Butcher, Jim - Dresden Files 07 by Dead Beat

Author:Dead Beat [Beat, Dead]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-17T05:20:13.078000+00:00

He offered his hand, and we traded grips, hard. My hand must have been cold with nerves, because his felt warm. Then he let go of my hand, nodded to Bob and Butters, and headed out into the rain. A minute later Murphy's Harley grumbled in the backyard, and then purred off into the rain and gloom. I sat there in silence for a minute, then got up and went to the stove. I got the teapot out, filled it up, and put it on the gas burner to boil. It took me a minute to find Murphy's collection of teas, and it was gratuitously complex. I mean, come on, how many different types of tea do you really need? Maybe I'm prejudiced, because I take my tea with so much sugar that the actual flavor is sort of an aftertaste.

I found some in instant bags that smelled vaguely minty.

"Tea?" I asked Butters.

"Sure," he said.

I got out two cups.

"What's next?" he asked.

"Hot tea," I said. "Staying warm. Then I go out in the rain and call up the Erlking. You're staying inside while I do."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because it's going to be dangerous."

"Well, yeah," he said. "But why inside the house? I mean, this super-goblin can just rip the walls apart, right?"

"Strong enough to do it, probably," I said. "But it can't. The house is protected by its threshold."

Butters looked at me blankly. "Which means what?" I leaned a hip on the counter and explained. "A threshold is a kind of energy that surrounds a home. It's…" I frowned, thinking how to explain it. "It's sort of like the home has a positive charge to it. If outside magic wants to come in, it has to neutralize that charge first. Big, tough things from the Nevernever need a lot of power just to stay in our world. They don't usually have enough to take out a threshold and still have enough juice to be dangerous."

"It's like that vampire thing?" he asked. "They can't come in if you don't invite them?"

"Pretty much, yeah. If you invite something in, your threshold won't affect it. But other magical beings and energy have trouble with it. It's a solid defense."

"Didn't help your place much," Butters observed.

"My place is a rental apartment," I said. "And except for the past several months, it's been just me living there. Doesn't give it the same kind of energy as you'd find in a long-established home."

"Oh. Is that what they mean by 'safe as houses,' then?" I smiled a little. "A house doesn't make a home. When the place has got history, family, emotions, worries, joys worked into the wood, that's when it gets a solid threshold. This house has been in the Murphy clan for better than a hundred years, and lived in for every one of them. It's solid. You'll be safe in here."

"But it's not going to get loose once you call it up," Butters said. "Right?"

"That's the plan. But even if it did, you aren't the one who is going to piss it off.

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