Blood Rites (11 page)

I tried to ditch the stubborn anger and nodded. "Okay, then. No harm, no foul."

"Good." He checked a nylon-strap watch on his left wrist. "I haven't got all day. You wanted to talk to me. So talk."

I felt annoyed enough to start screaming, but forced myself to rein it in. "There's a scourge of vampires in town."

"Black Court?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Whose scourge?"

"Mavra."

Kincaid pursed his lips. "Cagey old hag. I hear she heads up a pretty big crew."

"Yeah. I'm going to downsize them."

Kincaid's index finger tapped on his gun. "Black Court are tough to take down."

"Unless you get them in their coffins," I said. "I can find them."

"You want me to bodyguard you until then?"

"No. I want you to go there with me and help me kill them all."

A smile parted his lips from white teeth. "Going on an offensive would be nice. I'm getting bored on defense. What's the play?"

"Find 'em. Kill 'em."

Kincaid nodded. "Simple enough."

"Yeah, that's the idea. What are you going to cost me?"

He told me.

I choked. "Do you offer coupons or anything?"

Kincaid rolled his eyes and stood up. "Christ. Why did you waste my time, Dresden?"

"Wait," I said. "Look, I'll figure out a way to pay you."

He arched an eyebrow.

"I'm good for it."

"Maybe," he said. "But it's funny how a spending a lifetime as a hired gun makes you a little cynical."

"Take a chance," I said. "I'll get the money to you. And I'll owe you one."

His eyes glittered, flickers of malice and amusement sharing space in them. "Owed a favor by the infamous Dresden. I guess it might be worth enough of my time to give you a chance."

"Great."

"Two conditions," he said.

"Like?"

"I want at least one more set of eyes along," he said. "Someone good in a fight."

"Why?"

"Because if someone gets hurt, it takes two people to get him out alive. One to carry him and one to lay down cover fire."

"I didn't think you cared."

"Of course I do," he said. "The wounded guy might be me."

"Fine," I said. "What's the second condition?"

"You need to understand that if you try to stiff me, I'll have to protect my interests." He lifted a hand. "Don't get me wrong. It's just business. Nothing personal."

"It won't be an issue," I said. "Besides, you wouldn't want to eat my death curse, would you?"

"No. So I'd use a rifle at a thousand yards. The bullet outruns its own sonic boom, and you'd never even hear the shot. You'd be dead before you realized what happened."

That scared me. I've faced more than a few gruesome or nightmarish creatures, but none of them had been that calm and practical. Kincaid believed that he could kill me, if it came to that.

And thinking about it, I believed him too.

He watched my face for a minute, and his smile turned a shade wolfish. "You sure you want me on board?"

There was a pregnant half second of silence. "Yeah."

"All right." Kincaid stepped forward and brushed the salt circle with his toe. The tension of the circle's barrier vanished. "But I'm on the clock. I've got to get back to Ivy's place before Sunday."

"Understood," I said. "How do I get in touch?"

He slipped his gun into his jacket pocket and drew out a grey business card. He put the card on my desk and said, "Pager."

He turned to leave. I stood up and said, "Hey, Kincaid."

He glanced back at me. I tossed the sleep mask to him. He caught it.

"Just plain folk?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Not supernatural?"

"I wish," he said. "Vanilla mortal."

"You're a liar."

His features smoothed into a neutral mask. "Excuse me?"

"I said you're a liar. I saw you during the fight at Wrigley, Kincaid. You fired a dozen shots, on the move and dodging bad guys the whole time."

"What's so supernatural about that?"

"In a fight, just plain folks miss sometimes. Maybe most times. You didn't miss once."

"What's the point of shooting if you're just going to miss?" He smiled, made a mime-gun of his thumb and index finger, and aimed at me. His thumb fell forward and he said, "I'm as human as you are, Dresden. I'll see you later."

Then he left.

I didn't know whether to feel better or worse. On one hand, he was an experienced gunman, and absolutely deadly in a fight. Human or not, I might need someone like that with me when I confronted Mavra.

