"I can get it," I said.
"But you won't," she responded, mockery in her tone. "It wouldn't be right."
I stared at her for a full ten seconds before I said, in a very quiet voice, "I've got a fallen angel tripping all over herself to give me more power. Queen Mab has asked me to take the mantle of Winter Knight twice now. I've read Kemmler's book. I know how the Darkhallow works. And I know how to turn necromancy against the Black Court."
Mavra's filmed eyes flashed with anger.
I continued to speak quietly, never raising my voice. "So once again, let me be perfectly clear. If anything happens to Murphy and I even think you had a hand in it, fuck right and wrong. If you touch her, I'm declaring war on you. Personally. I'm picking up every weapon I can get. And I'm using them to kill you. Horribly."
There was utter silence for a moment.
"Do you understand me?" I whispered.
She nodded.
"Say it," I snarled, and my voice came out so harsh and cold that Mavra twitched and took half a step back from me.
"I understand," she rasped.
"Get out of my town," I told her.
And Mavra retreated into the shadows.
I stood there over my grave for a minute more, just feeling the pain of my battered body, and bitterly considering the inevitability of death. After a moment I felt another presence near me. I looked up and found the dream image of my father regarding my tombstone speculatively.
" 'He died doing the right thing,' " my father read.
"Maybe I can change it to, 'he died alone,'" I said back.
My father smiled a little. "Thinking about the death curse, eh?"
"Yeah. 'Die alone.'" I stared down at my open grave. "Maybe it means I'll never be with anybody. Have love. A wife. Children. No one who is really close. Really there."
"Maybe," my father said. "What do you think?"
"I think that's what he wanted to do to me. I think I'm so tired that I'm hallucinating. And that I hurt. And that I want someone to be holding my hand when it's my time. I don't want to do it alone."
"Harry," my dad said, and his voice was very gentle, "can I tell you something?"
"Sure."
He walked around the grave and put his hand on my shoulder. "Son. Everyone dies alone. That's what it is. It's a door. It's one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone." His fingers squeezed me tight. "But it doesn't mean you've got to be alone before you go through the door. And believe me, you aren't alone on the other side."
I frowned and looked up at my father's image, searching his eyes. "Really?"
He smiled and drew his finger in an X on his chest. "Cross my heart."
I looked away from him. "I did things. I made a deal I shouldn't have made. I crossed a line."
"I know," he said. "It only means what you decide it means."
I looked up at him. "What?"
"Harry, life isn't simple. There is such a thing as black and white. Right and wrong. But when you're in the thick of things, sometimes it's hard for us to tell. You didn't do what you did for your own benefit. You did it so that you could protect others. That doesn't make it right-but it doesn't make you a monster, either. You still have free will. You still get to choose what you will do and what you will be and what you will become." He clapped my shoulder and turned to walk away. "As long as you believe you are responsible for your choices, you still are. You've got a good heart, son. Listen to it."
He vanished into the night, and somewhere in the city, bells started tolling midnight.
I stared at my waiting grave, and I suddenly realized that death was really not my biggest worry.
He died doing the right thing.
God, I hope so.
Thomas was waiting back at my apartment when I returned, and Mouse came loping in not long after. Murphy's bike had failed him completely, and by the time he'd reached the college campus, the fur had flown and the whole show was over. I crashed hard, and slept for more than a day. When I woke up, I found that my injuries had all been dressed again, and that an IV was hanging beside my bed. Butters showed up every day to check on me, and he had me on antibiotics and had imposed a ferociously healthy diet on me that Thomas made me stick to. I grumbled a lot, and slept a lot, and after several days was feeling almost human again.
Murphy showed up to chew me out for the wreck she found where her house used to be. We'd left the place sort of trashed. But when she saw me in bed, covered in bandages, she stopped in her tracks.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Oh. Things," I said. "Chicago was interesting for a couple of days there." I peered at her. She had a cast on her left arm, as if for a broken wrist, and I thought I saw the edge of a bruise on her neck. "Hey," I said. "What happened?"
