by Butcher, Jim
“Oh,” Bob said, his voice very small.
“You ready?” Butters asked. “Can you access the duster?”
“Sure. I tutored Harry on these spells.”
“Keep the bullets off me for as long as you can,” Butters said.
“Got it,” Bob said. “Let’s give ’em hell, boss.”
“That’s the spirit,” Butters said. He took a deep breath, and then put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Harry. You’ve done enough. I got this.”
I wanted to scream at Butters not to go, not to throw his life away—to go get the kids and try to run. It would have been just as hopeless, but he might not realize that. And at least they’d die with bullets in them instead of being burned to death. But I couldn’t move, or think or do anything else. The pain was simply too great. It wasn’t a headache now. It was a worldache. I didn’t have a broken arm anymore—I didn’t have a body at all. I just had pain.
But I started crying as Waldo Butters stood up, rolled the sleeves of my duster up until his hands could reach out of them, grabbed a couple of things from his vest, flung something on the floor of the porch and went out the door.
The first globe he’d hurled down released a sudden, brief cloud of opaque smoke that went roiling out in all directions, and guns began firing outside.
No, dammit.
No.
I couldn’t let things end like this. Butters was a friend, and too good a man to let die while I lay on the floor unable to go to his aid.
I fought to rise, but my arms and legs couldn’t hear me through the pain. Again, I struggled, throwing up every mental shield I could against the agony, and this time I managed to shift my weight, and fall heavily onto my side. My cheek lay on the floor and I found myself staring along it, down the hall toward the back of the house, past the dining room where I’d struggled with the squires who invaded . . . and where the remnants of Fidelacchius had been carefully set on the dining room table.
The table had been jarred in the fight. The broken hilt of the Sword of Faith had fallen and rolled toward the front of the house. It was only a few feet away from me.
Could it be?
When the Knights of the Blackened Denarius set out to wreak harm, the Swords were there to oppose them. The Sword of Faith was no more. But that did not mean that the power that guided the Swords could not find another means of expressing itself. I’d seen Charity Carpenter rely upon her faith when Molly was in danger before. How much deeper would it be now, with her home and family in peril?
Maybe Michael was right about the Sword. If he was, there was still a chance.
And I had to believe that. People I loved were going to die. I had to believe that there was hope.
Hope lets you do things you would otherwise never be able to do, gives strength when everything is darkest. In that moment, maybe it helped me—because I forced my nerve endings to respond and dragged myself toward the hilt of the Sword, clenching my teeth in sheer defiance of the agony supplanting my existence. It felt like it took forever before my fingers settled on the wooden grip of the Sword, but by the time I finally reached it, and turned back to the door, Butters had only at that moment reached the front gate. My duster whirled and swirled around him like a living thing, orange light playing along the normally invisible black runes I’d tattooed into the leather, the mantle flaring up wildly like a cobra’s hood.
Half a dozen squires stood stupefied and confused in dissipating clouds of memory mist, and of the others who were moving, only one had a clean shot at Butters. But the little guy’s hand pointed and an orange flicker danced out, a thin line wrapping around the barrel of the gunman’s weapon and holding fast. Butters heaved, shouting, and hauled the rifle out of the man’s hands. The cord released the gun in a glitter of orange light and slithered back up Butters’s sleeve.
And then, before any of the scrambling gunmen could get a clear shot at him, Butters hurdled the Carpenters’ little fence and smashed into Tessa in a tackle that, if not exactly physically impressive, was dynamic as hell.
The impact tore the pint-sized Tessa loose from Charity, and the emaciated Denarian let out a furious squall and went down under Butters’s weight.
Nicodemus drew his sword and thrust it at Butters’s back, but the flying folds of my leather duster slapped the blade aside. Butters wasn’t much of a fighter, but he was game. He screamed and slammed his head down into Tessa’s.
Then she lifted her hand and shouted something, and there was a crash of sound, a flash of light.