On the other hand, I had no idea how I would be able to pay him, and I believed him when he said he'd assassinate me. The entire concept was scary as hell. The threat of a death curse that could be levied against a wizard's slayer was a major asset. It meant that anyone or anything that tried to attack a member of the White Council would hesitate, unwilling to risk the burst of destructive power a wizard could release in the last instants of his life.

But those instants would be too slow against a high-powered sniper round fired from ambush. I could imagine it, a flash and a thump on the back of my head, a split second of surprise, and then blackness before I could even realize the need to pronounce my curse.

Kincaid was right: It could work. The tactical doctrine of the powers-that-be in the magical communities of the world tended to run along a couple of centuries behind the rest of the planet. It was entirely possible that the seniormost wizards of the White Council had never even considered the possibility. Ditto for the vampires. But it could work.

The future abruptly seemed like a fairly unpleasant place for professional wizards.

I set about cleaning up the salt and settled down at my little desk, putting my thoughts in order. I had to find out more about the circumstances around the victims of the
malocchio
. I had to go digging for more information on Arturo Genosa's venture into the world of erotic film.

And if that wasn't enough, while I did all of that, I
also
had to figure out how to get enough money to keep my own hired thug from putting holes in my skull.

For most people it would be a desperate situation. But most people hadn't been through them as many times as I had. My worry and tension slowly grew, and as they did I took a perverse comfort in the familiar emotions. It actually felt
good
to feel my survival instincts put me on guard against premature mortality.

Hell's bells. Is that insane or what?

I ran up a long-distance bill while I did my digging on Genosa. I called a dozen different organizations and business entities around Los Angeles, but computers answered almost every phone, and everyone I talked to referred me to their home page on the Internet. Evidently conversation with an actual human being had become passé. Stupid Internet.

I hit some walls, slammed my head against some closed doors, got a little information, and ran out of time. I wrote down Internet addresses, picked up some food, and went to see Murphy.

Special Investigations has its office in one of the clump of mismatched buildings comprising Chicago Police Headquarters. I checked in with the desk sergeant and showed him the consultant's ID card Murphy had given me. The man made me sign in and waved me through. I marched up the stairs and came out on the level housing holding cells and Special Investigations.

I opened the door to SI and stepped inside. The main room was maybe fifty feet long and twenty wide, and desks were packed into it like sardines. The only cubicle walls in the room were around a small waiting area with a couple of worn old couches and a table with some magazines for bored adults and some toys for bored children. One of them, a plush Snoopy doll spotted with old, dark stains, lay on the floor.

The puppy stood over it, tiny teeth sunk into one of the doll's ears. He shook his head, his own torn ear flapping, and dragged Snoopy in a little circle while letting out small, squeaky growls. The puppy looked up at me. His tail wagged furiously, and he savaged the doll with even more enthusiasm.

"Hey," I told him. "Murphy's supposed to be watching you. What are you doing?"

The puppy growled and shook Snoopy harder.

"I can see that." I sighed. "Some babysitter she is."

A tall man, going bald by degrees and dressed in a rumpled brown suit, looked up from his desk. "Hey, there, Harry."

"Sergeant Stallings," I responded. "Nice moves on Murphy today. The way you slammed her foot with your stomach was inspiring."

He grinned. "I was expecting her to go for a lock. Woman is a nasty infighter. Everyone tried to tell O'Toole, but he's still young enough to think he's invincible."

"I think she made her point," I said. "She around?"

Stallings glanced down the long room at the closed door to Murphy's cheap, tiny office. "Yeah, but you know how she is with paperwork. She's ready to tear someone's head off."

"Don't blame her," I said, and scooped up the puppy.

"You get a dog?"

"Nah, charity case. Murphy was supposed to be keeping an eye on him. Buzz her for me?"

Stallings shook his head and turned his phone around to face me. "I plan to retire. You do it."

I grinned and went on down to Murphy's office, nodding to a couple other guys with SI along the way. I knocked on the door.

"God dammit!" Murphy swore from the other side. "I said not now!"

