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It took , but I worked out how I could murder someone in the same manner that Tommy Tomm and Jennifer Stanton had been killed After the fifth or sixth tiures, I stared at my calculations

It didn&039;t make any sense It was i just how dangerous this killer was

I grabbedto check my looks I don&039;t keep any s can use mirrors as s - or doors - but I was pretty sure I looked like a wreck The Studebaker&039;s rearview ard, with a shadow of a beard, deep circles under bloodshot eyes, and hair that looked as though it had been riding a speedingyour hair back with sweaty palms as a study habit will do that to you Especially if you do it for twelve or fourteen hours straight

It didn&039;t matter Murphy wanted this infors were bad They were very, very bad!

IMurphy would want to hear this from me face-to-face The police station Murphy worked in was one in an aged cos that housed thein places like an old soldier who nonetheless stood at attention and struggled to hold in his gut There was graffiti along one wall that the janitor wouldn&039;t co

I parked in the visitors&039; parking - easy to do on a SaturdayThe desk sergeant wasn&039;t the usual reying matron with steely eyes who disapproved of lance, then made me hile she called up Murphy

While I waited, a pair of officers ca a handcuffedthem - just the opposite, in fact His head was down, and he wasin an alot the i His denim jeans and jacket were battered, unkeed him past the desk, and one of the to take hiht"

The desk sergeant passed a clipboard over, and one of the officers took it under his arat h to soave a rather surprised "Hht, Lieutenant I&039;ll send hio on past I could feel her eyes on me as I went by, and I smoothed my palm self-consciously over ations kept a little waiting area just within the door at the top of the staircase It consisted of four wooden chairs and a sagging old couch that would probably kill your back if you tried to sleep on it Murphy&039;s office was at the end of a double row of cubicles

Murphy stood just inside her office with a phone pressed to her ear, wearing a ht with an out-of-town boyfriend, though she&039;d tearI wavedarea, then shut her office door

I took a seat in one of the chairs and leaned ainst a wall I had just closed my eyes when I heard a screa sound, and a few startled exclamations, before the scream repeated itself, closer this ti - I was too tired to think I rose and went into the hall, towards the source of the sound To ht the hallway stretched ahead of ure appeared, the silhouette of a runningstrides It was the , a fewsound, and then the pair of officers I had seen downstairs a few moments before cafor breath, holding their gun belts against their hips with one hand

"Stop!" one of the officers shouted, panting "Stop that man!"

The hair on the back of , high and terrified, his voice a long and uninterrupted peal ofsoe, all rolled up into a ball and sent spewing out into the air through his vocal cords

I had a quick i eyes, a dirty face, a denim jacket, and old jeans as he came down the shadowy hallway His hands were behind his back, presu the hall he was running through I don&039;t knohat he was looking at, but I got the i toward erous to himself

It wasn&039;t any of my business, but I couldn&039;t let him break himself apart in a tumble down the stairs I threwto put my shoulder into his stomach and drive him backward in a football-style tackle

There is a reason I got cut every year during high school I rammed into him, but he just whuffed out a breath and spun to one side, into a wall It was as though he hadn&039;t seenand had no realization that I was there He just kept staring blindly and screa on his way, toward the stairs I went down to the floor, h had rappedabout being as tall as I a arms I rolled back toward hiht his jeans at the cuff and gave his leg a solid sideways tug

That did it He spun, off-balance, and went down to the tile floor The scream stopped as the fall took the wind from hiling The officers pounded pastto either side

And then so man looked up at ht they had turned into huge black coins dotted onto his bloodshot eyeballs His eyes rolled back into his head until he could hardly have been able to see, and he started to shout in a clarion voice

"Wizard!" he trus that follow, those alk before and He Who Walks Behind! They come, they come for you!"

"Jesus Christ on a crutch," the shorter, rounder officer said, as they took thehim back down the hall "Junkies Thanks for the assist, buddy"

I stared at the ht the sleeve of the taller officer "What&039;s going on, sir?" I asked hi between him and his partner The prisoner&039;s head was bowed forward, and his eyes were still rolled back, but he had his head turned toward rin His forehead rinkled oddly, alh the bones of his browridges and the frontal lobes of his brain

"Junkie," the taller officer said "One of those new ThreeEye punks Caught hirams of the stuff Probably more in him" He shook his head "You okay?"

"Fine, fine," I assured hi?"

The shorter officer snorted "One that&039;s supposed to make them see the spirit world, that kind of crap"

The taller one nodded "Stuff hooks harder than crack Thanks for the help Didn&039;t know you were a civilian, though Didn&039;t expect anyone but police down here this time of day"

"No problem," I assured him "I&039;m fine"

"Hey," the stouter one said He squinted at uy? That psychic consultant Carmichael told me about?"

"I&039;ll take the fifth," I said to hirin that I didn&039;t feel The two officers chuckled and turned back to their business, quickly shouldering ed their prisoner away

He whispered in a mad little voice, all the way down the hall "See you, see you, wizard See He Who Walks Behind"

I returned toarea at the end of the row of cubicles and sat down,uncomfortably He Who Walks Behind I had never seen the junkie before Never been close to him I hadn&039;t sensed the subtle tension of power in the air around hiical practitioner

So how the hell had he seen the shadow of He Who Walks Behind flowing in o into now, I am marked, indelibly, with the remnants of the presence of a hunter-spirit, a sort of spectral hitodds in surviving the enemy of mine who had called up He Who Walks Behind and sent hiotten to me, the mark could still be seen uponout behindand horribly shaped shadow Sort of a spiritual scar to remind me of the encounter

But only a wizard had that kind of vision, the ability to sense the auras and ical phenomena And that junkie had been no wizard

Was it possible that I had been wrong in rant to its users the visions of the Third Sight?

I shuddered at the thought The kind of things you see when you learn how to open your Third Eye could be blindingly beautiful, bring tears to your eyes - or they could be horrible, things thatVisions of the past, the future, of the true natures of things Psychic stains, troubled shades, spirit-folk of all description, the shivering power of the Nevernever in all its brilliant and subtle hues - and all going straight into your brain: unforgettable, permanent Wizards quickly learn how to control the Third Eye, to keep it closed except in tiowas real, if it really did open the Third Eye inordinary hallucinations upon its users, then it was far erous than it seemed, even with the deleterious effects demonstrated by the junkie I had tackled Even if a user didn&039;t go s, he uises of any of a nuularly, unseen - which could co revealed Double jeopardy

"Dresden," Murphy snapped, "wake up"

I blinked "Not asleep," I slurred "Just resting my eyes"

She snorted "Save it, Harry," and pushed a Styrofoam cup into ar in it, just the way I like, and even though it was a little stale, it sel," I muttered I took a sip, then nodded down the row of cubicles "You want to hear this one in your office"

I could feel her eyes on o And the coffee&039;s fifty cents, Harry"