by Jim Butcher
I grunted and mumbled something under my breath, ducked my head under the seemingly scalding water for a few seconds, and then said, “Did you pick up on what happened last night?”
“Indeed,” the fallen angel replied.
“What was your read, then?”
There was a moment of thoughtful silence, and then Lasciel responded, “That Karrin feels a certain distance between the pair of you is a professional necessity, but that she is considering that time and circumstance might someday render it irrelevant.”
I sighed. “No,” I said. “Not that. Stars and stones, I don’t want dating advice from a freaking helltart. I meant the things that attacked people at the convention.”
“Ah,” Lasciel said, with no trace of offense in her tone. “It was obviously the attack of a spiritual predator.”
Takes one to know one, I thought. I rolled a stiff shoulder under the hot water. “If that’s true, then the attacks weren’t about violence,” I said thoughtfully. “Which explains what I saw in that bathroom, where the old man had been attacked. Whatever did it was intent on causing fear. Causing pain. Then devouring the… what? The psychic energy it generated in the victims?”
“That is a somewhat simplistic description,” she said, “but one that is as close as I expect a mortal can come to understanding.”
“What, you’re a mortality bigot now?”
“Now and always,” she replied. “I mean no insult by it, but you should know that your ability to comprehend your environment is very strongly defined by your belief in a number of illusions. Time. Truth. Love. That kind of thing. It isn’t your fault, of course-but it does impose limits upon your ability to perceive and understand some matters.”
“I’m only human,” I said. “So enlighten me.”
“To do so, you would have to release your hold on mortality.”
I blinked and said, “I’d have to die?”
She sighed. “Again, you have only a partial understanding. But in the interest of expediency, yes. You would have to cease living.”
“Then don’t bother enlightening me,” I said. “I have plenty of would-be teachers already.” I rinsed and repeated my shampoo and made myself smell like Irish Spring. “The survivors of the attacks, then. They’re going to have taken a spiritual mauling.”
“If the theory is correct,” Lasciel’s voice responded. “If they are indeed wounded in spirit, it would seem conclusive.”
I shuddered. That kind of damage showed itself in a number of ways, and none of them were pretty. I’d seen men driven to agonies of madness by spiritual attacks. Murphy had been subjected to such an assault and spent years learning to cope with the night terrors it had spawned, until the spiritual and psychological wounds had finally healed. I’d seen some who had been subjected to a psychic sandblasting by vampires of the Black Court who had become nearly mindless bodies, obeying orders, and others of the same ilk who had turned into psychotic killing machines in service to their masters.
The worst part of it all was that almost the only way for me to see something like that was to open my Sight. Which meant that every horribly mangled psyche I’d come across remained fresh and bright in my memory. Always.
The top shelf of my mental trophy case was getting crowded with hideous keepsakes.
The not-truly-hot water coursed over me, a small but suddenly significant comfort. “Go away,” I told Lasciel. Then I added, “Leave me the hot water. Just this once.”
“As you wish,” the fallen angel’s voice replied, polite satisfaction in her tone. The sense of her presence vanished entirely.
I stayed in the shower until my fingers shriveled up. Or, more accurately, I stayed there until the fingers of my right hand shriveled up. The skin of my burned left hand always looked withered and shriveled, these days. The second I turned the water off, the full sensation of icy cold returned, and I shivered violently as I toweled off and got dressed.
I took care of Mouse and Mister’s various needs, ate several leftover biscuits from the fridge for breakfast, and opened a can of Coke. After a moment’s thought, I headed down to my lab and grabbed Bob’s skull from the shelf.
Faint orange lights flickered in the sockets. “Hey,” Bob mumbled in a sleep-slurred voice. “Where are we going?”
“Investigating,” I said. I went back upstairs with the skull and dropped it into my nylon backpack. “I might need you today. But there are going to be straights around, so keep your mouth shut unless I open the pack.”
“ ‘Kay,” Bob said with a yawn, and the lights in the skull’s eye sockets winked out again.
