accused me of being reckless and overconfident—which is, believe me, hypocrisy of a staggering magnitude. But in this instance, he was probably right.
And after expending so much energy on running, fighting, and bending steel with my bare hands, I was hungry. The park outside this building was just brimming over with happy, oblivious kine. It would be so easy to cut one out of the herd, some tender little doe, and—
I had to focus and concentrate. I wasn’t working with a safety net. Another stupid mistake could kill me.
“Get your game face on, Thomas,” I snarled to myself. “Get your head together.”
The darkness of the building was almost complete, but my demon let me see clearly enough. The ghouls were already rotting away. They’d be nothing but a stinking mess of sludge in a few hours. We were far enough into the building that I doubted the sound of the shots had carried out of it—but the cops on patrol in the park would notice the door the ghouls had torn off the building, probably sooner rather than later. I couldn’t stay there.
I found another way out of the building and hurried back toward my truck. I couldn’t trust my tracking spell, obviously, which meant that I had to find Harry another way. Karrin Murphy of Chicago PD might be able to find out if anyone had seen his car, but I had no way of knowing Harry would be in it, or even nearby. And even if I did find him, it was going to be hell convincing him of anything when a stranger walked up, told Harry that he was his brother, and asked him to abandon a case.
First things first, I decided. I had to find him, or none of the rest of it would matter.
I knew someone who could help.
4
Harry is one of the top wizards on the planet, and he lives in a basement.
His boardinghouse is a little run-down, but roomy. I guess the rent is cheap. His basement apartment is tiny, but the neighbors are elderly and quiet. He seems to like it. I’ve known him for years, and I still can’t quite believe that he really keeps on living there.
Personally, I think that’s why he hasn’t had more trouble at home—I don’t think his enemies can bring themselves to believe it, either. Maybe they figure it’s a decoy he’s constructed solely to give them somewhere obvious to attack, where he can lure them to their deaths. Certainly, the ones who show up don’t like the welcome they receive. The defensive spells around his home could charbroil a herd of charging buffalo.
I used the crystal he’d given me to disarm his wards, and the key he’d given me to unlock his door and let myself in. His apartment was spotlessly clean, as usual—he’d turned into a neat freak a few years ago, for some reason, though he’d never talked about why.
An enormous, shaggy grey dog, two hundred pounds of muscle and fur and white, sharp fangs, appeared from the little kitchen-equipped alcove and growled at me.
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. “Mouse, it’s me. Thomas.”
Mouse’s growl cut off suddenly. His ears twitched back and forth, and he tilted his head one way and then the other, peering at me, his nose twitching as he sniffed.
“Someone laid an illusion over me,” I said. Harry had told me his dog was special and could understand human speech. I still wasn’t sure whether he’d been pulling my leg when he said it. Harry’s got a weird sense of humor, sometimes. But speaking quietly to animals when they appear nervous is always a good idea, and I did not want Mouse deciding that I was a threat. He was a Foo dog, and I’d seen him take on things no mortal animal could survive, much less overcome. “Look, boy, I think Harry might be in trouble. I need to talk to the skull.”
Mouse came over to me and sniffed at me carefully. Then he made a chuffing sound, padded over to one of the throw rugs on the apartment’s floor, and dragged it to one side, revealing the lift-up trapdoor that led down to the subbasement.
I paced over to it and ruffled the dog’s ears. “Thanks, boy.”
Mouse wagged his tail at me.
A folding stepladder led down into my brother’s laboratory, which I always pronounced with five syllables, just to give him a hard time. I unfolded it and went down, stopping as soon as I could see