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Chapter Seven

Morgan woke up when I opened the bedroom door He looked bad, but not any worse than he did before, except for some spots of color on his cheeks

"Leoods" I put the htstand

He nodded and closed his eyes

I took Mouse outside for a walk to theat everything, but he didn&039;t show any signs of alarm We went by the spot in the tiny backyard that had been designated as Mouse&039;s business area, and went back inside Mister,when I opened the door, and tried to bolt out I caught hi to thirty pounds He gave nant, then raised his stu his way to his usual resting point atop one of my apartment&039;s bookcases

Mouse looked at me with his head tilted as I shut the door

"Soht decide to send e I&039;d rather he didn&039;t use Mister to do it"

Mouse&039;s cavernous chest rurowl

"Or you, either, for that matter," I told him "I don&039;t know if you knohat a skinwalker is, but it&039;s serious trouble Watch yourself"

Mouse considered that for a"Pride goes before a fall, boy"

He wagged his tail at , evidently pleased to have made me smile I made sure both sets of bowls had food and water in thean

His teree, and he was obviously in pain

"This isn&039;t heavy-duty stuff," I told him, as I broke out the medical kit "Me and Billy made a run up to Canada for h, and I&039;ve got the stuff to run an IV for you, saline, intravenous antibiotics"

Morgan nodded Then he frowned at me, an expression I was used to from him, raked his eyes over me more closely, and asked, "Is that blood I suy who had been beaten to within a few inches of death&039;s door, he was fairly observant Andi hadn&039;t really been bleeding e picked her up in es and scrapes-but there had been enough of them to add up "Yeah," I said

"What happened?"

I told him about the skinwalker and what had happened to Kirby and Andi

He shook his head wearily "There&039;s a reason we don&039;t encourage amateurs to try to act like Wardens, Dresden"

I scowled at hiot a bowl of ater and so up his left ar about it"

"Chicago is your area of responsibility, Warden Dresden"

"And there I was," I said "And if they hadn&039;t been there to help, I&039;d be dead right now"

"Then you call for backup You don&039;t behave like a bloody superhero and throw lambs to the wolves to help you do it Those are the people you&039;re supposed to be protecting"

"Good thinking," I said, getting out the bag of saline, and suspending it from the hook I&039;d set in the wall over the bed I made sure the tube was primed Air bubbles, bad "That&039;s exactly e need: runted and fell silent for a ain, but evidently he was only thinking "It must have followed me up"

"Huh?"

"The skinwalker," he said "When I left Edinburgh, I took a Way to Tucson I cao by train It h its territory"

"Why would it do that?"

"Follow an injured wizard?" he asked "Because they get stronger by devouring the essence of practitioners I was an easy an nodded "Adds its victims&039; power to its own"

"So what you&039;re telling et away, but now it&039;s stronger for having killed Kirby"

He shrugged "I doubt the olf represented ain, relative to what it already possessed Your talents, or reater"

I took up a rubber hose and bound it around Morgan&039;s upper arm I waited for the veins just below the bend of his elbow to pop up "Seems like an awfully unlikely chance encounter"

Morgan shook his head "Skinwalkers can only dwell on tribal lands in the Ato escape and flee to Tucson"

"Point," I said, slipping the needle into his arht about it "The skinwalker&039;s got to go back to his hoer he&039;s away, thecan he stay here?" I asked

He winced as I h"

"Hoe kill it?" I frowned as I an muttered He took the needle and inserted it hiuess you learn a few things over a dozen decades

"We probably don&039;t," he said "The true skinwalkers, the naagloshii, are ame We avoid it"

I taped down the needle and hooked up the catheter "Pretend for ato cooperate with that plan"

Morgan grunted and scratched at his chin with his other hand "There are soics that can cripple or destroy it A true shahost way and drive it out Without those our only recourse is to hit it with a lot of raer-and it isn&039;t likely to stand still and cooperate with that plan, either"

"It&039;s a tough target," I adainst it"

"Yes," Morgan said He watched e of antibiotics from the cooler "And its abilities are ether"

"Jinkies," I said I prie and pushed the antibiotics into the IV line Then I got the codeine and a cup of water, offering Morgan both He downed the pills, laid his head back wearily, and closed his eyes

"I Saw one once, too," he said

I started cleaning up I didn&039;t say anything

"They aren&039;t invulnerable They can be killed"

I tossed wrappers into the trash can and restored equip that still lay beneath Morgan I&039;d have to get that out from under him soon I turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway

"How&039;d you do it?" I asked, without looking behind ht he&039;d passed out again

"It was the fifties," he said "Started in New Mexico It followedsite, and stepped across into the Nevernever just before the bomb went off"

I blinked and looked over my shoulder at him "You nuked it?"

