Turn Coat

"Maybe you didn’t hear, love, but I spent my day chained to a chair getting popped in the mouth."

Madeline laughed, a cold, mocking sound. "There are places you’d have to pay for that."

"Not bloody likely."

"Did you find Morgan?"

Binder growled. "Dresden had him stashed in rental storage for a bit, but he hared off before the cops could pick him up. Probably took him into the Nevernever. They could be anywhere."

"Not if Dresden is back in Chicago," Madeline said. "He’d never let himself be too far from Morgan."

"So check his bloody apartment," Binder said.

"Don’t be an idiot," Madeline said. "That’s the first place anyone would look. He’s not a total moron."

Yeah. I wasn’t. Ahem.

Binder snickered. "You’re money, Raith. Money never really gets it."

Madeline’s voice turned waspish. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"That not everyone has a bloody string of mansions around the world that they live in or extra cars that they never really drive or cash enough to not think twice about dropping two hundred bloody dollars on a bottle of forty-dollar room service champagne."

"So?"

"So, Dresden’s a bloody kid by Council standards. Lives in that crappy little hole. And pays for an office for his business, to boot. He ain’t had a century or two of compounded interest to shore up his accounts, now, has he? And when he set himself up an emergency retreat, did he buy himself a furnished condo in another town? No. He rents out a cruddy little storage unit and stacks some camping gear inside."

"All right," Madeline said, her tone impatient. "Suppose you’re right. Suppose he’s got Morgan at his apartment. He won’t have left him unprotected."

"Naturally not," Binder replied. "He’ll have a bloody minefield of wards around the place. Might have some conjured guardians or some such as well."

"Could you get through them?"

"Give me enough time and enough of my lads, and yeah," he said. "But it wouldn’t be quick, quiet, or clean. There’s a simpler way."

"Which is?"

"Burn the bloody place down," Binder said promptly. "The apartment’s got one door. If Morgan comes scurrying out, we bag him. If not, we collect his bones after the ashes cool. Identify him with dental records or something and claim the reward."

I felt a little bit sick to my stomach. Binder was way too perceptive for my comfort level. The guy might not be overly smart, but he was more than a little cunning. His plan was pretty much exactly the best way to attack my apartment, defensive magicks notwithstanding. What’s more, I knew he was capable of actually doing it. It would kill my elderly neighbors, the other residents of the building, but that wouldn’t slow someone like Binder down for half of a second.

"No," Madeline said after a tense moment of silence. "I have my instructions. If we can’t take him ourselves, we at least see to it that the Wardens find him."

"The Wardens have found him," Binder complained. "Dresden’s a bloody Warden. Your boss should have paid up already."

There was a quiet, deadly silence, and then Madeline purred, "You’ve been modestly helpful to him in the past, Binder. But don’t start thinking that you would survive telling him what he should or should not do. The moment you become more annoying than useful, you are a dead man."

"No sin to want money," Binder said sullenly. "I did my part to get it."

"No," Madeline said. "You lost a fight to one overgrown Boy Scout and one pint-sized mortal woman, got yourself locked up by the police, of all the ridiculous things, and missed your chance to earn the reward." Sheets rustled, and soft footsteps whispered on the carpet. A moment later, a lighter flicked-Madeline smoked.

Binder spoke again, in a tone of voice that indicated he was changing the topic of conversation. "You going to clean that up?"

"That’s exactly why it’s there," Madeline said. She took a drag and said, "Cleaning up. It’s too bad you didn’t get here five minutes sooner."

"And why is that?"

"Because I probably would have waited to make the call."

I felt myself leaning forward slightly and holding my breath.

"What call?" Binder said.

"To the Wardens, naturally," Madeline said. "I told them that Morgan was in town and that Dresden was sheltering him. They should be here within the hour."

I felt my mouth drop open and my stomach did a cartwheeling back-flip with an integrated quadruple axle.

Oh, crap.

Chapter Thirty-three

Murphy looked at the Rolls and said, "You’re kidding." We’d driven down to the Sax separately, and she hadn’t seen the wheels I was using. I was parked closer to the hotel, so we were about to get into the Silver Wraith together.

"It’s a loaner," I said. "Get in."

"I am not a material girl," she said, running a hand over the Rolls’s fender. "But… damn."

"Can we focus, here?" I said. "The world’s coming to an end."

Murphy shook her head and then got in the car with me. "Well. At least you’re going out in style."

I got the Rolls moving. It got plenty of looks, even in the dead of night, and the other motorists out so late gave it a generous amount of room, as if intimidated by the Wraith’s sheer artistry.

"Actually," I said, "I’m kind of finding the Rolls to be irrationally comforting."

Murphy glanced aside at me. "Why’s that?"

"I know how I’m going to die, you know? One of these days, maybe real soon, I’m going to find out I’ve bitten off more than I can chew." I swallowed. "I mean, I just can’t keep from sticking my nose in places people don’t want it. And I always figured it would be the Council who punched my ticket, regardless of who believed what about me. Because there’s a bunch of assholes there, and I just can’t let them wallow in their own bull and pretend it’s an air of nobility."

Murphy’s expression became more sober. She listened in silence.

"Now the Council’s coming. And they’ve got good reason to take me out. Or it looks like it to them, which is the same thing." I swallowed again. My mouth felt dry. "But… I somehow just have the feeling that when I go out… it isn’t going to be in style." I gestured at the Rolls with a vague sweep of one hand. "This just isn’t the car I drive to my death. You know?"

Murph’s mouth tucked up at one corner, though most of the smile was in her eyes. She took my hand between hers and held it. Her hands felt very warm. Maybe mine were just cold. "You’re right, of course, Harry."