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Chapter 27

Thoan to buckle, and settledroo," he said "Those two Reds know he&039;s injured and exhausted They&039;ll be back, looking for an opening or trying to pick one of us off e&039;re vulnerable"

"Right, right," Molly said "How is he?"

He crouched down in front of me and peered at me His irises looked like polished chrome "Still punchy"

"Shock?"

"Maybe He&039;s in a lot of pain"

I was? Oh I was That uessed

"God," Molly said, her voice shaking "I&039;ll get soht," Thomas said "Get Bob"

Molly sounded confused "Get what?"

His expression flickered with surprise and then went neutral again "Sorry Lips disconnected from my brain Get the Swords"

"They aren&039;t here," Molly said,around Her voice cahost dust and a bunch of other illegal things"

Thomas frowned at that and then nodded "Okay It&039;ll have to do Where do we take him?"

Molly appeared in my field of vision and knelt down to peer at uess"

Thohter It was creepy as hell and fascinating "I was hoping you knew a good spot I sure as hell can&039;t take him to my place"

Molly&039;s voice sharpened "I don&039;t even have a place," she said "I still live at ," Tho me a place to take him where he won&039;t be killed"

"I aan Then she closed her eyes for a second, and lanced up at Thomas "I&039;h clenched teeth

"Um," Molly said She sed "Why do your eyes do that?"

There was a lengthy pause before Thomas answered "They aren&039;t my eyes, Miss Carpenter They&039;re my demon&039;s eyes The better to see you with"

"Dery Like, the vaht like that?" Thomas said "I&039;m barely sane"

Both of them should have known better Every time a wizard looks another person in the eyes, he runs the risk of triggering a deeper seeing, a voyeuristic peep through the s of soet a snapshot of the true nature of that person, and they get a peek back at you

It was only the second tiaze happen to someone else There was an instant where both of them locked their eyes on each other&039;s Molly&039;s eyes widened suddenly, like a frightened doe&039;s, and she jerked in a sharp breath She stared at hi - and failing - to look away

Thoh his eyes also widened, it re down in anticipation, just before pouncing on its prey

Molly&039;s back arched slightly and a soft moan escaped her Her eyes filled with tears

"God," she said "God No No, you&039;re beautiful God, you hurt so much, need so muchLet me help you" She fumbled for his hand

Thoers touched his Not a muscle His eyes closed very slowly

"Miss Carpenter," he whispered "Do not touch ht," Molly said "It&039;s all right I&039;m here"

Thoht her wrist in his pale fingers, and she let out a short gasp He opened his eyes and focused on hers, and Molly began to breathe harder The tips of her breasts showed against her shirt and her mouth opened with another soft moan

I think I made a quiet sound of protest Neither of them heard it

He leaned closer, the an trean to slowly lean forward, toward him Their lips id A breathless sound escaped her as her eyes rolled back in her head, and Thoainst her Molly&039;s hips rocked against his Her hands ca the buttons froainst his naked chest

Mouse hit Tho&039;s charge tore my brother away from my apprentice and slammed him into the brick of the fireplace Thoe, but Mouse had hi dog&039;s jaws didn&039;t snap closed - but the tips of his teeth sank into flesh, and he held Tho fro for the poker that hung beside the fireplace Mouse took note of it and gave Tho a tiny bit deeper My brother didn&039;t quit reaching for the weapon, and I saw the tension gathering in the big dog&039;s body

I ca back into myself all at once and said, weakly, "Thomas"

He froze Mouse cocked an ear toward me

"Thoirl"

Thorimace and force himself to relax, to surrender His body slowly eased away fro tension, and he held up both hands palher

"Okay," he rasped "Okay It&039;s okay now"

"Show me your eyes," I said

He did They were a shade of pale, pale grey, with only flecks of reflective hunger dancing through therunted "Mouse"

Mouse backed off slowly, gradually easing the pressure of his jaws, gently taking his teeth out of Thomas&039;s throat He took a pair of steps back and then sat down, head lowered to a fighting crouch that kept his own throat covered He kept facing Thomas, made no sound, and didn&039;t

"Can&039;t stay here," Thory Their edges were slightly blackened, as if the dog&039;s teeth had been red-hot "Not with her like that" He closed his eyes "I didn&039;t mean to Sorry"

I looked at Molly, as curled into a fetal position and shaking, still breathing hard

"Get out," I said

"Hoill you - "

"Thoer "You could have hurt Molly You could have killed her My only defense is down here babysitting you instead of standing guard Get out You&039;re no good to rowl

"I&039;ain "I&039;m sorry"

Then he eased around Mouse and departed, his feetlittle sound as he went up the stairs

I sat there for ain practically every sense My entire body tingled with unpleasant pinpricks, as though it had gone to sleep and was only now feeling the return of circulation The soulfire I hfor a little while, but after that, I&039;d collapsed into pure passivity

