“The what?” I asked, somewhat blankly.
Hey, I wasn’t used to that reaction from outfit guys being threatened with an orb of smoldering plasma, okay?
“The terrorist attack last month?” he said, as if I was an idiot. “It’s all over the fucking news? Hydro-something or other, the chemical in the hallucination gas the terrorists used. HBGB. I must have been exposed or something cause I’m tripping fucking balls right now.”
I blinked and shook my head and eyed him. “Look, dude. I am going to melt your face off if you don’t back off the lawsuit on Maya.” I pressed my hand a bit closer. “Believe me.”
He rolled his eyes and slapped my arm aside. I had to adjust the position of my hand to keep him from being badly burned.
“Give me a break, Dresden,” he said. “Look, there’s not much use in trying to scare a guy who is already hallucinating. If you’re here to beat me up, get it over with. I got shit to do.”
“I don’t think you understand what’s going on here,” I said, realizing as I did that I was precisely correct.
“Whatever,” Tripp said. “I’ve taken beatings before. And Heebie Jeebies or not, you ain’t got the stones to kill me. I looked into you. You think you’re a white hat. So, throw me a beating, break an arm, take a kneecap, or shut the fuck up.”
I took half a step back, somewhat confused.
I mean, I’ve had a lot of reactions to my magic. Outright denial had never been one of them.
Tripp continued. “News says the Heebie Jeebies are in the water. Probably got it in the shower with Amy.” He wrinkled his nose. “Says you should just go have a nice lie-down in a dark room until things get real again. Christ, maybe I should fucking do that.”
“I… uh…” I said.
“Look,” he said. “You think I don’t know how these tactics work? You can beat me up if you want to. You’re a big guy and I ain’t. But it ain’t gonna change what I do.” He blinked a few times and shook his head. “Fucking Heebie Jeebies. Get it over with or fuck off.”
I stepped back from the idiot, lowered my hand, and let the spell go. You can’t bluff someone that invincibly stupid. It just doesn’t work.
“Whew,” Tripp said, as the spell faded. He blinked his eyes several times. “Think a fucking lie down is a good idea, maybe. You’re shit at being a hardass, Dresden. Go tell Maya that she’s gonna have to pony up the money one way or another. Where’s my fucking gun?”
“Leave it,” I told him.
“Get another one easy enough,” he said, and stood up from the car. He eyed me. “Wait. You might not even fucking be here.” He peered at me, then the gun, and went over and picked it up.
I didn’t stop him. I mean, stars and stones. I kept a defensive spell ready in case he turned the weapon on me, but he only shoved it in his sports coat pocket, and said, “Yeah, might have imagined all of this. Fuck you. I’m going to bed.”
And he stumped off back to his house and left me standing there next to a dead BMW, feeling utterly disoriented. As far as I could tell, HBGB was a propaganda stunt on behalf of the mortal powers-that-be to help cover up the massive presence of the supernatural in Chicago during the attack, and to work to silence anyone who tried to bear witness to what they had experienced. The news was saying that it was a toxin that would linger for a time, and could have long term deleterious psychological effects, but I knew the truth: It didn’t exist.
I had just been defeated by a literal hallucination built from denial and the most determined and pettily self-interested stupidity I had ever encountered.
I think I had told Bob something like this before: stupid is way more dangerous than actual evil, if only because there’s so much more of it around. I simply wasn’t used to encountering it in such four-dimensional density, all in one place and at one time.
Hell’s bells.
I was going to have to find another angle.
Chapter Six
Imet with Will and Paranoid Gary first thing after I got moving the next morning.
Paranoid Gary was a lean kid, Indian by way of Indiana, with light brown skin and eyes to match. He wore his hair cut in a buzz on the sides and left kind of unkempt and curly on top, and he looked nervous when he sat down in my office. Will lurked in the doorway, his folded forearms looking like ham hocks.
“Hey Gary,” I said.
“You could have called,” Gary said, not meeting my eyes. Paranoid Gary was one of the more notorious figures on the Paranet. There wasn’t a conspiracy theory (or conspiracy) he didn’t believe in. UFOs, Bigfoot, the Templars, secret government cabals, you name it, he pursued it fanatically. As a result, he’d stumbled across more truth about the supernatural world than quite a few of the actual citizens thereof.
It probably hadn’t been supremely healthy for his sanity. Most mortals are probably better off like Tripp Gregory, shielded from nightmares by their ignorance. Of course, that changed the moment they got targeted by one supernatural predator or another, but for the ninety-nine percent, moving along with their lives without being aware of how vulnerable they are probably means they’re happier in the long run.
Hell. Maybe the government wasn’t entirely wrong when they’d faked the Heebie Jeebies. It would give that majority an opportunity to stay marginally saner behind the shield of denial it would offer. And it wasn’t like someone like Tripp or Maya could stand up to mad Titans and ancient horrors from Outside the known universe.
