Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher Page 0,163
site then. Get them moving.”
“Right,” Murphy said, and headed for the door, reaching for her phone on the way.
Thomas frowned. “We’re going to depend on Lara’s people to back us up?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “No offense, but I don’t trust your sister. Send her crew to the second site.”
“This is damned odd,” Butters muttered.
I looked down at him. “What?”
“The bleeding won’t stop,” he said. “It’s not really all that dangerous in a wound this small, but it isn’t clotting up. It’s like some kind of anticoagulant was introduced. Do you still have the dart?”
“Dart,” I said. I patted my pockets. “I guess not. It was in my hand when the warehouse dropped into the water.”
“Bah,” Butters said. “Inflammation in the skin around it. This hurt?”
He poked me. It did. I told him so.
“Huh,” he said. “I can’t be sure without tests but . . . I think this might be some kind of allergic reaction.”
“How?” I asked. “I’m not allergic to anything.”
“I’m just saying what it looks like on your skin,” Butters said. “The trickle factor seems to imply some kind of toxin, though. You need a hospital, tests.”
“Later,” I said. “Just get it wrapped up and keep it from running down my leg.”
Butters nodded.
“So,” Thomas asked, “if Lara’s crew has one site and Marcone’s the other, which one are we going to?”
“Neither.”
“What?”
“We’re not going to either one.”
“Why not?”
“Because all day long,” I said, “I’ve been moving in straight lines and it’s gotten me nothing but grief.” I pointed at the locations marked on the map. “See those? Those are the perfectly rational places for our bad guy to make something happen.”
Thomas rubbed at his chin and narrowed his eyes. “They’re a distraction?”
“It’s how the Sidhe think. How they move. How they are. They put pressure on you, get you to look over there, and then kapow. Sucker punch.”
“What if they’re expecting you to expect that?” Thomas asked.
“Gah,” I said, waving my hands on either side of my head as if brushing away wasps. “Stop it. If I’m wrong, we’ve got professional badasses to cover it. But I’m not wrong.”
“Didn’t you say that they required a ley line site to perform a ritual that big?” Butters asked. He had taped a pad over the little injury and was securing it with a roll of gauze.
“Yes,” I said.
“And the Little Folk cleared all of them but those two?”
“No,” I said. “They cleared almost all of them. There was one place the Little Folk couldn’t check.”
Thomas’s eyes widened as he got it. “Boats,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Boats.”
Chapter
Thirty-nine
Thomas rose, glancing around the room, and said in a quiet voice, “She needs fuel. And I’d better talk to Lara about the second site.” But his eyes had drifted over to where Justine now sat by the fire, basking in warmth after our icy dunk and staring at it with a peaceful expression on her lovely face.
“Get moving,” I said. I lowered my voice. “You taking her with you?”
“You kidding? Bad guys have been all over us today. That creep took her right off the street in front of our apartment. I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
“Look, if you leave her here, the building has security that—”
“So does my building, and Cat Sith breezed right past all of it when he came in,” Thomas said. “I’m not letting her out of my sight until this thing is settled.”
I grimaced, but nodded. “All right. Go. We’ll be right behind you.”
My brother arched an eyebrow. “All of you?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“Did you talk to her?” Thomas asked.
I gave him a steady look and said, “No. Maggie was out trick-or-treating.”
“Right. She’s what? Nine years old? She might as well have vanished into the Bermuda triangle. How could you possibly be expected to find her? Magic?” He gave me a sour look. “What about the other one?”
He meant Karrin. “We’ve both been kinda busy. Maybe later.”
“Later. Bad habit to get into,” Thomas said. “Life’s too short.”
“It almost sounded like you were attempting to enlighten me about bad habits.”
“The path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” he said, and turned for the door.
At the exact moment he moved, even though she was not looking at him, and though he said nothing to her, Justine rose from her seat by the fire and started toward the door. The pair of them met halfway there and she slipped herself beneath his arm and up close to him in a motion of familiar, unconscious intimacy. They left together.