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Chapter Twenty-two

Smith Cohen and Mackleroy, as it turned out, was an upscale law fir their offices occupied stood in the shadow of the Sears Tower, andplucked out the eneht us so space Without Vince on our tail, I hoped that Morgan could get a few hours of rest in relative safety

I&039;d figure out somewhere else to move him-just as soon as I leaned on Ms Evelyn Derek and found out to whouess I looked sort of uard gave me a wary look as I entered solidly in thewhether or not to stop ave him my friendliest smile-which my weariness and stress probably reduced to merely polite-and said, "Excuse me, sir I have an appointment with an attorney at Smith Cohen and Mackleroy They&039;re on the twenty-second floor, right?"

He relaxed, which was good Beneath his suit, he looked like he had enough muscle to bounce ht, thanks" I smiled at him and strode confidently past Confidence is critical to convincing people that you really are supposed to be somewhere-especially when you aren&039;t

"Sir," said the guard from behind me "I&039;d appreciate it if you left your club here"

I paused and looked over un His hand wasn&039;t exactly resting on it, but he&039;d tucked his thumb into his belt about half an inch away

"It isn&039;t a club," I said cal"

"It&039;s traditional Ozark folk art"

"With dents and nicks all over it"

I thought about it for a second "I&039;m insecure?"

"Get a blanket" He held out his hand

I sighed and passed et a receipt?"

He took a notepad from his pocket and wrote on it Then he passed it over toclub from Mr Smart-ass

"That&039;s Doctor Sht years in insult college to be called Mister"

He leaned the staff against the wall behind his desk and sat back down at his chair

I went to the elevator and rode up It was one of those express contraptions that goes fast enough to compress your spine and make your ears pop It opened on the twenty-fourth floor facing a reception desk The law office, apparently, took up the entire floor

The receptionist was, inevitably, a young woman, and just as unavoidably attractive She ith the solid-oak furnishings, the actual oil paintings, and the handcrafted furniture in the reception area, and the faint scent of lemon wood polish in the air-variations on a theme of beautiful practicality

She looked up at , her shirt cut just low enough to make you notice, but not so low as to make you think less of her I liked the smile Maybe I didn&039;t look like a beaten-up buedly determined

"I&039; center is on twenty-six"

Sigh

"I&039; that this is Slanced rather pointedly-but still politely-at the front of her desk, where a plaque bore the fir "I see, sir Who are you looking for?"

"Ms Evelyn Derek, please"

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No," I said "But she&039;ll want to talk to h she had some kind of bitter, unpleasant taste in herlady clearly would have beenme off to a secretary, or executive assistant, or whatever you&039;re supposed to call the someone else decide if I was supposed to be there And Ms Evelyn Derek&039;s assistant was just as clearly out to lunch, which was the point of showing up during lunch hour "Who shall I say is here?"

I produced Vincent Graver&039;s business card and passed it to her "Please tell her that Vince has acquired some unexpected information and that she needs to hear about it"

She pushed a button, adjusted her headset, and dutifully passed on the e to whoever was on the other end She listened and nodded "Straight back down the hall, sir, the second door on the left"

I nodded to her and walked through the door behind her The carpet got even thicker and the decor more expensive A nook in the wall showcased a small rock fountain between a pair of two-thousand-dollar leather chairs I shook h a hall that absolutely reeked of success, power, and the desire for everyone to know about it

I bet they would have been seethingly jealous of the Ostentatiatory in Edinburgh

I opened the second door on the left, went in, and closed it behind me, to find a secretary&039;s desk, currently unoccupied, and an open door to ould doubtless be an executive office appropriate to the status of Evelyn Derek, attorney at law

"Come in, Mr Graver," said an impatient woman&039;s voice from inside the office

I walked in and shut the door behind , but not monstrous She probably wasn&039;t a full partner in the firlass and space-agecabinet in the rooile-looking laptop computer, and a framed sheepskin from somewhere expensive on the wall She had a , but it had been frosted over into bare translucency The glass desk and sitting table and liquor cabinet all shone, without a serprint to be seen anywhere It had all the war on the laptop ht have come with the office as part of a coreen eyes I had ever seen Her hair was raven black, and cut close to her head, showcasing her narrow, elegant features and the slender line of her neck She wore a dark silk suit jacket with ain shoes that e pays, and no necklace There was soers struck the keys at a rapid, decisive cadence, like afor two fullObviously, she had so to intrude upon her day

"I hope you don&039;t think you can convince me to rehire you, Mr Graver," she said, eventually, without looking up "What is it that you think is so important?"

