Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

I frowned. "Protect him and his people, of course. If I can. What did Lara mean when she said that Arturo's independent streak was a matter for the White Court?"
"Damned if I know." Thomas sighed. "I thought he was just someone Lara knew from the industry."
"Does your dad have any connection to him?"
"Dad doesn't advertise what he's doing, Harry. And I haven't spoken more than twenty words to him in the last ten years. I don't know."
"Would Lara?"
"Probably. But ever since Lara worked out that I wasn't just a dim-witted ambulatory penis, she's been on her guard when we've talked. I haven't been able to get much out of her. So now I mostly sit there and nod and look wise and make vague remarks. She assumes that I know something she doesn't, and then she thinks the vague remark is actually a cryptic remark. She wouldn't want to move on me until she's figured out what it is I'm hiding from her."
"That's a good tactic if people are paranoid enough."
"In the Raith household? Paranoia comes bottled, on tap and in hot and cold running neuroses."
"What about your dad? He know any magic?"
"Like maybe entropy curses?" Thomas shrugged. "I hear stories about things he's done in the past. Some of them must be close to true. Plus he's got a huge library he keeps locked up most of the time. But even without magic, he can just rip the life out of anyone who pisses him off."
"How?"
"It's like when we feed. It's usually slow, gradual. But he doesn't need that kind of time or intimacy. Just a touch, a kiss, and wham, they're dead. That whole kiss-of-death thing in The Godfather! He was where that phrase originated, only for him it was literal."
"Really?"
"Supposedly. I've never seen him do it myself, but Lara has, plenty of times. Madeline once told me once that he liked to open conversations that way, because it made sure he had the complete attention of everyone still breathing."
"Stories. Supposedly. For someone on the inside, your information isn't real helpful."
"I know," he said. "I'm not thinking clearly right now. I'm sorry."
I shook my head. "Can't throw stones."
"What do we do?" he asked. "I'm… I feel lost. I don't know what to do."
"I think I do," I said.
"What?"
Instead of answering him, I offered him my hand.
He took it, and I drew my brother to his feet.

"Let's start simple," I said. "How do you know Kincaid?"
He blew out a breath, cheeks puffing out. "He's in the trade."
"The trade?"
"Yes." Ebenezar sat down on the other end of the couch. The puppy got up on wobbling legs and snuffled over to examine him. His tail started wagging. Ebenezar gave the little dog a brief smile and scratched his ears. "Most of the major supernatural powers have someone for that kind of work. Ortega was the Red Court's, for example. Kincaid and I are contemporaries, of a sort."
"You're assassins," I said.
He didn't deny it.
"Didn't look like you liked him much," I said.
"There are proprieties between us," Ebenezar said. "A measure of professional courtesy and respect. Boundaries. Kincaid crossed them about a century ago in Istanbul."
"He's not human?"
Ebenezar shook his head.
"Then what is he?"
"There are people walking around who carry the blood of the Nevernever in them," Ebenezar said. "Changelings, for one, those who are half-Sidhe. The faeries aren't the only ones who can breed with humanity, though, and the scions of such unions can have a lot of power. Their offspring are usually malformed. Freakish. Often insane. But sometimes the child looks human."
"Like Kincaid."
Ebenezar nodded. "He's older than I am. When I met him, I still had hair and he had been serving the creature for centuries."
"What creature?" I asked.
"The creature," Ebenezar said. "Another half mortal like Kincaid. Vlad Drakul."
I blinked. "Vlad Tepesh? Dracula?"
Ebenezar shook his head. "Dracula was the son of Drakul, and pretty pale and skinny by comparison. Went to the Black Court as a kind of teenage rebellion. The original creature is… well. Formidable. Dangerous. Cruel. And Kincaid was his right arm for centuries. He was known as the Hound of Hell. Or just the Hellhound."
"And he's afraid of you," I said, my voice bitter. "Blackstaff McCoy. I guess that's your working name."
"Something like that. The name… is a long story."
"Get started, then," I said.
He nodded, absently rubbing the puppy behind the ears. "Ever since the founding of the White Council, ever since the first wizards gathered to lay down the Laws of Magic, there has been someone interested in tearing it apart," he said. "The vampires, for one. The faeries have all been at odds with us at one time or another. And there have always been wizards who thought the world would be a nicer place without the Council in it."
"Gee," I said. "I just can't figure why any wizard would think that."
Ebenezar's voice lashed out, harsh and cold. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy. You don't know what you're saying. Within my own lifetime, there have been times and places where even speaking those words could have been worth your life."
