Small Favor

"Possibly," I said. "I’m on speaking terms with one or two of the loa. But that kind of information is either expensive or unreliable. Sometimes both. And remember who we’re talking about. The Fallen are heavyweights in the spirit world. No one wants to cross them."

Molly made a frustrated sound. "If we can’t track them with magic, and we can’t find them physically, then how are we supposed to learn more about them?"

"Exactly, kid," I said. "Hence the whole ‘war council’ concept."

We ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Murphy said, "We’re coming at this from the wrong angle."

"Eh?" I said wittily.

"We’re thinking like the good guys. We should be thinking like the bad guys. Figuring out what they had to face and get around."

I leaned forward a little and nodded at her to go on.

"I don’t know as much about the supernatural aspects of this situation," she said. "I don’t know much of anything about these Denarians. But I do know some things about Marcone. For example, I know that even if he has some underlings who want to take over the franchise, he’s got more who are personally loyal or who will figure that bailing him out will reap them some major profits."

"Yeah," I said, tilting my head at her. "So?"

"So wherever they took him, it has to be somewhere Marcone’s network can’t reach. We can be virtually certain that they aren’t hiding in plain sight."

I grunted. "Hell’s bells, yeah. Not only that, but Marcone plans ahead. He had that panic room ready to go. In fact…" My eyes widened. "The location of your secret hidey-hole ought to be awfully secret, don’t you think?"

"Sure," Molly said. "What good is a hiding place if everyone knows where it is?"

"The Denarians knew exactly where he was going," I said. "The spell they set up to tear down that building’s defenses was no spur-of-the-moment magic-it was too complex. It had been planned out ahead of time."

"Son of a bitch," Thomas swore. "Someone inside Marcone’s organization ratted him out."

"So if we find the rat…" Murphy said, catching on.

"We might find a trail that leads back to the Nickelheads," I finished with a fierce grin. "Was this war council concept a brilliant idea or what?"

Molly tittered. "Nickelheads."

"I have a gift," I said modestly. Then I added in a low voice, "And stop giggling. Wizards don’t giggle. Bad for the image."

Molly buried her giggle in another mouthful of fries.

I slurped on my Coke and turned to Murphy. "So, what we need to do is figure out who’s going to backstab Marcone. Someone highly placed enough to know the location of the safehouse, and who will profit by Marcone’s absence."

"You’re assuming the informant was complicit," Murphy said. "That wouldn’t necessarily be true. Someone could have inadvertently given information away, or been compelled to cooperate."

I paused to think about that. "True. So we’ll have to start by looking at who could have given away the safe house."

Murphy raked her fingers through her dark-golden hair, frowning in thought. "To be honest, SI doesn’t cross trails with the outfit all that often. I’d have to make some calls to find out."

Thomas drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "The FBI would have more, wouldn’t they?"

"And you know that guy Rick, right?" Molly said. "The one who was helping that jerk interrogate me?"

Murphy’s eyes narrowed. She made a noise that wasn’t quite an agreement, but wasn’t quite a denial, either. Murphy has issues with her ex-husband.

It took Molly about half a second to figure out the expression on Murphy’s face. She looked around the room somewhat desperately for a moment. "Uh, so, Harry, what’s with Mister? He’s been sleeping like a log the whole time we’ve been here."

"Which brings us to the second part of the problem," I said. "The hitters from the Summer Court. I think odds are good that they’ve got my place under surveillance."

Thomas arched an eyebrow. "I didn’t sense anything coming in."

"You didn’t sense anything walking through the front door of the pub, either," Murphy said archly.

"I was circling the block," Thomas said crossly. "Middle of a damned blizzard and you still can’t find a parking spot. I hate this town."

"I’ve got warning spells spread out all around this place," I said. "Anything gets within a block and I’ll probably know about it. And you’ve got to get up early in the morning to sneak past Mouse."

Mouse, who was sitting in front of Molly making soulful eyes at her chicken sandwich, glanced at me and wagged his tail.

"If they were very close, I’d know it. They’re probably spread out in a loose ring, watching who comes and goes," I said. "The gruffs don’t really want to kick my apartment door down-not yet, at any rate. They’d rather fight where there won’t be collateral damage. But I’ve got a feeling that they aren’t at their best in all this snow."

Molly frowned. "You think Mab is influencing the weather for you?"

"Maybe the ongoing record snowfall is a coincidence," I said. "But if so, it’s awfully convenient."

"Nothing’s ever convenient with you, Dresden," Murphy said.

"Exactly my point." I rubbed at my jaw. I needed to shave, but my throbbing nose was bad enough without adding a couple of razor nicks to the mess. I didn’t trust my hands to be steady. There were too many scary things moving around, and if I stopped long enough to think about how far in over my head I was getting, I might just crawl into a hole and pull it in after me.

Don’t think, Harry. You know too much about what you’re up against.

Analyze, decide, and act.

"Okay. We can assume that the Summer crew saw us come in. As long as we don’t leave, they’ll assume that we’re still here."

Molly said, "Aha. I wondered why you asked me along."

I winked at her. "Know thyself, grasshopper. Yeah. When we leave, I want you to make sure that the gruffs and their crew don’t notice. Hopefully that will buy us some more time while they play patient hunter and wait for me to expose myself again."

"Heh," Thomas sniggered. "Expose yourself."

Murphy tossed an onion ring at him, which he caught and popped in his mouth.

"Meanwhile, I’ve got a new toy for you to play with, Thomas."

My brother arched his eyebrows and focused his attention on me.

I went into my tiny bedroom and came back out with a small figurine, a rough figure of clay that resembled Gumby more than anything. I lifted it to my mouth and breathed on it, then murmured a word and said, "Catch."