Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

“Mouse is smart,” she said, nodding. “Really super dog smart. We’re reading James and the Giant Peach.”

I blinked. Did she mean that she was reading the book to the dog or that Mouse was reading the book, too? I mean, I already knew that he was as smart as most people, but I’d never really considered whether or not he could learn to do abstract things like reading. It seemed like a very strange notion.

On the other hand, he was going to school. Hell, I only had a GED. If he stayed close enough to Maggie for long enough, the dog might wind up with more education than me. Then there’d be no talking to him.

“Don’t tell people about Mouse, though, okay?” Maggie said, suddenly worried. “It’s a top secret.”

“I won’t,” I said.

“Okay. Do you wanna see my room?”

“I’d like that.”

I came up the stairs, and Maggie let go of the dog’s mane with one hand, to grab my right forefinger with it, and to lead me down the hall.

Maggie’s room had, long ago, been Charity’s sewing room. They’d cleaned it out and redecorated the little chamber, in purple and pink and bright green. There was a tiny kid-sized desk with a chair, and several toy boxes. The toys had all been put neatly away. There were a couple of schoolbooks on the desk. A closet stood slightly open, and proved to have its floor covered in dirty clothes that hadn’t made it into a small laundry hamper. There was a raised bed against one wall, the kind that usually came with a second one beneath it. There wasn’t a lower bunk. Instead, there was a big futon mattress on the floor beneath the bed. Posters of brightly colored cartoon ponies adorned the walls, and the ceiling above the bed.

Once we were in the room, Mouse finally let out a few little whines and came over to me, grinning a big doggy grin. I spent a few minutes rubbing his ears and scratching him beneath the chin and telling him what a good dog he was and how much I’d missed him and what a good job he was doing. Mouse wriggled all over and gave my hands a few slobbery kisses and in general behaved exactly like a happy dog and not at all like a mystic, super-powered guardian creature from Tibet.

Maggie climbed a little ladder to her bunk, to watch the exchange closely. After a minute, Mouse leaned against me so hard that he nearly bowled me over, and then he happily settled down on the futon mattress beneath the little girl’s bed.

“I have a monster under my bed, and it’s Mouse,” she said proudly. “There was another one there but me and Mouse slayerized it.”

I lifted an eyebrow. I mean, any other kid, I might have thought she was reporting a recent game of pretend. But on the other hand . . . I mean, she was a Dresden and all. Maybe she was giving me the facts and nothing but the facts.

“He’s the most awesome dog ever,” I said.

That pleased her immensely. “I know!” She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, a gesture that reminded me so much of Susan that a tangible pang went through my chest. “Um,” she said. “Would you like to . . . tuck me in?”

“Sure,” I said.

She nodded and flopped down onto her pillow. I stepped up to the bed and took a few seconds to sort out the sheets and the blanket and to get them pulled over her. Once that was done, she said, “Would you like to read me a story?”

Mouse’s tail thumped enthusiastically against the wall.

“Sure,” I said. And we read Where the Wild Things Are.

When I finished, she said, “You didn’t do the voices right.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Maybe I’ll do better next time.”

“I don’t know,” she said dubiously. “I guess you can try.” She looked at my face searchingly for a moment and then said, in a tiny voice, “Do you want to be my dad?”

I went blind for a few seconds, until I blinked the tears away.

“Sure,” I said. It came out in a tight croak, but when I said it she smiled at me.

* * *

By the time I’d finished the second run-through of Sendak’s opus, she was asleep.

I made sure the blankets had her all covered up, and kissed her hair, and then crouched down beside Mouse and put my arms around him.

“Thank you, boy,” I said. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

He leaned against me, tail wagging, and snuggled his huge head into my ribs. I petted him some more. “I have to go soon. But I need you to keep her safe. The Carpenters, too. Okay?”

He chuffed and snuggled a little closer.

“Missed you too, boy,” I said, rubbing his ears. “I just need a little time to figure this out. To figure out what comes next.”

