The Dresden Files Series Part I Part 59

"Thank you, Harry," Murphy said.

"Any time. You're my friend, Murph. And I'm always up to helping a lady in distress."

She glanced up at me, a sparkle in her eyes underneath the brim of the baseball cap. "You are such a chauvinist pig, Dresden."

"A hungry chauvinist pig," I said. "I'm starving."

"You should eat more often, beanpole." Murphy sat me down on the top step and said, "Stay here. I'll get you something."

"Don't take too long, Murph. I've got work to do. The thing that did this comes out to play at sundown."

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I thought of dead animals and smashed cars and frozen agonies wrapped around Micky Malone's tortured soul. "I don't know what the h.e.l.l this Nightmare is. But I'm going to find it. And I'm going to kill it."

"That sounds about right," Murphy said. "If I can help, you've got it."

"Thanks, Murph."

"Don't mention it. Um, Harry?"

I opened my eyes. She was watching me, her expression uncertain. "For a minute there, when I came in. You stared at me. You stared at me with the strangest d.a.m.ned expression on your face. What did you see?" she asked.

"You'd laugh in my face if I told you," I said. "Go get me something to eat."

She snorted and turned to go down the stairs and sort things out with the excited S.I. officers roaming around on the first floor. I smiled, remembering the vision, sharp and brilliant in my mind's eye. Murphy, the guardian angel, coming through the door in a blaze of wrath. It was a picture I wouldn't mind keeping with me. Sometimes you get lucky.

And then I thought of that barbed wire, the hideous torment I'd seen and briefly felt. The ghosts rising of late had been suffering from the same thing. But who could be doing it to them? And how? The forces used in that torture-spell weren't like anything I had seen or felt before. I had never heard of any kind of magic that could be slapped on a spirit or a mortal with the same results. I wouldn't have thought it possible. How was it being done?

More to the point, who was doing it? Or what what?

I sat there s.h.i.+vering and alone and aching. I was starting to take this business personally. Malone was an ally, someone who had stood up to the bad guys beside me. The more I thought about it, the more angry and the more certain I became.

I would find this Nightmare, this thing that had crossed over, and destroy it.

And then I would find whoever or whatever had created it.

Unless, Harry, I thought to myself, they find you first. they find you first.

Chapter Fourteen "No," I said into the phone. I tossed my coat onto a chair and then sprawled out on the couch. My apartment lay covered in shadows, sunlight filtering in through the sunken windows high up on the walls. "I haven't gotten the chance yet. I lost a couple of hours detouring to pull a spell off of Micky Malone, from S.I. Someone had wrapped barbed wire around his spirit."

"Mother of G.o.d," Michael said. "Is he all right?"

"Will be. But it's four hours of daylight lost." I filled him in on Mort Lindquist and his diaries, as well as the events at Detective Malone's house.

"There isn't much more time to find this Lydia, Harry," Michael agreed. "Sundown's in another six hours."

"I'm working on it. And after I get Bob out the door looking, I'll see if I can hit the streets myself. I got the Beetle Beetle back." back."

He sounded surprised. "It's not impounded?"

"Murphy fixed it for me."

"Harry," he said, disappointed. "She broke the law to get you your car back?"

"Darn tootin' she did," I said. "She owed me a favor. Hey man, the Almighty doesn't arrange for me me to be anywhere on time. I need wheels." to be anywhere on time. I need wheels."

Michael sighed. "There isn't time to debate this right now. I'll call you if I find her-but it doesn't look good."

"I just can't figure it. What would this thing have to do with that girl? We need to find her and work out the connection."

"Could Lydia be responsible for the recent disturbances?"

"I don't think so. That spell I ran into today-I've never seen anything like it. It was ..." I s.h.i.+vered, remembering. "It was wrong, Michael. Cold. It was-"

"Evil?" he suggested.

"Maybe. Yeah."

"There is such a thing as evil, Harry, in spite of what many people say. Just remember that there's good, too."

I cleared my throat, uncomfortable. "Murphy put out the word to the folks in blue-so if one of her friends on patrol sees a girl matching Lydia's description, we'll hear about it."

"Outstanding," Michael said. "You see, Harry? This detour of yours to help Detective Malone is going to help us a great deal. Isn't that a very positive coincidence?"

