“In point of fact,” Jack said calmly, “I do know what Hell is. You aren’t the only dead guy with a daughter, Dresden.”
I sank back into my chair, frowning at him, and then turned my head to stare past him to a simple landscape painting on the wall.
“If it makes any difference,” Jack said, “three of the people you love will come to great harm unless you find your murderer.”
“What do you mean, harm?” I asked.
“Maimed. Changed. Broken.”
“Which three people?” I asked.
“Can’t tell you that,” he said.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I bet you can’t.”
I thought about it. Maybe I was dead, but I was sure as hell not ready to go. I had to make sure the people who’d helped me take on the Red King were taken care of. My apprentice, Molly, had been badly wounded in the battle, but that wasn’t her biggest problem. Now that I was dead, there was nothing standing between her and a summary beheading at the hands of the White Council of Wizards.
And my daughter, little Maggie, was still back there. I’d deprived her of a mother, just as someone else had deprived her of a father. I had to make sure she was taken care of. I needed to tell my grandfather good-bye . . . and Karrin.
God. What had Karrin found when she came back to the boat to pick me up? A giant splatter of blood? My corpse? She was misguided and stubborn enough that I was sure she would blame herself for whatever had happened. She’d tear herself apart. I had to reach her somehow, and I couldn’t do that from this spiritual Siberia.
Could they be the ones the captain was talking about? Or was it someone else?
Dammit.
My self might have felt full of energy and life, but my mind was weary almost beyond measure. Hadn’t I done enough? Hadn’t I helped enough people, rescued enough prisoners, defeated enough monsters? I’d made enemies of some of the deadliest and most evil things on the planet, and fought them time and again. And one of them had killed me for it.
Rest in peace, it says on all those tombstones. I’d fought against the rising tide until it had literally killed me. So where the hell was my rest? My peace?
Three of the people you love will come to great harm unless you find your murderer.
My imagination conjured scenes filled with the anguish of the people I cared most about. Which pretty much settled things. I couldn’t allow something like that to happen.
Besides, there was one more thing that made me certain that I wanted to go back. At the end of the day . . . some son of a bitch had freaking killed me.
That’s not the kind of thing you can just let stand.
And if it would let me get out of this place and let me move on to wherever it was I was supposed to go, that was a nice bonus.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “How does it work?”
He slid a pad and a piece of paper across the desk at me, along with a pencil. “You get to go to an address in Chicago,” he said. “You write it there. Driver will drop you off.”
I took the pad and paper and frowned at it, trying to work out where to go. I mean, it wasn’t like I could show up just anywhere. If I was going in as a pure spirit, it would be futile to contact any of my usual allies. It takes some serious talent to see a spirit that hasn’t manifested itself, the way a ghost can occasionally appear to the physical eye. My friends wouldn’t even know I was there.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “what happens if I don’t catch the killer?”
His expression turned sober and his voice became quieter. “You’ll be trapped there. Maybe forever. Unable to touch. Unable to speak. Watching things happen in the world, with no ability whatsoever to affect them.”
“Hell,” I said quietly.
“Hell.”
“That’s cheerful.”
“You’re dead, son,” Jack said. “Cheer is contraindicated.”
I nodded.
I was looking at one hell—ba-dump-bump-ching—of a risk. I mean, fitting in here in Chicago-tory might not be fun, but it probably wouldn’t be torture, either. Judging from what Carmichael and Jack had said and from the way they went about their business, they were able to act in some fashion, maybe even do some good. They didn’t look particularly thrilled to be doing what they were doing, but they carried that sense of professional purpose with them.
A ghost trapped on the mortal coil? That would be far worse. Always present, always watching, and always impotent.
I never really developed my Don’t-Get-Involved skills. I’d go crazy in a year, and wind up one more pathetic, insane, trapped spirit haunting the town I’d spent my adult life protecting.
“Screw it,” I said, and started writing on the paper. “If my friends need me, I have to try.”
Jack took the pad back with a nod of what might have been approval. Then he stood up and pulled on his suit coat. Car keys rattled in his hand. He was only medium height, but he moved with a confidence and a tightly leashed energy that once more made him seem familiar, somehow. “Let’s go.”
Several of the cops—because I was sure they were cops, or at least were doing something so similar that the word fit—nodded to Jack as he went by.
“Hey,” called someone from behind us. “Murphy.”
Jack stopped and turned around.
A guy wearing a suit that would have looked at home in the historic Pinkerton Detective Agency came over to Jack with a clipboard and held it out along with a pen. Jack scanned what was on it, signed off, and passed the clipboard back to the man.
Jack resumed his walking speed. I stuck my hands in my duster pockets and stalked along beside him.
“Captain Collin J. Murphy?” I asked quietly.
He grunted.
“You’re Karrin’s dad. Used to run the Black Cat case files.”
He didn’t say anything. We went down the elevator, past the guard angel, and out to the street, where an old blue Buick Skylark, one with tail fins and a convertible roof, sat waiting by the curb. He went around to the driver’s side and we both got in. The rain drummed on the roof of the car.
He sat behind the wheel for a moment, his eyes distant. Then he said, “Yeah.”
“She’s talked about you.”
He nodded. “I hear you’ve looked out for my Karrie.”
Karrie? I tried to imagine the person who would call Murphy that to her face. Rawlins had done it once, but only once, and not only was he her partner, but he’d also worked with her dad when she was a little girl. Rawlins was practically family.
Anyone else would need to be a Terminator. From Krypton.
“Sometimes,” I said. “She doesn’t need much in the way of protection.”
“Everyone needs someone.” Then he started the car, the engine coming to life with a satisfying, throaty purr. Jack ran his hand over the steering wheel thoughtfully and looked out at the rain. “You can back out of this if you want, son. Until you get out of this car. Once you do that, you’ve chosen your path—and whatever comes with it.”
“Yep,” I said, and nodded firmly. “The sooner I get started, the sooner I get done.”
His mouth quirked up at one corner and he nodded, making a grunting sound of approval. He peered at the pad, read the address I’d written, and grunted. “Why here?”
“Because that’s where I’ll find the one person in Chicago I’m sure can help me,” I said.
Captain Murphy nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Three
Captain Murphy’s old Skylark stopped in a residential area up in Harwood Heights, a place that still looked as empty and hollow as the rest of the city. It was an odd home, for Chicago—a white stucco number with a red tile roof that looked like it had been transplanted from Southern California. In the steady rain and the mournful grey light of the streetlamps it stood, cold, lonely, and empty of purpose among the more traditional homes that surrounded it.