effort?
The transformer exploded in a humming shower of blue-white sparks, and the sound of an electric saw, somewhere on the site, died down to nothing.
I went back to the truck and sat quietly until Michael returned.
He gave me a steady look.
“It was in the name of good,” I said. “Your electrician was snockered. By the time the city gets by to repair it, he’ll have sobered up.”
“Ah,” Michael said. “Chuck. He’s having trouble at home.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s got a wife, a daughter,” Michael said. “And I know the look.”
“Maybe if he spent less time with Jim Beam,” I said, “it’d go better.”
“The booze is new,” Michael said, looking worriedly at the house. “He’s a good man. He’s in a bad time.” He glanced back at me a moment later. “Thank you. Though perhaps next time . . . you could just come tell me about it?”
“How you roll?” Michael asked, smiling.
“I heard Molly say it once. So it must be cool.”
“How you roll.” Michael shook his head and started the truck. “Well. You were trying to help. That’s the important thing.”
Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time.
“OKAY,” I SAID to Molly as I prepared to get into my car. “Just keep your wits about you.”
“I know,” she said calmly.
“If there’s any trouble, you call the cops,” I said. “This guy looks to be operating purely vanilla, but he can still kill you just fine.”
“I know, Harry.”
“If you see him, do not approach him—and don’t let your dad do it, either.”
Molly rolled her eyes in exasperation. Then she muttered a quick word and vanished. Gone. She was standing within an arm’s length of me, but I couldn’t see her at all. “Let’s see the bozo shoot this,” said her disembodied voice.
“And while we’re at it, let’s hope he isn’t using a heat-sensitive scope,” I said drily.
She flickered back into sight, giving me an arch look. “The
I grunted. “Maybe I should go get Mouse. Let him stay with you, too.”
“Maybe you should keep him close to the swords,” Molly said quietly. “My dad’s just a retired soldier. The swords are icons of power.”
“The swords are bits of sharp metal. The men who hold them make them a threat.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, my dad isn’t one of those men anymore,” Molly said. She tucked a trailing strand of golden hair behind one ear and frowned up at me worriedly. “Are you sure this isn’t about you blaming yourself for what happened to my dad?”
“I don’t blame myself,” I said.
My apprentice arched an extremely skeptical eyebrow.
I looked away from her.
“You wanna talk to me about it?”
“No,” I said. I suddenly felt very tired. “Not until I’m sure the swords are safe.”
“If he knew where to send the pictures,” Molly said, “then he knows where your house is.”
“But he can’t get inside. Even if he could get the doors or one of the windows to open, the wards would roast him.”
“And your wards are perfect,” Molly said. “There’s no way anyone could get around them, ever. The way you told me those necromancers did a few years ago.”
“They didn’t go around,” I said. “They went through. But I see your point. If I have to, I’ll take one of the Ways to Warden’s command center at Edinburgh and leave the swords in my locker.”
Molly’s eyes widened. “Wow. A locker?”
“Technically. I haven’t used it. I’ve got the combination written down. Somewhere. On a napkin. I think.”
“Does it hurt to be as suave as you, boss?”
“It’s agonizing.”
“Looks it.” Her smile faded. “What are you going to do after you’re sure the swords are safe?”
She hadn’t thought it through. She didn’t know what was going to happen in the next few minutes. So I gave her my best fake grin and said, “One step at a time, grasshopper. One step at a time.”
I BEGAN POURING my will into my shield bracelet about half a mile from home. That kind of active magic wasn’t good for the Beetle, but having a headless driver smash it into a building would be even worse. I fastened the buttons on my leather duster, too. The spells that reinforced the coat were fresh, and they’d once stood up to the power of a Kalashnikov assault rifle—but that was a world of difference from the power of a .50-caliber sniper round.
Buzz had missed his shot at the sword at Michael’s house. It’s really hard to tail someone without being noticed, unless you’ve got a team of several cars working together—and this had all the earmarks of a lone- gunman operation. Buzz hadn’t been tailing me today, and unless he’d given up entirely—sure, right—that could only mean he was waiting for me somewhere. He’d had plenty of time to set up an ambush somewhere he knew I’d go.
Home.
The sword was my priority. I wasn’t planning on suicide or anything, but at the end of the day, I was just one guy. The swords had been a thorn in the side of evildoers for two thousand years. In the long term, the world needed them a lot more than it needed one battered and somewhat shabby professional wizard.
As I came down the street toward my apartment, I stomped on the gas. Granted, in an old VW Beetle, that isn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds. My car didn’t roar as much as it coughed more loudly, but I picked up speed and hit my driveway as hard as I could while keeping all the wheels on the ground. I skidded to a stop outside my front door as the engine rattled, pinged, and began pouring out black smoke, which would have been totally cool if I’d actually made it happen on purpose.
I flung myself out of the car, the sword in hand, and into the haze of smoke, my shield bracelet running at maximum power in a dome that covered me on all sides. I rushed toward the steps leading down to the front door of my basement apartment.
As my foot was heading down toward the first step, there was a flash of light and a sledgehammer hit me in the back. It spun me counterclockwise as it flung me down, and I went into a bad tumble down the seven steps to my front door. I hit my head, my shoulder screamed, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. My shield bracelet seared my wrist. Gravity stopped working, and I wasn’t sure which way I was supposed to be falling.
“Get up, Harry,” I told myself. “He’s coming. He’s coming for the sword. Get
I’d dropped my keys in the fall. I looked for them.
I saw blood all over the front of my shirt.
The keys lay on the concrete floor of the stairs. I picked them up and stared stupidly at them. It took me a minute to remember why I needed them, and then another minute to puzzle out which of the five keys on the ring went to my front door. My head was pounding and I felt sick; I couldn’t get a breath.
I tried to reach up to unlock the door, but my left shoulder wouldn’t hold my weight. I almost slammed my head against the concrete again.
I made it up to a knee. I shoved my key at the door.
Blue sparks flew up, and a little shock lit up my arm with pain.
