Songs of Love & Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

and said, “Don’t meet her eyes, Murph. She’s a vampire. Red Court.”
    “Got it,” she said, her gun never moving from Maroon.
    The vampire looked at us both for a moment. Then she said, “You need no introduction, Mr. Dresden. I am Baroness LeBlanc. And our nations are not, at the moment, in a state of war.”
    “I’ve always been a little fuzzy on legal niceties,” I said. I had several devices with me that I could use to defend myself. I was ready to use any of them. A vampire in close quarters is nothing to laugh at. LeBlanc could tear three or four limbs off in the time it takes to draw and fire a gun. I watched her closely, ready to act at the slightest resemblance of an attack. “We both know that the war is going to start up again eventually.”
    “You are out of anything reasonably like your territory,” she said, “and you are trespassing upon mine. I would be well within my rights under the Accords to kill you and bury your torso and limbs in individual graves.”
    “That’s the problem with this ride,” I complained to Murphy. “There’s nothing that’s actually
scary
in the Tunnel of Terror.”
    “You did get your money back,” she pointed out.
    “Ah, true.” I smiled faintly at LeBlanc. “Look, Baroness. You know who I am. You’re doing something to people’s minds, and I want it stopped.”
    “If you do not leave,” she said, “I will consider it an act of war.”
    “Hooray,” I said in a Ben Stein monotone, spinning one forefinger in the air like a New Year’s noisemaker. “I’ve already kicked off one war with the Red Court. And I will cheerfully do it again if that is what is necessary to protect people from you.”
    “That’s irrational,” LeBlanc said. “Completely irrational.”
    “Tell her, Murph.”
    “He’s completely irrational,” Murphy said, her tone wry.
    LeBlanc regarded me impassively for a moment. Then she smiled faintly and said, “Perhaps a physical confrontation is an inappropriate solution.”
    I frowned. “Really?”
    She shrugged. “Not all of the Red Court are battle-hungry blood addicts, Dresden. My work here has no malevolent designs. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
    I tilted my head. “That’s funny. All the corpses piled up say differently.”
    “The process
does
have its side effects,” she admitted. “But the lessons garnered from them serve only to improve my work and make it safer andmore effective. Honestly, you should be supporting me, Dresden. Not trying to shut me down.”
    “Supporting you?” I smiled a little. “Just what is it you think you’re doing that’s so darned wonderful?”
    “I am creating love.”
    I barked out a laugh.
    LeBlanc’s face remained steady, serious.
    “You think that
this
, this warping people into feeling something they don’t want to feel, is
love
?”
    “What is love,” LeBlanc said, “if not a series of electro-chemical signals in the brain? Signals that can be duplicated, like any other sensation.”
    “Love is more than that,” I said.
    “Do you love this woman?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “But that isn’t anything new.”
    LeBlanc showed her teeth. “But your current longing and desire is new, is it not? New and entirely indistinguishable from your genuine emotions? Wouldn’t you say, Sergeant Murphy?”
    Murphy swallowed but didn’t look at the vampire. LeBlanc’s uncomplicated mental attack might be simple for a wizard to defeat, but any normal human being would probably be gone before they realized their mind was under attack. Instead of answering, she asked a question of her own. “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why do this? Why experiment on making people fall in love?”
    LeBlanc arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious?”
    I sucked in a short breath, realizing what was happening. “The White Court,” I said.
    The Whites were a different breed of vampire than the Reds, feeding on the life essence of their victims, generally through seduction. Genuine love and genuine