I opened the bullet-dented door, went inside, turned toward the bedroom door, and was faced with a bizarre tableau.
Morgan was off the bed, sitting on the floor with his back to it, his wounded leg stretched out in front of him. He looked awful, but his eyes were narrowed and glittered with suspicion.
Sprawled in the bedroom doorway was my apprentice, Molly Carpenter.
Molly was a tall young woman with a bunch of really well-arranged curves and shoulder-length hair that was, this month, dyed a brilliant shade of sapphire. She was wearing cutoff blue jeans and a white tank top, and her blue eyes looked exasperated.
She was sprawling on the floor because Mouse was more or less lying on top of her. He wasn't letting his full weight rest on her, because it probably would have smothered her, but it seemed obvious that she was not able to move.
"Harry!" Molly said. She started to say something else, but Mouse leaned into her a little, and suddenly all she could do was gasp for air.
"Dresden!" Morgan growled at about the same time. He shifted his weight, as if to get up.
Mouse turned his head to Morgan and gave him a steady look, his lips peeling back from his fangs.
Morgan settled down.
"Hooboy," I sighed, and pushed the door shut, leaving the room in complete darkness. I locked the door, put the wards back up, and then muttered, "Flickum bicus." I waved my hand as I spoke, and sent a minor effort of will out into the room, and half a dozen candles flickered to life.
Mouse turned to me and gave me what I could have sworn was a reproachful look. Then he got up off of Molly, padded into the alcove that served as my kitchen, and deliberately yawned at me before flopping down on the floor to sleep. The meaning was clear: now it's your problem.
"Ah," I said, glancing from Mouse to my apprentice to my guest. "Um. What happened here, exactly?"
"The warlock tried to sneak up on me while I slept," Morgan spat.
Molly quickly stood up and scowled at Morgan, her hands clenched into fists. "Oh, that's ridiculous."
"Then explain what you're doing here this late at night," Morgan said. "What possible reason could you have to show up here, now?"
"I'm making concentration-supporting potions," she said from between clenched teeth, in a tone that suggested she'd repeated herself about a hundred times already. "The jasmine has to go in at night. Tell him, Harry."
Crap. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten that the grasshopper was scheduled to show up and pull an all-nighter. "Um," I said. "What I meant to ask was, how is it that Mouse came to be sitting on you both?"
"The warlock summoned up her will and prepared to attack me," Morgan said frostily. "The dog intervened."
Molly rolled her eyes and glared at him. "Oh, please. You are such an asshole."
The air in the room seemed to tighten a little, as power gathered around the young woman.
"Molly," I said gently.
She glanced over at me, scowling. "What?"
I cleared my throat and gestured at her with one hand.
She blinked for a second, then seemed to catch on. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled it slowly. As she did, the ominous sense of stormy energy faded. Molly ducked her head a little, her cheeks flushing. "Sorry. But it wasn't like that."
Morgan snorted.
I ignored him. "Go on," I told Molly. "Talk."
"He just... I just got so angry," Molly said. "He made me so upset. I couldn't help it." She gestured to Mouse. "And then he just... just flattened me. And he wouldn't let me up, and he wouldn't let Morgan move, either."
"Seems to me that the dog had better sense than you," I said. I glanced up at Morgan. "Either of you. You're supposed to stay still. You wanna kill yourself?"
"It was a reaction to her approach," Morgan said calmly. "I survived it."
I shook my head. "And you," I said to Molly. "How many months have we spent working on your emotional control?"
"I know, I know," she said. "It's never good to use magic in anger. I know, Harry."
"You'd better know it," I said quietly. "If it's so easy to get a rise out of you that one bitter old washed-up Warden can blow your O-ring, the first reactionary goomba to come along looking for an excuse to take you out is going to put you in a casket, claim it was self-defense, and get away with it."
Morgan bared his teeth in an expression only remotely resembling a smile. "You'd know all about that, Dresden, wouldn't you?"
"You son of a bitch!" Molly snarled and whirled toward Morgan, seizing a candlestick and hefting it like a club. The candle on it tumbled to the floor.
Morgan sat perfectly still with that same gruesome smile on his face, never flinching.
I lurched forward and grabbed Molly's arm on her backswing, an instant before she would have brought the heavy candlestick crashing down on Morgan's skull. Molly was strong for a woman, and I had to make a pretty serious effort to hold her back, my fingers digging into her wrist, while I snagged her around the waist with my other arm and bodily hauled her away from Morgan.
"No!" I demanded. "Dammit, Molly, no!" I actually had to lift her feet off the ground to turn her away from the bedroom. I tightened my grip on her wrist and said, "Drop the candlestick, Molly. Now."
She let out a sound full of anger and laced with a little pain, and the heavy candlestick dropped to the floor, making a dull thud as it hit the rug-covered concrete. The air around her was alive with power, buzzing against my skin like a thousand tiny sparks of static electricity in a dry winter. "He can't talk to you like that," Molly snarled.
"Think," I told her, my voice hard but measured. "Remember the lessons. They're just words, Molly. Look for the thought behind them. He set you up for this reaction. You're allowing him to make you embarrass me."
Molly opened her mouth on an angry retort, then forced her mouth closed and turned her face away from me. She remained rigidly tense, and after a fuming half minute, she said, her voice more calm, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," I replied as gently as I could. "Be disciplined. You can't afford to let them rattle you. Not ever."
She took another deep breath, exhaled, and then I felt her begin to ease down, relaxing her mental grasp on the power she'd instinctively prepared. "Okay," she said. "Okay, Harry."
I let her go slowly. She began to rub at her right wrist with her other hand. I winced a little on her behalf. I thought I'd left bruises on her skin.