by Jim Butcher
“Hard to do anything else to a guy with a face like yours,” I said, this time from directly beside him. “Did you kill those girls, or did they volunteer once they saw you with your shirt off?”
The Fomor snarled and swatted at the air beside him. Then his eyes narrowed, and he started muttering and weaving his spatulate fingers in complicated patterns. I could feel the energy coming off of him at once, and knew exactly what he was trying to do: Unravel my veil. But I’d been playing that game with Auntie Lea for months.
Lord Froggy hadn’t.
As his questing threads of magic spread out, I sent out whispers of my own power to barely brush them, guiding them one by one out and around the area covered by my veil. I couldn’t afford to let him find me. Not like that, anyway. He wasn’t thinking, and if I didn’t get him to, it was entirely possible that he’d be too stupid to fool.
I couldn’t have him giving up and leaving, either, so when I was sure I’d compromised his seeking spell I used the sonic wand again, this time directly above his head. “This kind of thing really isn’t for amateurs. Are you sure you shouldn’t sit this one out and let Listen give it a shot?”
Lord Froggy tilted his head up and then narrowed his eyes. He lifted a hand and spat a hissing word, and fire leapt up from his fingers to engulf the ceiling above him.
It took about two seconds for the fire alarm to go off, and another two before the sprinkler system kicked in. But I was back at the door to room 8 when the falling water began to dissolve my veil. Magic is a kind of energy, and follows its own laws. One of those laws is that water tends to ground out active magical constructs, and my veil started melting away like it was made of cotton candy.
“Hah!” spat the Fomor, spotting me. I saw him send a bolt of viridian light at me. I threw myself facedown on the floor and it passed over me, splashing against the door. I whipped over onto my back, just in time to raise a shield against a second bolt and a third. My physical shields aren’t great, but the Fomor’s spell was pure energy, and that made it easier for me to handle. I deflected the bolts left and right, and they blasted chunks of marble the size of bricks out of the walls when they struck.
Lord Froggy’s eyes flared even larger and more furious that he’d missed. “Mortal cow!”
Okay, now. That stung. I mean, maybe it’s a little shallow, and maybe it’s a little petty, and maybe it shows a lack of character of some kind that Froggy’s insult to my appearance got under my skin more effectively than attempted murder.
“Cow?” I snarled as water from the sprinkler system started soaking me. “I rock this dress!”
I dropped one of my wands and thrust my palm out at him, sending out an invisible bolt of pure memory, narrowed and focused with magic, like light passing through a magnifying glass. Sometimes you don’t really remember traumatic injuries, and my memory of getting shot in the leg was pretty blurry. It hadn’t hurt so much when I actually got shot, and I’d had a few things occupying my attention. Mostly, I’d just felt surprised and then numb—but when they were tending the wound in the helicopter later, now, that was pain. They’d dug the bullet out with forceps, cleaned the site with something that burned like Hell itself, and when they’d put the pressure bandage on it and tightened the straps, it hurt so bad that I’d thought I was going to die.
That’s what I gave to Lord Froggy, with every bit of strength I could muster.
He wove a shield against the attack, but I guess he wasn’t used to handling something so intangible as a memory. Even with the falling water weakening it, I felt the strike smash through his defense and sink home, and Froggy let out a sudden, high-pitched shriek. He staggered and fell heavily against the wall, clutching at his leg.
“Kill her!” he said, his voice two octaves higher than it had been a moment before. “Kill her, kill her, kill her!”
The remaining pair of turtlenecks in the hallway plunged toward me. A wave of fatigue from my recent efforts, especially that last one, almost held me pinned to the floor—but I scrambled to my feet, lurched to the door to room 8, and pounded against it with one fist. “Andi! Andi, it’s Molly! Andi, let me—”
The door jerked open and I fell into the room. I snapped my legs up into a fetal curl, and Andi slammed the door shut behind me and hit the locks.
