wouldn’t want to back down in front of me-or maybe Kincaid.

But I had to wonder, what was Nicodemus’s problem with an armed cop? Guns did not bother the man. Not even a little. Why that stipulation?

I nodded at Kincaid.

"Excellent," Nicodemus said. "Second…" He walked forward, each footstep sounding clearly upon the marble floors, until we could see him in the nearest floorlights. He was a man of medium height and build, his features handsome, strong, his eyes dark and intelligent. Hints of silver graced his immaculate hair, though he was holding up pretty well for a man of two thousand. He wore a black silk shirt, dark pants, and what could have been mistaken for a grey Western tie at his throat. It wasn’t. It was an old, old rope from the same field as his coin. "Second," he said, "I want five minutes alone with Dresden."

"No offense, Nick," I said, "but that’s about five minutes longer than I want to spend with you."

"Exactly," he replied, smiling. It was the kind of smile you see at country clubs and in boardrooms and on crocodiles. "There’s really never a good opportunity for us to have a civilized conversation. I’m seizing the chance for a chat." He gestured at the building around us. "Sans demolition, if you think you can refrain."

I scowled at him.

"Mister Archleone," Kincaid said, "are you offering a peace bond? If so, the Archive will hold you to it."

"I offer no such thing," Nicodemus said without looking away from me. "Dresden would count it as worthless coin, and his is the only opinion that really matters in this particular situation." He spread his hands. "A talk, Dresden. Five minutes. I assure you, if I wished to do you harm, even the Hellhound’s reputation"-he paused deliberately to glance at Kincaid with naked contempt in his gaze-"would not make me hesitate for an instant. I would have killed you already."