by Jim Butcher
I leaned on the counter and panted for a second, then looked around to see the curtain slide aside of its own accord as Lily stepped through it. At that moment, the Summer Lady did not look sweet or caring. Her lovely face held an implacable, restrained anger, and half a dozen of the fiery butterflies flittered around her. She stared at the dying fetch until the fire winked out, leaving nothing, not even residual ectoplasm, behind.
Murphy reloaded and came over to me, though her eyes were still scanning for danger. “You’re bleeding. You all right?”
I checked. Blood from the injury on my wrist had trickled down over my palm and fingers. I pushed back my sleeve to get a look at the wound. The cut ran parallel to my forearm. It wasn’t long, but was deeper than I’d thought. And it had missed opening up the veins in my wrist by maybe half an inch.
My belly went cold and I swallowed. “Simple cut,” I told Murphy. “Not too bad.”
“Let me see,” Thomas said. He examined the injury and said, “Could have been worse. You’ll need a stitch or three, Harry.”
“No time,” I told him. “Help me find something to wrap it up good and tight.”
Thomas looked around the concessions area and suggested, “Silly straws?”
I heard an expressive sigh. Charity appeared at the curtained doorway, flipped open a leather case on her sword belt, and tossed Thomas a compact medical kit. He caught it, gave her a nod, and went to work on my hand. Charity stepped back into the hallway, her expression alert. Fix glanced in and then went by the curtained doorway, presumably to the other end of the hall.
“What happened?” I asked Murphy.
“One of those things charged down the hall to jump on your back,” she said. “Looked like some kind of mutant baboon. We took it down.”
“Nature Red,” Thomas mused. “Remember that movie? The one where the retrovirus gets loose in the zoo and starts mutating the animals? Baboon was from there. That cat thing, too.”
“Huh,” I said. “Yeah.”
“I don’t get it,” Murphy said. “Why do they all look like movie monsters?”
“Fear,” I said. “Those images have been a part of this culture for a while now. Over time, they’ve generated a lot of fear.”
“Come on,” Murphy said. “I saw Nature Red. It wasn’t that scary.”
“This is a case of quantity over quality,” I said. “Even if it only makes you jump in your chair, there’s a little fear. Multiply that by millions. The fetches take the form so that they can tap into a portion of that fear in order to create more of it.”
Murphy frowned and shook her head. “Whatever.”
A light appeared in the hallway leading back to the actual theater. In an eyeblink, Murphy and Thomas both had their guns pointed at it and my shield bracelet was dripping heatless blue sparks, ready to spring into place.
“It’s all right,” Lily said, her voice low.
Fix appeared in the doorway at the far end of the lobby, sword in hand. Fire gleamed along the length of the blade as if it had been coated in kerosene and ignited. He looked around, frowning, and said, “It isn’t back this way.”
“What isn’t?” I asked.
“The third,” Lily said. “There will be a third fetch.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because they’re fetches,” Fix answered. “We should check the bathrooms.”
“Not alone,” I said. “Murph, Charity.”
Murphy nodded and slipped around the counter to join Fix. Charity slipped through the curtain and to the lobby in her wake. The three of them moved in cautious silence and entered the restrooms. They returned a moment later. Fix shook his head.
“There,” Thomas said, finishing off the bandage. “Too tight?”
I flexed the fingers of my right hand and stooped to recover my staff. “It’s good.” I squinted around the place. “One room left.”
We all looked at the double doors leading to the actual theater. They were closed. Faint lights flickered, barely noticeable from within the radius of our own illumination.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I said, walking around the counter and into the lobby. I headed for the doors and tried to project confidence. “Same plan.”
I paused at the doors while everyone gathered behind me. I looked back to check that they were ready, which is why I was the only one who saw what happened.
The plastic trash can about six inches behind Charity suddenly exploded, the top flipping off, and paper cups and popcorn bags flew everywhere. Something humanoid and no larger than a toddler shot from the trash can. It had red hair and overalls, and it held a big old kitchen knife in one tiny hand. It hit Charity just above her tailbone, driving her into the ground, and lifted the knife.
My companions had been taken by surprise—just a second or two, but as far as Charity was concerned it might as well have been forever. There was no time for thought. Before I realized what I was doing, I took a pair of long steps, shifting my grip on my staff as I went, and swung it like a golf club at the fetch’s head. It impacted with a meaty thunk.
Its head flew off, bounced off of a pillar, and rolled to a stop not far from the rest of the thing. I had only a second to regard the doll’s features before it began dissolving into ectoplasm.
Thomas blinked at it and said, “That was Bucky the Murder Doll.”
“Kind of a wimp,” I said.
Thomas nodded. “Must have been the runt of the litter.”
I traded a glance with Murphy. “Personally,” I said, “I never understood how anyone could have found that thing frightening to begin with.” Then I went to Charity’s side and offered her a hand up. She grimaced and took it. “Are you all right?”
“Nothing broken,” she replied. She winced and put her hand to her back. “I should have stretched out.”
“Next time we’ll know better,” I said. “Lily? Is that it?”
The Summer Lady’s eyes went distant for a moment and then she murmured, “Yes. There are no longer agents of Winter in this place. Come.”
