by Jim Butcher
I closed my eyes. “You’re dreaming about last year, aren’t you? About what Kravos did to you.”
She shivered at the mention of the name and nodded. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a long time. Trying to figure out what I did wrong. Why he was able to get to me.”
I ached inside. “Murph, there wasn’t anything you could have done.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she said, her voice quiet. “I couldn’t have known that it wasn’t you. I couldn’t have stopped him even if I had. I couldn’t have done anything to defend myself. To stop wh-what he did to me, once he was inside my head.” Her eyes clouded with tears, but she blinked them away, her jaw setting. “There wasn’t anything I could have done. That’s what scares me, Harry. That’s why I’m afraid.”
“Murph, he’s dead. He’s dead and gone. We watched them put him in the ground.”
Murphy snarled, “Iknow that. I know it, Harry. I know he’s gone, I know he can’t hurt me anymore, I know he’s never going to hurt anyone again.” She looked up at me for a moment, chancing a look at my eyes. Hers were clouded with tears. “But I still have the dreams. I know it, but it doesn’t make any difference.”
God. Poor Murphy. She’d taken a spiritual mauling before I’d shown up to save her. The thing that attacked her had been a spirit being, and it had torn her apart on the inside without leaving a mark on her skin. In a way, she’d been raped. All of her power had been taken away, and she’d been used for the amusement of another. No wonder it had left her with scars. Adding an unpleasant shock of bad news had been like tossing a spark onto a pile of tinder soaked in jet fuel.
“Harry,” she continued, her voice quiet, soft, “you know me. God, I’m not a whiner. I hate that. But what that thing did to me. The things it made me see. Made me feel.” She looked up at me, pain in the lines at the corners of her eyes, which threatened tears. “It won’t go away. I try to leave it behind me, but it won’t go. And it’s eating up every part of my life.”
She turned away, grabbing irritably at a box of tissues. I walked over to the fireplace and studied the swords on the mantel, so she wouldn’t feel my eyes on her.
After a moment she spoke, her tone changing, growing more focused. “What are you doing here so late?”
I turned back to face her. “I need a favor. Information.” I passed over the envelope Mab had given me. Murphy opened it, looked at the pair of pictures, and frowned.
“These are shots from the report of Ronald Reuel’s death. How did you get them?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “A client gave them to me. I don’t know where she got them.”
She rubbed her eyes and asked, “What did she want from you?”
“She wants me to find the person who killed him.”
Murphy shook her head. “I thought this was an accidental death.”
“I hear it isn’t.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
I sighed. “A magic faerie told me.”
That got me a suspicious glare, which dissolved into a frown. “God, you’re being literal, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Murphy shook her head, a tired smile at the corners of her mouth. “How can I help?”
“I’d like to look at the file on Ronald Reuel’s death. I can’t look at the scene, but maybe CPD caught something they didn’t know was a clue. It would give me a place to start, at least.”
Murphy nodded without looking at me. “All right. One condition.”
“Sure. What?”
“If this is a murder, you bring me in on it.”
“Murph,” I protested, “come on. I don’t want to pull you into anything that—”
“Dammit, Harry,” Murphy snapped, “if someone’s killing people in Chicago, I’m going to deal with them. It’s my job. What’s been happening to me doesn’t change that.”
“It’s your job to stop the bad guys,” I said. “But this might not be a guy. Maybe not even human. I just think you’d be safer if—”
“Fuck safe,” Murphy muttered. “My job, Harry. If you turn up a killing, you will bring me in.”
I hesitated, trying not to let my frustration show. I didn’t want Murphy involved with Mab and company. Murphy had earned too many scars already. The faeries had a way of insinuating themselves into your life. I didn’t want Murphy exposed to that, especially as vulnerable as she was.
But at the same time, I couldn’t lie to her. I owed her a lot more than that.
