He shook his head. "I know how it is, man. No apology needed."
"Okay," I said, without actually agreeing with him. "How is she?"
"Not good," he replied simply. "There was internal bleeding. It took two rounds of surgery to get it stopped." The blocky young man shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "They told us if she makes it through the night, she'll be out of the worst of it."
"How are you holding up?"
He shook his head again. "I don't know, man. I called Kirby's folks. I was his friend. I had to. The police had already contacted them, but it isn't the same."
"No, it isn't."
"They took it pretty hard. Kirby was an only child."
I sighed. "I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Kirby knew the risks. He'd rather have died than stand by and do nothing."
"Georgia?"
"I'd have lost it without her. Pillar of strength and calm," Billy said. He glanced back toward the waiting room and a smile touched the corners of his eyes. "She's good at setting things aside until there's time to deal with them. Once things have settled out, she'll be a wreck, and it'll be my turn to hold her up."
Like I said.
Solid.
"The thing that did Kirby took Thomas Raith," I said.
"The vampire you work with sometimes?"
"Yeah. As soon as I work out how to find it, I'm taking it down. The vampires are probably going to help-but I might need backup I can trust."
Billy's eyes flickered with a sudden fire of rage and hunger. "Yeah?"
I nodded. "It's part of something bigger. I can't talk to you about everything that's going on. And I know Andi needs you here. I understand if you don't-"
Billy turned his eyes to me, those same dangerous fires smoldering. "Harry, I'm not going to move forward blind anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that for years, I've been willing to help you, even though you could barely ever tell me what was actually happening. You've played everything close to the chest. And I know you had your reasons for that." He stopped walking and looked up at me calmly. "Kirby's dead. Maybe Andi, too."
My conscience wouldn't let me meet his gaze, even for an instant. "I know."
He nodded. "So. If I'd had this conversation with you sooner, maybe they wouldn't be. Maybe if we'd had a better idea about what's actually going on in the world, it would have changed how we approached things. They follow my lead, Harry. I have a responsibility to make sure that I do everything in my power to make them aware and safe."
"Yeah," I said. "I can see your point."
"Then if you want my help, things are going to change. I'm not charging ahead blindfolded again. Not ever."
"Billy," I said quietly. "This isn't stuff you can unlearn. Right now, you're insulated from the worst of what goes on because you're... I don't want to be insulting, but you're a bunch of amateurs without enough of a clue to be a real threat to anyone."
His eyes darkened. "Insulated from the worst?" he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice. "Tell that to Kirby. Tell that to Andi."
I took several steps away, pinched the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger, and closed my eyes, thinking. Billy had a point, of course. I'd been careful to control what information he and the Alphas had gotten from me, in an effort to protect them. And it had worked-for a while.
But now things were different. Kirby's death had seen to that.
"You're sure you don't want to back out?" I asked. "Once you're part of the scene, you aren't getting out of it." I clenched my jaw for a second. "And believe it or not, Billy, yes. You have been insulated from the worst."
"I'm not backing off on this one, Harry. I can't." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him fold his arms. "You're the one who wants our help."
I pointed a finger at him. "I don't want it. I don't want to drag you into what's going on. I don't want you walking into more danger and getting hurt." I sighed. "But... there's a lot at stake, and I think I might need you."
"Okay, then," Billy said. "You know what it will cost."
He stood facing me solidly, tired eyes steady, and I realized something I hadn't ever made into a tangible thought before: he wasn't a kid anymore. Not because he'd graduated, and not even because of how capable he was. He'd seen the worst-death, heartless and nasty, come to lay waste to everything it could. He knew in his heart of hearts, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it could come for him, take him as easily as it had taken Kirby.
And he was making a choice to stand his ground.
Billy Borden, kid werewolf, was gone.
Will was choosing to stand with me.
I couldn't treat him like a child anymore. Will was ignorant of the supernatural world beyond the fairly minor threats that lurked around the University of Chicago. He and the other werewolves had been kids who learned one really neat magic trick, almost ten years before. I hadn't shared more with them, and the paranormal community in general is careful about what they say to strangers. He had, at best, only a vague idea of the scope of supernatural affairs in general, and he had not the first clue about how hot the water really was around me right now.
Will had picked his ground. I couldn't keep him in the dark and tell myself that I was protecting him.
I nodded to a few chairs sitting along the wall at a nearby intersection of hallways. "Let's sit down. I don't have much time, and there's a lot to cover. I'll tell you everything when I get a chance, but for now all I can give you is a highlights reel."
By the time I got done giving Will the CliffsNotes version of the supernatural world, I still hadn't come up with a plan. So, working on the theory that the proper answers just needed more time to cook, and that they could do so while I was on the move, I went back to my borrowed car and drove to the next place I should have visited sooner than I had.
Murphy used to have an office at the headquarters of CPD's Special Investigations department. Then she'd blown off her professional duty as head of the department to cover me during a furball that went bad on an epic scale. She'd nearly lost her job altogether, but Murph was a third-generation cop from a cop clan. She'd managed to gain enough support to hang on to her badge, but she had been demoted to Detective Sergeant and had her seniority revoked-a dead end for her career.
Now her old office was occupied by John Stallings, and Murphy had a desk in the large room that housed SI. It wasn't a new desk, either. One leg was propped up with a small stack of triplicate report forms. It wasn't unusual in that room. SI was the bottom of the chute for cops who had earned the wrath of their superiors or, worse, had taken a misstep in the cutthroat world of Chicago city politics. The desks were all battered and old. The walls and floor were worn. The room obviously housed at least twice as many work desks as it had been meant to contain.