Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher Page 0,9

mask made my throat tighten, and I had to work not to let the gun in my hand shake. But then she did something that made her look even more alien, more frightening.

She smiled. A slow smile, cruel as a barbed knife. When she spoke, her voice sounded just as beautiful as it had before. But it was empty, quiet, haunting. She spoke, and it made me want to lean closer to her to hear her more clearly. "Clever," she murmured. "Yes. Not too distracted to think. Just what I need."

A cold shiver danced down my spine. "I dont want any trouble," I said. "Just go, and we can both pretend nothing happened."

"But it has," she murmured. Just the sound of her voice made the room feel colder. "You have seen through this veil. Proven your worth. How did you do it?"

"Static on the doorknob," I said. "It should have been locked. You shouldnt have been able to get in here, so you must have gone through it. And you danced around my questions rather than simply answering them."

Still smiling, she nodded. "Go on."

"You dont have a purse. Not many women go out in a three-thousand-dollar suit and no purse."

"Mmmm," she said. "Yes. Youll do perfectly, Mister Dresden."

"I dont know what youre talking about," I said. "Im having nothing more to do with faeries."

"I dont like being called that, Mister Dresden."

"Youll get over it. Get out of my office."

"You should know, Mister Dresden, that my kind, from great to small, are bound to speak the truth."

"That hasnt slowed your ability to deceive."

Her eyes glittered, and I saw her pupils change, slipping from round mortal orbs to slow feline lengths. Cat-eyed, she regarded me, unblinking. "Yet have I spoken. I plan to gamble. And I will gamble upon you."

"Uh. What?"

"I require your service. Something precious has been stolen. I wish you to recover it."

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You want me to recover stolen goods for you?"

"Not for me," she murmured. "For the rightful owners. I wish you to discover and catch the thief and to vindicate me."

"Do it yourself," I said.

"In this matter I cannot act wholly alone," she murmured. "That is why I have chosen you to be my emissary. My agent."

I laughed at her. That made something else come into those perfect, pale featuresanger. Anger, cold and terrible, flashed in her eyes and all but froze the laugh in my throat. "I dont think so," I said. "Im not making any more bargains with your folk. I dont even know who you are."

"Dear child," she murmured, a slow edge to her voice. "The bargain has already been made. You gave your life, your fortune, your future, in exchange for power."

"Yeah. With my godmother. And thats still being contested."

"No longer," she said. "Even in this world of mortals, the concept of debt passes from one hand to the next. Selling mortgages, yes?"

My belly went cold. "What are you saying?"

Her teeth showed, sharp and white. It wasnt a smile. "Your mortgage, mortal child, has been sold. I have purchased it. You are mine. And you will assist me in this matter."

I set the gun down on my desk and opened the top drawer. I took out my letter opener, one of the standard machined jobs with a heavy, flat blade and a screw-grip handle. "Youre wrong," I said, and the denial in my voice sounded patently obvious, even to me. "My godmother would never do that. For all I know, youre trying to trick me."

She smiled, watching me, her eyes bright. "Then by all means, let me reassure you of the truth."

My left palm slammed down onto the table. I watched, startled, as I gripped the letter opener in my right hand, slasher-movie style. In a panic, I tried to hold back my hand, to drop the opener, but my arms were running on automatic, like they were someone elses.

"Wait!" I shouted.

She regarded me, cold and distant and interested.

I slammed the letter opener down onto the back of my own hand, hard. My desk is a cheap one. The steel bit cleanly through the meat between my thumb and forefinger and sank into the desk, pinning me there. Pain washed up my arm even as blood started oozing out of the wound. I tried to fight it down, but I was panicked, in no condition to exert a lot of control. A whimper slipped out of me. I tried to pull the steel away, to get it out