by Jim Butcher
“Oh, the usual,” Bob said, which meant he knew plenty.
“I saw Thomas get real weird tonight,” I said. “I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. But Justine was there, and she said that he was freezing and that it worried her. Then he hit her with some kind of mind-magic hypnosis whammy, and zoned her out entirely.”
“He was Hungry,” Bob said. “I mean, capital H kind of Hungry. The Hunger is a kind of . . . I don’t know. Symbiotic spirit, inside a White Court vamp. They’re born with it.”
“Ah,” I said. “That’s where they get the strength and powers and stuff.”
“Among them nigh-immortality,” Bob said. “But it don’t happen for free. That’s why they do the whole feeding thing. The Hunger needs it to survive.”
“I got it, I got it,” I said, through a yawn. “They use their powers and it makes the spirit hungry so they have to feed.” I frowned. “What happens if they don’t feed?”
“Short-term? Moodiness, anger, violent behavior, paranoia. In the long term, they’ll use up whatever reservoir of life energy they have. Once that happens, the Hunger pretty much takes over and makes them hunt.”
“If they can’t hunt?”
“They go insane.”
“What about the people they feed on?” I asked.
“What about them?” Bob said. “They get little pieces of their life nibbled away. It does a form of spiritual damage, like when the Nightmare mauled Mickey Malone. It leaves them vulnerable to the Whites’ mental allure and control, so it’s easy for the Whites to come by for another bite.”
“What happens if they keep getting fed on?”
“It’s fed upon, o Bard, and if it keeps up the mortal burns out early. Sort of fades away into a kind of mindless daze. Heart attack during an intense feeding usually kills them.”
“Killer sex,” I said. “Literally.”
“To die for,” Bob confirmed.
An eerie thought, and one that disturbed me a lot more than I thought it should. “What if the vamp doesn’t want to feed on someone?”
“Want doesn’t matter,” Bob said. “They feed on pure reflex. It’s what they are.”
“So if they stay with someone,” I said, “eventually they kill them.”
“Sooner or later,” Bob said. “Always.”
I shook my head. “I’ll remember that,” I said. “Tough to keep up the paranoia around Thomas. He’s . . . well, hell, if he was human I might not mind buying him a beer once in a while.”
Bob’s tone turned serious. “He might be a great guy, Harry, but it doesn’t change the fact that he isn’t always in control of his power, or his Hunger. I doubt he can stop himself from entrancing that pretty girl of his. Or from feeding upon her.” Bob paused. “Not that he’d really want to. I mean, she’s hot. Who wouldn’t want a little nibble of Justine now and then? Am I right?”
“Focus,” I growled. “Just find Mavra’s hiding place. I’ll be back from the job before sundown if I can.”
Bob sighed dreamily. “Some guys get all the luck. Genosa always casts the prettiest girls. Lots and lots of pretty girls. I’m going to be prowling the mean streets, looking for hideous creatures of the night. And you’re going to be standing right there next to the most beautiful women in erotica, getting to watch everything going on. Big as life.”
I felt my face flood into a feverish blush. “Keep an eye on the dog. You have my permission to take Mister on the town after the sun rises. Be back by sundown.”
“Will do,” Bob said. “Harry, Harry, Harry. What I wouldn’t give to be in your shoes this week.”
Which in retrospect just goes to show that a pretty face can inspire even a bodiless spirit of intellect to dizzying heights of idiocy.
Chapter Six
My cat walked on my face just after dawn. My body thought I should have been getting a couple more hours of shut-eye at the least. Instead I shambled to the door to let Mister outside. Before the cat left, he bobbed his head at me, and his eyes glittered with nearly invisible flickers of orange light. Bob had taken temporary possession of Mister’s body. (Actually, I suspected that Mister tolerated Bob’s control only because he got to go see new things when I sent Bob out on a mission.)
Bob was a being of spirit, and was too fragile to go drifting around in sunlight. It could burn his usual form to vapor in a few seconds. The spirit needed some form of protection during full daylight, and Mister was it. I had my usual flash of concern and mumbled, “Be careful with my cat.”
