Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,78

told me about? With the white handkerchief you used on Bianca a few years back?"

I grimaced. "Can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"It's impossible, Murph. It isn't important why." I hauled the conversation back on course. "We should be able to keep Mavra back until we deal with any goons. Then we can take her down. Any questions?"

Kincaid coughed significantly, and nodded at the table, where the waitress had, at some point, left us a bill. I frowned and fumbled through my pockets. I had enough to cover it, but only because I managed to find a couple of quarters in the various pockets of my duster. I left the money on the table. There wasn't enough for a tip.

Kincaid regarded my lump of wrinkled small bills and change, then studied me with a distant, calculating gaze that would have made some people very nervous. Like people who had agreed to pay a lot of money but didn't have any.

"That's it for now then," I said, rising. "Get anything you need ready, and we'll go later today. I want to hit them as soon as I find them."

Kincaid nodded and turned back to his plate. I left. My shoulder blades felt itchy when I turned my back to Kincaid. Murphy kept pace with me and we headed back to the Beetle.

Murphy and I didn't talk while I drove her back to CPDHQ. Once we got there, and the car had stopped, she looked around the inside of my car, frowning. "What happened to the Beetle?"

"Mold demons."

"Oh."

"Murph?"

"Hmm?"

"You okay?"

She pressed her lips into a line. "I'm trying to adjust. In my head, I think what we're doing is just about the only thing we responsibly can. But I've been a peace officer since before I could drink, and this kind of cowboy thing feels… wrong. It isn't what a good cop does."

"Depends on the cop, I think," I said. "Mavra and her scourge are above the law, Murph, in every sense that matters. The only way they're going to get stopped is if someone steps up and takes them down."

"I know that here," she said, and touched her own forehead with her finger. Then she clasped her hand into a fist and put it over her heart. "But I don't feel it here." She was quiet for a moment more and said, "The vampires aren't the problem. I can fight that. Glad to. But there are going to be people around them, too. I don't know if I can pull the trigger when there are going to be people around who could get hurt. I signed on to protect them, not to trap them in a cross fire."

Not much I could say to that.

"Can I ask you something?" she said after a minute.

"Sure."

She studied me with a faint, concerned frown. "Why can't you do the sunshine thing? Seems like it would be really handy about now. It isn't like you to call something impossible."

I shrugged. "I tried it a couple years back," I said. "After the war started. Turns out that you've got to be genuinely happy to be able to fold sunshine into a hankie. Otherwise it just doesn't work."

"Oh," said Murphy.

I shrugged.

"I guess I'll be in Wolf Lake Park, at the picnic, for a few hours at lunchtime. But I'll have my pager with me," she said.

"Okay. Sorry I didn't drag you into some horrifying, morally questionable, bloodthirsty carnage in time."

She smiled, more with her eyes than her mouth. "See you in a while, Harry." Murphy got out of the car. She checked her watch and sighed. "T minus two hours and counting down."

I blinked at her. "Whoa."

Murphy gave me a skeptical glance. "What?"

"Whoa," I said again. Thoughts were congealing in my brain, and I raked through my memory to see if the facts fit the idea. "Countdown. Son of a bitch."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you have the police reports on the two women who died in California?"

Murphy lifted an eyebrow, but said, "In my car. Hang on a second." She jogged a couple of spaces down to her car. I heard her pop open the trunk and slam it again. She reappeared with a thick manila folder and passed it to me.

I found the reports inside and scanned over them in rising excitement. "Here it is," I said, jabbing a finger at the report. "I know how they're doing it. Damn, I should have guessed this sooner."

"How they're doing what?" Murphy asked.

"The Evil Eye," I said, the words hurrying together as