"Yeah?" I asked. "What's that?"
"I have partaken of thee. I am what thou art," the Nightmare whispered. He flicked his wrists toward me. "Ventas servitas."
Wind roared up in a sudden fury and hurled me from my feet, back into the air. I collided with Rudolph and Stallings as they ran forward. We all went down in a heap upon the ground.
I lay there stunned for a moment. I heard the Nightmare walk out. It just walked past us, footsteps calm and quiet, and left the room. We gathered ourselves together slowly, sitting up.
"What the hell?" Rudolph said.
My head hurt, in back. I must have slammed it into something. I pressed a hand against my skull, and groaned. "Oh, stars," I muttered. "I should have known better than to give him a straight line like that."
Stallings had blood running out his nose and into his greying moustache. Flecks of red spotted his white dress shirt. "That ... Good Lord, Dresden. What was that thing?"
I pushed myself to my feet. Everything wobbled for a moment. My whole body shook, and I felt like I might just fall over and start crying like a baby. It had used my magic. It had stolen my face and my magic and used them both to hurt people. It made me want to start screaming, to tear something apart with my bare hands.
Instead, I staggered toward Murphy's office. "It's what got Malone," I told Stallings. "It's kind of complicated."
Murphy still sat in her chair, her eyes wide and staring and horrified, her hands folded into her lap. "Murph?" I asked. "Karrin? Can you hear me?"
She didn't move. But her breath came out with a little edge to it, as though she had tried to speak. She breathed. Thank God. I knelt down and took her hands in mine. They felt ice cold.
"Murph," I whispered. I waved my hand in front of her eyes, and snapped my fingers sharply. She didn't so much as blink.
Rudolph's handsome face was pale. "I'll call downstairs. Tell them not to let him out." I heard him go to the nearest phone and start calling down to the desk. I didn't bother to tell him that it wouldn't do any good. The Nightmare could walk out through the walls if it needed to.
Stallings joined me in the room, looking shaken and a little grey. He stared at Murphy for a long moment, and then asked, "What is it? What's wrong with her?"
I peered at her eyes. They were dilated wide. I braced myself, and looked deeper into her eyes. When a wizard looks into your eyes, you cannot hide from him. He can see deep down into you, see the truest parts of your character, the dark places and the light - and you see him in return. Eyes are the windows to the soul. I searched for Murphy behind all of that terror, and waited for the soulgaze to begin.
Nothing happened.
Murphy just sat there, staring ahead. Another low breath rattled out, not quite making a sound - but I recognized the effort she was making for what it was.
Murphy was screaming.
I had no idea what she was seeing, what horrors the Nightmare had set before her eyes. What it had taken from her. I touched her throat with gentle fingertips, but I couldn't feel the bone-chilling cold of the torment-spell like the one upon Malone. At least there was that much. But if I couldn't see inside of her, then Murphy was in another place. The lights were on, but no one was home.
"She's ... This thing has messed with her head. I think it's making her see things. Things that aren't here. I don't think she knows where she is, and she can't seem to move."
"Christ preserve," Stallings whispered. "What can we do?"
"John," I said, quietly. "I need you to pull the evidence files from the Kravos case. I need that big leather book that we found at his apartment."
Stallings started, and then stared at me. "You need what?"
I repeated my request.
He closed his eyes. "Jesus, Dresden. I don't know. I don't know if I could get it. There's been some stuff come up lately."
"I need that book," I said. "The thing that's doing this is a kind of demon. Kravos will have that demon's name written down in his spell book. If I can get that name, I can catch this thing and stop it. I can make it tell me how to help Murph."
"You don't understand. It isn't going to be that easy for me. This has gotten complicated, and I'm not going to be able to just walk into storage and get the damn thing for you, Dresden." He studied Murphy with worried eyes. "It could cost me my job."
I set my Scooby-Doo lunch box on the floor and opened it up. "Listen to me," I said. "I'm going to try to help Murphy. I need someone to stay with her until dawn and then to take her back to her house - or better yet, to Malone's house."
"Why?" Stallings asked. "What are you doing?"
"I think this thing is making her live through some messed up stuff - like in a nightmare. I'm pretty sure I can stop it, but she'll still be vulnerable. So I'm going to set up a protection around her so that she'll be safe until dawn." Once morning rolled around, the Nightmare would be trapped in whatever mortal body it possessed, or else would have to flee to the Nevernever. "Someone will need to watch her, in case she wakes up."
"Rudolph can do it," Stallings said, and rose to his feet. "I'll talk to him."
I looked up at him. "I need that book, John."
He frowned, studying the ground in front of me. "Are we going to be able to catch this thing, Dresden?" We meaning the police. I could hear that much in his voice.
I shook my head.
"If I get the book for you," he said, "can you help the lieutenant?"
I nodded at him.
He closed his eyes and let out a breath. "All right," he whispered. Then he walked out. I heard him talking to Rudolph a moment later.
I turned back to Murphy, taking the plastic sack of sand out of the lunch box. I got out a piece of chalk and pushed Murphy's chair back from the desk so that I could draw a circle around us both and will it closed. It took more effort than it usually did, leaving me dizzy for a second.
I swallowed and began to gather up energy, to focus it as carefully and precisely as I could. It built slowly, while Murphy continued to inhale, and to exhale whispered screams. I put my hand on her cold fingers, and thought about all the stuff we'd been through, the bond of friendship that had grown between us. Good times and bad, Murph's heart had always been in the right place. She didn't deserve this kind of torment.
A great fury began to stir in me - not some vaporous, swiftly dissipated flash of anger, but something deeper, darker, more calm and more dangerous. Rage. Rage that this sort of thing should happen to someone as selfless and caring as Murphy. Rage that the creature had used my power, my face, to trick its way close to her and to hurt her.