White Night (The Dresden Files 9)

"I'm fine, you big pansy," I said. "Go on."

Molly started up the staircase, and then froze, staring back down at Little Chicago.

I squinted at her. Then rose and squinted at the table.

There was a hole melted in the metal table, not far from the spot where Grey Cloak had entered Undertown. One of the buildings was half slagged, the pewter melted into a messy runnel that coursed down the hole in the table like dribbled wax. There was a layer of black soot over everything within several inches of the hole in the table.

If the table hadn't taken the magical blow, it would have been my head with the hole burned in it. That had been part of the purpose in creating Little Chicago - as a tool and a safety measure for working that kind of magic. All the same, it was a sobering thing to see.

I swallowed. Cowl. It had been Cowl. I'd heard the hatred and venom in his voice, the familiarity - and the overwhelming power of his magic had been unmistakable. He'd survived the Darkhallow. He was working with this "Circle," who were almost certainly the Black Council, and there was some kind of larger mischief afoot in Chicago than I had suspected.

Oh, yeah. This whole situation was definitely starting to make me nervous.

I turned back to Molly and said, "Like I said. This thing is dangerous, grasshopper. So no playing with it until I say so. Got it?"

Molly swallowed. "Got it."

"Go on. Take care of Mouse. Do me a favor, and call Murphy's cell phone. Ask her to come here."

"Do you need me to help you today?" she asked. "Like, go with you and stuff?"

I looked at her. Then at the table. Then back at her.

"Just asking," Molly said defensively, and hurried on up the stairs.

By the time I'd gotten a shower, shaved, and climbed into fresh clothes, I felt almost human, though I still had a whale of a headache. Murphy arrived shortly after.

"What the hell happened to you?" she said, by way of greeting.

"Took a psychic head butt from Cowl," I said.

Murphy greeted Mouse, scratching him under the chin with both hands. "What's a Cowl?"

I grunted. "Right, forgot. When I met Cowl, you were in Hawaii with your boy toy."

Murph gave me a smug smile. "Kincaid isn't a boy toy. He's a man toy. Definitely a man toy."

Molly, lying on the floor with her feet up on the wall while she read, dropped her book onto her face. She fumbled it back into her hands and then tried to appear uninterested in the conversation. It would have been more convincing if she weren't holding the book upside down.

"Long story short," I told her. "Cowl is a wizard."

"Human?" Murphy asked.

"Pretty sure, but I've never seen his face. All I know about him is that he's stronger than me. He's better than me. I stood up to him in a fair fight and got lucky enough to survive it."

Murphy frowned. "Then how'd you beat him?"

"I stopped fighting fair and bumped his elbow while he was handling supernatural high explosives. Boom. I figured he was dead."

Murphy sat down in one of my easy chairs, frowning. "Okay," she said. "Better give me the whole thing."

I rubbed at my aching head and started from where I'd left Murphy yesterday up until the end of my confrontation with Cowl. I left out some of the details about Elaine, and everything about the Circle. That was information too dangerous to spread around. Hell, I wish I didn't know about it, myself.

"Skavis," Murphy mused aloud. "I've heard that somewhere before."

"It's one of the greater Houses of the White Court," I said, nodding. "Raith, Skavis, and Malvora are the big three."

"Right," Murphy said. "Psychic vampires. Raith feed on lust. Malvora on fear. How about these Skavis?"

"Pain," I said. "Or despair, depending on how you translate some of the texts the Council has on them."

"And suicide," Murphy said, "is the ultimate expression of despair."

"With a mind like that," I said, "you could be a detective."

We were quiet for a minute before Murphy said, "Let me see if I've got this right. This Skavis is in town. According to your ex, the private investigator Anna Ash hired, he's killed women in four other cities, and he's doing it again here - four so far, and Anna's meant to be number five."

"Yeah," I said.

"Meanwhile, this Grey Cloak, who works for Cowl, is in town doing more or less the same thing, but you don't think he's here to help the Skavis, whoever he is. But you do think he's working against the killer, along with this Passenger, whoever he is. You think those two left the clues you found on the bodies to pull you into an investigation and take out the Skavis."

"Even better," I said. "I think I know who Passenger was."

"Who?" Murphy asked.

"Beckitt," I said. "It makes sense. He's got his wife on the inside as an information source. He's gone up against me before, and walked away, and I cost him years of his life and a lucrative share of a criminal empire. He's got plenty of reasons not to like me. That's who Grey Cloak the Malvora was talking to."

"Whoa. Grey Cloak the Malvora? How'd you get that?"

"Because," I said, "he talked about sharing some tastes with the Skavis, when it came to letting the prey anticipate what was coming before the kill. The Malvora do it so that their prey will feel more fear. The Skavis do it so that they'll be more tired, be more ready to give in to despair."

Murphy nodded, lips pursed. "And the White Court loves manipulating everything indirectly. Using others to do their dirty work for them."

"Like using me to wipe out his Skavis competition," I said.

"Which makes sense because Malvora and Skavis are rivals."

"Right," I said. "And I'm fairly confident in my guess. Just like I'm fairly confident that Beckitt must be our passenger."

"That's a sound theory, Dresden," Murphy said.

"Thank you, I know."

"But Beckitt died almost seven years ago. He was killed in prison."

"I figure Beckitt must have made a deal with the Malvora and - " I blinked. "He what?"

"Died," Murphy said. "There was a riot. Three prisoners were killed, several injured. He was one of them. As near as anyone can tell, he was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. A prisoner was wrestling for a guard's gun. It discharged and killed Beckitt instantly."

"Um," I said, frowning. I hate it when the real world ignores a perfectly logical, rational assumption. "He faked it?"