Bottom line, Murphy had been hurt. She was afraid, and if she didn’t force herself to face that fear, it might swallow her whole. She knew it. As terrified as she was, she knew that she had to keep going or she would never recover.
As much as I wanted to keep her safe, especially now, it wouldn’t help her. Not in the long run. In a sense, her life was at stake.
“Deal,” I said quietly.
She nodded and rose. “Stay out here. I need to get on the computer, see what I can pull up for you.”
“I can wait if it’s better.”
She shook her head. “I’ve already taken the Valium. If I wait any longer I’ll be too zonked to think straight. Just sit down. Have a drink. Try not to blow up anything.” She padded out of the room on silent feet.
I sat down in one of the armchairs, stretched out my legs, let my head fall forward, and dropped into a light doze. It had been a long day, and it looked like it was just going to get longer. I woke up when Murphy came back into the room, her eyes heavy. She had a manila folder with her. “Okay,” she said, “this is everything I could print out. The pictures aren’t as clear as they could be, but they aren’t horrible.”
I sat up, took the folder from her and opened it. Murphy sat down in an armchair, facing me, her legs tucked beneath her. I started going over the details in the folder, though my brain felt like some kind of gelatin dessert topped with mush.
“What happened to your hand?” she asked.
“Magic faerie,” I said. “Magic faerie with a letter opener.”
“It doesn’t look good. The dressing isn’t right either. You have anyone look at it?”
I shook my head. “No time.”
“Harry, you idiot.” She got up, disappeared into the kitchen, and came back out with a first aid kit. I decided not to argue with her. She pulled up a chair from the kitchen next to mine, and rested my arm in her lap.
“I’m trying to read here, Murph.”
“You’re still bleeding. Puncture wounds will ooze forever if you don’t keep them covered.”
“Yeah, I tried to explain that, but they made me take the bandage off anyway.”
“Who did?”
“Long story. So the security guard on the building didn’t see anyone come in?”
She peeled off the bandage with brisk motions. It hurt. She fished out some disinfectant. “Cameras didn’t pick up anything, either, and there aren’t any bursts of static to indicate someone using magic. I checked.”
I whistled. “Not bad, Murph.”
“Yeah, sometimes I use my head instead of my gun. This will hurt.”
She sprayed disinfectant liberally on my hand. It stung.
“Ow!”
“Wimp.”
“Any other ways in and out of the building?”
“Not unless they could fly and walk through walls. The other doors are all fire exits, with alarms that would trip if someone opened them.”
I kept paging through the file. “ ‘Broken neck due to fall,’ it says. They found him at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Right.” Murphy used a wipe to clean both sides of my hand, and then she put more disinfectant on. It hurt a bit less. “He had contusions consistent with a fall, and he was an old man. No one seen entering or leaving an apartment building with a high-security system, so naturally—”
“—no one looked for a killer,” I finished. “Or reported anything that might have indicated one. Or, wait, did they? Says here that the first officer on the sc
ene found ‘slippery goo’ on the landing above where Reuel fell.”
“But none of the detectives on the scene later found any such thing,” Murphy said. She pressed a gauze pad against the wound from either side and began wrapping medical tape around to hold the pads on. “The first officer was a rookie. They figured he was seeing a killing where there wasn’t one so he could get in on a murder investigation.”
I frowned, turning the printouts of the photographs around. “See here? The sleeves of Reuel’s coat are wet. You can see the discoloration.”
She looked and admitted, “Maybe. There’s no mention of it, though.”
“Slippery goo. It could have been ectoplasm.”
“Is that too tight? Ecto-what?”
I flexed my fingers a little, testing the bandage. “It’s fine. Ectoplasm. Matter from the Nevernever.”
“That’s the spirit world, right? Faerieland?”
“Among other things.”
“And stuff from there is goo?”
“It turns into goo when there’s not any magic animating it. As long as the magic is there, it’s as good as real. Like when Kravos made a body that looked like mine and came gunning for you.”
