White Night (The Dresden Files 9)

"They're insured," I said. I didn't sound like I believed it made a difference, even to me.

"People got hurt," Murphy said. "No one's face got melted, but that's not the point. You know the score, Harry, You know the kind of damage you can do if you aren't careful."

I didn't say anything.

"It's just like being a cop. Knowing martial arts. I know that I can do some fairly awful things to people. It's my business to make sure that awful things don't happen to people. I'm careful about how I use what power I have - "

"I'll tell that to my dentist," I said.

"Don't be petty, Harry," she said, her voice serious. "I've made mistakes. Admitted them. Apologized to you. I can't change what's happened, and you're a better man than that."

Unless maybe I wasn't. I felt ashamed for making the remark.

"My point is," Murphy said quietly, "that you knew what kind of damage you could do. But if what you say is true, in the moment you used your magic you thought that what you were doing was right. You thought it was okay to destroy something because you were angry. Even though it might hurt someone else who didn't deserve it."

I felt another surge of rage and... ...and...

And holy crap.

Murphy was right.

The sigil of angelic script, the only unburned flesh on my left hand, itched madly.

"Oh, hell," I said quietly. "Pot, kettle, black, all right. All day long."

Murph sat beside me, not saying anything, not accusing me of anything. She just sat with me.

Friends do that.

I put my right hand out, palm up.

Murphy closed her hand on mine for a moment, her fingers warm and small and strong.

"Thanks," I told her.

She squeezed tight for a moment. Then she got up and went to a vending machine. She came back with a can of Coke and a can of Diet Coke, and handed me the nonvile one. We popped open the cans together and drank.

"How's the ex?" Murphy asked.

"Gonna make it," I said. "She lost a lot of blood, but she's AB neg. They stitched her shut and they're topping off her tank. Shock's the worry right now, the doc says."

"It's more than that, though, isn't it."

I nodded. "Thomas said it might take her a few days to get back on her feet, depending on how big a bite the Skavis took. Which is sort of a relief."

Murphy studied me for a minute, frowning. "Are you bothered that she... I dunno. She kind of stole your thunder there at the end."

I shook my head. "She doesn't need to steal it, Murph. And even if she did, I got plenty of thunder." I felt myself smile. "Got to admit, I've never seen her throw a big punch like that before, though."

"Pretty impressive," Murphy admitted.

I shrugged. "Yeah, but she had it under control. Nobody else got hurt. Building didn't even burn down."

Murph gave me a sideways look. "Like I said..."

I grinned easily and started to riposte, but the pay phone rang.

I hopped up, as much as I was capable of hopping, and answered it. "Dresden."

John Marcone's voice was as cool and eloquent as ever. "You must think me insane."

"You read the papers I had faxed to you?"

"As has my counsel at Monoc," Marcone replied. "That doesn't mean - "

I interrupted him purely because I knew how much it would annoy him. "Look, we both know you're going to do it, and I'm too tired to dance," I told him. "What do you want?"

There was a moment of silence that might have been vaguely irritated. Being adolescent at someone like Marcone is good for my morale.

"Say please," Marcone said.

I blinked. "What?"

"Say please, Dresden," he replied, his tone smooth. "Ask me."

I rolled my eyes. "Give me a break."

"We both know you need me, Dresden, and I'm too tired to dance." I could practically see the shark smile on his face. "Say please."

I stewed for a sullen minute before I realized that doing so was probably building Marcone's morale, and I couldn't have that. "Fine," I said. "Please."

"Pretty please," Marcone prompted me.

Some pyromaniacal madman's thoughts flooded my forebrain, but I took a deep breath, Tasered my pride, and said, "Pretty please."

"With a cherry on top."

"Fuck you," I said, and hung up on him.

I kicked the base of the vending machine and muttered a curse. Marcone was probably laughing his quiet, mirthless little laugh. Jerk. I rejoined Murphy.

She looked at me. I stayed silent. She frowned a little, but nodded at me and picked up where we'd left off. "Seriously. What relieves you about Elaine being off her feet?"

"She won't get involved in what comes next," I said.

Murphy fell quiet for a minute. Then she said, "You think the Malvora are going to make their play for power in the White Court."

"Yep. If anyone points out what happened to Mr. Skavis, they'll claim he was trying to steal their thunder, and that their operation was already complete."

"In other words," Murphy said after a minute, "they won. We did all that thrashing around trying to stop the Skavis so that it wouldn't happen. But it's happening anyway."

"Depressing," I said, "isn't it."

"What does it mean?" Murphy asked. "On the big scale?"

I shrugged. "If they're successful, it will draw the White Court out of a prosettlement stance. Throw their support back to the Reds. They'll declare open season on people like Anna, and we'll have several tens of thousands of disappearances and suicides over the next few years."

"Most of which will go unnoticed by the authorities," Murphy said quietly. "So many people disappear already. What's a few thousand more, spread out?"

"A statistic," I said.

She was quiet for a minute. "Then what?"

"If the vamps are quiet enough about it, the war gets harder. The Council will have to spread our resources even thinner than they already are. If something doesn't change..." I shrugged. "We lose. Now, a couple of decades from now, sometime. We lose."

"Then what?" Murphy asked. "If the Council loses the war."

"Then... the vampires will be able to do pretty much whatever they want," I said. "They'll take control. The Red Court will grab up all the spots in the world where there's already plenty of chaos and corruption and blood and misery. They'll spread out from Central America to Africa, the Middle East, all those places that used to be Stalin's stomping grounds and haven't gotten a handle on things yet, the bad parts of Asia. Then they'll expand the franchise. The White Court will move in on all the places that regard themselves as civilized and enlightened and wisely do not believe in the supernatural." I shrugged. "You guys will be on your own."