Proven Guilty

by Jim Butcher

Chapter 17~18

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wasted no time. We went up the stairs, and I was already preparing my Sight. A nurse opened the door to the stairway, and I simply stepped into the first door on my left-the catatonic girl's, Miss Becton's. I stepped into the doorway and raised my Sight.

  She was a young girl, still in her late teens, nervously thin, her hair a shocking color of red that for some reason did not strike me as a dye job. She lay on her front, her head turned to the side, muddy brown eyes open and blank. Her back had been covered in bandages.

  As my Sight focused on her, I saw more. The girl's psyche had been savagely mauled, and as I watched her, phantom bruises darkened a few patches of skin that remained, and blood and watery fluids oozed from the rest of her torn flesh. Her mouth was set in a continual, silent wail, and beneath the real-world glaze, her eyes were wide with terror. If there'd been enough left of her behind those eyes, Miss Becton would have been screaming.

  My stomach rolled and I barely spotted a trash can in time to throw up into it.

  Murphy crouched down at my side, her hand on my back. "Harry? Are you okay?"

  Anger and empathy and grief warred for first place in my thoughts. Across the room, I was dimly conscious of a clock radio warbling to life and dying in a puff of smoke. The room's fluorescent lights began to flicker as the violent emotions played hell with the aura of magic around me.

  "No," I said in a vicious, half-strangled growl. "I'm not okay. "

  Murphy stared at me for a second, and then looked at the girl. "Is she. . . "

  "She isn't coming back," I said.

  I spat a few times into the trash can and stood up. My headache started to return. The girl's terrified eyes stayed bright and clear in my imagination. She'd been out for a fun time. A favorite movie. Maybe coffee or dinner with friends afterward. She sure as hell hadn't woken up yesterday morning and wondered if today would be the day some kind of nightmarish thing would rip away her sanity.

  "Harry," Murphy said again, her voice very gentle. "You didn't do this to her. "

  "Dammit," I said. I sounded bitter. She found my right hand with hers and I closed my fingers around hers with a kind of quiet desperation. "Dammit, Murph. I'm going to find this thing and kill it. "

  Her hand was steady and strong, like her voice. "I'll help. "

  I nodded and held tight to her hand for a minute. There wasn't any tension in that contact, no quivering sensation of excitement. Murphy was human and alive. She held my hand to remind me that I was too. I somehow managed to push the sense of visceral horror I'd seen filling the girl from my immediate thoughts, until I felt steadier. I squeezed her hand once and released it.

  "Come on," I said, my voice rough. "Pell. "

  "Are you sure you don't need a minute?"

  "It won't help," I said. I gestured at the radio and the lights. "I need to get this over with and leave. "

  She chewed on her lip but nodded at me, and led me to the door across the hall. I didn't want to do it, but I hauled up my Sight again and braced myself as I followed on Murphy's heels and Looked at Clark Pell.

  Pell was a sour-looking old cuss made out of shoe leather and gristle. One arm and both legs were in casts, and he was in traction. One side of his face was swollen with bruising. A plastic tube for oxygen ran beneath his nose. Bandages swathed his head, though bits of coarse grey hair stuck out. One eye was swollen mostly shut. The other was open, dark, and glittering.

  Beyond the physical surface, his wounds were very nearly as dire as those the girl had suffered. He had been brutally beaten. Phantom bruises slid around his wrinkled skin, and the shapes of distorted bones poked disquietingly at the surface. And I saw something about the old man, too. Beneath the shoe leather and gristle, there were more shoe leather and gristle. And iron. The old man had been badly beaten, but it wasn't the first such he had endured-physically or spiritually. He was a fighter, a survivor. He was afraid, but he was also angry and defiant.

  Whatever had done this to him hadn't gotten what it wanted-not like it had with the girl. It had to settle for a physical beating when its attack hadn't elicited the terror and anguish it had expected. The old man had faced it, and he didn't have any power of his own, beyond a lifetime of stubborn will. If he'd done it, as painful and as frightening as it must have been, I could steel myself against Looking at the aftermath.

  I released my Sight slowly and took a deep breath. Murphy, poised beside me as if she expected me to abruptly collapse, tilted her head and peered at me.

  "I'm all right," I told her quietly.

  Pell made a weak but rude sound. "Whiner. Not even a cast. "

  I faced the old man and said, "Who did this to you. "

  He shook his head, a feeble motion. "Crazy. "

  Murphy started to say something but I raised my hand and shook my head at her, and she fell silent, waiting.

