Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,154

to go?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Guess I can do what my cousin Madrigal does: find some rich girl." He grimaced. "I don't know what to do."

"Look," I said. "You really saved my ass. Crash here for a while."

"I don't want charity."

"It isn't," I said. "Think of that money transfer as a rent payment. You can have the couch until you get your feet under you again. It'll be crowded, maybe, but it isn't forever."

He nodded. "You sure?"

"Sure."

Later Thomas went to the grocery store and I went down to the lab to talk to Bob. I filled him in on events.

"You're sure?" Bob asked. "It was He Who Walks Behind?"

I shivered. "Yeah. Thought I'd killed him."

"Walkers aren't killable, Harry," Bob said. "When you tore him up before, it banished him from the mortal realm. Might have hurt him, made him take time to heal up. But he's still out there."

"That's comforting," I said. I unwrapped my burned hand.

"Yuck," said Bob.

"Can you see anything about the injury?" I asked.

"Burned meat and nerve damage, looks like," Bob said. "Hmm, I think it still has reflexes, though. I bet you could use it a little if you did it without thinking about it."

I frowned. "You're right. I think I did during the fight with Raith. But look at this." I opened my stiff fingers with my right hand.

There was unburned flesh there, just as the doctor had observed. What he didn't know was that the unharmed flesh was in the shape of a sigil in angelic script—the name of one of the Fallen angels. Specifically, the same entity imprisoned in an ancient silver coin, at that very moment trapped under two feet of concrete and half a dozen warding spells on the far side of the lab.

"Lasciel," Bob said. His voice was worried.

"I thought she was locked up. I thought she couldn't touch me from there, Bob."

"She can't," Bob said, bewildered. "I mean, that's impossible. There's no way she should be able to reach out from there."

"Sounds kind of familiar," I muttered. I wrapped up my hand again. "But that's what I thought too. And my staff is acting weird. When I start to run power through it, I'm getting excess heat. The runes start glowing like embers and there smoke curling up out of them. Seemed like my workings with the staff were coming out a lot bigger than I wanted, too. Did I blow something on the preparation?"

"Maybe," Bob said. "But, uh. Well, it sounds a lot like Hellfire. I hear that some of the Fallen really love it."

"What?"

"Hellfire," Bob said. "Uh, it's sort of an alternate power source. Not a pleasant one, but man, you could really turbocharge violent spells with it."

"I know what Hellfire is, Bob."

"Oh. Right. Why are you using it then, Harry?"

I said through clenched teeth, "I don't know. I didn't mean to. I don't know what the hell is going on."

"Hell," Bob said. "Heh. You made with the funny, boss."

I had involuntary access to Hellfire. How had that happened?

Lasciel's sigil on my left palm was the only cool spot on my burning hand.

Hell's bells. I shook my head and headed for the ladder back up.

As I left Bob said, "Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah?"

The orange lights in the skull glowed eagerly. "Tell me again about Murphy's ass."

Thomas came back from the store later that day. "Got the puppy a bowl and a collar and food and so on. Nice little guy. Real quiet. Don't think I've heard him whine at all." He tousled the puppy's ears. "You decide on a name?"

The puppy cocked his head to one side, ears tilted up with interest, dark little eyes on my face.

"I never said I was keeping him," I said.

Thomas snorted. "Yeah. Right."

I frowned down at the puppy. "He's tiny. He's grey. He doesn't make much noise," I said after a minute. I dropped to a knee and held my hand out to the little dog. "How about Mouse?"

Mouse bounced straight up in a fit of eager puppy joy and romped over to lick my hand and chew gently on one of my fingers.

Thomas smiled, though it was a little sad. "I like it," he said.

We started putting groceries away, and it was the strangest feeling. I was used to being alone. Now there was someone else in my personal space. Someone I didn't mind being there. Thomas was all but a stranger, but at the same time he wasn't. The bond I sensed between us was not made weaker by being inexplicable, no less absolute for being illogical.

I had a family. Hell, I had a dog.

This was a huge change. I was happy about it, but at the same time I realized that it was going to be a big adjustment. My place was going to be pretty crowded, pretty fast, but once Thomas got into his own apartment, it would be more normal. I don't think either one of us wanted to be tripping all over each other every time we turned around.

I felt myself smiling. It looked like life was looking up.

I had started feeling a little crowded already, sure. But I took a deep breath and brushed it back. Thomas wouldn't be here too long, and the dog was certainly a lot smaller than Mister. I could handle a little claustrophobia.

I frowned at a giant green bag and asked Thomas, "Hey. Why did you get large breed Puppy Chow?"