Dresden 5 by Death Masks Read Free Book Online Page B

when my phone rang.
    I swore sulfurously, got out of bed into the freezing air, snatched up the phone, and growled, "What." Then, on the off chance it was Susan, I forced some calm into my voice and said, "I mean, hello?"
    "Sorry to wake you, Harry," said Karrin Murphy, the head of Chicago PD's Special Investigations division. SI routinely handled any crime that fell between the cracks of the other departments, as well as being handed the really smelly cases no one else wanted. As a result, they wound up looking into all kinds of things that weren't easily explained. Their job was to make sure that things were taken care of, and that everything typed up neatly into the final report.
    Murphy called me in as a consultant from time to time, when she had something weird that she didn't know how to handle. We'd been working together for a while, and Murphy had gotten to where she and SI could handle your average, everyday supernatural riffraff. But from time to time, she ran into something that stumped her. My phone number is on her quick dial.
    "Murph," I said. "What's up?"
    "Unofficial business," she said. "I'd like your take on something."
    "Unofficial means not paid, I guess," I said.
    "You up for any pro bono work?" She paused and then said, "This could be important to me."
    What the hell. My night had pretty much been shot anyway. "Where do you want me?"
    "Cook County Morgue," Murphy said. "I want to show you a corpse."
    Chapter Five
    They don't make morgues with windows. In fact, if the geography allows for it, they hardly ever make morgues above the ground. I guess it's partly because it must be easier to refrigerate a bunch of coffin-sized chambers in a room insulated by the earth. But that can't be all there is to it. Under the earth means a lot more than relative altitude. It's where dead things fit. Graves are under the earth. So are Hell, Gehenna, Hades, and a dozen other reported afterlives.
    Maybe it says something about people. Maybe for us, under the earth is a subtle and profound statement. Maybe ground level provides us with a kind of symbolic boundary marker, an artificial construct that helps us remember that we are alive. Maybe it helps us push death's shadow back from our lives.
    I live in a basement apartment and like it. What does that say about me?
    Probably that I overanalyze things.
    "You look pensive," Murphy said. We walked down an empty hospital corridor toward the Cook County Morgue. We'd had to go the long way around so that I could avoid any areas with important medical equipment. My leather duster whispered around my legs as I walked. My blasting rod thumped against my leg rhythmically, where I'd tied it to the inside of the duster. I'd traded in my slacks for blue jeans and my dress shoes for hiking boots.
    Murphy didn't look like a monster-hunting Valkyrie. Murphy looked like someone's kid sister. She was five nothing, a hundred and nothing, and was built like an athlete, all springy muscle. Her blond hair hung down over her blue eyes, and was cut close in back. She wore nicer clothes than usual-a maroon blouse with a grey pantsuit-and she had on more makeup than was her habit. She looked every inch the professional businesswoman.
    That said, Murphy was a monster-hunting Valkyrie. She was the only person I'd ever heard of who had killed one with a chainsaw.
    "I said you look pensive, Harry," she repeated, a little louder.
    I shook my head and told Murphy, "I don't like hospitals."
    She nodded. "Morgues spook me. Morgues and dogs."
    "Dogs?" I asked.
    "Not like beagles or cocker spaniels or anything. Just big dogs."
    I nodded. "I like dogs. They give Mister something to snack on."
    Murphy gave me a smile. "I've seen you spooked. It doesn't make you look like that."
    "What do I look like?" I asked.
    Murphy pursed her lips, as though considering her words. "You look worried. And frustrated. And guilty. You know, romance things."
    I gave her a wry glance, and then nodded. "Susan's in town."
    Murphy