Jim Butcher - Changes

The furious hissing of the enraged centipedes sliced through the air.

I pointed my staff at the hole again and intoned, “ Resarcius! ” More of my strength flooded out of me, and as quickly as that, the hole mended itself again, with the earth and stone that the bag and its contents displaced being dispersed into a wide area, resulting in little more than a very slight and difficult-to-see hump in the ground. The spell would make retrieval of the gear difficult for anyone who didn’t know exactly where it was, and I had put it deep enough to hide it from anyone who wasn’t specifically looking for it. I hoped.

Bob and the Swords were as safe as it was possible for me to make them, under the circumstances, and my wall of silver fire was steadily dwindling. It was time to get going while I still could.

My legs were shaking with fatigue and I leaned hard on my staff to keep from falling over. I needed one more effort of will to escape this prettily landscaped death trap, and after that—

The ring of fire had fallen low enough that one of the centipedes arched up into the air, forming a bridge of its own body, and flowed over it and onto the ground outside. Its multifaceted eyes fixed upon me and its jaws clashed in hungry anticipation.

I turned away, focused my thoughts and will, and with a slashing motion of my hand cut a tiny slice into the air, opening a narrow doorway, a mere crack, between the Nevernever and reality. Then I threw myself at it.

I had never gone through such a narrow opening before. I felt as if it were smashing me flat in some kind of spiritual trash compactor. It hurt, an instant of such savage agony that it seemed to stretch out into an hour, all while my thoughts were compressed into a single, impossibly dense whole, a psychic black hole where every dark and leaden emotion I’d ever felt seemed to suffuse and poison every thought and memory, adding an overwhelming heartache to the physical torment.

The instant passed, and I was through the narrow opening. I sensed a fraction of a second in which the centipede tried to follow, but the slit I’d opened between worlds had healed itself almost instantaneously.

I tumbled through about three feet of empty air, banged my hip on the side of the worktable in my lab, and hit the concrete floor like a sack of exhausted bricks.

People started shouting and someone piled onto me, rolling me onto my chest and planting a knee in my spine as they hauled my arms around behind my back. There was a bunch of chatter to which I paid no heed. I hurt too much, and was too damned tired to care.

Honestly, the only thought in my mind at the time was a sense of great relief at being arrested. Now I could kick back and relax in a nice pair of handcuffs.

Or maybe a straitjacket, depending on how things went.

They took me to the Chicago division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Roosevelt. A crowd of reporters was outside the place, and immediately started screaming questions and snapping pictures as I was taken from the car and half carried into the building by a couple of patrolmen. None of the feds said anything to the cameras, but Rudolph paused long enough to confirm that an investigation into the explosion was ongoing and that several “persons of interest” were being detained, and that the good people of Chicago had nothing to fear, yadda, yadda, yadda.

A slender little guy in a fed suit with fish white skin and ink black hair strolled by Rudolph, put an arm around the other man’s shoulder in a comradely fashion, and almost hauled him off his feet and away from the reporters. Rudolph sputtered, but Slim gave him a hard look and Rudy subsided.

I remember stumbling through a checkpoint and an elevator and then being plopped down into a chair. Slim took the cuffs off my wrists. I promptly folded my arms on the table in front of me and put my head down. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came to, a rather stiff, dour-looking woman was shining a penlight into my eyes.

“No evidence of concussion,” she said. “Normal response. I think he’s just exhausted.”

Slim stood at the door to the little room, which had a single conference table, several chairs, and a long mirror on the wall. Rudolph was standing there with him, a young- looking man in a suit more expensive than his pay grade, with dark, insanely neat hair and an anxious hunch to his shoulders.

“He’s faking it,” Rudolph insisted. “He wasn’t out of our sight for more than a few minutes. How could he have worked himself to exhaustion in that time, huh? Without sweating? Not even really breathing hard? He’s dirty. I know it. We shouldn’t have given him an hour to come up with a story.”

Slim eyed Rudy without any expression showing on his lean, pale face. Then he looked at me.

“I guess that makes you Good Cop,” I said.

Slim rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Roz.”

The woman took a stethoscope from around her neck, gave me a look full of disapproval, and left the room.

Slim came over to the table and sat down across from me. Rudolph moved around to stand behind me. It was a simple psychological ploy, but it worked. Rudolph’s presence, out of my line of sight, was an irritant and a distraction.

“My name is Tilly,” said Slim. “You can call me Agent Tilly or Agent or Tilly. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

“Okay, Slim,” I said.

He inhaled and exhaled slowly. Then he said, “Why didn’t you just answer the door, Mr. Dresden? It would have been a lot easier. For all of us.”

“I didn’t hear you,” I said. “I was asleep down in the subbasement.”

“Bullshit,” said Rudolph.

Slim looked from me to Rudy and back. “Asleep, huh?”

“I’m a heavy sleeper,” I said. “Keep a pad underneath one of the tables in the lab. Snooze down there sometimes. Nice and cool.”

Slim studied me for another thoughtful minute. Then he said, “Nah, you weren’t asleep down there. You weren’t down there at all. There was no open space large enough to have hidden you in that subbasement. You were somewhere else.”

“Where?” I asked him. “I mean, not like it’s a big apartment. Living room, bedroom, bathroom, subbasement. You found me on the floor in the subbasement, which only has one entrance. Where else do you think I was? You think I just appeared out of thin air?”

Slim narrowed his eyes. Then he shook his head and said, “I don’t know. Seen a lot of tricks. Saw a guy make the Statue of Liberty disappear once.”

I spread my hands. “You think I did it with mirrors or something?”

“Could be,” he said. “I don’t have a good explanation for how you showed up all of a sudden, Dresden. I get grumpy when I don’t have good explanations for things. Then I go digging until I come up with something.”

I grinned at him. I couldn’t help it. “I was asleep in my lab. Woke up when you guys started twisting my arms. You think I came out of a secret compartment so well hidden that nobody found it in a full sweep of the room? Or maybe I appeared out of thin air. Which of those stories do you think will make more sense to the judge in the civil suit I bring against the CPD and the Bureau? Yours or mine?”

Slim’s expression turned sour.

Rudolph abruptly appeared to my right and slammed a fist down on the table. “Tell us why you blew up the building, Dresden!”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have a whole lot of energy, but I laughed until my stomach was shaking.

“I’m sorry,” I said a moment later. “I’m sorry. It was just so . . . ahhhh.” I shook my head and tried to get myself under control.

“Rudolph,” said Slim. “Get out.”

“You can’t order me out. I am a duly appointed representative of the CPD and a member of this task force.”