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“Hello, Sir.”
Ebenezer froze and turned to look at the man standing at the gate of his farm.
A dead man stared back at him.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. The Council had told him Harry was alive, but he hadn’t really allowed himself to believe it. But the man staring at him was Harry, right down to that stupid expression he got when he knew he had done something stupid and was hoping the punishment wasn’t going to be too severe.
If it was a fake it was a good fake.
His staff was all wrong.
That almost comforted him. Harry, the real Harry, wouldn’t have been able to get a new blank from the lightening struck tree, whereas if it had been some fake thing pretending to be Harry it would have been able to imitate the staff perfectly.
No sense in being careless though. He opened up his Sight and looked at the man standing before him. It was still his boy. Only, there was a white demon attached to him. The Winter Mantle, he presumed. Ebenezer flinched away from it. Harry noticed and stared down at his feet.
Ebenezer found himself past his gate, crushing his boy to his chest.
“Let me breath, Sir,” said Harry, laughing a little, but there was relief in his voice too.
“C’mon,” said Ebenezer, “there are chores to do, boy. I’ve a few saved up for you.”
…
They worked for a full hour, Ebenezer watching as Harry relaxed into the old routines, a comfortable silence between them. Then Ebenezer asked, “So, what happened?”
Harry took a deep breath, “Well, I was shot. And I died. I think. I met an angel and came back as a ghost, at least, but it turns out Mab doesn’t like it when you renege on a deal. She, along with the help of Demonreach and a parasite in my head, brought me back. Somehow.”
Ebenezer stiffened, processing Harry’s words and (deciding to ignore the parasite comment for the moment) said, “Renege on a deal, Hoss?”
“Well, yes. I died,” said Harry.
“That’s part and parcel of being the Winter Knight. Don’t lie to me, boy. What you meant was you were the one to pull the trigger.”
“Technically speaking, I wasn’t-”
“Shut up. Stop talking.” Ebenezer stared at Harry, examining the lines of his face and his messy hair, “Why?”
“I thought it was better than becoming Her creature,” Harry sounded hopeless and a little lost, which made Ebenezer feel even worse. “That, and a Fallen Angel messed with my head, which made it sound a lot more sensible at the time.”
Ebenezer eyed Harry. Harry sighed, “Don’t ask.”
Ebenezer shook his head wearily.
“On the plus side,” said Harry, “I got a pep talk from an archangel and stopped Corpsetaker from coming back from the dead and ruining everyone’s day when I was a ghost. On the downside … everything else.” Harry ran his hand through his hair, “Do you know,” said Harry thoughtfully, “I’m not sure I would’ve done so well with the Mantle if I hadn’t had that pep talk from Mr Sunshine.”
“Mr Sunshine?”
“Uriel. He’s a little touchy about his name. Says mortals fling true names around like they’re nothing when really they’re like atom bombs waiting to go off. To be fair, he’s kinda right.”
They fell into an awkward silence until Harry said, an edge of frustration in his voice, “I’m sorry. I’ve apologised to everyone and I know it’s not – I know I messed up, but I-”
“Hoss,” Ebenezer said, interrupting him, the word drawn out and soft. “I can’t say there’s not part of me that isn’t furious right now, but you’ve got to understand that not everything is your fault. It’s my fault for not listening when you were trying to tell me your Maggie was in danger. It’s Mab’s fault for being Mab. It’s this Fallen Angel’s fault for manipulating you. It’s the Red’s fault for kidnapping Maggie. You’re in a bad situation now and you’ve got to deal with it. You won’t do that if you’re forever blaming yourself for what’s gone past. I don’t want to hear your apologies. You’re back now and you’ve – we’ve got to deal with what comes next.”
Harry’s voice was so quiet Ebenezer almost didn’t hear Harry when he said, “I killed her. Ebenezer, I killed her.”
“I know, son. God help me, I know. We do the terrible things so the people we love might be safe. That’s the burden of power. I had hoped you might never know it.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have taught me that power has a duty attached. Then I could’ve been like those other Council bastards sitting comfortably as people die.”
Ebenezer snorted “C’mon, let’s get inside. It’s getting cold.” Harry glanced at him and Ebenezer realised Harry hadn’t noticed the temperature shift. Perk of being the Winter Knight, he supposed.
…
Once they got inside Harry reached into his pocket and took out a seemingly blank piece of paper, muttered a few words and handed it to Ebenezer. It was a photo of Harry, the policewoman by his side and little Maggie on his shoulders.
He looked happy.
Ebenezer didn’t know why it hit him so hard until he realised just how rare that look was on Harry’s face. He had seen his boy happy before, of course, but the of look unashamed, unabashed joy was rare.
“Why are you showing me this?” he asked carefully.
Harry shrugged, “I thought you had the right to know I was in her life. And you could be too, if you wanted.”
“I thought you had decided not too… get involved.”
“Yeah, but then she asked if I was going to be her Daddy and all of a sudden I’m reading bedtime stories and going to Parent/Teacher meetings. I don’t know what happened,” he shrugged again, a guileless look on his face. “It was like magic.”
“What about-”
“My enemies?” Harry glanced at Ebenezer, his expression blank. “Never seemed to make a difference.”
Ebenezer hid a grimace. The old guilt. If he had gotten involved sooner, if he hadn’t burned so many bridges with his Maggie, then Harry might never have met DuMorne. And it wasn’t like distancing himself from his Maggie had made life easier for her.
