by Jim Butcher
There was no time to enjoy the relief I felt at ending the threat to my own safety. My Shadow was still out there, still working, and I could not sense where he was. That was all right. I already knew where he was going. He was off to work energy against My Friend, to give the third demon the lethal advantage of surprise. All I needed to do was find My Friend and I would find My Shadow …
Unless.
My Shadow had been laboring to deceive me at every turn. Each of his actions had shown me something about him. He worked from the shadows, influencing events while remaining unseen. He had successfully provoked me into pursuing him by threatening the humans I loved, and led me into a trap that had come near to killing me, while exposing himself to the least amount of danger. He hadn’t even tried to do battle with me until the numbers had turned and I was outnumbered three to one.
My Shadow would not hazard himself against a threat of the likes of My Friend unless he had no other choice. That was not his nature.
He would pursue the weaker target.
He was going after Maggie.
I turned to sprint back to her, hurtling down the walkways of the zoo like a grey and silver-blue comet, threading through humans, leaping over trash cans and benches, and generally behaving in a manner that would have earned a disapproving look from My Friend in any other circumstances.
I had no choice. My Shadow would return to Maggie, but he would do so while remaining hidden, following the trees and the plots of greenery through the park. My only chance of beating him to my little girl was to run a shorter distance, a straight line, and that meant doing it in the open.
As I ran, I tracked the third demon, closing in on the same general area where My Friend had gone to confront the warlock. There was nothing more I could do to help him. I would have to trust to fortune and the Almighty and Queen Mab and Odin and whatever other friendly Powers that might be watching that My Friend would, please, please, please be all right.
“Aparturum!” thundered My Friend in his spellcasting voice, from somewhere within several hundred yards, and I felt the distant surge of magical power. “Instaurabos!” he shouted again a second later, with a second surge, and the third demon simply vanished from my senses as neatly as if it had been popped into a jar.
My heart soared and my speed increased.
And when My Shadow reached the door down to the subbasement, I was there.
Waiting for him.
Teeth bared.
He came to a stop, staring at me. Both of us were breathing hard, but in a controlled fashion, gathering more energy as we did.
“Clever,” he said.
“I have my moments,” I replied.
“You’re bleeding,” my brother noted. “Weakened. I could kill you.”
“By all means,” I said, “please do.”
He tilted his head at that.
“I am bleeding,” I said, “and weaker than I could be, and tired from one fight already. Assuming near parity between us, you should have the advantage. But you don’t. Because you forgot something.”
“Oh?” My Shadow asked.
“I don’t need to survive this scenario to succeed,” I said.
He showed me his teeth in a sneer. “Do you expect me to think, fat, happy little brother, that you do not wish to survive?”
“Survival isn’t enough,” I said. “I wish to live. And I will best do that by taking you with me.”
“If you can,” he said.
“If I ignore my own survival, it gives me a great many options in a fight that I would not otherwise have, brother. Are you that confident of your strength?”
“If you can,” he snarled.
“But whether or not I can isn’t really the question, is it?” I noted. “The question is whether you believe me. The question is whether I am truly willing to sacrifice my life so that she may have hers.” I rose and shook out my mane, causing motes of bright energy to fall like tiny stars. “I love that child. And if you take one step closer, I will gladly die to rip out your guts with my teeth.”
My Shadow stood for a moment, staring.
“Why?” he said finally.
“Because she would do the same for me,” I said.
We faced each other in silence.
“You’re wrong about them,” he said finally. “They don’t care for you. Not really.”
“One of us is wrong,” I said. “Are you willing to die to find out which of us it is?”
He said nothing.
And then … laughter.
Laughter drifted up to us from the subbasement below. My Maggie raised her voice in laughter, straight from her belly, amused and warm and strong. Seconds later, the faint sounds of creeps, screaming in despair, rose to us.
My Shadow took in Maggie’s victory for a moment and then his body language shifted, becoming less aggressive.
I didn’t relax my stance. My brother moved indirectly. It was best to consider him dangerous at all times.
“Well,” he rumbled. “It would seem the day is yours.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I said. “There’s no reason it can’t be your day as well. You should come with me. You have great power. You could do much good. You’d be welcome—and there would be French fries.”
My Shadow only shook his head, his expression bleak. “How can so much ignorance fit inside so little skin?” He turned away and began to stalk off. “Good-bye, brother.”
“Brother,” I said, my voice hard.
He paused, cocking an ear without looking back.
“You didn’t harm them. You are leaving. As I told you.”
The hairs on his back went rigid.
“Remember the third part,” I said. “Don’t come back. Or we will answer that question together.”
My Shadow answered me with a calm glance over his shoulder.
And then vanished back to where he’d come from.
MAGGIE LED THE freed children from the subbasement, and once we’d gotten them up into the sunlight, where the human authorities could take care of them, we hurried back over to the café. Working so much energy, combined with the exertion of fighting and running and getting hurt, had left me exhausted. My fur was fine enough to get into the cuts and stop the bleeding. My body would heal itself in a few days. I knew I would be all right—but I wanted nothing so much as to throw myself down on a nice cool spot of floor and nap.
But I was still on duty. So though I wanted very much to sleep, I sat beneath the table with my head up, guarding Maggie until My Friend returned.
He came in with the warlock, whose name was Austin. Austin had been so soaked in dark energy that I could practically see it smudged all over him like soot.
I sighed. I was tired, but there was work to do. I summoned more energy with my breath and shook hands with him while My Friend got everyone food. Then I settled down by his feet, breathing gentle energy over him, wiping away the darkness my brother had drawn over his eyes.
In the end, we all wound up in My Friend’s car. I sat in the backseat with Austin, who had slumped against me and simply fallen asleep.
“What’s going to happen to him, Dad?” Maggie asked.
My Friend smiled at her and patted her hand with his. His hand could have held four of hers. “We get him a good night’s sleep, a bath—that kind of thing. Then, when he’s ready, I’ll go with him to go talk to his parents. I’ll give him some basic lessons on how not to let his abilities get out of control, and after that we’ll see what he wants to do.”
“You’re going to stand by him,” Maggie said carefully. Though she really meant by me.
“Yes,” My Friend said simply.
Maggie tightened her grip on his hand.
I was tired. But I leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the ear.
“Yick!” My Friend said, smiling. “Gross!”
But what he meant was, Good Dog.
Jim Butcher is the No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of the Dresden Files, the Codex
Alera and the Cinder Spires novels. He lives in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
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