She stepped forward and the doors to the theater proper opened of their own accord. We followed. It was your typical movie theater. Not one of the new stadium-seating fancy theaters, but one of the old models with only a slight incline in the floor. Light played over the screen, though the projector was not running. Spectral colors shifted, faded, changed, and melded like the aurora borealis, and I was struck with the sudden intuition that the color and light were somehow being projected from the opposite side of the screen. The air grew even colder as we followed Lily down the aisle.
She stopped in front of the screen, staring blankly at it for a moment, then shuddered. “Dresden,” she said quietly. “This crossing leads to Arctis Tor.”
My stomach fluttered again. “Oh, crap.”
I saw Thomas arch an eyebrow at me out of the corner of my eye.
“Crap?” Murphy asked. “Why? What is that place?”
I took a deep breath. “It’s the heart of Winter. It’s like…” I shook my head. “Think the Tower of London, the Fortress of Solitude, Fort Knox, and Alcatraz all rolled up into one giant ball of fun. It’s Mab’s capital. Her stronghold.” I glanced at Lily. “If what I’ve read about it is correct, that is. I’ve never actually seen the place.”
“Your sources were accurate enough, Harry,” Lily said. Her manner remained remote, strained. “This is going to severely limit what help I can give you.”
“Why?” I asked.
Lily stared intently at me for a second, then said, “My power will react violently to that of Mab. I can open the way to the Arctis Tor, but holding the way open for your return will occupy the whole of my strength. Furthermore, so long as I hold the way open I run the risk of letting creatures from deep Winter run free in Chicago. Which means that Fix must remain here to guard the passage against them. I cannot in good conscience send him with you.”
I scowled at the shifting colors on the screen. “So once we go in, we’re on
our own.”
“Yes.”
Super. Without Lily and Fix’s power to counter that of the Winter fae within Arctis Tor, our odds of success would undergo a steep reduction—and I had hoped we would be attacking an independent trio of faeries lairing in a cave or under a bridge or something. I hadn’t figured on storming the Bastille.
I looked up and met Charity’s eyes for a second.
I turned back to the dancing lights on the movie screen and told the others, “Things just got a lot worse. I’m still going. None of you have to come with me. I don’t expect you to—”
Before I finished speaking, Charity, Murphy, and Thomas stepped up to stand beside me.
A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching—they are your family.
And they were my heroes.
I nodded at Lily. She closed her eyes, and the shimmering colors on the screen grew brighter, more vibrant. The air grew colder.
“All right,” I said quietly. “Each of you get a hand on my shoulder.” I resettled my grip on my wizard’s staff and murmured, “Round two.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Every time I opened a way to the Nevernever, it always looked pretty much the same—an uneven vertical rip in the air that let in the sights and sounds and scents of the world on the other side. The longer I wanted the rift to stay open, the bigger I’d rip the hole. More experienced wizards had made a comment or two over the years to suggest that I still had a lot to learn on the subject.
When Lily opened the way to Arctis Tor, I understood why. Light and color shifted over the screen, their flow quickening, deepening. At first nothing else happened. The movie screen was simply a surface. Then the hairs on the back of my neck rose, and a cold wind wafted into my face, bringing with it the dry, sterile scent of winter in high, barren mountains and the high, lonely cry of some kind of wild beast like nothing in the real world.
Deep blue came to dominate the colors on the screen, and a moment later resolved itself into the shapes of mountains towering beneath the light of an impossibly enormous silver moon. They were bleak and hateful stone peaks, wreathed in mist and wrapped in ice and snow. The wind moaned and blew frozen crystals into our faces, then sank into a temporary lull.
The blowing snow cleared just enough to get me my first look at Arctis Tor.
Mab’s stronghold was a fortress of black ice, an enormous, shadowy cube sitting high up the slope of the highest mountain in sight. A single, elegant spire rose above the rest of the structure. Flickers of green and amethyst energy played within the ice of the walls. I couldn’t make a good guess at how big the thing was. The walls and battlements were lined with inverted icicles. They made me think of the fanged jaws of a hungry predator. A single gate, small in comparison to the rest of the fortress, stood open.
Hell’s bells. How the hell was I supposed to get in there? It was almost a relief when the wind rose again, and blowing snow once more obscured the fortress from view.
It was only then that I realized that the way was open. Lily had brought it forth so smoothly that I hadn’t been able to tell when image gave way to reality. By comparison, my own ability to open a way to the Nevernever was about as advanced as the paintings of a particularly gifted gorilla.
I glanced back at Lily. She gave me a small smile and then gestured with one hand. One of the fiery butterflies fluttering around her altered course and soared over to me. “This much I can do for you all,” she murmured. “It will lead you through the storm, and ward away the cold until you can return here. Do not tarry, wizard. I do not know how long I will be able to hold the way open for your return.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Lily.”
This time her smile was warmer, more like that of the girl she had been before becoming the Summer Lady. “Good luck, Harry.”
Fix took a deep breath and then hopped up onto the stage floor at the base of the movie screen. He turned to offer me a hand up. I took it, stared at the frozen wasteland for a second, and then stepped directly forward, into what had been the screen.
