I shook my head. "Why would Winter pull this now? I mean, if they had waited another couple of days, they could have held all the cards. Why leave you enough space to wriggle out?"

"I cannot even pretend to know the mind of Winter," Aurora said. "But I know that they must not be allowed to destroy us. For your sake as well as ours."

"Boy, everybody's looking out for my best interests."

"Wizard, please. Promise me that you will do what you can to stop them."

"I'm finished making promises." I stood up and started for the path that led back to the elevator and out, but part of me wanted to do nothing but return to the comfort Aurora had offered. I paused and squeezed my eyes shut, focusing my resolve. "But I will say this. I'm going to find the killer and straighten this out, and I'm going to do it before Midsummer."

I didn't bother to add, "Because I'm as good as dead if I don't."

No need to belabor the obvious.

Chapter Eighteen

I got the hell away from the Rothchild and found a pay phone. Murphy picked up on the first ring. "Dresden?"

"Yeah."

"Finally. You all right?"

"I need to talk to you."

There was a short pause, then her voice softened. "Where?"

I rubbed at my head with the heel of one hand, trying to nudge my brain into gear. My thoughts stumbled around sluggishly and in no particular order. "Dunno. Someplace public, bunch of people, quiet enough to talk."

"In Chicago. At this time of night."

"Yeah."

"Okay," Murph said. "I guess I know a place." She told me, we agreed to meet in twenty minutes, and hung up.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I reflected that odds were that not a lot of clandestine meetings involving mystical assassination, theft of arcane power, and the balance of power in the realms of the supernatural had taken place in a Wal-Mart Super Center. But then again, maybe they had. Hell, for all I knew, the Mole Men used the changing rooms as a place to discuss plans for world domination with the Psychic Jellyfish from Planet X and the Disembodied Brains-in-a-Jar from the Klaatuu Nebula. I know I wouldn't have looked for them there.

After midnight the Wal-Mart wasn't crowded, but it wasn't the usual deserted parking lot you'd expect after hours around Wrigleyville, either. The store was open all night, and there were plenty of people in a town like Chicago who would do their shopping late. I had to park about halfway down a row and walk through the cool of the evening before stepping into the refrigerator-cold of the enormous store, whose massive air conditioners had too much momentum to slow down for a few paltry hours of darkness.

A greeter nodded sleepily to me as I came in, and I passed up his offer of a shopping cart. Before I'd gotten all the way into the store, Murphy fell into step beside me. She was wearing a Cubs jacket, jeans, and sneakers, and she had her blond hair tucked up underneath an undecorated black ball cap. She walked with her hands in her pockets, and her expression, one of belligerent annoyance, didn't seem to fit on someone that short. Wordlessly, we walked past all the little hole-in-the-wall franchise businesses, closed and locked up behind their grills, and settled down at the generic cafe near the deli section of the grocery store.