Turn Coat (The Dresden Files 11)

On the other hand, I trusted Murph. I trusted her judgment, her ability to see where her limits lay. She'd seen cops carved to pieces when they tried to box out of their weight division, and knew better than to attempt it. And if she started throwing obstacles in my way-and she could, a lot of them, that I couldn't do diddly about-then my life would get a whole lot harder. Even though she wasn't running CPD's Special Investigations department anymore, she still had clout there, and a word from her to Lieutenant Stallings could hobble me, maybe lethally.

So I guess you could say that Murphy was threatening to bust me if I didn't talk to her, and you'd be right. And you could say that Murphy was offering to put her life on the line to help me, and you'd be right. And you could say that Murphy had done me a favor with the medical kit, in order to obligate me to her when she told me that she wanted to be dealt in, and you'd be right.

You could also say that I was standing around dithering when time was critical, and you'd be right about that, too.

At the end of the day, Murphy is good people.

I got in the car.

"So let me get this straight," Murphy said, as we approached my apartment. "You're hiding a fugitive from your own people's cops, and you think the guy's been set up in order to touch off a civil war within the White Council. And there's some kind of Navajo boogeyman loose in town, following you around and attempting to kill you. And you aren't sure they're related."

"More like I don't know how they're related. Yet."

Murphy chewed on her lip. "Is there anyone on the Council who is in tight with Native American boogeymen?"

"Hard to imagine it," I said quietly. "Injun Joe" Listens-to-Wind was a Senior Council member who was some kind of Native American shaman. He was a doctor, a healer, and a specialist in exorcisms and restorative magic. He was, in fact, a decent guy. He liked animals.

"But someone's a traitor," Murphy said quietly. "Right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Someone."

Murphy nodded, frowning at the road ahead of her. "The reason treachery is so reviled," she said in a careful tone of voice, "is because it usually comes from someone you didn't think could possibly do such a thing."

I didn't say anything in reply. In a minute, her car crunched to a stop in the little gravel lot outside my apartment.

I picked up the medical kit, the cooler, and my staff, and got out of the car.

"Call me the minute you know something," she said.

"Yep," I told her. "Don't take any chances if you see something coming."

She shook her head. "They aren't your kids, Harry."

"Doesn't matter. Anything you can do to protect them in the hospital..."

"Relax," she said. "Your werewolves won't be alone. I'll see to it."

I nodded and closed my eyes for a second.

"Harry?" she asked me.

"Yeah?"

"You... don't look so good."

"It's been a long night," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "Look. I know something about those."

Murphy did. She'd had more than her share of psychic trauma. She'd seen friends die, too. My memory turned out an unwelcome flash from years before-her former partner, Carmichael, half eviscerated and bleeding to death on white institutional tile flooring.

"I'll make it," I said.

"Of course you will," she said. "There's just... there's a lot of ways you could deal, Harry. Some of them are better than others. I care about what happens to you. And I'm here."

I kept my eyes closed in order to make sure I didn't start crying like a girl or something. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"Take care, Harry," she said.

"You, too," I said. It came out a little raspy. I tilted the toolbox at her in a wave, and headed into my apartment to see Morgan.

I had to admit-I hated hearing the sound of my friend's car leaving.

I pushed those thoughts away. Psychic trauma or not, I could fall to little pieces later.

I had work to do.

Chapter Seven

Morgan woke up when I opened the bedroom door. He looked bad, but not any worse than he did before, except for some spots of color on his cheeks.

"Lemme see to my roommates," I said. "I got the goods." I put the medical kit down on the nightstand.

He nodded and closed his eyes.

I took Mouse outside for a walk to the mailbox. He seemed unusually alert, nose snuffling at everything, but he didn't show any signs of alarm. We went by the spot in the tiny backyard that had been designated as Mouse's business area, and went back inside. Mister, my bobtailed grey tomcat, was waiting when I opened the door, and tried to bolt out. I caught him, barely: Mister weighs the next best thing to thirty pounds. He gave me a look that might have been indignant, then raised his stumpy tail straight in the air and walked haughtily away, making his way to his usual resting point atop one of my apartment's bookcases.

Mouse looked at me with his head tilted as I shut the door.

"Something bad is running around out there," I told him. "It might decide to send me a message. I'd rather he didn't use Mister to do it."

Mouse's cavernous chest rumbled with a low growl.

"Or you, either, for that matter," I told him. "I don't know if you know what a skinwalker is, but it's serious trouble. Watch yourself."

Mouse considered that for a moment, and then yawned.

I found myself laughing. "Pride goes before a fall, boy."

He wagged his tail at me and rubbed up against my leg, evidently pleased to have made me smile. I made sure both sets of bowls had food and water in them, and then went in to Morgan.

His temperature was up another half a degree, and he was obviously in pain.

"This isn't heavy-duty stuff," I told him, as I broke out the medical kit. "Me and Billy made a run up to Canada for most of it. There's some codeine for the pain, though, and I've got the stuff to run an IV for you, saline, intravenous antibiotics."

Morgan nodded. Then he frowned at me, an expression I was used to from him, raked his eyes over me more closely, and asked, "Is that blood I smell on you?"

Damn. For a guy who had been beaten to within a few inches of death's door, he was fairly observant. Andi hadn't really been bleeding when we picked her up in my coat. She was only oozing from a number of gouges and scrapes-but there had been enough of them to add up. "Yeah," I said.

"What happened?"

I told him about the skinwalker and what had happened to Kirby and Andi.

He shook his head wearily. "There's a reason we don't encourage amateurs to try to act like Wardens, Dresden."