Had I decided that I was going to be a dad to Maggie now? I examined myself and realized that indeed I had. When did that happen? And why hadn’t anyone kept me in the loop?

It had happened, I thought, the moment I had seen her, talked to her.

Oh my God.

That was terrifying.

And . . . exciting?

All things considered, I wasn’t sure I could put a lot of trust in my emotions at the moment. But one thing was certain.

If I wanted to keep my word to my daughter, I’d have to come back. That meant staying alive tomorrow.

I got up, gave Mouse a final round of petting and scratching, and padded quietly from the room into the upstairs hallway. The lights in the other rooms were out—except for the one in Michael and Charity’s room. A light burned there. The door was slightly open.

And I could see Charity, sitting on the edge of the bed in flannel pajamas, a tall blond woman with an excellent physique, whose hair was threading through with silver in style as she aged. Her tearstained face was miserable, as she spoke, presumably, to her husband, seated on the bed beside her. I couldn’t see him from there.

Obviously Michael had intended that talk to take place in private.

I turned away from it and went back down the stairs. I sat down on the bottom steps and tried to clear my head.

A few minutes later, Charity came down the stairs and sat down next to me. I made room.

“Where’s Michael?” I asked.

“Praying over the children,” she answered. “He always does that before he leaves. In case . . .”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You know,” Charity said, “I had intended to punch you in the nose, twice, the moment I saw you again. Once to make it bleed, once to break it.”

“Oh?”

“Mmm-hmm. The first time for trying to kill yourself. The second for using my daughter to do it.”

“You, uh. You know about that? How?”

“I watch. I listen. Her reaction to reports of your death was . . . too much. It took time, but I eventually worked out why she was so furious at herself.”

“You can hit me right now, if you think it would help,” I said.

“No,” she said tiredly. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “Kids need their father to come home safe, Harry. Make su

re it happens.”

“I’ll bring him back to you or die trying. I promise.”

Charity glanced at me and then shook her head with a weary smile. “I wasn’t talking about Michael, Harry. I meant you.” She glanced back up the stairs, toward Maggie’s room. “That child has lost everyone she’s ever loved. Did you notice how close she stays to Mouse? Without him, I wonder if she’d be functioning at all. If anything should happen to you . . .”

“Ah,” I said quietly.

“Maggie doesn’t need to feel that pain again. Don’t let her down.”

I chewed on my lip and nodded with my watery eyes closed. “Right.”

“And . . . please remember that Michael has children who need him, too. Please.”

“I’ll bring him back or die trying,” I repeated.

Charity exhaled a shaky breath, and then touched my shoulder gently. “Thank you. God be with you and bring you home safe, Harry. Both of you.”

Thirty-three

At three thirty a.m., we rolled up to the evil lair in a soccer mom’s minivan with a MY KID IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT . . . bumper sticker on the back. It is worth noting that by the standards of my life, this was not a terribly incongruous entrance.

Michael regarded the slaughterhouse for a moment after he had killed the ignition and said, “This is a bad place.”

“Yeah,” I said. I rubbed at the small of my back. I’d gotten a few hours’ worth of sleep before we’d left, on the futon mattress on the floor beneath Maggie’s bed. Mouse had been happy to snuggle up to me. The lummox likes to pretend he’s still a tiny puppy that will fit on my lap if he tries hard enough, and I’d been too tired to argue with him. As a result, I’d had to practice defensive sleeping, and it had left my back a little twitchy.

On the upside, even the modest amount of sleep I’d gotten had done wonders to restore me, or at least the power of the Winter mantle. I felt practically normal, broken arm, gunshot wound, and all.

Michael was dressed in his old mail, which he had kept clean and scoured free of rust despite his retirement. He wore body armor beneath it. He’d put his big white cloak with its bright red cross on the left breast over it.

“You sure you couldn’t just put something black on?” I asked him. “You’re going to clash with all the bad-guy robbery wear.”