I hooked the padded end of my crutch over the broken end of a thick floor joist and used it to haul myself up to my good leg. Then I tossed the crutch up through the hole and reached up to pull myself through.
Mister let out a harsh, worried meow, and I froze in place. My cat was still in my apartment.
I looked wildly around the room for him, and found him crouching in his usual favorite spot atop the highest bookshelf. His hair stood on end and every muscle on him seemed tight and strained.
I’d already tossed the crutch through. If I went back for him, I might not be able to stand once I’d made it back to the ramp. I had no idea how I’d hold him while climbing up, assuming I could do it at all. Mister weighs the next-best thing to thirty pounds. That’s one hell of a handicap on a pull-up.
For that matter, if the fire spread as quickly as I thought it would, the extra time it took might mean that I wound up trapped with no exit. And there would be no one to help Mr. S and the Willoughbys.
I loved my cat. He was family.
But as I stared at him I knew that I couldn’t help him.
“Unless you use your flipping brain, Harry,” I snapped at myself. “Duh. Never quit. Never quit.”
The sunken windows around my apartment were too small to be a means of escape for me, but Mister could clear them with ease. I took aim, used a single charge from my ring, and shattered the sunken window closest to the cat. Mister took the hint at once, and prowled down the tops of two bookcases. It was a five-foot leap from the top of the shelf to the window well, but Mister made it look casual. I felt myself grinning fiercely as he vanished through the broken window and into the cool air of the October night.
Stars and stones, at least I’d accomplished one positive thing that day.
I turned, reached up into the opening with my arms straight over my head, and hopped as hard as I could with one leg. It wasn’t much of a leap, but it was enough to let me get my arms through and my elbows wedged against either side of the opening. My ribs were on fire as I kicked and wriggled my way up through the hole and hauled myself into Mrs. Spunkelcrief’s living room.
It had last been decorated in the seventies, judging by the mustard yellow carpet and the olive green wallpaper, and it was full of furniture and knickknacks. I dragged myself all the way through the hole, knocking over a little display stand of collector’s plates as I did. The room was dimly lit by the growing flames outside. I grabbed my crutch, climbed to my feet through screaming pain, and hobbled farther into the apartment.
I found Mrs. S in the apartment’s one bedroom. She was sleeping mostly sitting up, propped on a pile of pillows. Her old television was on, sans volume, with subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen. I gimped over to her and shook her gently.
She woke up with a start and slugged me with one tiny fist. I fell backward onto my ass, more out of pure surprise than anything else, and grimaced in pain—from the fall, not the punch. I shook it off and looked up again, to find the little old lady holding a little revolver, probably a .38. In her hands, it looked magnum-sized. She held it like she knew what she was doing, too, in two hands, peering down at me through the gun’s sights.
“Mr. Dresden!” she said, her voice squeaky. “How dare you!”
“Fire!” I said. “Mrs. S, there’s a fire! A fire!”
“Well, I won’t fire if you just sit still,” she said in a querulous tone. She took her left hand off the gun and reached for her phone. “I’m calling the police. You hold real still or I gotta shoot you. No bluff. This here is a grandfathered gun. Legal and proper.”
I tried to point toward the bedroom door without moving my body, indicating it with my fingertips and tilts of my head.
“Are you on drugs, boy?” she said, punching numbers on the phone without looking. “You are acting like a crazy junkie. Coming into an old woman’s . . .” She glanced past me, where there was some fairly bright light flickering