She touched my arm again. "I thought you had a right to know," she said. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to get here sooner."
I covered her hand with mine and pressed gently. "Yeah," I said. "Thanks."
"You look awful."
"You sweet talker, you."
She lifted her hand to touch my face. "I've got a few hours before I need to be back on duty. I was thinking a bottle of wine and a massage might be in order."
I only barely kept from groaning in pleasure at the very thought of one of Anastasia's massages. What she didn't know about inflicting merciless pleasure on a man's aching body hadn't been invented. But I sure as hell couldn't have her back over to the apartment. If she found out about Morgan, and if he truly intended to betray me, it would be frighteningly easy for her head to wind up on the floor next to Morgan's and mine.
"I can't," I told her. "I've got to go to the hospital."
She frowned. "What happened?"
"A skinwalker picked up my trail earlier tonight, when I was at Billy Borden's place. Kirby's dead. Andi's in the hospital."
She sucked in a breath, wincing in empathy. "Dio, Harry. I'm so sorry."
I shrugged. I watched my vision blur, and realized that I wasn't only making an excuse to keep her away from my place. Kirby and I hadn't been blood brothers or anything-but he was a friend, a regular part of my life. Emphasis on the was was.
"Is there anything I can do?" she asked.
I shook my head. Then I said, "Actually, yeah."
"Very well."
"Find out whatever you can about skinwalkers. I'm going to kill this one."
"All right," she said.
"Meanwhile," I said, "is there anything I can do for you?"
"For me?" She shook her head. "But ... Morgan could use whatever help he can get."
"Yeah," I said. "Like I'm gonna help Morgan."
She lifted her hands. "I know. I know. But there's not much I can do. Everyone knows he was my apprentice. They're watching me. If I try to help him openly, they'll suspend me as captain of the Wardens, at best."
"Don't you just love it when justice can't be bothered with petty concerns like fact?"
"Harry," she said. "What if he's innocent?"
I shrugged. "The way I was all those years? I'm too busy admiring the karma to lend a hand to the bastard." Out on the street, Thomas's Jag cruised by the end of the alley, then pulled up to the curb and stopped.
I glanced at the car and said, "There's my ride."
Anastasia arched an eyebrow at Thomas and his car. "The vampire?"
"He owed me a favor."
"Mmmm," Anastasia said. Her look at Thomas did not say yum yum. She looked more like someone who was trying to judge by how much she would need to lead a moving target. "You're sure?"
I nodded. "The White King told him to play nice. He will."
"Until he doesn't," she said.
"Walkers can't be choosers," I said.
"The Beetle Beetle died again?" died again?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why don't you get a different car?" she asked.
"Because the Blue Beetle Blue Beetle is is my my car." car."
Anastasia smiled faintly up at me. "I wonder how you make something like that so endearing."
"It's my natural good looks," I said. "I could make athlete's foot endearing, if I really had to."
She rolled her eyes, but was still smiling. "I'll head back to Edinburgh and help coordinate the search. If there's anything I can do ..."
I nodded. "Thank you."
She put her hands on my cheeks. "I'm sorry about your friends. When this is over, we'll find some quiet spot and relax."
I turned my head to one side and kissed the pulse in her wrist, then gently clasped her hands with mine. "Look, I'm not making any promises. But if I see something that might help Morgan, I'll let you know."
"Thank you," she said quietly.
She stood up on her toes and kissed me goodbye. Then she turned and vanished into the shadows farther down the alley.
I waited until she was gone to turn around and join my brother in the white Jag.
"Damn, that girl is fit," Thomas drawled. "Where to?"
"Stop looking," I said. "My place."
If Morgan was going to give me the shaft, I might as well find out now.
Chapter Eleven
Thomas stopped his Jag in front of the boardinghouse where my apartment was and said, "I'll have my cell phone on me. Try to call me before things start exploding."
"Maybe this time it'll be different. Maybe I'll work everything out through reason, diplomacy, dialogue, and mutual cooperation."
Thomas eyed me.
I tried to look wounded. "It could happen."
He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a plain white business card with a phone number on it, and passed it to me. "Use this number. It's to a clone."
I looked at him blankly.
"It's a supersecret sneaky phone," he clarified. "No one knows I have it, and if someone traces your calls and goes looking for me, they'll find someone else."
"Oh," I said. "Right."
"You sure you don't want to just load Morgan up and go?"
I shook my head. "Not until I give him the score. He sees me coming in with a vampire in tow, he's going to flip out. As in try to kill us both." I got out of the Jag, glanced at the house, and shook my head. "You stay alive for a dozen decades doing what Morgan does, paranoia becomes reflex."
Thomas grimaced. "Yeah. Give me an hour or so to get what you need. Call me when you've got him ready to go."
