Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher Page 0,44

trust isn’t one of those things that lends itself well to math.”

“Sure it does,” Bob said. “You trust somebody, they betray you, you get a negative value. You never trust, they can never disappoint you, you break even.”

I laughed. “Or you trust, it’s vindicated, and you’re better off.”

“Shah,” Bob said. “Like that happens.”

“Life’s about more than breaking even,” I said.

Bob snorted. “Which is why the first thing you did, when you got back to town, was call all of your friends and immediately tell them you needed their help, and trust them to help you.”

I scowled out at the road.

“It wasn’t like the first thing you did was abuse one of your friends and inflict property damage on his house and steal a powerful magical counselor whose loyalties are transferrable to whoever happens to be holding an old skull—presumably so that you’d have a lackey who would agree with whatever you said instead of give you a hard time about it. And the only beings you’re allowing to help you are a bunch of tiny faeries who worship the ground you walk on because you buy them pizza.” Bob made a skeptical sound. “I can see how important trust is to you, boss.”

“That’s why I got you, clearly,” I said. “Because I wanted a yes-man and you’re so good for that.”

“Hey, I’m just a mirror, boss. Not my fault you’re ambivalent.”

“I’m not ambivalent.”

“You know better, but you’re being a moron about it anyway,” Bob said. “If that ain’t ambivalence, maybe Mab’s getting to you. Because it’s a little crazy.” He sniffed. “Besides, if you weren’t of two minds about it, I wouldn’t be giving you this kind of crap, now, would I?”

I was going to say something sarcastic, but the red glare of a stoplight suddenly appeared about ten feet in front of the old Caddy’s nose. I stared at the light for a fraction of a second, and then mashed the brakes down. I had an instant to see that it wasn’t a traffic signal, but Toot-toot, his aura glaring brilliant scarlet, frantically waving his arms at me. As the Caddy lumbered forward, I saw him take a couple of steps forward, running up the windshield, and up out of sight above me.

As the heavy old piece of Detroit iron began to slide on the asphalt, I saw an object tumble out of the air in front of me and hit the street, turning over and over. I had another instant to recognize a plain black nylon duffel bag.

And then the world went white and a hammer the size of the Chrysler Building slammed me back against the old Caddy’s seat.

Chapter

Twelve

The bomb might have been fifty feet away when it exploded.

Mab’s therapy had paid off. On raw instinct, I’d already begun to form a defensive shield in front of me when everything went boom. I hadn’t had time to build much of a shield, but what little I could do probably kept me conscious.

Explosions are unbelievably loud. If you haven’t been near one, there’s no way to convey the sheer violence of it. It doesn’t really register as a sound, the way a gunshot will. There’s just this single, terrible power in the air, a sudden hammer blow of disorienting pressure, as if you’ve been hit by a truck made of pillow-top mattresses.

Your hearing goes. There’s a familiar, high-pitched tone, only no one is telling you that this is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. There’s dust and smoke everywhere, and you can’t see. Your muscles don’t all work right. You tell them to move and it’s iffy. Maybe they do; maybe they don’t. It’s hard to tell which way is down. Not that you don’t know it rationally, somewhere in your head—but your body just seems to forget its natural awareness of gravity.

Even if something sharp and fast doesn’t go flying through some of your favorite organs, a nearby explosion leaves you half-blind, deaf, and drunkenly impaired.

Vulnerable.

One moment the Caddy was screeching and sliding toward that black duffel bag. The next, I was staring at a cloud of dust and the dim image of a brick wall at the end of the Caddy’s nose. The windshield had been splintered into a webwork of cracks that made it hard to see. My chest hurt like hell.

I picked fitfully at it, my fingers clumsy, and thought to myself that the car Sith had provided must have had armored glass, or there would be windshield mixed in with my intestines.