Blood Rites (The Dresden Files 6)

Chapter Twenty-nine

Murphy grabbed a gym bag out of her car and then followed me to Ebenezar's truck. She stopped about twenty feet short of it and said, "You're kidding me."

"Come on," I said. "You want to show up where there might be some trouble in your own car? That'd be nice for responding emergency units to see. So get in."

"What does it run on, coal?"

Ebenezar stuck his bald head out of the window, scowling. "No idea. Mostly I just turn it loose to hunt down dinner for itself."

"Murph," I said. "This is Ebenezar McCoy. Ebenezar, this is Karrin Murphy."

"You," Ebenezar said without approval. "I heard you've given the boy a hard time."

Murphy scowled. "Who the hell are you?"

"My teacher," I told her in a quieter voice. "A friend."

She glanced at me, then pursed her lips. She didn't miss the shotgun or the staff in the truck. "You're coming along to help?"

"As long as you don't think I'm too old, girlie," he drawled, heavy on the sarcasm.

"You got a driver's license? You driven Chicago streets lately?"

The old wizard scowled at her.

"Thought so," she said. "Move over."

He sputtered. "What?"

"I'm driving," she said. "So move."

I sighed. "Better move over, sir," I told Ebenezar. "We're in a hurry."

Murphy's gym bag thumped onto the ground and she stared at me with her mouth open.

"What?" I asked.

"Sir?" she said, her voice incredulous.

I scowled at her and ducked my head.

She picked up her bag, blinked a couple of times, and said, in her professionally politest tones, "If you don't mind, Mister McCoy, I know the streets better, and there are lives at stake."

Ebenezar's scowl had been half subverted by a small smile, but he said, "Bah. I'm too old to see the street signs anyway." He opened the door and started scooting. "Get in, get in. Come on, Hoss; we ain't got time to wait on you."

Murphy did not go so far as to slap her magnetic cop light on the top of the truck, but she got us to a parking garage near Mavra's lair in a big hurry. She knew the streets of the old town as well as anyone I'd ever seen, and she regarded niceties like red lights, one-way streets, and right-of-way with an almost magnificent lack of concern. Ebenezar's old truck kept up with her gamely enough, though I found my head bouncing off the roof a couple of times.

I told Murphy what I'd learned about the vampires' lair on the way.

Murphy shook her head. "Damn. This isn't what I expected. That they'd take something right in the middle of so many people."

"Me either," I said. "But that only means we need to move sooner instead of later. The longer the vamps are there, the more of those hostages they're going to bleed out, and the greater the risk of one of their Renfields snapping and opening up on pedestrians with an assault rifle."

"Assault rifles," Murphy said. "And hostages. Jesus, Harry, people could die."

"No could about it. They're already dying," I replied. "At least three bodies already. And the Renfields are just a matter of time."

"What if you're wrong?" Murphy said. "Do you really expect me to charge in guns blazing against people who might or might not already be dead? I have an obligation to protect citizens, not to sacrifice them."

My teeth clacked together as the truck went over a heavy bump. "These are the Black Court. They kill, and they do it frequently. Not only that, but they can propagate their kind more rapidly than any other vampire. If we let a nest of them go unmolested, we could potentially have dozens of them in a few days. In two weeks there could be hundreds. Something has to be done, and now."

Murphy shook her head. "But it doesn't mean it needs to be vigilante work. Harry, give me three hours to establish probable cause and I'll have every cop and every SWAT team in two hundred miles ready to take on that nest."

"And you'll tell them what, exactly?" I said. "'Basement full of vampires' is not going to cut it, and you know it. And if they go in with blinders on, cops will get killed."

"And if it's us?" Murphy asked. "What then? We kick down the door, shoot anything standing, and then make like we're the Flying Van Helsings? A direct assault on a wary target is one of the best ways in the world to get killed."

"So we figure something out," I said. "We get a plan."

Murphy shot me a look past Ebenezar, who evidently had decided to stay out of it. "This isn't like the Wal-Mart plan with the marbles, is it?"

"I'll tell you when I know. Let's get there and see if we can find out first. Maybe Kincaid will have something."

"Yeah," Murphy said without much hope. "Maybe. Here, this is where Kincaid is meeting us."

It wasn't a pleasant neighborhood. The city had been working on urban renewal projects for decades, but the lion's share of the money had gone to restore higher-profile, more infamous neighborhoods, such as Cabrini Green. In that time, many neighborhoods that had been borderline steadily eroded, and had usurped the infamous-neighborhood crown. The slum is dead. Long live the slum.

I'd seen worse, but not many. Tall buildings and narrow alleys choked out a lot of the sunshine. Most windows below the third or fourth floor had been boarded up. Ground level commercial properties were largely vacant. The storm drains were clogged with litter and other urban detritus, most of the streetlights were out, and graffiti and gang signs had been spray-painted everywhere. The air smelled like mildew, garbage, and exhaust. The residents of the neighborhood moved with brisk purpose, confidence, and flat eyes as they walked, doing everything they could to indicate by body language that they were not good targets for assault or robbery.

I spotted a drug house in the first ten seconds of looking around. The burned-out hulk of an abandoned car had been stripped for parts before it had been set on fire, and I had a notion that Murphy was the first cop to visit in the past several weeks.

But there was something missing.

Bums. Transients. Homeless folk. Winos. Bag ladies. Even in broad daylight there should have been someone collecting cans, panhandling change, or shambling along drinking from a bottle still covered with a paper bag.

But there wasn't. Everyone moving was getting from one place to another, not eking out a living from the environment.

"Look kind of quiet to you here?" Murphy asked, voice tight.

"Yeah," I said.

"They've been killing," she said, almost spitting the words.

"Maybe. Maybe not," Ebenezar said.

I nodded. "There's dark power at work here. People sense that, even if they don't know what it is. You're feeling it now."

"What do you mean?"

I shrugged. "The presence of dark magic. It makes you feel nervous and angry. If you forced yourself to calm down and tried to sense it, you could feel it. It leaves a kind of stain around it."

"Stinks," rumbled Ebenezar.

"What does that have to do with missing street people?" Murphy asked.

"You've been here about three minutes, and the power bothers you already. Imagine living in it. Getting a little more afraid every day. Angrier. More demoralized. People get rattled enough to leave, even if they don't understand why. Over the long term this kind of power breeds its own wasteland."

"You mean that the vampires have been here for a while?" she asked.

"To have this much effect, it's been days at least," I said, nodding.

"More like two weeks." Ebenezar grunted with assurance. "Maybe three."

"God," Murphy said, shivering. "That's scary."

"Yeah. If they've been here that long, it means Mavra has something in mind."

She frowned. "You mean that this vampire came here and then chose when to make you aware of its presence? This could be a trap."

"It's possible. Paranoid, but possible."

Her mouth tightened into a line. "You didn't mention that at breakfast."

"We're doing battle with the living dead, Murph. Expect the occasional curveball."

"Are you patronizing me now?"

I shook my head. "No. Honest. Where's Kincaid?"

"Second level of this parking garage," Murphy said.

"Stop on the first level," I told her.

"Why?"

"He doesn't know about Ebenezar, and I don't want to spook him. We'll walk up and meet him."

Ebenezar nodded to us and said, "Good call, Hoss. Decent gunman can be twitchy. I'll give you a minute, then drive on up."

Murphy stopped the truck and we got out. I waited until we were several paces from the truck before I lowered my voice and said, "I know. You're afraid."

She glared at me, and started to deny it. But she knew better, and shrugged one shoulder instead. "Some."

"So am I. It's okay."