by Jim Butcher
“You all know what’s at stake tonight,” I said. “And that we could all get killed. We’re going to be confronting a bunch of law-enforcement people who have gotten hold of some magic that’s as black as anything I’ve ever seen, and are using it to turn themselves into wolves. They’ve lost control of the power they’ve grabbed. They’re killing people, and if we don’t stop them they’re going kill a lot more. Especially me, because I know too much. I’m a danger to them.
“But I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone to get killed. Not us, and not them. Maybe they deserve it. Maybe not. The power they grabbed has turned into a drug for them, and they’re not really in control of themselves anymore. I just don’t think we’d be much different than them if we went in there planning to wipe them out. It isn’t enough to stand up and fight darkness. You’ve got to stand apart from it, too. You’ve got to be different from it.”
I cleared my throat. “Hell. I’m not good at this. Go for their belts, if you can, just like I did in the alley. Once their belts are off, they’re not going to be as crazy, and maybe we’ll be able to talk to them.” I glanced up at the wall and back down. “Just don’t get killed, guys. Do what you have to do to stay alive. That’s your first priority. And if you’ve got to kill them to do it, then don’t hesitate.”
There was a chorus of growls from around me, led by the wolf Billy, but that was the great thing about being the only human being there—I was the only one who could talk. There wouldn’t have been any arguments, even had they disagreed. Their enthusiasm was a little intimidating.
“If you are any louder, wizard,” Tera’s soft voice came from behind me, “we might as well walk through the front gate.” I jumped and looked up to see Tera, naked and human, crouched down a few feet away.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I hissed at her. “Did you find a way in?”
“Yes,” she said. “A place where the wall has crumbled. But it is far for you to walk, around along the eastern wall, toward the front of the property. We must run if we are to get inside in time.”
I grimaced. “I’m not in any shape to run anywhere.”
“It would seem you have little choice. I also saw many streaks of light across the front gate. And there are black boxes with glass eyes every seventy or eighty paces. They do not see the crumbled place. It is a fortunate position.”
“Cameras,” I muttered. “Hell.”
“Come, wizard,” Tera said, crouching down on all fours. “We have no time to waste if you are to join us. The pack can cover the distance in moments, but you must hurry.”
“Tera. I’ve had a rough couple of days. I’d fall over in about two minutes if I tried to run somewhere.”
The woman blinked passionless amber eyes up at me. “Your point?”
“I’m going over the wall right here,” I said.
Tera looked at the wall and shook her head. “I cannot bring the pack over that wall. They are not strong enough to keep changing back and forth, and they have no hands in their wolf form.”
“Just me then. I guess you all can find me?”
Tera snorted. “Of course. But it is foolish for you to go over the wall alone. And what if the cameras see you?”
“Let me worry about the cameras,” I said. “Help me up to the top. Then you and the Alphas circle around and rendezvous with me.”
Tera scowled, the expression dark. “I think this foolish, wizard. If you are too wounded to run, then you are too wounded to go in alone.”
“We don’t have time,” I said with a glance up at the moon, “to argue about this. Do you want my help or don’t you?”
Tera let out a sound somewhere between a snort and a snarl, and for a moment tension in her muscles made them stand out hard against her skin. One of the Alphas let out a little whimper, and stepped away from us.
“Very well, wizard,” Tera said. “I will show you the nearest camera and help you over the wall. Do not move from where you land. We do not know who is on the other side of the wall, or where.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Worry about yourself. If there’s a good way through the wall, Denton might show up there, too, to go in. Or MacFinn might.”
"MacFinn,” Tera said, traces of pride in her voice and fear in her eyes, “will not even notice that the wall got in his way.”
I grimaced. “Just show me the camera.”
Tera led me forward through the dark, silent and naked and looking as though she didn’t mind the cold evening at all. The grass was damp, plush, and deep. Tera pointed out the small, silent square of the video camera settled onto the wall across the street, and almost entirely hidden by the shadows of the trees.
I licked my lips and leaned toward the camera, keeping my own form obscured by the bushes. I squinted my eyes and drew in my will, trying to focus. My head started to pound at once, and I felt sweat break out beneath my arms and across my forehead. Hexing up anything mechanical is usually fairly simple. The field of magic that surrounds practitioners of the Art plays havoc with the implements of technology. A passing thought, on the right kind of day, can blow out a cellular telephone or kill a photocopier.
This was the wrong kind of day. That field of energy around me was severely depleted from its usual levels, and the metaphysical “muscles” I would normally use to manipulate that energy were in screaming agony, reflected in pains throughout my body.
But I needed to get inside, and I really did think that I wouldn’t be able to make it all the way around the property. I was running on empty already, and too much more would leave me gasping like a fish out of water and wishing I was at home in bed.
I forced calm on my thoughts and focused all the energy I had, and it hurt me, starting in my head and spreading into weary aches in my knees and elbows. But the energy built, and built, and with it the pain, until I could hold it together no longer.
