Jim Butcher - Dresden 07 - Dead Beat

VIP免费

2024-12-19 0 0 920.8KB 489 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Scanned by an unsung hero.

Proofed by Highroller.

Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet.

Dead Beat by Jim

Butcher

Acknowledgments

I owe another round of thanks to the usual suspects: the

inmates of the Beta Foo Asylum, both long-term and recent

arrivals. The Dresden Files's new editor, the warm and gracious

Anne Sowards—are you sure you actually live in NYC, Anne? My

agent, Jennifer Jackson, who has been doing ten kinds of

running around getting various deals put together and for whom

I am most grateful.

More thanks to my family, for their continuing support and

love. To Shannon for being who she is, and whose good opinion I

would work ten… well wait, no maybe three times as hard to

keep—Okay, okay, five, tops, (ten would be more hours than

exist, babe, and besides, when could I play Halo?) Also thanks to

my son JJ, whose boundless energy, enthusiasm, and love are

wonderfully intimidating.

Oh, and also for my ferocious furry bodyguard, Frost, who

supports my career by frightening away any bad guys long before

they get near enough to actually bother me, and by helping me

eat any potentially distracting snacks.

For my son.

The best thing that ever happened to me. I love you,

Short-stuff.

Chapter One

On On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to

Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too

crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis

says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to

mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical

cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal,

violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never

saw it coming.

As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a

sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding.

For freaking Cain.

My apartment isn't much more than a big room in the

basement of a century-old wooden boardinghouse in Chicago.

There's a kitchen built into an alcove, a big fireplace almost

always lit, a bedroom the size of the bed of a pickup truck, and a

bathroom that barely fits a sink, toilet, and shower. I can't afford

really good furniture, so it's all secondhand, but comfortable. I

have a lot of books on shelves, a lot of rugs, a lot of candles. It

isn't much, but at least it's clean.

Or used to be.

The rugs were in total disarray, exposing bare patches of

stone floor. One of the easy chairs had fallen over onto its back,

and no one had picked it up. Cushions were missing from the

couch, and the curtains had been torn down from one of the

sunken windows, letting in a swath of late-afternoon sunshine,

all the better to illuminate the books that had been knocked

down from one of my shelves and scattered everywhere, bending

paperback covers, leaving hardbacks all the way open, and

generally messing up my primary source of idle entertainment.

The fireplace was more or less the epicenter of the slobquake.

There were discarded clothes there, a couple of empty wine

bottles, and a plate that looked suspiciously clean—doubtless the

cleanup work of the other residents.

I took a stunned step into my home. As I did my big grey tom,

Mister, bounded down from his place on top of one of the

bookshelves, but rather than give me his usual shoulder-block of

greeting, he flicked his tail disdainfully at me and ghosted out

the front door.

I sighed, walked over to the kitchen alcove, and checked. The

cat's bowls of food and water were both empty. No wonder he

was grumpy.

A shaggy section of the kitchen floor hauled itself to its feet

and came to meet me with a sheepish, sleepy shuffle. My dog,

Mouse, had started off as fuzzy little grey puppy that fit into my

coat pocket. Now, almost a year later, I sometimes wished I'd

sent my coat to the cleaners or something. Mouse had gone from

fuzz ball to fuzz barge. You couldn't guess at a breed to look at

him, but at least one of his parents must have been a wooly

mammoth. The dog's shoulders came nearly to my waist, and the

vet didn't think he was finished growing yet. That translated into

an awful lot of beast for my tiny apartment.

Oh, and Mouse's bowls were empty, too. He nuzzled my hand,

his muzzle stained with what looked suspiciously like spaghetti

sauce, and then pawed at his bowls, scraping them over the

patch of linoleum floor.

"Dammit, Mouse," I growled, Cain-like. "It's still like this? If

he's here, I'm going to kill him."

Mouse let out a chuffing breath that was about as much

commentary as he ever made, and followed placidly a couple of

steps behind me as I walked over to the closed bedroom door.

Just as I got there, the door opened, and an angel-faced

blonde wearing nothing but a cotton T-shirt appeared in it. Not

a long shirt, either. It didn't cover all of her rib cage.

"Oh," she drawled, with a slow and sleepy smile. "Excuse me. I

didn't know anyone else was here." Without a trace of modesty,

she slunk into the living room, pawing through the mess near the

fireplace, extracting pieces of clothing. From the languid,

satisfied way she moved, I figured she expected me to be staring

at her, and that she didn't mind it at all.

At one time I would have been embarrassed as hell by this

kind of thing, and probably sneaking covert glances. But after

living with my half brother the incubus for most of a year, I

mostly found it annoying. I rolled my eyes and asked, "Thomas?"

"Tommy? Shower, I think," the girl said. She slipped into

jogging wear—sweatpants, a matching jacket, expensive shoes.

"Do me a favor? Tell him that it—"

I interrupted her in an impatient voice. "That it was a lot of

fun, you'll always treasure it, but that it was a onetime thing and

that you hope he grows up to find a nice girl or be president or

something."

