Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

The next thing I knew, Mouse pressed up against my side, an enormous, warm, silent presence. Bright lights bobbed toward me. Flashlights. Footsteps. People were shouting a lot.

"Jesus," Rawlins breathed.

Murphy knelt down by me and touched my shoulder. "Harry?"

"I'm okay," I said. "The girl. Behind me. She's hurt."

Rawlins stood shining his flashlight on a bloody section of the hallway. "Jesus Christ."

The phage had killed three people before I got there. I hadn't been able to see much of them during the fight. It was a scene of horror, worse than any slaughterhouse. The phage had taken out a cop. I could see a piece of shirt with a bloodstained CPD badge on it. The second victim might have been a middle-aged man, judging by a bloodied orthopedic shoe that still held a foot. White leg bone showed two or three inches above the shoe.

The third victim had been one of the little vampire girls I'd seen the previous evening. I could only tell because her head had landed facing me. The rest of her was hopelessly intermixed with the other two bodies.

They'd need someone good at jigsaw puzzles to put them back together.

Murphy went to the girl with the lighter, and knelt over her.

"How is she?" I asked.

"Gone," Murphy replied.

I blinked. "What?"

"She's dead."

"No," I said. I was too tired to feel much of the sudden frustration that went through me. "Hell's bells, she was moving just a second ago. I got here in time."

Murphy grimaced. "She bled out."

"Wait," I said, staggering to my feet. "This isn't... She shouldn't be..."

I felt a sudden sickness in my stomach.

Was she still alive when the phage had turned to run? Could I have stopped or slowed the bleeding, if I had let the thing retreat to the Nevernever?

I thought of the fight again. I thought of the satisfaction of turning the hunter into prey, of extracting vengeance for those it had slain. I thought about the power that raged through me, the sheer, precise strength of the Hellfire-assisted assault, and how good it felt to use it on something that had it coming. I'd barely given a thought to the girl's condition.

Had I let her die?

My God. I could have let the phage run.

I could have helped her.

The girl's body lay curled up, still, like a sleeping child. Her dead eyes were open and glassy.

I lunged for a potted plant near me and threw up.

After I did, Rawlins observed, "You don't look so good."

"No," I whispered. The words tasted bitter. "I don't."

Mouse let out one of his not-whine breaths and laid his chin on my shoulder. My eyes couldn't get away from the dead people, not even when they were closed. The hellish light in my staff slowly faded and went dark.

"I've got to organize this clusterfuck," Murphy sighed. "Rawlins, keep an eye on him."

"Yeah."

She nodded once and rose, briskly moving away, snapping orders.

"You, you," Murphy said, pointing at two nearby cops. "Get over there and help the wounded. Airway, bleeding, heartbeat. Move." She raised her voice and shouted, "Stallings! Where the hell is my ambulance?"

"Two minutes!" a man shouted down a dimly lit hall leading to the lobby. It looked like someone had pulled a patrol car or three up to the front of the hotel to shine their headlights into the darkened building.

"Clear them a path and call for more EMTs," Murphy barked. She took her radio off her belt and started giving more orders.

Rawlins looked at the remains, and at the acid-scarred walls and the enormous areas of smashed drywall and ceiling that looked like they'd been kissed by a wrecking ball. He shook his head. "What the hell happened here?"

"Bad guy," I said. "I got him. Not fast enough."

Rawlins grunted. "Come on. Best we get up to the lobby. Until they get the lights back on, it might not be safe out here."

"What happened on your end?" I asked.

"Damn candle blew up in my face. Then the lights went out. Thought for a second I'd gone blind."

I grunted. "Sorry."

"Some of the civilians were carrying. That howling thing went by in the dark and everyone panicked. Stampede in the dark. People got trampled and scared. Civilians opened fire, cops opened fire. We got one dead and a couple of dozen wounded by one thing or another."

We reached the lobby and found more police arriving along with the emergency crews. The EMTs set up shop at once in a makeshift triage area, where Murphy had brought most of the wounded. The EMTs started stabilizing, evaluating, resuscitating. They had the worst cases loaded in the ambulance and rushing for the hospital within six or seven minutes.

Murphy's stream of peremptory commands had slowed to a stop, and she stood near the triage area. I sidled over to her and loomed. Mouse pushed his head underneath her hand, but Murphy only patted him absently. I followed her worried blue gaze. The EMTs were working on Rick.

Greene sat in a chair nearby. He had wiped his face with a towel, but it hadn't taken the blood out of the creases. It made a sanguine masque of his features. He held the towel against his head with his left hand.

Murphy said nothing for a while. Then she asked, "Did the spell work?"

"Mostly," I said. "I missed one."

She tensed. "Is it still..."

"No. I picked up the spare."

She pressed her lips firmly together and closed her eyes. "When the candle went off, I hit the fire alarm. I wanted to clear the building fast. But someone had broken it. Just like the power and the emergency lights. Something went right by me and hit Greene early on. Now I'm the one in charge of this mess."

"What happened to Rick?"

She spoke dispassionately. "Hit by panic fire. Gut shot. I don't know how bad."

"He'll be all right," I told her. "The EMTs would have taken him out first if he was in real trouble."

She watched a pair of them labor over Rick. "Yeah," she said. "He'll be okay. He'll be all right."

She forced herself to look away from her ex-husband with a visible effort. "I've got to get things under control here, until we get the chain of command straightened out, and I make sure the wounded are cared for. Families notified, God." She shook her head, and watched the EMTs lift Rick onto a stretcher and carry him out. Unspoken apology infused her tone. "After that, there will be questions, and a rain forest worth of paperwork."

"I get it," I told her quietly. "It's your job."