White Night (The Dresden Files 9)

"I stayed here with the dogs," Abby said. Toto looked up at her as she said it, tilting his head and wagging his little tail.

"Once Anna and I picked her up," Priscilla continued, "we headed back here - but Helen looked awful. She'd run out of insulin and hadn't been able to go get it with all the trouble. Anna dropped me off and took her to the pharmacy. That was the last we saw of her."

Abby fretted her lip and said to Priscilla, "It wasn't your fault."

Priscilla shrugged. "She'd never said anything about diabetes before. I should have known better. I should have seen..."

"Not your fault," Abby insisted, compassion in her voice. "We believed in her. We all did. But she was pulling our strings the whole time. The killer was right here among us." She shook her head. "We should have listened to you, Warden Dresden."

"We should have," Priscilla said quietly. "If we had, Anna would be alive right now."

I couldn't think of any response to that. Well. I had plenty of them, but they all were some variation on a theme of "I told you so." I felt no need to pour salt into fresh wounds, so I kept my mouth shut.

Besides, I was processing what Abby and Priscilla had told us.

Elaine traded a look with me. "Do you think Helen is the Skavis we've heard about?"

I shrugged. "I doubt it, but technically it's possible. White Court vamps can pass for human easily, if they want."

"Then why doubt it?"

"Because that little creep Madrigal called the Skavis 'he,' " I said. "Helen isn't a he."

"A shill?" Elaine asked.

"Looks like."

Abby looked back and forth between us. "E-excuse me. But what is a shill?"

"Someone who works with a criminal while pretending to have nothing to do with him," I said. "He helps the bad guy while pretending to be your buddy and making suggestions. Suggesting that you leave a safe hiding place and split up the group, for example."

Silence. Toto let out a quiet, distressed whine.

"I can't believe this," Priscilla said, pressing her fingertips against her cheekbones and closing her eyes.

"But we've known her for years," Abby said, her expression as unhappy and confused as a lost child's. "How could she lie to us like that, for so long?"

I winced. I don't like seeing anyone in pain, but it's worse when a woman is suffering. That's probably chauvinistic of me, and I don't give a damn if it is.

"All right," I said. "We've still got a lot more questions than answers, but at least we know where to start the barbecue."

Elaine nodded. "Get these two to safety, then track down Helen."

"Safety," I said. "Thomas."

"Yes."

I glanced at Abby and Priscilla. "Ladies, we're leaving."

"Where?" Priscilla asked. I had expected a protest, or sneering sarcasm, or at least pure, contrary bitchiness. Her voice, though, was quietly frightened. "Where are we going?"

"To Olivia," I told her. "And five or six of the other women my associate is protecting."

"Do they need anything?" Abby asked.

"They have several kids with them," I said. "Mostly toddlers."

"I'll pack some food and cereal," Abby said, before I'd even finished talking. Priscilla just sat, sunken in her chair and hunched in on herself. Abby dumped half of her cupboard into a great big suitcase with those skate-wheel rollers on the bottom, zipped it shut, and clipped what looked like a little plastic birdcage onto the suitcase. She gestured at Toto and the little dog jumped up into the birdcage, turned around three times, and lay down with a happy little doggy smile. "Very well," Abby said.

Mouse looked at Toto. Then he looked at me.

"You've got to be kidding," I told him. "I'd have to clip a railroad, car to the suitcase and hire the Hulk to move it around. You're young and healthy. You walk."

Mouse looked at Toto's regal doggy palanquin and sighed. Then he took point as we went back down to the car, which had been ticketed despite the lateness of the hour. I stuck the ticket in my pocket. Think positive, Harry. At least they didn't tow it.

Getting everyone into the Beetle was an adventure, but we managed it, and returned to the shabby little south-side motel.

Maybe twenty seconds after we parked, Murphy's Harley-Davidson motorcycle rumbled out of an alley across the street, where she must have been keeping an eye on the front of the motel from a spot where she could see the windows and doors to both rooms Thomas had rented. She was wearing jeans, a black tank top, and a loose black man's shirt that had the sleeves rolled up about twenty times and draped over her like a trench coat while it hid the shoulder rig that held a Glock in one holster, a SIG in the other. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and the badge she usually wore on a chain around her neck in these sorts of situations was conspicuous by its absence.

She waited with a slightly bemused air while everyone scrambled out of the Beetle. Elaine got them moving toward the rooms, hurrying to get them out of sight.

"No clown car jokes," I told Murphy. "Not one."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Murphy said. "Jesus, Harry, what happened to you?"

"You heard anything about the harbor today?"

"Oh," Murphy said. Mouse came over to greet her and she shook hands with him gravely. "Thomas wasn't really forthcoming with explanations. He lit out of here in a hurry."

"He was hungry," I said.

Murphy frowned. "Yeah, so he said. Is he going to hurt anyone?"

I considered and then shook my head. "Ordinarily, I'd say he wouldn't. Now... I'm not sure. It would really go against his character to do something like that. But he's been acting out of character through this whole mess."

Murphy folded her arms. "Mess is right. You want to tell me what's going on?"

I gave Murphy the short version of what we'd learned since I'd seen her last.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Murphy said. "Then it was Beckitt."

"Looks like she was shilling for the Skavis, whoever he is. And Grey Cloak and that wussy cousin of Thomas's added in a few killings of their own to get my attention."

"That isn't exactly in the best interests of the Skavis, if he was trying to avoid it."

"I know. So?"

"So they're all vampires, right?" Murphy shrugged. "I figured they'd be working together."

"They're White Court. They live for backstabbing. They like doing it through cat's-paws. They probably figured I would find out about the killings, move in, and wipe out the Skavis for them. Then they'd congratulate themselves on how clever they were."