“What the hell, Molly?” she demanded. Andi was soaking wet, along with everything else in the room—including the Fomor’s bomb.
I got up and scrambled toward it. “I couldn’t take apart the veil over the bomb from the outside,” I panted. “We didn’t have time to build up a fire, and I can’t call up enough of my own to set off the alarms. I had to get Froggy to do it for me.”
The door shuddered under more blows from the turtlenecks.
“Hold them off,” I told her. “I’ll disarm the bomb.”
“Can you do that?” Andi asked.
“Piece of cake,” I lied.
“Okay,” Andi said. She grimaced. “I’m going to smell like wet dog all night.”
She turned to face the door in a ready position as I reached the giant shell. I forced the battering enemies at the door out of my thoughts and focused my complete attention on the shell before me. Then I extended my senses toward it and began feeling out the energy moving through it.
There was a lot of energy involved in this thing, power stored up inside and ready to explode. A thin coating of enchantment lined the shell’s exterior, kind of the magical equivalent of a control panel. The water was eroding it slowly, but not fast enough to start melting the core enchantment and dispersing the stored energy. But if I didn’t move fast, the water would destroy the surface enchantment and make it impossible for anyone to disarm the bomb.
I closed my eyes and put one hand out over the shell like Froggy had done. I could feel the energy of the shell reaching up to my fingers, ready to respond, and I began pouring my own energy down into it, trying to feel it out. It was a straightforward spell, nothing complicated, but I didn’t know what anything did—it was like having a remote control for the TV, if someone had forgotten to label any of the buttons. I couldn’t just start pushing them randomly.
On the other hand, I couldn’t not do it, either.
It would have to be an educated guess.
On a TV remote, the power button is almost always a little apart from the others, or else somehow centered. That’s what I was looking for—to turn the bomb off. I started eliminating all the portions of the spell that seemed too complex or too small, narrowing my choices bit by bit. It came down to two. If I guessed wrong …
I burst out into a nervous giggle. “Hey, Andi. Blue wire or red wire?”
A turtleneck’s foot smashed a hole in the door, and Andi whipped her head around to give me an incredulous look. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she shouted. “Blue, you always cut the blue!”
Half of the door broke down and crashed to the floor. Andi blurred into her wolf form and surged forward, ripping at the first turtleneck as he tried to come in.
I turned my attention back to the bomb and picked the second option. I focused my will on it. It took me a couple of tries, because I was freaking terrified, and pants-wetting fear is generally not conducive to lucidity.
“Hey, God,” I whispered. “I know I haven’t been around much lately, but if you could do me a solid here, it would be really awesome for a lot of people. Please let me be right.”
I cut the blue wire.
Nothing happened.
I felt a heavy, almost paralytic surge of relief—and then Lord Froggy hopped over the two turtlenecks struggling with Andi and smashed into me.
I went down hard on the marble floor, and Froggy rode me down, pinning me beneath his too-gaunt body. He wrapped the fingers of one hand all the way around my neck with room enough for them to overlap his thumb and squeezed. He was hideously strong. My breath stopped instantly, and my head began to pound and my vision to darken.
“Little bitch,” he hissed. He started punching me with his other
hand. The blows landed on my left cheekbone. They should have hurt, but I think something was wrong with my brain. I registered the impact but everything else was swallowed by the growing darkness. I could feel myself struggling, but I didn’t get anywhere. Froggy was way, way stronger than he looked. My eyes weren’t focusing very well, but I found myself staring down a dark tunnel toward one of the dead girls on the bedroom floor, and the dark purple band of bruising around her throat.
Then the floor a few feet away rippled, and an odd-looking grey creature popped up out of it.
The svartalf was maybe four-six and entirely naked. His skin was a mottled shade of grey, and his eyes were huge and entirely black. His head was a little larger than most people’s and he was bald, though his eyebrows were silvery white. He did look kind of Roswellian, only instead of being superskinny he was built like a professional boxer, lean and strong—and he carried a short, simple sword in his hand.
