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| Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash |
When Harry finally wakes up, it's 3 in the afternoon, and in a few hours, he will have to go meet with Bianca, vampire proprietress of the velvet room. But before he can do that, Murphy calls and berates him for not already having gotten results on the difficult, illegal magical research that she asked for all of 25 hours ago (and has already been told may not be possible), and tries to forbid him to see Bianca, including threatening to lock him up to stop him. Honestly, his fear of randomly getting put in protective custody if he cooperates with the police makes some sense if this is normal behavior for Murphy. Her behavior towards him is frankly unprofessional, and "they're friends" isn't much of an excuse when she has yet to act friendly towards him either. It's just demands, hostility, and zero respect for Dresden's boundaries.
Dresden gears up and heads out, reflecting that the White Council might not actually be that upset if Bianca killed him, then scolds himself for paranoia, observing that if he continues thinking like this, he'll end up turning his little basement apartment into the Fortress of Solitude. And that's kind of what happens, gradually, between this book and Changes, so that's some pretty solid foreshadowing right there. This is also where we get the first instance of the "wizardry is about preparation" speech which occurs in almost every book.
The Blue Beetle breaks down just as Dresden is getting to the mansion that serves as the Velvet Room's base of operations, so we get a whole bit where he's standing there arguing with a security guard. This doesn't accomplish a whole lot in terms of plot, except to establish that Bianca is nervous about letting a wizard into her house, but we do get the first mention of Listening, and of the fact that vampires respond to faith, not to specific symbols. It's a bit odd that neither Dresden nor Bianca is willing to rely upon, or even mentions, the obligations of guest and host that are later established to be foundational to the supernatural community. We also see Dresden's sword cane for the first time, although the security guard takes it away from him. I don't think we actually see him use it until Blood Rites, and I don't know whether the earth magic it's imbued with there is already present here. He only talks about it as a blade, and option to defend himself without having to rely solely on magic.
The second Dresden mentions Jennifer Stanton's death, Bianca goes for his throat, apparently convinced that Dresden must have committed the murder because he's the only local wizard strong enough to do it, which is information in and of itself, although it's not clear that Dresden realizes this. Between Bianca's attack and Dresden's counter with a literal pocket full of sunshine, Bianca's true, gross, batlike form is revealed, which is embarrassing for her and disturbing for Harry. Even once everyone calms down and the vampire gets her face back on, the conversation is... strained. It doesn't help that Dresden is bleeding from a cut acquired during the scuffle, but we get quite a lot of Bianca's feelings about Tommy Tom, her own employees, and sex work as an industry, which is not as cringey as it could be considering it's Jim Butcher writing this. Dresden does also get a lead: Linda Randall, who used to work for the Velvet Room and was close to Jennifer. This conversation is also where death curses are first mentioned, although we don't get the technical details of how they work, just that they're something that can happen when a wizard dies, and they're dangerous enough for Bianca to worry about. Bianca tells Dresden he has to leave, calls Paula in, and begins to feed upon her. This is where we, along with Dresden, find out about the addictive narcotic properties of vampire saliva.
There's two things that stand out to me about this interaction with Bianca. First of all, she's a crazy person. Attacking him like that was a monumentally bad idea, no matter how sure she was that he was the killer. Similarly, she would have had to already be kinda unstable for her interaction with Dresden to push her so far that she accidentally ate someone. Honestly, I'm surprised Ortega allowed her to be elevated in Grave Peril. Bianca is a liability.
Second, Bianca is attached to the humans she considers hers on a level that we are later given to understand is not normally possible for vampires of the red court. I see four possibilities here. The boring answer is that this is a first book and Jim Butcher simply hadn't settled on how exactly vampires think, act, and feel. A more interesting possibility is that capacity for prosocial behavior in vampires is inversely correlated with sanity. This is supported by the Eebs, who are extra crazy and very attached to each other, and the Red King, who has totally lost his mind and must have some capacity for prosocial behavior in order to run the entire vampire nation. Third, Bianca may be contagioned, which we know can allow supernatural creatures to disregard the normal incapacities of their species, and is supported by her association with Cowl and Kumori, and her gift of the dagger to Lea. Fourth, we may be looking less at genuine attachment and more at something akin to the proprietary anger Harry describes in the Winter fae he influences in Battle Ground. Of course, none of these options are mutually exclusive.
Dresden waits outside for Paula to come down with Linda's contact info, but of course she never does. Eventually, someone else comes down with the phone number, along with a note that says only "Regret". While Bianca barely comes up again in this book, this moment marks the beginning of a conflict that informs every subsequent book until Changes.
Sorry for the long, late chapter. I had to get our reading and writing goals for the year posted first. Expect Chapter 10 on Saturday as usual. Be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!
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