Jim Butcher: Proven Guilty

“Attack of opportunity,” Murphy said.

“Whassat?”

She smiled a little. “When you weren’t expecting the shot, but you see it and take it before the opportunity passes you by.”

“Oh. Yeah, probably one of those.”

Murphy shook her head. “Look, maybe I should get you to a doctor anyway.”

“No,” I said. “Really. I’m okay. But I want to get off the street soonest.”

Murphy inhaled slowly and then nodded. “I’ll take you home.”

“Thanks.”

Grayson came ambling over to us. “Wrecker’s on the way,” he said. “What do we got here?”

“Hit and run,” Murphy said.

Grayson lifted his eyebrows and eyed me. “Yeah? Looked to me like you got hit a couple of times. On purpose-like.”

“For all I know it was an honest accident,” I said.

Grayson nodded. “There’s some clothes in your backseat. Looks like they have blood on them.”

“Leftovers from last Halloween,” I said. “It’s costume stuff. A cloak and robes and such, had fake blood all over them. It looked cheesy as hell.”

Grayson snorted. “You’re worse than my kid. He’s still got some of his football jerseys in his backseat from last fall.”

“He probably has a nicer car.” I glanced up at the Beetle. It was a real mess, and I winced. It wasn’t like the Beetle was a priceless antique or anything, but it was my car. I drove it places. I liked it. “In fact, I’m sure it’s a nicer car.”

Grayson let out a wry chuckle. “I need to fill out some papers. You okay to help me fill in the blanks?”

“Sure,” I told him.

“Thanks for the call, Sergeant,” Murphy said.

“ De nada ,” Grayson replied, touching the brim of his cap with a finger. “I’ll get those forms, Dresden, soon as the wrecker gets here.”

“Cool,” I said.

Grayson moved off, and Murphy stared at me steadily for a moment.

“What?” I asked her quietly.

“You lied to him,” she said. “About the clothes and the blood.”

I twitched one shoulder.

“And you did it well. I mean, if I didn’t know you…” She shook her head. “It surprises me about you. That’s all. You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

“Urn,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to take that one. “Thank you?”

She let out a wry chuckle. “So what’s the real story?”

“Not here,” I said. “Let’s talk in a bit.”

Murphy studied my face for a second, and her frown deepened. “Harry? What’s wrong?”

The limp, headless body of that nameless young man filled my thoughts. It brought up too many emotions with it, and I felt my throat tighten until I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak. So I shook my head a little and shrugged.

She nodded. “You going to be all right?”

There was a peculiar gentleness in her voice. Murphy had been playing in what amounted to a boys-only league in her work with CPD, and she put off a tough-as-nails aura that made her seem almost as formidable as she actually was. That exterior almost never varied, at least out in the open, with other police officers nearby. But as she looked at me, there was a quiet, definite, and unashamed vulnerability in her voice.

We’ve had our differences in the past, but Murphy was one hell of a good friend. I gave her my best lopsided smile. “I’m always all right. More or less.”

She reached out and twitched a stray bit of hair from my forehead. “You’re a great big girl, Dresden. One little fender bender and you go all emotional and pathetic.” Her eyes flickered to the Beetle again, and suddenly burned with a cold blue fire. “Do you know who did this to you?”

“Not yet,” I growled as the wrecker arrived. “But you can bet your ass I’m going to find out.”

By the time we got back to my place, my head was starting to run at its normal speed, the better to inform me how much it hurt. I had a nice, deep-down body ache to go along with the bruised skull. The light of the afternoon sun stabbed at my eyes in a cheerfully vicious fashion, and I was glad when I shambled down the steps to my basement apartment, disarmed my magical wards, unlocked the door, and shoved hard at it.

It didn’t open. The previous autumn, zombies had torn apart my steel security door and wrecked my apartment. Though I was getting a modest paycheck from the Wardens now, I still didn’t have enough money to pay for all the repairs, and I had set out to fix the door on my own. I hadn’t framed it very well, but I try to think positive: The new door was arguably even more secure than the old one-now you could barely get the damned thing open even when it wasn’t locked.

While I was in home-renovation mode, I put down linoleum in the kitchen, carpet on the living room and bedroom floors, and tile in the bathroom, and let me tell you something.

It isn’t as easy as those Time-Life homeowner books make it look.

I had to slam my shoulder against it three or four times, but the door finally groaned and squealed and came open.

“I thought you were going to have a contractor fix that,” Murphy said.

“When I get the money.”

“I thought you were getting another paycheck now.”

I sighed. “Yeah. But the rate of pay was set in 1959, and the Council hasn’t given it a cost-of-living increase since. I think it comes up for review in a few more years.”

“Wow. That’s even slower than City Hall.”

“Always thinking positive.” I went inside, stepping onto the large wrinkle that had somehow formed in the carpet before the door.

My apartment isn’t huge. There’s a fairly roomy living room, with a miniature kitchen set in an alcove opposite the door. The door to my tiny bedroom and bathroom is on the right as you come in, with a redbrick fireplace set in the wall beside it. Bookshelves, tapestries, and movie posters line the cold stone walls. My original Star Wars poster had survived the attack, though my library of paperbacks had taken a real beating. Those darned zombies, they always dog-ear the pages and crack the spines the minute they’re done oozing foul goop and smashing up furniture.

I have a couple of secondhand sofas, which aren’t hard to get cheap, so replacing them wasn’t too bad. A pair of comfortable old easy chairs by the fire, a coffee table, and a large mound of grey-and-black fur rounded out the furnishings. There’s no electricity, and it’s a dim little hole, but it’s a dim, cool little hole, and it was a relief to get out of the broiling sun.

The small mountain of fur shook itself, and something thudded against the wall beside it as it rose up into the shape of a large, stocky dog covered in a thick shag of grey fur, complete with an almost leonine mane of darker fur around his neck, throat, chest, and upper shoulders. He went to Murphy straightaway, sitting and offering up his right front paw.

Murphy laughed, and grabbed his paw briefly-her fingers couldn’t have stretched around the offered limb. “Hiya, Mouse.” She scratched him behind the ears. “When did you teach him that, Harry?”

“I didn’t,” I said, stooping to ruffle Mouse’s ears as I went past him to the fridge. “Where’s Thomas?” I asked the dog.

Mouse made a chuffing sound and looked at the closed door to my bedroom. I stopped to listen for a moment, and heard the faint gurgle of water in the pipes. Thomas was in the shower. I got a Coke out of the fridge and glanced at Murphy. She nodded. I got her one too, and doddered over to the couch to sit down slowly and carefully, my aches and pains complaining at me the whole while. I opened the Coke, drank, and settled back with my eyes closed. Mouse lumbered over to sit down by the couch and lay his massive head on one knee. He pawed at my leg.