Dead Beat df-7

by Jim Butcher

  My mouth fell open. I shut it and glared at him. "No one likes a wiseass, Butters."

  He grinned. "I told you it was important."

  "Wizards don't live forever," I said. "Just a really long time."

  Butters shrugged and kept pulling out file folders. He flicked on a backlight for reading X-ray films, and started pulling them from the folders and putting them on the light. "Hey, I'm still not sure I buy into this whole hidden-world-of-magic thing. But from what you've told me, wizards can live five or six times as long as the average human. That's closer to forever than anyone I know. And what I've seen makes me think there must be something to it. Come here."

  I did, frowning at the X-rays. "Hey. Aren't these mine?"

  "Yep," Butters confirmed. "After I switched to one of the older machines, I got about fifteen percent of them to come out," he said. "And there are three or four from your records that managed to survive whatever it is about you that screws up X-rays."

  "Ugh. This is that gunshot wound I got in Michigan," I said, pointing at the first. It showed a number of fracture lines in my hip bone, where a small-caliber bullet had hit me. I had barely avoided a shattered pelvis and probable death. "They got this one after they got the cast off."

  "Right," Butters said. "And here, this is one from a couple of years ago." He pointed at a second shot. "See the fracture lines? They're brighter, where the bone re-fused. Leaves that signature."

  "Right," I said. "So?"

  "So," Butters said. "Look at this one." He flipped up a third X-ray. It was much like the others, but without any of the bright or dark lines. He flicked it with a finger and looked at me, eyes wide.

  "What?" I asked.

  He blinked, slowly. Then he said, "Harry. This is an X-ray I took two months ago. Notice the lack of anything wrong."

  "So?" I asked. "It healed, right?"

  He made an exasperated sound. "Harry, you are dense. Bones don't do that. You carry marks where they re-fused for the rest of your life. Or rather, I would. You don't."

  I frowned. "What's that got to do with wizard life span?"

  Butters waved his hand impatiently. "Here, here are some more." He slapped up more X-rays. "This is a partial stress fracture to the arm that didn't get shot. You got it in that fall from the train a couple nights after we met," he said. "It was just a crack. You didn't even know you had it, and it was mild enough that it just needed a splint for a few days. It was off before you were ambulatory."

  "What's so odd about that?"

  "Nothing," Butters said. "But look, here it is again. There's a fuse marker, and in the third one, poof, it's gone. Your arm is back to normal."

  "Maybe I just drink too much milk or something," I said.

  Butters snorted. "Harry, look. You're a tough guy. You've been injured a lot." He pulled out my medical file and thumped it down with a grunt of effort. Granted, there are phone books smaller than my hospital file. "And I'm willing to bet you've had plenty of boo-boos you never saw a doctor about."

  "Sure," I said.

  "You're at least as battered as a professional athlete," Butters said. "I mean, like a hockey player or football player. Maybe as much as some race-car drivers."

  "They get battered?" I asked.

  "When you go around driving half a ton of steel at a third the speed of sound for a living, you get all kinds of injuries," he said seriously. "Even the crashes that aren't spectacular are pretty vicious on the human body at the speeds they're going. Ever been in a low-speed accident?"

  "Yeah. Sore for a week."

  "Exactly," Butters said. "Multiply that. These guys and other athletes take a huge beating, right? They develop a mental and physical toughness that lets them ignore a lot of pain and overcome the damage, but the damage gets done to their bodies nonetheless. And it's cumulative. That's why you see football players, boxers, a lot of guys like that all beat to hell by the time they're in their thirties. They regain most of the function after an injury, but the damage is still there, and it adds up bit by bit."

  "Again I ask, what's that got to do with me?"

  "You aren't cumulative," Butters said.

  "Eh?"

  "Your body doesn't get you functional again and then leave off," Butters said. "It continues repairing damage until it's gone." He stared at me. "Do you understand how incredibly significant that is?"

  "I guess not," I said.

  "Harry, that's probably why people age to begin with," he said. "Your body is a big collection of cells, right? Most of them get damaged or wear out and die. Your body replaces them. It's a continual process. But the thing is, every time the body makes a replacement, it's a little less perfect than the one that came before it."

