LITMIR.BIZ

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I said. “I like to accessorize as much as the next girl, but that’s over the line. Way over. I mean, you can’t even see the line from there.”

      “Perhaps,” Lea said. “I suppose it depends upon how badly one needs to recover something from the svartalves.”

      “Uh. You’re saying I need to pull a train to get Thomas out of there? ’Cause … that just isn’t going to happen.”

      Lea showed her teeth in another smile. “Morality is amusing.”

      “Would you do it?”

      Lea looked offended. “For the sake of another? Certainly not. Have you any idea of the obligation that would incur?”

      “Um. Not exactly.”

      “This is not my choice to make. You must ask yourself this question: Is your untroubled conscience more valuable to you than the vampire’s life?”

      “No. But there’s got to be another way.”

      Lea seemed to consider that for a moment. “Svartalves love beauty. They covet it the way a dragon lusts for gold. You are young, lovely, and … I believe the phrase is ‘smoking hot.’ The exchange of your favors for the vampire, a straightforward transaction, is almost certain to succeed, assuming he still lives.”

      “We’ll call that one plan B,” I said. “Or maybe plan X. Or plan XXX. Why not just break in and burgle him out?”

      “Child,” the Leanansidhe chided me. “The svartalves are quite skilled in the Art, and this is one of their strongholds. I could not attempt such a thing and leave with my life.” Lea tilted her head to one side and gave me one of those alien looks that made my skin crawl. “Do you wish to recover Thomas or not?”

      “I wish to explore my options,” I said.

      The faerie sorceress shrugged. “Then I advise you to do so as rapidly as possible. If he yet lives, Thomas Raith might count the remainder of his life in hours.”

      I opened the door to Waldo’s apartment, shut and locked it behind me, and said, “Found him.”

      As I turned toward the room, someone slapped me hard across the face.

      This wasn’t a “Hey, wake up” kind of slap. It was an openhanded blow, one that would have really hurt if it was delivered with a closed fist. I staggered to one side, stunned.

      Waldo’s girlfriend, Andi, folded her arms and stared at me through narrowed eyes for a moment. She was a girl of medium height, but she was a werewolf and she was built like a pinup model who was thinking about going into professional wrestling. “Hi, Molly,” she said.

      “Hi,” I said. “And … ow.”

      She held up a pink plastic razor. “Let’s have a talk about boundaries.”

      Something ugly way down deep inside me somewhere unsheathed its claws and tensed up. That was the part of me that wanted to catch up to Listen and do things involving railroad spikes and drains in the floor. Everyone has that inside them, somewhere. It takes fairly horrible things to awaken that kind of savagery, but it’s in all of us. It’s the part of us that causes senseless atrocities, that makes war hell.

      No one wants to talk about it or think about it, but I couldn’t afford that kind of willing ignorance. I hadn’t always been this way, but after a year fighting the Fomor and the dark underside of Chicago’s supernatural scene, I was somebody else. That part of me was awake and active and constantly pushing my emotions into conflict with my rationality.

      I told that part of me to shut up and sit its ass down.

      “Okay,” I said. “But later. I’m kind of busy.”

      I started to brush past her into the room, but she stopped me short by placing a hand against my sternum and shoved me back against the door. It didn’t look like she was trying but I hit the wood firmly.

      “Now’s good,” she said.

      In my imagination, I clenched my fists and counted to five in an enraged scream. I was sure Harry had never had to deal with this kind of nonsense. I didn’t have time to lose, but I didn’t want to start something violent with Andi, either. I’d catch all kinds of hell if I threw down. I allowed myself the pleasure of gritting my teeth, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay. What’s on your mind, Andi?”

      I didn’t add the words “you bitch” but I thought them really loud. I should probably be a nicer person.

      “This is not your apartment,” Andi said. “You don’t get to roll in and out of here whenever you damned well please, no matter the hour, no matter what’s going on. Have you even stopped to think about what you’re doing to Butters?”

      “I’m not doing anything to Butters,” I said. “I’m just borrowing the shower.”

      Andi’s voice sharpened. “You came here today covered in blood. I don’t know what happened, but you know what? I don’t care. All I care about is what kind of trouble you might draw down onto other people.”

      “There was no trouble,” I said. “Look, I’ll buy you a new razor.”

      “This isn’t about property or money, Christ,” Andi said. “This is about respect. Butters is there for you whenever you need help, and you barely do so much as to thank him for it. What if you’d been followed here? Do you have any idea how much trouble he could get into for helping you out?”

      “I wasn’t followed,” I said.

      “Today,” Andi said. “But what about next time? You have power. You can fight. I don’t have what you do, but even I can fight. Butters can’t. Whose shower are you going to use if it’s his blood all over you?”

      I folded my arms and looked carefully away from Andi. In some part of my brain I knew that she had a point, but that reasoning was coming in a distant second to my sudden urge to slap her.

      “Look, Molly,” she said, her voice becoming more gentle. “I know things haven’t been easy for you lately. Ever since Harry died. When his ghost showed up. I know it wasn’t fun.”

      I just looked at her without speaking. Not easy or fun. That was one way to describe it.

      “There’s something I think you need to hear.”

      “What’s that?”

      Andi leaned forward slightly and sharpened her words. “Get over it.”

      The apartment was very quiet for a moment, and the inside of me wasn’t. That ugly part of me started getting louder and louder. I closed my eyes.

      “People die, Molly,” Andi continued. “They leave. And life goes on. Harry may have been the first friend you lost, but he won’t be the last. I get that you’re hurting. I get that you’re trying to step into some really big shoes. But that doesn’t give you the right to abuse people’s better natures. A lot of people are hurting lately, if you didn’t notice.”

      If I didn’t notice. God, I would absolutely kill to be able not to notice people’s pain. Not to live it beside them. Not to sense its echoes hours or days later. The ugly part of me, the black part of my heart, wanted to open a psychic channel to Andi and show her the kind of thing I went through on a regular basis. Let her see how she would like my life. And we’d see if she was so righteous afterward. It would be wrong, but …

      I took a slow breath. No. Harry told me once that you can always tell when you’re about to rationalize your way to a bad decision. It’s when you start using phrases such as “It would be wrong, but …” His advice was to leave the conjunction out of the sentence: “It would be wrong.” Period.

      So I didn’t do anything rash. I didn’t let the rising tumult inside me come out. I spoke softly. “What is it you’d like me to do, exactly?”

      Andi

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