Mouse must have darted off to the side at the beginning of the confrontation, because he appeared out of the shadows and came bounding through nearly three feet of snow as if he’d been running on racetrack turf. He was moving so fast that a bow wave of flying snow literally preceded him, like when a speedboat cuts through the water. He hit Torelli’s hitter just as the man pulled the trigger.

Shotguns are loud. Bart screamed an impolite word.

Mouse seized Torelli’s man by his wounded leg, the one I’d shot a minute ago, and began wrenching him around by it, shaking him as easily as a terrier shakes a rat. The goon had another ear-piercing scream left in him, a high-pitched thing that sounded like it had come from a slaughterhouse hog. The shotgun flew from his fingers, and he began flopping like a rag doll, unconscious from the pain.

The sirens grew louder, and I pushed myself back to my feet. Bart lay on the ground, rocking back and forth and screaming. The wild shotgun blast had hit him right in the ass. There was a lot of blood on his jeans, but he didn’t seem to be gushing anything from a major artery. Granted, depending on how much of the shot he’d caught, the wound could potentially maim, cripple, or maybe even kill him if there was any internal bleeding. But there are worse places to get hit, and with all the adrenaline surging through me, it seemed pretty hilarious.

Cackling, I called to Mouse and ran for the car.

Molly already had Murph buckled into the passenger seat. I had to crawl across her to get to the driver’s side. She let out a blistering curse as I accidentally bumped her arm. The driver’s chair was practically touching the steering wheel, and for a second I thought I was going to have to push down the pedals with one hand and drive with the other, but I managed to find the lever that made the seat slide back, and the car started on the first try.

“Dammit, Dresden,” Murphy wheezed. “There were weapons involved. We have to go back.”

Mouse sailed into the backseat through the open door, and Molly closed both doors on that side of the car. I rocked the steering wheel and wiggled the Saturn loose from the snow, then started off down the street. I still had an irrational smile plastered on my face. My cheeks hurt. “Not a chance, Murphy.”

“We can’t just let them go.”

I suppressed another round of adrenaline giggles. “They aren’t going anywhere. And I’m persona non grata, remember? You want to get caught at the scene of a shooting with me mixed up in it?”

“But—”

“Dammit, Murphy,” I said, exasperated. “Do you want me to go to jail? If we go back now, Torelli’s goon tells them I shot him. They take my gun, and if they can find the bullet, or if it’s still in his leg, it’s assault with a deadly weapon.”