  "Sir," I said to Pell. "I swear to you. I'm not a cop. I'm not a doctor. I think you saw something strange. "

  He stared at me, his one eye narrowed.

  "Didn't you?" I asked quietly.

  "Ha. . . H-h-" he tried to say, but the word broke into a wracking, quiet cough.

  I held up my hand and waited for him to recover. Then I said, "Hammerhands. "

  Pell's lip lifted, a faint little sneer. His good hand moved weakly, and I stepped over closer to him.

  "You told Greene it was someone dressed like Hammerhands," I guessed.

  Pell closed his eye tiredly. "Pretty much. "

  I nodded. "But it wasn't just a costume," I said quietly. "This was something more. "

  Pell gave a slow shudder, before opening his eye again, dull with fatigue. "It was him" the old man whispered. "Don't know how. Don't make no sense. But. . . you could feel it. "

  "I believe you," I told him.

  He watched me for a second and then nodded, closing his eye. "Thing is. That was the only damn movie ever scared me. Wasn't even all that good. " He gave a weak shake of his head and said, "Buzz off. "

  "Thank you," I told him quietly. Then I turned and walked toward the door.

  Murphy followed at my side, and we headed back down the stairs. "Harry?" she asked. "What was that?"

  "Pell," I said. "He gave us what we needed. "

  "He did?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I think he did. This thing has got to be some kind of phobophage. "

  "A what?"

  "It's a spiritual entity that feeds on fear. It attacks in order to scare people, and feeds on the emotion. "

  "It didn't give Pell those broken bones by shouting 'boo!' " Murphy said.

  "Yeah. It's got to manifest a physical body in order to come to the real world. Pretty standard for all those demon types. "

  "How do we beat it?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know yet. First I have to find out what kind of phobophage it is. But I've got a place to pick up a trail now. There are only going to be so many beings who could have crossed over to Chicago from the Nevernever to do what this thing did. "

  We emerged into the sunshine and I stopped for a minute, lifting my face up to the light.

  The horror and misery I'd seen on the victims remained in place, a clear and terrible image, but the sunlight and the equally sharp memory of old Pell's defiance took the edge off.

  "You going to be all right?" Murphy asked.

  "I think so," I said quietly.

  "Can you tell me what you saw?"

  I did, in as few words as I could.

  She listened, and then nodded slowly. "It hardly seems like what happened to them happened to Rosie. "

  "Maybe Rawlins and I got there in time," I said. "Maybe it hadn't had time to do more than a little foreplay"

  "Or maybe there's another reason," Murphy said.

  "Remind me to lecture you about the interest rate on borrowed trouble," I said. "Simplest explanation is the one to go with until we
find out something to the contrary. "

  Murphy nodded. "If this creature hit the convention twice, it will probably do it again. Seems to me that maybe we should advise them to close it down. No convention, no attacks, right?"

  "Too late for that," I said.

  She tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

  "The creature feeds on fear. It's attracted to it," I said. "If they shut down the convention, it will scare a lot of people. "

  "News reports will do that, too. "

  "Not the same way," I said. "A news report might unsettle some folks. But the people at the convention here, the ones who knew the victims, who were in the same buildings-it will hit them harder. It will make what happened here something dangerous. Something real. "

  "If the attacker is that dangerous, they should be afraid," Murphy said.

  "Except that intense fear will attract the attacker again," I said. "In fact, enough of it would attract more predators of the same nature. "

  "More?" Murphy said, her voice sharp.

  "Like blood in the water draws in sharks," I said. "Only instead of being at the convention, the targets will be scattered all over Chicago. Right now, the only advantage we have is that we know generally where the thing is going to strike again. If the convention closes, we lose that advantage. "

  "And the next chance we get to pick up its trail will be when the next corpse turns up. " Murphy shook her head. "What do you need from me?"

  "For now, a ride home," I said. "I'll have some consulting to do, and. . . " I suddenly ground my teeth. "Dammit, I almost forgot. "

  "What?"

  "I've got a lunch meeting I can't miss. "

  "More important than this?" she asked.

  "I can't let it slide," I said. "Council stuff. Maybe important. "

  She shook her head. "You take too much responsibility on yourself, Harry. You're just one man. A good man, but you're still only human. "

  "This is what happens when I don't wear the coat," I opined. "People start thinking I'm not a superhero. "

  She snorted and we started back toward her car. "I'm serious," she said. "You can't be everywhere at once. You can't stop all the bad things that are going to happen. "

  "Doesn't mean someone shouldn't try," I said.