“Malivaso,” I whispered, and pushed my hand out at the square shape, like a grade-school girl throwing a baseball wrong handed. The power I’d gathered, though it felt like it was about to split me at the seams, rushed out in an almost impotent little hiccup of magic and swirled drunkenly toward the security camera.
For a long minute, nothing happened. And then there was a flash of light, and a tiny shower of sparks from the rear of the box. Smoke drizzled up from the camera in a quavering plume, and I felt a small surge of triumph. At least I had something left in me, even if it was aneurism-causing labor to perform the mildest of tasks.
“All right then,” I said a second later, my voice somewhat thready. “Let’s go.”
We looked around and made sure no cars were about, and then Tera, the Alphas, and I rushed across the road, through some decorative, leafy bushes, to the high stone wall. Tera laced her fingers together to form a stirrup. I put my good foot into it, and pushed up hard. She heaved me up, and half threw me over the wall. I caught myself at the top, saw a car’s headlights coming, and swiftly rolled down the other side, falling heavily to damp, muddy earth.
It was dark. It was really dark. I was crouched at the base of the wall, underneath a spreading canopy of bare tree branches and stubborn sycamore leaves. Moonlight filtered through in random places, but it only served to make the dark spots all the more gloomy. My own black leather duster was utterly invisible, and I remembered reading somewhere that the gleam of my eyes and teeth would be the most likely to give me away—but since I didn’t feel like sitting in the dark with my eyes closed, I didn’t. Instead, I crouched and got my confiscated gun ready in one pocket, and took my ace in the hole out of the other, getting that ready as well.
I shivered, and worked hard to remind myself not to be afraid. Then I waited in the darkness for my allies. And waited. And waited. Time passed, and I knew that a minute would feel like an hour, so I began counting, one number for every deliberate breath.
The wind blew through the trees, brisk and cool. Leaves rustled, and droplets of rainwater fell from the trees around me, making little pa
ttering sounds as they struck my new coat. They clung to the leather in tight beads and caught pieces of moonlight in them, brilliant against the black. The smell of rich earth and damp stone rose up with the wind, and for a moment it did almost feel as though I was in a forest rather than on a crime lord’s private estate in the north end of Chicago. I took deep breaths, a little comforted by the illusion, and kept on counting.
And waited.
Nothing happened. No wolves, no sounds.
Nothing.
It wasn’t until I got to one hundred that I started to get really nervous, my stomach beginning a slow twist that made weak sensations lace out through my arms and legs like slivers of ice. Where was Tera? Where were the Alphas? It shouldn’t have taken them nearly so long to get inside the wall and then to cover the distance back to me. Though the estate was huge, the distance surely meant little to the flashing speed of a wolf.
The evening had obviously been moving along entirely too smoothly, I thought.
Something had gone wrong. I was alone.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Alone.
It’s one of those small words that means entirely too much. Like fear. Or trust. I’m used to working alone. It goes with the territory. Wizards of my level of skill and strength (well, my usual levels) are few and far between—maybe no more than two dozen in the United States, with a slightly higher concentration of them in Europe, Africa, and Asia. But there is a difference between working alone and finding yourself facing a hatful of foes, on a cold night, while wounded, and in the dark, and practically helpless. It took me about ten seconds to become acutely aware of that difference.
Fear settled in comfortably. Fear was something I was used to. I was able to think past it, to focus on my predicament. Yay for me. My body reacted the same old way, keying up for fight or flight, while I forced my breathing to stay even.
The smart thing to do would be to run, to turn around and go back to the van and to have Susan drive me the hell away. Granted, I probably couldn’t even climb the wall on my own, but I could have tried.
But I was already committed. I was here to do battle with the forces of evil, such as they were. I had dropped the challenge to them, not the other way around. Besides, if Tera and the kids were in trouble, I was the only one who could help them.
I climbed to my feet, getting out the gun, and moved forward through the woods, in a direction that seemed perpendicular to the line of the stone wall behind me. The woods were thick, sycamores and poplars giving way to evergreens with scratchy, low branches. I slipped through them as best I could, moving as quietly as I could manage. I didn’t think I made more noise than the wind did, as it rattled the branches and the fallen leaves, and stirred more droplets of water to fall. In time, maybe three or four minutes, I came to the edge of the woods, and looked out on to Gentleman Johnny Marcone’s estate.
It was magnificent, something out of a home-and-garden magazine. You could have put a small golf course in Marcone’s backyard. A long ways off, at the front of the property, Marcone’s huge white house stood serene and flawless, artistically illuminated by dozens of lights, with a veranda or patio larger than a dance floor plotted out at its rear. Behind it, three enormous square plots, side-by-side, contained lit and lovely gardens, terraced down a gently sloping hill toward me. At the hill’s base was a pretty little vale, and there lay a small pond, which I realized after a moment was an enormous, concrete-lined swimming pool, lit from beneath the surface. The pool was irregularly shaped, and one corner of the pool stirred, near the surface. Steam lay thick over the water.
