Turn Coat (The Dresden Files 11)

"Do me a favor," I said. "Take Mouse and grab the mail."

"I'm fine. I don't need-" she began. Then she stopped herself, shook her head, and looked at Mouse.

The big dog heaved himself up, walked over to the basket next to the door, grasped his leather lead in his jaws, and dragged it out. Then he looked up at Molly, his head cocked to one side, his tail wagging hopefully.

Molly let out a rueful little laugh and knelt down to hug the big dog. She clipped his lead onto his collar, and the two of them left.

I turned and eyed the candle. It had spilled hot wax onto a genuine Navajo rug on the floor, but it hadn't set anything on fire. I bent down and picked up the candle, then started trying to clean up the spilled wax as best I could.

"Why?" I asked in a hard voice.

"It's one way to take a measure of a man," he said. "Looking at his students."

"You didn't look," I said. "You needled her until she broke."

"She's a self-proclaimed warlock, Dresden," he replied. "Guilty of one of the most hideous and self-destructive crimes a wizard can commit. Is there some reason she shouldn't be tested?"

"What you did was cruel," I said.

"Was it?" Morgan asked. "There are others she is going to meet, one day, who will be even less gracious. Are you preparing her to deal with those people?"

I glared at him.

His gaze never wavered. "You aren't doing her any favors by going easy on her, Dresden," he said, more quietly. "You aren't preparing her for exams. She doesn't receive a bad mark if she fails."

I was quiet for a minute. Then I asked, "Did you learn shields as an apprentice?"

"Of course. One of my earliest lessons."

"How did your master teach you?"

"She threw stones at me," he said.

I grunted, without looking at him.

"Pain is an excellent motivator," he said. "And it teaches one to control one's emotions at the same time." He tilted his head. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," I told him. "She could have broken your head open, you know."

He gave me that same unsettling smile. "You wouldn't have let her."

Molly came back into the apartment, carrying a handful of mail, including one of those stupid Circuit City fliers that they just won't stop sending me. She shut the door, put the wards back up, and took Mouse's lead off. The big dog went over to the kitchen and flopped down.

Molly put the mail on the coffee table, gave Morgan a level pensive look, and then nodded at him. "So... what's he doing here, boss?"

I stared at Molly for a moment, and then at Morgan. "What do you think?" I asked him.

He shrugged a shoulder. "She already knows enough to implicate her. Besides, Dresden-if you go down with me, there's no one left to take responsibility for her. Her sentence will not remain suspended."

I ground my teeth together. Molly had made a couple of bad choices a few years back, and violated one of the Laws of Magic in doing so. The White Council takes a harsh view of such things-their reactions start with beheadings, and become progressively less tolerant. I'd staked my own life on the belief that Molly wasn't rotten to the core, and that I could rehabilitate her. When I did it, I'd known that I was risking my own well-being. If Molly backslid, I'd bear the responsibility for it, and get a death sentence about twenty seconds after she did.

I hadn't really considered that it would also work the other way around.

Say for a minute that it was Morgan's intention to get caught and take me down with him. It also meant that Molly would take a fall. He'd get rid of both of the Council's former warlocks with the same move. Two birds, one stone.

Well, crap.

"Okay," I sighed. "I guess you're in."

"I am?" Molly looked at me with widening eyes. "Um. In what?"

I told her.

Chapter Twelve

"I don't like it," Morgan growled, as I pushed the wheelchair over the gravel toward the street and the van Thomas had rented.

"Gee. There's a shock," I said. Morgan was a lot to push around, even with the help of the chair. "You upset with how I operate."

"He's a vampire," Morgan said. "He can't be trusted."

"I can hear you," Thomas said from the driver's seat of the van.

"I know that, vampire," Morgan said, without raising his voice. He eyed me again.

"He owes me a favor," I said, "from that coup attempt in the White Court."

Morgan glowered at me. "You're lying," he said.

"For all you know it's true."

"No, it isn't," he said flatly. "You're lying to me."

"Well, yes."

He looked from me to the van. "You trust him."

"To a degree," I said.

"Idiot," he said, though he sounded like his heart wasn't in it. "Even when a White Court vampire is sincere, you can't trust it. Sooner or later, its demon takes control. And then you're nothing but food. It's what they are."

I felt a little surge of anger and clubbed it down before it could make my mouth start moving. "You came to me, remember? You don't like how I'm helping you, feel free to roll yourself right out of my life."

Morgan gave me a disgusted look, folded his arms-and shut his mouth.

Thomas turned on the hazard lights as the van idled on the street; then he came around and opened up the side door. He turned to Morgan and picked up the wheelchair the wounded Warden sat in with about as much effort as I'd use to move a sack of groceries from the cart into my car's trunk. Thomas put the wheelchair carefully into the van, while Morgan held the IV bag steady on its little metal pole clamped to the chair's arm.

I had to give Morgan a grudging moment of admiration. He was one tough son of a bitch. Obviously in agony, obviously exhausted, obviously operating in the shambles of his own shattered pride, he was still stubborn enough to be paranoid and annoying. If he wasn't aiming it all at me, I probably would have admired him even more.

Thomas slid the door shut on Morgan, rolled his eyes at me, and got back into the driver's seat.

Molly came hurrying up, carrying a pair of backpacks, holding one end of Mouse's leash. I held out my hand, and she tossed me the black nylon pack. It was my trouble kit. Among other things, it contained food, water, a medical kit, survival blankets, chemical light sticks, duct tape, two changes of clothing, a multitool, two hundred dollars in cash, my passport, and a couple of favorite paperbacks. I always kept the trouble kit ready and available, in case I need to move out in a hurry. It had everything I would need to survive about ninety percent of the planet's environments for at least a couple of days.