“You want, call One-Eye,” Bear said affably. “He’ll tell you what I look like.”
I stared at her for a moment and said, “Will. Watch her.”
“Hey, a werewolf, excellent,” Bear said, her smile widening. She fell a pace back from the door. “Good to see you got a lick of sense,seidrmadr. Make this job a lot easier. I’ll wait. I get paid the same either way. And it ain’t like I’m getting any older.”
I strode away, back down into the guts of the castle, past my chambers, and opened the door in the floor that led down to my repaired and recoalescing laboratory, the only thing standing from my original home in Mrs. Spunkelcrief’s rooming house. It was little more than five levels of wire shelving around three walls and a long worktable in the middle, with a little space for a writing desk and a fire-ruined copper summoning circle built into the floor at one end of the table.
But it was home.
I could breathe here.
“Bob,” I called, letting my impatience show in my voice.
A blue streak of light suddenly appeared on the white paint of the concrete wall. It swept around the room to the old shelf where an ancient human skull rested, nestled among a pile of paperback romances. The skull’s eye sockets kindled to life with glowing red-gold embers a moment later, and it burbled, “You have but to call and I am here!”
“I noticed.” I sighed. The spirit of intellect that lived in the skull was an old friend and confidant, or at least a mostly faithful assistant. When I had moved into the castle, it had become clear that the building hadbeen constructed with a great many magical systems built into it—but it had to have a spirit to run it, a genius constructi, if you will. Bob had taken to the place as gleefully as a fourteen-year-old who’d been given the keys to a monster truck. He could inhabit the stones of the castle as easily as he could his own skull, and he’d been positively bouncy ever since.
“Look, I know you get satellite and radio and television signals now,” I began.
“And internet!” Bob burbled. “Do you wanna watchLord of the Ringsagain?”
“You’re never going to convince me that Arwen was actually wearing lingerie the whole film,” I said soberly. “You edited.”
“Well,” Bob said sullenly. “Just be glad it wasn’t Gimli.”
“I need to speak to Vadderung,” I said.
Bob whistled. “Harry. You don’t just call up One-Eye himself.”
“Good God,” I said. “We’re not summoning him. I’ve got more sense than that.”
“Do you, though?”
“I need to confirm that the Valkyrie at the front door is who she says she is,” I said.
“Oh, easy, then,” Bob said brightly. “That’s a corporate thing. I’ll just call his office.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Please do.”
“Riiiinnnng,” Bob said. “Riiiinnnng!”
There was a clicking sound from the skull, and a woman’s cold, calm voice said, “Monoc Securities, Mister Vadderung’s office. Who may I say is calling?”
“This is Harry Dresden, wizard,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, her tone clearly disappointed.
“Please let him know I need a moment of his time,” I said.
“I am skeptical of that,” she replied, and suddenly Muzak started playing. I never knew Wagner could be Muzaked.
“Dresden,” came a deep, resonant voice a minute later. “I take it Bear has arrived.”
“Yeah, Andrea the Giant in a motorcycle jacket, green eyes,” I said.
“That’s the one,” Vadderung said with a low chuckle. “Ms. Raith seems somewhat determined to ensure your safety. Bear is my best.”
“Huh,” I said. “You read her contract?”
