“Murphy,” I chided, “petty violence is beneath you. Which is saying something.”

“Keep it up, wise guy. I’m always going to be taller than you once you’re lying unconscious on the ground.”

“You’re right. That was a low blow. I’ll try to rise above it.”

She showed me a clenched fist. “Pow, Dresden. Right to the moon.”

We reached Murphy’s car. Rawlins was in the passenger seat, pretending to snore. He wasn’t the sort to just fall asleep.

“So, Summer made a run at you,” Murphy said. “You think the attack on Marcone’s building is connected with that?”

“I lost my faith in coincidence,” I said.

“Get in,” she said. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

I shook my head. “There might be something I can do here, but I need to be alone. And I need a doughnut.”

Murphy arched a delicate dark-gold eyebrow. “Ooooooo-kay.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter and give me the damned doughnut.”

Murphy shook her head and got in her car. She tossed me a sack from Dunkin’ Donuts that was sitting on Rawlins’s side of the dashboard.

“Hey!” Rawlins protested without opening his eyes.

“For a good cause,” I told him, nodding my thanks to Murphy. “Call you when I know something.”

She frowned at my nose. “You sure you want to be alone?”

I winked one of my blackened eyes at her. “Some things a wizard has to do for himself,” I said.

Rawlins swallowed a titter.

I get no respect.

They drove off and left me in the silently falling snow in the still hours before dawn. There were still a couple of fire crews and uniform cops there, the latter blocking off the street, though the former weren’t actively firefighting. The building was out, and coated in a layer of ice—but I guess there always could have been something hidden in the walls and ready to pop out again. I overheard one of them telling another that the road crew that was supposed to clean the rubble out of the street was helping a city plow truck stuck in the snow, and would be there when they could.

I trudged to about a block away, found an alley not choked, and went in with my doughnut. I debated for a moment what approach I would take. My relationship with this particular source had changed over the years, after all. Reason indicated that sticking with longstanding procedure was my best bet. Instinct told me that reason had disappointed me more than once, and that it wasn’t thinking in the long term anyway.

Over the years, my instincts and I have gotten cozy.

So, instead of bothering with a simple bait-and-snare, I braced my feet, held out my right hand palm up, placed the doughnut upon it like an offering, and murmured a Name.

Names, capital N, have power. If you know something’s Name, you automatically have a conduit with which you can reach out and touch it, a way to home in on it with magic. Sometimes that can be a really bad idea. Speak the Name of a big, bad spiritual entity and you might be able to touch it, sure—but it can touch you right back, and the big boys tend to do it a lot harder than any mortal. It’s worth as much as your soul to speak the Name of beings like that.