Terror on behalf of iven ht not last It hurt to sit upright It hurt to breathe Moving anything hurt, and not ht as well bewasn&039;t having any of it, and I was lucky not to end up on the floor Without being told, Mouse got up and hurried intoas he rustled around under my bed, which had required him to lift it onto hisone of my crutches, left over froood dog?" I said

He wagged his tail at me and went back for the other one Once I had theiood stuff, but it is also illegal stuff to have without a prescription if you aren&039;t Canadian, so it was currently buried indose of Tylenol the original, since I didn&039;t have my Tylenol 3 or its lesser-known, short-lived cousin, Tylenol Two: The Pain Strikes Back

I realized that I was telling Mouse all of this out loud as I thought it, which had the potential to become aard if it should becolass of water, I moved over to Molly and checked her pulse It was steady Her breathing had slowed Her eyes were slightly open and unfocused

I et herself killed This was the second ti fed upon by a vah admittedly the first had been in a vicarious fashion Still, it couldn&039;t be good for her to be hit with it again And if Tho what it ht do to her

"Molly," I said Then louder, "Molly!"

She drew in a sudden little breath and blinked up at ," I said wearily

She sat up, looking down at herself and at the green paint sain, dazed "What just happened?"

"You soulgazed Thomas You both lost perspective He nearly ate you" I poked her with a crutch "Mouse saved you Get up"

"Right," she said "Right" She stood up very sloincing and rubbing at one wrist "Uht?"

"Mouse nearly killed him," I said "He&039;s scared, ashaone" I thu?"

Molly shook her head "If you&039;d seenI mean, if you&039;d seen him Seen how lonely he was Felt how much pain he was in, how eain "I&039;ve never felt anything so horrible in my life Or seen anyone braver"

"Apparently, you figured you&039;d help hi him rip the life out of you"

She faced me for a moment, then flushed and looked away "HeIt doesn&039;t get ripped out It gets" She blushed "I think the only phrase that works is &039;licked away&039; Like licking the frosting off of a cake Oror the candy coating off of one of those lollipops"

"Except that as soon as you find out how et to your creamy center, you&039;re dead," I said "Or insane Which is sos you can do So I repeat" I thu with the tip of "

"It won&039;t happen again," she said, but I saw her shiver as she said it

I grunted skeptically, staring down at her

Molly wasn&039;t ready Not for so like ere about to do She had tooBy the tie, I had finishedunder the Doom of Damocles for the better part of a decade

Of course, I had an experience advantage on Molly I had made my first dark compact, with h I hadn&039;t knohat I was getting into at the time I&039;d made a second one with the Leanansidhe when I was sixteen And I&039;d wound up under round-the-clock observation froan

It had been a brief lifetime for me, at that point, but absolutely chock-full of lessons in the school of hard knocks I had made plenty of dued to survive the around in situations as hot as this one was A troll under a bridge or an upset spirit or tas as bad as it got It had preparedit cold She&039;d been burned once before, but it had taken me more than one atteht not survive her next test

She looked up at me and asked, "What?"

"We need towith the Ik&039;k&039;with the Ik&039;koo-koo-kachoo" I scrunched upto remember the name of the creature, and couldn&039;t "With the Ick," I said, "and they were char in an entirely aht: They&039;ll be after "

"Where?"

"St Mary&039;s," I said "The Red Court can&039;t walk on holy ground, and Susan knows I&039;ve used it as a fallback position before She and Martin can catch up to et so "Okay Okay, I&039;ll get you a change of clothes, all right?"

"Call a cab first," I said "And pack the Tylenol And soht Okay"

I leaned onwhile she bustled around the rooain The Tylenol had taken the worst edge off the pain, and ish, seeain I didn&039;t want to risk relaxing into lassitude

"Say that five ti to do that I couldn&039;t screw up too badly

A while later, Mousesound from the top of the stairs outside, and Molly plodded up them wearily "Cab&039;s here, Harry," she called

I gotStairs on crutches isn&039;t fun, but I&039;d done it before I tookslowly and steadily

"Look out!" she yelled

A bottle sainst the top interior wall of the stairwell, and its contents splashed all over the place, fire spreading over them as they did Ye olde Molotov cocktail, still a formidable weapon even after a century of use There&039;sfuel Fire that hot sucks the oxygen out of the air around it, especially when it has a nice, dank stairway to use as a chi fuel to get burned When a fire is hot enough, it&039;ll burn exposed flesh fro the atmosphere around it into an oven

I was only on the second or third step up froet roasted - been there, done that, not going back I tried to fall ontothat it deserved a chance to join in the fun, too I landed more or less the way I wanted to, and it hurt like hell, but at least I didn&039;t faint I screah, a nu fro into the old wood like a hungry, living thing

