The Dresden Files Collection 7-12

by Jim Butcher

  Then came the nastiest doubt of all: what if this had all been for nothing? What if the traitor escaped while I flailed around here? What if the politics of power meant that Morgan would pay the price for LaFortier’s death despite everything?

  God. I really wanted that cold beer and a good book.

  “Don’t screw this up,” I whispered to myself. “Don’t screw it up.”

  The skinwalker passed in front of the empty cottage doorway.

  And, a second later, he dragged Thomas into line between the doorway and me.

  I lifted my right hand, focusing my will and aligning my thoughts, while the constantly shifting numbers and formulae of force calculation went spinning through my head.

  I suddenly spread my fingers and called, “Forzare!”

  Something approximately the same size and shape as the blade of a bulldozer went rushing across the ground between my brother and me, tearing up earth and gravel, root and plant. The unseen force dug into the earth an inch beneath Thomas, hammered into his unmoving form, and ripped him free of the naagloshii’s grip. He went tumbling over ten feet of ground to the doorway—and struck his head savagely on the stone wall framing the door as he went through.

  Had his head flopped about with a lethally rubbery fluidity after the impact? Had I just broken my brother’s neck?

  I let out a cry of agony and chagrin. At the same time, the skinwalker whirled to face me, crouched, and let out a furious roar that shook the air all around, sending drops of water that had beaded upon the leaves of the trees raining to the earth in a fresh shower. That roar held all the fury of a mortally offended, maniacal ego and promised a death that could only be described with the assistance of an encyclopedia of torments, a thesaurus, and a copy of Gray’s Anatomy.

  The naagloshii in my crystalline memory of the recent past and the one standing in front of me in the here-and-now both rushed at me, huge and unstoppable, determined to hit me from either side and rip me to shreds.

  And suddenly I did not care that this creature was a foe on par with any number of nightmares I would never dare to trade blows with. I did not care that I was probably about to die.

  I saw Kirby’s still form in my head. I saw the small, broken figure of Andi in her hospital room. I saw my brother’s wounds, remembered the agony the thing had caused me when I had seen it through my Sight. This creature had no place here. And if I was to die, I was not going to go out in a gibbering heap of terror. If I was to die, it wouldn’t happen because I was half crippled with fear and Sight trauma.

  If I was to die, it was going to be a bloody and spectacular mess.

  “Bring it!” I screamed back at the naagloshii, my terror and rage making my voice sharp and high and rough. I cupped my right hand as if preparing to throw a baseball, drew up my will, and filled my palm with scarlet fire. I thrust out my left hand and ran my will through the shield bracelet hanging there, preparing a defense, and as I did I felt the power of the land beneath my feet, felt it spreading out around me, drawing in supportive energy. “Bring it! Bring it, you dickless freak!”

  The naagloshii’s form shifted from something almost human to a shape that was more like that of a gorilla, its arms lengthening, its legs shortening. It rushed forward, bounding over the distance between us with terrifying speed, grace, and power, roaring as it came. It was also vanishing from sight, becoming one with the darkness as its veil closed around it, utterly invisible to the human eye.

  But Demonreach knew where Shagnasty was. And so did I.

  In some distant corner of my mind, where my common sense apparently had some kind of vacation home, my brain noted with dismay that I had broken into a sprint of my own. I don’t remember making the decision, but I was charging out to meet the skinwalker, screaming out a challenge in reply. I ran, embracing a rage that was very nearly madness, filling the fire in my hand with more and more power that surged higher every time one of my feet hit the ground, until it was blazing as bright as an acetylene torch.

  The naagloshi leapt at me, horrible eyes burning and visible from within the veil, its clawed arms reaching out.

  I dropped into a baseball player’s slide on my right hip, and brought my shield up at an angle oblique to the skinwalker’s motion. The creature hit the shield like a load of bricks and bounced up to continue in the same direction it had been leaping. The instant the naagloshii had rebounded, I dropped the shield, screaming, “Andi!” and hurled a miniature sun up at the skinwalker’s belly.

