Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

We got her in and buckled up, though she was obviously fighting the pain. Michael hurried back inside, out of the sleet. She opened her eyes once and gave me a little smile.

“Sorry,” she said, “that I won’t be there to watch your back.”

“You did fine,” I said. “We’ll make sure you’ve got cover.”

“Worry about yourselves,” she said. “I can make some calls. Michael’s a good man, but he doesn’t always see things coming.”

I bit my lip for a second, trying to decide if I should say anything. I decided not to. If she didn’t know what was coming up, she couldn’t possibly tip off anyone that I already knew part of what Nicodemus was up to.

I need to work on my poker face. She looked at my expression and smiled with one side of her mouth. “Need-to-know. I get it, Harry.” She struggled to free her right hand from the blankets, so that she could put it on mine and squeeze. “Make the sucker punch count.”

I winked at her. “I’ll come see you soon.”

“You’d better,” she said.

Butters slammed the driver’s-side door and brought the truck to life with a smooth rumble of V8 engine. He turned the heaters all the way up, first thing, and double-checked Karrin’s seat belt. Then he adjusted the mirrors, muttered something about the truck being the size of a house, and said to me, “Close it up. I’ll get you word as soon as I know anything.”

I nodded and said, “Thanks, Butters.”

He grimaced and said, “Thank me when I save your life.”

“You’ve done that already,” I said. “Back in the museum.”

“So we’re even?”

“Once you’ve made that swap, you don’t keep counting, man,” I said. “Drive safe.”

I closed the door carefully, and watched Butters back the truck out onto the icy street. He put it into the lowest gear, and the tires crunched slowly down the street as he drove away.

He’d been out of the driveway for maybe twenty seconds when a flickering stream of campfire sparks came soaring down out of a nearby tree and through the windshield of the truck—Bob, returning to the skull still in Butters’s backpack.

I watched until they were gone. Then I hurriedly cleaned up the scene, fake rocket launcher, Sword-shards, sheath, hilt, and shell casings all, and hurried back inside.

I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. For a second, I was alone.

I missed Karrin already. Logically, I knew that she probably wasn’t in any immediate danger from Nicodemus and company, but some irrational part of me wanted to be the one who drove her to the hospital, terrified the doctors into perfection, and watched over her when she could finally sleep.

She’d looked so small like that, with her wet hair plastered down, swaddled in blankets.

And she wouldn’t have been that way if I hadn’t invited her along for the ride.

I mean, yeah, logically, I hadn’t been the one to hurt her. Nicodemus had done that. But there was a great, seething tide of anger somewhere behind the walls of my mind, absolute fury that she had come to harm, and since it had no handy targets to crash upon, some stupid part of my brain had decided that I would do.

And now I was going to drag Michael into my mess as well. And if he got put in a compromising position the way Karrin had, the consequences might be significantly more severe.

And all because I’d been weak, and cut a deal with Mab.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand on my own two feet again.

What was done was done. There was no point in tearing myself to shreds over it—especially since indulging in that kind of self-flagellation would not help me protect Michael or stop Nicodemus from obtaining one of the most powerful holy relics in the world.

There would be plenty of time to beat myself up later—assuming I lived long enough to do it.

Focus on the task at hand, Harry. Sort the rest out when you have time.

Yeah, sure. But isn’t that the kind of thinking that got me into this mess in the first place?

I was trying to learn to play the game a few more moves ahead than I had in the past. Part of that had been keeping Karrin in the dark about what I had in mind for Nicodemus and company. But, man, that game was hard to play.

Bleak thoughts. I was roused from them by feet on the stairs. I looked up.

At the top of the stairs stood two figures—an enormous dog and a little girl.

The dog was grey, shaggy, and the size of a bantha. A bulky ruff of fur about his head and shoulders gave him a leonine look, and his dark eyes were bright, his slightly curled tail wagging so furiously that it looked like it might pull him over sideways. When Mouse saw me, he made a happy little chuffing sound, and his front paws bounced off the floor, but then he glanced to the girl beside him and held himself carefully still.

The little girl stood with her hands buried in the thick fur of Mouse’s mane, as though she had refused to admit that she couldn’t just circle her arms around his neck and tote him about like a teddy bear. She was wearing an old T-shirt of Molly’s that read SPLATTERCON!!! across the front. The shirt hung past her knees and its sleeves went halfway to her wrists. She had big brown eyes the size of softballs, it looked like, and her dark brown hair hung straight down to her little shoulders.

Her features were a little long. I could see myself in the shape of her eyes, in the set of her chin. But she had her mother’s full mouth and elegant nose.

Maggie.

My daughter.

My heart all but stopped beating—and then it lurched into high gear in pure terror.

What should I do? What should I say? I mean, I had known I was a father and whatnot, but . . . now she was looking at me. And she was a person.

She regarded me soberly from the top of the stairs for several long seconds before she said, “Are you Harry Dresden?”

She was missing a tooth from up front and off to one side. It was kind of adorable.

“Uh,” I said. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“You’re really big,” she said.

“You think so?”

She nodded seriously. “Bigger than Mr. Carpenter.”

“Um,” I said. “How did you know it was me?”

“Because Molly showed me your picture,” Maggie said. She moved her shoulders, as though attempting to hold Mouse up the way she might a favorite doll. “This is my dog, Mouse.”

Mouse wagged his tail furiously and managed not to knock Maggie down while he did it.

“I know,” I said. “I’m the one who gave him to you.”

Maggie nodded. “That’s what Molly said. She said you gave him to me ’cause you loved me.”

“Yes,” I said, recognizing the truth as I spoke it. “That’s true.”

She wrinkled up her nose, as if she had smelled something unpleasant. “Are you mad at me?”

I blinked several times. “What? No, no, of course not. Why would I be mad at you?”

She shrugged and looked down at Mouse’s mane. “Because you aren’t ever here. Never, ever.”

Ow.

The Winter Mantle is pretty amazing, but there are some kinds of pain it can’t do jack about.

“Well,” I said after a moment, “I have a very tough job. Do you know what I do?”

“You fight monsters,” Maggie said. “Molly told me so. Like Draculas and stuff.”

Had Molly been filling in for me a little, while I was away? That . . . sounded a lot like the kind of thing Mab had done or ordered done when I was unavailable—taking up some of the duties of her vassal in his stead.

Maybe Molly was following in the same footsteps. Or maybe she was just being Molly, and being as kind as she could to the child. Or maybe it wasn’t as simple as either-or.

“Yeah,” I said. “Like Draculas and stuff. It’s very dangerous and I do

it a lot.”

“Mr. Carpenter works harder than two men. That’s what Missus Carpenter says.”

“That’s probably true,” I said.

“But he comes home every night. And you haven’t ever . . .” A thought seemed to strike her and she pressed a little closer to Mouse. “Are you going to take me away?”

“Um,” I said, blinking. This was proceeding really quickly. “I, uh. Would you like that?”

She shrugged, almost hiding her eyes in Mouse’s mane. “I don’t know. My toys are all here. And my roller skates.”

“That’s very true,” I said. “Um. Not tonight, anyway.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Molly says you’re really nice.”

“I try to be.”

“Is he nice, Mouse?”

Mouse continued wagging his tail furiously, and gave a quiet bark.