Small Favor (The Dresden Files 10)

Murphy's voice came back to me instead of Molly's. "I'm fine," she said. The words were clipped, as if she were in pain. "Vest stopped all but one of the balls, and that one isn't bad."

"Her arm is bleeding, Harry," Molly said, her voice shaking. "It's stopping, but I don't think there's anything else I can do."

"Murph, get back to the car. Stay warm."

"Like hell, Harry. I will-"

I completed the sentence for her. "-go into shock. Don't be stupid, Murph. I can't lug your unconscious body around and keep these guys under control."

Murphy growled something vaguely threatening under her breath, but I heard Molly say, "Here, let me help you."

Bart's beady eyes were all but bugging out of his head as he searched for the source of the sound of Molly's voice. "What? What the hell?"

By now, I was sure, people in the houses around us had called the police. I was sure that the cops would be a few moments longer than usual arriving, too. I wanted to be gone by then, which meant that I didn't have much time. But Bart didn't have to know that. Just like Bart didn't have a clue what he'd gotten himself involved in.

I most likely didn't have time to grill even one of the gunmen. Torelli's goon was hurt and probably mad as hell at me. He was probably more loyal to Torelli, too, if he was a personal retainer. That really left me only one smart option for gathering information.

I stepped forward, shifting my gun to my left hand, and held out my right. I spoke a quiet word and a sphere of fire, bright as a tiny sun, kindled to life in the air above my right hand. I turned a slow stare on Bart and stepped close to him.

The thug flinched and fell onto his ass in the snowy street.

I released the sphere of fire, and it drifted closer to Bart. "Look, big guy," I said in an amiable tone. "I've had a tense couple of days. And I've got to tell you, burning someone's face off sounds like a great way to relax."

"I was just a hire!" Bart stammered, scooting back on his buttocks from the little sphere of fire. "Just a driver!"

"Hired to do what?" I asked him.

"I was just supposed to put you off the road and cover the shooter," Bart half screamed. He pointed a finger at the wounded man. "Him."

I spread my fingers a little wider, and the flaming sphere jumped a few inches closer to the goon's face. "Bart, Bart. Let's not change the focus here. This is about you and me."

"I'm just a contractor!" Bart all but screamed, writhing to get his face farther away from the fire. "They don't tell guys like me shit!"

"Guys like you always know more than you're told," I said. "So you've got something you can give the cops to keep yourself out of jail."

"I don't!" Bart said. "I swear!"

I smiled at him and pushed the fire sphere a little closer. "Inhale blue," I said. "Exhale pink. Hey, this is relaxing."

"Torelli!" Bart screamed, throwing up his arms. "Jesus, it was Torelli! Torelli wanted the job done! He's been getting ready to move on Marcone!"

"Since when?" I demanded.

"I don't know. Couple of weeks, maybe. That's when they brought me in! Oh, Jesus!"

I closed my hand and snuffed out the sphere of fire before it could do more than scorch the sleeves of Bart's coat. He lay there on the ground breathing roughly, and refused to lower his arms.

The sound of sirens ghosted through the streets. It was time to go.

"He been talking to anyone lately?" I demanded. "Anyone new? Setting up an alliance?"

Bart shook his head, shuddering. "I ain't one of his full-timers. I ain't seen nothing like that."

"Harry!" Molly screamed.

I'd gotten too intent on the conversation with Bart, and I'd been too worried about Murphy to remember to take everybody's guns away. The gunman on the ground had recovered his shotgun and worked the action, ejecting a spent shell and loading a new round. I spun toward him, raising my shield bracelet. The problem was that my spiffy redesigned bracelet, while better in a lot of ways than the old one, took a lot more power to use, and as a result I could bring it up only so fast. I threw myself to the ground and tried to put Bart between me and Torelli's hitter. Bart scrambled frantically to clear the line of fire, and I knew that I wasn't going to get the shield up in time.

Mouse must have darted off to the side at the beginning of the confrontation, because he appeared out of the shadows and came bounding through nearly three feet of snow as if he'd been running on racetrack turf. He was moving so fast that a bow wave of flying snow literally preceded him, like when a speedboat cuts through the water. He hit Torelli's hitter just as the man pulled the trigger.

Shotguns are loud. Bart screamed an impolite word.

Mouse seized Torelli's man by his wounded leg, the one I'd shot a minute ago, and began wrenching him around by it, shaking him as easily as a terrier shakes a rat. The goon had another ear-piercing scream left in him, a high-pitched thing that sounded like it had come from a slaughterhouse hog. The shotgun flew from his fingers, and he began flopping like a rag doll, unconscious from the pain.

The sirens grew louder, and I pushed myself back to my feet. Bart lay on the ground, rocking back and forth and screaming. The wild shotgun blast had hit him right in the ass. There was a lot of blood on his jeans, but he didn't seem to be gushing anything from a major artery. Granted, depending on how much of the shot he'd caught, the wound could potentially maim, cripple, or maybe even kill him if there was any internal bleeding. But there are worse places to get hit, and with all the adrenaline surging through me, it seemed pretty hilarious.

Cackling, I called to Mouse and ran for the car.

Molly already had Murph buckled into the passenger seat. I had to crawl across her to get to the driver's side. She let out a blistering curse as I accidentally bumped her arm. The driver's chair was practically touching the steering wheel, and for a second I thought I was going to have to push down the pedals with one hand and drive with the other, but I managed to find the lever that made the seat slide back, and the car started on the first try.

"Dammit, Dresden," Murphy wheezed. "There were weapons involved. We have to go back."

Mouse sailed into the backseat through the open door, and Molly closed both doors on that side of the car. I rocked the steering wheel and wiggled the Saturn loose from the snow, then started off down the street. I still had an irrational smile plastered on my face. My cheeks hurt. "Not a chance, Murphy."

"We can't just let them go."