Backup by Jim Butcher & Mike Mignola

Author:Jim Butcher & Mike Mignola [Butcher, Jim & Mignola, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-11-16T05:39:46.178000+00:00

4

Harry is one of the top wizards on the planet and he lives in a basement.

His boarding house is a little run-down, but roomy. I guess the rent is cheap. His basement

apartment is tiny, but the neighbors are elderly and quiet. He seems to like it. I’ve known him for years,

and I still can't quite believe that he really keeps on living there.

Personally, I think that's why he hasn't had more trouble at home-I don't think his enemies can

bring themselves to believe it, either. Maybe they figure it's a decoy he's constructed solely to give them

somewhere obvious to attack, where he can lure them to their deaths. Certainly, the ones who show up

don't like the welcome they receive. The defensive spells around his home could charbroil a herd of

charging buffalo.

I used the crystal he'd given me to disarm his wards, and the key he'd given me to unlock his

door and let myself in. His apartment was spotlessly clean, as usual-he'd turned into a neat freak a few

years ago, for some reason, though he'd never talked about why.

An enormous, shaggy gray dog, two hundred pounds of muscle and fur and white, sharp

fangs, appeared from the little kitchen-equipped alcove and growled at me.

"Whoah," I said, holding up my hands. "Mouse, it's me. Thomas."

Mouse's growl cut off suddenly. His ears twitched back and forth, and he tilted his head one way

and then the other, peering at me, his nose twitching as he sniffed.

"Someone laid an illusion over me," I said. Harry had told me that his dog was special, and

could understand human speech. I still wasn't sure whether or not he' d been pulling my leg when he

said it. He's got a weird sense of humor, sometimes. But speaking quietly to animals when they appear

nervous is always a good idea, and I did not want Mouse deciding that I was a threat. He was a Foo

dog, and I'd seen him take on things no mortal animal could survive, much less overcome. "Look, boy,

I think Harry might be in trouble. I need to talk to the skull."

Mouse came over to me and sniffed at me carefully. Then he made a chuffing sound, padded

over to one of the throw rugs on the apartment's floor, and dragged it to one side, revealing the lift-up

trap door that led down to the sub-basement.

I paced over to it and ruffled the dog's ears. "Thanks, boy."

Mouse wagged his tail at me.

A folding stepladder led down into my brother's laboratory, which I always pronounced with five

syllables, just to give him a hard time. I unfolded it and went down, stopping as soon as I could see the

whole place.

You don't just wander around a wizard 's lab. It's a bad idea.

The place was piled high with god only knows what kind of horribly disturbing, rare, expensive,

and inane junk. There was a lead box on one shelf in which he kept dust made from depleted uranium,

for crying out loud. There was also an eight-foot- long scale model of the heart of the Chicago skyline

on a table in the center of the room.

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