Dresden 11 - funkplanet

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Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Only I was betting that someone had gotten into her head. Someone had left something inside her that refused to let Ms. Derek speak about her employer. Hell, she might not evenhave a conscious memory of who hired her—despite the fact that she wouldn’t just hire some detective to spy on somebody for no reason. Everyone always thinks that such obvious logical inconsistencies wouldn’t hold up, that the mind would somehow tear free of the bonds placed upon it using those flaws. But the fact is that the human mind isn’t a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn’t make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people. It’s our nature. There’s plenty to distract us from the nastier truths of our lives, if we want to avoid them. “Evelyn Derek,” I said in a firm, authoritative voice. “Look at me.” She flinched closer to the wall, shaking her head. I knelt in front of her. Then I reached out to touch her chin, and gently lifted her face to mine. “Evelyn Derek,” I said in a gentler voice. “Look at me.” The woman lifted her dark green eyes to mine and I held her gaze for the space of a long breath before the soulgaze began. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then wizards are the souls’ voyeurs. When a wizard looks into another person’s eyes, we get to see something of that person, a vision of the very core of their being. We each go through the experience a little differently, but it amounts to the same thing—a look into another person’s eyes gives you an insight into the most vital portions of their character. Evelyn Derek’s deep green eyes almost seemed to expand around me, and then I found myself staring at a room that was, if anything, almost identical to the woman’s office. The furniture was beautiful and minimalistic. Ms. Derek, it seemed, was not the kind of person to overly burden her soul with the care and mementos most people collect over the course of a lifetime. She had devoted her life to her mind, to the order and discipline of her thoughts, and she had never left herself much room for personal entanglements. But as I stared at the room, I saw Ms. Derek herself. I would have expected her in her business clothing, or perhaps in student’s attire. Instead, she was wearing . . . Well. She was wearing very expensive, very minimalistic black lingerie. Stockings, garters, panties, and bra, all black. She wore them, ahem, very well. She was kneeling on the floor, her knees apart, her hands held behind the small of her back. She faced me with her lips parted, her breath coming in quickened pants. I was able to change my viewpoint slightly, as if walking around her, and those green eyes followed me, pupils wide with desire, her hips shifting in little yearning rolls with every tiny correction of her balance. Her wrists were bound behind her back with a long, slender ribbon of white silk. I caught a motion in the corner of my eye, and I snapped my gaze up, to see a slender, feminine form vanish into the corridors of Evelyn Derek’s memory, showing me nothing more than a flash of pale skin— —and a gleam of silver eyes. Page 120
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Son of a bitch. Someone had bound up Ms. Derek’s thoughts, all right, and woven those restraints together with her natural sexual desire, to give them permanence and strength. The method and the glimpses I’d seen of the perpetrator, flashes of memory that had managed to remain in her thoughts, perhaps, gave strong indicators as to who was responsible. A vampire of theWhite Court . And then there was a wrenching sensation and I was kneeling over Evelyn Derek. Her eyes were wide, her expression a mixture of terror and awe as she stared up at me. Oh, yeah. That was the thing about a soulgaze. Whoever you look at gets a look back at you. They get to see you in just as much detail as you see them. I’ve never had anyone soulgaze me who didn’t seem . . . disconcerted by the experience. Evelyn Derek stared at me and whispered, “Who are you?” I said, “Harry <strong>Dresden</strong>.” She blinked slowly and said, her voice dazed, “She ran from you.” Tears started forming in her eyes. “What is happening to me?” Magic that invades the thoughts of another human being is just about as black as it gets, a direct violation of the Laws of Magic that the Wardens uphold. But there are grey areas, like in any set of laws, and there are accepted customs as to what was or was not allowed in practice. There wasn’t much I could do for Evelyn. It would take a hand lighter and more skilled than mine to undo the harm that had been done to her mind, if it could be undone at all. But there was one thing I could do for her, a bit of grey magic that even the White Council acknowledged as an aid and a mercy, especially for those who had suffered the kind of psychic trauma Evelyn had. I called up my will as gently as I could, and reached out with my right hand. I passed my fingertips gently over her eyes, causing her to close them, and as I passed my palm from her forehead down to her chin, I released that will with as much care as I possibly could, murmuring, “ Dorme, dormius,Evelyn.Dorme, dormius. ” She let out a little whimpering sound of relief, and her body sagged to the floor in sudden and complete relaxation. She breathed in deeply once, exhaled, and then passed into simple and dreamless slumber. I made her as comfortable as I could. With luck, when she woke, she would pass most of our confrontation off as a bad dream. Then I turned and left the law office behind me, quiet anger growing inside me with every step. I went by the security guard at the door as the anger started nudging over into fury. I slapped the receipt down on his desk, and with a gesture and a muttered word caused my staff to leap from where it leaned against the wall and into my hand. The guard fell out of his chair, and I left without looking back. TheWhite Court was involved. They were trying to get Morgan killed—andme with him—and what’s Page 121
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Dresden 11 - funkplanet

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