Of course, the authorities didn’t know that it was worse. Marcone had begun expanding his power base into the supernatural world as well, signing on to the Unseelie Accords as a free holding lord. It made him, in the eyes of the authorities of the supernatural world, a kind of small, neutral state, a recognizable power, and I had no doubt that he’d begun using that new power to do what he always did—create more of the same.

All of which had been made possible by Harry Dresden. And the truly galling thing about the entire situation was that it had been the least evil of the options that had been available to me at the time.

I looked up from the circle I’d chalked on the concrete beneath a sheltered overhang in the alley and shook my head. “Sorry. Can’t get anything. Maybe the blood is too dry. Maybe the donor is dead.”

Murphy nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on the morgues, then.”

I broke the circle with a swipe of my hand and rose from my knees.

“Can I ask you something?” Murphy said.

“Sure.”

“Why don’t you ever use pentagrams? All I ever see you draw is circles.”

I shrugged. “PR mostly. Run around making lots of five-pointed stars in this country and people start screaming about Satan. Including the satanists. I’ve got enough problems. If I need a pentagram, I usually just imagine it.”

“You can do that?”

“Magic’s in your head, mostly. Building an image in your mind and holding it there. Theoretically you could do everything without any chalk or symbols or anything else.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because it’s a pointlessly difficult effort for identical results.” I squinted up at the still-falling snow. “You’re a cop. I need a doughnut.”

She snorted as we left the alley. “Stereotype much, Dresden?”

“Cops do a lot of running around in their cars, and they don’t always get to control their hours, Murph. Lots of times they can’t leave a crime scene to hit a drive-through. So they need food that can sit in a car for hours and hours without tasting foul or giving them food poisoning. Doughnuts are good for that.”

“So are granola bars.”

“Is Rawlins a masochist, too?”

Murphy casually bumped her shoulder against my arm when I was between steps, making me wobble, and I grinned. We emerged onto the mostly empty street. The firemen had been wrapping up their job when I arrived, and every truck but one had departed. Once the flames were out the show was over, and there were no rubberneckers anymore. Only a few cops were in sight, most of them in their cars.

“So what happened to your face?” Murphy asked.

I told her.

She concealed a smile. “‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff ’?”

“Hey. They’re tough, all right? They kill trolls.”

“I saw you do that once. How hard could it be?”

I found myself grinning. “I had a little help.”

Murphy matched my smile. “One more short joke and I’m taking a kneecap.”