Murphy shivered and started putting things back into her kit. “So when whatever it is that has made this ecto goo into matter has gone, it turns back into . . . ?”
“Slime,” I said. “It’s clear and slippery, and it evaporates in a few minutes.”
“So something from the Nevernever could have killed Reuel,” Murphy said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Or someone could have opened up a portal into the apartment building. There’s usually some gunk left when you open a portal. Dust drifting out from the Nevernever. So they could have opened a portal, then gotten out the same way.”
“Whoa! Hold it. I thought Faerieland was monsters only. People can go into the Nevernever?”
“If you know the right magic, yeah. It’s full of things that are fairly dangerous, though. You don’t just cruise through on a Sunday stroll.”
“Jesus Christ,” Murphy muttered. “So someone—”
“Or something,” I interjected.
“—or something could have gotten into the building and out again. Just like that. Past all the locks and guards and cameras. How scary is that?”
“Could have, yeah. Stepped in, pitched grampa down the stairs, stepped out again.”
“God. That poor old man.”
“I don’t think he was helpless, Murph. Reuel was mixed up with the faeries. I kind of doubt his hands were squeaky clean.”
She nodded. “Okay. Had he made any supernatural enemies?”
I held up the picture of the body. “Looks like it.”
Murpy shook her head. She swayed a little bit, and then sat down next to me, leaning her head against the corner of the couch. “So what’s the next step?”
“I go digging. Pound the proverbial pavement.”
“You don’t look so good. Get some rest first. A shower. Some food. Maybe a haircut.”
I rubbed my eyes with my good hand. “Yeah,” I said.
“And you tell me, when you know something.”
“Murph, if this was something from the Nevernever, it’s going to be out of your”—I almost said “league,”—“jurisdiction.”
She shrugged. “If it came into my town and hurt someone I’m responsible for protecting, I want to make it answer for that.” She closed her eyes. “Same as you. Besides. You promised.”
Well, she had me there. “Yeah. Okay, Murph. When I find something out, I’ll call.”
“All right,” she said. She curled up in the corner of the couch again, heavy eyes closing. She leaned her head back, baring the lines of her throat. After a moment, she asked, “Have you heard from Susan?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“But her articles are still coming into theArcane . She’s all right.”
I nodded. “I guess so.”
“Have you found anything that will help her yet?”
I sighed and shook my head. “No, not yet. It’s like pounding my head against a wall.”
She halfway smiled. “With your head, the wall breaks first. You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
Murphy nodded. “You’re a good man, Harry. If anyone can help her, it’s you.”
I looked down so she wouldn’t see the tears that made my eyes swim a little, and started putting the file back together. “Thanks, Murph. That means a lot to me.”
She didn’t answer. I looked up and saw that her mouth had fallen slightly open and her body was totally relaxed, a cheek resting on the arm of the couch.
“Murph?” I asked. She didn’t stir. I got up and left the file on the chair. I found a blanket and draped it lightly over her, tucking it in around her. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat and nuzzled her cheek closer to the couch.
“Sleep well, Murph,” I said. Then I headed for the door. I locked what I could behind me, made my way back to the Beetle, and drove toward home.
I ached everywhere. Not from sore muscles, but from simple exhaustion. My wounded hand felt like a big throbbing knot of cramping muscle, doused in gasoline and set on fire.
I hurt even more on the inside. Poor Murph had been torn up badly. She was terrified of the things she might have to face, but that made her no less determined to face them. That was courage, and more than I had. I at least was sure that I could hit back if one of the monsters came after me. Murphy didn’t have any such certainty.
Murphy was my friend. She’d saved my life before. We’d fought side by side. She needed my help again. She had to face her fear. I understood that. She needed me to help make it happen, but I didn’t have to like it. In her condition, she would be extra vulnerable to any kind of attack like the one by Kravos the year before. And if she got hit again before she had a chance to piece herself back together, it might not simply wound her—it might break her entirely.