She stared at me and then knitted her blond brows into a

frown. "You don't have to be such a bast—" Then her eyes

widened. "Oh. Oh! I'm sorry—oh, my God." She leaned toward

me, blushing, and said in a between-us-girls whisper, "I would

never have guessed that he was with a man. How do the two of

you manage on that tiny bed?"

I blinked and said, "Now wait a minute."

But she ignored me and walked out, murmuring, "He is such a

naughty boy."

I glared at her back. Then I glared at Mouse.

Mouse's tongue lolled out in a doggy grin, his dark tail waving

gently.

"Oh, shut up," I told him, and closed the door. I heard the

whisper of water running through the pipes in my shower. I put

out food for Mister and Mouse, and the dog partook

immediately. "He could have fed the damned dog, at least," I

muttered, and opened the fridge.

I rummaged through it, but couldn't find what I was after

anywhere, and it was the last straw. My frustration grew into a

fire somewhere inside my eyeballs, and I straightened from the

icebox with mayhem in mind.

"Hey," came Thomas's voice from behind me. "We're out of

beer."

I turned around and glared at my half brother.

Thomas was a shade over six feet tall, and I guess now that I'd

had time to get used to the idea, he looked something like me:

stark cheekbones, a long face, a strong jaw. But whatever

sculptor had done the finishing work on Thomas had foisted my

features off on his apprentice or something. I'm not ugly or

anything, but Thomas looked like someone's painting of the

forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark

that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the

shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of

thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to

earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was

wearing jeans and no shirt—his standard household uniform. I

once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in

the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten

copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been

interesting.

It hadn't been the girl's fault, entirely. Thomas had inherited

his father's blood as a vampire of the White Court. He was a

psychic predator, feeding on the raw life force of human

beings—usually easiest to gain through the intimate contact of

sex. That part of him surrounded him in the kind of aura that

turned heads wherever he went. When Thomas made the effort

to turn up the supernatural come-hither, women literally

couldn't tell him no. By the time he started feeding, they couldn't

even want to tell him no. He was killing them, just a little bit,

but he had to do it to stay sane, and he never took it any further

than a single feeding.

He could have. Those the White Court chose as their prey

became ensnared in the ecstasy of being fed upon, and became

increasingly enslaved by their vampire lover. But Thomas never

pushed it that far. He'd made that mistake once, and the woman

he had loved now drifted through life in a wheelchair, bound in a

deathly euphoria because of his touch.

I clenched my teeth and reminded myself that it wasn't easy

for Thomas. Then I told myself that I was repeating myself way

too many times and to shut up. "I know there's no beer," I

growled. "Or milk. Or Coke."

"Um," he said.

"And I see that you didn't have time to feed Mister and

Mouse. Did you take Mouse outside, at least?"

"Well sure," he said. "I mean, uh… I took him out this

morning when you were leaving for work, remember? That's

where I met Angie."

"Another jogger," I said, once more Cain-like. "You told me

you weren't going to keep bringing strangers back here, Thomas.

And on my freaking bed? Hell's bells, man, look at this place."

He did, and I saw it dawn on him, as if he literally hadn't seen

it before. He let out a groan. "Damn. Harry, I'm sorry. It was…

Angie is a really… really intense and, uh, athletic person and I

didn't realize that…" He paused and picked up a copy of Dean

Koontz's Watchers. He tried to fold the crease out of the cover.

"Wow," he added lamely. "The place is sort of trashed."

"Yeah," I told him. "You were here all day. You said you'd take

Mouse to the vet. And clean up a little. And get groceries."

"Oh, come on," he said. "What's the big deal?"

"I don't have a beer," I growled. I looked around at the rubble.

"And I got a call from Murphy at work today. She said she'd be

dropping by."

Thomas lifted his eyebrows. "Oh, yeah? No offense, Harry, but

I'm doubting it was a booty call."

I glared. "Would you stop it with that already?"

"I'm telling you, you should just ask her out and get it over

with. She'd say yes."

I slammed the door to the icebox. "It isn't like that," I said.

"Yeah, okay," Thomas said mildly.

"It isn't. We work together. We're friends. That's all."

"Right," he agreed.

"I am not interested in dating Murphy," I said. "And she's not

interested in me."

"Sure, sure. I hear you." He rolled his eyes and started picking

up fallen books. "Which is why you want the place looking nice.

So your business friend won't mind staying around for a little

bit."

I gritted my teeth and said, "Stars and stones, Thomas, I'm

not asking you for the freaking moon. I'm not asking you for

rent. It wouldn't kill you to pitch in a little with errands before

you go to work."

"Yeah," Thomas said, running his hand through his hair.

"Um. About that."

"What about it?" I demanded. He was supposed to be gone for

the afternoon so that my housecleaning service could come in.

The faeries wouldn't show up to clean when someone could see

them, and they wouldn't show up ever again if I told someone

about them. Don't ask me why they're like that. Maybe they've

got a really strict union or something.

Thomas shrugged a shoulder and sat down on the arm of the

couch, not looking at me. "I didn't have the cash for the vet or

the groceries," he said. "I got fired again."

I stared at him for a second, and tried to keep up a good head

of steam on my anger, but it melted. I recognized the frustration

and humiliation in his voice. He wasn't faking it.

