Turn Coat (The Dresden Files 11)

"Yeah," I said. I moved to her side to support her. "You okay to walk?"

She leaned her staff toward me, stopping me from coming any closer, though she smiled slightly as she did. "I'll bloody well walk out of here," she said. And she said it in an atrocious Scottish accent.

I lifted both eyebrows at her in shock. "You told me you fell asleep during Highlander."

Her dark eyes sparkled. "I always say that when I find myself at a vintage movie showing at a drive-in theater while in the company of a man two centuries younger than me."

"And not because you didn't want to hurt my feelings with your professional opinion of the swordsmanship on display?"

"Young men can be so delicate," she said, her dimples making a brief appearance.

"We should get you to a hospital," I said, nodding at her sling.

She shook her head. "The break is set back in place already. From here, all one can do is wear a sling and wait for it to stop hurting so badly."

I grimaced. "I've got some meds at my place."

She smiled again, but this time I could see how much she was straining to keep up appearances. "That would be lovely."

"Harry," said a soft voice.

I turned to face the wounded Justine, who looked at me with drowsy eyes. I turned to the bed and bent down to smile at her. "Hey there."

"We heard that thing talking," she said. All the hard consonants in her words had blurred, rounded edges. "We heard it talking to you and Lara."

I glanced up at Anastasia, who gave me a short nod of her head.

"Yeah," I said to Justine. I desperately did not want her to say anything she ought not to be saying. "I'll take care of it."

Justine smiled at me, though she looked like she could hardly keep her eyes open. "I know you will. He loves you, you know."

I did not look up at Anastasia. "Uh. Yeah."

Justine took my hand in one of hers, her eyes reaching for mine. "He always worried that he'd never be able to talk to you. That the world he came from was so different. That he wouldn't know enough about being human to relate. That he wouldn't know about being a br-"

"Brass-plated pain in my ass," I said. "He knows that plenty well." I avoided her eyes. The last thing I needed was to endure another soulgaze now. "Justine, you need to rest. I'll dig him up. Don't worry."

She smiled again and her eyes closed all the way. "You're like family to me, Harry. You always care."

I bowed my head, embarrassed, and settled Justine's hands back on the bed, then tugged the thin hospital blankets up over her.

Anastasia watched me with thoughtful eyes as I did.

We walked back to the front of the house, and past the fairly fresh plaster that might have hidden ridiculously lethal booby traps, out over a front porch the size of a tennis court, and down several steps to the circular drive, where the car Lara had lent me was waiting.

I stopped so suddenly that Anastasia nearly walked into my back. She caught her balance with a hiss of discomfort, and then looked up and caught her breath. "Oh, my."

Nearly two tons of British steel and chrome sat idling in the drive. Its purring engine sounded like a sewing machine. The white Rolls limo was an old model, something right out of a pulp-fiction adventure film, and it was in gorgeous condition. Its panels shone, freshly waxed and without blemish, and the chrome of its grill gleamed sienna in the light of dusk over the Château.

I walked down to peer inside the Rolls. The passenger seating in the back was larger than my freaking apartment. Or at least it looked that way. The interior was all silver-grey and white leather and similarly colored woodwork, polished to a glowing sheen and accented with silver. The carpet on the floor of the Rolls was thicker and more luxurious than a well-kept lawn.

"Wow," I said quietly.

Anastasia, standing beside me, breathed, "That's a work of bloody art."

"Wow," I said quietly.

"Look at the filigree."

I nodded. "Wow."

Anastasia gave me a sidelong look. "And there's plenty of room in back."

I blinked and looked at her.

Her expression was innocent and bland. "All I'm saying is that it is rather crowded in your apartment right now..."

"Anastasia," I said. I felt my face getting a little warm.

The dimples reappeared. She was just teasing me, of course. In her condition it would be some time before she could engage in that kind of activity.

"What model is this?" she asked.

"Um," I said. "Well, it's a Rolls-Royce. It's... I think it's from before World War Two..."

"It's a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, of course," said Lara's voice from behind me. "At this house? What else would it be?"

I looked over my shoulder, to see Lara Raith standing in the shadowy doorway of the house.

"You have special needs, obviously," she said. "So I provided you with an appropriate vintage. Nineteen thirty-nine." She folded her arms, rather smugly, I thought, and said, "Bring it back with a full tank."

I tilted my head at her in a gesture that wasn't quite an affirmation, and muttered, as I opened the passenger-side door, "The loan officer will have to run a check on my credit first. What's this thing get, about two gallons per mile?"

Anastasia slid into the car with a brief sound of discomfort. I winced and held out my hands in case she fell back, but she managed it without any other difficulty. I shut the door, and caught a glimpse of Lara taking a sudden step forward.

She focused sharply on Anastasia for a moment-and then upon me.

Lara's eyes flickered several shades paler as her ripe lips parted in dawning realization. A very slow smile crept over her mouth as she stared at me.

I turned away from her rather hurriedly, got into the Rolls, and got it moving. And I didn't look back again until the vampires' house was five miles behind us.

Anastasia let me get most of the way back to town before she looked at me and said, "Harry?"

"Hmmm?" I asked. Driving the Rolls was like driving a tank. It had all kinds of momentum behind it, no power steering, and no power brakes. It was a vehicle that demanded that I pay my respects to the laws of physics and think a little bit further ahead than I otherwise might.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" she asked.

"Dammit," I muttered.

She watched me with eyes much older than the face around them. "You were hoping I didn't hear Justine."

"Yeah."