Butters flew off of her and landed six feet away, sprawled and dazed on the icy street. I could see blood running from one of his ears. He made a vague, spreading gesture with one hand, and Bob’s trail of campfire sparks emerged from the duster and soared away in the general direction of Butters’s apartment.
“What was that?” Tessa demanded, her tone furious as she came back to her feet.
“A detail,” Nicodemus said, his tone harsh. “Stupid, but brave, little man. Nice try.” He stepped over to Butters and raised his sword. Butters clenched his jaw and raised his hand in a hopeless defensive gesture. He knew what was coming—what had to come. But though his face was ghostly white, his eyes were steady, unflinching.
He’d made his choice, and he would accept the consequences of his actions.
And for that moment, everyone out there was looking at Nicodemus and Butters—and no one was looking at Michael Carpenter’s wife.
Hope gave me a last burst of strength.
“Charity!” I croaked.
Her head snapped around toward me, and she blinked in my direction.
I threw the broken hilt of Fidelacchius as hard as I could.
There are moments in your life that, when you look back at them, you realize were perfect. A hundred million things had to happen, to all come together at the same time, for such moments to come into existence—so many things that it beggars imagination to think that they could possibly have happened by random chance.
This was one of them.
The broken hilt of the Sword tumbled in a perfect arc. It flew up, soared down, and cleared the little fence in the front yard by maybe an inch. The rotation of its length was as precise as a juggler’s throw, setting the hilt to tumble directly into Charity’s palm.
But she bobbled it, and missed the grab.
The wooden hilt with its lonely, harmless little fragment of the Sword’s blade bounced off the icy sidewalk and up into the air. It tumbled several more times, clipped Nicodemus’s shoulder . . .
. . . and landed directly in Waldo Butters’s upraised hand.
His fingers closed around the grip of the broken Sword of Faith, and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would scarcely have believed what happened.
There was a flash of light.
There was a sound like a howl of holy trumpets backed up by the voices of an entire choir.
And suddenly a shaft of blinding silver-white light three feet long sprang from the broken hilt of Fidelacchius and shone in the first golden light of that day’s dawn, humming with the full power of the Sword, only louder now, more melodic, and physically audible.
Nicodemus’s sword was already falling, and when it met the blade of light, there was a shriek of protesting metal, a flash of sparks, and he reeled back three quick steps, staring at his own weapon in incomprehension.
Fidelacchius had sheared it off as neatly as if it had been paper instead of steel. The severed end of Nicodemus’s sword glowed white-hot.
“Ah,” said a voice next to me, in a tone of intense satisfaction, and I jerked a quick glance up to see Uriel crouching next to me, his teeth showing, his eyes glittering.
Butters came to his feet, and his jaw hung open. He stared at the humming blade in his hands for a second and then suddenly his teeth showed in a joyous smile that was no less fierce for being so.
And his eyes locked on Nicodemus.
Suddenly, there was an incoherent scream from behind
one of the vans, and the vehicle rocked, as if something enormous had smashed against it. A second later, Mouse stepped out from behind the van, where its bulk was shielding him from the immediate aim of the slowly recovering squires. The Foo dog’s head was low, his body crouched and tensed, hackles raised, gleaming, sharp, freshly bloodied teeth bared. He was no more than a few feet from Nicodemus’s back, and at his appearance, Anduriel’s shadow form went berserk, flickering and twisting in a dozen directions at once, like a panicked animal running to the ends of its tether.
“Nice try?” Butters said. “Mister, where I come from, there is no try.”
And he lifted the Sword to a guard position and charged, coat flaring dramatically, impossibly.
Mouse let out a great, coughing roar of a bark and flung himself forward, silver-blue light gathering in his fur and around his mane and jaws.
I saw the fury and the rage and bafflement in Nicodemus’s face as the newly minted Sir Butters came toward him, and I saw something else there, too.
Fear.