He opened one eye and smiled

It was sort of creepy

"Stars and stones that&039;s" I had to call a spade a spade "Kind of cool"

"Gets ain, sighed, and let his head sag a little to one side

I watched over his sleep for a moment, and then closed the door

I was pretty tired, myself But like the hed tomy contacts on the Paranet

The Paranet was an organization I&039;d helped found a couple of years before It&039;s essentially a union whose members cooperate in order to protect themselves from paranormal threats Most of the Paranet consisted of practitioners with inal talents, of which there were plenty A practitioner had to be in the top percentile before the White Council would even consider recognizing hiot left out in the cold As a result, they were vulnerable to any number of supernatural predators

Which I think sucks

So an old friend named Elaine Mallory and I had taken a dead woinal folks in city after city We&039;d encouraged theether to share infors started going bad, a distress call could be sent up the Paranet, and then I or one of the other Wardens in the US could charge in We also gave seical threats, as well as teaching methods of basic self-defense for when the capes couldn&039;t show up to save the day

It had been going pretty well We already had new chapters opening up in Mexico and Canada, and Europe wouldn&039;t be far behind

So I started calling upif they&039;d heard of anything odd happening I couldn&039;t afford to get any more specific than that, but as it turned out, I didn&039;t need to Of the first dozen calls, folks in four cities had noted an upswing in Warden activity, reporting that they were all appearing in pairs Only two of the next thirty towns had siood idea of as going on-a quiet manhunt

But I just had to wonder Of all the places the Wardens could choose to hunt for Morgan, ould they pick Poughkeepsie? Why O totospells, it had the their tails all over the place

At least I acco ruood and non-suspicion-arousingquestions ofthe Wardens I was on good ter, in several cities in the Eastern and Midwestern United States I&039;ood boss I mostly just let them decide how to do their job and try to lend a hand when they ask es for two, but Bill Meyers in Dallas answered on the second ring

"Howdy," Meyers said

I&039;m serious He actually answered the phone that way

"Bill, it&039;s Dresden"

"Harry," he said politely Bill was always polite withscary once "Speak of the devil and he appears"

"Is that why ?" I asked

"Likely," Bill drawled "I was gonna give you a call in the "

"Yeah? What&039;s up?"

"Ru out of the local entrance to the Ways, but when I asked theht knoas going on"

"Darn," I said "I called to ask you"

He snorted "Well, we&039;re a fine bunch of wise men, aren&039;t we?"

"As far as the Council is concerned, the US Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms"

"Eh?"

"Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit"

"I hear that," Meyers said "What do you want round," I told him "Captain Luccio will tell us sooner or later I&039;ll call you as soon as I learn anything You do the sa up, and I frowned at the phone for a moment

The Council hadn&039;t talked to an They hadn&039;t talked to any of the Wardens in my command about him, either

I looked up at Mister and said, "It&039;s almost like they want to keep ht be involved, somehow"

Whichme to Christht have given the order to keep me fenced out That wouldn&039;t hit me as a surprise

But if that was true, then italong with it She and I had been dating for a while, now Granted, she had a couple of centuries onpsychopath several years before had trapped her in the body of a coed, and she didn&039;t look a day over twenty-five We got along well We h And we occasionally had wild-monkey sex to our mutual, intense satisfaction

I would never have figured Anastasia to play a gaot on the phone to Raional commander in the United States, to see if he&039;d heard anything, but just got his answering service

At this rate, I was going to have to go to the spirit world for answers-and that was risky in more ways than one, not the least of which was the very real possibility that I et eaten by the same entity I called up to question

But I was running a little low on options

I pulled back the rug that lay over the trapdoor leading down tocircle when the phone rang

"I&039; Justine in half an hour," et o&039;s club scene is wide and diverse You want to listen to exteot that You want a traditional Irish pub? A Turkish-style coffeehouse? Belly dancers? Japanese garden party? Swing dancing? Ballroo? Beat poetry? You&039;re covered

You don&039;t have to look much harder to find all sorts of other clubs-the kind that Ma and Pa Tourist don&039;t take the kids to Gay clubs, lesbian clubs, strip clubs, leather clubs, and enre

And then there&039;s Zero

I stood with Thomas outside what looked like a fire-exit door at the bottom of a stairway, a story below street level in the side of a don building A red neon oval had been installed on the door, and it gloith a sullen, lurid heat The thuround

"Is this what I think it is?" I asked hi white T-shirt and old blue jeans, glanced at me and arched one dark eyebrow "Depends on if you think it&039;s Zero or not"

Zero&039;s one of those clubs that most people only hear rumors about It moves around the city from tihtspot in a o for better than a decade I&039;d heard of Zero, but that was it It here the rich and beautiful (and rich) people of Chicago went to indulge themselves

"You know so to let us-"

Thomas popped a key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door for me

"In," I finished A wash of heat and sently against my chest I could hear the whump-whump-whump of techno dance music somewhere behind the red-lit smoke

"It&039;s a family business," Thomas explained He put the keys back in his pocket, an odd expression on his face "I met Justine at Zero"

"There any more of the other side of the family in there?" I asked hierous of any of the various va around-and the most scary Creatures of seduction, they fed upon the ey of those they preyed upon Their victily offer the left to give The poor suckers in thrall to a White Court va with them in any sense of the as a bad idea

