Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files #8) - Jim Butcher Page 0,55
said. I sounded bitter. She found my right hand with hers and I closed my fingers around hers with a kind of quiet desperation. Dammit, Murph. Im going to find this thing and kill it.
Her hand was steady and strong, like her voice. Ill help.
I nodded and held tight to her hand for a minute. There wasnt any tension in that contact, no quivering sensation of excitement. Murphy was human and alive. She held my hand to remind me that I was too. I somehow managed to push the sense of visceral horror Id seen filling the girl from my immediate thoughts, until I felt steadier. I squeezed her hand once and released it.
Come on, I said, my voice rough. Pell.
Are you sure you dont need a minute?
It wont help, I said. I gestured at the radio and the lights. I need to get this over with and leave.
She chewed on her lip but nodded at me, and led me to the door across the hall. I didnt want to do it, but I hauled up my Sight again and braced myself as I followed on Murphys heels and Looked at Clark Pell.
Pell was a sour-looking old cuss made out of shoe leather and gristle. One arm and both legs were in casts, and he was in traction. One side of his face was swollen with bruising. A plastic tube for oxygen ran beneath his nose. Bandages swathed his head, though bits of coarse grey hair stuck out. One eye was swollen mostly shut. The other was open, dark, and glittering.
Beyond the physical surface, his wounds were very nearly as dire as those the girl had suffered. He had been brutally beaten. Phantom bruises slid around his wrinkled skin, and the shapes of distorted bones poked disquietingly at the surface. And I saw something about the old man, too. Beneath the shoe leather and gristle, there were more shoe leather and gristle. And iron. The old man had been badly beaten, but it wasnt the first such he had enduredphysically or spiritually. He was a fighter, a survivor. He was afraid, but he was also angry and defiant.
Whatever had done this to him hadnt gotten what it wantednot like it had with the girl. It had to settle for a physical beating when its attack hadnt elicited the terror and anguish it had expected. The old man had faced it, and he didnt have any power of his own, beyond a lifetime of stubborn will. If hed done it, as painful and as frightening as it must have been, I could steel myself against Looking at the aftermath.
I released my Sight slowly and took a deep breath. Murphy, poised beside me as if she expected me to abruptly collapse, tilted her head and peered at me.
Im all right, I told her quietly.
Pell made a weak but rude sound. Whiner. Not even a cast.
I faced the old man and said, Who did this to you.
He shook his head, a feeble motion. Crazy.
Murphy started to say something but I raised my hand and shook my head at her, and she fell silent, waiting.
Sir, I said to Pell. I swear to you. Im not a cop. Im not a doctor. I think you saw something strange.
He stared at me, his one eye narrowed.
Didnt you? I asked quietly.
Hahellip; H-h he tried to say, but the word broke into a wracking, quiet cough.
I held up my hand and waited for him to recover. Then I said, Hammerhands.
Pells lip lifted, a faint little sneer. His good hand moved weakly, and I stepped over closer to him.
You told Greene it was someone dressed like Hammerhands, I guessed.
Pell closed his eye tiredly. Pretty much.
I nodded. But it wasnt just a costume, I said quietly. This was something more.
Pell gave a slow shudder, before opening his eye again, dull with fatigue. It was him the old man whispered. Dont know how. Dont make no sense. Buthellip; you could feel it.
I believe you, I told him.
He watched me for a second and then nodded, closing his eye. Thing is. That was the only damn movie ever scared me. Wasnt even all that good. He gave a weak shake of his head and said, Buzz off.
Thank you, I told him quietly. Then I turned and walked toward the door.
Murphy followed at my side, and we headed back down the stairs. Harry? she asked. What was that?