  "Maybe. But you take it personal. You tear yourself up over it. Like with that girl just now. " She shook her head. "I hate to see you like that. You've got worries enough without beating yourself up for things you didn't do. "

  I shrugged and fell quiet until we got back to the car. Then I said, "I just can't stand it. I can't stand seeing people get hurt like that. I hate it. "

  She regarded me steadily and nodded. "Me too. "

  Mouse thumped his head against my leg and leaned on me so that I could feel his warmth.

  That settled, we all got into Murphy's car, so that I could track down I knew not what, just as soon as I got done opening an entirely new can of worms with the Summer Knight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  At my request, Murphy dropped me off a couple of blocks from home so that I could give Mouse at least a little chance to stretch his legs. He seemed appreciative and walked along sniffing busily, his tail fanning the air. I kept a watch out behind me, meanwhile, but my unknown tail did not appear. I kept an eye out for any other people or vehicles that might have been following me, in case he was working with a team, but I didn't spot anyone suspicious. That didn't stop me from keeping a paranoid eye over my shoulder until we made it back to the old boardinghouse, and I went down the stairs to my apartment door.

  I muttered my defensive wards down, temporarily neutralizing powerful constructions of magic that I had placed around my apartment shortly after the beginning of the war with the Red Court. I opened the dead bolt on the steel door, twisted the handle, and then slammed my shoulder into the door as hard as I could to open it.

  The door flew open to a distance of five or six whole inches. I kicked it a few times to open it the rest of the way, then tromped in with Mouse and looked up to find the barrel of a chopped-down shotgun six inches from my face.

  "Those things are illegal, you know," I said.

  Thomas scowled at me from the other end of the shotgun and lowered the weapon. I heard a metallic click as he put the safety back on. "You've got to get that door fixed. Every time you come in it sounds like an assault team. "

  "Boy," I replied, letting Mouse off his lead. "One little siege and you get all paranoid. "

  "What can I say. " He turned and slipped the shotgun into his bulging sports bag, which sat on the floor by the door. "I never counted on starring in my own personal zombie movie. "

  "Don't kid yourself," I said. Mister flew across the room and pitched all thirty pounds of himself into a friendly shoulder block against my legs. "It was my movie. You were a spear-carrier. A supporting role, tops. "

  "It's nice to be appreciated," he said. "Beer?"

  "Sure. "

  Thomas sauntered over to the icebox. He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a white cotton T-shirt. I frowned at the sports bag. His trunk, an old military-surplus footlocker, sat on the ground beside the bag, padlocked shut. Between the trunk and the bag, I figured pretty much every material possession he owned now sat on the floor by my door. He came back over to me with a couple of cold brown bottles of Mac's ale, and flicked the tops off of both of them at the same time with his thumbs. "Mac would kill you if he knew you were chilling it. "

  I took my bottle, studying his face, but his expression gave away little. "Mac can come over here and install air-conditioning, then, if he wants me to drink it warm in the middle of summer. "

  Thomas chuckled. We clinked bottles and drank.

  "You're leaving," I said a minute later.

  He took another sip, and said nothing.

  "You weren't going to tell me," I said.

  He rolled a shoulder in a shrug. Then he nodded at an envelope on the fireplace's mantel. "My new address and phone number. There's some money in there for you. "

  "Thomas. . . " I said.

  He swigged beer and shook his head. "No, take it. You offered to let me stay with you until I got on my feet. I've been here almost two years. I owe you. "

  "No," I said.

  He frowned. "Harry, please. "

  I stared at him for a minute, and struggled with a bunch of conflicting emotions. Part of me was childishly relieved that I would have my tiny apartment to myself again. A much larger part of me felt suddenly empty and worried. Still another part felt a sense of excitement and happiness for Thomas. Ever since he started crashing on my couch, Thomas had been recovering from wounds of his own. For a while there, I had feared that despair and self-loathing were going to cause him to implode, and I had somehow known that his desire to get out on his own again was a sign of recovery. Part of that recovery, I was sure, was Thomas regaining a measure of pride and self-confidence. That's why he'd left the money on the mantel. Pride. I couldn't turn down the money without taking that pride from him.

  Except for scattered memories of my father, Thomas was the only blood family I'd ever had. Thomas had faced danger and death beside me without hesitation, had guarded me in my sleep, tended me when I'd been injured, and once in a while he'd even cooked. We got on each other's nerves sometimes, sure, but that hadn't ever altered the fundamental fact of who we were to one another.

