demonreach party

I heard her make a displeased sound, but it was still ladylike. "What do we intend to do about this, Harry?"
"Do you have a nice dress?"
"Pardon?"
I found myself grinning maniacally. "I'm throwing a party."
Thomas's phone rang four times before the connection opened. There was a moment of silence. Then Thomas spoke, his voice raw and ragged. "Harry?"
My heart just about stopped beating to hear my brother's voice. "Thomas. How's it going?"
"Oh," he rasped, "I'm just hanging around."
I've seen Thomas in agony before. He sounded exactly like this.
The phone emitted random noises, and then the yowl-purring voice of the skinwalker came over the line. "He is here. He is alive. For now. Give me the doomed warrior."
"Okay," I said.
There was a moment of silent consternation from the far end of the line.
"Bring him to me," it said.
"Nah. That isn't going to happen."
"What?"
"You're coming to me."
"Do you wish me to end his life this instant?"
"Frankly, Shaggy, I don't give a damn," I said, forcing boredom into my voice. "It'd be nice to be able to return one of the vampires to his own, get myself a marker I can call in some day. But I don't need it." I paused. "You, on the other hand, need Thomas to be alive, if you expect me to trade Morgan for him. So this is how it's going to go down. At dusk, you will be contacted on this phone. You will be told where our meeting will take place. When you arrive, you will show me the vampire, alive and well, and when he is returned to me, you will take Morgan without contest."
"I am not some mortal scum you can command, mageling," Shagnasty seethed.
"No. You're immortal scum."
"You blind, flesh-feeding worm," Shagnasty snarled. "Who are you to speak to me so?"
"The worm who's got what you need," I said. "Dusk. Keep the phone handy."
I hung up on him.
My heart hammered against my chest and cold sweat broke out over my upper body. I felt myself shaking with terror for Thomas, with weariness, with reaction to the conversation with Shagnasty. I leaned my aching head against the earpiece of the phone and hoped that I hadn't just ended my brother's life.
One more call.
The White Council of Wizards uses telephone communications like everyone else, albeit with a lot more service calls. I gave headquarters a ring, gave them the countersign to their security challenge, and got patched through to one of the administrative assistants, an earnest young woman not quite finished with her apprenticeship.
"I need to get a message to every member of the Senior Council," I told her.
"Very well, sir," she said. "What is the message?"
"Get this verbatim. Okay?"
"Yes, sir."
I cleared my throat and spoke. "Be advised that I have been sheltering Warden Donald Morgan from discovery and capture for the past two days. An informant has come to me with details of how Warden Morgan was framed for the murder of Senior Council Member LaFortier. Warden Morgan is innocent, and what's more, I can prove it.
"I am willing to meet with you tonight, on the uncharted island in Lake Michigan, east of Chicago at sundown. The informant will be present, and will produce testimony that will vindicate Warden Morgan and identify the true culprit of the crime.
"Let me be perfectly clear. I will not surrender Warden Morgan to the alleged justice of the Council. Come in peace and we will work things out. But should you come to me looking for a fight, be assured that I will oblige you."
The assistant had started making choking sounds after the very first sentence.
"Then sign it 'Harry Dresden,' " I said.
"Um. Yes, sir. Sh-shall I read that back to you?"
“Please."
She did. I'd heard sounds of movement in the background around her, but as she read aloud, all of those sounds died to silence. When she finished, she asked, in a rather small, squeaky voice, "Do I have that down correctly, sir?"
Murmurs burst out in the background over the phone, excited and low.
"Yeah," I told her. "Perfect."

Turn Coat Chapter 37, Page 358-362


I slipped it back over my head and nodded. "I'd planned on lying off the island until closer to dark."
"Why?"
"Mostly because I just challenged the Senior Council to a brawl there at sundown," I said.
Molly choked on her gum.
I ignored her. "I didn't want to make it easy for them to slip up on me. Oh, and I've arranged to trade Thomas for Morgan with Shagnasty. He won't get word of where to go until later, though. I think otherwise he'd cheat and show up early. He looks like a shifty character."
The pun went past Molly, or maybe she was just that good at ignoring it. "You're trading Morgan for Thomas?"
"Nah. I just want to get Shagnasty out here with Thomas in one piece so that the White Court can take him down."
Molly stared at me. "The White Court, too?"
I nodded happily. "They've got a stake in this as well."
"Um," she said. "Why do you think the Senior Council will take you up on your challenge?"
"Because I told them I was going to be producing an informant who would give testimony about who really killed LaFortier."
"Do you have someone like that?" Molly asked.
I beamed at her. "No."
She stared at me for a moment, clearly thinking. Then she said, "But the killer doesn't know that."
My smile widened. "Why, no, Miss Carpenter. He doesn't. I made sure word got around headquarters of my challenge to the Senior Council. He's got no choice but to show up here if there's any chance at all that I might actually have found an informant ready to blow his identity-which, by the way, would also provide substantial proof of the existence of the Black Council."
Her golden brows knitted. "What if there's no chance of such an informant existing?"
I snorted. "Kid, groups like these guys, the ones who maim and kill and scheme and betray-they do what they do because they love power. And when you get people who love power together, they're all holding out a gift in one hand while hiding a dagger behind their back in the other. They regard an exposed back as a justifiable provocation to stick the knife in. The chances that this group has no one in it who might believably have second thoughts and try to back out by bargaining with the Council for a personal profit are less than zero."
Molly shook her head. "So... he or she will call in the Black Council to help?"
I shook my head. "I think this is happening because the killer slipped up and exposed himself to LaFortier. He had to take LaFortier out, but with all the security at Edinburgh, there was every chance something could go wrong and it did. Everything else he's done has smacked of desperation. I think that if the Black Council finds out that their mole has screwed up this thoroughly, they'd kill him themselves to keep the trail from leading back to them." I stared at the glowering mass of Demonreach. "His only chance is to tie off any loose ends that might lead back to him. He'll be here tonight, Molly. And he's got to win. He has nothing to lose."
"But you're putting everyone together in a confined space, Harry," Molly said. "This is going to be a huge mess."
"Pressure cooker, padawan," I said, nodding. "The perp is already desperate enough to be acting hastily and making mistakes. Especially the mistake of taking things a step too far and trying to incriminate the White Court in LaFortier's death as well."
Molly stared out at the water thoughtfully. "So you put him together in a confined space with two major groups of power who will want to kill him. His worst nightmare has got to be the wizards and the White Court being drawn into a closer alliance because of what he's done. And with as much power as they have, there's no way he's going to be able to fight them all."
I smiled at her. "Yeah. It sucks to feel helpless," I said. "Especially for a wizard, because we usually aren't. Or at least, we're usually able to convince ourselves that we aren't."
"You think he'll crack," she said.
"I think he'll be there. I think that with enough pressure, something is going to pop loose, somewhere. I think he'll try something stupid. Maybe a preemptive spell, something to take everyone down before they know a fight is on."
"A sneak attack," Molly said. "Which won't be a sneak attack if you know where he is and what he's doing. Intellectus!"
I tapped my temple with a finger. "Capital thinking, grasshopper."

Turn Coat Chapter 38, Page 367-370