  Fire erupted in an explosion that lifted the skinwalker another dozen feet into the air, tumbling it tail over teakettle—an expression that makes no goddamned sense whatsoever yet seemed oddly appropriate to the moment. My nose filled with the hideous scent of burning hair and scorched meat, and the naagloshii howled in savage ecstasy or agony as it came tumbling down, bounced hard a couple of times, and then rolled to its feet.

  It came streaking toward me, its body shifting again behind its concealing veil, becoming something else, something more feline, maybe. It didn’t matter to me. I reached out to the wind and rain and rumbling thunder around us and gathered a levy of lightning into my cupped hand. Then, instead of waiting for its charge, I turned my left hand over and triggered every charged energy ring I had left, unleashing their deadly force in a single salvo.

  The naagloshii howled something in a tongue I didn’t know, and the lances of force glanced off of his veil, leaving concentric rings of spreading color where they struck. A bare second later, I lifted my cupped had and screamed, “Thomas! Fulminas!”

  Thunder loud enough to knock several stones loose from the tower shook the hilltop, and the blue-white flash of light was physically painful to the eyes. A thorny network of lightning leapt to the naagloshii, whose defenses had not yet recovered from deflecting the blasts of the force rings. The deadly-delicate tracery of lightning hammered into the exact center of its chest, stopping its charge in its tracks. Smaller strikes, spreading out from the main bolt like the branches of a tree, snapped into the rocky ground in half a dozen places, digging red-hot, skull-sized divots into the granite and flint.

  Exhaustion hit me like a hammer, and stars swam in my vision. I had never thrown punches that hard before, and even with the assistance of Demonreach, the expenditure of energy needed to do so was literally staggering. I knew that if I pushed too hard, I’d collapse—but the skinwalker was still standing.

  It stumbled to one side, its veil faltering for a second, its eyes wide with surprise. I could just see it going through the naagloshii’s head: how in the world was I hitting him so accurately when it knew that its veil rendered it all but perfectly invisible?

  For one quick fraction of a second, I saw fear in its eyes, and triumphant fury roared through my weary body.

  The skinwalker recovered itself, changing again. With what looked like trivial effort, it reached down and ripped a section of rock shelf the size of a sidewalk paving stone from the rock. It flung the stone at me, three or four hundred pounds coming at me like a major-league fastball.

  I dove to the side, slowed by exhaustion, but fast enough to get out of the way, and as I went, I gathered my will. This time the silver-white streamers of soulfire danced and glittered around my right hand. I lay on the ground, too tired to get back up, and ground my teeth in determination as it charged me for what would, one way or another, be the last time.

  I didn’t have the breath to scream, but I could snarl. “And this,” I spat, “is for Kirby, you son of a bitch.” I unleashed my will and screamed, “Laqueus!”

  A cord of pure force, glittering and flashing with soulfire, leapt out at the skinwalker. It attempted to deflect it, but it clearly hadn’t been expecting me to turbocharge the spell. The naagloshii’s defenses barely slowed it, and the cord whipped three times around its throat and tightened savagely.

  The skinwalker’s charge faltered and it staggered to one side, its veil falling to shreds by degrees. It started shifting form wildly, struggling to get loose of
the supernatural garrote—and failing. The edges of my vision were blurry and darkening, but I kept my will on him, drawing the noose tighter and tighter.

  It kicked and struggled wildly—and then changed tactics. It rolled up to a desperate crouch, extended a single talon, and swept it around in a circle, carving a furrow into the rock. It touched the circle with its will, and I felt it when the simple magical construct sprang up and cut off the noose spell from its source of power: me. The silver cord shimmered and vanished.

  I lay there on the ground, barely able to lift my head. I looked toward the cottage and the safety it represented, standing only forty feet away. It might as well have been forty miles.

  The naagloshii ran its talons along the fur at its throat and made a satisfied, growling noise. Then its eyes moved to me. Its mouth spread into a carnivorous smile. Then it stepped out of the circle and began to stalk nearer.

  One bloody and spectacular mess, coming up.

  Chapter Forty-five

  The naagloshii walked over to me and stood there, smiling, as its inhuman features shifted and contorted, from something bestial back toward something almost human. It probably made it easier to talk.