The cat rolled his eyes and gave me a contemptuous-sounding feline mrowl. Then Mister hurled himself against my legs in a gesture that had nothing to do with Bob, before bounding up the steps and out of sight.
I showered, got dressed, and got enough of a fire going in my kitchen stove to scramble some eggs and toast some bread. There was a scratching sound from the open trapdoor to my lab. Then I heard a series of thumps. A moment later the scratching came again, and I peered down the stepladder.
The little grey puppy had escaped the box, and was attempting to climb the stepladder. He made it up five or six steps, slipped, and thumped back down to the stone floor at the bottom of the ladder—evidently for at least the second time. He didn’t whimper when he fell. He just sprawled, wiggled to get his paws back under him, then started up the stepladder again full of, well, dogged determination.
“Hell’s bells, dog. You’re insane. Did you know that? Certifiable.”
The puppy climbed to the next step and paused to look at me, mouth dropping open in a doggie grin. He wagged his tail so hard he nearly fell off again. I went down and scooped him up, put him on the love seat, and sat down with him to eat breakfast. I shared, and made sure he got a bit of water to drink. Just because I wasn’t keeping him didn’t excuse me from showing a guest some measure of hospitality. Even if the guest was fuzzy.
While I ate, I mapped out my plan for the day. I’d have to spend most of it at Genosa’s studio, if I was going to be able to protect anyone from incoming curses. But ultimately that was a losing strategy. Sooner or later I would be in the wrong place, or else the curse might come in too hard or fast for me to stop. The smart plan was to find out where these curses were coming from. Someone had to be sending them. What I really had to do was find that person and push their face in a little. Problem solved.
What’s more, I was pretty confident that whoever was behind these curses was close to Genosa’s social circle. While not as invasive or vicious as magic that directly attacked a person’s physical body, this curse was still plenty potent. For magic to work, you have to believe in it. Really believe, without any doubts or reservations. It isn’t all that common for someone to have that much conviction directed toward murderous ends. It’s even less common to have that kind of rancor for a complete stranger.
All of which meant that the killer was probably someone close to Genosa’s crowd.
Or in it.
Which meant that there was at least a chance that I would come face-to-face with the killer at work today. Best pack for trouble.
Speaking of which, I wouldn’t have to worry much about the Black Court making a move on me in daylight, but it didn’t mean I could afford to let my guard down for long. Vampires had a general habit of recruiting surrogate thugs for wetwork in broad daylight, and a bullet between the eyes would kill me just as well as some vampire ripping my lower jaw off. In fact, it would be a lot better, because then the vamp could order the flunky to give himself up or suicide, and the mortal authorities who might otherwise cause trouble would become a nonissue.
I was better than most at maintaining a high alert, but even so I couldn’t be sharp on my guard forever. I’d get tired, bored, make mistakes. To say nothing of how grumpy it would make me, generally speaking. The longer I waited to solve the vampire problem, the more likely I’d be to get dead. So I had to move fast. Which meant that I’d need to round up some help fast. It took me about ten seconds to figure out who I wanted to call. I even had time enoug
h to go see one of them before work.
We finished breakfast, and I let the puppy handle the prewash. I got out my Rolodex, got on the phone, and left two messages with two answering machines. Then I pulled on my heavy black mantled duster, dropped the pup into one of its huge pockets, fetched my staff and rod along with a backpack full of various gadgets for on-the-fly spellwork, and went out to face the day.
My first destination, Dough Joe’s Hurricane Gym, resided on the first floor of an old office building not far from the headquarters of Chicago PD. The place had once been a tragically if predictably short-lived country-and-western bar. When Joe moved in, he tore down every wall that wasn’t a load-bearing section, ripped out the cheap ceiling tiles, peeled the floor down to smooth, naked concrete, and installed a lot of lights. To my right lay a couple of bathrooms large enough to do double duty as locker rooms. A large square of safety carpet boasted about thirty well-used pieces of weight-training equipment and several racks of weights and dumbbells that made my muscles ache just looking at them. In front of me was an honest-to-goodness boxing ring, though it wasn’t raised. On the other side of the ring, a raised platform boasted a long row of boxing targets—heavy bags, speed bags, and a couple of flicker bags that I could rarely hit more than once in a row.