"It's Harry," I said. "Just stopping by to get the dog."

"Oh, God," she snarled. "Back away from the door."

I did.

A second later the door opened and Murphy glared up at me, blue eyes bright and cold. "Get more away. I've been fighting this computer all day long. I swear, if you blow out my hard drive again, I'm taking it out of your ass."

"Why would your hard drive be in my ass?" I said.

Murphy's eyes narrowed.

"Ah, hah, hah, heh. Yeah, okay. I'll be going, then."

"Whatever," she said, and shut her office door hard.

I frowned. Murphy wasn't really a "whatever" sort of person. I tried to remember the last time I had seen Murphy that short and abrupt. When she'd been in the midst of post-traumatic stress, she'd been remote but not angry. When she was keyed up for a fight or feeling threatened, she'd be furious but she didn't draw away from her friends.

The only thing that had come close to this was when she thought I was involved in a string of supernatural killings. From where she'd been standing, it looked like I had betrayed her trust, and she had expressed her anger with a right cross that had chipped one of my teeth.

Something was upsetting her. A lot.

"Murph?" I asked through the door. "Where did the aliens hide your pod?"

She opened the door enough to scowl at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"No pod, huh. Maybe you're an evil twin from another dimension or something."

The muscles along her jaw clenched, and her expression promised murder.

I sighed. "You don't seem to be your usual self. I'm not an analyst or anything, but you kinda look like something is bothering you. Just maybe."

She waved a hand. "It's this paperwork—"

"No, it isn't," I said. "Come on, Murphy. It's me."

"I don't want to talk about it."

I shrugged. "Maybe you need to. You're about two steps shy of psychotic right now."

She reached for her door again, but didn't close it. "Just a bad day."

I didn't believe her, but I said, "Sure, okay. I'm sorry if the dog added to it."

Her expression became tired. She leaned against the doorway. "No. No, he was great. Barely made a sound. Quiet as a mouse all day long. Even used the papers I put down."

I nodded. "You sure you don't want to talk?"

She grimaced and glanced around the office. "Maybe not here. Walk with me."

We left and headed down the hall to the vending machines. Murphy didn't say anything until she bought a Snickers bar. "My mom called," she said.

"Bad news?" I asked.

"Yeah." She closed her eyes and bit off a third of the candy bar. "Sort of. Not really."

"Oh," I said, as if her answer made some kind of sense. "What happened?"

She ate more chocolate and said, "My sister, Lisa, is engaged."

"Oh," I said. When in doubt, be noncommittal. "I didn't know you had a sister."

"She's my baby sister."

"Um. My condolences?" I guessed.

She glowered at me. "She did this on purpose. With the reunion this weekend. She knew exactly what she was doing."

"Well, it's a good thing someone knew, 'cause so far I have no freaking clue."

Murphy finished the candy bar. "My baby sister is engaged. She's going to be showing up this weekend with her fiancé, and I am going to be there without a fiancé or a husband. Or even a boyfriend. My mother will never let me hear the end of it."

"Well, uh, you had a husband, right? Two of them, even."

She glared. "The Murphys are Irish Catholic," she said. "My not one but
two
, count them,
two
divorces won't exactly wash clean the stigma."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure whoever you're dating would show up with you, right?"

She glanced back toward the SI offices. If looks could kill, hers would have blown that section of the building into Lake Michigan. "Are you kidding? I don't have time. I haven't been on a date in two years."

Maybe I should have gone for the ultimate inept remark, and started singing about how short people got nobody to love. I decided to sting her pride a little instead. She'd reacted well to it before. "The mighty Murphy. Slayer of various and sundry nasty monsters, vampires, and so on—"

"And trolls," Murphy said. "Two more when you were out of town last summer."

"Uh-huh. And you're letting a little family shindig get you down like this?"

She shook her head. "Look. It's a personal thing. Between me and my mom."

"And your mom is going to think less of you for being single? A career woman?" I regarded her skeptically. "Murphy, don't tell me you're a mama's girl under all the tough-chick persona."