Blood Rites (The Dresden Files 6)

Chapter Thirty-four

Ebenezar drove, and I felt myself float off into a pensive haze. Well, that wasn't exactly true. It was more of a pense-less haze, but I didn't complain about it. My mouth didn't want to work, and on some level I knew that numb, floating shock was better than searing agony. Somewhere in the background, Murphy and Ebenezar talked enough to work out details, and we must have dropped the kids off with Father Forthill, because when I finally got out of the truck, the back was empty of children.

"Murphy," I said, frowning. "I had a thought. If there's an APB out for me, maybe we shouldn't go back to my place."

"Harry," she said, "we've been here for two hours. You're sitting on your couch."

I looked around. She was right. The fireplace was going, with Mister in his favorite spot by the mantel, and the notch-eared puppy was lying on the couch next to me, using my leg as a pillow. I tasted Scotch in my mouth, one of Ebenezar's own brews, but I didn't remember drinking it. Man, I must have been in worse shape than I thought. "So I am," I said. "But that doesn't make my concerns any less valid."

Murphy had hung my coat up on its hook by the door and was wearing a pair of my knee-length knit shorts. They fell to halfway down her calf, and she'd had to tie a big knot in the front to keep them on, but at least she wasn't walking around in her panties. Dammit.

"I don't think so," she said. "I've talked to Stallings. He said there's an APB for someone matching your description, but your name isn't attached to it. Only that the suspect is wanted for questioning and may be using the alias Larry or Barry. There were no prints on the weapon, but it was registered to the witness." She shook her head. "I don't know how that happened. I'd say you got lucky, but I know better. And you'd make some wiseass remark about it."

I let out a broken little laugh. "Yeah," I said. "Hell's bells. Trixie Vixen has got to be the most vacuous, conceited, small-minded, petty, and self-absorbed baddie I've ever snooped out. That's what happened."

"What?" Murphy asked.

"My name," I said, still wheezing laughter. "She never got it straight. The woman got my freaking name wrong. I don't think she bothers to keep very close track of other people's existence if it doesn't profit her."

Murphy arched an eyebrow. "But there were other people there, weren't there? Someone must have known your name."

I nodded. "Arturo for sure. Probably Joan. But everyone else only knew my first name."

"And someone had to wipe any of your prints from the gun. They're covering for you," Murphy said.

I pursed my lips, surprised. Not so much that Arturo and his people had done it, but because of my reaction to the news-it made a warm spot somewhere inside me that felt almost completely unfamiliar. "They are," I said. "God knows why, but they are."

"Harry, you saved the lives of some of their people." She shook her head. "In the business they're in, I doubt Chicago's finest are exactly making them feel like valued members of the community. That kind of isolation brings people together-and you helped them. Makes you one of them when trouble comes."

"Makes me family," I said.

She smiled a little and nodded. "So you know who dunnit?"

"Trixie," I said. "Probably two others. My sense is that it's the Ex-Mr.-Genosa club, but that's just a hunch. And I think they had help."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because Trixie was getting instructions from someone on the phone when she was holding a gun on me," I said. "And they've been invoking that curse with a ritual. Unless someone's actually got some talent, it takes two or three people to raise the energy that's needed. And let's face it, three witches cackling over a cauldron somewhere is pretty much stereotyped into the public awareness."

"Macbeth," Murphy said.

"Yeah. And that movie with Jack Nicholson as the devil."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You told me about rituals once. The cosmic vending machine, right? An outside power offers to give you something if you fulfill a specific sequence of events."

"Yeah."

Murphy shook her head. "Scary. People can just do a dance and someone dies. Regular people, I mean. What happens if someone publishes a book?"

"Someone has," I said. "Plenty of times. The White Council has pushed it to happen a couple of times-like with the Necronomicon. It's a reasonably good way to make certain the ritual in question isn't going to work."

She frowned. "I don't get it. Why?"

"Supply and demand," I said. "There are limits to what outside forces can deliver to the mortal world. Think of the incoming power as water flowing through a pipeline. If a couple of people are using a rite once every couple of weeks, or every few years, there's no problem pumping in enough magic to make it work. But if fifty thousand people are trying to use the rite all at once, there isn't enough power in any one place to make it happen. It just comes out as a little dribble that tastes bad and smells funny."

Murphy nodded, following me. "So people who have access to rituals don't want to share them."

"Exactly."

"And a book of dark rituals is not something your average vacuous princess of porn picks up at the mall. So she had help."

"Yeah," I said, frowning. "And that last run on the curse had a professional behind it."

"Why do you say that?"

"It was a hell of a lot faster, for one thing, and deadlier. It hit so quick I didn't have time to redirect it away from the victim, even though I knew it was coming. It was stronger, too. A lot stronger, like someone who knew the business had taken the trouble to focus or amplify it somehow."

"What can do that?" Murphy asked.

"Coordination between talented wizards," I said. "Uh, sometimes you can use certain articles and materials to amplify magic. They're usually expensive as hell. Sometimes special locations can help, places like Stonehenge, or certain positions of stars on a given night of the year. Then there's the old standby."

"What's that?" Murphy asked.

"Blood," I said. "The destruction of life. The sacrifice of animals. Or people."

Murphy shivered. "And you think they're coming after you next?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm in the way. They have to if they want to get away clean."

"Get away with their big old fund intact?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Seems pretty extreme for a greed killing," Murphy said. "I've got nothing against greed as a motivator, but damn. It's like some people just never grasp the idea that other people actually exist."

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. "I guess this time there just happened to be three of them standing in the same place."

"Heh," Murphy said. "God only knows what kind of unholy bad luck got three ex-wives together. I mean, what are the odds, you know?"

I sat up straight. Murphy had put her finger on it. "Stars and stones, you're right. How could I have missed that?"

"You've been a little busy?" Murphy guessed.

I felt my heart speed up. It beat with a dull pressure on my hand. It wasn't pain yet, but it was coming. "Okay, let's think, here. Arturo didn't announce that he was getting married again. I mean, I only found out because someone who knows him made a sharp guess. And I doubt the ex-wives knew about it firsthand. In fact, I'd be willing to bet they were informed of the fact by a third party."