Set between Proven Guilty and White Night. Murphy's POV. I will finish these if it kills me.
"Dresden here?" I tossed my keys onto the bookcase by the door and shifted the box I carried under one arm as I powered down my phone. My third phone this year. I'd heard somewhere that all magic comes with a price, and for me, that price is a lot of nosy questions from the guy at the ATT store.
"He's not back from the Warden thing yet," Molly answered. "Last time he called, they were leaving Colorado. A few more hours, maybe? I'm not sure how long it takes through the Ways." She sat on the floor at the coffee table, art supplies and paper scattered across its surface. The girl glanced up from her work and huffed at her hair — pale blonde with a trendy shade of teal blue at the ends today. She made a face when she saw the box I left on the kitchen counter. "More books?"
"Yep."
"Nooo," she groaned dramatically, slumping forward until her forehead hit the coffee table, piercings clacking against the wood. "I will pay you real money to stop helping him shop online."
"Are you trying to bribe a police officer?" I asked seriously, and she glanced up at me, eyes wide. "Because you'd have better luck with donuts."
The panicked look turned into a baleful glare and another groan as I collected a can of soda from the icebox. "If you want to be mad, be mad at Collateral Damage Man. He's the one who keeps getting himself banned from local stores." Letting a wizard borrow my Amazon account to order teaching materials for his apprentice was one of the least weird things I had done that week. Though it was odd that I had actually found a few of the books on his list. "So is this high school homework or the other kind?"
"Both," she mumbled against the table before sitting upright again. "We're studying different kinds of divination, and I had to pick one and make my own kit."
"Tarot cards," I stepped over the dog sleeping between me and the sofa to take a better look. From what I understood, divination was a supernatural means of gathering information.
Dresden had a very boots-on-the-ground approach when it came to hunting information; it usually involved a pizza. Sometimes a little intimidation. Or threats of bodily harm. Or actual bodily harm.
… Sometimes all four.
"It also counts as my senior art project," she continued, smiling a little.
"Smart. Your folks are letting you finish up at a public school, right?"
The young woman nodded, her expression inscrutable. I wasn't sure what she thought of me, but I had been a teenage girl before, and I unfortunately remembered what it was like.
"Lucky," I sighed. She grinned as I sat down on the floor to her left. "May I?" I asked as I reached for a card, and she nodded. I may not be the most well-versed in magic, but I know enough not to touch someone's stuff without permission. I picked up the nearest one, The World, illustrated with the Chicago skyline at sunset as seen from Millennium Park, reflected upside-down in that giant chrome bean. The drawing was done in a dreamy sort of comic book style; soft watercolor hues and bold inked outlines, lettering in all-caps.
"This is amazing," I said, because it was, and she smiled. "I've never seen a deck like this before." I reached for the next finished card, The Hermit; a long-legged, dark-haired fellow in profile, reading in a chair by a glowing fireplace with his mismatched stocking feet propped up on a precarious stack of books. "This guy looks kinda familiar, though."
We both laughed. She only hesitated for a moment before she pushed the stack of finished cards toward me and continued inking an outline. There were more familiar faces in the deck — the Emperor and Empress looked a lot like her parents, one merry and fatherly, the other regal and slightly disapproving, both intimidating. Death was a cheerful little guy in green scrubs, bunny slippers and a pair of bright red headphones, dancing The Hustle in the morgue.
Judgement. A gray-cloaked, faceless figure, carrying a raised sword in an armored fist. It only got darker from there, and understandably so: The Tower, Arctis Tor, clearly a feature in her nightmares like it was in mine. The Hanged Man, he was there, too, frozen in a tree. The artwork was lovely, even if the subject matter was horrifying. Her way of dealing with it, I guess.
"You know, if the whole professional wizard gig doesn't work out, you could always sell these at those stores Harry got himself banned from," I suggested. "And when you finish and you want someone to practice with, let me know."
"You'd let me do a reading?"
"Sure. Before I worked with Dresden, I had an informant who made me sit for a reading every time I dropped in. His were always doom-and-gloom, though. I'd like it if someone gave me a Nice and Accurate Prophecy, for once—"
I turned the next card to see a blonde woman, sitting cross-legged in a field, holding a big gray cat in her lap. She smiled, looking out of frame and up, like she was talking to someone. A rusty, rune-etched sword was planted in the wildflowers and grass near the woman's right hand, momentarily abandoned but still in reach. A lemniscate decorated the front of her faded baseball cap, instead of the Cubs logo.
