"It's my job." She focused her eyes in the distance. I could feel the trembling tension in her. I've known Murphy for a while now. I'd seen her like that before, when she wanted to fall apart but couldn't take the time to do it. She was better at managing that kind of thing than me. There was nothing in her expression but calm and confidence. "I'll put off everything I can and get back to you as soon as possible. Tomorrow sometime."
"Don't worry about me, Murph," I told her. "And don't be too hard on yourself. If you hadn't gotten in Greene's face and stayed here, a lot of people would be dead right now."
"A lot of people are dead right now," she said. "What about our bad guy?"
I felt my mouth stretch into a sharp-edged, wolfish smile. "He's entertaining unexpected guests."
"Is he going to survive them?"
"I doubt it," I told her cheerfully. "If one of those things had jumped me, instead of vice versa, it would have taken me out. Three of them would filet me."
Murphy's attention was drawn to the door. Several men in wrinkled suits came in and stood around rubbernecking. Murphy straightened her clothing. "What about collateral damage?"
"I don't think it will be an issue. I'll track them and make sure."
Murphy nodded. "Rawlins," she called.
The veteran had been hovering not far away, feigning disinterest.
She hooked a thumb up at me. "Babysit for me?"
"Shoot," Rawlins drawled. "Like I got nothing better to do."
"Suffer," she told him, but she smiled when she said it. She put her hand on my arm and squeezed hard, letting out some of the pressure behind her calm facade through the contact. Then she strode over to the rubbernecking suits.
Rawlins watched her go, his lips pursed. "That is one cast-iron bitch," he said. His tone revealed a quiet respect. "Cast iron."
"Hell of a cop," I said.
Rawlins grunted. "Problem with cast iron. It's brittle. Hit it right and it shatters." He looked around the foyer and shook his head. "This isn't going to go well for her."
"Huh?" I said.
"Department is going to crucify someone for it," Rawlins said. "They have to."
I let out a bitter bark of laughter. "After all, she probably saved a lot of lives tonight."
"No good deed goes unpunished," Rawlins agreed.
Greene blinked blearily at us from his chair and then slurred, "Rawlins? What the hell are you doing down here? I sent you home." Anger gathered on his vague expression. "You son of a bitch. You're defying a direct order. I'll have your ass on a platter."
Rawlins sighed. "See what I mean?"
I lifted my hand with my thumb and first two fingers extended, the others against my palm, and moved it in a vaguely mystical gesture from left to right. "That isn't Rawlins."
Green blinked at me, and his eyes blurred in and out of focus. The distraction derailed the train of thought he'd been laboriously assembling. It wasn't magic. I've taken head shots before. It takes a while for your brain to start doing its job again, and the vaguest kinds of confusion make things into one big blur.
I repeated the gesture. "That isn't Rawlins. You can go about your business. Move along."
Greene fumbled with a couple of words, then shook his head and closed his eyes and went back to holding the towel against his head.
Rawlins arched an eyebrow. "You ever handle any divorce negotiations?
I jerked my head at Mouse and said, "Come on. Before his brains unscramble."
Rawlins fell into pace beside me. "Where are we going?"
I gave him the short version of what I'd done with the other three phages. "So now I track them, and make sure the guy who called them up is out of play."
"Demons," Rawlins said. "Wizards." He shook his head.
"Look, man-"
He held up a hand. "No. I think about this too much and I won't be any good to you. Don't explain it. Don't talk about it. Let me get through tonight and you can blow my mind all you want."
"Cool," I told him. "You got a car?"
"Yup."
"Let's go."
We went outside and down the street to the nearest parking garage. Rawlins drove an old, blue station wagon. A bumper sticker on the back read my kid is too pretty to date your honor student.
Mouse let out a sudden warning growl. An engine raced. The dog flung his weight at my thigh and sent me slamming up against Rawlins's station wagon. A van rushed at me in my peripheral vision, too fast for me to try to avoid. It missed me by less than six inches.
It didn't miss Mouse. There was a meaty sound. The dog let out a bawl of pain. Brakes screeched.
I turned, furious and terrified, and the runes in my staff seethed with sudden Hellfire.
I had a split second to see Darby Crane swinging a tire iron. Then stars exploded in front of my eyes and the parking garage rotated ninety degrees. I saw Mouse, sprawled motionless on the concrete thirty feet away. Glau, Crane's lawyer, stood beside the open driver's door of the van, holding a gun on Rawlins.
See what I mean about head shots?
Fade to black.
Chapter Twenty-six
I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache. I was pretty sure any light that got into my eyes would hurt like hell.
My nose was filled with scents. Old motor oil. Gasoline vapors. Dust. Something metallic and elusively familiar. I knew the smell, but I couldn't place it.
I lay prostrate on some cold, hard surface-concrete, at a guess. My arms were held up above my head, my wrists bound in something cold that prickled with many tiny, sharp points. Thorn manacles, then. They were meant, along with the gag and blindfold, to keep me from using my magic. If I tried to start focusing my will, they would bite and freeze. I didn't know where the damned things came from, but Crane wasn't the first bad guy I'd met who kept a pair on hand. Maybe there'd been a sale.
I'd heard one person claim that they'd been invented by a two-thousand-year-old lunatic named Nicodemus, and I'd heard others claim they were of faerie make. Personally, I figured they were more likely a creation of the Red Court, materiel for their war with the Council. It would certainly be to their advantage to make sure as many people as possible had a set of restraints with no purpose but to render a mortal wizard helpless.