  "That copy-of-a-copy thing," I said. "I've heard about that, yeah."

  "Right," Butters said. "That's how you're able to heal these injuries. It's why you have the potential to live so long. Your copies are perfect. Or at least a hell of a lot closer to it than most folks."

  I blinked. "You're saying I can heal any injury?"

  "Well," he said, "Not like mutant X-factor healing. If someone cuts an artery, you're gonna bleed out. But if you survive it, given enough time your body seems to be able to replace things almost perfectly. It might take you months, even several years, but you can get better when other people wouldn't."

  I looked at him, and then at my gloved hand. I tried to talk, but my throat wouldn't work.

  "Yeah," the little doctor said quietly. "I think you're going to get your hand back at some point. It didn't mortify or come off. There's still living muscle tissue there. Given enough time, I think you'll be able to replace scar tissue and regrow the nerves."

  "That…" I said, and choked up. I swallowed. "That would be nice."

  "We can help it along, I think," Butters said. "Physical therapy. I was going to talk to you about it next visit. We can go over it then."

  "Butters," I said. "Uh. Wow, man. This is…"

  "Really exciting," he said, eyes gleaming.

  "I was going to say amazing," I said quietly. "And then I was going to say thank-you."

  He grinned and twitched a shoulder in a shrug. "I calls them like I see them."

  I stared down at my hand and tried to twiddle my fingers. They sort of twitched. "Why?" I asked.

  "Why what?"

  "Why am I able to make good copies?"

  He blew out a breath and pushed his hand through his wiry hair, grinning. "I have no freaking clue. Neat, huh?"

  I stared down at the X-ray film for a moment more, then put my hand in my duster's pocket. "I hoped you could help me get some information," I said.

  "Sure, sure," Butters replied. He went to his polka suit and started taking it apart. "Is something going on?"

  "I hope not," I said. "But let's just say I've got a real bad feeling. I need to know if there have been any odd deaths in the area in the past day or two."

  Butters frowned. "Odd how?"

  "Unusually violent," I said. "Or marks of some kind of murder method consistent with a ritual killing. Hell, I'll even take signs of torture prior to death."

  "Doesn't sound like anyone I've met," Butters said. He took off his sunglasses and put on his normal black-rimmed glasses. "Though I'm not done for tonight. Let me check the records and see who's in the hiz-ouse."

  "Thank you," I said.

  Butters knocked a few flyers off his chair and sat down. He dragged a keyboard out from under a medical magazine and gave me a significant look.

  "Oh, right," I said. I backed away from his desk to the far side of the room. Proximity to me tended to make computers malfunction to one degree or another. Murphy still hadn't forgiven me for blowing out her hard drive, even though it had happened only the once.

  Butters got on his computer. "No," he said, after a moment's reading and key thumping. "Wait. Here's a guy who got knifed, but it happened way up in the northwest corner of the state."

  "No good," I said. "It would have to be local. Within a county
or three of Chicago."

  "Hmph," Butters said. "You investigative types are always so picky about this kind of thing." He scanned over the screen. "Drive-by shooting victim?"

  "Definitely no," I said. "For a ritual killing it would be a lot more intimate."

  "Think you're out of luck then, Harry," he said. "There were some high-profile stiffs that came in, and the day crew took them all."

  "Hmm."

  "Tell me about it. I got stuck with a wino and some poor bastard who got caught under a tractor and had to be tested for drugs and booze earlier tonight, but that's…" He paused. "Hello."

  "Hello?"

  "That's odd."

  That perked up my ears, metaphorically speaking. "What's odd?"

  "My boss, Dr. Brioche, passed over one of his subjects. It got moved to my docket, but I didn't get a memo about it. Not even an e-mail, the bastard."

  I frowned. "That happen a lot?"

  "Attempts to make it look like I'm neglecting my job so he can fire me?" Butters said. "That one's new, but it's in the spirit of my whole history here."

  "Maybe he was just busy today."

  "And maybe Liv Tyler is waiting in my bedroom to rub my feet," Butters responded.

