Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher Page 0,37

the claws didn’t dig as deep as they would have if this had been a malk or a ghoul, and I had to hope the damage wouldn’t be too serious—unless the fight went on long enough for blood loss to weaken me.

Some analytical part of my head was going over those facts in a detached and rational fashion.

The rest of me went freaking berserk with anger.

I got one arm beneath me to brace myself and threw the other elbow back in a heavy strike that slammed into something soft and drew a startled yelp out of my attacker. The teeth vanished for a second and the claws slowed. I rolled, shoving with a broad motion of that same arm, and threw a wolf the size of a Great Dane off of my back. It hit one of the computer tables with a tremendous racket, sending bits of equipment tumbling.

I got my feet underneath me, seized a computer chair by its back, and lifted it. By the time the wolf with dark red fur was getting back onto its feet, the chair was already halfway through its swing, and I was snarling in incoherent fury.

Only at the last second did I recognize my attacker through my rage and divert the arc of the descending chair. It broke into about fifty pieces when it hit the floor just in front of the wolf, plastic and metal tumbling in every direction.

The wolf flinched back from the flying bits, and lifted its eyes toward mine. It froze in what was an expression of perfect shock, and in a pair of seconds the wolf was gone, its form melting rapidly into the shape of a girl, a redhead with generous curves and not a stitch of clothing. She stared at me, gasping in short breaths, her expression pained, before she whispered, “Harry?”

“Andi,” I said, standing straighter and trying to force my body to relax. The word came out in a snarl. Adrenaline still sang along my arms and legs, and more than anything in the whole world, at that moment I wanted to punch someone in the face. Anyone. It didn’t matter who.

And that was not right.

“Andi,” I said, forcing myself to quiet and gentle my voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Me?” she breathed. “I . . . I’m not the one who’s dead.”

The night is young, thought the furious part of me, but I fought it down. “Rumors, death, exaggerated,” I said instead. “And I don’t have time to chat about it.”

I turned toward Bob at his desk, and heard Andi open a drawer behind me. The sound an automatic makes when someone racks the slide and pops a round into the chamber is specific and memorable—and gets your attention as effectively as if it were also really, really loud.

“Get your hands away from the skull,” said Andi’s shortened, pained voice, “or I put a bullet in you.”

I paused. My first impulse was to cover the floor of the computer room with frozen chunks of Andi, and what the hell was I thinking? It was the anger that kept on rolling through me in cold waves that was pushing for that, for action, for violence. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I exactly have an allergy to either of those things—but I’d always done a reasonably good job of keeping my temper under control. I hadn’t felt like this in years, not since the first days I’d nearly been killed by the White Council.

I fell back on what I’d learned then. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, reminding myself that the anger was just anger, that it was a sensation, like feeling hot or cold. It didn’t mean anything by itself. It wasn’t a reason to act. That’s what thinking was for.

The old lessons helped, and I separated myself from the fury. I put my hands slowly out to my sides, making sure they were visible. Then I turned to face Andi. She stood with a pistol in a solid Weaver stance, like she’d learned how from someone who knew.

I could deflect bullets if I had to do it, but I couldn’t stop them. And we were in a building full of innocent bystanders. “You know about the skull?” I asked.

“Kind of hard not to,” she said. “Since I live here.”

I blinked several times. “You and . . . Damn. Way to go, Butters.”

Andi stared steadily down the sights of her gun. She was holding herself a