Dead Beat

Chapter Sixteen

Billy's apartment was only a couple of blocks from Bock Ordered Books, and while I could have taken a couple of alleys to make the trip even shorter, I kept on the open streets, where there were plenty of people. I didn't see anyone following me, but if there was a good enough team on me-or if they were using veils to hide their presence, of course-I might miss them. I kept my staff in my right hand and made sure my shield bracelet was ready, in case anyone tried some kind of variant on the old drive-up assassination. I'd survived them before, but the classics never go out of style.

I got to Bock's in one piece, and no one so much as glared at me. I felt sort of rejected, but comforted myself with the knowledge that there were at least half a dozen people in town who were sure to keep making my life dangerous. More if you counted Mavra, who technically wasn't a person.

Bock didn't open the doors of his store until eleven, so when I went in I was probably the first one to show up for the day. I paused outside the door. Two of the store windows and the glass panel of the door were all gone, replaced by rough sheets of plywood. Bock had gotten off better than the boutique next door-all the glass was gone, doubtless shattered by one kind of flying debris or another during my conversation with Cowl and his sidekick. I went inside.

Bock was at his place behind the counter, and looked tired. He glanced up at the sound of his door chimes. His expression became something closed and cautious when he saw me.

"Bock," I said. "You here all night?"

"End- of-the-month inventory," he said, his voice careful and quiet. "And repairing the windows. What do you need?"

I looked around the inside of the store. Shiela appeared from behind one of the shelves at the back of the store, looking anxious. She saw me and exhaled a little, then gave me a quiet smile.

"Just here to talk," I told Bock, nodding toward Shiela.

He glanced at her, then back at me, frowning. " Dresden. There's something I need to say to you."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "What's wrong?"

"Look. I don't want to make you upset."

I leaned on my staff. "Bock, come on. You've known me ever since I came to town. If something's wrong, you aren't going to upset me by telling me about it."

He folded his thick forearms over his paunch and said, "I don't want you coming into my store anymore."

I leaned on my staff a little more. "Oh."

"You're a decent enough man. You've never jumped down my throat like the other folks from the Council. You've helped people around here." He took a deep breath and made a vague gesture toward the plywood patches on his shop. "But you're trouble. It follows you around."

Which was true enough. I didn't say anything.

"Not everyone can drop a car on someone who attacks them," Bock went on. "I've got a family. My oldest is in college. I can't afford to have the place wrecked."

I nodded. I could understand Bock's position. It's terrifying to feel helpless in the face of a greater power-more so than it is painful to be told you aren't wanted somewhere.

"Look. If you need anything, give me a call. I'll order it or pull it off the shelves for you. Will or Georgia can come pick it up. But…"

"Okay," I said. My throat felt a little tight.

Bock's face got red. He looked away from me, at the ruined door. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said. "I understand. I'm sorry about your shop."

He nodded.

"I'm just here for a minute. After that I'll go."

"Right," he said.

I walked down the aisles back to Shiela, and nodded to her. "I got your message."

Shiela was wearing the same clothes as the night before, only more rumpled. She'd pulled her hair back and held it in place with a pair of ballpoint pens thrust through a knot at right angles. With her hair like that, it showed the pale, clean lines of her jaw and throat, and I was again struck by the impulse to run my fingers over her skin and see if it was as soft as it looked.

She glanced at Bock, then smiled up at me and touched my arm with her hand. "I'm sorry he did that. It isn't fair of him."

"No. It's fair enough. He has the right to protect himself and his business," I said. "I don't blame him."

She tilted her head to one side, studying my face. "But it hurts anyway?"

I shrugged. "Some. I'll survive." The chimes rung at the front of the store as another customer came in. I glanced back at Bock, and sighed. "Look, I don't want to be here very long. What did you need?"

She brushed back a few strands of hair that had escaped the knot. "I… well, I had a strange experience last night."

I lifted my eyebrows. "Go on."

She picked up a small stack of books and started shelving them as she spoke. "After all the excitement, I went back to the inventory in the back room, and Mr. Bock had gone to get the plywood for the windows. I thought I heard the chimes ring, but when I looked no one was there."

"Uh- huh," I said.

"But…" She frowned. "You know how when you go into an empty house, you know it's empty? How it just feels empty?"