  "Heh. Who's the stiff?"

  "A Mr. Eduardo Anthony Mendoza," Butters read. "He was in a head-on collision with a Buick on the expressway. Only he was a pedestrian." Butters scrunched up his nose. "Looks like it will be a nasty one. No wonder high-and-mighty Brioche didn't want to handle it."

  I mused. It wasn't what I was looking for, but there was something about the situation around that corpse that set off my internal alarm bells. "Mind if I ask you to indulge an intuition?"

  "Sure. I'm as polka empowered as I'm going to get, anyway. Lemme break out my gear and we'll take a look-see at the late Eddie Mendoza."

  "Cool," I said. I leaned against the wall and folded my arms, preparing to settle in for a while.

  The door to the examination room slammed open, and Phil the security guard walked in with a businesslike stride.

  Except Phil's throat had been slit open from ear to ear, and blood covered his upper body in a sheet of ugly splatters. His face was absolutely white. There was no chance whatsoever that poor Phil was alive.

  That didn't stop him from striding into the room, seizing Butters's desk, and throwing it, computer, heavy file cabinet, and all, into the far wall of the room, where it shattered with a thunderous sound of impact. Butters stared at Phil with horror, then let out a somewhat rabbitlike shriek and scurried back from him.

  "Don't move!" thundered a deep, resonant voice from the hallway outside. Dead Phil froze in his tracks. A big man in a khaki trench coat and, I swear to God, a dark fedora strode into the room, intent on Butters, and he didn't see me against the wall. I hesitated for a second, still shocked at the suddenness of it all. Three other men in coats, all grey of face and purposeful of motion, flanked him.

  "Don't hurt the little coroner, gentlemen," the man said. "We'll need him. For a little while."

  Chapter Five

  The man in the fedora took a step toward Butters, drumming a slender book against his thigh with one hand. "Stand aside," he muttered, and dead Phil sidestepped.

  Butters had scrambled back into a corner, his eyes the size of glazed doughnuts behind his glasses. "Wow," he babbled. "Great entrance. Love the hat."

  The guy in the fedora took a step forward and reached out with his other hand, at which point I decided to act. A raised hand isn't much in the regular world, but from a guy in a long coat with his own flock of zombies it had to be at least as menacing as pointing a gun.

  "That will be enough," I said, and I said it loud enough to hurt ears. I stepped away from the wall with my left hand extended. My silver bracelet of heat-warped shields hung on my wrist, and I readied my will, pushing enough power into the bracelet to prepare a shield to leap up immediately. The bracelet was still pretty banged-up from the beating it had taken the last time I'd used it, and I'd only barely gotten it working again. As a result, it channeled the energy pretty sloppily, and blue-white sparks leaped out and fell to the floor in a steady drizzle. "Put your hand down and step away from the coroner."

  The man turned to face me, book thumping steadily against his leg. For a second I thought he was another dead man himself, his face was so pale-but spots of color appeared high on his cheeks, faint but there. He had a long face, and though it was pale it was leathery, as if he'd spent years in the blowing desert wind and sand without seeing the sun. He had dark eyes, thick grey sideburns, no beard, and a scar twisted his upper lip into a perpetual sneer.

  "Who," said the man, his accent thick and British, "are you?"

  "The Great Pumpkin," I responded. "I've risen from the pumpkin patch a bit early because Butters is just that nifty. And you are?"

  The man studied me in silence for a long second, eyes focused on my sparking wrist, then on my throat, where my mother's silver pentacle amulet was probably lying outside my shirt. "You may call me Grevane. Walk away, boy."

  "Or what?" I said.

  Grevane gave me a chilly little smile, thumping his book, and nodded at his unmoving companions. "There's room in my car for one more."

  "I've got a job already," I said. "But there's no reason for this to get nasty. You're going to stand right there while Butters and me leave."

  "And I," he said, his voice annoyed.

  "What's that?"

  "Butters and I, fool. Do you seriously think that a defensive shield barely held together by a clumsy, crude little focus will intimidate me into allowing you to leave?"

