There. I’d been standing right there, looking out toward the parking lot when it happened. My chest didn’t actually feel a pang of agony, but the memory of it was so sharp and clear that I might as well have reexperienced it—it hadn’t hurt at the time, not until I’d been in the water for a while, but it had been pure fire once Mab and Demonreach had succeeded in keeping my soul and body knit together.

And to think, I’d had to call in a solid to get the guy to come shoot me. It seemed like kind of a waste, at this point. I’d been sure that if I had managed to win the day, thanks to my deal with Mab, that I would be a monster in need of a good putting down. I’d scheduled my own assassin, and Molly had used her unique talents to help me forget that it was coming. Once the day had been safely saved, the plan had been to circumvent the evolution of monster-Harry by way of high-powered rifle.

Except I’d survived. Next, I guess, came the monster-Harry part.

I had it on good authority that it didn’t have to end with me going all nutty and villainous—assuming an archangel was trustworthy, which I didn’t. I also had it on good authority that it would end like that anyway. So at the end of the day, I really didn’t know what was going to happen to me in the future.

Heh. Why should I be any different?

The Water Beetle was definitely not battened down for winter, not yet. She was a sturdy, tough little craft—not fast, but not afraid of much of anything nature would throw at her, either. Her gangplank was down, and “batten” and “gangplank” are about the only boat words I’m comfortable with. I moved up it without hesitation, even in the shadowy dimness of late night on the marina. I was familiar with the boat. I’d visited the island on it on multiple occasions.

I went aboard and up onto the roof of the wheelhouse, where the driver’s position was. I flicked on a couple of tired old bulbs and checked the gauges. Fuel, oil, good. She had more than enough for the trip out to the island and back. The key wasn’t in the ignition—it would be in the small safe down in the boat’s cabin, but I knew the combination.

“We’re good,” I called softly. “Come on.”

Molly came up the gangplank while I went down into the cabin.

I got no warning whatsoever, no sound, no visible motion, nothing. One second I was going down the stairs, and the next my face and chest were being crushed against the wall and something extremely sharp was pressing against my neck, just beneath my right ear. Cool, iron-strong fingers were spread over my whole head, pressing it to the wall. The message was clear—if I struggled or made any sound, something pointy would go into my brain.

I froze. It seemed smart. If my attacker wanted me dead, I wouldn’t still be able to reason that he could already have killed me.

“Hello, precious,” murmured a man’s very soft voice. “I think you’re on the wrong boat.”

I sagged suddenly in relief. “Stars and stones,” I breathed. “Thomas, you scared the hell out of me.”

The power of the cold fingers against my head did not falter in the slightest, but there was a short, stunned silence. Then the pressure against my skull became furious. “Do you think this is funny?” my half brother said, his voice becoming louder, fairly boiling with anger. “Do you think I am amused by this kind of prank?”

“Thomas,” I said. “It’s me.”

“Sure it is,” Thomas snarled, the pressure against me surging for a second. “Harry Dresden is dead.”

I thought my eyeballs were trying to squeeze their way out of their sockets. “Glurk!”

“Now,” he growled. “I’m going to give you exactly three seconds to start telling me the truth, or I swear to God they will never find enough pieces of you to identify the body.”

He meant it, Hell’s bells. He was furious. If I were the kind of guy who ever got scared by anything, ever, which of course I am not, I would have been feeling extremely nervous at that moment.

“Mab!” I ground out. “Dammit, Thomas, you lunatic. It was Mab!”

“Mab sent you?” Thomas demanded.

“Mab saved me!” I rasped. “Hell’s bells, man, it’s me!”

Thomas growled, lower, but he didn’t pancake my skull or stick something sharp and metal into my brain. Thomas was strong—stronger than me. A vampire of the White Court can bring out that kind of strength only on special occasions, but Thomas was a very well-fed vampire. I knew that if he wanted to do it, Winter Knight steroids or no, he could twist me like a congressman’s logic.

“Molly!” he called out. “I know you’re out there. I can smell you.”

A few seconds later, there were soft steps on the gangplank, and then the shadows moved at the door. “I’m here.”

“What the fuck is this?” he demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Molly said. “It’s dark. But if I could see, I’d tell you that I try not to put myself between two siblings when they’re fighting. It never seems to help.”

Two or three flabbergasted seconds passed. Then the pressure against my skull was gone so fast that I all but fell over. I grabbed myself before I could and shook my head. “Ow. Nice to see you again, too, man.”

He moved silently across the cabin and something clicked. A battery-powered tap light came to life, bringing a dim if adequate level of light to the compartment.

My brother was a hair shy of six feet tall. He looked much as I remembered him: dark, glossy hair fell to his shoulders. His skin was even paler than mine. His eyes were storm-cloud grey, though they looked brighter than that now, glinting with little metallic flecks that revealed his anxiety and anger. He and I shared a similar scowl, all dark brows and intense eyes, and his mouth was twisted into a silent snarl as he stared at me. He was wearing a pair of jeans, and that was it. The cabin’s bunk had been folded down and slept in. I’d woken him when I came aboard. In his right hand he held a metal tent stake. There was both dirt and rust on it. Can you get gangrene in your brain?

“Oh,” Molly said. She stared at Thomas for a moment. “Oh, um. My.”

Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative packs. I’d say he was model pretty, except that as far as I could tell, there weren’t any models as pretty as he was. He had muscles that rippled even when he was motionless and relaxed, and it was utterly unfair.

And . . . I didn’t do a lot of appraising myself in the mirror, typically, but I suddenly realized that sometime in the past few years, Thomas had stopped looking like my older brother. He looked younger than me. Wizards can live a long time, but we don’t look youthful while we do it. Thomas was a vampire. He’d look this good until he stopped breathing.

The guy barely works out, eats whatever he wants, and gets to look that good and that young his whole life. How is that fair?

“You can’t be my brother,” Thomas said, staring hard at me. “My brother is dead. You know how I know?”

“Thomas,” I began.

“Because my brother would have contacted me,” Thomas snarled. “If he were alive, he would have gotten in touch with me. He would have let me know.”

Molly winced and looked away as though she’d just heard a very loud and very unpleasant sound. I’m not sensitive to the emotions of others the way Molly is, but I didn’t need to be to know that Thomas was boiling over in reaction to seeing me there.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Molly said. “I can’t . . . It hurts.”

“Go,” I said softly.

She nodded and withdrew onto the deck of the boat, shutting the door behind her.

My brother stayed where he was, staring at me. “All this time,” he said. “And not a word.”

“I was dead,” I said quietly. “Or the next-best thing to it. Maybe it was more like a coma. Hell, I thought I was dead.”

“When did you wake up?” he asked. His voice was carefully neutral.