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Chapter Twenty-nine

Two hours and half a dozen atte spells later, I snarled and slapped a stack of notepads off the corner of the table in ainst the wall beneath Bob the Skull&039;s shelf, and fell to the concrete floor

"It was to be expected," Bob the Skull said, very quietly Orange lights like the flickers of distant calittered in the eye sockets of the bleached huh up on one wall of my lab, bracketed by the remains of dozens of melted candles and half a dozen paperback romances "The parent-to-child blood bond is s"

I glared at the skull and also keptthat you told me so"

"I can&039;t help it if you&039;re wrong all the tinore my advice, sahib I&039;m just a humble servant"

I couldn&039;t scream at my nonmaterial assistant with other people in the apart up a pencil fro it at him Its eraser end hit the skull between the eyes

"Jealousy, thy nah

I paced up and down the length of y It wasn&039;t much of a walk Five paces, turn, five paces, turn It was a dank little concrete box of a room Work benches lined three of the walls, and I had installed cheap wire shelving above them The work benches and shelves were croith all ents, instruear needed for alche table in the middle of the room was currently covered by a canvas tarp, and the floor at the far end of the lab had a perfect circle of pure copper embedded in it The re attempts were scattered on the floor around the circle, while the props and foci from the most recent failure were still inside it

"One of the," I told Bob "Maybe not a full lock on Thoht direction, at least"

"Unless he&039;s dead," Bob said, "in which case you&039;re just spinning your wheels"

"He isn&039;t dead," I said quietly "Shagnasty wants to trade"

"Uh-huh," Bob scoffed "Because everyone kno honorable the naagloshii are"

"He&039;s alive," I said quietly "Or at least I&039; to proceed on that assued to look baffled "Why?"

Because you need your brother to be all right, whispered a quiet voice inelse isn&039;t particularly useful toward resolving this situation," I said aloud "Whoever is behind the curtains is using the skinwalker and probably Madeline Raith, too So if I find Thonasty and Madeline, and I&039;ll be able to start pulling threads until this entireout the word "Do you think it&039;ll take long to pull all those threads? Because the naagloshii is going to be doing sorowling sound in ot its nu to punch Shagnasty out ood-and it&039;s fast as hell"

"He&039;s an iood"

I waved a hand "My point is that I&039;ve been trying to lay the beating on itbindings on it, just to trip it up and slow it down, so whoever is with ht work" Bob admitted

"Thank you"

" if he&039;s such an idiot that he only bothered to learn to defend hiy attacks," Bob continued, as if I hadn&039;t spoken "Which I think is al spells to work He&039;ll kno to defend hihed "I&039;ve got gender issues"

Bob blinked slowly "Uh Wow I&039;d love to say so for you, boss, but I&039;h" I threw another pencil It missed Bob and bounced off the wall behind him "With the skinwalker Is it actually a hts "It&039;s a semidivine immortal, Harry It doesn&039;t procreate It has no need to recoender si only you meat sacks worry about"

"Then why is it that you stare at naked girls every chance you get," I said, "but not naked men?"

"It&039;s an aesthetic choice," Bob said loftily "As a gender, women exist on a plane far beyond men when it comes to the artistic appreciation of their external beauty"

"And they have boobs," I said

"And they have boobs!" Bob agreed with a leer

I sighed and rubbed atmy eyes "You said the skinwalkers were selish word, which doesn&039;t really describe them very precisely Most skinwalkers are just people-powerful, dangerous, and often psychotic people, but people They&039;re successors to the traditions and skills taught to avaricious inals like Shagnasty," I said

"He&039;s the real deal, all right," Bob replied, his quiet voice growingto soinallyhuers?" I said "Like angels?"

"Or like those guys on bikes in New York, maybe?" Bob said "Not all couriers are created identical, Mr Lowest-Coloshii, were supposed to go with the Holy People when they departed the mortal world But some of them didn&039;t They stayed here, and their selfishness corrupted the power the Holy People gave therunted Bob&039;s information was anecdotal, which enerations of retelling There probably wasn&039;t any way to know the objective truth of it-but a surprising amount of that kind of lore remained fundamentally sound in oral tradition societies like those of the Ah to say," Bob said "The traditional Navajo don&039;t see tiuably smarter than the rest of you monkeys But it&039;s safe to assume prehistory Several millennia"

Yikes

Thousands of years of survival meant thousands of years of accunasty was smart and adaptable The old skinwalker wouldn&039;t still be around if it wasn&039;t I upgraded the creature, in h"

But since it still had

"Don&039;t suppose there&039;s a silver bullet we can use?" I asked

"No, boss," Bob said quietly "Sorry"

I gri up the an to leave the lab I paused before I left and said, "Hey, Bob"

"Yeah?"

"Any thoughts as to hen LaFortier was being ic around?"

"People are morons?"

"It&039;s damned peculiar," I said

"Irrationality isn&039;t" Bob said "Wizards just aren&039;t all that stable to begin with"

Given what I had done with ue with hi," I said

"Yeah?" Bob asked "What?"

I shook ure it out"

I went back up into h the trapdoor in its floor The door was a thick one Sound didn&039;t readily travel up from the lab when it was closed Luccio was loaded with narcotics and asleep onflat on her back with no pillow, and covered with a light blanket Her face was slack, her htly open It er than she already appeared Molly sat in one of the recliners with several candles burning beside her She was reading a paperback, carefully not opening the thing all the way to avoid creasing the spine Pansy

I went to the kitchen and etting really tired of sandwiches Maybe I ought to learn to cook or so, and Molly came to join me

"Hey," she said in muted tones "How are you?"