Harry sighed, “I don’t make it obvious. Take precautions. Like the picture, nobody can see it except me. She’s got Mouse with her and she’s staying with the Carpenters and they’ve got a whole angelic horde protecting them,” his face darkened, “a few people have worked it out though. I don’t know what I’d do if she got hurt again. Last time I – well you know what happened last time, and I didn’t even know her then. Now I…” he looked at Ebenezer, his fists clenched.
“I know, Hoss. I know.” He knew what it was like to be protective; he tended to get unreasonable when people (or things) threatened Harry. He had once dropped a satellite on a vampire lord after a duel had gone south, and then there were the things Harry didn’t know about. Ebenezer looked at the picture again, “She looks a lot like Maggie. My Maggie, I mean. Has the same look in her eye. You should keep an eye her, she’ll run rings around you.”
Harry smiled, “Do you want to see her?”
“Last time I saw you, you were pretty set on not letting me know where you were taking her.”
Harry took a deep breath, “I’ve been doing some thinking. My friends have been helping,” he snorted, “in fact they’ve been doing some of it for me. But it boils down to this: I can either shut myself off and go insane, or,” he wavered, as if he was struggling with the words.
Ebenezer placed a gentle hand on Harry’s shoulder, “Let the people who love you, love you and help you,” he said.
“Yeah. Something like that. You’re family, old man,” he said, staring at a wall.
Ebenezer smiled, “I’d love to see her, Hoss.”
…
They sat by Ebenezer’s fire drinking beer. Harry had judged the beer to be ‘not as good as Mac’s’ but Ebenezer thought that was just loyalty to the old bartender. Clearly, his local brew was better.
“So,” he said, basking in the warmth, “What have you been up to lately?”
“Oh,” said Harry lightly, “not much. The normal, really.”
“‘The normal’ is different for you than most people, Hoss.”
“Monsters, demons, the usual. Anything that attacks Chicago goes boom, as well as few buildings. Insurance companies hate me. Especially Life Insurance, I’ve messed up all their figures.”
“Hoss,” Ebenezer said with a frown, “what are not telling me?”
“I’ve got a girlfriend. Karrin Murphy. You’ve met her, remember? You’d like her, brilliant, beautiful, deadly. Kicks my ass when it needs kicking.”
“Hoss,” said Ebenezer slowly.
“Moving back into Chicago. New digs and everything. Might even get a case like a proper PI.”
“Hoss.”
“Fine. Did back from the dead rehab with Mab – she kept trying to kill me, killed Maeve on Mab’s orders. Got trapped for a very educational year on Demonreach, burgled the Underworld with Nicodemus then double-crossed him.”
Ebenezer stared at Harry. Harry stared back. Ebenezer opened another bottle of beer, then after a moments consideration, opened another and handed one to Harry.
“So.” said Ebenezer, “So. What’s this parasite you mentioned earlier?”
Harry blinked. “Parasite?”
“You said a parasite in your head helped keep you alive.”
“Oh? Did I say that? Well I had a parasite in my head – that’s why I was stuck on Demonreach, Alfred was the only one that could control it, but before that it was sort of invested in keeping me alive. That’s how parasite’s work after all.”
“Alfred?”
“The spirit of the island. It was a joke because, y’know, Batcave, but it turns out island spirits don’t have much of a sense of humour and the name stuck.”
“And the parasite?”
Harry shrugged, “I don’t know. Must’ve picked it up somewhere, like a bad virus. It was slowly killing me and, of course, Mab used that to control me.”
Harry wasn’t telling him everything but Ebenezer decided not to push. Besides, he had long ago decided to trust his boy. That decision was more important than ever now his boy was getting into murky waters.
Ebenezer grunted softly, “And I thought I had trouble with Maggie,” he said. “You just had to go and outdo her, didn’t you?”
“She was never offered the position?”
“Just as well the Knights are always male.”
Harry grinned and leaned back into his chair, “Do you know, the whole situation may be fucked up, but I did deal Nicodemus a blow like nobody’s given him in a long time. It has its advantages.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Mab owed Nicodemus a favour, but she was pretty pissed about him breaking her accords when he kidnapped Ivy. So it was a fun game of who’s going to betray who first.”
“And you broke into the Underworld.”
“Met Hades as well. He’s a decent guy for a God, though it turns out he was in on it. Which was lucky for me,” Harry leaned back in his chair. “The thing is, Mab knows precisely how to manipulate me, even without,” he wiggled his figures in a vaguely ‘telepathic’ gesture, “mind-whammying me. It’s not like I was ever going to say no to a chance hurt Nicodemus.”
“He’ll get you back for that.”
Harry’s eyes went frighteningly blank, “I know. And he won’t come after me.”
Ebenezer shivered in sudden comprehension, “Little Maggie.”
Harry nodded and Ebenezer got the feeling the blankness was hiding a maelstrom, “He’s clever and he knows how to hurt people.” Harry sucked in breath, “I can’t lose her, Sir.”
An old pain flared and Ebenezer reach out and gripped Harry’s arm in his own weathered hand, “I know, Hoss. And goddammit, I’m not losing family again, do you hear me? That little girl is going to be the most well protected little girl that ever lived.”
Harry turned and gave him a sharp-toothed grin, “Agreed, Sir.”
…
Ebenezer managed to produce to some food after that and they ate and drank and talked about nothing. Ebenezer had a hundred more questions; why had Harry waited so long to come to him? What was this parasite Harry had mentioned and how had he picked it up? Who had actually pulled the trigger on his boy and did he need to kill them? What exactly had happened to Molly? And why had he been on the vampire’s boat when he had died?
But those were questions for another time. Now they were comfortable. The outside didn’t exist. It was almost like old times.
He had his boy back.