"They'll check the tip out," Murphy said. "But I'm willing to bet you real money that, depending on their manpower issues, it won't happen until several hours after the tip actually makes it into the hands of the folks running the show-and with any luck, given the Council's issues with technology and communication, that will take a while as well."
I mulled that one over for a minute. "What are you saying?"
She put her hand on my arm and squeezed once. "I'm saying don't give up yet. There's still a little time."
I turned my head and studied Murphy's profile for a moment.
"Really?" I asked her quietly.
She nodded. "Yeah."
Like "love," "hope" is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.
I resettled my grip on the Rolls's steering wheel. "Murph?"
"Mmm?"
"You're one hell of a dame."
"Sexist pig," she said. She smiled out the windshield. "Don't make me hurt you."
"Yeah," I said. "It wouldn't be ladylike."
She shook her head as we neared my apartment. "If you like," she said, "take him to my place. You can hide out there."
I didn't actually smile, but her words made me feel like doing it. "Not this time. The Wardens know where you live, remember? If they start looking hard at me..."
"... they'll check me out, too," Murphy said. "But you can't keep him at your place."
"I know that. I also know that I can't drag anyone else into the middle of this clust-this mess."
"There's got to be somewhere," she said. "Someplace quiet. And not well-known. And away from crowds." She paused. "And where you can protect him from tracking magic. And where you'd have the advantage, if it did come to a fight."
I didn't say anything.
"Okay," Murphy said. "I guess maybe there aren't any places like that around here."
I snapped my head up straight.
"Hell's bells!" I breathed. I felt a grin stretch my mouth. "I think maybe there is!"
Chapter Thirty-four
I came through my apartment door, took one look around the candlelit place, and half shouted, "Hell's bells! What is wrong with you people!?"
Morgan sat slumped against the wall with the fireplace, and fresh spots of blood showed through his bandages. His eyes were only partly open. His hand lay on the floor beside him, limp, the fingers half curled. A tiny little semiautomatic pistol lay on the floor beneath his hand. It wasn't mine. I have no idea where he'd been hiding it.
Molly was on the floor in front of the sofa, with Mouse literally sitting on her back. She was heaving breaths in and out, making the big dog rise and settle slightly as she did.
Luccio lay where I'd left her on the couch, flat on her back, her eyes closed, obviously still unconscious. Mouse had one of his paws resting lightly on her sternum. Given the nature of her recent injury, it seemed obvious that he would need to exert minimal pressure on her to immobilize her with pain, should she awaken.
The air smelled of cordite. Mouse's fur, all down his left foreleg, was matted and caked with blood.
When I saw that, I rounded on Morgan in a fury, and if Murphy hadn't stepped forward and grabbed my arm with both hands, I would have started kicking his head flat against my wall. I settled for kicking the gun away instead. If I got a couple of his fingers, too, it didn't bother me much at the time.
Morgan watched me with dull, hardly conscious eyes.
"I swear," I snarled. "I swear to God, Morgan, if you don't explain yourself I'm going to strangle you dead with my own hands and drag your corpse back to Edinburgh by the balls."
"Harry!" Murphy shouted, and I realized that she had positioned her entire body between me and Morgan and she was leaning against me like a soldier struggling to raise a flag.
Morgan bared his teeth, more rictus than smile. "Your warlock," he said, his voice dry and leathery, "was trying to enter Captain Luccio's mind against her will."
I surged forward, and Murphy pushed me back again. I weighed twice what she did, but she had good leverage and focus. "And so you shot my dog?" I screamed.
"He interposed himself," Morgan said. He coughed, weakly, and closed his eyes, his face turning greyer. "Never meant... to hit..."
"I swear to God," I snarled, "that's it. That is it. Molly and I are going right to the wall for you, and this is how you repay us? I am pushing your paranoid ass out my door, leaving you there, and starting a pool on who comes for you first-the Black Council, the Wardens, or the goddamn buzzards."
"H-Harry," Molly said in a weak, nauseated, and... shamed voice barely more than a whisper.
I felt my anger abruptly drain away, to be replaced by a wave of denial and a slowly dawning sense of horror. I turned, slowly, to look at Molly.
"He was right," she wheezed, not looking at me, struggling to speak over the burden of Mouse's weight. I could hear the tears reflected in her voice as they began to fall. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Harry. He was right."
I leaned my shoulders back against the wall and watched as Mouse looked at me with grave, pained eyes and stayed right where he was-both holding Molly down and shielding her body with his.
We got Morgan put back into bed, and then I went over to Mouse. "Okay," I said. "Move."
Only then did Mouse remove himself from Molly's back, limping heavily to one side. I knelt down by him and examined his leg. He flattened his ears and leaned away from me. I said firmly, "Stop that. Hold still."
Mouse sighed and looked miserable, but he let me poke at his leg. I found the wound, up near his shoulder, and a hard lump under the skin.
"Get up," I said to Molly, my tone steady. "Go to the lab. Get the medical kit under the table. Then get the little scissors and a fresh razor from the cabinet in my bathroom."
She pushed herself up slowly.
"Move," I said, my voice quiet and level and unyielding.
She was obviously still recovering from being pinned to the floor. But she moved quicker, and staggered down to my lab.
Murphy knelt down next to me and ruffled Mouse's ears. He gave her a miserable look. She held up Morgan's gun. "Twenty-five caliber," she said. "Big as he is, wouldn't have been easy to kill him with it, even on purpose." She shook her head. "Or Molly, for that matter."
"Meaning what?" I asked her.
"Meaning maybe Morgan didn't intend the attack to be lethal. Maybe he used the smaller weapon for that reason."