I strapped on the magical arsenal-my shield bracelet, the energy ring, and my silver pentacle amulet. I slipped my newly carved blasting rod into a side pocket of the pack, leaving the handle out where I could reach up behind my right ear and whip it out in a hurry. I picked up my staff and eyed my leather duster, hanging on its hook by the door. I had layered spells over the duster in an effort to provide myself with a measure of protection against various fangs and claws and bullets and such, and as a result the coat had effectively become a suit of armor.
But, like most suits of armor, it lacked its own air-conditioning system-and if I wore it around in the blazing summer heat, I’d probably die of heat prostration before anyone had the chance to bite, slice, or shoot me. Hell, even the blue jeans I was wearing would feel too heavy long before noon. The duster stayed on its hook.
That rattled me a little. I’m used to the duster, and the spells on its leather had saved my life before. It made me feel a little vulnerable to think of getting into some kind of supernatural conflict without it. So I grabbed Mouse’s lead, much to the dog’s tail-wagging approval, and clipped it onto his collar. “You’re with me today,” I told him. “I need someone to watch my back. Maybe to help me eat a hot dog later.”
Mouse’s tail wagged even more at the mention of hot dogs. He chuffed out a breath, nudged my hip with the side of his head in a fond gesture, and we went outside to wait for Murphy.
She pulled up and eyed Mouse warily as I opened the back door and he jumped up onto the backseat. The car rocked back and forth with his weight and sank a little.
“He’s car-broken, right?”
Mouse wagged his tail and gave Murphy an enthusiastic, vacant doggie grin, tilting his head back and forth quizzically. It was easy for my imagination to subtitle the look: Car-broken? What is that?
“Wiseass,” I muttered at the dog, and got in the passenger side. “Don’t worry, Murph. We did an insane amount of work on the whole bodily function issue as soon as I realized how big he was going to get. He’ll be good.” I glared at the backseat. “Won’t you?”
Mouse gave me that same grin and puzzled tilting of his head. I frowned at him more deeply. He leaned forward to nuzzle my shoulder with his heavy muzzle, and settled down in the backseat.
Murphy sighed. “If it was any other dog, I’d make him ride in the trunk.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You have dog issues.”
“Big dog issues,” Murphy corrected me. “Just big dogs.”
“Mouse isn’t big. He’s compactly challenged.”
She gave me an arch look as she pulled out and said, “You’d fit in the trunk, too, Harry.” Then she frowned at me and said, “Your lips are blue.”
“Long shower,” I said.
She gave me a sudden, swift grin. “Wanted to keep your mind on business? I think I’ll interpret that as a compliment to my sexual appeal.”
I snorted and buckled in. “You heard anything from the hospital?”
Murphy’s smile faded and she kept her eyes on the road. She nodded without looking at me, her face impossible to read.
“Bad, huh?” I asked.
“The young man the paramedics carried off died. The girl who was already down when you came in is going to make it, but she’s in some kind of shock. Catatonic. Doesn’t focus her eyes or anything. Just lies there.”
“Yeah,” I said
quietly. “I was sort of expecting that. What about the other girl? Rosie?”
“Her injuries were painful but not life-threatening. They closed the cuts and set the bones, but when they heard she was pregnant they kept her at the hospital for observation. It looks like she’ll come through without losing the child. She’s awake and talking.”
“That’s something,” I said. “And Pell?”
“Still in ICU. He’s an old man, and his injuries were severe. They think he’ll be all right as long as there aren’t any complications. He’s groggy, but he’s conscious.”
“ICU,” I said. “Any chance we could talk to him somewhere else?”
“Those doctors can be real funny about not wanting people in critical condition to nip out for a walk to the vending machines,” she said.
I grunted. “You might have to solo him, then. I don’t dare go walking in there with all the medical equipment around.”
“Even if it was just for a few minutes?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t have any control over when things break down.” I paused and said, “Well, not exactly. I could blow out the whole floor in a few seconds, if I was trying to do it, but there’s not much I can do to keep things from breaking down. Odds are good that if I was only in there for a few minutes, nothing bad would happen. But sometimes things go haywire the second I walk by them. I can’t take any chances when there are people on life support.”
