Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

Had I let her die?

My God. I could have let the phage run.

I could have helped her.

The girl’s body lay curled up, still, like a sleeping child. Her dead eyes were open and glassy.

I lunged for a potted plant near me and threw up.

After I did, Rawlins observed, “You don’t look so good.”

“No,” I whispered. The words tasted bitter. “I don’t.”

Mouse let out one of his not-whine breaths and laid his chin on my shoulder. My eyes couldn’t get away from the dead people, not even when they were closed. The hellish light in my staff slowly faded and went dark.

“I’ve got to organize this clusterfuck,” Murphy sighed. “Rawlins, keep an eye on him.”

“Yeah.”

She nodded once and rose, briskly moving away, snapping orders.

“You, you,” Murphy said, pointing at two nearby cops. “Get over there and help the wounded. Airway, bleeding, heartbeat. Move.” She raised her voice and shouted, “Stallings! Where the hell is my ambulance?”

“Two minutes!” a man shouted down a dimly lit hall leading to the lobby. It looked like someone had pulled a patrol car or three up to the front of the hotel to shine their headlights into the darkened building.

“Clear them a path and call for more EMTs,” Murphy barked. She took her radio off her belt and started giving more orders.

Rawlins looked at the remains, and at the acid-scarred walls and the enormous areas of smashed drywall and ceiling that looked like they’d been kissed by a wrecking ball. He shook his head. “What the hell happened here?”

“Bad guy,” I said. “I got him. Not fast enough.”

Rawlins grunted. “Come on. Best we get up to the lobby. Until they get the lights back on, it might not be safe out here.”

“What happened on your end?” I asked.

“Damn candle blew up in my face. Then the lights went out. Thought for a second I’d gone blind.”

I grunted. “Sorry.”

“Some of the civilians were carrying. That howling thing went by in the dark and everyone panicked. Stampede in the dark. People got trampled and scared. Civilians opened fire, cops opened fire. We got one dead and a couple of dozen wounded by one thing or another.”

We reached the lobby and found more police arriving along with the emergency crews. The EMTs set up shop at once in a makeshift triage area, where Murphy had brought most of the wounded. The EMTs started stabilizing, evaluating, resuscitating. They had the worst cases loaded in the ambulance and rushing for the hospital within six or seven minutes.

Murphy’s stream of peremptory commands had slowed to a stop, and she stood near the triage area. I sidled over to her and loomed. Mouse pushed his head underneath her hand, but Murphy only patted him absently. I followed her worried blue gaze. The EMTs were working on Rick.

Greene sat in a chair nearby. He had wiped his face with a towel, but it hadn’t taken the blood out of the creases. It made a sanguine masque of his features. He held the towel against his head with his left hand.

Murphy said nothing for a while. Then she asked, “Did the spell work?”

“Mostly,” I said. “I missed one.”

She tensed. “Is it still…”

“No. I picked up the spare.”

She pressed her lips firmly together and closed her eyes. “When the candle went off, I hit the fire alarm. I wanted to clear the building fast. But someone had broken it. Just like the power and the emergency lights. Something went right by me and hit Greene early on. Now I’m the one in charge of this mess.”

“What happened to Rick?”

She spoke dispassionately. “Hit by panic fire. Gut shot. I don’t know how bad.”

“He’ll be all right,” I told her. “The EMTs would have taken him out first if he was in real trouble.”

She watched a pair of them labor over Rick. “Yeah,” she said. “He’ll be okay. He’ll be all right.”

She forced herself to look away from her ex-husband with a visible effort. “I’ve got to get things under control here, until we get the chain of command straightened out, and I make sure the wounded are cared for. Families notified, God.” She shook her head, and watched the EMTs lift Rick onto a stretcher and carry him out. Unspoken apology infused her tone. “After that, there will be questions, and a rain forest worth of paperwork.”

“I get it,” I told her quietly. “It’s your job.”

“It’s my job.” She focused her eyes in the distance. I could feel the trembling tension in her. I’ve known Murphy for a while now. I’d seen her like that before, when she wanted to fall apart but couldn’t take the time to do it. She was better at managing that kind of thing than me. There was nothing in her expression but calm and confidence. “I’ll put off everything I can and get back to you as soon as possible. Tomorrow sometime.”

“Don’t worry about me, Murph,” I told her. “And don’t be too hard on yourself. If you hadn’t gotten in Greene’s face and stayed here, a lot of people would be dead right now.”

“A lot of people are dead right now,” she said. “What about our bad guy?”

I felt my mouth stretch into a sharp-edged, wolfish smile. “He’s entertaining unexpected guests.”

“Is he going to survive them?”

“I doubt it,” I told her cheerfully. “If one of those things had jumped me, instead of vice versa, it would have taken me out. Three of them would filet me.”

Murphy’s attention was drawn to the door. Several men in wrinkled suits came in and stood around rubbernecking. Murphy straightened her clothing. “What about collateral damage?”

“I don’t think it will be an issue. I’ll track them and make sure.”

Murphy nodded. “Rawlins,” she called.

The veteran had been hovering not far away, feigning disinterest.

She hooked a thumb up at me. “Babysit for me?”

“Shoot,” Rawlins drawled. “Like I got nothing better to do.”

“Suffer,” she told him, but she smiled when she said it. She put her hand on my arm and squeezed hard, letting out some of the pressure behind her calm facade through the contact. Then she strode over to the rubbernecking suits.

Rawlins watched her go, his lips pursed. “That is one cast-iron bitch,” he said. His tone revealed a quiet respect. “Cast iron.”

“Hell of a cop,” I said.

Rawlins grunted. “Problem with cast iron. It’s brittle. Hit it right and it shatters.” He looked around the foyer and shook his head. “This isn’t going to go well for her.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Department is going to crucify someone for it,” Rawlins said. “They have to.”

I let out a bitter bark of laughter. “After all, she probably saved a lot of lives tonight.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Rawlins agreed.

Greene blinked blearily at us from his chair and then slurred, “Rawlins? What the hell are you doing down here? I sent you home.” Anger gathered on his vague expression. “You son of a bitch. You’re defying a direct order. I’ll have your ass on a platter.”

Rawlins sighed. “See what I mean?”

I lifted my hand with my thumb and first two fingers extended, the others against my palm, and moved it in a vaguely mystical gesture from left to right. “That isn’t Rawlins.”

Green blinked at me, and his eyes blurred in and out of focus. The distraction derailed the train of thought he’d been laboriously assembling. It wasn’t magic. I’ve taken head shots before. It takes a while for your brain to start doing its job again, and the vaguest kinds of confusion make things into one big blur.

I repeated the gesture. “That isn’t Rawlins. You can go about your business. Move along.”

Greene fumbled with a couple of words, then shook his head and closed his eyes and went back to holding the towel against his head.