“By coming at you?” I asked.
“Quietly, where Mab can’t see,” Molly said. “It actually kind of reminds me of when Mom used to leave me in charge of all my little brothers and sisters at home. Only more felonious.”
I blinked at that and let out a short bark of laughter.
“There, good, a smile,” she said. “They step up. I swat them down. It’s nothing personal,” she continued. “Then I get back to business. Which, by the way, is why you haven’t heard much from me. Sorry. I’ve had about a hundred and fifty years of Maeve’s backlog to deal with. What’s your excuse?”
“I’ve been sending messengers every day for the last six months,” I said.
Molly’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Mab.”
“Mab.”
“Grrr,” she said. “You need me?”
“The day before yesterday. There’s this thing in my head that’s going to kill me in the next couple of days. Demonreach says you can help. Apparently, Mab thinks so, too.”
Molly’s blue eyes went icy. “Or she wouldn’t have intercepted your messengers. That bitch. If I’d known. .” She chewed on her lower lip. “She’s got me doing something that I can’t get out of right away.”
“What, it isn’t convenient?” I asked.
“I’m under two miles of ice at the moment,” she said. “It took me a day to get here-that’s why I’m asleep now. What’s the situation?”
I told her.
“Oh, God, Harry!” she said. “Nicodemus, really? Is Sanya there?”
“No,” I said, then amended it. “At least, not yet.”
“A Knight will be there,” she said. “That’s how it works. And I’m on the way.” Her expression became distressed, and a moment later the dream world started flickering, and I was suddenly driving in a small herd of Blue Beetles, all of them filled with slightly different versions of Harry Dresden and Molly Carpenter. I had to slalom the VW through them.
“. . there as soon as I can. .” came Molly’s voice, distantly, and then I was driving alone.
The traffic got worse and worse and more confusing, and then there was a loud screech of tires and twisting metal, a bright light, and a sensation of tumbling and falling in exaggerated, graceful slow motion.
The radio blared with static and a woman’s voice spoke in the tones of a news commentator. “. . other news, Harry Dresden, Chicago wizard, blindly charges toward his own destruction because he refuses to recognize simple and obvious truths which are right there in front of him. Dresden ignored several excellently placed warnings, and as a result is expected to perish in the next forty-eight hours. .”
* * *
I hauled myself out of the dream and sat up in bed, shaking and sweating, with my instincts keyed up for danger and certain that I was no longer alone in the room.
My instincts were half right.
Karrin shut the door behind her almost silently and padded over to the bed in the dim glow of a reflected streetlight outside. She was wearing a long, faded CPD T-shirt and her hair was back in a simple ponytail. She also had her favorite SIG in her hand, held down at her side.
“Hey,” she half whispered. She stopped at the side of the bed. “I heard noises. Are you all right?”
I rubbed at my eyes with one hand. Had my dream of Molly been just that? A dream? Or had it been something more? I knew that a lot of crazy stuff was possible when it came to dreaming, and I knew that it had felt incredibly real, but that didn’t mean that it had been real. “Dreams,” I muttered. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t really sleeping anyway. You were muttering, moving around a lot.” I heard her set the SIG down on the bedside table. She was maybe a foot and a half away from me, and from that close, I could smell her. Clean laundry, some kind of vaguely floral deodorant, a hint of sunlight-warmed skin, a trace of cleaning solvent from tending to her guns. A second later, she laid her hand across my forehead.
“You’re running a temperature,” she said. “Fever dreams are the worst. Sit tight.” She went into the bathroom and came out a minute later with a Dixie cup of water and four pills. “Ibuprofen,” she said. “How’s your stomach?”
“Fine,” I muttered. “It’s the cuts and bruises that are bothering me.” She passed me the pills and the water and I swallowed both and put the cup down on the table. “Thanks.”
She picked up the cup and turned to drop it in the trash can, and the light from the bathroom highlighted the strong, curved muscles in her legs as she did. I tried not to notice how much that appealed to me.
But Karrin did.
She paused that way, looking at me obliquely, noticing me noticing her. Then she turned and reached around the bathroom door to shut off the light. The motion showed me even more of her legs. Then the light shut off and we were in sudden darkness. She didn’t move.
“Your eyes,” she said quietly. “You’ve only looked at me like that a few times. It’s. . intense.”
“Sorry,” I said. My voice sounded rough to me.
“No,” she said. Cloth rustled softly. Her weight pushed down on the edge of the bed. “I. . I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last year.”
My throat suddenly felt dry, and my heartbeat accelerated. “What do you mean?”
“This,” she said. Her hand touched my chest and slid up to my jaw. Then her weight shifted the bed a little more in the darkness, and she found my mouth with hers.
It was a good kiss. Slow. Warm. Her lips were soft and gentle and explored mine in gentle surges. I could hear her breathing getting faster, too, and her fingers slid up into my hair, her short nails scratching over my scalp and then tracing down over my neck to my shoulder.
Desire flooded through me in a sudden surge of hot, hungry need, and the Winter in me rose up with a howl, demanding that I sate it. Every instinct in my body told me that Karrin was there, and warm, and real, and pressing more of her body against mine through one fragile layer of cloth-that she was mine for the taking.
I didn’t move my hands. But I broke from the kiss with a gentle groan and said, “Karrin.”
“I know,” she said, breathing harder, not drawing away, her breath hot against my skin. “This thing you have with Mab. It pushes you. I know.”
Then she took my hand and guided it to her hip. After a second, she moved it lower, below the hem of the shirt, and then slid it up. I felt the soft skin and tight muscle of her thigh, the curve of her hip as she moved my hand up to her waist.
She was naked beneath the shirt.
I absolutely froze in place. It was the only alternative to doing something sudden and primal.
“What?” she breathed.
Something in me that had nothing to do with Winter howled at me for stopping, urged me to start moving my fingers, to get the shirt out of the way, to explore further. I beat it down with a club.
She was too important. This wasn’t something I could decide with my glands.
Unfortunately, my head wasn’t getting thoughts through to my mouth. “You aren’t. . I’m not sure if I can. . Karrin, I want this, but. .”
“It’s all right,” she said quietly.
“I’m not sure,” I said again. I wanted her. But I wanted it to be about more than desire. I could have that if I wanted-mindless, empty sex is not exactly in short supply among the Sidhe of Winter.
But that kind of thing can eat you hollow, if you let it. And Karrin was courage and loyalty and brains and heart and so much more than mere need and desire.
I tried to explain that. Words just sort of sputtered out. I wasn’t even sure they were in the right order.
She slid her hand over my mouth after a few faltering moments. I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. “I’ve had a year to think about this, Harry. And I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I was too scared to take the next step.” She leaned down and kissed one of my eyelids, her mouth gentle. “I know that you’re a good man. And I’ve never had a friend like you.” She leaned down and kissed the other eyelid. “And I know you’ve been alone for a long time. So have I. And I’m right here. And I want this. And you want this. So would you please shut up and do something about it.”