"Harry!" Molly called from somewhere beyond the fla bay, and I saw fire beginning to cli fro off fire alarms, it would be too late to escape

At this tiht, somewhere up above er And on the second floor, hbys, would be in sih to live in the sa as me

I&039;d dropped one of ht on fire There was no way I was pulling ic out of my hat, not until I&039;d had food and some rest Hell&039;s bells, for that matter I didn&039;t know if I could stand up on , three innocent people - plusto die in a fire

"Come on, Harry," I said "You aren&039;t half-crippled You&039;re half-coher, and I didn&039;t believe round and began heaving ht "Do or die, Dresden," I toldinreally did seem a lot more likely

Chapter 28

I looked up aton ht would be theroom and noted that one ofthe crutch as a lever, I slipped one end of it behind one ofold bookcases and heaved The bookcase shuddered and then fell in a great crash of paperback novels and hardwood shelves, srunted in satisfaction and cli its back as a ramp I crawled painfully up to the end of the ras I wore there

They were y every ti at capacity they packed one hell of a lot of energy - and I had freshly charged the, invisible force struck h the floor of the roo the color of dried mustard

I adjustedon the next finger, and another one after that, each one blasting the opening wider, until it was big enough that I thought I ought to fit through it

I hooked the padded end of my crutch over the broken end of a thick floor joist and used it to haul h the hole and reached up to pull h

Mister let out a harsh, worried meow, and I froze in place My cat was still in my apartment

I looked wildly around the roo in his usual favorite spot atop the highest bookshelf His hair stood on end and every ht and strained

I&039;d already tossed the crutch through If I went back for hiht not be able to stand once I&039;d made it back to the ra up, assu to thirty pounds That&039;s one hell of a handicap on a pull-up

For that ht it would, the extra tiht mean that I wound up trapped with no exit And there would be no one to help Mr S and the Willoughbys

I loved my cat He was family

But as I stared at him I knew that I couldn&039;t help hi brain, Harry," I snapped at myself "Duh Never quit Never quit"

The sunken s around my apartment were too small to be a means of escape for me, but Mister could clear the, and shattered the sunkenclosest to the cat Mister took the hint at once, and prowled down the tops of two bookcases It was a five-foot leap from the top of the shelf to the ell, but Misterfiercely as he vanished through the brokenand into the cool air of the October night

Stars and stones, at least I&039;d acco that day

I turned, reached up into the opening with ht overIt wasn&039;t h andMy ribs were on fire as I kicked and wriggled h the hole and hauledroom

It had last been decorated in the seventies, judging by the reen wallpaper, and it was full of furniture and knickknacks I draggedover a little display stand of collector&039;s plates as I did The roorabbedpain, and hobbled farther into the apartment

I found Mrs S in the apart up, propped on a pile of pillows Her old television was on, sans voluiently

She woke up with a start and slugged me with one tiny fist I fell backward onto rimaced in pain - froain, to find the little old lady holding a little revolver, probably a 38 In her hands, it looked , too, in two hands, peering down at hts

"Mr Dresden!" she said, her voice squeaky "How dare you!"

"Fire!" I said "Mrs S, there&039;s a fire! A fire!"

"Well, I won&039;t fire if you just sit still," she said in a querulous tone She took her left hand off the gun and reached for her phone "I&039;otta shoot you No bluff This here is a grandfathered gun Legal and proper"

I tried to point toward the bedrooertips and tilts of s, boy?" she said, punching nu like a crazy junkie Colanced pastwildly in the hallway outside the bedroo toward it, desperately

Mrs S&039;s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open "Fire!" she said abruptly "There&039;s a fire right there!"

I nodded frantically

She lowered the gun and started kicking her way clear of covers and pillows She wore flannel pajarabbed at a blue robe in any case and hurried toward the door "Coled desperately toout She turned to look atfaster than I was You could hear the fire now, and sun to thicken the air

I pointed up at the ceiling and shouted, "The Willoughbys! Willoughbys!"

She looked up "Lord God al within ten feet of a wall that was already beco, cursed, then pulled her robe down over her hand and picked up so theof keys "Co up! Out the back!"

We both hurried out the back door of the house and into its minuscule little yard, and I saw at once that the entire front side of the house was aflahbys&039; place were already on fire

I turned to her and shouted, "Ladder! Where&039;s the ladder? I need to use the ladder!"

"No!" she shouted back "You need to use the ladder!"

Good grief

"Okay!" I shouted back, and gave her a thue shed in the backyard She picked a key and unlocked it I swung the door open and seized theladder I used to put up and take down Christhts every year I ditched ht I went as fast as I could, but it seehbys&039; bedroom s

Mrs Spunkelcrief handed me a loose brick from a little flower planter&039;s wall and said, "Here I can&039;t cli My hip"