Controls courts

The little girl was sitting in a booth against the far wall. The four thugs were fanned out on either side of her, guns in hand but pointing at the floor. Sitting with the little girl in the booth was the ADA’s pretty assistant. When I came through the door, she lifted a hand and clicked a remote, and Lady Gaga’s voice cut off in the midst of wanting my bad romance.
“Far enough,” the woman said. “It would be a shame if someone panicked and this situation devolved. Innocents could be hurt.”
I stopped. “Who are you?” I asked.
“Tania Raith,” she replied, and gave me a rather dizzying smile.
House Raith was the foremost house of the White Court of vampires. They were seducers, energy drainers, and occasionally a giant pain in the ass. The White Court was headed up by Lara Raith, the uncrowned queen of vampires, and one of the more dangerous persons I’d ever met. She wielded enormous influence in Chicago, maybe as much as the head of the Chicago outfit, Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, gangster lord of the mean streets.
I made damned sure to keep track of the thugs and precisely what they were doing with their hands as I spoke. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. Let her go.”
She rolled her eyes and spun a finger through fine, straight black hair. “Why should I?”
“Because you know what happened the last time some vampires abducted a little girl and I decided to take her back.”
Her smile faltered slightly. As it should have. When the bloodsucking Red Court had taken my daughter, I took her back—and murdered every single one of them in the process. The entire species.
I’m not a halfway kind of person.
“Lara likes you,” Tania said. “So I’m going to give you a chance to walk out of here peacefully. This is a White Court matter.”
I grunted. “Black was one of yours?”
“Gregor Malvora,” she confirmed. “He was Malvora scum, but he was our scum. Lara can’t allow the mortal buck who did it to go unpunished. Appearances. You understand.”
“I understand that Gregor abducted a child. He did everything he could to frighten her, and then fed on her fear. If Luther hadn’t killed him, what would he have done to the little girl?”
“Oh, I shudder to think,” Tania replied. “But that is, after all, what they do.”
“Not in my town,” I said.
She lifted her eyebrows. “I believe Baron Marcone has a recognized claim on this city. Or am I mistaken?”
“I’ve got enough of a claim to make me tickled to dump you and your brute squad into the deepest part of Lake Michigan if you don’t give me back the girl.”
“I think I’ll keep her for a day or two. Just until the trial is over. That will be best for everyone involved.”
“You’ll give her to me. Now.”
“So that she can testify and exonerate Mr. Luther?” Tania asked. “I think not. I have no desire to harm this child, Dresden. But if you try to take her from me, I will, reluctantly, be forced to kill her.”
The girl’s lower lip trembled, and tears started rolling down her face. She didn’t sob. She did it all in silence, as if desperate to draw no attention to herself.
Yeah, okay.
I wasn’t going to stand here and leave a little kid to a vampire’s tender mercies.
“Chicago is a mortal town,” I said. “And mortal justice is going to be served.”
“Oh, my God,” Tania said, rolling her eyes. “Did you really just say that out loud? You sound like a comic book.”
“Comic book,” I said. “Let’s see. Do I go for ‘Hulk smash,’ or ‘It’s clobberin’ time’?”
Tania tensed, though she tried to hide it, and her voice came out in a rush. “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think, that Chicago’s only professional wizard wound up on that jury?”
I tilted my head and frowned. She was right. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more this felt like a turf war. “Oh. Oh, I get it. Luther was one of Marcone’s soldiers.”
“So loyal he went to prison for ten years rather than inform on Marcone,” Tania confirmed. “Or maybe just smart enough to know what would happen to him if he did. He went straight after he got out, but …”
“When he got in trouble, Marcone stood up for one of his own,” I said. “He pulled strings to get me on the jury.”
“Luther was getting nailed to a wall,” Tania said. “Marcone controls crime, but Lara has a lot of say over the law these days. I suppose he thought someone like you might be the only chance Luther had. Gutsy of him, to try to make a cat’s-paw of Harry Dresden. I hear you don’t like that.”


Brief Cases, Jury Duty, Page 343-345