"Dammit," I muttered, only partly to Thomas. "What

happened?"

"The usual," he said. "The drive-through manager. She

followed me into the walk-in freezer and started ripping her

clothes off. The owner walked through on an inspection about

then and fired me on the spot. From the look he was giving her, I

think she was going to get a promotion. I hate gender

discrimination."

"At least it was a woman this time," I said. "We've got to keep

working on your control."

His voice turned bitter. "Half of my soul is a demon," he said.

"It can't be controlled. It's impossible."

"I don't buy that," I said.

"Just because you're a wizard doesn't mean you know a

damned thing about it," he said. "I can't live a mortal life. I'm

not made for it."

"You're doing fine."

"Fine?" he demanded, voice rising. "I can disintegrate a

virgin's inhibitions at fifty paces, but I can't last two weeks at a

job where I'm wearing a stupid hairnet and a paper hat. In what

way is that fine?"

He slammed open the small trunk where he kept his clothes,

seized a pair of shoes and his leather jacket, put them on with

angry precision, and stalked out into the gathering evening

without looking back.

And without cleaning up his mess, I thought uncharitably.

Then I shook my head and glanced at Mouse, who had lain down

with his chin on his paws, doggy eyes sad.

Thomas was the only family I'd ever known. But that didn't

change the truth: Thomas wasn't adjusting well to living life like

normal folks. He was damned good at being a vampire. That

came naturally. But no matter how hard he tried to be

something a little more like normal, he kept running into one

problem after another. He never said anything about it, but I

could sense the pain and despair growing in him as the weeks

went by.

Mouse let out a quiet breath that wasn't quite a whine.

"I know," I told the beast. "I worry about him too."

I took Mouse on a long walk, and got back in as late-October

dusk was settling over Chicago. I got my mail out of the box and

started for the stairs down to my apartment, when a car pulled

in to the boardinghouse's small gravel lot and crunched to a stop

a few steps away. A petite blonde in jeans, a blue button-down

shirt, and a satin White Sox windbreaker slipped the car into

park and left the engine running as she got out.

Karrin Murphy looked like anything but the head of a division

of law enforcement in charge of dealing with everything that

went bump in the night in the whole greater Chicago area. When

trolls started mugging passersby, when vampires left their

victims dead or dying in the streets, or when someone with more

magical firepower than conscience went berserk, Chicago PD's

Special Investigations department was tasked to investigate. Of

course, no one seriously believed in trolls or vampires or evil

sorcerers, but when something weird happened, SI was in charge

of explaining to everyone how it had been only a man in a rubber

mask, and that there was nothing to worry about.

SI had a sucky job, but the men and women who worked there

weren't stupid. They were perfectly aware that there were things

out there in the darkness that were beyond the scope of

conventional understanding. Murphy, in particular, was

determined to give the cops every edge they could get when

dealing with a preternatural threat, and I was one of her best

weapons. She would hire me on as a consultant when SI went up

against something really dangerous or alien, and the fees I got

working with SI paid the lion's share of my expenses.

When Mouse saw Murphy, he made a little huffing sound of

greeting and trotted over to her, his tail wagging. If I had leaned

back and kept my legs straight I could have gone skiing over the

gravel, but other than that, the big dog left me with no option

but to come along.

Murphy knelt down at once to dig her hands into the fur

behind Mouse's floppy ears, scratching vigorously. "Hey, there,

boy," she said, smiling. "How are you?"

Mouse slobbered several doggy kisses onto her hands.

Murphy said, "Yuck," but she was laughing while she did. She

pushed Mouse's muzzle gently away, rising. "Evening, Harry.

Glad I caught you."

"I was just getting back from my evening drag," I said. "You

want to come in?"

Murphy had a cute face and very blue eyes. Her golden hair

was pulled back into a ponytail, and it made her look a lot

younger than usual. Her expression was a careful, maybe even

uncomfortable one. "I'm sorry, but I can't," she said. "I've got a

plane to catch. I don't really have time."

"Ah," I said. "What's up?"

"I'm going out of town for a few days," she said. "I should be

back sometime Monday afternoon. I was hoping I could talk you

into watering my plants for me."

"Oh," I said. She wanted me to water her plants. How coy.

How sexy. "Yeah, sure. I can do that."

"Thanks," she said, and offered me a key on a single steel ring.

"It's the back-door key."

I accepted it. "Where you headed?"

The discomfort in her expression deepened. "Oh, out of town

on a little vacation."

I blinked.

"I haven't had a vacation in years," she said defensively. "I've

got it coming."

"Well. Sure," I said. "Um. So, a vacation. By yourself?"

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

Scannedbyanunsunghero.ProofedbyHighroller.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.DeadBeatbyJimButcherAcknowledgmentsIoweanotherroundofthankstotheusualsuspects:theinmatesoftheBetaFooAsylum,bothlong-termandrecentarrivals.TheDresdenFiles'sneweditor,thewarmandgraciousAnneSowards—areyousureyouactu...

展开>> 收起<<

Jim Butcher - Dresden 07 - Dead Beat.pdf

共489页,预览98页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Jim Butcher - Dresden 07 - Dead Beat

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: