Changes - By Jim Butcher Page 0,3

took half a step back. “I dunno. Can you come in?”

Her eyes flickered with a spark of anger. “You think I crossed over?”

“I think that taking unnecessary chances has lost its appeal to me,” I said.

She pressed her lips together, but then nodded in acquiescence and stepped over the threshold of my apartment, the barrier of magical energy that surrounds any home—an action that simply would not have been possible for a vampire without first receiving my permission.

“Okay,” I said, backing up to let her enter before I shut the door again. As I did, I saw a sandy-haired, plain-looking man seated casually on the top step of the concrete stairwell that led down to my apartment. He wore khakis, a blue denim jacket, and was reclining just enough to display the lines of a shoulder holster beneath the jacket. He was Susan’s ally and his name was Martin. “You,” I said. “Joy.”

Martin’s lips twitched into the faint and distant echo of a smile. “Likewise.”

I shut the door on him and, just to be obnoxious, clacked the dead bolt closed as loudly as I could.

Susan smiled a little and shook her head. She looked around the apartment for a moment—and then suddenly froze as a growl came rumbling from the darkened alcove of the minikitchen. Mouse didn’t rise, and his growl was not the savage thing I had heard once or twice before—but it was definitely a sound of polite warning.

Susan froze in place, staring at the kitchen for a moment. Then she said, “You got a dog.”

“He kind of got me,” I replied.

Susan nodded and swept her eyes around the little apartment. “You redecorated a little.”

“Zombies,” I said. “And werewolves. Place has been trashed a few times.”

“I never understood why you didn’t move out of this musty little hole.”

“Musty? Little? My home this is,” I said. “Get you something? Coke, beer?”

“Water?”

“Sure. Have a seat.”

Susan moved silently over to one of the easy chairs framing the fireplace and settled down on its edge, her back straight. I got her some ice water, fetched myself a Coke, and brought the drinks over to her. I settled down in the other chair, so that we partly faced each other, and popped the tab on my drink.

“You’re really going to leave Martin sitting outside?” she asked, amusement in her voice.

“I most certainly am,” I said calmly, and took a sip of my drink.

She nodded and touched her glass to her lips. Maybe she sipped a little water.

I waited as long as I could stand it, maybe two or three whole seconds, before I broke the heavy silence. “So,” I asked casually, “what’s new?”

Her dark eyes regarded me obliquely for a moment before her lips thinned slightly. “This is going to be painful for both of us. Let’s just have it done. We don’t have time to dance around it.”

“Okay. Our child?” I asked. “Yours and mine?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

She smoothed her face into a nonexpression. “There hasn’t been anyone else, Harry. Not since that night with you. Not for more than two years before that.”

If she was lying, it didn’t show. I took that in for a moment and sipped some Coke. “It seems like something you should have told me.”

I said it in a voice far calmer than I would have thought possible. I don’t know what my face looked like when I said it. But Susan’s darkly tanned skin became several shades lighter. “Harry,” she said quietly, “I know you must be angry.”

“I burn things to ash and smash holes in buildings when I’m angry,” I said. “I’m a couple of steps past that point right now.”

“You have every right to be,” she said. “But I did what I thought was best for her. And for you.”

The storm surged higher into my chest. But I made myself sit there without moving, breathing slowly and steadily. “I’m listening.”

She nodded and took a moment to gather her thoughts. Then she said, “You don’t know what it’s like down there. Central America, all the way down to Brazil. There’s a reason so many of those nations limp along in a state of near-anarchy.”

“The Red Court,” I said. “I know.”

“You know in the abstract. But no one in the White Council has spent time there. Lived there. Seen what happens to the people the Reds rule.” She shivered and folded her arms over her stomach. “It’s a nightmare. And there’s no one but the Fellowship and a few underfunded operatives of the Church to stand

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