Two hundred pounds of Mouse, not acting at
Caine lifted his lips up from his teeth in an ugly little smile. But he released my hand with a jerk, and then sneered at Braddock. “Say, where’s that pretty little piece of yours? She run off to find a real man?”
Braddock might have been a sliver over half of Caine’s size, but he went after the biker with complete sincerity and without a second thought.
This time Mac moved, interposing himself between Braddock and Caine, getting his shoulder against Braddock’s chest. The older man braced himself and shoved Braddock back from the brink of a beating, though the younger man cursed and struggled against him.
Caine let out an ugly laugh and stepped forward, his big hands closing into fists. I leaned my staff so that he stepped into it, the blunt tip of the wood thrusting solidly against the hollow of his throat. He made a noise that sounded like
I tugged my staff back against my chest so that I could hold up both hands, palms out, just as the dumpy cop, attracted by Braddock’s thumping and cursing, came into the room with one hand on his nightstick. “Easy there, big guy,” I said, loud enough to make sure the cop heard. “The kid’s just upset on account of his wife. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
The bruiser lifted one closed fist as if he meant to drive it at my noggin, but one of his two buddies said urgently, “Cop.”
Caine froze and glanced back over his shoulder. The officer might have been overweight, but he looked like he knew how to throw it around, and he had a club and a gun besides. Never mind all the other uniforms theoretically behind him.
Caine opened his fist, showing an empty hand, and lowered it again. “Sure,” he said. “Sure. Misunderstanding. Happen to anybody.”
“You want to walk away,” the cop told Caine, “do it now. Otherwise you get a ride.”
Caine and company departed in sullen silence, glaring daggers at me—well, glaring letter openers, anyway; Caine didn’t seem real sharp.
The cop stalked over to me more lightly than he should have been able to—no question about it, the man knew how to play rough. He looked at me, then at my staff, and kept his nightstick in his hand. “You Dresden?”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Heard of you. Work for Special Investigations sometimes. Call yourself a wizard.”
“That’s right.”
“You know Rawlins?”
“Good man,” I said.
The cop grunted. He jerked his head toward the departing Caine as he put the stick away. “Guy’s a con. A hard case, too. Likes hurting people. You keep your eyes open, Mr. Wizard, or he’ll make some of your teeth disappear.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Golly, he’s scary.”
The cop eyed me, then snorted and said, “Your dentures.” He nodded, and walked out again, probably tailing Caine to make sure he left.
The cop and Caine weren’t all that different, in some ways. The cop would have loved to take his stick to Caine’s head as much as Caine had wanted to swat mine. They were both damn near equally sensitive about Braddock’s missing wife, too. But at least the cop had channeled his inner thug into something that helped out the people around him—as long as he didn’t have to run up too many stairs, I guessed.
I turned back to Mac and found him still standing between the kid and the door. Mac nodded his thanks to me. Braddock looked like he might be about to start crying, or maybe start screaming.
“No love lost there, eh?” I said to Braddock.
The kid snarled at the empty space where Caine had been. “Elizabeth embarrassed him once. He doesn’t take rejection well, and he never forgets. Do you think he did it?”
“Not really. Mac,” I said, “something tipped you off that this was from the spooky side. Lights flicker?”
Mac grunted. “Twice.”
Braddock stared at Mac and then at me. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Active magic tends to interfere with electrical systems,” I said. “It’ll disrupt cell phones, screw up computers. Simpler things, like the lights, usually just flicker a bit.”
Braddock had a look somewhere between uncertainty and nausea on his face. “Magic? You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m tired of having this conversation,” I said. I reached into my pocket for Elizabeth Braddock’s fallen hairs. “This joint got a back door?”
Mac pointed silently.
“Thanks,” I said. “Come on, Mouse.”
THE BACK DOOR opened into a long, narrow, dirty alley running parallel to Clark. The wind had picked up, which meant that the cold rain was mostly striking the upper portion of one wall of the alley. Good for me. It’s tough to get a solid spell put together under even a moderate rain. When it’s really coming down, it’s all but impossible, even for a relatively simple working—such as a tracking spell.
I’d done this hundreds of times, and by now it was pretty routine. I found a clear spot of concrete in the lee of the sheltering wall and sketched a quick circle around me with a piece of chalk, investing the motion with a deliberate effort of will.
As I completed the circle, I felt the immediate result—a screen of energy that rose up from the circle, enfolding me and warding out any random energy that might skew the spell. I took off my necklace, a silver chain with a battered old silver pentacle hanging from it, murmuring quietly, and tied several of Elizabeth’s hairs through the center of the pentacle. After that, I gathered up my will, feeling the energy focused by the circle into something almost tangible, whispered in faux Latin, and released the gathered magic into the pentacle.
The silver five-pointed star flickered once, a dozen tiny sparks of static electricity fluttering over the metal surface and the hairs bound inside it. I grimaced. I’d been sloppy, to let some of the energy convert itself into static. And I’d been harping on my apprentice about the need for precision for a week.
I broke the circle by smudging the chalk with one foot, and glanced at Mouse, who sat patiently, mouth open in a doggy grin. Mouse had been there for some of those lessons, and he was smarter than the average dog. How much smarter remained to be seen, but I got the distinct impression he was laughing at me.
“It was the rain,” I told him.
Mouse sneezed, tail wagging.
I glowered at him. I’m not sure I could take it if my dog was smarter than me.
The falling rain would wash away the spell on the amulet if I left it out in the open, so I shielded it as carefully as I could with the building and my hand. A hat would have come in handy for that purpose, actually. Maybe I should get one.
I held up the amulet, focusing on the spell. It quivered on the end of its chain, then swung toward the far end of the alley, in a sharp, sudden motion.
I drew my hand and the amulet back up into the sleeve of my duster, whistling. “She came right down this alley. And judging by the strength of the reaction, she was scared bad. Left a really big trail.”
At that, Mouse made a chuffing sound and started down the alley, snuffling. The end of his short lead, mostly there for appearance’s sake, dragged the ground. I kept pace, and by the time Mouse was twenty yards down the alley, he had begun growling low in his throat.
That was an occasion worth a raised eyebrow. Mouse didn’t make noise unless there was Something Bad around. He increased his pace, and I lengthened my stride to keep up.
I found myself growling along with him. I’d gotten sick of Bad Things visiting themselves upon people in my town a long time ago.
When we hit the open street, Mouse slowed. Magic wasn’t the only thing that a steady rain could screw up. He growled again and looked over his shoulder at me, tail drooping.
“I got your back,” I told him. I lifted a section of my long leather duster with my staff, so that I could hold the amulet in the shelter it offered. I looked only moderately ridiculous while doing so.