  We were brothers.

  Everything else was temporary.

  I met his eyes and asked, quietly, "Are you going to be all right?"

  He smiled a little and shrugged. "I think so. "

  I tilted my head. "Where'd the money come from?"

  "My job. "

  I lifted my eyebrows. "You found a job you could hold?"

  He winced a little.

  "Sorry," I said. "But. . . I know you'd had so much trouble. " Specifically, he'd been subjected to the amorous attentions of various fellow employees who had been
drawn to him to such a degree that it had practically been assault. Being an incubus was probably easier at night clubs and celebrity parties than at a drive-through or a cash register. "You found something?"

  "Something without people," he said. He smiled easily as he spoke, but I sensed an undercurrent of deception in it. He wasn't telling me the whole truth. "I've been there a while. "

  "Yeah?" I asked. "Where?"

  He evaded me effortlessly. "A place down off Lake View. I've finally earned a little extra. I just wanted to pay you back. "

  "You must be getting all kinds of overtime," I said. "As near as I can figure it, you've been putting in eighty- and ninety-hour weeks. "

  He shrugged, his smile a mask. "Working hard. "

  I took another sip of beer (which was excellent, even cold) and thought it over. If he didn't want to talk about it, he wasn't going to talk about it. Pushing him wouldn't make him any more likely to tell me. I didn't get the sense that he was in trouble, and while he had one hell of a poker face, I'd lived with him long enough to see through it most of the time. Thomas hadn't ever supported himself before. Now that he was sure he could do it, it had become something he valued.

  Getting out on his own was something he needed to do. I wouldn't be doing him any favors by interfering.

  "You sure you'll be okay?" I asked him.

  Something showed through the mask, then-embarrassment. "I'll be all right. It's past time for me to get out on my own. "

  "Not if you aren't ready," I said.

  "Harry, come on. So far we've been lucky. The Council hasn't noticed me here. But with all of your Warden stuff, sooner or later somebody's going to show up and find you rooming with a White Court vampire. "

  I grimaced. "That would be a mess," I agreed. "But I don't mind chancing it if you need the time. "

  "And I don't mind getting out on my own to avoid making trouble for you with the Council," he said. "Besides, I'm just covering my own ass. I don't want to cross them, myself. "

  "I wouldn't let them-"

  Thomas burst out in a brief, genuine laugh. "Christ, Harry. You're my brother, not my mother. I'll be fine. Now that I won't be here to make you look bad, maybe you can finally start having girls over again. "

  "Bite me, prettyboy," I said. "You need any help moving or anything?"

  "Nah. " He finished the beer. "I just have one box and one bag. Cab's on the way. " He paused. "Unless you need my help with a case or something. I've got until Monday to move in. "

  I shook my head. "I'm working with SI on this one, so I've got plenty of support. I think I can get things locked down by tonight. "

  Thomas gave me a flat look. "Now you've done it. "

  "What?" I asked.

  "You predicted quick victory. Now it's going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don't you know any better than that by now?"

  I grinned at him. "You'd think that I would. "

  I finished my beer and offered my brother my hand. He gripped it. "If you need anything, call me," he said.

  "Ditto. "

  "Thank you, little brother," he said quietly.

  I blinked my eyes a couple of times. "Yeah. My couch is always open. Unless there's a girl over. "

  Outside, wheels crunched on gravel and a car horn sounded.

  "There's my ride," he said. "Oh. Do you mind if I borrow the shotgun? Just until I can replace it. "

  "Go ahead," I told him. "I've still got my. 44. "

  "Thanks. " He bent over and swung the heavy footlocker onto one shoulder without effort. He picked up the sports bag, slung the strap over his other shoulder, and opened the door easily with one hand. He glanced back, winked at me, and shut the door behind him.

  I stared at the closed door for a minute. Car doors opened and closed. Wheels crunched as the cab drove away, and my apartment suddenly seemed a couple of sizes too large. Mouse let out a long sigh and came over to me to nudge his head underneath my hand. I scratched his ears for a minute and said, "He'll be all right. Don't worry about him. "

  Mouse sighed again.

  "I'll miss him too," I told the dog. Then I shook myself and told Mouse, "Don't get comfortable. We're going to go visit Mac. You can meet the Summer Knight. "

  I went around getting everything I needed for a formal meeting with the Summer Knight, called another cab, and sat in my too-quiet apartment wondering what it was my brother was hiding from me.