Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

I hadn’t been to this place in a very long time.

It was a flat, empty floor in some vast, open, and unlit space that nonetheless somehow didn’t echo with its emptiness, as if there were no walls from which sounds could reflect. I stood in a circle of light, though I couldn’t quite make out the source of illumination above me.

It was the first time, though, that I’d ever been standing there alone.

“Hey!” I called out into the empty space. “It’s not like my own subconscious can up and disappear, you know! If you’ve got something you want to say, hurry it up! I’m busy!”

“Yeah, yeah,” called a voice from the darkness. “I’m coming. Keep your pants on.”

There were shuffling footsteps, and then . . . I appeared.

Well, it wasn’t me, exactly. It was my double, though, a mental image of myself that had appeared a few times in the past, and that I would probably avoid mentioning to any mental health professionals who had signed mandatory reporting clauses. Call him my subconscious, my id, the voice of my inner jerkface, whatever. He was a part of me that didn’t surface much.

He was dressed in black. A tailored black shirt, black pants, expensive black shoes. He had a goatee, too.

Look, I never said my inner self was hideously complex.

In addition to his usual outfit, he also wore a pin on his left breast—a snowflake, wrought from silver with such complexity and detail that one could see the crystalline shapes of its surface. Whoa. I wasn’t sure exactly what the hell that meant, but given how my day was going, I was reasonably sure it was nothing good.

There was someone with him.

It was a smallish figure, covered in what looked like a black blanket of soft wool. It moved slowly, hunched, as if in terrible pain, leaning hard against my double’s supporting arms.

“Uh,” I said. “What?”

My double sneered at me. “Why is it that you’ve never got the least goddamned clue what’s happening inside your own head. Have you ever noticed this trend? Doesn’t it bug you sometimes?”

“I try not to overthink it,” I said.

He snorted. “Hell’s bells, that’s true. We have to talk.”

“Why can’t you just send dreams like everyone else’s subconscious?”

“I’ve been trying,” he said, and shifted into a voice that sounded suspiciously like Bullwinkle the cartoon moose. “But somebody’s been busy not overthinking it.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Oh, wait. That . . . that dream with Murphy? That was you?”

“All the dreams are me, blockhead,” my double said. “And I swear, dude, you have got to be the most repressed human being on the face of the planet.”

“What? Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m not exactly bending over backwards for anybody?”

“Not oppressed, moron. Repressed. As in sexually. What is wrong with you?”

I blinked, offended. “What?”

“You were doing okay with Susan,” he said. “And Anastasia . . . Wow, there’s really something to be said for experience.”

I felt myself blushing and reminded myself that I was talking to me. “So?”

“And what about all the things you missed, dummy?” he asked. “You had the shadow of a freaking angel who could have shown you any sensual experience you could possibly have imagined, but did you take her up on it? No. Mab’s been throwing girls at you. You could literally make one phone call and have half a dozen supernaturally hot Sidhe girls playing rodeo with you anytime you wanted, and instead you’re playing hopscotch over the cages of has-been demons. Hell, Hannah Ascher would have gotten busy with you if you wanted.”

“It’s Parkour,” I said defensively. “And just because I don’t go to bed with everything with a vagina doesn’t mean I’m repressed. I don’t want it to be just sex.”

“Why not?” my double said, exasperated. “Go forth and freaking multiply! Drink from the cup of life! Carpe femme! For the love of God, get laid.”

I sighed. Right. Id me didn’t have to be concerned with long-term consequences. He was my instinctive, primitive self, driven by my most primal impulses. I wondered, briefly, if id and idiot came from the same root.

“You wouldn’t get it,” I said. “It’s got to be more than just physical attraction. There’s got to be respect and affection.”

“Sure,” he said, his tone absolutely acidic. “Then how come you haven’t banged Murphy yet?”

“Because,” I said, growing flustered, “we aren’t . . . We haven’t gotten to . . . There’s been a lot of . . . Look, fuck off.”

“Hah,” my double said. “You’re obviously terrified of getting close to someone. Afraid you’ll get hurt and rejected. Again.”

“No I’m not,” I said.

“Oh, please,” he said. “I’ve got a direct line to your hindbrain. I’ve got your fears on Blu-Ray.” He rolled his eyes. “Like she isn’t feeling exactly the same thing?”

“Murphy isn’t afraid of anything,” I said.

“Two ex-husbands, and the last one married her little sister. He might as well have sent her a card that said, ‘I’d like you, only you’re too successful. And old.’ And you’re a freaking wizard who is going to live for centuries. Of course she’s freaking out about the idea of getting involved with you.”

I frowned at that. “I . . . You really think so?”

“No, dolt. You really think so.”

/> I snorted. “Okay, guy, if you’re so smart. What do I do?”

“If having something real is so important to you, man up and go get her,” my id said. “You could both be dead tomorrow. You’re heading for the realm of freaking death, for crying out loud. What the hell are you waiting for?”

“Uh,” I said.

“Let me answer that for you,” he said. “Molly.”

I blinked. “Uh, no. Molly’s a freaking kid.”

“She was a freaking kid,” my double said. “She’s heading for her late twenties, in case you forgot how to count. She’s not all that much younger than you, and the proportional distance is only shrinking. And you like her, and you trust her, and the two of you have a ton in common. Go get laid there.”

“Dude, no,” I said. “That is not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“It would be a serious violation of trust.”

“Because she’s your apprentice?” he asked. “No, she isn’t. Not anymore. Hell’s bells, man, she’s practically your boss when you get right down to it. At the very least, she got promoted past you.”

“I am not having this conversation,” I said.

“Repression and denial,” my double said acerbically. “Get thee to a therapist.”

The figure next to him made a soft sound.

“Right,” the double said. “We don’t have much time. Murphy’s pulling the nail out.”

“Time for what?” I asked. “And who is that?”

“Seriously?” he asked. “You aren’t going to use your intuition even a little, huh?”

I scowled at him and at the other figure and then my eyes widened. “Wait . . . Is that . . . is that the parasite?”

The shrouded figure shuddered and let out a pained groan.

“No,” my double said. “It’s the being that Mab and that stupid Alfred have been calling a parasite.”

I blinked several times. “What?”

“Look, man,” my double said. “You’ve got to work this out. Think, okay. I can’t just talk to you. This near-dream stuff is my best, but you’ve got to meet me halfway.”