Her cheeks turned pink. "Oh. Things. Hawaii was interesting for a couple of days there."
"I'll trade you my story for yours," I said.
She got pinker. "Um. I'll … have to think about it."
Then we both looked at each other and laughed, and we left it at that.
Chicago reacted to the events of that Halloween predictably. It was all attributed to the worst storm in fifty years, rioting, a minor earth tremor, a large load of bread produced by a local bakery that had been contaminated with ergot, and similar Halloween-fueled hysteria. In the blackout, some reprehensible types had vandalized the museum and relocated Sue's skeleton to a local campus as some kind of bizarre practical joke. There had been dozens of break-ins, robberies, murders, and other crimes during the blackout, but any other reports and wild stories were automatically put down to hysteria and/or ergot poisoning. Life went on.
Captain Luccio survived her injuries, but not without serious long-term damage that would take a lot of rehabilitation. Between that and the uncertainty of what would happen in her shiny new body, she had been relieved of command as the captain of the Wardens until such time as her health and state of mind were judged to be sound and reliable.
Morgan took her place.
He came to visit me at my place, maybe two weeks later, and gave me the news.
"Dresden," he said. "I was against inducting you in the first place. But Captain Luccio had the right to ignore my recommendation. She made you a Warden and she made you a regional commander, and there's nothing I can do about that." He took a deep breath. "But I don't like you. I think you are dangerous."
His mouth twisted. "But I am no longer convinced you do these things out of malice. I think you lack discipline and judgment. You have repeatedly demonstrated your willingness to put yourself in harm's way to protect others. As much as it galls me to admit it, I don't think you have any evil intentions. I think your questionable actions are the result of arrogance and poor judgment. In the end, it matters little why you do it. But I cannot in good conscience condemn you for it without giving you some sort of chance to prove me wrong."
From Morgan, this was the equivalent of Emperor Constantine converting to Christianity. He was almost admitting that he had been wrong. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a penny, and dropped it to the floor.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"I'm just making sure gravity is still online," I said.
He frowned at me, then shrugged and said, "I don't trust you. I'm not committing any Wardens to your command, and, truth be told, we don't have them to spare in any case. But you may be required to participate in missions from time to time, and I will expect you to work with the other regional commander in America. He operates out of Los Angeles. He specifically requested the assignment, and given his role in recent events, he could hardly be gainsaid."
"Ramirez," I guessed.
Morgan nodded. Then he reached into his coat and produced an envelope. He handed it to me.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Your first paycheck," Morgan said, and he didn't look happy to be saying it. "Monthly."
I opened the envelope and blinked. It wasn't a fortune, but it sure as hell would be a nice little addition to my earnings in the investigation business. "I never thought I would hear myself say this," I said as he started to leave, "but thank you, Morgan."
His face twisted up into something bitter, and he managed to spit out the words: "You're welcome." I think he fled before he started to puke.
Several weeks later Butters showed up at my door with a big box wrapped in Christmas paper. I let him in, and he carried it to the living room and presented me with it. "Go ahead. Open it."
I did. Inside the box was a guitar case, and inside that an old wooden guitar. "Uh," I said. "What's this for?"
"Therapy," Butters said. He'd been having me practice squeezing a squishy ball with my left hand, and, just as he'd predicted, I had slowly gained a little more control of it. "You're going to learn to play."
"Uh, my hand doesn't work that well," I said.
"Not yet," Butters replied. "But we'll start slow like everything else, and you can work up to it. Just do the lessons. Look, there's a book in the bottom of the case."
I opened the case and found a book entitled Guitar for Total Idiots, while Butters went on about tendons and metacarpal something-or-other and flexibility. I opened the book, but night had fallen and the fire was too low to let me read it. I absently waved a hand at the candles on the table beside the couch and muttered, "Flickum bicus." They puffed to light with a little whoosh of magic.