Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,91

need painkillers too."

"Luck, Harry," Bob mumbled, and the glittering orange lights in the skull's eye sockets dimmed completely.

My body ached as I climbed back out of the lab. It was getting to be pretty good at aching, actually, by virtue of all the practice. I could ignore pain. I had a talent for ignoring it. That talent had been refined by the harsh lessons of life and the even harsher lessons of Justin DuMorne. But even so, the discomfort took its toll. My bed wasn't particularly luxurious, but it looked that way when I passed it on my way to the door.

I had my keys in my hand and my bag over one shoulder when the there was a rattling from the dim corner by the door. I paused, and a moment later my wizard's staff twitched, rattling again. It shuddered and twitched, thumping against the wall and the floor in staccato fits, too much rhythm to the sounds for them to be meaningless.

"Well," I muttered. "It's about damn time."

I picked up my staff, rapped one end hard on the floor, and focused my attention on the length of wood. I reached down through it, into the steady, heavy power of the earth beneath it, and then beat out my own short rhythm on the stone. My staff went still, then quivered sharply twice in my hand. I set out water and food for Mister, left, and locked my apartment behind me, then sealed the wards of protective energy around it.

By the time I was up the stairs, a heavy old Ford truck, a battered and tough-looking survivor of the Great Depression, pulled into the gravel parking lot at the side of the boardinghouse and crunched to a halt. It had Missouri plates. A gun rack at the back of the cab held an old double-barreled shotgun in its top slot, and a thick, stumpy old wizard's staff in the one beneath it.

The driver set the brake and swung open the door without letting the engine die. He was old but hale, a short, stocky man in overalls, heavy working boots, and a flannel shirt. He had broad hands with scarred knuckles, and wore a plain steel ring on each index finger. A few white hairs drifted around his sun-toughened scalp. He had dark eyes, a severely annoyed expression, and he snorted upon seeing me. "Hey, there, Hoss. You look like ten miles of bad—"

"Clichés," I interjected, smiling. The old man puffed out a breath of quiet laughter and offered me his hand. I shook it, and found myself newly appreciative of the calloused strength that belied the man's evident age. "Good to see you, sir. I was starting to feel a little swamped."

Ebenezar McCoy, senior member of the White Council, a sometime mentor of mine, and by all accounts I'd heard one hell of a strong wizard, clapped me on my biceps with his free hand. "You, in over your head? It's as if you're too stubborn to know when to run."

"We'd best get moving," I told him. "The police will be along shortly."

His frown knitted his shaggy white eyebrows together, but he nodded and said, "Hop in."

I got in the truck and slid my staff into the gun rack with Ebenezar's. The old man's staff was shorter and thicker than mine, but the carved sigils and formulae on it were noticeably similar, and the texture and color of the wood was identical. They'd both come from the same lightning-wounded tree, back on Ebenezar's land in the Ozarks. I shut the door and closed my eyes for a moment, while Ebenezar got the truck rolling.

"Your Morse is rusty," he said a few minutes later. "On my staff it sounded like you spelled it 'blampires.' "

"I did," I said. "Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some."

Ebenezar tsked. "Blampires. That's the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words."

"Too many acronyms?" I asked.

"Ayuh."

"Well, then," I said. "I'm glad you took the time to RSVP me. I have a problem that needs to stay on the QT, but is rapidly going FUBAR. I'm sorry to call you LD through AT&T instead of using UPS, but I needed your help ASAP. I hope that's OK."

Ebenezar grunted, shot me a sidelong look, and said, "Don't make me kick your ass."

"No, sir," I said.

"Black Court," he said. "Who?"

"Mavra. You know her?"

"I know it," he said, the pronoun mildly emphasized. "Killed a friend of mine in the Venatori once. And she was in the