Changes (The Dresden Files #12) - Jim Butcher Page 0,30

She drew the amulet I’d made to let her past my apartment’s magical defenses from her shirt and showed it to me. “Hopefully I won’t be able to find you. Get in touch with me when you need my help, huh?”

“Murph,” I said. “If the authorities are getting set to come down on me . . . you can’t be around.”

Her eyebrows climbed a tiny fraction. It was a danger signal. “Excuse me?” she said politely.

“It’s already going to look bad enough, we’ve worked together so much. If you’re actually abetting me now . . . they won’t let you keep your badge. You know they won’t. And they might do even more than that. You could wind up in jail.”

The subliminal angry tension in her abruptly vanished. “God, Dresden. You are a simp.”

I blinked at her.

“If I go with you,” she said, “I could wind up in the ground. That didn’t seem to worry you.”

“Well,” I said. “I . . .”

“I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you.” She looked up at me calmly. “Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I’m going with him. That’s what friends do, Harry.”

I nodded and was silent for several seconds. Then I said, “I know you, Karrin. For you, dying in a good fight would not be a terrible end. You’ve known it was possible, and you’ve prepared yourself for it.” I took a deep breath. “But . . . if they took your shield away . . . I know what your job means to you. You’d die by inches. I don’t think I could handle watching that happen.”

“So you get to choose to shut me out? What I want doesn’t count?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

“And you’re the one who decides?”

I thought about it for a moment. Then I said, “No.”

She nodded. “Good answer.” She touched her fingertips to the shape of her amulet under her T-shirt. “Call.”

“I will. Maybe by messenger, but I will.”

“It’s occurred to me that someone who wanted to make you suffer might start pulling the trigger on your friends. How do I verify the message?”

I shook my head. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that even here, in my own home, I couldn’t be too careful about being overheard. My apartment was blanketed in protective magic, but there were plenty of people (and not-people) who were stronger, more experienced, or wilier than me. “If I have to send a messenger, I’ll make sure you know who it’s from.”

Murphy watched me answer. Then she glanced slowly around the room, as if looking for an unseen observer, and nodded her understanding. “All right. Don’t stay here long, Harry.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t worry about me, Murph.”

She made a face. “I’m not worried about just you. You’ve got at least one gun stashed here, and I’m betting there’s more illegal material in the lab. If they like you for a suspect, they’ll get a warrant. And the FBI, as far as I know, doesn’t have any amulets to get them in here alive.”

I groaned aloud. Murph was right. I had a couple of illegal weapons in my apartment. The Swords were still in the lab, too. Plus some miscellaneous material that the government probably wouldn’t want me owning, including depleted uranium dust, for when the answer to “Who you gonna call?” turns out to be “Harry Dresden.”

The wards that protected my apartment were going to be an issue as well. They wouldn’t do anything if someone walked up and knocked on the door, or even if they fiddled with the doorknob—but anyone who tried to force the door open was in for a shock. About seventy thousand volts of shock, in fact, thanks to the defenses I’d put in place around my door. The lightning was savage, but it was only the first layer of the defense. It hadn’t been so terribly long since an army of zombies tore their way into my living room, and I wasn’t going to repeat the experience.

But my wards wouldn’t have any way of differentiating between a zombie or a crazed vampire or a misguided FBI agent. They simply reacted to someone forcing his way inside. I’d have to deactivate the wards before someone got hurt. Then I’d have to remove any suspect gear from the house.

Hell’s bells. Like I didn’t have enough on my mind. I rubbed my thumb against the spot between