Strength, read the caption on the card. I hadn't even considered looking for myself among the familiar faces, and it was touching and thoughtful and I wasn't sure what to say.
"My mother told me," Molly said without looking up from her work. "You were the one who figured out how to track me down."
"I'm just glad it worked," I said. A few days after we made it back from Arctis Tor, I had found myself at my own mother's house, angling for a hug and a cup of tea, even though I couldn't tell her anything about what had happened. "You know, I would totally hang this on my fridge."
She glanced up at me, her smile fading quickly when she saw me reach for the last card. She reached for it, too, but I was faster. The illustration was of the artist herself with her pink and blue ponytails. She was dressed as a punk-rock harlequin, seated at an easel, painting a silly self-portrait like that famous Norman Rockwell.
"Molly." I put a hand on the card to keep her from pulling it away. "You're not a fool—"
"No? I hurt people. On purpose, because I thought I was being so smart. My friends, I — my mom." Her voice cracked. A single tear splashed onto paper and marred the ink. "And you got in trouble because of me, and Harry, too, and if I screw up again, the Council—"
"The Council can go fuck themselves," I heard myself interrupt. "That bunch of decrepit old geezers are so far up their own dusty—"
She blinked at me, stifling a sniffle that was almost a laugh.
"They don't remember what it's like to live in the real world, I mean." I shrugged lamely. "Everybody makes at least one huge teenage mistake. At least you didn't marry yours."
She wiped at her eyes and made a wry, regretful face that translated directly as 'not for lack of trying.'
Ouch. Been there, done that, and though I had been initially successful with my own Huge Teenage Mistake, it didn't last long or end pretty. I doubt it felt any better to have your cute-older-guy relationship hopes dashed right out of the gate. And I knew from experience she didn't want reassurance that a little embarrassment now was better than a lot of heartache and legal fees down the road.
That's the sort of thing you have to work through on your own.
"When was the last time you took a break from this?"
"I had lunch a few hours ago—"
"No, I mean from all of this, the wizardy crap. When was the last time you did something — like, anything else?"
She had to stop and think about it, which was enough of an answer for me.
"Put your cards away. I'll be right back."
"Okay, like you mean it, this time." I held up both mitts. "Try that combo again. Shift. Step. Left jab. Now right—"
The young woman swung at me again, a little wide, but well done for a beginner. A nice, solid right hook. We stood across from each other in the middle of the living room, furniture pushed against the walls as we moved through a few easy, but more importantly, cathartic kickboxing combinations.
So I'm not the greatest at emotional conversations, but when you own your own sparring gear, you don't have to be.
The door to the apartment creaked open and we both paused, turning in the direction of the sound. Warden Ramirez stepped inside. He held an open case of cheap beer under one arm and a bag of fast food in the other. In-and-Out Burger, not Burger King. Harry must have been outvoted. Ramirez stopped and stared at us. "Dresden," he called up the stairwell. "The girls are fighting!"
"Call us girls one more time, Wardenito, and the gloves are coming off."
"Nah." Harry followed him in a moment later. They were both filthy, covered in dirt and gore and more than a few scrapes and bruises. He had an army surplus duffel bag in each hand. The barrel of a shotgun poked from one. A string of fresh ghoul fangs dangled from Ramirez's sword, slung at his hip. More skirmishes with the Red Court and their goons, then. "If either one of them were fighting anybody, we would have known from six blocks out." He met my eyes briefly and smiled, but it was a we'll talk later sort of smile.
"Ooh, Wardenito. I like that." Ramirez grinned at me. "You can call me that tonight, when we—"
I tossed the sparring target mitts down and cracked my knuckles. Molly started undoing the Velcro on her gloves.
"'Los," Harry said gravely as he dropped the duffel bags and clapped the kid on the shoulders. "It was nice knowing you."
He gave the Warden a little push towards me. Carlos flinched as I took a step closer. I snagged the bag of burgers and two beers from the case. I tossed one to Dresden. Molly turned to me with a hopeful look that dissolved into a pout when I handed her a burger instead of a beer.
"Hey, I'm cool, but I'm not that cool."
Next up, Crystals