Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher Page 0,47

labels listing the contents, how much was left, and when I had acquired the item. The tables were clean except for stacks of notes, a jar of pens and pencils, and myriad candles. I lit a few of them and walked down to the other end of the lab, checking the copper summoning circle set into the floor and making sure that nothing lay across it. You never knew when a magic circle would come in handy.

One area of the lab had retained the casual chaos that had been its major theme before Id taken up nearly full-time residence last year. One shelf, still battered old wood, hadnt been changed or updated. Candleholders, covered in multiple shades of melted wax that had spilled down over them, sat at either end of the shelf. Between them was a scattering of various articlesa number of battered paperback romances, several Victorias Secret catalogs, a scarlet scrap of a silk ribbon that had been tied into a bow on a naked young woman named Justine, one bracelet from a broken set of handcuffs, and a bleached old human skull.

"Bob, wake up," I said, lighting candles. "I need to pick your brain."

Lights, orange and nebulous, kindled deep in the shadows of the skulls eye sockets. The skull quivered a little bit on its shelf and then stretched its toothy mouth open in an approximation of a yawn. "So was the kid right? Was there some portent-type action going on?"

"Rain of toads," I said.

"Real ones?"

"Yeah."

"Ouch," said Bob the Skull. Bob wasnt really a skull. The skull was just a vessel for the spirit of intellect that resided inside and helped me keep track of the constantly evolving metaphysical laws that govern the use of magic. But "Bob the Skull" is a lot easier to say than "Bob the Spirit of Intellect and Lab Assistant."

I nodded, breaking out my Bunsen burners and beakers. "Tell me about it. Look, Bob, Ive got kind of a difficult situation here and"

"Harry, you arent going to be able to do this. There is no cure for vampirism. I like Susan too, but it cant be done. You think people havent looked for a cure before now?"

" I havent looked for one before now," I said. "And Ive had a couple of ideas I want to look at."

"Aye, Capn Ahab, arr har har har! Well get that white devil, sir!"

"Damn right we will. But weve got something else to do first."

Bobs eyelights brightened. "You mean something other than hopeless, pointless vampire research? Im already interested. Does it have to do with the rain of toads?"

I frowned, got out a pad of paper and a pencil, and started scratching things down. Sometimes that helped me sort things out. "Maybe. Its a murder investigation."

"Gotcha. Whos the corpse?"

"Artist. Ronald Reuel."

Bobs eyelights burned down to twin points. "Ah. Who is asking you to find the killer?"

"We dont know he was killed. Cops say it was an accident."

"But you think differently."

I shook my head. "I dont know a thing about it, but Mab says he was killed. She wants me to find the killer and prove that it wasnt her."

Bob fell into a shocked silence nearly a minute long. My pen scratched on the paper until Bob blurted, "Mab? The Mab, Harry?"

"Yeah."

"Queen of Air and Darkness? That Mab?"

"Yeah," I said, impatient.

"And shes your client ?"

"Yes, Bob."

"Heres where I ask why dont you spend your time doing something safer and more boring. Like maybe administering suppositories to rabid gorillas."

"I live for challenge," I said.

"Or you dont, as the case may be," Bob said brightly. "Harry, if Ive told you once, Ive told you a thousand times. You dont get tangled up with the Sidhe. Its always more complicated than you thought it would be."

"Thanks for the advice, skull boy. It wasnt like I had a choice. Lea sold her my debt."

"Then you should have traded her something for your freedom," Bob said. "You know, stolen an extra baby or something and given it to her"

"Stolen a baby ? Im in enough trouble already."

"Well, if you werent such a Goody Two-shoes all the time "

I pushed at the bridge of my nose with my thumb. This was going to be one of those conversations that gave me a headache, I could tell already. "Look, Bob, can we stick to the subject, please? Time is important, so lets get to work. I need to know why Reuel would have been knocked off."

"Gee whiz, Harry," Bob said. "Maybe because he was