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Karrin Murphy aiting for me outside the Madison Karrin and I are a study in contrasts Where I am tall and lean, she&039;s short and stocky Where I have dark hair and dark eyes, she&039;s got Shirley Temple blond locks and baby blues Where ular, with a hawkish nose and a sharp chin, hers are round and smooth, with the kind of cute nose you&039;d expect on a cheerleader

It was cool and windy, like it usually is in March, and she wore a long coat that covered her pantsuit Murphy never wore dresses, though I suspected she&039;d have ymnast She was built for function, and had a pair of trophies in her office from aikido tournath and whipped out wildly in the spring wind She wasn&039;t wearing earrings, and her h to tell she had on any at all She looked more like a favorite aunt or a cheerful mother than a hard-bitten homicide detective

"Don&039;t you have any other jackets, Dresden?" she asked, as I ca distance There were several police cars parked illegally in front of the building She glanced at ive her credit It was erous unless you did it for several seconds, but I was used to anyone who kneas a wizard lance at my face

I looked down atand waterproof lining and sleeves actually long enough forwith this one?"

"It belongs on the set of El Dorado"

"And?"

She snorted, an indelicate sound from so small a woman, and spun on her heel to walk toward the hotel&039;s front doors

I caught up and walked a little ahead of her

She sped her pace So did I We raced one another toward the front door, with increasing speed, through the puddles left over froer; I got there first I opened the door for her and gallantly gestured for her to go in It was an old contest of ours Maybe ht I think thatother than just shorter, weaker men with breasts Try and convicta wo for shared

It irritates the hell out of Murphy, who had to fight and claw and play dirty with the hairiest lared up atopen the door, but there was a reassurance about the glare, a relaxation She took an odd sort of co as she usually found it

How bad was it up on the seventh floor, anyway?

We rode the elevator in a sudden silence We knew one another well enough, by this tiood sense of Murphy, an instinctual grasp for herI develop whenever I&039;th of time Whether it&039;s a natural talent or a supernatural one I don&039;t know

My instincts told ht as piano wire She kept it off her face, but there was so about the set of her shoulders and neck, the stiffness of her back, that madeit onto her The confines of the elevator made me a bit nervous I licked my lips and looked around the interior of the car My shadow and Murphy&039;s fell on the floor, and alh they were sprawled there There was so little instinct that I blew off as a case of nerves Steady, Harry

She let out a harsh breath just as the elevator slowed, then sucked in another one before the doors could open, as though she were planning on holding it for as long as ere on the floor and breathing only when she got back in the elevator again

Blood smells a certain way, a kind of sticky, almost metallic odor, and the air was full of it when the elevator doors opened My stomach quailed a little bit, but I sed manfully and followed Murphy out of the elevator and down the hall past a couple of unifor to see the little la-city departo PD, they didn&039;t exactly call in a horde of consultants (I went down in the paperwork as a psychic consultant, I think), but still Unprofessional of the boys in blue

Murphy preceded rew thicker, but there wasn&039;t anything gruesome behind door number one The outer roo rooold, like a set fro, but somehow faux, nonetheless Dark, rich leather covered the chairs, andof the carpet The velvet velour curtains had been drawn, and though the lights were all on, the place still seemed a little too dark, a little too sensual in its textures and colors It wasn&039;t the kind of room where you sit and read a book Voices caht

"Wait here a h the door to the right of the entryway and into what I supposed was the bedroo roos Leather couch Two leather chairs Stereo and television in a black glossy entertain a briht before, with two elasses set beside it There was a red rose petal on the floor, clashing with the carpeting (but then, in that room, what didn&039;t?)

A bit to one side, under the skirt of one of the leather recliners, was a little piece of satiny cloth I bent at the waist and lifted the skirt with one hand, careful not to touch anything A pair of black-satin panties, a tiny triangle with lace coh the thong had simply been torn off Kinky

The stereo systeh not an expensive brand I took a pencil from my pocket and pushed the PLAY button with the eraser Gentle, sensualdru of a woround

The an to skip over a section about two seconds long, repeating it over and over again

I grimaced Like I said, I have this effect ona wizard, orking with ical forces The more delicate andwill go wrong if I get close enough to it I can kill a copier at fifty paces

"The love suite," ca the word love out into luuuuuuuv "What do you think, Mister Man?"

"Hello, Detective Car around Carht, nasal voice had a distinctive quality He was Murphy&039;s partner and the resident skeptic, convinced that I was nothingthe city out of its hard-earnedthe panties to take home yourself, or did you just overlook theht and balding, with beady, bloodshot eyes and a weak chin His jacket was rumpled, and there were food stains on his tie, all of which served to conceal a razor intellect He was a sharp cop, and absolutely ruthless at tracking down killers

He walked over to the chair and looked down "Not bad, Sherlock," he said "But that&039;s just foreplay Wait&039;ll you see thefor you" He turned and killed theCD player with a jab from the eraser end of his own pencil

I widened my eyes at him, to let him kno terrified I was, then walked past hiretted it I looked, noted details mechanically, and quietly shut the door on the part ofthe second I entered the rooht before, as rigor mortis had already set in They were on the bed; she was astride him, body leaned back, back bowed like a dancer&039;s, the curves of her breastsa lovely outline He stretched beneath her, a lean and powerfully built athering theraph, it would havetableau