"Yeah, Michael. Divine fortune, yadda, yadda. Call me."

"Don't yadda yadda yadda yadda the Lord, Harry. It's disrespectful. G.o.d go with you." And he hung up. the Lord, Harry. It's disrespectful. G.o.d go with you." And he hung up.

I put my coat away, got out my nice, heavy flannel robe and slipped into it, then went over to the rug against the south wall. I dragged it away from the floor, and the hinged door there, then swung the door open. I fetched a kerosene lamp, lit it up and dialed the wick up to a bright flame, then got ready to descend the folding wooden ladder into the subbas.e.m.e.nt.

The telephone rang again.

I debated ignoring it. It rang again, insistent. I sighed, closed the door, put the rug back in place, and got to the phone on the fifth ring.

"What?" I said, uncharitably.

"I have to hand it to you, Dresden," Susan said. "You certainly know how to charm a girl the morning after."

I let out a long breath. "Sorry, Susan. I've been working and ... it's not going so well. Lots of questions and no answers."

"Ouch," she said back. Someone said something to her in the background, and she murmured a response. "I don't want to add to your day, but do you remember the name of that guy you and Special Investigations took down a couple months ago? The ritual killer?"

"Oh, right. Him ..." I closed my eyes, and grubbed about in my memory. "Leo something. Cravat, Camner, Conner. Kraven the Hunter. I didn't really get his name. I tracked him down by the demon he was calling up and nailed him that way. Michael and I didn't hang around for the paperwork afterwards, either."

"Kravos?" Susan asked. "Leonid Kravos?"

"Yeah, that might have been it, I think."

"Great," she said. "Super. Thank you, Harry." Her voice sounded a little tense, excited.

"Uh. Do you mind telling me what's going on?" I asked her.

"It's an angle I'm working on," she said. "Look, all I've got right now are rumors. I'll try to tell you more as soon as I've got something concrete."

"Fair enough. I'm sort of focused on something else right now, anyway."

"Anything you need help with?"

"G.o.d, I hope not," I said. I s.h.i.+fted the phone a little closer to my ear. "Did you sleep all right, last night?"

"Maybe," she teased. "It's hard to get really relaxed, when I'm that unsatisfied, but your apartment's so cold it's kind of like going into hibernation."

"Yeah, well. Next time I'll make sure it's a h.e.l.l of a lot colder."

"I'm s.h.i.+vering already," she purred. "Call you tonight if I can?"

"Might not be here."

She sighed. "I understand. Potluck, then. Thanks again, Harry."

"Anytime."

We said goodbye, hung up, and I went back to the stairs leading down into the subbas.e.m.e.nt. I uncovered the trapdoor, opened it, got my lantern, and clumped on down the steep, folding staircase.

My lab never got any less cluttered, no matter how much more organization I imposed on it. The contents only grew denser. Counters and shelves ran along three walls. A long table ran down the center of the room, with enough s.p.a.ce for me to slip sideways down its length on either side. Next to the ladder, a kerosene heater blunted the worst of the subterranean chill. On the far side of the table, a bra.s.s ring had been set into the floor-a summoning circle. I'd had to learn the hard way to keep it clear of the other debris in the lab.

Debris. Technically, everything in the lab was useful, and served some kind of purpose. The ancient books with their faded, moldering leather covers and their all-pervasive musty smell, the plastic containers with resealable lids, the bottles, the jars, the boxes-they all had something in them I either needed or had needed at one time. Notebooks, dozens of pens and pencils, paper clips and staples, reams of paper covered in my restless, scrawling handwriting, the dried corpses of small animals, a human skull surrounded by paperback novels, candles, an ancient battle axe, they all had some significance. I just couldn't remember what it was for most of them.

I took the cover off the lamp and used it to light up about a dozen candles around the room, and then the kerosene heater. "Bob," I said. "Bob, wake up. Come on, we've got work to do." Golden light and the smell of candle flames and hot wax filled the room. "I mean it, man. There's not much time."

Up on its shelf the skull quivered. Twin points of orangish flame flickered up in the empty eye sockets. The white jaws parted in a pantomime yawn, an appropriate sound coming out with it. "Stars and Stones, Harry," the skull muttered. "You're inhuman. It isn't even sundown yet."