“Fomor,” said the svartalf calmly. I recognized Mr. Etri’s voice. “One should not strike ladies.”
Froggy started to say something, but then Etri’s sword went snicker-snack, and the hand that was choking the life out of me was severed cleanly from the Fomor’s wrist. Froggy screamed and fell away from me, spitting words and trying to summon power as he scrambled away on three limbs.
“You have violated guest right,” Etri continued calmly. He made a gesture, and the marble beneath Lord Froggy turned suddenly liquid. Froggy sank about three inches, and then the floor hardened around him again. The Fomor screamed.
“You have attacked a guest under the hospitality and protection of Svartalfheim,” he said, his tone of voice never changing. The sword swept out again and struck the nose from Froggy’s face, spewing ichor everywhere and drawing even more howling. Etri stood over the fallen Fomor and looked down at him with absolutely no expression on his face. “Have you anything to say on your own behalf?”
“No!” Froggy screamed. “You cannot do this! I have harmed none of your people!”
There was a pulse of rage from Etri so hot that I thought the falling water would burst into steam when it struck him. “Harmed us?” he said quietly. He glanced at the shell and then back at Froggy with pure contempt. “You would have used our alliance as a pretext to murder innocent thousands, making us your accomplices.” He crouched down to put his face inches from Froggy’s, and said in a calm, quiet, pitiless voice, “You have stained the honor of Svartalfheim.”
“I will make payment!” Froggy gabbled. “You will be compensated for your pains!”
“There is but one price for your actions, Fomor. And there are no negotiations.”
“No,” Froggy protested. “No. NO!”
Etri turned away from him and surveyed the room. Andi was still in wolf form. One of the turtlenecks was bleeding out onto the marble floor, the sprinklers spreading the blood into a huge pool. The other was crouched in a corner with his arms curled around his head, covered in bleeding wounds. Andi faced him, panting, blood dripping from her reddened fangs, a steady growl bubbling in her chest.
Etri turned to me and offered me his hand. I thanked him and let him pull me up to a sitting position. My throat hurt. My head hurt. My face hurt. It’s killing me, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. C’mere, you.
You know you’ve been punched loopy when you’re doing a one-person Three Stooges routine in your internal monologue.
“I apologize,” Etri said, “for interfering in your struggle. Please do not presume that I did so because I thought you unable to protect yourself.”
My voice came out in a croak. “It’s your house, and your honor that was at stake. You had the right.”
The answer seemed to please him and he inclined his head slightly. “I further apologize for not handling this matter myself. It was not your responsibility to discover or take action against this scum’s behavior.”
“It was presumptuous of me,” I said. “But there was little time to act.”
“Your ally alerted us to the danger. You did nothing improper. Svartalfheim thanks you for your assistance in this matter. You are owed a favor.”
I was about to tell him that no such thing was necessary, but I stopped myself. Etri wasn’t uttering social pleasantries. This wasn’t a friendly exchange. It was an audit, an accounting. I just inclined my head to him. “Thank you, Mr. Etri.”
“Of course, Miss Carpenter.”
Svartalves in security uniforms, mixed with mortal security guards, came into the room. Etri went to them and quietly gave instructions. The Fomor and his servitors were trussed up and taken from the room.
“What will happen to them?” I asked Etri.
“We will make an example of the Fomor,” Etri said.
“What of your treaty?” I asked.
“It was never signed,” he said. “Mostly because of you, Miss Carpenter. While Svartalfheim does not pay debts which were never incurred, we appreciate your role in this matter. It will be considered in the future.”
“The Fomor don’t deserve an honorable ally.”
“It would seem not,” he said.
“What about the turtlenecks?” I asked.
“What of them?”
“Will you … deal with them?”
Etri just looked at me. “Why would we?”
“They were sort of in on it,” I said.