Murphy arched a brow at me, and then nodded in understanding. “Maybe we can get you on a speaker phone or something.”
“Or something.” I rubbed at my eyes. “I think this is gonna be a long day.”
When you get right down to it, all hospitals tend to look pretty much the same, but Mercy Hospital, where the victims in the attack had been taken, somehow managed to avoid the worst of the sterile, disinfected, quietly desperate quality of many others. The oldest hospital in Chicago, the Sisters of Mercy had founded the place, and it remained a Catholic institution. Thought ridiculously large when it was first built, the famous Chicago fires of the late nineteenth century filled Mercy to capacity. Doctors were able to handle six or seven times as many patients as any other hospital during the emergency, and everyone stopped complaining about how uselessly big the place was.
There was a cop on guard in the hallway outside the victims’ rooms, in case the whacko costumed killer came after them again. He might also be there to discourage the press, whenever they inevitably smelled the blood in the water and showed up for the frenzy. It did not surprise me much at all to see that the cop on guard was Rawlins. He was unshaven and still had his SplatterCon!!! name tag on. One of his forearms was bound up in neatly taped white bandages, but other than that he looked surprisingly alert for someone who had been injured and then worked all through the night. Or maybe his weathered features just took such things in stride.
“Dresden,” Rawlins said from his seat. He’d dragged a chair to the hall’s intersection. He was dedicated, not insane. “You look better. ‘Cept for those bruises.”
“The best ones always show up the day after,” I said.
“God’s truth,” he agreed.
Murphy looked back and forth between us. “I guess you’ll work with anybody, Harry.”
“Shoot,” Rawlins drawled, smiling. “Is that little Karrie Murphy I hear down there? I didn’t bring my opera glasses to work today.”
She grinned back. “What are you doing down here? Couldn’t they find a real cop to watch the hall?”
He snorted, stuck his legs out, and crossed his ankles. I noted that for all of his indolent posture, his holstered weapon was clear and near his right hand. He regarded Mouse with pursed lips and said, “Don’t think dogs are allowed in here.”
“He’s a police dog,” I told him.
Rawlins casually offered Mouse the back of one hand. Mouse sniffed it politely and his tail thumped against my legs. “Hmmm,” Rawlins drawled. “Don’t think I’ve seen him around the station.”
“The dog’s with me,” I said.
“The wizard’s with me,” Murphy said.
“Makes him a police dog, all right,” Rawlins agreed. He jerked his head down the hall. “Miss Marcella is down that way. They got Pell and Miss Becton in ICU. The boy they brought in didn’t make it.”
Murphy grimaced. “Thanks, Rawlins.”
“You’re welcome, little girl,” Rawlins said, his deep voice grandfatherly.
Murphy gave him a brief glare, and we went down the hall to visit the first of the victims.
It was a single-bed room. Molly was there, in a chair beside the bed, where she had evidently been asleep while mostly sitting up. By the time I got in the room and shut the door, she was looking around blearily and mopping at the corner of her mouth with her sleeve. In the bed beside her was Rosie, small and pale.
Molly touched the girl’s arm and gently roused her. Rosie looked up at us and blinked a few times.
“Good morning,” Murphy said. “I hope you were able to get some rest.”
“A l-little,” the girl said, her voice raspy. She looked around, but Molly was already passing her a glass of water with a straw in it. Rosie sipped and then laid her head tiredly back, then murmured a thank you to Molly. “A little,” she said again, her voice stronger. “Who are you?”
“My name is Karrin Murphy. I’m a detective for the Chicago Police Department.” She gestured at me, and took a pen and a small notebook from her hip pocket. “This is Harry Dresden. He’s working with us on the case. Do you mind if he’s here?”
Rosie licked her lips and shook her head. Her uninjured hand moved fitfully, stroking over the bandages on the opposite forearm in nervous motions. Murphy engaged the girl in quiet conversation.
