“What’s so funny?” Ebenezar asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just appreciating irony and getting punchy. I guess he didn’t want me letting the Council know where Morgan was.”
“Sounds like a reasonable theory,” Injun Joe said. He looked at Ebenezar. “Got to be somebody at Edinburgh. Cuts the suspect pool down even more.”
Ebenezar grunted agreement. “But not much. We’re getting closer.” He exhaled. “But it won’t do Morgan any good.” He stood, and his knees popped a couple of times on the way. “All right, Hoss,” he said quietly. “I guess we can’t put this off any longer.”
I folded my arms and looked at Ebenezar evenly.
The old man’s face darkened. “Hoss,” he said quietly, “I hate this as much as you do. But as much as you don’t like it, as much as I don’t like it, Ancient Mai is right about this. The real killer will know that Morgan is innocent—but the other powers won’t. They’ll only see us doing business hard and quick, like always. Hell, it might even get the real killer enough confidence to slip up and make a mistake.”
“I told Morgan I’d help him,” I said. “And I will.”
“Son,” Injun Joe said quietly, “no one can help him now.”
I ground my teeth. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m not giving him to you. And I’ll fight you if you make me.”
Ebenezar looked at me and then shook his head, smiling sadly. “You couldn’t fight one of your little pixie friends right now, boy.”
I shrugged. “I’ll try. You can’t have him.”
“Harry,” said a quiet voice, weirdly mutated by the shield.
I looked up to see Morgan lying quietly on his pallet, his eyes open and focused on me. “It’s all right,” he said.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “I’ll go with them.” His eyes turned to Ebenezar. “I killed LaFortier. I deceived Dresden into believing my innocence. I’ll give you a deposition.”
“Morgan,” I said sharply, “what the hell are you doing?”
“My duty,” he replied. There was, I thought, a faint note of pride in his voice, absent since he had appeared at my door. “I’ve always known that it might call for me to give up my life to protect the Council. And so it has.”
I stared at the wounded man, my stomach churning. “Morgan . . .”
“You did your best,” Morgan said quietly. “Despite everything that has gone between us. You put yourself to the hazard again and again for my sake. It was a worthy effort. But it just wasn’t to be. No shame in that.” He closed his eyes again. “You’ll learn, if you live long enough. You never win them all.”
“Dammit,” I sighed. I tried to put my face in my hands and had to flinch back as my right cheek touched my skin and began to burn with pain. I still couldn’t see out of my right eye. “Dammit, after all this. Dammit.”
The fire popped and crackled and no one said anything.
“He’s in a lot of pain,” Listens-to-Wind said quietly, breaking the silence. “At least I can make him more comfortable. And you need some more attention, too.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Take the shield down. Please.”
I didn’t want to do it.
But this wasn’t about me.
I showed Molly how to lower the shield.
We got Morgan settled into a bunk on the Water Beetle and prepared to leave. Molly, troubled and worried about me, had volunteered to stay with Morgan. Listens-to-Wind had offered to show her something of what he did with healing magic. I grabbed some painkillers while we were there, and felt like I could at least walk far enough to find Will and Georgia.
Demonreach showed me where they were sleeping, and I led Ebenezar through the woods toward them.
“How did Injun Joe know about me claiming this place as a sanctum?” I asked.
“Messenger arrived from Rashid,” Ebenezar said. “He’s more familiar with what you can do with that kind of bond. So he went up to find you and get you to take those trees out from under the bugs.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen anyone do shapeshifting the way he did it.”
“Not many ever have,” Ebenezar said, with obvious pride in his old friend’s skills in his voice. After a moment, he said, “He’s offered to teach you some, if you want to learn.”
“With my luck? I’d shift into a duck or something, and not be able to come back out of it.”
He snorted quietly, and then said, “Not shifting. He knows more than any man alive about dealing with rage over injustice and being unfairly wronged. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s admirable that you have those kinds of feelings, and choose to do something about them. But they can do terrible things to a man, too.” His face was distant for a moment, his eyes focused elsewhere. “Terrible things. He’s been there. I think if you spent some time with him, you’d benefit by it.”
“Aren’t I a little old to be an apprentice?”
“Stop learning, start dying,” Ebenezar said, in the tone of a man quoting a bedrock-firm maxim. “You’re never too old to learn.”
“I’ve got responsibilities,” I said.
“I know.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He nodded. Then he paused for a moment, considering his next words. “There’s one thing about tonight that I can’t figure out, Hoss,” my old mentor said. “You went to all the trouble to get everyone here. To lure the killer here. I give you a perfect excuse to roam free behind the lines with no one looking over your shoulder so you can get the job done. But instead of slipping up through the weeds and taking down the killer—which would clear up this whole business—you go up the hill and throw down with something you know damn well you can’t beat.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
Ebenezar spread his hands. “Why?”
I walked for several tired, heavy steps before answering. “Thomas got into trouble helping me.”
“Thomas,” Ebenezar said. “The vampire.”
I shrugged.
“He was more important to you than stopping the possible fragmentation of the White Council.”
“The creature was heading straight for the cottage. My apprentice and my client were both there—and he had Thomas, too.”
Ebenezar muttered something to himself. “The girl had that crystal to protect herself with. Hell, son, if it went off as violently as you said it would, it might have killed the creature all by itself.” He shook his head. “Normally, I think you’ve got a pretty solid head on your shoulders, Hoss. But that was a bad call.”
“Maybe,” I said quietly.
“No maybe about it,” he replied firmly.
“He’s a friend.”
Ebenezar stopped in his tracks and faced me squarely. “He’s not your friend, Harry. You might be his, but he isn’t yours. He’s a vampire. When all’s said and done, he’d eat you if he was hungry enough. It’s what he is.” Ebenezar gestured at the woods around us. “Hell’s bells, boy. We found what was left of that Raith creature’s cousin, after the battle. And I figure you saw what it did to its own blood.”
“Yeah,” I said, subdued.
“And that was her own family.” He shook his head. “Friendship means nothing to those creatures. They’re so good at the lie that sometimes maybe they even believe it themselves—but in the end, you don’t make friends with food. I been around this world a while, Hoss, and let me tell you—it’s their nature. Sooner or later it wins out.”
“Thomas is different,” I said.
He eyed me. “Oh?” He shook his head and started walking again. “Why don’t you ask your apprentice exactly what made her drop the veil and use that shield, then?”
I started walking again.
I didn’t answer.