Ah Vince had quit already He didn&039;t let row under his feet, did he?

This wo taken very seriously I debated several answers and decided to start things off by annoying her

I know Me Shocking, right?

I stood there treating her the sa, until Evelyn Derek exhaled i stare toward me

"Hi, cuddles," I said

I&039;ll give the lady this reat poker face The disapproval turned into a neutral h she looked more attentive than nervous, and put her pal to leave ses," I said

She stared at me for a few more seconds before she said, "Get out of my office"

"I don&039;t see any Windex in here," Iaround

"Did you hearharder "Get Out"

I scratched my chin "Maybe it&039;s in your secretary&039;s desk You want et it for you?"

Spots of color appeared on her cheeks She reached for the phone on her desk

I pointed a finger at it, sent out an effort of will, and hissed, "Hexus"

Fouling up technology is a fairly siical in its precision Sparks erupted frohts, and fro inside her coat pocket, acco sounds

Ms Derek let out a small shriek and tried to flinch in three directions at once Her chair rolled backithout her, and she wound up sprawled on the floor behind her glass-topped desk in afroreen eyes ide, the whites showing all around them

Purely for effect, I walked a couple of steps closer and stood looking down at her in silence for a long moment There was not a sound in that roohts

I spoke very, very quietly "There are two shut doors between you and the rest of this office-which is reat carpets, solid-oak paneling, and a burbling water feature out in the hallway" I shtly "Nobody heard what just happened Or they would have co by now"

She sed, and didn&039;t move

"I want you to tell me who had you hire a detective to snoop on ather herself together "I-I don&039;t knohat you&039;re talking about"

I shook esture at the liquor cabinet as I entle effort of will The door to the cabinet swung open I picked a bottle of what looked like bourbon and repeated the gesture, causing it to flit from the opened cabinet across the roo It tasted rich and burned my throat pleasantly on the way down

Evelyn Derek stared at me in pure shock, her mouth open, her face whiter than rural Maine

I looked at her steadily "Are you sure?"

"Oh, God," she whispered

"Evelyn," I said in a chiding voice "Focus You hired Vince Graver to follow me around and report on my movements Someone told you to do that Who was it?"

"M-my clients," she sta the poor woic had been typical of a straight who had never encountered the supernatural before-which meant that she probably had no idea of the nature of whoever she was protecting She was terrified Ito hurt her

But I was the only one in the roo a bluff is that you have to play it all the way out, even when it gets uncoet ugly," I said sadly

I took a step closer and put the bottle down on the desk Then I slowly, dramatically, raised my left hand It had been badly burned several years before, and while s wasterm, my hand still wasn&039;t pretty It wasn&039;t quite horror-and unpleasant, if you hadn&039;t ever seen them before

"No, wait," Evelyn squeaked She backed across the floor on her buttocks, pressed her back to the wall and lifted her hands "Don&039;t"

"You helped your client try to kill people, Evelyn," I said in a calm voice "Tell me who"

Her eyes widened even et hurt"

I stepped closer and snarled, "Talk"

"All right, all right!" she sta as suddenly as if so her

I eased up on the intimidation throttle "Tell me," I said, more quietly

Evelyn Derek shook her head ataway the reserve I&039;d seen in her onlyI saw her open her ed Her eyes lost focus and started flicking rando for an escape

That wasn&039;t norht panic, ht be backed into a corner-but she would never be at a loss for words

"Oh," I said, hed, and walked around the desk to stand over the cowering lawyer "Hell, if I&039;d known that someone had" I shookvery hard to

It was one of about a thousand possible reactions when soated by some kind of psychic interdiction I&039;d just created a situation in which every part of her logical, rationalht behind her reasoned thoughts, too

