Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

There was a cop on guard in the hallway outside the victims’ rooms, in case the whacko costumed killer came after them again. He might also be there to discourage the press, whenever they inevitably smelled the blood in the water and showed up for the frenzy. It did not surprise me much at all to see that the cop on guard was Rawlins. He was unshaven and still had his SplatterCon!!! name tag on. One of his forearms was bound up in neatly taped white bandages, but other than that he looked surprisingly alert for someone who had been injured and then worked all through the night. Or maybe his weathered features just took such things in stride.

“Dresden,” Rawlins said from his seat. He’d dragged a chair to the hall’s intersection. He was dedicated, not insane. “You look better. ‘Cept for those bruises.”

“The best ones always show up the day after,” I said.

“God’s truth,” he agreed.

Murphy looked back and forth between us. “I guess you’ll work with anybody, Harry.”

“Shoot,” Rawlins drawled, smiling. “Is that little Karrie Murphy I hear down there? I didn’t bring my opera glasses to work today.”

She grinned back. “What are you doing down here? Couldn’t they find a real cop to watch the hall?”

He snorted, stuck his legs out, and crossed his ankles. I noted that for all of his indolent posture, his holstered weapon was clear and near his right hand. He regarded Mouse with pursed lips and said, “Don’t think dogs are allowed in here.”

“He’s a police dog,” I told him.

Rawlins casually offered Mouse the back of one hand. Mouse sniffed it politely and his tail thumped against my legs. “Hmmm,” Rawlins drawled. “Don’t think I’ve seen him around the station.”

“The dog’s with me,” I said.

“The wizard’s with me,” Murphy said.

“Makes him a police dog, all right,” Rawlins agreed. He jerked his head down the hall. “Miss Marcella is down that way. They got Pell and Miss Becton in ICU. The boy they brought in didn’t make it.”

Murphy grimaced. “Thanks, Rawlins.”

“You’re welcome, little girl,” Rawlins said, his deep voice grandfatherly.

Murphy gave him a brief glare, and we went down the hall to visit the first of the victims.

It was a single-bed room. Molly was there, in a chair beside the bed, where she had evidently been asleep while mostly sitting up. By the time I got in the room and shut the door, she was looking around blearily and mopping at the corner of her mouth with her sleeve. In the bed beside her was Rosie, small and pale.

Molly touched the girl’s arm and gently roused her. Rosie looked up at us and blinked a few times.

“Good morning,” Murphy said. “I hope you were able to get some rest.”

“A l-little,” the girl said, her voice raspy. She looked around, but Molly was already passing her a glass of water with a straw in it. Rosie sipped and then laid her head tiredly back, then murmured a thank you to Molly. “A little,” she said again, her voice stronger. “Who are you?”

“My name is Karrin Murphy. I’m a detective for the Chicago Police Department.” She gestured at me, and took a pen and a small notebook from her hip pocket. “This is Harry Dresden. He’s working with us on the case. Do you mind if he’s here?”

Rosie licked her lips and shook her head. Her uninjured hand moved fitfully, stroking over the bandages on the opposite forearm in nervous motions. Murphy engaged the girl in quiet conversation.

“What are you doing here?” Molly asked me in a half whisper.

“Looking into things,” I replied as quietly. “There’s something spooky going on.”

Molly chewed on her lip. “You’re sure?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll find whatever hurt your friend.”

“Friends,” Molly said, emphasizing the plural. “Have you heard anything about Ken? Rosie’s boyfriend? No one will tell us anything.”

“He the kid that they took from the scene?”

Molly nodded anxiously. “Yes.”

I glanced at Murphy’s back and didn’t say anything.

Molly got it. Her face went white and she whispered, “Oh, God. She’ll be so…” She folded her arms and shook her head several times. Then she said, “I’ve got to…” She looked around, and in a louder voice said, “I’m dying for coffee. Anyone else need some?”

Nobody did. Molly picked up her purse and turned around to walk for the door. In doing so, she brushed within a foot or two of Mouse. Instead of growling, though, Mouse leaned his head affectionately against her leg as she went by, and cadged a few ear scratches from the girl before she left.

I frowned at Mouse after Molly had gone. “Are you going bipolar on me?”

He settled down again immediately. Murphy went on asking Rosie fairly predictable questions about the attack.

The clock was running. I pushed the question about Mouse’s odd behavior aside for the moment, and let Mouse watch the door while I reached for my Sight.

It was a slight effort of concentration to push away the concerns of the material world, like aches and pains and bruises and why my dog was growling at Molly, and then the mere light and shadow and color of the everyday world dissolved into the riot of flowing energy and currents of light and power that lay beneath the surface.

Murphy looked like Murphy had always looked beneath my Sight. She appeared almost as herself, but clearer, somehow, her eyes flashing, and she was garbed in a quasi angelic tunic of white, stained in places with the blood and mud of battle. A short, straight sword, its blade made of almost viciously bright white light, hung beneath her left arm, where I knew her light cotton blazer hid her gun in its shoulder rig. She looked at me and I could see her physical face as a vague shadow beneath the surface of the aspect I saw now. She smiled at me, a sunny light in it, though her body’s face remained a neutral mask. I was seeing the life, the emotion behind her face, now.

I shied away from staring at her lest I make eye contact for too long- but that smile, at least, was something I wouldn’t mind remembering. Rosie was another story.

The physical Rosie was a small, slight, pale young woman with thin, frail features. The Rosie my Sight revealed to me was entirely different. Pale skin became a pallid, dirty, leathery coating. Large dark eyes looked even bigger, and flicked around with darting, avian jerks. They were furtive eyes, giving her the dangerous aspect of a stray dog or maybe some kind of rat-the eyes of a craven, desperate survivor.

Winding veins of some kind of green-black energy pulsed beneath her skin, particularly around the inside bend of her left arm. The writhing strings of energy ended at the surface of her skin, in dozens of tiny, mindlessly opening and closing little mouths-the needle tracks I’d seen the night before. Her right hand kept darting back and forth over the other arm as if trying to scratch a persistent itch. But her fingers couldn’t touch. There was a kind of sheath of sparkling motes around her hands, almost like mittens, and she couldn’t actually touch those mindlessly hungry mouths. Worse, there were what looked almost like burn marks on her temples- small, black, neat holes, as if someone had bored a hot needle through the skin and skull beneath. There was a kind of phantom blood around the injuries, but her eyes were wide and vague, as if she didn’t even notice them. What the hell? I had seen the victims of spiritual attacks before, and they’d never been pretty. Usually they looked like the victim of a shark attack, or someone who had been mauled by a bear. I hadn’t ever seen someone with damage like Rosie’s. It looked almost like some kind of demented surgeon had gone after her with a laser scalpel. That pushed the weirdometer a couple of clicks beyond the previous record.