"Stop whining, Bob. I'm not in the mood."

"Mood. I'm exhausted. I don't think I can help you out anymore."

"Unacceptable," I said.

"Even spirits get tired, Harry. I need rest."

"Time enough for rest when I'm dead."

"All right then," Bob said. "You want work, we make a deal. I want to do a ridealong the next time Susan comes over."

I snorted at him. "h.e.l.l's bells, Bob, don't you ever think about anything besides s.e.x? No. I'm not letting you into my head while I'm with Susan."

The skull spat out an oath. "There should be a union. We could renegotiate my contract."

I snorted. "Any time you want to head back to the homeland, Bob, feel free."

"No, no, no," the skull muttered. "That's all right."

"I mean, there's still that misunderstanding with the Winter Queen, but-"

"All right, I said."

"You probably don't need my protection anymore. I'm sure she'd be willing to sit down and work things out, rather than putting you in torment for the next few hundred-"

"All right, right, I said!" Bob's eyelights flamed. "You can be such an a.s.shole, Dresden, I swear." I said!" Bob's eyelights flamed. "You can be such an a.s.shole, Dresden, I swear."

"Yep," I agreed. "You awake yet?"

The skull tilted to one side in a thoughtful gesture. "You know," it said. "I am." The eye sockets focused on me again. "Anger really gets the old juices flowing. That was pretty sneaky."

I got out a relatively fresh notepad and a pencil. It took me a moment to clear off a s.p.a.ce on the central table. "I've run into some new stuff. Maybe you can help me out. And we've got a missing person I need to look for."

"Okay, hit me."

I took a seat on the worn wooden stool and drew my warm robe a little closer about me. Trust me, wizards don't wear robes for the dramatic effect. They just can't get warm warm enough in their labs. I knew some guys in Europe who still operated out of stone towers. I shudder to think. enough in their labs. I knew some guys in Europe who still operated out of stone towers. I shudder to think.

"Right," I said. "Just give me whatever you can." And I outlined the events, starting with Agatha Hagglethorn, through Lydia and her disappearance, through my conversation with Mort Lindquist and his mention of the Nightmare, to the attack on poor Micky Malone.

Bob whistled, no mean trick for a guy with no lips. "Let me get this straight. This creature, this thing, has been torturing powerful spirits for a couple of weeks with this barbed-wire spell. It tore up a bunch of stuff on consecrated ground. Then it blew through somebody's threshold and tore his spirit apart, and slapped a torture-spell on him?"

"You got it," I said. "So. What kind of ghost are we dealing with, and who could have called it up? And what is this girl's connection to it?"

"Harry," Bob said, his tone serious. "Leave this one alone."

I blinked at him. "What?"

"Maybe we could go on a vacation-Fort Lauderdale. They're having this international swimsuit compet.i.tion there, and we could-"

I sighed. "Bob, I don't have time for-"

"I know a guy who's possessed a travel agent for a few days, and he could get us tickets cut rate. What do you say?"

I peered at the skull. If I didn't know any better, I would think that Bob sounded ... nervous? Was that even possible? Bob wasn't a human being. He was a spirit, a being of the Nevernever. The skull was his habitat, his home away from home. I let him stay in it, protected him, and bought him trashy romance novels on occasion in exchange for his help, his prodigious memory, and his affinity for the laws of magic. Bob was a records computer and personal a.s.sistant all rolled into one, provided you could keep his mind on the issue at hand. He knew thousands of beings in the Nevernever, hundreds of spell recipes, scores of formulae for potions and enchantments and magical constructions.

No spirit could have that kind of knowledge without it translating into considerable power. So why was he acting so scared?

"Bob. I don't know why you're so upset, but we need to stop wasting time. Sundown's coming in a few hours, and this thing is going to be able to cross over from the Nevernever and hurt someone else. I need to know what it is, and where it might be going, and how to kick its a.s.s."

"You humans," Bob said. "You're never satisfied. You always want to find out what's behind the next hill, open the next box. Harry, you've got to learn when you know too much."

I stared up at him for a moment, then shook my head. "We'll start with basics and work our way through this step by step."

"Dammit, Harry."