Summer Knight (The Dresden Files 4)

Murphy nodded without looking at me. "All right. One condition."

"Sure. What?"

"If this is a murder, you bring me in on it."

"Murph," I protested, "come on. I don't want to pull you into anything that - "

"Dammit, Harry," Murphy snapped, "if someone's killing people in Chicago, I'm going to deal with them. It's my job. What's been happening to me doesn't change that."

"It's your job to stop the bad guys," I said. "But this might not be a guy. Maybe not even human. I just think you'd be safer if - "

"Fuck safe," Murphy muttered. "My job, Harry. If you turn up a killing, you will bring me in."

I hesitated, trying not to let my frustration show. I didn't want Murphy involved with Mab and company. Murphy had earned too many scars already. The faeries had a way of insinuating themselves into your life. I didn't want Murphy exposed to that, especially as vulnerable as she was.

But at the same time, I couldn't lie to her. I owed her a lot more than that.

Bottom line, Murphy had been hurt. She was afraid, and if she didn't force herself to face that fear, it might swallow her whole. She knew it. As terrified as she was, she knew that she had to keep going or she would never recover.

As much as I wanted to keep her safe, especially now, it wouldn't help her. Not in the long run. In a sense, her life was at stake.

"Deal," I said quietly.

She nodded and rose. "Stay out here. I need to get on the computer, see what I can pull up for you."

"I can wait if it's better."

She shook her head. "I've already taken the Valium. If I wait any longer I'll be too zonked to think straight. Just sit down. Have a drink. Try not to blow up anything." She padded out of the room on silent feet.

I sat down in one of the armchairs, stretched out my legs, let my head fall forward, and dropped into a light doze. It had been a long day, and it looked like it was just going to get longer. I woke up when Murphy came back into the room, her eyes heavy. She had a manila folder with her. "Okay," she said, "this is everything I could print out. The pictures aren't as clear as they could be, but they aren't horrible."

I sat up, took the folder from her and opened it. Murphy sat down in an armchair, facing me, her legs tucked beneath her. I started going over the details in the folder, though my brain felt like some kind of gelatin dessert topped with mush.

"What happened to your hand?" she asked.

"Magic faerie," I said. "Magic faerie with a letter opener."

"It doesn't look good. The dressing isn't right either. You have anyone look at it?"

I shook my head. "No time."

"Harry, you idiot." She got up, disappeared into the kitchen, and came back out with a first aid kit. I decided not to argue with her. She pulled up a chair from the kitchen next to mine, and rested my arm in her lap.

"I'm trying to read here, Murph."

"You're still bleeding. Puncture wounds will ooze forever if you don't keep them covered."

"Yeah, I tried to explain that, but they made me take the bandage off anyway."

"Who did?"

"Long story. So the security guard on the building didn't see anyone come in?"

She peeled off the bandage with brisk motions. It hurt. She fished out some disinfectant. "Cameras didn't pick up anything, either, and there aren't any bursts of static to indicate someone using magic. I checked."

I whistled. "Not bad, Murph."

"Yeah, sometimes I use my head instead of my gun. This will hurt."

She sprayed disinfectant liberally on my hand. It stung.

"Ow!"

"Wimp."

"Any other ways in and out of the building?"

"Not unless they could fly and walk through walls. The other doors are all fire exits, with alarms that would trip if someone opened them."

I kept paging through the file. " 'Broken neck due to fall, it says. They found him at the bottom of the stairs."

"Right." Murphy used a wipe to clean both sides of my hand, and then she put more disinfectant on. It hurt a bit less. "He had contusions consistent with a fall, and he was an old man. No one seen entering or leaving an apartment building with a high-security system, so naturally - "

" -  no one looked for a killer," I finished. "Or reported anything that might have indicated one. Or, wait, did they? Says here that the first officer on the scene found 'slippery goo' on the landing above where Reuel fell."

"But none of the detectives on the scene later found any such thing," Murphy said. She pressed a gauze pad against the wound from either side and began wrapping medical tape around to hold the pads on. "The first officer was a rookie. They figured he was seeing a killing where there wasn't one so he could get in on a murder investigation."

I frowned, turning the printouts of the photographs around. "See here? The sleeves of Reuel's coat are wet. You can see the discoloration."

She looked and admitted, "Maybe. There's no mention of it, though."

"Slippery goo. It could have been ectoplasm."

"Is that too tight? Ecto-what?"

I flexed my fingers a little, testing the bandage. "It's fine. Ectoplasm. Matter from the Nevernever."

"That's the spirit world, right? Faerieland?"

"Among other things."

"And stuff from there is goo?"

"It turns into goo when there's not any magic animating it. As long as the magic is there, it's as good as real. Like when Kravos made a body that looked like mine and came gunning for you."

Murphy shivered and started putting things back into her kit. "So when whatever it is that has made this ecto goo into matter has gone, it turns back into ...?"

"Slime," I said. "It's clear and slippery, and it evaporates in a few minutes."

"So something from the Nevernever could have killed Reuel," Murphy said.

"Yeah," I said. "Or someone could have opened up a portal into the apartment building. There's usually some gunk left when you open a portal. Dust drifting out from the Nevernever. So they could have opened a portal, then gotten out the same way."

"Whoa! Hold it. I thought Faerieland was monsters only. People can go into the Nevernever?"

"If you know the right magic, yeah. It's full of things that are fairly dangerous, though. You don't just cruise through on a Sunday stroll."

"Jesus Christ," Murphy muttered. "So someone - "