The furious light of the Sword of Faith renewed filled him with terror.
He let out a cry of frustration and leapt into the air, where Anduriel’s shadow gathered around him in a sudden blob of fluid darkness, and then streaked away, up into the dawn-lit fog, and was gone.
Butters whirled at once, toward Tessa, but the other Denarian had already fled into the fog, leaving behind a frustrated cry that turned into her demonform’s brassy shriek as it faded.
Butters, with Mouse at his side, turned to face the squires who still remained. The nearest one, I saw, was Jordan, who clutched his shotgun in white-knuckled hands, his expression bewildered.
In fact, as I looked around, I saw the same expression on the faces of every squire there. Utter confusion, as if they’d just beheld something that they knew damned well was impossible. They’d just seen their unbeatable lord and master humbled and forced to flee by a pipsqueak of a Knight who wore black-rimmed spectacles and might have weighed a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet.
“It’s over,” Butters said. Fidelacchius’s ominous hum gave his voice a certain terrifying punctuation. “We make an end of it, right here. It’s over, guys.”
Jordan, his eyes welling with tears, dropped his arms to his side, abruptly, limply, like an exhausted child. His weapon tumbled to the ground. And, over the next few seconds, the others did exactly the same.
The Sword of Faith, I thought, cuts both ways.
I realized my cheek was back against the floor a moment later, and dully noted that my eyes had stopped working at some point. They were open, but they weren’t showing me any images. Maybe that’s what they meant by the phrase “lazy eye.” Hah. I’m hysterical when I’m dying.
I heard a sound then—a distant howl of northern wind, rapidly growing louder in pitch and volume.
“Easy, Harry,” said Uriel’s voice in the blackness. “Molly’s here. Easy.”
And then I went away.
Chapter Fifty-one
I woke up in bed. There was a colorful cartoon pony on the ceiling above me.
My body ached. I mean it ached to no end. Just breathing felt like a motion that stretched sore muscles. I was hideously thirsty and ravenous, and considering the complaints from my bladder, I’d been down for a while.
I looked around without moving my head. I was in Maggie’s room. Judging from the amber sunshine coming in through the window and covering one wall, it was evening. I wondered if it was the same day. Maggie’s raised bed towered over me, and I realized that I was on a mattress laid on the floor of her room. Something heavy was on one of my feet, and it had gone to sleep. I moved my head enough to see what it was, and wished I hadn’t done that. My skull pounded like a little man was slamming it with a hammer.
I winced and focused my eyes through the discomfort. Mouse slept on the floor beside the bed, and his massive chin rested on my ankle. His ears were twitching, though his eyes were closed, his breathing steady.
“Hey,” I croaked. “Gonna lose my foot, you keep that up. Fall right off.”
Mouse snorted and lifted his head. He blinked blearily for a second, as any reasonable person does upon waking, and then dropped his mouth open in a doggy grin. His tail started wagging, and he rose so that he could walk to my head and start giving me slobbery dog kisses while making little happy sounds.
“Ack!” I said. I waved my hands without any real enthusiasm, and settled for scratching him under the chin and behind the ears while he greeted me. “Easy there, superdog,” I said. “I think I exfoliated a couple of licks ago.”
Mouse made a happy chuffing sound, tail still wagging. Then he turned and padded out of the bedroom.
A moment later, he returned, and Molly followed him in.
She made an impression walking into the room. I was used to Molly in old jeans and sandals and a faded T-shirt. Now she wore slacks and a deep blue blouse that looked like they’d been hand-tailored to fit. Her hair, which I had seen in every improbable shade and configuration imaginable, was now long and straight and the color of moonlight on corn silk. She still looked a shade too angular and thin. Her eyes had been haunted and strained the last time I’d seen her in the flesh. Now they had a few added wrinkles at the corners, maybe, and a gravity I hadn’t seen in them before—but they were steady and calm.