The last area was covered with a thick impact mat and was the largest in the gym. Several people in judo pajamas were already working through various grappling techniques. I recognized most of the pajama people on sight as members of Chicago’s finest.
One of the men, a large and brawny rookie, let out a sharp shout, and then he and another man closed in to attack a single opponent. They were quick, and worked well together. If it had been anyone but Murphy up against them, they probably would have been successful.
Lt. Karrin Murphy, the woman in charge of the Special Investigations division of Chicago PD, stood an even five feet. Her blond hair had been tied back into a tail, and she wore white pajamas with a faded belt that was more grey than black. She was attractive in a pleasantly wholesome kind of way—crystal blue eyes, clear skin, an upturned nose.
And she’d been a student of aikido since she was eleven.
The brawny rookie underestimated her speed, and she had slipped aside from his kick before he realized his mistake. She caught him by an ankle, twisted with her whole frame, and sent him stumbling away for a second or two—time enough for her to handle the second attacker. He struck more cautiously, and Murphy let out an abrupt shout of her own, faked a jab, and drove a front kick into his belt. It wasn’t at full strength, and he’d taken the blow correctly, but he fell back a couple of steps, hands lifted in acknowledgment. If Murphy had been in earnest, she’d have put him down, hard.
The rookie came back in, but he hadn’t really gotten up to speed. Murphy blocked a jab and a slow reverse punch, got the rookie by the wrist, and sent him smashing down on the impact mat, one hand twisted to the breaking point and held firm at the small of his back. The rookie grimaced and slapped the mat three times. Murphy released him.
“Hey, Stallings,” she said, loudly enough to be heard by the whole gym. “What just happened here?”
The older opponent grinned and said, “O’Toole just got beat up by a girl, Lieutenant.”
There was a general round of applause and good-natured jeers from the other cops in the gym, including several calls of “Pay up!” and “Told you so!”
O’Toole shook his head ruefully. “What did I do wrong?”
“Telegraphed the kick,” Murphy said. “You’re a moose, O’Toole. Even a light kick from you will do the job. Don’t sacrifice speed to get more power. Keep it quick and simple.”
O’Toole nodded, and walked over to an open corner of the mat with his partner.
“Hey, Murphy,” I called. “When are you gonna stop picking on little kids and fight someone your own size?”
Murphy flicked her tail over her shoulder, her eyes shining. “Come say that to my face, Dresden.”
“Give me a minute to amputate my legs and I will,” I responded. I took my shoes off and set them against the wall, along with my duster. Murphy got a smooth wooden staff about five feet long from a rack on the wall. I took my staff into a square marked in tape on the mat, and we bowed to each other.
We warmed up with a simple sequence, alternating strikes in a steady, working rhythm, wooden staves clacking solidly. Murphy didn’t start pushing for more speed. “Haven’t seen you for almost two weeks. You flaking out on this self-defense notion?”
“No,” I said, keeping my voice down. “Been on a job. Finished it up last night.” I lost focus, slipped up in the sequence, and Murphy’s staff banged down hard on the fingers of my left hand. “Hell’s bells, ow!”
“Concentrate, wimp.” Murphy gave me a second to shake my fingers, and then she started again from the beginning. “You’ve got something on your mind.”
“Something off the record,” I said, lowering my voice.
She looked around. No one was close enough to listen in. “Okay.”
“I need a thug. You available?”
Murphy arched a brow. “You need manpower?”
“Thugpower,” I said.
Murphy frowned. “What do you have in mind?”
“Black Court,” I said. “At least two in town, probably more.”
“Hitters?”
