Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher Page 0,52

The floors were hardwood, broken up by occasional carpets that probably cost more than the floor space they covered. A couple of doors led off from the main room. They were oak. Granite countertops. A six-burner gas stove. Recessed lighting.

“Hell’s bells,” I said. “Uh. Nice place.”

Molly shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it onto the back of a couch. “You like?” She walked into the kitchen, opened a cabinet door, and pulled out a first-aid kit.

“I like,” I said. “Uh. How?”

“The svartalves built it for me,” she said.

Svartalves. They were some serious customers in the supernatural scene. Peerless artisans, a very private and independent folk—and they tolerated absolutely no nonsense. No one wants to get on the bad side of a svartalf. They weren’t exactly known for their generosity, either. “You working for them?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “This is mine. I bought it from them.”

I blinked again. “With what?”

“Honor,” she said. She muttered something and flicked a hand at a chandelier hanging over the table in the little dining area. It began to glow with a pure white light as bright as any collection of incandescent bulbs. “Bring him over here, and we’ll see if we can’t help him.”

I did so, transferring Toot from the skull to the table as gently as possible. Molly leaned down over him, peering. “Right through the breastplate? What hit you, Toot-toot?”

“A big fat jerk!” Toot replied, wincing. “He had a real sword, too. You know how hard it is to convince any of you big people to make us a sword we can actually use?”

“I saw his gear,” I said. “I totally liked yours better, Major General. Way cooler and more stylish than that stupid black-knight look.”

Toot gave me a brief, fierce grin. “Thank you, my lord!”

Toot got out of his ruined armor with effort, and with Molly’s cautious, steady-fingered help I managed to clean the wound and bandage it. It looked ugly, and Toot was anything but happy during the process, but he was clearly uncomfortable and weary, rather than being badly hurt. Once the wound was taken care of, Toot promptly flopped onto the table and went to sleep.

Molly smiled, got a clean towel out of a cabinet, and draped it over the little guy. Toot seized it and curled up beneath it with a sigh.

“All right,” Molly said, picking up the first-aid kit. She beckoned me to follow her to the kitchen. “Your turn. Off with the shirt.”

“Not until you buy me dinner,” I said.

For a second, she froze, and I wondered whether that had come out like the joke it had sounded like in my mind. Then she recovered. Molly arched her eyebrow in a look that was disturbingly like that of her mother (a woman around with whom a wise man will not mess) and folded her arms.

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. I shrugged my way out of the ruined tux.

“Jesus,” Molly said softly, looking at me. She leaned around me, frowning at my back. “You look like a passion play.”

“Doesn’t feel so bad,” I said.

“It might if one of these cuts gets infected,” Molly said. “Just . . . just stand there and hold still. Man.” She went to the cabinet and came back with a big brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a couple of kitchen towels. I watched her walking back and forth. “We’ll start with your back. Lean on the counter.”

I did, resting my elbows on the granite, still watching her. Molly fumbled with the supplies for a second, then bit her lower lip and began to move with purpose. She started dribbling peroxide onto the cuts on my back in little bursts of cold liquid that might have made me jump before I’d spent so much time in Arctis Tor. It burned a little, and then fizzed enthusiastically.

“So, not one question?” I asked her.

“Hmmm?” She didn’t look up from her work.

“I come back from the dead, I sort of expected . . . I don’t know. A little shock. And about a million questions.”

“I knew you were alive,” Molly said.

“Yeah, I sort of figured. How?” She didn’t answer, and after a moment I realized the likely answer. “My godmother.”

“She takes her Yoda-ing seriously.”

“I remember,” I said, keeping my tone neutral. “How long have you known?”

“Several weeks,” Molly said. “There are so many cuts here, I don’t think I have enough Band-Aids. We’ll have to wrap it, I guess.”

“I’ll just put a clean shirt over them,” I said. “Look, it isn’t a