It's very tense for a minute there, and Harry and Michael get ready for a fight, until Thomas laughs, and delicately implies that it reflects badly on Bianca's hospitality for everyone to get so upset. Harry takes the cue and follows up with a remark about how "this was a masquerade ball, wasn't it?". Bianca is described here, and I had not previously noticed how much she looks like Anita Blake, titular protagonist of one of the oldest series that fits tidily into the tradition of urban fantasy that The Dresden Files helped popularize. Anita, however, probably would not wear a dress made of fire, although she's scarcely to be seen without heels that do "interesting" things to the shape of her legs. She's objectively attractive, especially with the way she's smiling, but Harry isn't interested - he's seen her true, creepy, bat face. We also get the cameo by Cowl and Kumori here, dressed as the shadows to her flame. While there's no real way to catch it on a first read, this is one of the first real pieces of the Nemesis puzzle, and it makes some of the others easier to put together if you're watching for it. It's confirmed in
Dead Beat that these two
were Cowl and Kumori. In
Proven Guilty, we find out that Lea's obvious madness and present ice cube status were the result of the knife she was given at this very party. In
White Night, we see that Madrigal and Vittorio are working with Cowl, and then Vittorio calls on an Outsider. Technically, this makes it possible to work out the origin of much of the "world is getting darker" stuff several books ahead of schedule. There are obvious similarities between what's wrong with Kumori and what's wrong with Aurora, and we know they're in the "handing out cursed magic objects" business because of the athame, making it at least plausible that they were also involved with the wolf belts in
Fool Moon. Based on the evidence as of the end of
White Night, these two can be linked to enough of events of the first 10 books to make their involvement with the rest plausible as a matter of consistency, and their connection with the Outsiders, while less thoroughly reinforced, has sufficient support to situate them as a link between the Outside and those events, making it possible, just barely, to extrapolate that the Outsiders are systematically stirring up trouble and making people lose their baskets.
In any event, Bianca implies that she's going to eat Harry, and he responds, more directly, that she oughtn't try it. She gives her people tacit permission to go after him, if they can manage it without being too overt, or at least that's how Harry interprets it. This prompts Harry to remember how nice the venom to which he was exposed to yesterday was. File under: Harry is in pretty much constant emotional and physical pain, and has a corresponding vulnerability to things that make him feel better; nothing that can reasonably be described as "narcotic" tends to hold much appeal for people who aren't someways hurting. They descend into the main courtyard, where Thomas reconnects with them, and tells Harry his entrance was "marvelous". He says he couldn't let it descend into a general brawl, though, because it would reduce the opportunities for intrigue. This is probably mostly a cover for helping Harry, but it's also a very White Court way of looking at it, and places an emphasis on their not only preferring to avoid direct confrontation, but actively seeking out opportunities to engage in social and political machinations, which is certainly present in their later appearances but gets less attention. Unfortunately, their conversation is interrupted when he has to go retrieve Justine from a Red Court guy who's hitting on her.
No sooner has he left them, then Michael notes that they're being surrounded. The majority of the attendees are humans, dressed largely in black, with red ribbons around an arm of neck marking out those who are fair game for feeding. This is very reasonable and well organized, honestly, except for the part where Red Court venom is supernaturally addictive and our human feeder fish therefore can't reasonably be said to have given meaningful consent. But it's a good system. The actual Red Court vampires, in very literal contrast, are all dressed in red, and a few moments observation of the crowd confirms that they're forming a ring around Harry and Michael, making it impossible for them to leave without coming in reach of at least one of them. This is a relatively subtle instance of another one of our running patterns in this series: Jim Butcher plays tabletop roleplaying games, and he pays
attention to spacing. They head for the refreshments table, hoping to make themselves harder to trap, and partially succeed - most of their pursuers can't maintain formation without being obvious, but Kyle and Kelly intercept them at table. Kelly has everything except the lower part of her face covered, to hide the burns she got fighting Harry earlier, and Harry makes a remark about her hitting the tanning bed a little too long. He was apparently hoping to provoke her into attacking him, presumably, although it's not explicated quite yet, because if she, and through her the Red Court, breaks the rules first, he can fight back, and move the inherent conflict of this event into a sphere with which he's more comfortable, but she smiles and hands him a glass of wine instead. Kyle expresses his regret that Susan couldn't be here, which is...interesting. I may need to take back my earlier assertion that Harry might have done better to bring Susan along in the first place. Kyle isn't terribly smooth or subtle, as vampires go, and in light of what happens later, it's hard not to read this at an indication that Susan's attendance at this party was both planned for and arranged. Which, uh...guys? I think we might have been too hard on Susan here. Bianca isn't Nicodemus. It's not her established style to go for a small win (making Harry have a really stressful, unproductive evening, or getting him into trouble with the Council for skipping the party entirely) while rolling the dice on a bigger one (starting a war between the Council and the Red Court). We
know, with the benefit of the 12 or 13 books that follow this one, the power she serves, and it doesn't operate like that either. Nemesis is careful and systematic, and not given especially to opportunism. Bianca's plan doesn't work if Susan isn't here. I'm sure there was a contingency in place for if she arrived as an invited guest (they managed to kidnap Justine, although I don't remember how they made that work), but she had to be here. And some amount of hypnotism and mind control are within the established Red Court power set - they can't
all do it, but if memory serves Paulo Ortega is in Chicago right now, and if Arianna can call upon the Eebs then so can he. There's also a known mind-invader running around, against whom Susan hasn't been warned and has no particular defenses. I don't think it's her fault, or even Harry's, that she made the incredibly bad decision to come to this party. I think someone
made her do it.
Kelly makes a remark about Harry being into men, which is the second time Harry's sexuality has been brought up in as many chapters, and at least the third time in this book. He takes it in stride, so she escalates, and despite Harry's warning her against it, tries to touch Michael. Naturally, she burns the shit out of her hand. Harry basically says "I told you so", and Kyle is so angry he nearly drops his flesh mask. Harry tells him to go ahead and break the peace first, if he wants, the White Council will squish this entire place, which is of course what this whole exchange was mostly here to do - remind the reader of the rules of hospitality that govern this entire event, and the consequences for breaking them. As I said last chapter, Jim Butcher is getting better at using foreshadowing effectively and giving out information at the pace he wants. The twins stalk off, but now people are staring at them, so Harry proposes a toast "to hospitality", and drains his entire glass. So of course a moment later, when he's barely had time to tell Michael that he ruled out Kyle and Kelly, as far as who's controlling the Nightmare, Thomas reappears to inform them that the wine is poisoned.
I don't remember off the top of my head whether every chapter at this party ends with something this dire, but twice in a row certainly looks like the beginning of a pattern. I'll try not to keep you in suspense too long. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!
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