  “That was hardly pathetic at all,” it murmured. “Who gifted you with the life fire, little mortal?”

  “Doubt you know him,” I responded. It was an effort to speak, but I was used to meeting the rigorous demands of life as a reflexive smart-ass. “He’d have taken you out.”

  The skinwalker’s smile widened. “I find it astonishing that you could call forth the very fires of creation—and yet have no faith with which to employ them.”

  “Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “I get sick of sadistic twits like you.”

  It tilted its head. It dragged its claws idly across the stone, sharpening them. “Oh?”

  “You like seeing someone dangling on a hook,” I said. “It gets you off. And once I’m dead, the fun’s over. So you feel like you have to drag things out with a conversation.”

  “Are you so eager to leave life, mortal?” the naagloshii purred.

  “If the alternative is hanging around here with you, I sure as hell am,” I replied. “Get it over with or buzz off.”

  Its claws moved, pure, serpentine speed, and my face suddenly caught on fire. It hurt too much to scream. I doubled up, clutching my hands at the right side of my face, and felt my teeth grinding together.

  “As you wish,” the naagloshii said. It leaned closer. “But let me leave you with this thought, little spirit caller. You think you’ve won a victory by taking the phage from my hands. But he was hanging meat for me for more than a day, and I left nothing behind. You don’t have words for the things I did to him.” I could hear its smile widening. “It is starving. Mad with hunger. And I smell a young female caller inside the hogan,” it purred. “I was considering throwing the phage inside with her before you so kindly saved me the bother. Meditate upon that on your way to eternity.”

  Even through the pain and the fear, my stomach twisted into frozen knots.

  Oh, God.

  Molly.

  I couldn’t see out of my right eye, and I couldn’t feel anything but pain. I turned my head far to the right so that my left eye could focus on the naagloshii crouching over me, its long fingers, tipped with bloodied black claws, twitching in what was an almost sexual anticipation.

  I didn’t know if anyone had ever thrown a death curse backed by soulfire. I didn’t know if using my own soul as fuel for a final conflagration would mean that it never went to wherever it is souls go once they’re finished here. I just knew that no matter what happened, it wasn’t going to hurt for much longer, and that I wanted to wipe that grin off the skinwalker’s face before I went.

  I wasn’t sure how defiant you could look with a one-eyed stare, but I did my best, even as I prepared the blast that would burn the life from my body as I unleashed it.

  Then there was a blur of light, and something darted past the naagloshii’s back. It tensed and let out a snarl of surprise, whirling away from me to stare after the source of light. Its back, I saw, bore a long and shallow wound, straight across its hunched shoulders, as narrow and fine as if cut by a scalpel.

  Or a box knife.

  Toot-toot whirled about in midair, a bloodied utility knife clutched in one hand like a spear. He lifted a tiny trumpet to his lips and piped out a shrill challenge, the notes of a cavalry charge in high-pitched miniature. “Avaunt, villain!” he cried in a shrill, strident tone. Then he darted at the skinwalker again.

  The naagloshii roared and swept out a claw, but Toot evaded the blow and laid a nine-inch-long slice up the skinwalker’s arm.

  It whirled on the tiny faerie in a sudden fury, its form shifting, becoming more feline, though it kept the long forelimbs. It pursued Toot, claws snatching—but my miniature captain of the guard was always a hairsbreadth ahead.

  “Toot!” I called, as loudly as I was able. “Get out of there!”

  The naagloshii spat out an acidic-sounding curse as Toot avoided its claws again, and slapped a hand at the air itself, hissing out words in an alien tongue. The wind rose in a sudden, spiteful little gale, and it hammered Toot’s tiny body from the air. He crashed into a patch of blackberry bushes at the edge of the clearing, and the sphere of light around him winked out with a dreadfully sudden finality.

  The naagloshii turned, kicking dirt back toward the fallen faerie with its hind legs. Then it stalked toward me again, seething in fury. I watched him come, knowing that there was nothing I could do.

  At least I’d gotten Thomas away from the bastard.

  The naagloshii’s yellow eyes burned with hate as it closed the distance and lifted its claws.

  “Hey,” said a quiet voice. “Ugly.”