Thomas shook his head "I doubt it Or Justine wouldn&039;t have chosen to meet us here"

Unless she&039;d been forced to do so, I thought toI like to stay cozy with my paranoia, not pass her around to my friends and family

"After you," Thomas said, and then he calmly stripped his shirt off

I eyed hie they strive to , the bastard His abs look like they were added in with CGI My abs just look like I can&039;t afford to feed myself very well

"Oh," I said "Do I need to takea black leather coat That&039;s wardrobe enough"

"Sh the door

We walked down a hallway that got darker, louder, and more illicitly aromatic as ent It ended at a black curtain, and I pushed it aside to reveal a few more feet of hallway, a door, and two politely for in front of it

One of them lifted a hand and told me, "I&039;m sorry, sir, but this is a private-"

Thorey gaze

He lowered his hand, and when he spoke, it sounded rough, as if his one dry "Excuse me, sir I didn&039;t realize he ith you"

Tho

The bouncer turned to the door, unlocked it with a key of its own, and opened the door "Will you be in need of a table, sir? Drinks?"

Thouard, as if the man had somehow vanished as a matter of any consequence My brother walked by hiave me a weak s at Zero, sir"

"Thanks," I said, and followed my brother into a scene that split the difference between a Dionysian bacchanal and a Fellini flick

There was no white light inside Zero Most of it was red, punctuated in places with pools of blue and plenty of black lights scattered everywhere so that even where shadoere thickest, soarette s haze under the black lights

We had entered on a kind of balcony that overlooked the dance floor below Music pounded, the bass beat so loud that I could feel it in hts flashed and swayed in synchronicity The floor was croith sweating, , fro a whole-head hood, at one extreirl clad in a few strips of electrical tape on the other There was a bar down by the dance floor, and tables scattered around its outskirts under a thirty-foot-high ceiling A few cages hung about eight feet over the dance floor, each containing a young

Stairways and catwalks led up to about a dozen platforms that thrust out from the walls, where patrons could sit and overlook the scene belohile gaining a measure of privacy for themselves Most of the platforues rather than tables and chairs There were more exotic bits of furniture up on the platforiant X shape of a St Andrew&039;s cross, which was currently supporting the bound for man, his wrists and ankles secured to the cross, his face to the wood, his hair falling down over his naked back Another platforirls danced around it, in the middle of a circle of es

Everywhere I looked, people were doing things that would have gotten them arrested anywhere else Couples, threesoed in sexual activity on some of the private platforms From where I stood, I could see two different tables where lines of white poaited to be inhaled A syringe disposal was on the wall next to every trash can,beaten hips and riding crops People were bound up with elaborate arrangements of ropes, as well as with s and tattoos were everywhere Screah the uishable frohts flashed constantly, changing and shifting, and every beat of the es of sybaritic abandon

The s-it all combined into a wet, desperate miasma that was full of needs that could never be sated

That&039;s why the place was called Zero, I realized Zero limits Zero inhibitions Zero restraint It was a place of perfect, focused abandon, of indulgence, and it was intriguing and hideous, nauseating and viscerally hungry

Zero fulfillh me This was the world as created by the White Court This is what they would iven the chance Planet Zero

I glanced aside at Thoed hue, frohter silver, actual flecks of metallic color in his eyes His eyes tracked over a pair of young woerie under long leather coats, and holding hands with their fingers intertwined The women both turned their eyes toward him as if they&039;d heard him call their na and faltering

Thoed his eyes away, and let that inhuain The women blinked a few tiuely puzzled

"Hey," I yelled through the ht?"

He nodded once, and then twitched his chin up at the highest platfor, on the far side of the dance floor "Up there"

I nodded, and Thootiated the ned to be just barely too narrow for two people to pass one another without touching, as I found out when Thoirl in leather shorts and a bustier, both of which strained to match the by the red light&039;s primitive rhythm She slid by Thomas, her eyes locked on his chest, as if she was about to lean over and bite hiirl reached me-and I take up more room than Thomas I felt her hip brush me, and she arched her back as I stepped past her, turned sideways Her breasts pressed against my sternum, pliant, resilient warht Her hand brushed over h, a touch that could have been accidental but wasn&039;t, andthat I stop for a moment and see where this would lead

You can&039;t trust your body when it tells you stuff like that It doesn&039;t understand about things like actual affection, interaction, pregnancy, STDs It just wants I tried not to pay any attention to it-but there were other people on the catwalks, and evidently there was no such thing as a less than gorgeous woman inside Zero&039;s walls Most of them seemed perfectly happy to make sure I knew it as they went by

So did some of the men, for that matter, but that was less of an issue, as far as my focus went

It probably didn&039;t help s that I hadn&039;t ever seen before, not even in ue and an ice cube that-

Look, just trustas hell

Tho up to the highest platform, and he took the last steps three at a ti around uys This had the side effect of irls than I&039;d ever seen in one place at one ti One of the-