She&039;d helped e the fairly auze bandage ound around my head to form a lopsided, off-kilter halo I felt like the fife player in Willard&039;s iconic Spirit of &039;76

"Still in one piece," I replied "How are they?"

"Drugged and sleeping," she said "Morgan&039;s fever is up another half of a degree The last bag of antibiotics is almost eet Morgan to a hospital soon, he was going to be just as dead as he would be if the Council or Shagnasty got hold of hiet some ice onto hioes over one hundred and four, and stays there," I said "That&039;s when it begins to endanger hi what it&039;s supposed to do and slowing the infection" I finished the last bite of sandwich "Any calls?"

She produced a piece of notebook paper "Georgia called Here&039;s where Andi is They&039;re still with her"

I took the paper with a grian in o, he wouldn&039;t have been in Chicago, Shagnasty wouldn&039;t have been tailing me to find him, Andi wouldn&039;t be hurt-and Kirby would still be alive And I hadn&039;t even tried to call and find out how she was "How is she?"

"They still aren&039;t sure," Molly said

I nodded "Okay"

"Did you find Thomas?"

I shookover He sat down and looked up at me, his expression concerned

She chewed on her lip "What are you going to do?"

"I" My voice trailed off I sighed "I have no idea"

Mouse pawed atand looked up at retted it as soain in a hurry, wincing, and entertained wild fantasies about lying down on the floor and sleeping for a week

Molly watched ht, Harry You&039;re still teaching your apprentice Show her what a wizard should do, not what you want to do

I looked at the paper "The answer isn&039;t obvious, which ht into it And while I&039;o look in on Andi"

Molly nodded "What do I do?"

"Hold down the fort Try to reach ets any worse"

Molly nodded seriously "I can do that"

I nodded and grabbed ear and the key to the Rolls Molly went to the door, ready to lock it behind me when I left I started to do just that-and then paused I turned to my apprentice "Hey"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you"

She blinked at me "Um What did I do?"

"More than I asked of you More than was good for you" I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek "Thank you, Molly"

She lifted her chin a little, s "Well," she said "You&039;re just so pathetic How could I turn away?"

That h, if only for a second, and her s radiant

"You know the drill," I said

She nodded "Keep my eyes open, be supercareful, don&039;t take any chances"

I winked at her "You groiser, grasshopper"

Molly started to say soeted for half a second, and then threw her ar

"Be careful," she said "Okay?"

I hugged her back tight and gave the top of her head a light kiss "Hang in there, kid We&039;ll get this straightened out"

"Okay," she said "We will"

Then I headed out into the Chicago night wondering how-or if-that was possible

Chapter Thirty

I don&039;t like hospitals-but then, who does? I don&039;t like the clean, cool hallways I don&039;t like the stark fluorescent lights I don&039;t like the cal tones on the telephones I don&039;t like the pastel scrubs the nurses and attendants wear I don&039;t like the elevators, and I don&039;t like the soothing colors on the walls, and I don&039;t like the way everyone speaks in measured, quiet voices

But mostly, I don&039;t like the memories I&039;ve collected there

Andi was still in intensive care I wouldn&039;t be able to go in to see her-neither would Billy and Georgia, if they hadn&039;t arranged for power of attorney forafter standard visiting hours, but most hospital staffs stretch rules and look the other way for those whose loved ones are in ICU The world has changed a lot over the centuries, but death watches are still respected

Billy had come to me on the do to set up power of attorney fornearby to handle h neither of us said so, we both knehy he really did it The only reason Georgia wouldn&039;t be there is if she was dead-and if Billy was in no shape toaround and find out what his world would be like without her in it He wanted someone he could trust to understand that

Billy and Georgia are solid

I&039;d spent so rooed since I&039;d been there last It was e, still wearing her glasses A book by as presuist lay open on her stomach She looked exhausted

I bypassed the waiting roo woman in her thirties looked up at me with a frown "Sir," she said, "it&039;s well after visiting hours"

"I know," I said I took my notepad out of o back to the waiting rooo past Miss Macklin&039;s roo with her?"

The nurse relaxed a little, and gave me a tired smile "Certainly It will just be a few minutes"

"Thanks"

I went back to the waiting room and settled into a chair I closed ainst the wall, and drowsed until I heard footsteps on tile

Billy entered with a rolled-up blanket under his arlanced around the rooia He took her glasses off, very gently, and picked up the book Georgia never stirred He put the book on the end table, and her glasses on top of it Then he took the blanket from under his arm and covered her up She murmured and stirred, but Billy shushed her quietly and stroked his hand over her hair She sighed and shifted onto her side, then snuggled down under the blanket

I reached up a hand and flicked the light switch beside my head It left the room dim, if not really dark

Billy sot up and alked out into the hallway together

"Should have tried to call you sooner," I said "I&039;m sorry"

He shook his head "I kno it is, y needed"

"Okay," I said, without actually agreeing with hiood," he replied siery to get it stopped" The blocky young man shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans "They told us if she ht, she&039;ll be out of the worst of it"

"How are you holding up?"

He shook his head again "I don&039;t know, man I called Kirby&039;s folks I was his friend I had to The police had already contacted them, but it isn&039;t the same"

"No, it isn&039;t"

"They took it pretty hard Kirby was an only child"

I sighed "I&039;ed "Kirby knew the risks He&039;d rather have died than stand by and do nothing"

"Georgia?"

"I&039;d have lost it without her Pillar of strength and cal rooood at setting things aside until there&039;s tis have settled out, she&039;ll be a wreck, and it&039;ll be my turn to hold her up"

Like I said

Solid

"The thing that did Kirby took Thomas Raith," I said