Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files #8) - Jim Butcher Page 0,12

well, but I try to think positive: The new door was arguably even more secure than the old onenow you could barely get the damned thing open even when it wasnt locked.

While I was in home-renovation mode, I put down linoleum in the kitchen, carpet on the living room and bedroom floors, and tile in the bathroom, and let me tell you something.

It isnt as easy as those Time-Life homeowner books make it look.

I had to slam my shoulder against it three or four times, but the door finally groaned and squealed and came open.

I thought you were going to have a contractor fix that, Murphy said.

When I get the money.

I thought you were getting another paycheck now.

I sighed. Yeah. But the rate of pay was set in 1959, and the Council hasnt given it a cost-of-living increase since. I think it comes up for review in a few more years.

Wow. Thats even slower than City Hall.

Always thinking positive. I went inside, stepping onto the large wrinkle that had somehow formed in the carpet before the door.

My apartment isnt huge. Theres a fairly roomy living room, with a miniature kitchen set in an alcove opposite the door. The door to my tiny bedroom and bathroom is on the right as you come in, with a redbrick fireplace set in the wall beside it. Bookshelves, tapestries, and movie posters line the cold stone walls. My original Star Wars poster had survived the attack, though my library of paperbacks had taken a real beating. Those darned zombies, they always dog-ear the pages and crack the spines the minute theyre done oozing foul goop and smashing up furniture.

I have a couple of secondhand sofas, which arent hard to get cheap, so replacing them wasnt too bad. A pair of comfortable old easy chairs by the fire, a coffee table, and a large mound of grey-and-black fur rounded out the furnishings. Theres no electricity, and its a dim little hole, but its a dim, cool little hole, and it was a relief to get out of the broiling sun.

The small mountain of fur shook itself, and something thudded against the wall beside it as it rose up into the shape of a large, stocky dog covered in a thick shag of grey fur, complete with an almost leonine mane of darker fur around his neck, throat, chest, and upper shoulders. He went to Murphy straightaway, sitting and offering up his right front paw.

Murphy laughed, and grabbed his paw brieflyher fingers couldnt have stretched around the offered limb. Hiya, Mouse. She scratched him behind the ears. When did you teach him that, Harry?

I didnt, I said, stooping to ruffle Mouses ears as I went past him to the fridge. Wheres Thomas? I asked the dog.

Mouse made a chuffing sound and looked at the closed door to my bedroom. I stopped to listen for a moment, and heard the faint gurgle of water in the pipes. Thomas was in the shower. I got a Coke out of the fridge and glanced at Murphy. She nodded. I got her one too, and doddered over to the couch to sit down slowly and carefully, my aches and pains complaining at me the whole while. I opened the Coke, drank, and settled back with my eyes closed. Mouse lumbered over to sit down by the couch and lay his massive head on one knee. He pawed at my leg.

Im fine, I told him.

He exhaled through his nose, doggie expression somehow skeptical, and I scratched his ears, to prove it. Thanks for the ride, Murph.

Sure, she said. She brought out a plastic sack shed carried in and tossed it on the floor. It held my robe, stole, and cloak, all of them spattered with blood. She walked over to the kitchen sink and started filling it with cold water. So lets talk.

I nodded and told her about the Korean kid. While I did that, she put my stole in the sink, then started washing it briskly in the cold water.

That kid is what wizards mean when they talk about warlocks, I said. Someone who has betrayed the purpose of magic. Gone bad, right from the start.

She waited a moment and then said, in a quiet, dangerous voice, They killed him here? In Chicago?

Yes, I said. I felt even more tired. This is one of our safer meeting places, apparently.

You saw it?

Yes.

You didnt stop it?

I couldnt have, I said. There were heavyweights there, Murphy. Andhellip; I took a deep breath. Im