  "No," I said, and drew my.44 revolver from my duster's pocket. I pointed it at him and thumbed back the trigger. "That's why I brought this."

  He lifted his eyebrows. "You intend to murder me in cruor gelidus?"

  "No, I'll do it right here," I said. "Butters, get up. Come over here to me."

  The little guy hauled himself to his feet, shaking, and edged around the empty, staring gaze of the late Phil.

  "Good," I said. "This is moving along nicely, Grevane. Keep it up and I won't need to make Forensics pick your teeth out of that wall behind you."

  Butters scuttled over to me while Grevane thumped his book on his leg. The necromancer stared at me, barely sparing a glance for Butters. Then a slow and fairly creepy smile spread over his face. "You are not a Warden."

  "I flunked the written."

  His nostrils flared. "Not one of the Council's guard dogs. You are, in fact, more of my own persuasion."

  "I really doubt that," I said.

  Grevane had narrow, yellow teeth and a crocodile's smile. "Don't play games. I can smell the true magic on you."

  The last person to talk about "true magic" had been necro-Bob. I had to fight off a shiver. "Uh. I guess that's the last time I buy generic deodorant."

  "Perhaps we can make an arrangement," Grevane said. "This need not end in bloodshed-particularly not now, so close to the end of the race. Join me against the others. A living lieutenant is far more useful to me than a dead fool."

  "Tempting," I told him in the voice I usually reserved for backed-up toilets. Butters got to me, and I bumped him toward the door with my hip. He took the hint instantly, and I sidestepped to the door of the room with him. I kept my eyes and my gun on Grevane, my readied bracelet drizzling heatless sparks to the floor. "But I don't think I like your management technique. Butters, check the hall."

  Butters bobbed his head out and looked nervously around. "I don't see anyone."

  "Can you lock that door?"

  Keys rattled. "Yes," he said.

  "Get ready to do it," I said. I stepped out in the hall, slammed the door shut, and snapped, "Lock it. Hurry."

  Butters fumbled with a key. He jammed one in the door and turned it. Heavy security bolts slid to with a comfortably weighty snap an instant before something heavy and solid hit the door hard enough for me to feel the floor rattle through my boots. A second later the door jumped a
gain, and a fist-sized dent mushroomed half an inch out of its center.

  "Oh, God," Butters babbled. "Oh, God, that was Phil. What is that? What is happening?"

  "Right there with you, man," I said. I grabbed him and started walking down the hall as quickly as I could drag the little guy. "Who else has keys to the door?"

  "What?" Butters blinked for a second. "Uh. Uh. The other doctors. Day security. And Phil."

  The door rattled again, dented again, and then went silent.

  "Grevane's figured that out too," I said. "Come on, before he finds the right key. Do you have your car keys with you?"

  "Yes, yes, wait, oh, yes, right here," Butters said. His teeth were chattering together so loudly that he could barely speak clearly, and he stumbled every couple of steps. "God. Oh, God, it's real."

  In the halls behind us, metal clicked and scraped on metal. Someone was trying keys in a lock. "Butters," I said. I grabbed his shoulders and had to resist the urge to slap him in the face, like in the movies. "Do what I tell you. Stop thinking. Think later. Move now or there won't be a later."

  He stared at me, and for a second I thought he was going to throw up. Then he swallowed, nodded once, and said, "Okay."

  "Good. We run to your car. Come on."

  Butters nodded and took off for the front of the building at a dead sprint. He accelerated a lot faster than I did, but I have long legs and I caught up pretty quickly. Butters stopped to hit the buzzer at the guard station, and I held the door open wide enough to let him out first. He turned right and ran for the parking lot, and I was only a couple of feet behind him.

  We rounded the corner of the building, and Butters dashed toward a pint-sized pickup truck parked in the nearest space. I followed him, and after the silence of the morgue, the night sounds of the city were a blaring music. Traffic hissed by in an automotive river on the highway. Sirens sounded in the distance, ambulance rather than patrol car. Somewhere within a two-hundred-mile radius, one of those enormous, thumping bass stereos pounded out a steady beat almost too low to hear.