I nodded and was silent for several seconds. Then I said, “I know you, Karrin. For you, dying in a good fight would not be a terrible end. You’ve known it was possible, and you’ve prepared yourself for it.” I took a deep breath. “But . . . if they took your shield away . . . I know what your job means to you. You’d die by inches. I don’t think I could handle watching that happen.”

“So you get to choose to shut me out? What I want doesn’t count?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

“And you’re the one who decides?”

I thought about it for a moment. Then I said, “No.”

She nodded. “Good answer.” She touched her fingertips to the shape of her amulet under her T-shirt. “Call.”

“I will. Maybe by messenger, but I will.”

“It’s occurred to me that someone who wanted to make you suffer might start pulling the trigger on your friends. How do I verify the message?”

I shook my head. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that even here, in my own home, I couldn’t be too careful about being overheard. My apartment was blanketed in protective magic, but there were plenty of people (and not-people) who were stronger, more experienced, or wilier than me. “If I have to send a messenger, I’ll make sure you know who it’s from.”

Murphy watched me answer. Then she glanced slowly around the room, as if looking for an unseen observer, and nodded her understanding. “All right. Don’t stay here long, Harry.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t worry about me, Murph.”

She made a face. “I’m not worried about just you. You’ve got at least one gun stashed here, and I’m betting there’s more illegal material in the lab. If they like you for a suspect, they’ll get a warrant. And the FBI, as far as I know, doesn’t have any amulets to get them in here alive.”

I groaned aloud. Murph was right. I had a couple of illegal weapons in my apartment. The Swords were still in the lab, too. Plus some miscellaneous material that the government probably wouldn’t want me owning, including depleted uranium dust, for when the answer to “Who you gonna call?” turns out to be “Harry Dresden.”

The wards that protected my apartment were going to be an issue as well. They wouldn’t do anything if someone walked up and knocked on the door, or even if they fiddled with the doorknob—but anyone who tried to force the door open was in for a shock. About seventy thousand volts of shock, in fact, thanks to the defenses I’d put in place around my door. The lightning was savage, but it was only the first layer of the defense. It hadn’t been so terribly long since an army of zombies tore their way into my living room, and I wasn’t going to repeat the experience.

But my wards wouldn’t have any way of differentiating between a zombie or a crazed vampire or a misguided FBI agent. They simply reacted to someone forcing his way inside. I’d have to deactivate the wards before someone got hurt. Then I’d have to remove any suspect gear from the house.

Hell’s bells. Like I didn’t have enough on my mind. I rubbed my thumb against the spot between my eyebrows where the headache was forming. “I did not need this on top of everything else. Which is why she did it.”

“Why who did what?”

“Duchess Arianna of the Red Court,” I said. I filled Murphy in on my day.

“That’s out of character, isn’t it?” Murphy asked. “I mean, for them to do something this obtrusive? Blowing up a building?”

“They did similar things several times during the war,” I said. “She was making a statement. Blowing up my place of business right in front of God and everybody, the same way the wizards took out her husband’s command post in Honduras. Plus she’s diverting my attention and energy, yanking more potential support out from under me.”

Murphy shook her head. “She’s so clever she’s making a mistake.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. If she was all that smart, she would have blown you to pieces in your office.”

I nodded. “Yeah. That’s the most practical way.”

“So why didn’t she?”

“Figure she wants to inflict the maximum amount of pain she can before she gets rid of me.”

Murphy lifted her eyebrows. “For vengeance? That’s . . . kind of like a bad movie script, isn’t it?” She put on a faint British accent. “No, Mr. Dresden. I expect you to die.”

I grunted. Murphy had a point. Duchess Arianna almost couldn’t have been the sort to enjoy indulging her sadistic side at the expense of practicality. You don’t survive millennia as a vampire without being deadly cold-blooded.

Which meant . . .

“There’s something else at work here,” I said. “Some other game going on.”

Murphy nodded. “How sure are you that Susan is being straight with you?”

“Pretty sure,” I said. It sounded a little hollow, even to me.

Murphy’s mouth twisted up into a bitter curl. “That’s what I thought. You loved her. Makes it easy to manipulate you.”

“Susan wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“I hope not,” Murphy replied. “But . . . she’s been gone awhile, Harry. Fighting a war, from the sounds of it. That’s enough to change anyone, and not for the better.”

I shook my head slowly and said, “Not Susan.”

Murphy shrugged. “Harry . . . I’ve got a bad feeling that . . .” She scrunched up her nose, choosing her words. “I’ve got a bad feeling that the wheels are about to come off.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “Just . . . the building blowing up is all over the news. You can’t find an anchor talking about anything else. People are screaming about terrorists. The whole situation is gaining more attention from higher up in the government than anything else I’ve ever seen. You say that most of the White Council has been effectively placed under the control of this Cristos person. Now the upper ranks of the Red Court are getting involved, too, and from what you tell me everyone is reaching for their guns.” She spread her hands. “It’s . . . it’s like the Cuban missile crisis. Everyone’s at the edge.”

Hell’s bells. Murphy was right. The supernatural world was standing at the edge—and it was one hell of a long way down to the war of annihilation at the bottom.

I took a slow breath, thinking. Then I said, “I don’t care about that.”

Murphy’s golden eyebrows went up.

“I’m not responsible for everyone else in the world, Murph. I’m going to find a little girl and take her somewhere safe. That’s all. The rest of the world can manage without me.”

“What if that’s the last straw, Harry? The little girl. What will you do then?”

I growled as a column of pure rage rose up my spine and made my voice rough. “I will make Maggie safe. If the world burns because of that, then so be it. Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows.”

Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, “You’re a good man, Harry.”

I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves.

“Not always rational,” she said, smiling. “But you’re the best kind of crazy.”

“Thank you, Karrin.”

She reached out and squeezed my arm once. “I should go. Call me.”

“I will.”

She left a moment later and I began sanitizing my apartment for government scrutiny. It would take me a little precious time, but being locked in a cage would take even more. I was still tucking away the last of my contraband when there was a knock at the door. I froze. After a moment, the knock was repeated.

“Harry Dresden!” called a man’s voice. “This is Special Agent Tilly of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have a warrant to search this property and detain its occupants for questioning regarding last night’s explosion. If you do not open this door, we will be forced to break it down.”

Crap.