and his shadowy empire, but we have our own superiors and politicians breathing down our necks as well. Oh, they never say anything directly, like, “Stop arresting Marcone’s most profitable pimps.” Instead, we get a long speech about racial and socioeconomic profiling. We get screams from political action committees. We get vicious editorial pieces in the newspapers and on TV.
We mostly stay quiet and keep plugging away at our jobs. Experience has taught us that hardly anyone ever cares what we think or have to say. They demand answers, but they don’t want to listen.
I’m not saying that cops are a bunch of white knights. I’m just saying that the politicians can spin things all sorts of ways if it means that they’re guaranteed stacks of cash for their campaign chests—or that Marcone’s blackmailers won’t expose some dark secret from their pasts.
I still had friends in the CPD. I called one who worked in the Organized Crime Division and asked him where I could find Marcone.
“Aw, Murph,” Malone said. He sounded weary. “This ain’t the time.”
“Since when have you been big on punctuality?” I asked. “I need this. It’s about Dresden.”
Malone grunted. Dresden had saved his uncle from some kind of possession or (and I still have trouble with the concept when I say it), an evil enchantment. The elder Malone had been suffering to a degree I had never seen elsewhere. Cops and medics and so on couldn’t do a thing for the man. Dresden had walked in, shooed everyone else out of the room, and five minutes later Malone was sane again, if worse for wear. It had made an impression on Malone’s nephew.
“Okay,” he said. “Give me a couple minutes. They got everyone with a star running around the city looking for bin Laden or Bigfoot or whoever else might have blown up that building. I ain’t slept in two days. And the FBI is coming down like a freaking cloud of angry mama birds, after what happened at their office.” He cleared his throat. “Um. I heard you might have been around there.”
I grunted. Neutrally.
“Weird stuff, huh?”
I sighed. Internal Affairs or the FBI might still have my phone tapped, and I was reluctant to say much.
On the other hand, what were they going to do? Take my career away?
“Serious weirdness. The same flavor as the kind that hit the old Velvet Room.” That was where Dresden had fought a whole bunch of vampires and wound up burning down the entire house.
Malone whistled. “Was it as bad as that guy down in the SI holding tank?”
The kid meant the loup-garou. We were stupid enough to lock Harley MacFinn in a normal cell. He transformed into this hideous Ice Age-looking thing. It was half the size of an old Buick and it could only loosely be called a wolf. Brave men had died that night, fighting with weapons that were utterly useless against the loup-garou. Carmichael, my old partner, had died there, all but throwing himself into the thing’s jaws to buy me a few seconds.
I feel nauseated when I think about it.
“I don’t know, really. Things happened too fast. I rounded up some people, went down a stairway and out. SWAT went in, but by the time they did, there was nothing left but staff hiding in closets and under desks, and a lot of bodies.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“Malone, I need this,” I pressed firmly.
“Call you back in a minute,” he said.
I put my phone back into my coat pocket and looked at Will. We were both standing on the sidewalk in front of his apartment.
“This is crazy,” Will said quietly. “Vampires hitting a government building? Blowing up buildings in a major city? They don’t do that.”
“If they followed all the rules, they wouldn’t be bad guys,” I said.
“It’s just . . .” He swallowed. “I really wish Harry was around. He’d have a take on it.”
“That makes two of us.”
Will shook his head. “I’ve been too crazy to even ask. . . . Where is he?”
I glanced at him and away, keeping my face still.
The color drained out of Will’s cheeks. “No. He’s not. . . . It doesn’t work like that.”
“We don’t know where he is,” I said. “He was staying out on that ratty boat he uses until he could find somewhere else to sleep. We found blood. Bullet holes. Blood trail leading into the lake.”
Will shook his head. “But . . . if he was hurt, he wouldn’t go to a hospital. He’d call