Thomas grunted. "They can use magic, and Harry left a bunch of blood on the ground. If they want to follow us, they can."

"Dammit," Murphy breathed. "Castle?"

"And have Marcone's people cleaning the blood off him?" Thomas asked. "Fuck that."

"Amen," I agreed woozily.

"Where else, then?" Karrin asked. "Your apartment?"

Thomas shook his head emphatically. "Too many people will see us taking him in. They'll call the authorities. And Lara has eyes on the place. If I take a wounded wizard in there, she'd show up faster than Jimmy John's." He grunted in discomfort as the truck hit a bump in the road.

Karrin turned toward him and leaned over to examine him. "You're hit."

"Only one," Thomas said calmly. "If it was bad, I'd have bled out by now. Gut shot. Don't worry about it."

"Don't be an idiot," Karrin said. "You know how easy it is for these things to go septic? You've got to take care of this."

"Yeah, as soon as we stop somewhere."

"Molly's place," Karrin said. "It's under the aegis of Svartalfheim. No one's getting in there without a major assault."

"Right," I said, the word slurring a little. "There."

"Dammit, Dresden," Karrin said, her voice exasperated. "Just lie down until we can look at you."

I threw her a salute with my right hand and paused, feeling an unfamiliar weight on my arm.

I looked. Captain Hook dangled from it, half a dozen of his armor's barbs caught in the denim of my jacket. I peered at the tiny armored figure and then poked him with a fingertip. He let out a semiconscious little moan, but the hooks had effectively immobilized him.

"Huh," I said. Then I cackled. "Hah. Hah, hah, heh hahhah."

Thomas glanced over his shoulder and blinked several times. "What the hell is that?"

"A priceless intelligence asset," I replied.

Thomas lifted his eyebrows. "You're going to interrogate that little guy?"

"If Molly has a turkey baster, maybe you can waterboard him," Murphy said in an acid tone.

"Relax," I said. "And drive. We need to . . ."

I forgot what I had been about to say we needed to do. I guess all that cackling had really taken it out of me. The world turned sideways and the leather of the backseat pressed up against my unwounded cheek. It felt cool and nice, which was a stark contrast to the waves of pure ache and steady burn that pulsed through my body with every heartbeat.

The world didn't fade to black so much as turn a dark, restless red.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I woke up when someone shoved a branding iron into my neck.

Okay, that isn't what happened, but I was coming out ofunconsciousness at the time, and that was what it seemed like. I let out a curse and flailed with my arms.

"Hold him, hold him!" someone said in an intent voice. Hands came down on my arms, pressing them back against a smooth, rigid surface beneath me.

"Harry," Thomas said. "Harry, easy, easy. You're safe."

There were lights in my eyes. They weren't pleasant. I squinted against them until I could see Thomas's upside-down head looming over me.

"There you are," Thomas said. "We were getting worried." He lifted his hands from my arms and gave the side of my face something somewhere between a pat and a slap. "You weren't waking up."

I looked around me. I was lying on the table in Molly's apartment, the same spot where we'd seen to Toot's injuries earlier in the day. There was the sharp smell of disinfectant in the air. I felt terrible, but less terrible than I had in the car.

I turned my head and saw a wiry little guy with a shock of black hair, a beaky nose, and glittering, intelligent eyes. He picked up a metal bowl in one hand, and moved a pair of needle-nose pliers in the other, dropping something into the bowl with a clink. "And he just wakes up?" Waldo Butters, Chicago's most polka-savvy medical examiner, asked. "Tell me that isn't a little creepy."

"What are you talking about?" I said.

Butters held up the metal bowl, tilting it so that I could see inside. Several tiny, bright, sharp, bloodied pieces of metal were inside. "Barbs from those fishhooks," he said. "Several of them broke off in your skin."

I grunted. My collapse in the car made more sense now. "Yeah," I said. "Any kind of iron gets under my skin, it seems to disagree with the Winter Knight's bundle of awesome. Takes the gumption right out of me." I started to sit up.

Butters very calmly put his hands on my chest and shoved me back down. Hard. I blinked at him.

"I don't do assertive much," he said apologetically. "I don't really like doctoring people who are still alive. But if I'm going to do it, dammit, I'm going to do it right. So. You stay put until I say you can get up. Got it?"

"I, uh . . ." I said. "Yeah, I guess."

"Smart," Butters said. "You have two giant bruises where the lower halves of your arms usually go. You're covered in lacerations, and a couple need sutures. Some are already inflamed. I need to clean them all out. That'll work best if you hold still."

"I can do that," I said. "But I'm feeling all kinds of better, man. Look." I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers. They felt a little tight. I glanced down at them. They were a mottled shade of purple and swollen. My wrists and forearms were blotchy with bruises and swollen, too.