Dead Beat Read Online Free Page B

the corners of her mouth. Brittle hair like dried straw had mostly been broken off to the length of a finger, but here and there longer strands the color of bread mold brushed the shoulders of her dress. "You're allowing your mortality to make you impatient, Dresden. Surely you want to take this opportunity to discuss your assault on my scourge?"
    "No." I slipped my amulet on again and rested my hand on Mouse's head. "I'm not here to socialize. You've got dirt on Murphy and you want something from me. Let's have it."
    Her laugh was full of cobwebs and sandpaper. "I forget how young you are until I see you," she said. "Life is fleeting, Dresden. If you insist on keeping yours, you ought to enjoy it."
    "Funny thing is, trading insults with an egotistical super zombie just isn't my idea of a good time," I said. Mouse punctuated the sentence with another rumbling growl. I turned my shoulders from her, starting to turn away. "If that's all you had in mind, I'm leaving."
    She laughed harder, and the sound of it spooked the hell out of me. Maybe it was the atmosphere, but something about it, the way that it simply lacked anything to do with the things that should motivate laughter… There was no warmth in it, no humanity, no kindness, no joy. It was like Mavra herself—it had the withered human shell, but underneath it all was something from a nightmare.
    "Very well," Mavra said. "We shall embrace brevity."
    I faced her again, wary. Something in her manner had changed, and it was setting off all my alarm bells.
    "Find The Word of Kemmler," she said. Then she turned, dark skirts flaring, one hand resting negligently upon her sword, and started to leave.
    "Hey!" I choked. "That's it?"
    "That's it," she said without turning.
    "Wait a minute!" I said.
    She paused.
    "What the hell is The Word of Kemmler?"
    "A trail."
    "Leading to what?" I asked.
    "Power."
    "And you want it."
    "Yes."
    "And you want me to find it."
    "Yes. Alone. Tell no one of our agreement or what you are doing."
    I took in a slow breath. "What happens if I tell you to go to hell?"
    Mavra silently lifted a single arm. There was a photo between two of her desiccated fingers, and even in the moonlight I could see that it was of Murphy.
    "I'll stop you," I said. "And if I don't, I'll come after you. If you hurt her, I'll kill you so hard your last ten victims will make miraculous recoveries."
    "I won't have to touch her," she said. "I'll send the evidence to the police. The mortal authorities will prosecute her."
    "You can't do that," I said. "Wizards and vampires may be at war, but we leave the mortals out of it. Once you get mortal authorities involved, the Council will do it as well. And then the Reds. You could escalate matters into global chaos."
    "If I intended to employ the mortal authorities against you, perhaps," Mavra said. "You are White Council."
    My stomach twisted with sudden, sickened understanding. I was a member of the White Council of Wizards, a solid citizen of the supernatural realms.
    But Murphy wasn't.
    "The protector of the people," Mavra all but purred. "The defender of the law will find herself a convicted murderer, and her only explanation would make her sound like a madwoman. She is prepared to die in battle, wizard. But I won't merely kill her. I will unmake her. I will destroy the labor of her life and her heart."
    "You bitch," I said.
    "Of course." She looked at me over her shoulder. "And unless you are prepared to unmake mortal civilization—or at least enough of it to impose your will upon it—there is nothing you can do to stop me."
    Fury exploded somewhere in my chest and rolled out through my body and thoughts in a red fire. Mouse rolled forward toward Mavra a step, shaking the mist around us with a rising growl, and I didn't realize at first that he was following my lead. "Like hell there isn't," I snarled. "If I hadn't agreed to a truce I would—"
    Mavra's corpse-yellow teeth appeared in a ghastly smile. "Kill me in my tracks, wizard,