by Jim Butcher
“Join hands,” snapped the woman. “Now.” And then she turned to the Coleman lantern on the floor and snuffed it out, plunging the room into blackness.
There was a moment of confused murmuring, a commanding hiss from the woman, and then there was nothing but silence and the sound of shoes and boots moving over the tiles, toward the back of the store. They were getting away. I rose, blind, and headed around the shelves toward them as quickly as I could, trying to follow.
In retrospect, it wasn’t the smartest decision, but I knew that I couldn’t afford to let them get away. The spell I’d wrought on my compass wouldn’t last long, not long enough to find the woman again, much less any of her pack of young people. I wanted to follow them out, to get the license plates on their cars, anything that would let me help Murphy locate them after they’d run.
I miscalculated the length of my stride and bounced into the wall at the end of the aisle. I sucked in a hiss of pain and reoriented myself, following them, using the darkness to conceal me as much as they did. I could have made some light for myself—but as long as no one could see, no one would start shooting, either, I reasoned. I moved out carefully, Listening, and following the sounds.
I had only a second’s warning, the sound of claws sliding on the old tile, and then something large and furry slammed into my legs below the knee, taking them out from under me and sending me heavily to the floor. I let out a shout and swung my blasting rod like a baseball bat, feeling it crack down solidly on something hard and bony. There was a snarl, a deep, animal sound, and something tore the rod from my hand and sent it flying away. It clattered hollowly on the tile floor. I dropped my compass, scrabbled for my gun, and got my feet underneath me, backpedaling, yelling my fear out into a wordless challenge.
I stood still for a moment, staring at nothing, breathing hard, my gun heavy in my hand. Fear made my heart pound, and as always, anger followed hard on the heels of fear. I was furious that I had been attacked. I’d half expected something to try to stop me, but in the dark whatever had been snarling had scared me a lot more than I’d thought it would.
Nothing happened after a minute, and I couldn’t hear anything. I reached into my shirt and drew out the silver pentacle that had been my mother’s, the five-pointed star upright within a circle, the symbol of order, symmetry, balance of power. I focused my will on it, concentrating, and the pentacle began to glow with a faint, gentle light—hardly the blinding luminescence that came as the result of focusing power against a being of the Nevernever, but adequate enough to navigate by, at least. I moved toward the back room, blue-white light like moonlight pooled around me.
It was definitely stupid to keep going forward, but I was angry, furious enough to bumble my way through the back room of the department store, until I saw the dark blue outline of an open doorway. I headed for it, tripping over a few more things along the way that I couldn’t quite make out in the werelight of my amulet, angrily kicking a few things from the path of my feet, until I emerged into an alley behind the old building, breathing open air, able to see again in dim shapes and colors.
Something hit me heavily from behind, driving me to the ground, gravel digging into my ribs through my shirt. My concentration vanished, and with it the light of my amulet. I felt something hard and metallic shoved against the back of my skull, a knee pressed into the small of my back, and a woman’s voice snarled, “Drop the gun, or I blow your head off.”
Chapter Six
Call me crazy, but I’m not big on defiance when I’ve got a gun rammed against my skull. I carefully set the .38 in my left hand down and moved my fingers away from it.
“Hands behind your back. Do it,” snarled the woman. I did it. I felt the cold metal of the handcuffs around my wrists, heard the ratcheting sound of the cuffs closing around them. The knee lifted off of my back, and my attacker shoved me over with one leg, snapped on a flashlight, and shone it in my eyes.
“Harry?” she said.
I blinked and squinted against the light. I recognized the voice now. “Hi, Murphy. This is going to be one of those conversations, isn’t it?”
“You jerk,” Murphy said, her voice harsh. She was still only a shadow behind the flashlight, but I recognized the contours now. “You found a lead and followed it, and you didn’t contact me.”
“Those who live in glass houses, Lieutenant,” I said, and sat up, my hands still held tightly behind my back. “There wasn’t time. It was hot and I couldn’t afford to wait or I might have lost it.”
Murphy grunted. “How did you find this place?”
“I’m a wizard,” I told her, and waggled my arms as best I could. “Magic. What else?” Murphy growled, but hunkered down behind me and unlocked the cuffs. I rubbed at my wrists after they were freed. “How about you?”
“I’m a cop,” she said. “A car tailed us back to McAnally’s from the murder scene. I waited until it was gone and followed it back here.” She stood up again. “You were inside. Did anyone go out the front?”
“No. I don’t think so. But I couldn’t see.”
“Dammit,” Murphy said. She put her gun away in her coat. “They didn’t come out the back. There must be some way up to the roof.” She stood up and peered around at the closely packed buildings, shining her flashlight around the roof’s edge. “They’re long gone by now.”
“Win some, lose some.” I got to my feet.
“Like hell,” she said and turned and started into the building.
I hurried to catch up with her. “Where are you going?”
“Inside. To look for stairs, a ladder, whatever.”
“You can’t follow them,” I said, falling into step beside her as she went into the darkened building. “You can’t take them on, not with just you and me.”
