Three of my Knights of the Bean were loitering in the great hall at a folding card table, playing listless hands of poker using M&M’s as chips. I’d have joined them, but when I did, I spent most of my time eating my bets.
Will was doing most of the talking, while I nodded and made the occasional monosyllabic comment, and at precisely eight o’clock, someone started pounding on the castle’s great door.
The reaction was instantaneous. Will came to his feet, whipped off his T-shirt in a single smooth movement, and rippled into the form of a lean, terrible timber wolf who stepped calmly out of his sweatpants. The Knights of the Bean rose, taking up weapons—shotguns and a high-powered deer rifle, in this case. The parents acted a beat later, rising and hurrying back out of the great hall toward their chambers, doubtless to round up their kids.
I glanced back over my shoulder until the civilians were out of theway. Then I put down my cup of coffee, rose deliberately, and started for the door, taking up my staff as I walked, passing into the entry hall.
The front doors of the castle were great double doors twice as high as the average Joe. We opened both doors whenever the troops needed to sally out, which was never, and the rest of the time we used the smaller door that was built into one of the big ones. The knocking was coming from the small door, and I shot the bolt without preamble, calling enough power into my staff to set the runes carved into it ablaze with green-gold light and to fill the air with the faint scent of woodsmoke.
Then I faced the door and called, “What’s the password?”
The knocking stopped.
There was a silent moment, and then a scratching sound beneath the larger doors. With a little difficulty, someone managed to wiggle a small vellum envelope beneath the door.
I picked it up, testing it with my wizard’s senses, but there wasn’t anything to it but paper. I mean, I suppose someone could have put anthrax in it or something, but when I opened it carefully there wasn’t any powder or anything. Just a note:
Harry,
What you asked for and a little more.
—Lara
I scanned the note and then held it down at eye level for Will, who let out a suspicious growl.
“I know,” I said. “It’s weirding me out a little, too. Stand ready.”
The Knights of the Bean fanned out and covered the doorway from several angles. I just hoped none of them would shoot me in the back. They had hearts of solid oak, and they’d stood to fight when Chicago needed them, but they weren’t professionals.
I waited until they were in position and opened the door.
“Hi!” boomed a large, cheerful-looking woman on the other side. “I’m Bear!”
I blinked for a moment.
When I said she was a large woman, I meant larger than me. Seven feet tall if she was an inch. She wasn’t any kind of lean, mean fighting machine, either. She probably weighed around four hundred, and that was before you added in the heavy canvas sling bag she had on her shoulder, the rifle cases under one arm, and the scaled-up, stuffed-full ruck she had on her back. She was pretty and round-cheeked, with forest-green eyes and dark brown hair pulled into a braid as thick as my forearm, and her smile was absolutely radiant. She wore comfortable jeans and a battered old black biker jacket over a golden T-shirt.
“I like it when they answer their own door,” she said. “You’re theseidrmadr, huh?”
“Uh,” I said, looking up at her. That was not an angle to which I was accustomed. “I’m Dresden.”
She tilted her head back over her shoulder. “I come bearing beds, meds, and a doc,” she said. “Plus me.”
I leaned my head out enough to look past her, though I had to stand on tiptoe to do it. Sure enough, on the street outside was a trio of little workhorse four-wheelers, each of them hauling a trailer big enough to handle several mattresses. I recognized Lara’s head of security, a guy named Riley, at the head of the column. He was helping a middle-aged woman carrying a satchel with a red cross on it off the back of one of the four-wheelers.
“Plus you?” I asked, feeling somewhat bewildered. “Oh wait.Seidrmadr.You’re a Valkyrie.”
Bear clapped my shoulder, and several things in her ruck and bags clanked. “Buddy,” she said, “I’mtheValkyrie. And I’m here to protect your skinny ass. Invite me in.”
“Hah,” I said. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
Bear scowled at me, nodding. “Careful. That’s smart. Well, Riley over there will vouch for me. Freydis told me to tell you a seven is better than any man has done since Hastings and to call her if you want to share a bottle. And here.” She stuffed her free hand into her jacket pocket, pulled out a heavily folded sheaf of papers, and thrust them at me.
I took it and unfolded it as best as I could. It had what appeared tobe barbecue sauce stains on it, but the paper was on familiar letterhead. Monoc Securities. I scanned the contract, between said corporation and Lara Raith.
“…whose sole duty will be to protect the person and home of Harry Dresden, wizard, currently residing in the city of Chicago…” I muttered. “Term of service of not less than five years.”
I practically choked upon reading that. I’d looked into what it might take to hire one myself, and Valkyries cost way more than a guy with a couple of gym socks full of mystery diamonds could afford.
