new skull

“It’s better if I don’t say, for now,” I said. “But before I do anything else, I need to pay off a debt.”
He frowned at me. “What?”
I finished dressing, reached into the duffel bag, and withdrew a block of oak wood. It had taken me most of a month and several botched attempts to get the proportions correct, but in the end I had finally managed to carve a modestly accurate replica of a human skull. Once I’d gotten it carved, I’d boned it with tools I’d made from several curved and pointed sections of a deer’s antler Alfred had found for me, and then I’d gone to work. Now, the wooden skull was covered in neat, if crowded, inscriptions of runes and sigils much like those on my staff.
“Four months it took me to make this,” I said, and held it out to Butters. I didn’t know exactly who else was in the house, or how much they might hear, so I didn’t want to mention Bob the Skull out loud. The adviser-spirit was far too valuable and vulnerable a resource to advertise. “Give this to our mutual friend and tell him we’re even. He’ll be able to tell you what to do with it.”
Butters blinked several times. “Is this . . . what I think it is?”
I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice to a near whisper. “A backup vessel for him,” I confirmed. “Not as nice as the one he has, but it should protect him from sunrise and daylight if he needs it. I made a deal with him. I’m paying up.”
“Harry,” Butters said. He shook his head slowly. “I’m sure he’ll be very pleased.”
“No, he won’t,” I snorted. “He’ll bitch and moan about how primitive it is. But he’ll have it, and that’s the important thing.”


Skin Game Chapter 13, Page 87-88