“Them?” Murphy said. “I only saw one.” She stopped and looked at me, and I explained to her in terse terms what had happened since we parted in the parking lot. Murphy listened, the lines at the corners of her blue eyes serious.
“What do you think happened?” she asked when I was finished.
“We found werewolves,” I said. “The woman, the dark one with the grey in her hair, was their leader.”
“Group killers?” Murphy said.
“Pack,” I corrected her. “But I’m not so sure that they were the killers. They didn’t seem . . . I don’t know. Cold enough. Mean enough.”
Murphy shook her head and turned to walk outside. “Can you give me a good description?”
I kept up with her. “Good enough, I guess. But what do you want it for?”
“I’m going to put out an APB for the woman we saw, and I want you to describe the kids you heard talking.”
“What do you need that for? Don’t you have the plates off the car she was driving?”
“I already called them in,” Murphy said. “Rental. Probably taken out under a false ID.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong people, Murph,” I said. “Don’t put out that APB.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Murphy asked. “Someone follows me back to town from the scene of a murder. Not only that, but you can confirm to me that they were the killer from the scene. Not in a court of law, I know, but you can give it to me, and that’s enough. Standard investigation will turn up the rest if we know where to look.”
I held up my hand. “Hold on, hold on. My spell didn’t tell me that the woman was the killer. Only that it was her blood at the scene.”
Murphy folded her arms and glared up at me. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“You still don’t get it, Murphy,” I said, my own temper rising a little. “You don’t start something with the kind of people who live in boogety-land unless you’re willing to take it all the way, right there, right then. If you start harassing a pack of werewolves, setting the police after them, you’ve just declared war. You’d better be ready to fight it.”
Murphy thrust her jaw out. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle it.”
“I’m not
saying you can’t,” I said. “But whatever it was that tore apart Spike back at Marcone’s club wasn’t the same thing that was with me in the dark back there.” I jerked my head at the main room of the department store.
“Oh yeah?” Murphy said. “Why not?”
“Because it could have killed me and it didn’t.”
“You don’t think you could have taken care of yourself against a wolf, Harry?”
“In the dark?” I said. “Murphy, it’s been nearly a hundred years since the wolf went extinct in most of the United States. You’ve got no idea, none at all, of how dangerous they can be. A wolf can run faster than you can drive a car through most of Chicago. His jaws can snap your thighbones with one jerk. A wolf can see the heat of your body in the complete dark, and can count the hairs on your head from a hundred yards off by starlight. He can hear your heart beating thirty or forty yards away. The wolf that was there in the dark with me could have killed me, easy. It didn’t. It disarmed me, even after I’d hit it, and then it left.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Murphy said—but she folded her arms over her stomach and glanced at the shadows around us with a little shiver. “Maybe the killer knows you. Maybe it didn’t want to risk killing a wizard. Maybe, just maybe, the wolf did it to throw you off. Maybe it spared you just so you would react in this way, just to avoid suspicion.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I don’t think so. The kids I saw . . .” I shook my head. “Don’t put out the APB, yet. Hold off on it, until I can get you some more information. Look, you pay me to give you my advice, to be your consultant on the supernatural. I’m your expert, right? Listen to me. Trust me.”
She stared up at my face, her expression intent, looking away quickly when her eyes met mine. Murphy had known me for a while. You don’t go looking into a wizard’s eyes without a darned good reason. Wizards see too much.
“All right,” she said finally. “I’ll hold off on it—but only until tomorrow morning, when I have that report. If you can’t show me anything by then, I’m going ahead after the people we saw tonight.” Her mouth quirked in a fierce little grin. “I’d have a hell of a time explaining what I was doing out at the crime scene in Rosemont, anyway.” The grin vanished, leaving only ferocity. “But you will have that information for me, Dresden, bright and early. Make no mistake. I will catch the killer before anyone else dies.”
I nodded to Murphy. “In the morning,” I said. “You got it.”
Murphy’s flashlight flickered and then went out as the filament burst with an audible pop.
Murphy sighed in the darkness. “Nothing ever works right when you’re here. Sometimes, Harry,” she said, “I really hate hanging out with you.”
Chapter Seven
I entered my apartment, tossed my blasting rod, which I had recovered from the abandoned department store, into the corner next to my wizard’s staff and my sword cane, and locked the door behind me. It was one of those steel-frame doors, the antiburglar kind. I bought it after a demon had come stomping into my apartment six months ago and wrecked my place.
My apartment is in the basement of a huge old rooming house that somehow managed to survive all the Chicago fires. It’s made almost entirely of wood, and it creaks and groans when the wind blows, which is all the time in this city, and makes gentle, soothing music. It’s a place with a history, the neighbors are quiet, and my rent is cheap—though less so than it was before the demon trashed my place.
The apartment itself is devoid of electrical devices, for reasons that should be evident by now. There is a fireplace, and a kitchenette off the main room, a little bedroom adjacent to that, and a bathroom inside the bedroom. Sunken windows are high on each of the four walls, and one is on the wall of the bathroom.
