JIM BUTCHER: SMALL FAVOR

I sighed.

“Whatever,” I said. “Let me see her.”

Luccio led me into Murph’s guest bedroom. Ivy looked very tiny in the double bed. I sat down beside her, and Luccio leaned over to gently rest her hand on Ivy’s head. She murmured something and drew her hand away.

Ivy let out a small whimper and then blinked her eyes open, suddenly hyperventilating. She looked around wildly, her eyes wide, and let out a small cry.

“Easy, easy,” I said gently. “Ivy, it’s all right. You’re safe.”

She sobbed and flung herself tight against me.

I hugged her. I just rocked her gently and hugged her while she cried and cried.

Luccio watched me, her eyes compassionate and sad.

After a long while Ivy whispered, “I got your letter. Thank you.”

I squeezed a little.

“They did things to me,” she said.

“I know,” I said quietly. “Been there. But I was all right after a while. You’re going to be all right. It’s over.”

She hugged me some more, and cried herself back to sleep.

I looked up at Luccio and said, “You still want me to push her away? You want her baseline to be what she shared with those animals?”

Luccio frowned. “The Senior Council-”

“Couldn’t find its heart if it had a copy of Grey’s Anatomy , X-ray vision, and a stethoscope,” I said. “No. They can lay down the law about magic. But they aren’t telling me who I’m allowed to befriend.”

She looked at me for a long moment, and then a slow smile curled up one side of her mouth. “Morgan told them you’d say that. So did McCoy and Listens-to-Wind. The Merlin wouldn’t hear it.”

“The Merlin doesn’t like to hear anything that doesn’t fit into his view of the world,” I said. “Japanese.”

“Excuse me?”

“Japanese. There’s a Japanese steakhouse I go to sometimes to celebrate. Surviving this mess qualifies. Come with me, dinner tomorrow. The teriyaki is to die for.”

She smiled more broadly and inclined her head once.

The door opened, and Murphy and Kincaid arrived. Kincaid was moving under his own power, though very gingerly, and with the aid of a walking stick. I got out of the way, and he came over to settle down next to Ivy. She woke up enough to murmur something about cookies and a Happy Meal. He settled down on the bed beside her, and she pressed up against his arm before settling down to rest again. Kincaid, evidently exhausted himself, drew a gun, took the safety off, placed it on his chest, and went to sleep too.

“It’s cute,” I whispered to Murphy. “He has a teddy Glock.”

She was looking at Kincaid and Ivy with a decidedly odd expression. She shook her head a little, blinked up at me, and said, “Hmm. Oh, hah, very funny. I had your car dug out of the snow, by the way.”

I blinked at her. “Thank you.”

“Got your keys?”

“Yeah.”

“Give you a ride to it,” she said.

“Groovy.”

We took off.

Once we were in the car and moving, Murphy said, “I like Luccio.”

“Yeah?”

“But she’s all wrong for you.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“You come from different worlds. And she’s your boss. There are secrets you have to keep from her. That’s going to make things difficult. And there are other issues that could come up.”

“Wait,” I said. I mimed cleaning out my ears. “Okay, go ahead. Because for a second there, it sounded like you were giving me relationship advice.”

Murphy gave me a narrow, oblique look. “No offense, Dresden. But if you want to compare total hours of good relationships and bad, I leave you in the dust in both categories.”

“Touchй,” I said. Sourly. “Kincaid was looking awfully paternal in there, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, bite me,” Murphy said, scowling. “How’s Michael?”

“Gonna make it,” I said. “Hurt bad, though. Don’t know how mobile he’s going to be after this.”

Murphy fretted her lower lip. “What happens if he can’t…keep on with the Knight business?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

“I just…I didn’t think that taking up one of the swords was the sort of job offer you could turn down.”

I blinked at Murphy. “No, Murph. There’s no mandatory martyrdom involved. You’ve got a choice. You’ve always got a choice. That’s…sort of the whole point of faith, the way I understand it.”

She digested that in silence for a time. Then she said, “It isn’t because I don’t believe.”

“I know that,” I said.

She nodded. “It isn’t for me, though, Harry. I’ve already chosen my ground. I’ve taken an oath. It meant more to me than accepting a job.”

“I know,” I said. “If you weren’t the way you are, Murph, the Sword of Faith wouldn’t have reacted to you as strongly as it did. If someone as thick as me understands it, I figure the Almighty probably gets it too.”

She snorted and gave me a faint smile, and drove the rest of the way to my car in silence.

When we got there she parked next to the Blue Beetle. “Harry,” she said, “do you ever feel like we’re going to wind up old and alone? That we’re…I don’t know…doomed never to have anyone? Anything that lasts?”

I flexed the fingers of my still-scarred left hand and my mildly tingling right hand. “I’m more worried about all the things I’ll never be rid of.” I eyed her. “What brings on this cheerful topic?”

She gave me a faint smile. “It’s just…the center cannot hold, Harry. I think things are starting to fall apart. I can’t see it, and I can’t prove it, but I know it.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’m just losing my mind.”

I looked intently at her, frowning. “No, Murph. You aren’t.”

“There are bad things happening,” she said.

“Yeah. And I haven’t been able to put many pieces together. Yet. But we shut down some of the bad guys last night. They were using the Denarians to get to the Archive.”

“What do they want?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “But it’s going to be big and bad.”

“I want in on this fight, Harry,” she said.

“Okay.”

“All the way. Promise me.”

“Done.” I offered her my hand.

She took it.

Father Forthill was already asleep, but Sanya answered the door when I dropped by St. Mary’s. He was rumpled and looked tired, but was smiling. “Michael woke and was talking.”

“That’s great,” I said, grinning. “What did he say?”

“Wanted to know if you made it out all right. Then he went back to sleep.”

I laughed, and Sanya and I traded a hug, a manly hug with a lot of back thumping, which he then ruined with one of those Russian kisses on both cheeks.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “I apologize for trying to rush you earlier. We wanted to be sure to collect the coins and get them safely stored as soon as possible.”

I exhaled. “I don’t have them.”

His smile vanished. “What?”

I told him about Thorned Namshiel.

Sanya swore and rubbed at his face. Then he said, “Come.”

I followed him through the halls in the back of the enormous church until we got to the staff ’s kitchen. He went to the fridge, opened it, and came out with a bottle of bourbon. He poured some into a coffee cup, drank it down, and poured some more. He offered me the bottle.

“No, thanks. Aren’t you supposed to drink vodka?”

“Aren’t you supposed to wear pointy hat and ride on flying broomstick?”

“Touchй,” I said.

Sanya shook his head and flexed the fingers of his right hand. “Eleven. Plus six. Seventeen. It could be worse.”

“But we nailed Thorned Namshiel,” I said. “And Eldest Gruff laid out Magog like a sack of potatoes. I’ll get you his coin tomorrow.”