  I turned and stared across the small clearing at the same time the skinwalker did.

  I don’t know how Injun Joe managed to get through the ring of attackers and to the summit of the hill, but he had. He stood there in moccasins, jeans, and a buckskin shirt decorated with bone beads and bits of turquoise. His long silver hair hung in its customary braid, and the bone beads of his necklace gleamed pale in the night’s gloom.

  The naagloshii faced the medicine man without moving.

  The hilltop was completely silent and still.

  Then Listens-to-Wind smiled. He hunkered down and rubbed his hands in some mud and loose earth that lightly covered the rocky summit of the hill. He cupped his hands, raised them to just below his face, and inhaled through his nose, breathing in the scent of the earth. Then he rubbed his hands slowly together, the gesture somehow reminding me of a man preparing to undertake heavy routine labor.

  He rose to his feet again, and said, calmly, “Mother says you have no place here.”

  The naagloshii bared its fangs. Its growl prowled around the hilltop like a beast unto itself.

  Lightning flashed overhead with no accompanying rumble of thunder. It cast a harsh, eerily silent glare down on the skinwalker. Listens-to-Wind turned his face up to the skies and cocked his head slightly. “Father says you are ugly,” he reported. He narrowed his eyes and straightened his shoulders, facing the naagloshii squarely as thunder rolled over the island, lending a monstrous growling undertone to the old man’s voice. “I give you this chance. Leave. Now.”

  The skinwalker snarled. “Old spirit caller. The failed guardian of a dead people. I do not fear you.”

  “Maybe you should,” Listens-to-Wind said. “The boy almost took you, and he doesn’t even know the Diné, much less the Old Ways. Begone. Last chance.”

  The naagloshii let out a warbling growl as its body changed, thickening, growing physically thicker, more powerful-looking. “You are not a holy man. You do not follow the Blessing Way. You have no power over me.”

  “Don’t plan to bind or banish you, old ghost,” Injun Joe said. “Just gonna kick your ass up between your ears.” He clenched his hands into fists and said, “Let’s go.”

  The skinwalker let o
ut a howl and hurled its arms forward. Twin bands of darkness cascaded forth, splintering into dozens and dozens of shadowy serpents that slithered through the night air in a writhing cloud, darting toward Listens-to-Wind. The medicine man didn’t flinch. He lifted his arms to the sky, threw back his head, and sang in the wavering, high-pitched fashion of the native tribes. The rain, which had vanished almost entirely, came down again in an almost solid sheet of water that fell on maybe fifty square yards of hilltop, drenching the oncoming swarm of sorcery and melting it to nothing before it could become a threat.

  Injun Joe looked back down again at the naagloshii. “That the best you got?”

  The naagloshii snarled more words in unknown tongues, and began flinging power with both arms. Balls of fire like the one I had seen at Château Raith were followed by crackling spheres of blue sparks and wobbling green spheres of what looked like Jell-O and smelled like sulfuric acid. It was an impressive display of evocation. Had a kitchen sink gone flying toward Listens-to-Wind, conjured from who knows where, it wouldn’t have startled me. The naagloshii pulled out all the stops, hurling enough raw power at the small, weathered medicine man to scour the hilltop clean to the bedrock.

  I have no idea how the old man countered it all, even though I watched him do it. Again he sang, and this time shuffled his feet in time with the music, bending his old body forward and back again, the motions obviously slowed and muted by his age but just as obviously part of a dance. He was wearing a band of bells on his ankles, and another on each wrist, and they jingled in time with his singing.

  All of that power coming at him seemed unable to find a mark. Fire flashed by him as his feet shuffled and his body swayed without so much as singeing a hair. Crackling balls of lightning vanished a few feet in front of him, and resumed their course a few feet beyond him, apparently without crossing the space between. Globes of acid wobbled in flight and splattered over the earth, sizzling and sending up clouds of choking vapors, but not actually doing him any harm. The defense was elegant. Rather than trying to match force against force and power against power, the failure of the incoming sorcery to harm Listens-to-Wind seemed like part of the natural order, as if the world was a place in which such a thing was perfectly normal, reasonable, and expected.