I decorate in textures more than I do in colors; there were thick rugs all over the bare stone floors, layered on top of one another in most places. Demon acid had burned away most of my furniture, and I had been obliged to scavenge secondhand stores for replacements. I like furniture with a lot of old wood and soft cloth, and I had made my purchases accordingly. Tapestries hung from my walls, the oldest tapestries that I could find, covering the bare stone. In the ruddy firelight, the oranges and browns and reds that constituted the primary colors of the decor didn’t look half bad.
I went over to the fireplace and built up the fire. October in Chicago is a cold, breezy month, and my dank little haven is usually chilly until I get a fire going. I dropped a few logs on the fire, and Mister made an appearance, rubbing up against my leg and purring fondly, staggering my balance off to one side.
“Been getting into the steaks again, eh, Mister?” I said, and rubbed the big, grey cat’s ears. Mister is larger than a lot of dogs. Maybe one of his parents was part wildcat. I found him in a Dumpster one day when he was a kitten and he promptly adopted me. Despite my struggles, Mister had been an understanding soul, and I eventually came to realize that I was a part of his little family, and by his gracious consent was allowed to remain in his apartment. Cats. Go figure.
I fired up the wood-burning stove and prepared a quick meal of Spaghettios, grilled chicken, and toast. Mister shared in my meal, and split a can of Coke with me, as usual, and I tossed the dishes in the sink to soak before I went to my bedroom and put on my robe.
Let the wizardry commence.
I went to a spot in the far corner and moved the rug there, then lifted up the door in the floor beneath it, revealing the steep stepladder that led down to the subbasement, where I kept my lab.
I teetered down the stairs, holding a lit candle that cast a golden glow on the cheerful havoc that is my laboratory. Tables lined the walls, and the longest table filled most of the center of the room, leaving a cramped walk space around it, except for an area at the far side of the lab that I kept completely clear for my summoning circle, a ring of bright copper set into the floor. Books, notebooks, defunct ballpoint pens, broken pencils, boxes, plastic containers, old butter bowls, empty jelly jars, and plastic Baggies lay next to other containers of every size and shape that held the spices, rare stones, bones, fur, blood, oddments, jewelry, and other ingredients useful to wizardly pursuits and studies.
I reached the bottom of the ladder, stepped over a precariously balanced stack of comic books (don’t ask), and started lighting the other candles that lay on dishes around the chilly room, finally bending to light up the kerosene heater that I keep down in the lab in an effort to at least blunt the cold. “Bob,” I said then. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
Up on one of the shelves, huddled in the midst of a thick stack of hardbacks, was the bleached, smooth form of a human skull, its empty eye sockets gaping. Deep in those eye sockets, there was a flickering of orange light, which grew and solidified into twin points of lambent illumination. “Sleepyhead. Oh, that’s rich, Harry. With a sense of humor like that, you could make a living as a garbage man anywhere in the country.” The skull’s mouth gaped open in the parody of a yawn, though I knew the spirit within, Bob, didn’t feel fatigue in the same way that living beings did. I put up with his lip, so to speak—Bob had worked for several wizards over the course of a dozen mortal lifetimes, and he knew more about the nuts and bolts of magic than I ever would.
“What are we doing, now?” Bob sniggered. “More weight-loss potions?”
“Look, Bob,” I said. “That was only to get me through a rough month. Someone’s got to pay the rent around here.”
“All right,” Bob said smugly. “You going to get into breast enhancement, then? I’m telling you, that’s where the money is.”
“That isn’t what magic is for, Bob. How petty can you get?”
“Ah,” Bob said, his eye lights flickering. “The question is, how pretty can you get them? You aren’t a half-bad wizard, Dresden. You should think about how grateful all those beautiful women will be.”
I snorted and started cleaning off a space on the center table, stacking things up to one side. “You know, Bob, some of us aren’t obsessed
with sex.”
Bob snorted, no easy feat for a guy with no nose or lips. “Some of us don’t take a real, working body and all five senses for granted, either, Harry. When’s the last time you saw Susan?”
“I don’t know,” I responded. “Couple weeks ago. We’re both pretty busy with work.”
Bob heaved a sigh. “A gorgeous woman like that, and here you are, down in your musty old lab, getting ready to do more ridiculous nonsense.”
“Precisely,” I said. “Now, shut up and let’s get to work.”
Bob grumbled something in Latin, but rattled a few times to shake the dust off of the skull. “Sure, what do I know? I’m just a pathetic little spirit, right?”
“With a photographic memory, three or four hundred years’ worth of research experience, and more deduction capacity than a computer, Bob, yeah.”
Bob almost seemed to smile. “Just for that, you get my best effort tonight, Harry. Maybe you’re not such an idiot after all.”
“Great,” I said. “I want to work up a couple of potions, and I want to know everything you know about werewolves.”
“What kind of potions, and what kind of werewolves?” Bob said promptly.
I blinked. “There’s more than one?”
“Hell, Harry. We’ve made at least three dozen different kinds of potions down here ourselves, and I don’t see why you wouldn’t—”
“No, no, no,” I growled at Bob. “Werewolves. There’s more than one kind of werewolf?”
“Eh? More than one kind of what?” Bob tilted his skull over to one side, as though cocking an invisible hand to his ear bones.
“Werewolf, werewolf.”