Without a word, she knelt down beside me and gave me a hard hug around the neck.
“Ack,” I said again, but I was smiling. Again. It made all the muscles in my body twinge, but I moved one arm and patted her hair. “Hey, grasshopper.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her arms tightened a little. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“Hey, it all worked out,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“Of course you’re okay,” she said, and despite the bravado in her words, I thought she might have been sniffling. “I was the one working on you.”
“Look,” I said. “The parasite. It isn’t some kind of hostile entity—”
She nodded, her hair rubbing against mine. “I know. I know. The guy in black told me all about it while I was in there.”
“Is the spirit all right?” I asked.
She released me from her hug/choke hold and nodded at me, smiling, her eyes suspiciously wet. “Of course, the first thing you want to know is if someone else is all right.” She reached across me and picked up something from the floor near my head, where I hadn’t been able to see. It was the wooden skull I’d carved for Bob.
“It was a tough delivery,” Molly said. “She’s very tired.”
I grunted, lifted my hand, and took the wooden skull in my fingers.
Immediately, tiny flickers of greenish light appeared in the eye sockets, and the little spirit made a soft, confused sound.
“Shhh,” I said. “It’s me. Get some rest. We’ll talk later.”
“Oh,” said the little spirit. “Hi. Good.” And the flickers of light vanished again with a small, weary pop.
“You know,” Molly said, smiling, “it’s traditional to have a home of your own if you’re going to keep adopting strays.”
I tucked the wooden skull into the crook of my arm and said, “Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave.”
She grinned, smoothed some hair back from my forehead, and said, “I’m glad to see that you’re feeling more like yourself.”
I smiled at her a little. “Makes two of us,” I said. “How you holding up?”
Her eyes glittered. “It’s . . . been really interesting. It all looks very, very different from the inside.”
“Usually how it works,” I said. “Tell me about it?”
“Can’t, literally,” she said cheerfully and waved an airy hand. “Faerie mystique and all that.”
“Figures. You like it?”
“Not always,” she said without rancor. “But . . . it’s necessary work. Worth doing.”
“Yet you didn’t tell your folks about i
t.”
For the first time, Molly’s calm slipped a little. Her cheeks turned a little pink. “I . . . Yeah, I haven’t quite gotten around to that yet.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “Oh, God, you didn’t . . .”
“No,” I said. “Skated past it just in time. Though I think I might have given your father the impression that we, uh . . . you know.”
A small, choked laugh, a sound equal parts mirth and absolute horror burst out of her mouth. “Oh. Oh, God. That’s what those looks were about.” She shook her head.
“You should tell them,” I said.
“I will,” she said, with a little too much instant assurance. “You know. When I find a way to bring it up.” She bit her lower lip, maybe unconsciously, and said, “You, uh . . . you’ll let me do that, right?”
“If that’s your choice, I’ll respect it. You aren’t really my apprentice anymore, Molls.”
She stared at me for a second after I said that, and I saw hurt and realization alike flicker through her features. Then she nodded and said quietly, “I guess I’m not, am I?”
I made another major effort and patted her hand. “Things change,” I said. “Nothing to feel sad about.”
“No,” she said. She squeezed my fingers back for a second and forced a smile. “Of course not.”
“Mab been around?” I asked.
She shook her head. “She knows I’m going to want to talk to her about sidetracking me. But she’s in town. I can feel that much. Why?”
“Because I’m going to want to talk to her too.”
* * *
One hour, one shower, and one barrage of painkillers later, I was dressed and able to shamble down the stairs under my own power, just after sundown. Mouse followed me carefully. Molly didn’t quite hover around like a Secret Service agent prepared to throw herself into the way of a bullet if necessary, but only just.
“You know what’s weird?” I said, as I got to the first floor.
“What?” Molly asked.
“The lack of cops,” I said. “There should be cops everywhere. And police tape. And handcuffs.” I raised my wrists. “Right here.”