"Gosh, I'd hate to for my life to be in jeopardy. Why did he call you Blackstaff?" I asked, my voice hardening. An intuition hit me. "It's not a nickname," I said. "Is it. It's a title."
"A title," he said. "A solution. At times, the White Council found itself bound by its own laws while its enemies had no such constraints. So an office was created. A position within the Council. A mark of status. One wizard, and only one, was given the freedom to choose when the Laws had been perverted, and turned as weapons against us."
I stared at him for a moment and then said, "After all that you taught me about magic. That it came from life. That it was a force that came from the deepest desires of the heart. That we have a responsibility to use it wisely-hell, to be wise, and kind, and honorable, to make sure that the power gets used wisely. You taught me all of that. And now you're telling me that it doesn't mean anything. That the whole time you were standing there with a license to kill."
The lines in the old man's face looked hard and bitter. He nodded. "To kill. To enthrall. To invade the thoughts of another mortal. To seek knowledge and power from beyond the Outer Gates. To transform others. To reach beyond the borders of life. To swim against the currents of time."
"You're the White Council's wetworks man," I said. "For all their prattle about the just and wise use of magic, when the wisdom and justice of the Laws of Magic get inconvenient, they have an assassin. You do that for them."
He said nothing.
"You kill people."
"Yes." Ebenezar's face looked like something carved in stone, and his voice was quietly harsh. "When there is no choice. When lives are at stake. When the lack of action would mean-" He cut himself off, jaw working. "I didn't want it. I still don't. But when I have to, I act."
"Like at Casaverde," I said. "You hit Ortega's stronghold when he escaped our duel."
"Yes," he said, still remote. "Ortega killed more of the White Council than any enemy in our history during the attack at Archangel." His voice faltered for a moment. "He killed Simon. My friend. Then he came here and tried to kill you, Hoss. And he was coming back here to finish the job as soon as he recovered. So I hit Casaverde. Killed him and almost two hundred of his personal retainers. And I killed nearly a hundred people there in the house with them. Servants. Followers. Food."
I felt sick. "You told me it would be on the news. I thought maybe it was the Council. Or that you'd done it without killing anyone but vampires. I had time to think about it later, but… I wanted to believe you'd done what was right."
"There's what's right," the old man said, "and then there's what's necessary. They ain't always the same."
"Casaverde wasn't the only necessary thing you did," I said. "Was it."
"Casaverde," Ebenezar said, his voice shaking. "Tunguska. New Madrid. Krakatoa. A dozen more. God help me, a dozen more at least."
I stared at him for a long moment. Then I said, "You told me the Council assigned me to live with you because they wanted to annoy you. But that wasn't it. Because you don't send a potentially dangerous criminal element to live with your hatchet man if you want to rehabilitate him."
He nodded. "My orders were to observe you. And kill you if you showed the least bit of rebelliousness."
"Kill me." I rubbed at my eyes. The pounding in my hand grew worse. "As I remember, I got rebellious with you more than once."
"You did," he said.
"Then why didn't you kill me?"
"Jehoshaphat, boy. What's the point of having a license to ignore the will of the Council if you aren't going to use it?" He shook his head, a tired smile briefly appearing on his mouth. "It wasn't your fault you got raised by that son of a bitch DuMorne. You were a dumb kid, you were angry, and afraid, and your magic was strong as hell. But that didn't mean you needed killing. They gave the judgment to me. I used it. They aren't happy with how I used it, but I did."
I stared at him. "There's something else you aren't telling me."

He was silent for a minute. Then two. And a while later he said, "The Council knew that you were the son of Margaret LeFay. They knew that she was one of the wizards who had turned the Council's own laws against it. She was guilty of violating the First Law, among others, and she had… unsavory associations with various entities of dubious reputation. The Wardens were under orders to arrest her on sight. She'd have been tried and executed in moments when she was brought before the Council."
"I was told she died in childbirth," I said.
"She did," Ebenezar confirmed. "I don't know why, but for some reason she turned away from her previous associates-including Justin DuMorne. After that, nowhere was safe for her. She ran from her former allies and from the Wardens for perhaps two years. And she ran from me. I had my orders regarding her as well."
I stared at him in pained fascination. "What happened?"
"She met your father. A man. A mortal, without powers, without influence, without resources. But a man with a good soul, like few I have ever seen. I believe that she fell in love with him. But on the night you were born, one of her former allies found her and exacted his vengeance for her desertion." He looked up at me directly and said, "He used an entropy curse. A ritual entropy curse."