“They were property,” said the svartalf. “If a man strikes you with a hammer, it is the man who is punished. There is no reason to destroy the hammer. We care nothing for them.”
“What about them?” I asked, and nodded toward the dead girls in the Fomor’s chamber. “Do you care what happened to them?”
Etri looked at them and sighed. “Beautiful things ought not be destroyed,” he said. “But they were not our guests. We owe no one for their end and will not answer for it.”
“There is a vampire in your custody,” I said, “is there not?”
Etri regarded me for a moment and then said, “Yes.”
“You owe me a favor. I wish to secure his release.”
He arched an eyebrow. Then he bowed slightly and said, “Come with me.”
I followed Etri out of the suite and across the hall to room 6. Though the door was shattered, Etri stopped outside of it respectfully and knocked. A moment later, a female voice said, “You may enter.”
We went in. It was a suite much like the Fomor’s, only with way more throw pillows and plush furniture. It was a wreck. The floor was literally covered with shattered furniture, broken décor, and broken turtlenecks. Svartalf security was already binding them and carrying them from the room.
Listen walked out on his own power, his hands behind his back, one of his eyes swollen halfway shut. He gave me a steady look as he went by and said nothing.
Bastard.
Etri turned toward the curtained door to the suite’s bedroom and spoke. “The mortal apprentice who warned us has earned a favor. She asks for the release of the vampire.”
“Impossible,” answered the female voice. “That account has been settled.”
Etri turned to me and shrugged. “I am sorry.”
“Wait,” I said. “May I speak to him?”
“In a moment.”
We waited. Thomas appeared from the doorway to the bedroom dressed in a black terry-cloth bathrobe. He’d just gotten out of the shower. Thomas was maybe a finger’s width under six feet tall, and there wasn’t an inch of his body that didn’t scream sex symbol. His eyes were a shade of deep crystalline blue, and his dark hair hung to his wide shoulders. My body did what it always did around him and started screaming at me to make babies. I ignored it. Mostly.
“Molly,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Nothing a bucket of aspirin won’t help,” I said. “Um. Are you okay?”
He blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought … you know. You’d been captured as a spy.”
“Well, sure,” he said.
“I thought they would, uh. Make an exa
mple of you?”
He blinked again. “Why would they do that?”
The door to the bedroom opened again, and a female svartalf appeared. She looked a lot like Etri—tiny and beautiful, though she had long silver hair instead of a cue ball. She was wearing what might have been Thomas’s shirt, and it hung down almost to her ankles. She had a decidedly … smug look about her. Behind her, I saw several other sets of wide, dark eyes peer out of the shadowy bedchamber.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh. You, uh. You made a deal.”
Thomas smirked. “It’s a tough, dirty job …”
“And one that is not yet finished,” said the female svartalf. “You are ours until dawn.”
Thomas looked from me to the bedroom and back and spread his hands. “You know how it is, Molly. Duty calls.”
“Um,” I said. “What do you want me to tell Justine?”
Again he gave me a look of near incomprehension. “The truth. What else?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Justine said as we were walking out. “I was afraid they’d have starved him.”
I blinked. “Your boyfriend is banging a roomful of elf girls and you’re happy about it?”
Justine tilted her head back and laughed. “When you’re in love with an incubus, it changes your viewpoint a little, I think. It isn’t as though this is something new. I know how he feels about me, and he needs to feed to be healthy. So what’s the harm?” She smirked. “And besides. He’s always ready for more.”
“You’re a very weird person, Justine.”
Andi snorted, and nudged me with her shoulder in a friendly way. She’d recovered her dress and the shoes she liked. “Look who’s talking.”
After everyone was safe home, I walked from Waldo’s apartment to the nearest parking garage. I found a dark corner, sat down, and waited. Lea shimmered into being about two hours later and sat down beside me.
“You tricked me,” I said. “You sent me in there blind.”