See, most women would have been a little put out by a remark like that. Especially if they were wearing slacks that flattered their hips and butt, with a darling red silk blouse and a matching silver necklace and two bracelets, studded with tiny sapphires, which they'd inherited from their grandmother. And more makeup than they usually wore in a week. And new perfume. And great shoes.
By any measure, that kind of remark was insulting. When you were dressed for a date, it was more so.
But Stallings wasn't trying to piss me off. The insult was Martian, too, for something along the lines of I have so much regard for you that I went out of my way to create this insult so that we can have the fun of a mildly adversarial conversation. See how much I care?
'John,' I replied, using his first name, 'you are a sphincter douche.'
Translation: I love you, too.
He gave me a quiet smile and nodded.
Men.
He was right. There was nothing I could do here.
I turned my back on the last place I'd seen Harry Dresden and walked back to my car. IT HAD BEEN a long day, starting most of two days before, including a gunfight at the FBI building-which the news was still going insane about, especially after the office building bombing a couple of days before that-and a pitched battle at an ancient Mayan temple that ended in the utter destruction of the vampires of the Red Court.
And after that, things had gotten really dangerous.
I'd shown up to that ratty old boat where Harry was crashing, dressed in the outfit Stallings had insulted. Harry and I were supposed to go grab a few drinks and… and see what happened.
Instead, I'd found nothing but his blood.
I didn't think I would sleep, but two days plus of physical and psychological stress made it inevitable. Nightmares came to haunt me, but they didn't make much of an impression. I'd seen worse in the real world. I did cry, though. I remember that-waking up in the middle of the night from bad dreams that were old hat by now, sobbing my eyes out in pure reaction to the events of the past two days.
It happens. You feel overwhelmed, you cry, you feel better, and you go back to sleep.
If you don't get it, don't ask. It doesn't really translate into Martian. I WOKE UP to a firm knock at my front door. I got out of bed, my Sig in my hand, and flicked a quick glance out the window at the backyard. It was empty, and there was no one at the door that led into my kitchen. Only after I had checked my six o'clock did I go to the front door, glancing quickly out the window in the hall as I went.
I recognized the stout young man standing on the porch, and I relaxed somewhat. Since I slept in an oversized T-shirt, I grabbed a pair of sweats and hopped into them, then went to see the werewolf standing at my door.
Will Borden didn't look like a werewolf. He was about five five, five six, and built like an armored car, all flat, heavy muscle. He wore glasses, his brown hair was cut short and neat, and you would never have guessed, from looking at him, that he and his friends had been responsible for a forty percent drop in crime in a six-block radius around the University of Chicago-and that didn't even take into account the supernatural predators that had been driven away and that now avoided the neighborhood. Strictly speaking, I probably should have arrested him as a known vigilante.
Of course, strictly speaking, I wasn't a cop anymore. I wouldn't be arresting anybody. Ever again.
That thought hit my stomach like a lead wrecking ball, and no amount of bravado or discipline could keep it from hurting. So I turned away from it.
I answered the door, and said, 'Hello, Will.'
'Sergeant Murphy,' he said, nodding at me. 'Got a minute?'
'It's early,' I said, not bothering to correct his form of address.
'I need your help,' he said.
I took a deep breath through my nose.
It wasn't as though I had to go to work. It wasn't as though I had a hot date waiting for me.
Part of me longed to slam the door in Will's face and go back to bed. I'd always thought that kind of selfish reaction had been a fairly small portion of my character. Today, it felt huge.
The house was silent and empty behind me.
'Okay,' I said. 'Come in.' I SEATED HIM at the kitchen table and went back to my room to put on clothes that looked a little less pajama-like. When I came back out, Will had gotten the coffeepot going, and brew was already a finger deep in the little glass pitcher.
I popped some bread in the toaster and watched it carefully to make sure it didn't burn. My toaster was an old one, but even so I didn't need to be watching it. It just gave me something to do until the coffee was done.
I took the finished toast and coffee to the table, a bit for each of us, and set out a jar of strawberry preserves. Will accepted the food readily and, naturally, wolfed it down. We did all of that in silence.
'Okay,' I said, settling back in my chair and studying him. 'What help?'
'Georgia's gone,' he said simply.
I kept myself from wincing. Georgia was Will's wife. They'd been together since they were barely out of high school. They'd learned to be werewolves together, apparently. I liked them both. 'Tell me.'
'Work had me out of town,' he said. 'Omaha. Georgia is getting ready to defend her dissertation. She stayed home. We both watched the news-about Dresden's office building and the terrorists at the FBI. We were worried but… I got a call from her late last night. She was…' His face became pale. 'She was almost incoherent. Terrified. She wasn't making any sense. Then the call cut off abruptly.' His voice shook. 'She was screaming. I tried to call the cops, but…'
I nodded. 'But if it was something bad enough to make her scream, there wouldn't be much the cops could do to help. And between the bombing and the attack, they were all overworked, anyway. They'll get to it as soon as they can.'
'Yeah,' Will said. 'So I left a message with Dresden's service and came back to Chicago. The apartment door was broken, maybe kicked in. The place was a wreck.' He swallowed. 'She was gone. And I couldn't pick up a trail. I went to Harry's place, but… There was still smoke coming up from what was left. Then I came here.'
I nodded slowly. Then I asked, 'Why?'
He blinked and looked at me as if I'd broken out into a musical number. 'Seriously?'
'Yeah.'
'He always told us that if we ever needed him but couldn't find him, we were supposed to go to you. That you were the person in this city who could help us better than anyone else.'
I stared at him for a minute. Then I said, 'Yeah. I can just see him saying that.' I shook my head. 'And never bothering to mention it to me.'
I'll give Will credit-he was obviously terrified, but he managed to try a joke. 'He probably thought you were formidable enough without the confidence boost from something like that.'
'Like I need his approval to be confident,' I muttered. I studied Will for a moment. I knew him well enough to know there was something off in his behavior. He was too quiet. Will wasn't the sort of man to sit at a table fiddling with his napkin when his wife was missing and quite possibly in danger. He was terrified, frightened to such a degree that it was nearly paralytic. I recognized the look.
I'd seen it in the mirror often enough.
'What aren't you telling me, Will?' I asked quietly.
He closed his eyes and shivered as a tear tracked down each cheek.
'Georgia's pregnant,' he whispered. 'Seven months.'
I nodded. Then I pushed the rest of my coffee away and got up. 'Let me get my coat.'
'It's supposed to be nice today,' Will said.
'With the coat, I can carry more guns,' I said.
'Oh,' he said. 'Right.' WILL'S APARTMENT WAS a wreck. The lock had been smashed, though the door was still in one piece. The furniture was askew. A few things were broken. Paperback books had been knocked off a shelf. A laptop computer lay on its side, a blue screen of death glaring from its monitor. A mug of cocoa had been spilled and lay in a drying puddle on the hardwood floor.
I looked back and forth for a moment, frowning. The spill lay near the laptop, and both were to the right side of a comfortable-looking recliner, which had been bowled over backward. There was a therapeutic contoured