Standing stately sentinel toward the center of the vale was a ring of evergreens, thick and stocky trees that concealed whatever was at their center. Two rounded hillocks decorated the left side of the vale’s landscape, one of them surmounted by what looked like a replica of a small, ruined shrine or temple, all cracked marble and fallen columns.
The whole place was well lit, both by silver moonlight and by lighting placed at strategic intervals. The lawn was immaculate, and trees dotted the grounds in the sort of careless perfection that only an army of expensive gardeners could have maintained.
And they say that crime doesn’t pay.
I took a position behind a screen of trees and brush and looked around the grounds with careful, stealthy caution. I didn’t have long to wait.
There was a rush of motion from beneath one of the trees on the far side of the estate, and a swift form, a dark-furred wolf, Billy, I thought, flew from beneath one tree and toward a patch of dark shadow on the grass, not twenty feet from me. I tensed, and started to rise from my hiding place in the brush, to call out to the wolf as he ran.
A bright red dot of light appeared against the wolf’s fur. There was a hollow sound, something I could barely hear, like a politely covered cough. I saw the wolf jerk as a flash of blue feathered against its fur, and then the beast tumbled into a roll and fell to the ground. It struggled for a moment, back to its feet, and reached for the dart in its flanks with its jaws. Its balance wavered, and the wolf staggered to one side and fell. I could see its chest heaving, and one of its rear legs twitched spasmodically. I thought I saw the beast’s eyes, Billy’s eyes, focus on me for a moment, and then they glazed over and went vacant.
“Nice shot,” called a deep, tense voice. In the ring of evergreens, there was motion, and then Denton appeared, walking out across the grass toward the fallen wolf. His dark, short hair was still immaculately rigid. I couldn’t see the veins in his forehead, despite the bright light. It was a subtle change in him, one of several. His tie was loose. His jacket was unbuttoned. He moved with less steel in his backbone, more fire in his belly. There was an animal quality to him, a surety and savagery of purpose that had been uncertain before, and what it meant was a lot more significant than the changes that showed on his exterior.
His restraint was gone. Whatever last remnants of doubt or regret that had enabled him to maintain his own self-control, and some measure of control over the other Hexenwulfen, had vanished with the blood frenzy in the Full Moon Garage. It was in every line of him now, in each step and every flicker of his eyes.
The man had become a predator.
From the evergreens behind him appeared the rest of the Hexenwulfen: Benn, now dressed only in a white dress shirt and a grey business skirt, her legs dark and rippling with muscle in the moonlight; Harris, his ears still sticking out, his freckles dark spots against pale skin, his manner restless and hungry; and Wilson, still in his wrinkled suit, but with the shirt unbuttoned, his potbelly overlapping the belt of dark fur around his waist. He stroked and patted it with his fat fingers. His mouth was set in an odd, dangerous grin.
Denton moved across the grass to the fallen wolf, and nudged it with his toe. “Six,” he said. “Did you count six?”
“Six,” Benn confirmed, her voice throaty. “Can we have them now?” She reached Denton’s side and pressed up against him, lifting one leg to rub against his, baring it to the top of her thigh as she did.
“Not yet,” Denton said. He looked around him thoughtfully, and my gaze followed his. Scattered around a circle of perhaps fifty-yards diameter were several dark lumps I had taken to be indentations in the ground, shadows cast by the moon and the grounds lighting. I looked again and saw, with a surge of fearful understanding, that they weren’t indentations. They were the wolves, my allies. The dark patch Billy had been running for gave a little whimper, and I thought I saw the moon glint off of Georgia’s tawny coat. I looked around and counted the fallen.
Six. I couldn’t tell them apart very well, couldn’t tell which of them, if any, was Tera, but I counted six fallen wolves upon the ground. All of them, I thought, with a panicked rush of fear. All of them had been taken.
“Come on,” Harris said, his voice tight, strained. “Fuck MacFinn, he isn’t showing up. Let’s take them out, all of them, and go find Dresden.”
“We’ll get to your belt soon enough, kid,” Wilson snorted, his fing
ers stroking at the fur belt over his belly. “If you hadn’t been so stupid as to lose it—”
Harris snarled, and Denton shook Benn from his side to get between the other two men. “Shut up. Now. We don’t have time for this. Harris, we’ll go after the wizard as soon as we can.
Wilson, keep your fat mouth shut, if you like your tongue where it is. And both of you back off.” The men made low, growling noises, but they took steps away from one another.
I licked my lips. I was shaking. The gun felt heavy in my hand. There were only the four of them, I thought. They weren’t more than thirty feet away. I could start shooting right now. If I got lucky, I could down them all. They were werewolves, but they weren’t invincible.
I slipped the safety off of the pistol, and drew in a steadying breath. It was a damn fool thing to do, and I knew it. Life is not the movies. It wasn’t likely that I would be able to shoot them all before they could draw and shoot back. But I didn’t have much choice.