Dead Beat

"Both," I said. "There are some things happening."

She nodded, her dark eyes serious. "I’ve heard that there’s something bad brewing. It’s what you’re working on, isn’t it?"

"Yes."

She fretted at her lower lip. "Then why are you here?"

She looked beautiful like that, in a sleepshirt in the candlelight. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but she looked deliriously soft and feminine. I thought about kissing her again, just to make sure that the first one hadn’t been some sort of anomaly. Then I shook my head and reminded myself that tonight was about business. "I just needed to make sure that you were all right."

Her eyes widened. "Am I in some kind of danger?"

I lifted my hand placatingly. "I don’t think you are now. But I was followed today. I had to be sure that you were safe. Have you seen anyone? Maybe felt nervous or anxious for no reason?"

"No more than any other day," she said. Thunder rumbled, and the rain kept drumming on her windows. "Honestly."

I let out my breath and felt myself relax a little. "Okay, good. I’m glad."

Thunder rumbled again and we both just stood there, staring at each other. Both of us glanced, just for a second, at the other’s eyes, then pulled away before anything could happen.

"Harry," she said quietly. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"You already have," I said.

She took a step closer, and her dark eyes looked huge. "Are you sure?"

My heart sped up again, but I took a little step back from her. "Yeah. Shiela, I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on the rest of tonight if I didn’t look in on you first."

She nodded then, and folded her arms. "All right. But when you’re finished with this, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about."

"What?" I asked.

She shook her head and put her hand on my arm. "It would take some time to explain it. If you think you need your focus for tonight, I don’t want to distract you with anything."

I looked at her, and then deliberately down her, and said, "That’s probably best. I’m finding you very distracting right now."

She flushed brighter. "No. That’s just you reacting to being in danger. You’re afraid that you’re going to die, and sex is very life affirming."

"Is that what it is?" I drawled.

"Among other things," she said.

For a few seconds my hormones did their best to lobby for overcoming distraction by means of indulgence, but I reined them in. Shiela was right: I was in pain and in fear and in danger, and those kinds of circumstances have a tendency to make you pay attention to different things- the soft shine of candlelight on Shiela’s hair, for example, or the soft scent of rose oil and flowered soap on her skin-and Shiela had been in danger for part of that time as well.

I didn’t want to take advantage of that. And I didn’t want to start anything with her that I wasn’t going to be able to finish. For all I knew I’d be dead before another day was out, and it wouldn’t be right to allow things to go any further just because I was afraid.

On the other hand, though, there was nothing wrong with savoring life while you still had it.

I leaned down to her, lifted her chin gently with my right hand, and kissed her mouth again. She quivered and returned it with a slow, hesitant shyness. I stayed like that for a moment, tasting her lips, my fingertips light on her chin, and then straightened, breaking it off very slowly.

She opened her eyes a moment later, her breathing a little fast.

I touched her cheek with my fingertips and smiled at her. "I’ll call you soon."

She nodded, her eyes clouding with concern. "Be careful."

"Harry?" called a voice.

I blinked and looked around.

"Harry!" he called again, and I recognized Butters’s voice. There was a curious quality to the acoustics of his voice-as if he were standing in an empty room, with no furniture or carpeting to absorb any sound.

Shiela froze, looking toward her door, and then said, "Dammit."

I blinked at her. "What?"

"I didn’t want this to distract you," she said, and her tone was enigmatic.

I frowned at her for a moment and then opened the door to the apartment. Butters stood in the hall. He’d improvised a lead for Mouse out of what looked like the torn hem of his scrubs tunic, and my big shaggy dog headed for me, nose to the ground, pulling Butters along the way. Butters, for his part, stumbled along uncertainly, as if he’d had a little too much to drink and couldn’t get his balance.

"Butters?" I said. "What’s up?"

"The car died," he said. "And there were some guys who looked like they didn’t like me on the street, so I came to find you."

Butters stopped, or tried to. Mouse chuffed out a breath in greeting and headed straight for me. I leaned down to scratch at Mouse’s ears. "Hey, Mouse. Shiela, this is my dog, Mouse. And this is Waldo Butters. He’s a friend of mine."

Shiela blinked her eyes closed slowly and looked away.

Butters peered and squinted, looking around him. "What?"

I frowned at him and touched his arm. "Are you okay?"

He flinched a little when I touched him, then clapped a hand down on my arm as if using it to orient on me. "Harry?" he asked. "Don’t you have a light?"

I lifted my eyebrows at him and lifted my pentacle, willing it to light. "Here," I said. "Shiela, I hope you don’t mind if they come in?"

Butters peered up at me and then around him.

"Harry?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Um, who are you talking to?"

I stared at him for a silent second.

And then a few details floated together in my mind, and the bottom dropped all the way out of my stomach.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and opened my inner vision, my wizard’s Sight, and turned to face Shiela.

The little apartment simply dissolved, sliding away like paint being washed away by a stream of falling water. In its place I could see a dimly lit, gutted building. Studs stood naked where the drywall had been removed. There were piles of scrap wiring, half-rotted-looking ducts, and similar refuse, which had been removed from the building and thrown aside into refuse piles. The place had been prepared for renovation-but it was empty. The only window I could see was broken. Thunder rumbled, the sound slightly different than it had been a moment before. The driving rain gained a couple of notches of volume, beating hollowly on the old apartment building.

I stared at Shiela with my Sight, and she stood there unchanged- except that I could see a faint tint of light around her, subtle but definite. It meant that she was either a noncorporeal presence or an illusion of thought and energy rather than a reality. But if she’d been an illusion, she should have faded away entirely, as the apartment had done.