Except that the lovers&039; rib cages on the upper left side of their torsos had expanded outward, through their skin, the ribs jabbing out like ragged, snapped knives Arterial blood had sprayed out of their bodies, all the way to the elatinous masses of flesh that had to be what re over them, I could see into the upper cavity of the bodies, I noted the now greyish lining around the es of the ribs, which apparently were forced outward and snapped by some force within

It definitely cut down on the erotic potential

The bed was in theit a subtle e room - a lot of red, a lot of plush fabrics, a little over the top unless viewed in candlelight There were indeed candles in holders on the wall, now burned down to the nubs and extinguished

I stepped closer to the bed and walked around it The carpet squelched as I did The little screa part of my brain, safely locked up behind doors of self-control and strict training, continued gibbering I tried to ignore it Really I did But if I didn&039;t get out of that rooirl

So I took in the details fast The woman was in her twenties, in fabulous condition At least I thought she had been It was hard to tell She had hair the color of chestnuts, cut in a pageboy style, and it seemed dyed to me Her eyes were only partly open, and I couldn&039;t quite guess at their color beyond not-dark Vaguely green?

The man was probably in his forties, and had the kind of fitness that co There was a tattoo on his right bicep, a winged dagger, that the pull of the satin sheets half concealed There were scars on his knuckles, layers deep, and across his lower abdouessed must have come from a knife wound

There were discarded clothes around - a tux for him, a little sheath of a black dress and a pair of pus, unopened and set neatly aside, probably by a porter

I looked up Car ed at the with ic here, or aren&039;t we?"

"Either that or it was really incredible sex," I told her

Carhed a little, too - and that was all the screa part of my brain needed to slam open the doors I&039;d shut on it My stomach revolted and heaved, and I lurched out of the room Carmichael, true to his word, had set a stainless-steel bucket outside the roo up

It only took ain - but I didn&039;t want to go back in that room I didn&039;t need to see as there anymore I didn&039;t want to see the two dead people, whose hearts had literally exploded out of their chests

And soic to wreak haroing to go into collective apoplexy This hadn&039;t been the act of a n spirit or a malicious entity, or the attack of one of the many creatures of the Nevernever, like vampires or trolls This had been the premeditated, deliberate act of a sorcerer, a wizard, a huies of creation and life itself

It orse than h soeoned another person to death with a Botticelli, turned so of beauty to an act of utter destruction

If you&039;ve never touched it, it&039;s hard to explain Magic is created by life, and ence, eic that was born from it was hideous, alain and was breathing hard, shaking and tasting the bile in my mouth, when Murphy caht, Harry," Murphy said "Let&039;s have it What do you see happening here?"

I took a"They cane They danced for a while, made out, over there by the stereo Then went into the bedroom They were in there for less than an hour It hit theh point"

"Less than an hour," Carure?"

"CD was only an hour and ten long Figure a few , and then they&039;re in the roo when they found them?"

"No," Murphy said

"Then it hadn&039;t been set on a loop I figure they wanted iven the roo we hadn&039;t already figured out for ourselves," he said to Murphy "He&039;d better come up with more than this"

Murphy shot Carmichael a look that said "shut up," then said, softly, "I need more, Harry"

I ran one of my hands back over ed this The first is by evocation Evocation is the ic, or sorcery Explosions, fire, that sort of thing But I doubt it was an evocator who did this"

"Why?" Murphy de on the notepad she always kept with her

"Because you have to be able to see or touch where you want your effect to go," I told her "Line of sight only The man or woh to hide forensic evidence with soh to pull off a spell like that would have had the sense to use a gun instead It&039;s easier"

"What&039;s the other option?" Murphy asked

"Thau happen on a se scale"

Carmichael snorted "What bullshit"

Murphy&039;s voice sounded skeptical "Hoould that work, Harry? Could it be done from somewhere else?"

I nodded "The killer would need to have soernails, blood sa"

"Like a voodoo doll?"

"Exactly the sa, yes"

"There&039;s fresh dye in the woman&039;s hair," Murphy said,

I nodded "Maybe if you can find out where she got her hair styled, you could find so out I don&039;t know"

"Is there anything else you could tell me that would be of use?"

"Yes The killer knew the victi it was a woman"

Carot to sit here and listen to this Nine times out of ten the killer knows the victim"

"Shut up, Carmichael," Murphy said "What makes you say that, Harry?"

I stood up, and rubbed at ic works Whenever you do so with it, it comes from inside of you Wizards have to focus on what they&039;re trying to do, visualize it, believe in it, tohappen that isn&039;t a part of you, inside The killer could have murdered them both and et it done this way, she would have had to want the to reach inside the for a lover or a spouse

"Also because of when they died - in the middle of sex It wasn&039;t a coincidence Eic, a path that can be used to get to you She picked a tied up with lust She got samples to use as a focus, and she planned it out in advance You don&039;t do that to strangers"

"Crap," Carmichael said, but this ti directed at&039;she, " she challenged estured toward the roo that bad without a whole lot of hate," I said "Wo than o better Hell, witches are just plain eance of some kind to me"

"But a man could have done it," Murphy said

"Well," I hedged