"Sure," I said. I watched her stretch up onto the tips of her toes to put a book away on the top shelf. It drew her sweater up a little, and I could see muscles move under a swath of the pale skin of her lower back.

"The store didn't feel empty," she said, and I saw her shiver. "I never saw anyone, never heard anyone. But I was sure someone was here." She glanced back at me and flushed. "I was so nervous I could hardly think straight until the sun came up."

"Then what?" I asked.

"It went away. I felt a little silly. Like I was a scared little kid. Or one of those dogs that's staring at something growling when nothing is there."

I shook my head. "Dogs don't just stare and growl for no reason. Sometimes they can perceive things people can't."

She frowned. "Do you think something was here?"

I didn't want to tell her that I thought a Black Court vampire had been lurking unseen in the shop. Hell, for that matter I didn't particularly want to think about it. If Mavra had been here, there wouldn't have been anything Shiela or Bock could do to defend themselves against her.

"I think you wouldn't be foolish to trust your instincts," I said. "You've got a little talent. It's possible you were sensing something too vague for you to understand in any other way."

She put the last book away and turned to face me. She looked tired. Fear made her expression one of sickness, an ugly contortion. "Something was here," she whispered.

"Maybe," I said, nodding.

"Oh, God." She tightened her arms across her stomach. "I… I might be sick."

I leaned my staff against the shelf and put a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. "Shiela. Take a few deep breaths. It's not here now."

She looked up at me, her expression miserable, her eyes wet and shining. "I'm sorry. I mean, you don't need this." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and more tears fell. "I'm sorry."

Oh, hell. Tears. Way to go, Dresden -terrify the local maiden you showed up to comfort. I drew Shiela a little toward me, and she leaned against me gratefully. I put my arm around her shoulders and let her lean against me for a minute. She shivered with silent tears for a little bit and then pulled herself together.

"Does this happen to you a lot?" she asked in a quiet voice, sniffling.

"People get scared," I murmured. "There's nothing wrong with that. There are scary things out there."

"I feel like a coward."

"Don't," I told her. "All it means is that you aren't an idiot."

She straightened and took a step back. Her face looked a little blotchy. Some women can cry and look beautiful, but Shiela wasn't one of them. She took off her glasses and wiped at her eyes. "What do I do if it happens again?"

"Tell Bock. Get somewhere public," I said. "Call the cops. Or better yet, call Billy and Georgia. If what you felt really was some kind of predator, they won't want to stick around if they know they've been spotted."

"You sound as if you've dealt with them before," she said.

I smiled a little. "Maybe a time or two."

She smiled up at me, and it was a grateful expression. "It must be very lonely, doing what you do."

"Sometimes," I said.

"Always being so strong when others can't. That's… well, it's sort of heroic."

"It's sort of idiotic," I replied, my voice dry. "Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up."

She let out a little laugh. "You fail to live up to your ideals, eh?"

"Nobody's perfect."

She tilted her head again, eyes bright. "Are you with someone?"

"Just you."

"Not with them. With them."

"Oh," I said. "No. Not really."

"If I asked you to come have dinner out with me, would it seem too forward and aggressive?"

I blinked. "You mean… like a date?"

Her smile widened. "You do… you know… like women? Right?"

"What?" I said. "Oh, yes. Yes. I'm down with the women."

"By coincidence I happen to be a woman," she said. She touched my arm again. "And since it seems like I might not get a chance to flirt with you a little more while I'm at work, I thought I had better ask you now. So is that a yes?"

The prospect of a date seemed to me like a case of bad timing in several ways. But it also seemed like a good idea. I mean, it had been a while since a girl had been interested in me in a nonprofessional sense.

Well. A human girl, anyway. The only one who even came close was in Hawaii with someone else, giggling and thinking about pants. It might be really nice just to be out talking and interacting with an attractive girl. God knows it would beat hanging around my crowded apartment.

"It's a yes," I said. "I'm kind of busy right now, but…"

"Here," she said. She took a black marker out of a pocket in her sweater and grabbed my right hand. She wrote numbers on it in heavy black strokes. "Call me here, maybe tonight, and we'll figure out when."

I let her do it, amused. "All right."

She popped the cap back on the marker and smiled up at me. "All right, then."

I picked up my staff. "Shiela, look. I might not be around this place. I'll respect Bock's wishes. But let him know that if there's any trouble, all he has to do is call me."

