“I’m going to use the information to put a major hurting on the people trying to take your territory away from you, Marcone,” I said. “That’s more than payment enough.”

“And if I do not agree?” Marcone asked.

“Then we throw down, right here, and after I toss your attack dogs over the top of the Sears building, I hurt you until you give me the information anyway.”

That cold smile returned. “Is that how you think it would happen?”

I shrugged a shoulder and kept my expression bland. “I think there’s only one way to find out.” I leaned forward a little and pitched my voice in a conspiratorial murmur. “But just between you and me, I don’t think the terrain favors you here.”

He stared across his steepled fingers at me for a time. Then he said, “It certainly doesn’t favor me in the manner I would prefer.” He laid his hands flat on the table and leaned back slightly. “There’s no sense in making a confrontation out of this. And I have never yet regretted it when I allowed you to rid me of an enemy.”

“I didn’t do it as a favor to you.”

He shrugged. “Your motivations are immaterial. The results are what matter.”

“Just remember that you’re on my list, Marcone. Soon as I get done with all the other evils in this town, you won’t be the lesser of them anymore.”

Marcone stared at me with half-lidded eyes and said, “Eek.”

“You think it’s funny?”

“I am not unduly concerned by dead men, Dresden.”

I bristled. “Is that a threat?”

“Hardly. One day, probably soon, you’ll get yourself killed thanks to that set of irrational compulsions you call a conscience, long before my name tops your list. I needn’t lift a finger.” He shrugged. “Giving you information seems an excellent way to accelerate that process. It will also tax the resources of my enemies.” Marcone mused for a moment, and then said, “And . . . I believe I have no objection to contributing against any organization which would victimize children so.”

I glowered at him. Partly because he was probably right, and partly because he’d once again shown the flash of humanity that prevented me from lumping him in with every other evil, hungry, predatory thing lurking in the wild world. For his own reasons, Marcone would go to extreme lengths to help and protect children. In Chicago, any adult was fair game for his businesses. Any child was off-limits. Rumor had it that he had vanished every single one of his employees who had ever crossed that line.

Gard reappeared, frowning, and walked over to our table.

Marcone glanced at her. “Well?”

Gard hesitated and then said, “He won’t speak of it over the line. He says that you have incurred no debt with him for asking the question. He will only speak to Dresden. Personally.”

Marcone lifted his eyebrows. “Interesting.”

“I thought so,” Gard said.

“Ahem,” I said. “Who wants to meet me?”

“My . . . employer,” Gard said. “Donar Vadderung, CEO of Monoc Securities.”

Chapter 21

Gard and I went to Oslo.

It sounds like it would be a long trip, but it’s a hell of a lot faster when you don’t have to worry about boarding, clearing security, going through customs, or actually moving a linear distance.

Gard opened a Way into the Nevernever down near the zoo, simply cutting at the fabric of reality with a rune-etched dagger. The Way took us on a short hike through a dark wood of dead trees, and ended when we emerged in what she said was Iceland. It sure as hell was cold enough. A second Way took us across the surface of a frozen lake, to stop before the roots of a vast old tree whose trunk could have contained my apartment with room to spare for a garage.

From there, we emerged into what seemed like a cold, damp basement, and I found myself face-to-face with two dozen men wearing body armor and pointing sleek- looking, high-tech assault rifles at the end of my nose.

I did absolutely nothing. Carefully.

One of the men with guns said something, a short phrase in a language I didn’t understand. Gard answered in what I presumed to be the same tongue, and gestured to me.

The leader of the guards eyed us both suspiciously for a moment, then said something quietly and all the rifles stopped pointing at me. Two guards returned to stand on either side of a doorway. Two more took up a station facing Gard and me, evidently cautious about getting more company through the same Way we’d just used. The rest returned to a couple of card tables and a few sleeping cots.

Gard shook her head and muttered, “Einherjar. Give them a little sip of renewed mortality, and four thousand years of discipline go right out the window.”

“I recognize some of these guys,” I said. I nodded toward a trio playing cards. “Those three. They were some of the mercenaries Marcone brought to that party in the Raith Deeps.”

Gard glanced at the three and then rolled her eyes. “Yes. And?”

“And they’re just available for hire?” I asked.

“If you can afford them,” Gard said, smiling so that her teeth showed. “Though be warned that prices may vary. This way, Dresden.”

I followed her out into a hallway and past several rooms filled with enough weaponry to win a minor war in a century of one’s choice. Racks of ash-wood spears stood side by side with old bolt-action Mausers, which stood next to modern assault rifles. Katana-style swords shared a room with flintlocks and Maxim guns. One shelving unit housed an evolutionary progression of grenades, from powder-filled crockery with ignitable fuses to the most modern miniature flash-bang grenades. Judging from the variety of the place’s contents, it was like looking at a museum—but from the quantities present, it could only be an armory.

We got to an elevator whose walls were a simple metal grid, so that we could see out of them as we went up. I stopped counting after seeing seven floors of similarly equipped armories go by.

“Guess your boss believes in being prepared,” I said.

Gard smiled. “It’s one of his things, yes.”

“It’s a little extreme, isn’t it?”

She looked at me with an arched brow. Then she said, “One can have only as much preparation as he has foresight.”

I considered that for a moment, and decided that as cryptic statements went, it was all kinds of bad.

The elevator kept going up and up and up. Brief views of various floors went by. One floor looked like an enormous gym and was filled with sweating men and women working out. Another looked like an expensive legal office. Another was all done in antiseptic white, bathed with just a bit too much light, and smelled of disinfectant. Another was lit by candles and the murmuring of voices chanting. Still another was obviously some kind of enormous chemical laboratory. Still another level was filled with cells whose occupants could not be seen as anything other than shadowy presences. And so on.

I shook my head. “Hell’s bells. It’s like some kind of demented theme park.”

“The difference being that nothing you see here is meant to entertain,” Gard said. “And don’t bother asking questions. I won’t answer them. Ah, we’ve reached the ground floor.”

The elevator continued to rise up through an enormous atrium that housed ten or twelve stories of what looked like high-end corporate offices. Each floor was open to the atrium, and between the plants, decorative trees, the waterfall, and all the windows plus the skylights far above, the entire building looked like a single, massive garden. The sounds of office activity and equipment, birds, and the flowing waterfall all blended together into an active whole that formed a white noise bustling with life, variety, and movement. We soared up through the atrium and our open-sided elevator vanished into a short tunnel.

A moment later, the door opened on a rather novel reception area.