"All of those people were trying to kill you, Murph. You had to do it. You didn't have an option. You thought about it. You knew that when you pulled the trigger."
"Do you think you had an option?" she asked.
I shrugged and said, "Maybe. Maybe not." I swallowed. "The point is that I never bothered to consider it. Never hesitated. I just wanted them dead."
She was quiet for a long time.
"What if the Council is right about me?" I asked Murphy quietly. "What if I grow into some kind of monster? One who takes life without consideration for anything but his own will. Who cares more about end than means. More about might than right. What if this is the first step?"
"Do you think it is?" Murphy asked.
"I don't-"
"Because if you think so, Harry, then it probably is. And if you decide that it isn't, it probably isn't."
"The power of positive thinking?" I asked.
"No. Free will," she said. "You can't change what has already happened. But you choose what to do next. Which means that you only cross over to the dark side if you choose to do it."
"What makes you think that I won't?" I asked.
Murphy snorted, and reached over to touch my chin lightly with the fingers of one hand. "Because I'm not an idiot. Unlike some other people in this car."
I reached up and gripped her fingers with my right hand, squeezing gently. Her hand was steady and warm. "Careful. That was almost a compliment."
"You're a decent man," Murphy said, lowering her hand without removing it from my fingers. "Painfully oblivious, sometimes. But you've got a good heart. It's why you're so hard on yourself. You're tired, hungry, and hurting, and you saw the bad guys do something you couldn't stop. Your morale is low. That's all."
Her words were simple, frank, and direct. There was no sense of false comfort to her tone, not a trace of indulgent pity. I've known Murphy for a while. I knew that she meant every single word. Knowing that I had her support, even in the face of violation of the laws she worked to preserve, was a sudden and vast comfort.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
Murphy is good people.
"Maybe you're right," I said. "Hell's bells, I've got to stop feeling sorry for myself and get to work."
"Start with food and rest," she said. "If you don't hear from me, assume I'll pick you up in the morning."
"Right," I said.
We sat there holding hands for a minute. "Karrin?" I asked.
She looked up at me. Her eyes looked very large, very blue. I couldn't stare at them too long. "Have you ever thought about... you know. Us?"
"Sometimes," she said.
"Me too," I said. "But... the timing always seems to be off, somehow."
She smiled a little. "I noticed."
"Do you think it'll ever be right?"
She squeezed my hand gently, and then withdrew hers from mine. "I don't know. Maybe sometime." She frowned at her hand, and then said, "It would change a lot of things."
"It would," I said.
"You're my friend, Harry," Murphy said. "No matter what happens. Sometimes in the past... I haven't really done right by you."
"Like when you handcuffed me in my office," I said.
"Right."
"And when you chipped one of my teeth arresting me."
Murphy blinked. "I chipped a tooth?"
"And when-"
"Yes, all right," she said. She gave me a mild glare, her cheeks pink.
"The point is that I should have seen that you were one of the good guys a lot sooner than I did. And..."
I blinked at her ingenuously, and waited for her to say it.
"And I'm sorry," she growled. "Jerk."
That had cost her something. Murphy has more pride than is good for her. And yes, I am aware of the proverb about glass houses and stones. So I didn't give her any more of a hard time than I already had. "Don't go all romantic on me now, Murph."
She smiled a little and rolled her eyes. "If we ever did get together, I'd kill you inside a week. Now, go get some rest. You're useless to me like this."
I nodded and swung out of the car. "In the morning, then."
"Around eight," she said, and pulled out and back onto the street. She called to me, "Be careful!"
I looked after the car and sighed. My feelings about Murphy were still in a hopelessly complicated tangle. Maybe I should have said something to her sooner. Shared my feelings with her sooner. Acted more swiftly, taken the initiative.
Be careful, she said.
Why did I feel like I'd been too careful already?
Chapter Fifteen
My Mickey Mouse alarm clock went off at seven, and buzzed stubbornly at me until I kicked off the covers, sat up, and shut it off. I ached all over, felt stiff all over, but that sense of overwhelming exhaustion had faded, and since I was already vertical, I got moving.
I got into the shower, and tried not to jump too much when the first shock of freezing water hit me. I've had some practice at it. I've never had a water heater last me more than a week without some kind of technical problem coming up-and that was the kind of thing you just did not want to take chances on when you have a gas heater. So my showers were always either cold or colder. Given my dating life, and the inhuman charms available to some of the beings who occasionally faced off with me, it was probably just as well.
But, especially when I had bumps and bruises and sore muscles, I wished I could have a skin-blistering hot shower like everyone else in the country.
And suddenly the water shifted from ice-cold to piping hot. It was a shock, and I actually let out a little yelp and danced around in the shower until I could redirect the shower head so that it wasn't scalding my bits and pieces. After the initial shock of the temperature change, I leaned my aching head and neck into the spray for a second, and let out a long groan. Then I said, "Dammit, I told you to stop that."
Lasciel's voice murmured in a quiet laugh under the sound of the water. The sensation of phantom fingertips dug into the wire-tight muscles at the base of my neck, easing soreness away. "You should use the technique I taught you last autumn to block out the discomfort."
"I don't need to," I said, and tried for grouchy. But the heated water and massaging fingers, illusory though they were, were simply delicious. "I'll be fine."
"Your discomfort is my discomfort, my host," she said, and sighed. "Literally, as all my perceptions can come only through your own."