I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if that happened.
“Dammit,” I muttered. “So help me, Murph, I’m going to make sure you come out of this okay.”
I shoved my worries about Murphy to the back of my mind. The best way to protect her would be to focus on this case, to get cracking. But my brain felt like something had crawled into it and died. The only cracking it was going to be doing was the kind that would land me in a rubber room and a sleeveless coat.
I wanted food. Sleep. A shower. If I didn’t take some time to put myself back together, I might walk right into something that would kill me and not notice it until it was too late.
I drove back to my apartment, which is the basement of a rooming house more than a century old. I parked the Beetle outside and got my rod and staff out of the car to take with me. It wasn’t much of a walk between my apartment and the car, but I’d been accosted before. Vampires can be really inconsiderate that way.
I thumped down the stairs to my apartment, unlocked the door, and murmured the phrase that would disarm my wards long enough to let me get inside. I slipped in, and my instincts screamed at me that I was not alone.
I lifted the blasting rod, gathering my power and sending it humming through the focus so that the tip burst into brilliant crimson light that flooded my apartment.
And then there she was, a slender woman standing by my cold fireplace, all graceful curves and poised reserve. She wore a pair of blue jeans over long, coltish legs, with a simple scarlet cotton T-shirt. A silver pentacle hung outside the shirt, resting on the curve of modest breasts, and it gleamed in the light from my readied blasting rod. Her skin was pale, like the inner bark of an oak, the living part of the tree, her hair the brown-gold of ripe wheat, her eyes the grey of storm clouds. Her fine mouth twitched, first into a smile and then into a frown, and she lifted elegant, long-fingered hands to show me empty palms.
“I let myself in,” she murmured. “I hope you don’t mind. You should c
hange your wards more often.”
I lowered the blasting rod, too stunned to speak, my heart lurching in my chest. She lowered her hands and closed the distance between us. She lifted herself onto her toes, but she was tall enough that it wasn’t much of an effort for her to kiss my cheek. She smelled like wildflowers and sun-drenched summer afternoons. She drew back enough to focus on my face and my eyes, her own expression gentle and concerned. “Hello, Harry.”
And I said, in a bare whisper, fighting through the shock, “Hello, Elaine.”
Chapter Eight
Elaine walked past me, making a circuit around my apartment. It wasn’t much of a tour. The place consists of a living room and a tiny bedroom. The kitchen is pretty much just an alcove with a sink and a fridge. The floor is smooth grey stone, but I’d covered a lot of it with a few dozen rugs. My furniture is all secondhand and comfortable. It doesn’t even come close to matching. Bookshelves fill up most of the wall space, and where they don’t, I have several tapestries, plus aStar Wars movie poster Billy gave me for Christmas. It’s the old poster, the one with Princess Leia clinging to Luke’s leg.
Anyway, that was my apartment on a normal day. Lately it had suffered from disrepair. It didn’t smell so great, and pizza boxes and empty Coke cans had overflowed the trash can and spilled over a significant portion of the kitchen floor. You could barely walk without stepping on clothing that needed to be washed. My furniture was covered with scribbled-on papers and discarded pens and pencils.
Elaine walked through it all like a Red Cross worker through a war zone and shook her head. “I know you weren’t expecting me, Harry, but I didn’t think I’d be overdressed. You live in this?”
“Elaine,” I choked out. “You’re alive.”
“A little less of a compliment than I would have hoped for, but I guess it could have been worse.” She regarded me from near the kitchen. “I’m alive, Harry.” Her face flickered with a trace of apprehension. “How are you feeling?”
I lowered myself onto the couch, papers crunching beneath me. I released the power held ready to strike, and the glowing tip of the blasting rod went out, leaving the apartment in darkness. I kept staring at her afterimage on my vision. “Shocked,” I said finally. “This isn’t happening. Hell’s bells, this has got to be some sort of trick.”