Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

"This isn't real," I said quietly. "The water isn't really hot. No one is actually massaging my neck. It's an illusion you're laying over my senses."

"Does it not feel soothing?" her disembodied voice asked. "Does it not ease the tension?"

"Yes," I sighed.

"What matter, then? It is real enough."

I waved a hand as though trying to brush off an annoying fly from my neck, and the sensation of those strong, steady fingers retreated. "Go on," I said. "Hands off. I don't want to start my day with a psychic cage match, but if you push me to it, I will."

"As you wish," her voice said, and the sense of presence retreated. Then paused. "My host, I note that you made no mention of the hot water."

I grunted and mumbled something under my breath, ducked my head under the seemingly scalding water for a few seconds, and then said, "Did you pick up on what happened last night?"

"Indeed," the fallen angel replied.

"What was your read, then?"

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, and then Lasciel responded, "That Karrin feels a certain distance between the pair of you is a professional necessity, but that she is considering that time and circumstance might someday render it irrelevant."

I sighed. "No," I said. "Not that. Stars and stones, I don't want dating advice from a freaking helltart. I meant the things that attacked people at the convention."

"Ah," Lasciel said, with no trace of offense in her tone. "It was obviously the attack of a spiritual predator."

Takes one to know one, I thought. I rolled a stiff shoulder under the hot water. "If that's true, then the attacks weren't about violence," I said thoughtfully. "Which explains what I saw in that bathroom, where the old man had been attacked. Whatever did it was intent on causing fear. Causing pain. Then devouring the... what? The psychic energy it generated in the victims?"

"That is a somewhat simplistic description," she said, "but one that is as close as I expect a mortal can come to understanding."

"What, you're a mortality bigot now?"

"Now and always," she replied. "I mean no insult by it, but you should know that your ability to comprehend your environment is very strongly defined by your belief in a number of illusions. Time. Truth. Love. That kind of thing. It isn't your fault, of course-but it does impose limits upon your ability to perceive and understand some matters."

"I'm only human," I said. "So enlighten me."

"To do so, you would have to release your hold on mortality."

I blinked and said, "I'd have to die?"

She sighed. "Again, you have only a partial understanding. But in the interest of expediency, yes. You would have to cease living."

"Then don't bother enlightening me," I said. "I have plenty of would-be teachers already." I rinsed and repeated my shampoo and made myself smell like Irish Spring. "The survivors of the attacks, then. They're going to have taken a spiritual mauling."

"If the theory is correct," Lasciel's voice responded. "If they are indeed wounded in spirit, it would seem conclusive."

I shuddered. That kind of damage showed itself in a number of ways, and none of them were pretty. I'd seen men driven to agonies of madness by spiritual attacks. Murphy had been subjected to such an assault and spent years learning to cope with the night terrors it had spawned, until the spiritual and psychological wounds had finally healed. I'd seen some who had been subjected to a psychic sandblasting by vampires of the Black Court who had become nearly mindless bodies, obeying orders, and others of the same ilk who had turned into psychotic killing machines in service to their masters.

The worst part of it all was that almost the only way for me to see something like that was to open my Sight. Which meant that every horribly mangled psyche I'd come across remained fresh and bright in my memory. Always.

The top shelf of my mental trophy case was getting crowded with hideous keepsakes.

The not-truly-hot water coursed over me, a small but suddenly significant comfort. "Go away," I told Lasciel. Then I added, "Leave me the hot water. Just this once."

"As you wish," the fallen angel's voice replied, polite satisfaction in her tone. The sense of her presence vanished entirely.

I stayed in the shower until my fingers shriveled up. Or, more accurately, I stayed there until the fingers of my right hand shriveled up. The skin of my burned left hand always looked withered and shriveled, these days. The second I turned the water off, the full sensation of icy cold returned, and I shivered violently as I toweled off and got dressed.

I took care of Mouse and Mister's various needs, ate several leftover biscuits from the fridge for breakfast, and opened a can of Coke. After a moment's thought, I headed down to my lab and grabbed Bob's skull from the shelf.

Faint orange lights flickered in the sockets. "Hey," Bob mumbled in a sleep-slurred voice. "Where are we going?"

"Investigating," I said. I went back upstairs with the skull and dropped it into my nylon backpack. "I might need you today. But there are going to be straights around, so keep your mouth shut unless I open the pack."

" 'Kay," Bob said with a yawn, and the lights in the skull's eye sockets winked out again.

I strapped on the magical arsenal-my shield bracelet, the energy ring, and my silver pentacle amulet. I slipped my newly carved blasting rod into a side pocket of the pack, leaving the handle out where I could reach up behind my right ear and whip it out in a hurry. I picked up my staff and eyed my leather duster, hanging on its hook by the door. I had layered spells over the duster in an effort to provide myself with a measure of protection against various fangs and claws and bullets and such, and as a result the coat had effectively become a suit of armor.

But, like most suits of armor, it lacked its own air-conditioning system-and if I wore it around in the blazing summer heat, I'd probably die of heat prostration before anyone had the chance to bite, slice, or shoot me. Hell, even the blue jeans I was wearing would feel too heavy long before noon. The duster stayed on its hook.

That rattled me a little. I'm used to the duster, and the spells on its leather had saved my life before. It made me feel a little vulnerable to think of getting into some kind of supernatural conflict without it. So I grabbed Mouse's lead, much to the dog's tail-wagging approval, and clipped it onto his collar. "You're with me today," I told him. "I need someone to watch my back. Maybe to help me eat a hot dog later."