Almost.

“I’m sure you’ll last long enough for me to help you out of this mess, Merlin.” I smiled at him and held up my hand, palm up, fingers spread, as if holding an orange in them. “Balls,” I said. “Vise. Come on, Peabody.”

Peabody blinked at me as I swept past him on the way to the door, his mouth opening and closing silently several times. Then he made a few vague, sputtering sounds and hurried to catch up with me.

I glanced back at the Merlin as I reached the door.

I could clearly see his cold, flat blue eyes burning with fury while he sat in apparent relaxation and calm. The fingers of his right hand twitched in a violent little spasm that did not seem to touch the rest of his body. For an instant, I had to wonder just how desperate he had to be to accept my help. I had to wonder how smart it was to goad him like that.

And I had to wonder if that apparent calm and restrained exterior was simply a masterful control of his emotions—or if, under the pressure, it had become some kind of quiet, deadly madness.

Damn Morgan, for showing up at my door.

And damn me, for being fool enough to open it.

Chapter Seventeen

Peabody went into an immaculate office lined with shelves bearing books arranged with flawless precision, grouped by height and color. Many of the shelves were loaded with binders presumably full of files and documents, similarly organized, in a dazzling array of hues. I files and documents, similarly organized, in a dazzling array of hues. I guess it takes all kinds of colors to make a bureaucratic rainbow.

I started to follow him inside, but he turned on me with a ferocious glare. “My office is a bastion of order, Warden Dresden. You have no place in it.”

I looked down at him for a second. “If I was a sensitive guy, that would hurt my feelings.”

He gave me a severe look over his spectacles and said, as if he thought the words were deadly venom and might kill me, “You are an untidy person.”

I put my hand over my heart, grinning at him. “Ow.”

The tips of his ears turned red. He turned around stiffly and walked into the office. He opened a drawer and started jerking binders out of it with more force than was strictly necessary.

“I read your book, by the way,” I said.

He looked up at me and then back down. He slapped a binder open.

“The one about the Erlking?” I said. “The collected poems and essays?”

He took a folder out of the binder, his back stiff.

“The Warden from Bremen said you got the German wrong on the title,” I continued. “That must have been kind of embarrassing, huh? I mean, it’s been published for like a hundred years or something. Must eat at you.”

“German,” said Peabody severely, “is also untidy.” He walked over to me with the folder, a pad of paper, an inkwell, and a quill. “Sign here.”

I reached out for the quill with my right hand, and seized the folder with my left. “Sorry. No autographs.”

Peabody nearly dropped the inkwell, and scowled at me. “Now see here, Warden Dresden—”

“Now, now, Simon,” I said, taking vengeance on behalf of the German-speaking peoples of the world. “We wouldn’t want to screw up anyone’s plausible deniability, would we?”

“My given name is Samuel,” he said stiffly. “You, Warden Dresden, may address me as Wizard Peabody.”

I opened the file and skimmed over it. It was modeled after modern police reports, including testimony, photographs, and on-site reports from investigating Wardens. The militant arm of the White Council, at least, seemed to be less behind the times than the rest of us dinosaurs. That was largely Anastasia’s doing. “Is this the whole file, Sam?”

He gritted his teeth. “It is.”

I slapped it shut. “Thanks.”

“That file is official property of the Senior Council,” Peabody protested, waving the paper and the ink. “I must insist that you sign for it at once.”

“Stop!” I called. “Stop, thief!” I put a hand to my ear, listened solemnly for a few seconds and shook my head. “Never a Warden around when you need one, is there, Sam?”

Then I walked off and left the little wizard sputtering behind me.

I get vicious under pressure.

The trip back was quieter than the one in. No B-movie escapees tried to frighten me to death—though there were a few unidentifiable bits wrapped up in spider silk, hanging from the trees where I’d established the pecking order, apparently all that was left of the bug I’d smashed.

I came out of the Nevernever and back into the alley behind the old meatpacking plant without encountering anything worse than spooky ambience. Back in Chicago, it was the darkest hour of night, between three and four in the morning. My head was killing me, and between the psychic trauma the skinwalker had given me, the power I’d had to expend during the previous day, and a pair of winter wonderland hikes, I was bone-weary.

I walked another five blocks to the nearest hotel with a taxi stand, flagged down a cab, and returned to my apartment. When I first got into the business, I didn’t think anything of sacrificing my sleeping time to the urgency of my cases. I wasn’t a kid in my twenties anymore, though. I’d learned to pace myself. I wouldn’t help anyone if I ran myself ragged and made a critical error because I was too tired to think straight.

Mister, my bobtailed grey tomcat, came flying out of the darkened apartment as I opened the door. He slammed his shoulder into my legs, startled me half to death, and nearly put me on my ass. He’s the next best thing to thirty pounds of cat, and when he hits me with his shoulder block of greeting I know it.

I leaned down to grab him and prevent him from leaving, and wearily let myself into the house. It felt a lot quieter and emptier without Mouse in it. Don’t get me wrong: me and Mister were roommates for years before the pooch came along. But it had taken considerable adjustments for both of us to get used to sharing our tiny place with a monstrous, friendly dust mop, and the sudden lack of his presence was noticeable and uncomfortable.

But Mister idly sauntered over to Mouse’s bowl, ate a piece of kibble, and then calmly turned the entire bowl over so that kibble rolled all over the floor of the kitchen alcove. Then he went to Mouse’s usual spot on the floor and lay down, sprawling luxuriously. So maybe it was just me.

I sat down on the couch, made a call, left a message, and then found myself lacking sufficient ambition to walk all the way into my bedroom, strip the sheets Morgan had bloodied, and put fresh ones on before I slept.

So instead I just stretched out on the couch and closed my eyes. Sleep was instantaneous.

I didn’t so much as stir until the front door opened, and Murphy came in, holding the amulet that let her in past my wards. It was morning, and cheerful summer sunlight was shining through my well windows.

“Harry,” she said. “I got your message.”

Or at least, that’s what I think she said. It took me a couple of tries to get my eyes open and sit up. “Hang on,” I said. “Hang on.” I shambled into the bathroom and sorted things out, then splashed some cold water on my face and came back into the living room. “Right. I think I can sort of understand English now.”

She gave me a lopsided smile. “You look like crap in the morning.”

“I always look like this before I put on my makeup,” I muttered.

“Why didn’t you call my cell? I’d have shown up right away.”

“Needed sleep,” I said. “Morning was good enough.”

“I figured.” Murphy drew a paper bag from behind her back. She put it down on the table.

I opened it. Coffee and donuts.

“Cop chicks are so hot,” I mumbled. I pushed Peabody’s file across the table to her and started stuffing my face and guzzling.