Shock paralyzed me for a moment. Then I said, "Lord Raith."
"Yes."
"He killed my mother."
"He did," Ebenezar confirmed.
"God. You're… you're sure?"
"He's a snake," Ebenezar said. "But I'm as sure as I can be."
The pounding spread up my arm, and the room pulsed brighter and dimmer in time with it. "My mother. He was standing three feet from me. He killed my mother." A child's pain-the emptiness in my life the shape of my unknown mother, my unfortunate father-swelled and screamed in rage. The source of that pain, or part of it, had finally been revealed to me. And in that moment, had I known where to strike, I would have eagerly embraced murder. Nothing mattered but exacting retribution. Nothing mattered but taking righteous vengeance for the death of a child's mother. My mother. I started shaking, and I knew that my sanity was buckling under the pressure.
"Hoss," Ebenezar said. "Easy, boy."
"Kill him," I whispered. "I'll kill him."
"No," Ebenezar said. "You've got to breathe, boy. Think."
I started gathering power. "Kill him. Kill him. Everything. All of it. Nothing left."
"Harry," Ebenezar snapped. "Harry, let go. You can't handle that kind of power. You'll kill yourself if you try."
I didn't care about that, either. The power felt too good-too strong. I wanted it. I wanted Raith to pay. I wanted him to suffer, screaming, and then die for what he had done to me. And I was strong enough to make it happen. I had the power and the resolve to bring such a tide of magic against him that he would be utterly destroyed. I would lay him low and make him howl for mercy before I tore him apart. He deserved nothing less.
And then fire blossomed in my hand again, so sudden and sharp that my back convulsed into an agonized arch, and I fell to the floor. I couldn't scream. The pain washed my fury away like dandelions before a flash flood. I looked around wildly and saw the old man's broad, calloused hand clamped down over my burned, lightly bandaged flesh with bruising strength. When he saw my eyes he released my hand, his expression sickened.
I curled up for a minute while my pounding heart telegraphed consecutive tidal waves of agony through me. It was several minutes before I could master the pain and sit slowly up again.
"I'm sorry," Ebenezar whispered. "Harry, I can't let you indulge your rage. You'll kill yourself."
"I'll take him with me," I got out between gritted teeth.
Ebenezar let out a bitter laugh. "No, you won't, Hoss."
"How do you know?"
"I've tried," he said. "Three times. And I didn't even get close. And you think your mother went without spending her death curse on her murderer? The creature who had enslaved her? Might as well ask if a fish remembered to swim."
I blinked at him. "What do you mean?"
"He's protected," he said quietly. "Magic just slides off him."
"Even a death curse?"
"Useless," he said bitterly. "Raith is protected by something big. Maybe a big damned demon. Maybe even some old god. He can't be touched with magic."
"Is that even possible?" I asked.
"Aye," the old man said. "I don't know how. But it is. Does a lot to explain how he got to become the White King."
"I don't believe it," I said quietly. "She'd been close to him. She must have known he was protected. She was strong enough to make the White Council afraid of her. She wouldn't have spent her curse for nothing."

Murphy picked up the gun, but before she could aim it at Madge, there was a blur, her head snapped to one side, and she dropped to the ground in abrupt stillness. Raith stood over her unmoving form, and bent with businesslike haste to recover her knife, his eyes moving to Thomas.
Fumbling in haste, I seized the sheath of my cane-sword from my belt, grabbing hard at my will, struggling to pull together power through the cloud of raw terror that had descended over my thoughts. I managed it, and normally invisible runes along the length of the cane burst into blue and silver light. There was a deep hum, so low that it could be felt more than heard, as I reached into the power the cane was meant to focus-the enormous and dangerous forces of earth magic.
I reached out through the cane for Lord Raith-
And felt nothing. Not just empty air and drifting dust, but nothing. A cold and somehow hungry emptiness that filled the space where he should have been. I'd felt something like it before, when I'd been near a mote of one of the deadliest substances that any world of flesh or spirit had ever known. My power, my magic, the flowing spirit of life, just vanished into it without getting near Raith.
I couldn't touch him. The void around him was so absolute, I knew without needing to doubt that there was nothing in my arsenal of arcane skills that could affect him.
But Madge didn't have any such protection.
I redirected my power, easily found the knife in Madge's hand, and without the circle to protect her, there was nothing she could do to keep me from seizing the knife in invisible bands of earth force, magnetism, and sending it tumbling out of her grip and into the abyss of the chasm near them.