Only I was betting that so inside her that refused to let Ms Derek speak about her eht not even have a conscious memory of who hired her-despite the fact that she wouldn&039;t just hire some detective to spy on somebody for no reason

Everyone always thinks that such obvious logical inconsistencies wouldn&039;t hold up, that thethose flaws But the fact is that the huical or consistent place Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of nor or weak people, or good or bad people It just makes them people

It&039;s our nature There&039;s plenty to distract us from the nastier truths of our lives, if ant to avoid them

"Evelyn Derek," I said in a firm, authoritative voice "Look ather head

I knelt in front of her Then I reached out to touch her chin, and gently lifted her face to entler voice "Look at reen eyes tobreath before the soulgaze began

If the eyes are the s to the soul, then wizards are the souls&039; voyeurs When a wizard looks into another person&039;s eyes, we get to see so of that person, a vision of the very core of their being We each go through the experience a little differently, but it a-a look into another person&039;s eyes gives you an insight into the most vital portions of their character

Evelyn Derek&039;s deep green eyes almost see at a roo, almost identical to the woman&039;s office The furniture was beautiful and minimalistic Ms Derek, it seemed, was not the kind of person to overly burden her soul with the care and mementos most people collect over the course of a lifetime She had devoted her life to her hts, and she had never left herself lements

But as I stared at the room, I saw Ms Derek herself I would have expected her in her business clothing, or perhaps in student&039;s attire Instead, she earing

Well She earing very expensive, very arters, panties, and bra, all black She wore the on the floor, her knees apart, her hands held behind the small of her back She facedin quickened pants I was able to change reen eyes followedin little yearning rolls with every tiny correction of her balance

Her wrists were bound behind her back with a long, slender ribbon of white silk

I caught a aze up, to see a slender, feminine form vanish into the corridors of Evelyn Derek&039;sleam of silver eyes

Son of a bitch

Soht, and woven those restraints together with her natural sexual desire, to give thelimpses I&039;d seen of the perpetrator, flashes of ave strong indicators as to as responsible

A vampire of the White Court

And then there was a wrenching sensation and I was kneeling over Evelyn Derek Her eyes ide, her expression a mixture of terror and awe as she stared up at aze Whoever you look at gets a look back at you They get to see you in just as aze me who didn&039;t seem disconcerted by the experience

Evelyn Derek stared at me and whispered, "Who are you?"

I said, "Harry Dresden"

She blinked slowly and said, her voice dazed, "She ran fro to hts of another huets, a direct violation of the Laws of Magic that the Wardens uphold But there are grey areas, like in any set of laws, and there are accepted customs as to as or was not allowed in practice

There wasn&039;t hter and more skilled than mine to undo the harm that had been done to herI could do for her, a bit of grey ed as an aid and a mercy, especially for those who had suffered the kind of psychic trauently as I could, and reached out with ently over her eyes, causing her to close them, and as I passed my palm from her forehead down to her chin, I released that ith as , "Dorme, dormius, Evelyn Dor sound of relief, and her body sagged to the floor in sudden and complete relaxation She breathed in deeply once, exhaled, and then passed into simple and dreamless slumber

I made her as comfortable as I could With luck, when she woke, she would pass most of our confrontation off as a bad dreaer growing inside uard at the door as the anger started nudging over into fury I slapped the receipt down on his desk, and with a gesture and a ainst the wall and into uard fell out of his chair, and I left without looking back

The White Court was involved They were trying to get Morgan killed-andon people inharht circumstances There was a broad difference between their usual predation and what had been done to Evelyn Derek

So to answer for it

Chapter Twenty-three

I got back to my apartment, shouldered open ain

Morgan lay on the floor about five feet fro cane fros like Ozark folk art carved quarter staves, blasting rods, umbrellas, and so on The cane is an old Victorian-style sword-cane You twist the handle and pull, and you can draw a slender thirty-inch spring steel blade froan had He lay on his side on the floor, his ar the sword

Its tip rested against Molly&039;s carotid artery, just under her left ear

Molly, for her part, leaned back against one of my bookcases, her knees bent a little, her arms spread out to either side, as if she&039;d stu out her hands to brace herself against the bookcase as she fell back