—
It had taken more than a week to arrange, but I got together for a talk with Michael, Sanya, and Butters at the Carpenters’ place one evening. Michael had a firepit in the backyard and we used it, building up a fire and settling on wooden benches around it.
My stomach felt weird as I approached. I didn’t want to say some of the things I needed to say. I thought about bailing, making some excuse. But I took a slow breath and made myself walk over to the fire and settle down among men who had, until last summer, always been my friends.
“I tell you the truth, Thailand is beautiful,” Sanya was saying in his rumbling low voice and Russian accent. He was a tall and brawny man with deep brown skin and flashing, humorous dark eyes. He wore a big black coat and motorcycle boots. “The beach. The forests. People there are good to animals.”
He was assisting Butters, who was walking with the aid of a cane. Butters was a little guy a few inches under average height with a beakynose. His black haystack of a head of hair had been trimmed down very short, and it made him look even smaller. He had to sit down on the wooden bench slowly and carefully.
“Sounds great,” he said to Sanya. “Ow, yeah, okay, thanks.”
“This is not a good look for Knights,” Sanya said thoughtfully, frowning down at Butters. “But you look much better than when you were in that cast.”
“Worst two months ever,” Butters groaned in agreement. “Imagine everything below your chest itching all the time, like, every day, and never being able to do anything about it.” He set the cane down and raked the fingertips of both hands over his thighs, as if they’d burst into itching hives. “Ugh. But the surgeon said he’d never seen anyone recover so well, much less a guy my age. And the therapist is always shocked when I come in. Everything is going kind of ideally.”
“I did that twice, in my time,” Michael said affably. He started passing out bottles of Mac’s ale. “Reality does tend to function well for those in the direct service of its Creator. Doctors thought it a miracle that I survived the second injury at all, much less walked again.”
Butters took up his beer, grinning. “Join the Knights of the Cross: It could be worse.”
Sanya burst out in deep, rolling laughter and lifted his bottle. “It could be worse.”
“That isn’t what…” Michael sighed. “All right. Fine. It could be worse.”
“Skoal,” I said, and we clinked bottles and drank.
“Dresden,” Sanya said affably, almost before he’d swallowed his ale. “You look like you have not slept or eaten well in months. Is that succubus devouring your soul?”
I snorted. “I didn’t think you were big on the whole concept of souls,” I said. “Agnostic guy.”
“Soul, life force, anima,” Sanya said, waving it off with one hand. “Whatever. Is she eating you?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“I’m watching him,” Michael said easily. “He’s fine.”
I blinked and looked at Michael.
“I have three crews working,” Michael said gently. “Normally I rotate between them. But I wanted to make sure your new home was done well.”
“And babysit me daily?” I asked.
“Happy coincidence,” Michael said, grinning. I made a rude sound, and he laughed. “Hah. I like it. You sound more like you every day.”
Sanya snorted. “I was enjoying time on beach with drinks that they sell by the coconut and flew out here to the middle of winter because I hear you need to talk, Dresden,” he said. “I wish to know what is this important.”
“Yeah,” Butters said. He gestured with his bottle. “I mean, you’ve kinda been a stranger for a while, man.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Um.”
Michael took a drink, gave me a small smile, and nodded encouragingly.
“It’s about the battle,” I said in a low voice.
Things got quiet, quick.
I checked. Sanya’s face was…bleakisn’t the right word, but definitelydistant. Butters frowned in concentration and his intelligent eyes focused on me through his round glasses, the fire reflected in the lenses.
“When Karrin died,” I began.
