"The older safe combinations need some kind of designation for left and right. The newer ones might use some kind of digital code, sure, but unless you find a safe with a password sixteen numerals long, that won't help us much."
"A credit card," I said. "That's sixteen digits, right?"
"Can be," Butters said. "You think that's what the number was? Maybe a credit card or debit card account that Bony Tony wanted his fee to get paid to?"
I grimaced. "Doesn't make any sense," I said. "Something like that would be in his pocket. Not hidden in a balloon hanging from a string down his throat."
"Good point," Butters said.
We rode in silence for a while. Except for the headlights of other cars, the streets were dark. Between the total lack of lighting, the dark, and the heavy rain, it was like driving through a cave. Traffic was tight and snarled anywhere near the highways, but it had thinned out considerably since the afternoon. The people of Chicago seemed to mostly be staying home for the night, which was a mercy in more ways than one.
Butters looked around nervously a few minutes later. "Harry. This isn't exactly the best neighborhood."
"I know," I said, and pulled over in front of a hydrant, the only open space in sight.
He swallowed. "Why are you stopping the car?"
"I need to check on someone," I said. "Stay here with Mouse. I'll be right back."
"But- "
"Butters," I said impatiently. "There's a girl here who helped me out earlier today. I have to make sure Cowl and his sidekick haven't harmed her."
"But… can't you do this after you stop the bad guys?"
I shook my head. "I'm doing my best, here. I don't know what might happen in the next few hours, but dammit, this girl helped me because I asked her to. I dragged her into this. Cowl and Kumori were going to considerable lengths to destroy every copy of der Erlking that they could find, and if they guessed that I got it from her memory she'll be in danger. I need to be sure she's all right."
"Oooooh," Butters said. "This is the girl who asked you out, right?"
I blinked. "How did you know that?"
"Thomas told me."
I growled under my breath and said, "Remind me to punch his lights out sometime soon."
"Hey," Butters said. "At least he didn't let me keep thinking you were gay."
I gave Butters a flat look and got out of the car. "Stay in the driver's seat," I told him. "If there's trouble, run. Try to circle back for me."
"Right," Butters said. "Got it."
I hurried through the rain and the darkness into Shiela's building. I drew out my pentacle and willed light from it, and went up the stairs to her floor as I had that morning. The stairs and the hallway had that illusory unfamiliarity that darkness can give a place you've seen only once or twice, but I found my way to Shiela's door easily enough.
I paused for a moment and tried to sense the wards she'd woven, and found that they were still in place. That was good. If anyone had come in after her for some reason, they'd have either torn the ward down or set it off on the way through.
Unless, of course, someone had gone to the trouble to get invited in first. Shiela didn't seem to be the kind to turn folks away out of a sense of general paranoia. I knocked several times.
There wasn't an answer.
She had said she was going out, earlier. She was probably at some costume party somewhere. Talking with friends. Eating good food. Having fun.
Probably.
I knocked again and said, "Shiela? It's Harry."
I heard a couple of soft steps, the creak of a floorboard, and then the door opened to the length of its security chain. Shiela stood in the opening. There was soft candlelight coming from her apartment. "Harry." she said quietly, her mouth curling into a smile. "What are you doing here? Hang on." She closed the door, the security chain rattled, and then she opened it again. "Come in."
"I really can't stick around," I said, but I stepped through the door anyway. She had half a dozen candles lit on the end table beside her couch, and there was a mussed blanket on the couch next to a paperback novel.
Shiela's long, dark hair was piled up into bun and held in place with a couple of chopsticks, leaving her ears and the smooth skin of her neck intriguingly bare. She was wearing a Bears football jersey made of soft cotton that hung to her knees, and she wore pink slippers on her feet. The jersey was loose on her, but she had the curves to make it look more appealing than it had any right to be. I could see her calves, and they did a wonderful job of blending softness and strength.
Shiela saw me looking, and her cheeks turned a little pink. "Hi," she said, her voice quiet.
"Hi," I said back, and smiled at her. "Hey, I thought you had a party tonight?"
She shook her head. "I was walking. I didn't want to walk in the rain, and I couldn't call anyone to get me a ride, so I'm home." She tilted her head to one side and frowned at me. "You seem… I'm not sure. Tense. Angry."
"Both," I said. "There are some things happening."
She nodded, her dark eyes serious. "I've heard that there's something bad brewing. It's what you're working on, isn't it?"
"Yes."
She fretted at her lower lip. "Then why are you here?"
She looked beautiful like that, in a sleepshirt in the candlelight. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but she looked deliriously soft and feminine. I thought about kissing her again, just to make sure that the first one hadn't been some sort of anomaly. Then I shook my head and reminded myself that tonight was about business. "I just needed to make sure that you were all right."
Her eyes widened. "Am I in some kind of danger?"
I lifted my hand placatingly. "I don't think you are now. But I was followed today. I had to be sure that you were safe. Have you seen anyone? Maybe felt nervous or anxious for no reason?"
"No more than any other day," she said. Thunder rumbled, and the rain kept drumming on her windows. "Honestly."
I let out my breath and felt myself relax a little. "Okay, good. I'm glad."
Thunder rumbled again and we both just stood there, staring at each other. Both of us glanced, just for a second, at the other's eyes, then pulled away before anything could happen.
"Harry," she said quietly. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"
"You already have," I said.
She took a step closer, and her dark eyes looked huge. "Are you sure?"
My heart sped up again, but I took a little step back from her. "Yeah. Shiela, I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on the rest of tonight if I didn't look in on you first."
She nodded then, and folded her arms. "All right. But when you're finished with this, there's something I'd like to talk to you about."
"What?" I asked.
She shook her head and put her hand on my arm. "It would take some time to explain it. If you think you need your focus for tonight, I don't want to distract you with anything."
I looked at her, and then deliberately down her, and said, "That's probably best. I'm finding you very distracting right now."
She flushed brighter. "No. That's just you reacting to being in danger. You're afraid that you're going to die, and sex is very life affirming."
"Is that what it is?" I drawled.
"Among other things," she said.
For a few seconds my hormones did their best to lobby for overcoming distraction by means of indulgence, but I reined them in. Shiela was right: I was in pain and in fear and in danger, and those kinds of circumstances have a tendency to make you pay attention to different things- the soft shine of candlelight on Shiela's hair, for example, or the soft scent of rose oil and flowered soap on her skin-and Shiela had been in danger for part of that time as well.
I didn't want to take advantage of that. And I didn't want to start anything with her that I wasn't going to be able to finish. For all I knew I'd be dead before another day was out, and it wouldn't be right to allow things to go any further just because I was afraid.