I glanced at the number, committed it to memory, and pocketed the card. "Thanks. I'll pay you back for the gear."
He rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Harry."
I snorted out a breath, and nodded my head in thanks. We rapped knuckles, and he pulled out onto the street and cruised out into the Chicago night.
I took a slow look around the familiar shapes of dark buildings where only a few lights still burned. I'd lived in this neighborhood for years. You'd think I'd be confident about spotting anything out of the ordinary fairly quickly. But, call me crazy, there were just too many players moving in this game, with God only knew what kinds of abilities to draw upon.
I didn't spot anyone out there getting set to kill me to get to Morgan. But that didn't mean that they weren't there.
"If that's not paranoid reflex," I muttered, "I don't know what is."
I shivered and walked down the steps to my apartment. I disarmed the wards, and reminded myself, again, that I really needed to do something about the deep divots in the steel security door. The last thing I needed was for old Mrs. Spunkelcrief, my near-deaf landlady, to start asking me why my door looked like it had been shot a dozen times. I mean, I could always tell her, "because it has been," but that isn't the sort of conversation one has with one's landlady if one wants to keep one's home.
I opened the bullet-dented door, went inside, turned toward the bedroom door, and was faced with a bizarre tableau.
Morgan was off the bed, sitting on the floor with his back to it, his wounded leg stretched out in front of him. He looked awful, but his eyes were narrowed and glittered with suspicion.
Sprawled in the bedroom doorway was my apprentice, Molly Carpenter.
Molly was a tall young woman with a bunch of really well-arranged curves and shoulder-length hair that was, this month, dyed a brilliant shade of sapphire. She was wearing cutoff blue jeans and a white tank top, and her blue eyes looked exasperated.
She was sprawling on the floor because Mouse was more or less lying on top of her. He wasn't letting his full weight rest on her, because it probably would have smothered her, but it seemed obvious that she was not able to move.
"Harry!" Molly said. She started to say something else, but Mouse leaned into her a little, and suddenly all she could do was gasp for air.
"Dresden!" Morgan growled at about the same time. He shifted his weight, as if to get up.
Mouse turned his head to Morgan and gave him a steady look, his lips peeling back from his fangs.
Morgan settled down.
"Hooboy," I sighed, and pushed the door shut, leaving the room in complete darkness. I locked the door, put the wards back up, and then muttered, "Flickum bicus." "Flickum bicus." I waved my hand as I spoke, and sent a minor effort of will out into the room, and half a dozen candles flickered to life. I waved my hand as I spoke, and sent a minor effort of will out into the room, and half a dozen candles flickered to life.
Mouse turned to me and gave me what I could have sworn was a reproachful look. Then he got up off of Molly, padded into the alcove that served as my kitchen, and deliberately yawned at me before flopping down on the floor to sleep. The meaning was clear: now it's your problem. now it's your problem.
"Ah," I said, glancing from Mouse to my apprentice to my guest. "Um. What happened here, exactly?"
"The warlock tried to sneak up on me while I slept," Morgan spat.
Molly quickly stood up and scowled at Morgan, her hands clenched into fists. "Oh, that's ridiculous."
"Then explain what you're doing here this late at night," Morgan said. "What possible reason could you have to show up here, now?"
"I'm making concentration-supporting potions," she said from between clenched teeth, in a tone that suggested she'd repeated herself about a hundred times already. "The jasmine has to go in at night. Tell him, Harry."
Crap. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten that the grasshopper was scheduled to show up and pull an all-nighter. "Um," I said. "What I meant to ask was, how is it that Mouse came to be sitting on you both?"
"The warlock summoned up her will and prepared to attack me," Morgan said frostily. "The dog intervened."
Molly rolled her eyes and glared at him. "Oh, please please. You are such such an asshole." an asshole."
The air in the room seemed to tighten a little, as power gathered around the young woman.
"Molly," I said gently.
She glanced over at me, scowling. "What?"
I cleared my throat and gestured at her with one hand.
She blinked for a second, then seemed to catch on. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled it slowly. As she did, the ominous sense of stormy energy faded. Molly ducked her head a little, her cheeks flushing. "Sorry. But it wasn't like that."
Morgan snorted.
I ignored him. "Go on," I told Molly. "Talk."
"He just ... I just got so angry," Molly said. "He made me so upset. I couldn't help it." She gestured to Mouse. "And then he just ... just flattened me. And he wouldn't let me up, and he wouldn't let Morgan move, either."
"Seems to me that the dog had better sense than you," I said. I glanced up at Morgan. "Either of you. You're supposed to stay still. You wanna kill yourself?"
"It was a reaction to her approach," Morgan said calmly. "I survived it."
I shook my head. "And you," I said to Molly. "How many months have we spent working on your emotional control?"
"I know, I know," she said. "It's never good to use magic in anger. I know, Harry."