“What are you doing here?” Molly asked me in a half whisper.
“Looking into things,” I replied as quietly. “There’s something spooky going on.”
Molly chewed on her lip. “You’re sure?”
“Definitely,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll find whatever hurt your friend.”
“Friends,” Molly said, emphasizing the plural. “Have you heard anything about Ken? Rosie’s boyfriend? No one will tell us anything.”
“He the kid that they took from the scene?”
Molly nodded anxiously. “Yes.”
I glanced at Murphy’s back and didn’t say anything.
Molly got it. Her face went white and she whispered, “Oh, God. She’ll be so…” She folded her arms and shook her head several times. Then she said, “I’ve got to…” She looked around, and in a louder voice said, “I’m dying for coffee. Anyone else need some?”
Nobody did. Molly picked up her purse and turned around to walk for the door. In doing so, she brushed within a foot or two of Mouse. Instead of growling, though, Mouse leaned his head affectionately against her leg as she went by, and cadged a few ear scratches from the girl before she left.
I frowned at Mouse after Molly had gone. “Are you going bipolar on me?”
He settled down again immediately. Murphy went on asking Rosie fairly predictable questions about the attack.
The clock was running. I pushed the question about Mouse’s odd behavior aside for the moment, and let Mouse watch the door while I reached for my Sight.
It was a slight effort of concentration to push away the concerns of the material world, like aches and pains and bruises and why my dog was growling at Molly, and then the mere light and shadow and color of the everyday world dissolved into the riot of flowing energy and currents of light and power that lay beneath the surface.
Murphy looked like Murphy had always looked beneath my Sight. She appeared almost as herself, but clearer, somehow, her eyes flashing, and she was garbed in a quasi angelic tunic of white, stained in places with the blood and mud of battle. A short, straight sword, its blade made of almost viciously bright white light, hung beneath her left arm, where I knew her light cotton blazer hid her gun in its shoulder rig. She looked at me and I
could see her physical face as a vague shadow beneath the surface of the aspect I saw now. She smiled at me, a sunny light in it, though her body’s face remained a neutral mask. I was seeing the life, the emotion behind her face, now.
I shied away from staring at her lest I make eye contact for too long- but that smile, at least, was something I wouldn’t mind remembering. Rosie was another story.
The physical Rosie was a small, slight, pale young woman with thin, frail features. The Rosie my Sight revealed to me was entirely different. Pale skin became a pallid, dirty, leathery coating. Large dark eyes looked even bigger, and flicked around with darting, avian jerks. They were furtive eyes, giving her the dangerous aspect of a stray dog or maybe some kind of rat-the eyes of a craven, desperate survivor.
Winding veins of some kind of green-black energy pulsed beneath her skin, particularly around the inside bend of her left arm. The writhing strings of energy ended at the surface of her skin, in dozens of tiny, mindlessly opening and closing little mouths-the needle tracks I’d seen the night before. Her right hand kept darting back and forth over the other arm as if trying to scratch a persistent itch. But her fingers couldn’t touch. There was a kind of sheath of sparkling motes around her hands, almost like mittens, and she couldn’t actually touch those mindlessly hungry mouths. Worse, there were what looked almost like burn marks on her temples- small, black, neat holes, as if someone had bored a hot needle through the skin and skull beneath. There was a kind of phantom blood around the injuries, but her eyes were wide and vague, as if she didn’t even notice them. What the hell? I had seen the victims of spiritual attacks before, and they’d never been pretty. Usually they looked like the victim of a shark attack, or someone who had been mauled by a bear. I hadn’t ever seen someone with damage like Rosie’s. It looked almost like some kind of demented surgeon had gone after her with a laser scalpel. That pushed the weirdometer a couple of clicks beyond the previous record.
My head started pounding and I pushed the Sight away. I leaned my hip against the wall for a second and rubbed at my temples until the throbbing subsided and I was sure that my normal vision had returned.