“Negotiated it myself,” Vadderung said. “Bear is practically family.”
“So this is on the level?” I asked.
“As far as I can tell,” Vadderung replied. “You have my word.”
“Okay,” I said. “Uh. Thanks, I guess. That’s all I needed.”
“Make sure she gets enough to eat,” Vadderung suggested, “or you’ll regret it.” And then he hung up.
I blinked. “I have to feed her?”
“Whoa!” Bob exclaimed. “Harry, you’ve got a Valkyrie bodyguard!” His eyes flicked toward the front doors of the castle, as if he had no trouble gazing through the earth and stone between the two points. “A big one! Wow!”
For a second, I wished it could have been a little one.
About five feet tall and blond would do.
I closed my eyes.
“Harry!” Bob said, in a tone that suggested he’d already said it several times.
I blinked my eyes open to find Bob’s glowing presence in the wall nearest my head.
“You okay, boss?”
I scowled and said, “I’m getting tired of people asking me that.”
“Well,” Bob said, “stop checking out in the middle of conversations, maybe.”
I grunted. “Thanks, Bob. We’ll do movies later tonight.”
I went back upstairs to the front doors and found Bear sitting on the rifle cases, her face tilted up to the sun. She looked down and opened her eyes as I approached, and then stood up.
“Okay, wizard,” she said. “We in business?”
“We’re in business,” I said. “Come in. We’ll find you quarters.”
“You’ll put me in a room next to yours,” she said cheerfully, scooping up her gear again. She must have been carrying a couple hundred pounds of stuff. She slung it around like a kid with a book bag. Then she turned, put her thumb and forefinger in her mouth, and let out anearsplitting whistle. “Hey, Riley! Let’s unload this stuff! Doc, you’re with me.”
She stepped back as I pulled some bolts and opened one of the main doors to make room for the men carrying mattresses in, and a second later, Bear came stomping in, with a few extra stomps as if testing the firmness of the flagstones beneath her feet.
“Oh, hell yeah,” she said. “Proper fortress spells here. You got a nice setup, wizard. Doc, come here. This is Harry Dresden. Harry, this is Doctor Lacalle.”
The middle-aged woman with the shoulder bag nodded firmly at me. “Ms. Raith tells me you have sick children here.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “We do.”
She gave me a professional smile and a nod. “Well then,” she said. “Let’s see how we can help them.”
Chapter
Five
A couple of days later, I was wrapping up back day in the gym, finishing off by running the rack of mismatched dumbbells with bent-over rows, starting at hundred pounders and moving down in five-pound increments without stopping between sets. My form wasn’t fantastic, but it didn’t need to be—this one was about endurance. Will was up on the third floor of the castle, working with Michael Carpenter and his people on getting the living quarters made livable.
I had gotten down to thirty pounders when Bear came stomping into the gym. “Hey. Boss.”
“Hnghf,” I gasped. I finished the set with the thirties and shifted immediately to twenty-fives.
