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The meeting was over, the building still standing, but no new treaty had been signed. It wasn't the worst possible outcome, and I told myself that breaking from the negotiating table would be good, and it might give us time to learn more about what these Nixen actually wanted rather than what they'd asked for.
Stepping into the elevator, with Hendricks at my side, I looked over at him and I could tell that he was working up to something insightful, irritating, or both. Knowing my luck, it would be both and I'd have to reevaluate my plans for the better, but deepening my impending headache in the process. "Out with it."
"You can't step into the same river twice."
As we step out of the elevator and make our way to my office, there's a pause as we both mentally play the same game that we've played for almost thirty years and add 'in bed' to the end of one of his 'deep thoughts'. We don't say it aloud anymore and haven't done so since we reinvented ourselves, but the thought is there and it's enough to snap me out of the worst of my mood.
I know that he's got a point to drive home, something that's meant to help me whet my tired mind and better hone an idea, but it's not there yet.
"More? I can move on from dead Greeks to general advice: don't stick your dick in crazy."
With a huff, I roll my eyes and the first vague outlines of an idea are beginning to form. Everything is about water. Change. When the Nixen came to Chicago, it was as refugees, but they're powerful enough that they can and should still negotiate. I want to know what they can do, what they can offer my city, and while I have some idea, and Gard to vouch for their skills, I want to hear how they frame it.
Of course, nothing ever goes as planned. I can take a lesson from our own government and recognize that secret meetings are invariably made wildly public, but dull ones are overlooked. While I'd tried to keep the meeting as outwardly uninteresting as possible, Dresden somehow got word of it and made plans to ride in on a white stallion, demand all manner of things neither side was willing to give, and then broker a great and lasting peace. We'd each had our plans and each of us were unable to achieve them.
Instead of the finer details of treaties, I'd had to deal with Dresden and his inanity. Whereupon, true to form, once he realized that the Nixen were all women, he fell apart. Saints forfend we 'take advantage' of them. Surely, they were all entirely harmless, blameless, and I - the great abuser of the weak, the Nixen of the down-trodden, the heartless, soulless monster Freeholding Lord of Chicago - was there to find a way to steal every last penny and get them hopelessly addicted to drugs, guns, and reality television.
Toeing my shoes off and wincing, just a bit as I settled into my chair, I could hear Hendricks in the kitchen getting a glass of something to drink. My half-born idea was still percolating, rolling through my mind until my reptile brain could latch on to a pattern when Hendricks called out: "There is nothing softer and weaker than water, and yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things. For this reason there is no substitute for it."
Yes, yes, I understood. The Nixen were water-sprites. Changeable, able to flow around obstacles, smooth as a stream or hard as ice, but they lived in the water and…
...and…
...and there's something there. Something that's not about the Nixen, nor the negotiations themselves, but something. The first outline of a pattern, that if he can recognize it, he can exploit it, and protect his city.
Water can be contained, but it's nature is to escape, to slip through cracks, widen them with the freeze and thaw, the change of state. A simple, steady drip of water can create caves filled with crystals and erode mountains. Forces of nature, acts of God.
A walking, talking insurance claim. An act of God.
Dresden is too headstrong to take a bit and bridle. If he can't be tamed and brought to heel, he can still be used. The question is not how to deal with his so-called chivalry or his fondness for bringing down buildings, but how to channel it. If it must be dammed, then there needs to be an off-shoot, a way to relieve pressure. Just as an engineer could predict and plan for rainwater runoff, to guide it away to the sewers or into a water reclamation tank, he needed to be able to divine the laws of strange physics that ruled the actions of wizards.
"A levee."
Hendricks looks over the rim of his glass and I know I've been sitting still for too long, but he's used to my silence.
"You want a levee? For the Nixen?"
"No, for Dresden. Give him something to bound and contain him." A nice, little murder or some lost children should do, but be sure that it's not open ended. Ideally, angling him towards one of my own problems would be best. "Something to use as leverage with the Nixen."
Even though I knew it would be a disaster, I had to offer him a job with my organization. He'd expect it. If I didn't, he'd wonder what else I was thinking of or what I could be doing. Give him something clear and easy to avoid, a dam, and he could feel good about going down the levee I chose.
With a lazy shrug, Hendricks sat across from me and offered one last bon mot: "Trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea?"
In bed. Just as he'd been offered a position in my organization, could I and should I offer him a rather different position? Be explicit with an offer I know he'll refuse so that I could use subtler means to get what I truly want. There's merit to that.
Once I've settled on a course of action, I smile, bright and untroubled, and it's a good feeling, cool as mint, and tomorrow, just before the negotiations continue, I'll stop the wizard and ask if I can suck him off.