I nodded. “One of them came pretty close to taking me last night.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. But we have to shut these guys down, and fast. They aren’t gentle and fun-loving like the Reds.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that when they feed, their victims don’t usually survive. They don’t feed as often, but the longer they stay, the more people are going to get killed.”
Murphy’s eyes glittered with a sudden, angry fire. “What’s the plan?”
“Find them. Kill them.”
Her brows shot up. “Just like that? No formal balls, no masquerades, no clandestine meetings as preliminaries?”
“Nah. I thought it might be nice to get the drop on the bad guys for a change.”
“I like that plan.”
“It’s simple,” I agreed.
“Like you,” Murphy said.
“Just like me.”
“When?”
I shook my head. “As soon as I find where they’re holed up during daylight. I can probably do it in a day or three.”
“How’s Saturday?”
“Uh. Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Murphy annual family reunion is this weekend. I try to be working on reunion weekend.”
“Oh,” I said. “Why don’t you just, you know . . . not show up.”
“I need a good excuse not to show up, or my mother won’t let me hear the end of it.”
“So lie.”
Murphy shook her head. “She’d know. She’s psychic or something.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. “Well, gee, Murph. I guess I’ll just try to arrange things so that the deadly monster threat will be convenient to ducking your annual family fun-fest. Your sense of priorities once more astounds me.”
She grimaced. “Sorry. I spend time dreading this every year. Things are sort of hard between me and my mother. Family skews your sanity. I don’t expect you to under—”
She broke off abruptly, and a little pang of hurt went through me. She didn’t expect me to understand. I didn’t have a mother. I didn’t have a family. I never had. Even my dim memories of my father had all but vanished. I’d been only six years old when he died.
“God, Harry,” Murph said. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
I coughed and focused on the sequence. “It shouldn’t be a long job. I find the vamps. We go in, pound in some stakes, cut some heads, toss some holy water, and we’re gone.”
She began to speed the pace, evidently as glad as I to leave that comment unremarked. The strength of her swings made my hands buzz when her staff hit mine. “You mean we get to live the
cliché?” she asked. “Stakes and crosses and garlic?”
“Yeah. Cakewalk.”
Murphy snorted. “Then why do you need thugs?”
“In case they have goons. I need thugpower with countergoon capability.”
Murphy nodded. “A few extra hands wouldn’t be a bad idea.” She sped up again, her staff a blur. I had to struggle to keep up. “Why don’t you ask the holy knight guy?”
“No,” I said.
“What if we need him?”
“Michael would come in a hot second if I asked him. But I’m tired of seeing him get hurt because of me.” I frowned, almost lost the rhythm, then found it again. “God or someone like Him does Michael’s event scheduling, and I get the feeling that Michael’s a lot less invincible when he isn’t officially on the clock.”
“But he’s a big boy. I mean, he knows the risks. He has brains.”
“He also has kids.”
Murphy faltered this time, and I hit one of her thumbs. She winced and nodded toward the rookie cop she’d humbled. “O’Toole there is Mickey Malone’s nephew. He’d jump through fire for you, if I asked him along.”
“God, no. No newbies on this run. A stupid mistake could be fatal.”
“I could talk to Stallings.”
I shook my head. “Murph, the boys in SI are a lot better at handling supernatural weirdness than the average bear—but a lot of them still don’t really believe what they’re dealing with. I want someone smart and tough, and who won’t freeze or freak out, and that’s you.”
“They’re better than that.”
“What happens to them if something goes wrong? If I make a mistake. Or you do. Even if they got out in one piece, how do you think they would handle the backlash when they got back to the real world? Where people don’t believe in vampires, and there are bodies to explain?”
Murphy frowned. “The same thing that would happen to me, I guess.”
“Yeah. But you’re their leader. You want to be responsible for sending them into that kind of mess? Expose them to that?”
Murphy looked at several of the men around the gym and grimaced. “You know I don’t want that. But my point is that I’m as vulnerable as they are.”