She shook her head, smiling. "You're a decent person, Harry Dresden."

"Don't spread that around too much," I said, and started for the door.

And froze in my tracks.

Standing in the little entry area of the bookstore, facing Bock at his counter, were Alicia and the ghoul, Li Xian.

I stepped back to Shiela and pulled her around the corner of a shelf.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Quiet," I said. I closed my eyes and Listened.

"… a simple question," Alicia was saying. "Who bought it?"

"I don't keep track of my customers," Bock replied. His voice was polite, but it had an undertone of granite. "I'm sorry, but I just don't have that information. A lot of people come through here."

"Really?" Alicia asked. "And how many of them purchase rare and expensive antique books from you?"

"You'd be surprised."

Alicia let out a nasty little laugh. "You really aren't going to volunteer the information, are you?"

"I don't have it to volunteer," Bock said. "Both copies of the book were bought yesterday. Both were men, one older and one younger. I don't remember anything more than that."

I heard a couple of footsteps, and Li Xian said, "Perhaps you need help remembering."

There was the distinct, heavy click of a pair of hammers on a shotgun being drawn back. "Son," Bock said in that same voice, "you'll want to step away from the counter and leave my shop now."

"It would appear that the good shopkeeper has taken sides on this matter," Alicia said.

"You're wrong, miss," Bock said. "I run this shop. I don't give information. I don't take sides. If I had a third copy, I'd sell it to you. I don't. Both of you leave, please."

"I don't think you understand," Alicia said. "I'm not leaving here until I have an answer to my question."

"I don't think you understand," Bock replied. "There's a ten-gauge shotgun wired under this counter. It's loaded, cocked, and pointing right at your bellies."

"Oh, my," Alicia said, her voice amused. "A shotgun. Xian, whatever shall we do?"

I ground my teeth. Bock had asked me to stay away, but even so he was standing there protecting my identity, even though he knew damned well that the two in front of him were dangerous.

I checked. The door to the back room of the shop was open. "The back door," I said to Shiela in a whisper. "Is it locked?"

"Not from this side."

"Go into the back room and get in the office," I said. "Get on the floor and stay there. Now."

She looked up at me with wide eyes and then hurried back through the open door.

I gripped my staff and closed my eyes, thinking. I patted my duster's pocket. The book was still there, riding along with my.44. Ghouls were hard to kill. I had no idea what Alicia was, but I was willing to bet she wasn't a mere academic assistant. For her to command the respect of a creature like Li Xian, she had to be major-league dangerous. It would be an extremely foolish idea to assault them.

But that didn't matter. If I didn't do something, they were going to get unpleasant at Bock. Bock might not have been a stalwart companion who stuck through thick and thin, but he was what he was: an honest shopkeeper who wanted neither to become involved in supernatural power struggles nor to compromise his principles. If I did nothing, he was going to get hurt while protecting me.

I stepped around the shelf and started walking toward the front of the store.

Bock sat in his spot behind the counter, one hand gripping its edge in a white-knuckled grasp, the other out of sight below it. Alicia and Li Xian stood in front of it. She looked relaxed. The ghoul was slouched into an eager stance, knees bent a little, arms hanging loosely.

"Shopkeeper, I will ask you one last time," Alicia said. "Who purchased the last copy of Die Lied der Erlking?" She lifted her left hand and faint heat shimmers rose from her fingers along with a whisper of dark power. "Tell me his name."

I drew in my will, lifted my staff, and snarled, "Forzare!"

The runes on the staff burst into smoldering scarlet light. There was a thunderstorm's roar, and raw power, invisible and solid, lashed out of the end of my staff. It whipped across the shop, knocking books from the shelves on the way, and hit the ghoul in the chest. It lifted him off his feet and sent him smashing into the plywood-covered door. He went through the wood without slowing down, out over the sidewalk, and into the wall of the building across the street, where he hit with a crunch.

Alicia spun toward me, her eyes wide and shocked.

I stood with my feet spread. My shield bracelet was on my left hand, thrumming with power and drizzling blue-white sparks. My staff smoldered with the scent of fresh-burned wood, and the scarlet runes shone in the darkness at the back of the store. I pointed it directly at Alicia.

"His name," I snarled, "is Harry Dresden."