I found myself standing in knee-deep snow, and the howling winds forced my eyes almost shut. I should have been freezing, but whatever enchantment Lily’s blazing butterfly used seemed effective. The air felt almost as warm as that of a ski slope seeing its last day of the season. Thomas, Murphy, and Charity stepped out of a shimmer in the air, and Fix followed them a second later.
“Hey, Fix,” I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the wind. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
The Summer Knight shook his head. “I’m not. But it will be easier to stop anything going through from this side,” he said. He regarded us and asked lightly, “You bring enough iron, you think?”
“We’re about to find out.”
“Christ. You’re going to piss off Mab something fierce, bringing iron here.”
“I was doing that anyway,” I assured him.
He nodded, then glanced back at the rift and frowned. “Harry,” he said. “There’s something you should know before you go in.”
I arched an eyebrow and listened.
“We just got word from our observers that there’s a battle underway. The Reds found one of the major headquarters of the Venatori Umbrorum.”
“Who?” Charity asked.
“Secret organization,” I told her. “Like the Masons, but with machine guns.”
“The Venatori sent out a call for help,” Fix continued. “The Council answered it.”
I chewed my lower lip. “Do you know where?”
“Oregon, couple hours from Seattle,” he said.
“How bad is it?”
“So far it’s too close to call. But it’s not good. The Reds had their sorcerous types mucking around with a lot of the Council’s pathways through the Nevernever. A lot of the Wardens got sidetracked from the battle completely.”
“Dammit,” I muttered. “Isn’t there anything Summer can do to help?”
Fix grimaced and shook his head. “Not with the way Mab’s forces are disposed. If we pull enough of our forces from Summer to help the Council, it will weaken us. Winter will attack.” He stared at the looming fortress, glimpsed in half instants through the gusting snow, and shook his head. “The Council’s mind-set is too defensive, Harry. If they keep sitting tight and reacting to the enemy, instead of making the Reds react to them, they’ll lose this war.”
I grunted. “Clausewiz would agree. But I don’t think the Merlin knows from Clausewitz. And this is a long way from over. Don’t count us out yet.”
“Maybe,” he said, but his voice wasn’t confident. “I wish I could do more, but you’d better get going. I’ll hold the door for you.”
I offered him my hand and he shook it. “Be careful,” I said.
“Good hunting,” he replied.
I glanced at my three companions and called, “Ready?”
They were. We followed the burning butterfly through the snow. Without its protection from the elements, I doubt we would have made it, and I made it a point to remember to wear sufficient cold-weather gear in the event that I somehow survived this ongoing idiocy and was crazy enough to come back a second time. Even with the Summer magic to protect us, it was a pretty good hike over unfriendly terrain. I’d done worse in the past, with both Justin DuMorne and Ebenezar, and there are times when having long legs can be a real advantage on rough terrain. Charity seemed all right, too, but Thomas had never been much of an outdoors-man, and Murphy’s height put her at a disadvantage that the unaccustomed weight of her armor and cutlery exacerbated.
I traded a glance with Charity. I started giving Thomas a hand on rough portions of our climb. Charity helped Murphy. At first I thought Murphy might take her arm off out of wounded pride, but she grimaced and visibly forced herself to accept the help.
The last two h
undred yards or so were completely open, with no trees or undulation of terrain to shield our approach from the walls of the fortress. I lifted a hand to call a halt at the edge of the last hummock of stone that would shelter us from view. Lily’s butterfly drifted in erratic circles around my head, snowflakes hissing to steam where they touched it.
I peered over the edge of a frozen boulder at Arctis Tor for a long time, then settled back down again.
“I don’t see anyone,” I said, trying to keep my voice down.
“Doesn’t make any sense,” Thomas said. He was panting and shivering a little, despite Lily’s warding magic. “I thought this was supposed to be Mab’s headquarters. This place looks deserted.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I said. “Winter’s forces are all poised to hit Summer. You don’t do that from the heart of your own territory. You gather at strong points near the enemy’s border. If we’re lucky, maybe there’s just a skeleton garrison here.”
Murphy peered around the edge of the stones and said, “The gate’s open. I don’t see any guards.” She frowned. “There are…there’s something on the open ground between here and there. See?”
I leaned next to her and peered. Vague, shadowy shapes stirred in the wind between us and the fortress, insubstantial as any shadow. “Oh,” I said. “It’s a glamour. Illusion, laid out around the place. Probably a hedge maze of some kind.”
“And it fools people?” she asked uncertainly.
“It fools people who don’t have groovy wizard ointment for their eyes,” I said. Then I frowned and said, “Wait a minute. The gate isn’t open. It’s gone.”
“What?” Charity asked. She leaned out and stared. “There is a broken lattice of ice on the ground around the gate. A portcullis?”
“Could be,” I agreed. “And inside.” I squinted. “I think I can see some heavier pieces. Like maybe someone ripped apart the portcullis and blew the gate in.” I took a deep breath, feeling a hysterical little giggle lurking in my throat. “Something huffed and puffed and blew the house in. Mab’s house.”