The Dresden Files Collection 1-6

by Jim Butcher

“Harry?” he asked. “Harry, are you all right?”

  “I’m having a thought,” I said. “I . . . something feels off about this to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

  He just blinked at me.

  I shook my head. “I’ll think about it. Make some notes. Try to sort this mess out.” I started toward the door. “Come on. I’ll let you out.”

  Michael followed me to the door, and I had my hand on the knob when the door abruptly rattled under several rapid blows that could only loosely be construed as knocking. I shot him a glance over my shoulder, and without a word, he retreated to the fireplace and picked up the poker that had been lying against some of the logs. The tip glowed orange-red.

  When a fresh barrage hammered against my door, I jerked it open, slipping to one side.

  A slender figure of medium height stumbled into the room. He wore a leather jacket, jeans, tennis shoes, and a Cubs ball cap. He carried a rifle case made of black plastic, and he smelled of sweat and feminine perfume.

  “You,” I snarled. I grabbed the man’s shoulder before he could get his balance and spun his shoulders hard, sending him back against the wall. I drove my fist hard at his mouth, felt the bright smack-thud of impact on my knuckles. I grabbed the front of his jacket in both hands, and with a snarl hurled him away from the wall, to the floor of my living room.

  Michael stepped forward, put his work boot on the back of the intruder’s neck, and pressed the glowing tip of the poker close to his eyes.

  Thomas released the rifle case and jerked his hands up, pale fingers spread. “Jesus!” he gasped. His full lower lip had split, and was smeared with something pale and pinkish, not much like human blood. I glanced down at my knuckles, and they were smeared with the same substance. It caught the light of the fire and refracted in an opalescent sheen. “Dresden,” Thomas stammered. “Don’t do anything hasty.”

  I reached down and plucked the hat off of his head, letting his dark hair spill out and down in an unkempt mane. “Hasty? Like, maybe, turn traitor on you all of a sudden and let a bunch of monsters eat your girlfriend?”

  His eyes rolled back to Michael and then over to me. “God, wait. It wasn’t like that. You didn’t see all that happened afterwards. At least shut the door and listen to me.”

  I glanced over at the open doorway, and after a hesitation shut it. No sense in leaving my back open just to be contrary. “I don’t want to listen to him, Michael.”

  “He’s a vampire,” Michael said. “And he betrayed us. He’s probably come here to try to trick us again.”

  “You think we should kill him?”

  “Before he hurts someone,” Michael said. His tone was flat, disinterested. Scary, actually. I shivered a little, and drew my robe closed around me a little more tightly.

  “Look, Thomas,” I said. “I’ve had a really bad day, and I only woke up half an hour ago. You’re adding to it.”

  “We’re all having a bad day, Dresden,” Thomas said. “Bianca’s people were after me all day and all night, too. I just barely got here without getting myself torn to pieces.”

  “The night is young,” I said. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you like the lying, treacherous vampire sleaze you are?”

  “Because you can trust me,” he said. “I want to help you.”

  I snorted. “Why the hell should I believe you?”

  “You shouldn’t,” he said. “Don’t. I’m a good liar. One of the best. I’m not asking you to believe me. Believe the circumstances. We have a common interest.”

  I scowled. “You’re kidding me.”

  He shook his head, and offered me a wry smile. “I wish I was. I thought I would get the chance to help you out once Bianca had taken her eyes off me, but she double-crossed me.”

  “Well, Thomas. I don’t know how new you are to all of this, but Bianca is what we colloquially refer to as a ‘bad guy.’ They do that. That’s one way you can tell they’re bad guys.”

  “God save me from idealists,” Thomas muttered. Michael growled, and Thomas shot him a hopeful, puppy-like smile. “Look, both of you. They have Dresden’s woman.”

  I took a step forward, my heart fluttering. “She’s alive?”

  “For now,” Thomas said. “They’ve got Justine, too. I want her back. You want Susan back. I think we can make a deal. Work together. What do you say?”

  Michael shook his head. “He’s a liar, Harry. I can tell just by being this close to him.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Thomas said. “I confess to it. But at the moment, it isn’t a part of my agenda to lie to anyone. I just want her back.”

  “Justine?”

  Thomas nodded.

  “So he can keep on draining the life out of her,” Michael said. “Harry, if we aren’t going to kill him, let’s at least put him out.”

  “If you do,” Thomas said. “You’ll be making a huge mistake. And I swear to you, by my own stunning good looks and towering ego, that I’m not lying to you.”

  “Okay,” I said to Michael. “Kill him.”

  “Wait!” Thomas shouted. “Dresden, please. What do you want me to pay you? What do you want me to do? I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  I studied Thomas’s expression. He looked weary, desperate, beneath the cool facade he was barely holding onto. And beneath the fear, he looked resigned. Determined.

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s all right, Michael. Let him up.”

  Michael frowned. “You sure?”

  I nodded. Michael fell back from Thomas, but he kept the poker gripped loosely in one hand.

  Thomas sat up, running his fingers lightly over his throat, where Michael’s boot had left a dark mark, and then touched his split lip, and winced. “Thank you,” he said, quietly. “Look in the case.”

  I glanced at the black rifle case. “What’s in it?”

  “A deposit,” he said. “A down payment, for your help.”

  I quirked an eyebrow and leaned over the case. I ran my fingertips lightly over it. There was no spiny buzz of energy around it to herald a sorcerous booby trap, but a good one would be hard to notice. There was something inside, though. Something that hummed quietly, a silent vibration of power that ran through the plastic and into my hand. A vibration I recognized.

  I flicked open the latches on the rifle case, fumbling in my hurry, and swung it open.

  Amoracchius lay gleaming against the grey foam inside the case, unmarked from the inferno at Bianca’s town house.

  “Michael,” I said, quietly. I reached out and touched the blade’s hilt, again. Still, it buzzed with that quiet, deep power, at once reassuring and intimidating. I withdrew my fingers.

  Michael paced over to the case and leaned down, staring at the sword. His expression wavered and became difficult to read. His eyes filled with tears, and he reached a broad, scarred hand down to the weapon’s hilt. He took it in hand and closed his eyes.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “They didn’t hurt it.” He blinked his eyes open, and looked upwards. “I hear you.”

  I glanced up toward my ceiling and said, “I hope you meant that in a figurative sense. Because I didn’t hear anything.”

  Michael smiled and shook his head. “I was weak for a while. The swords are a burden. A power, yes, but at a price. I thought that perhaps the loss of the sword was His way of telling me it was time to retire.” He ran his other hand over the twisted metal nail set into the blade at the weapon’s cross guard. “But there’s still work to be done.”

  I glanced up, at Thomas. “You say they’ve got Susan and Justine, huh? Where?”

  He licked his lips. “The town house,” he said. “The fire ruined the back of the house, but only the exterior. The inside was fine, and the basement was untouched.”

  “All right,” I said. “Talk.”

  Thomas did, laying out facts in rapid order. After the havoc of the fire, Bianca and the Court had retreated into the mansion. Bianca had ordered the other vampires to each carry one of the helpless mo
rtals out. One of them had brought Susan. When the police and fire crews had arrived, most of the action was over, and the fire marshal had been worked up into a lather over the deaths. He’d gone inside to speak to Bianca, and come out calm and collected, and ordered everyone to pack up and leave, that he was satisfied that it had been a terrible accident and that everything was over.

  After that, the vampires had been able to relax and enjoy their “guests.”

  “I think they’re turning some of them,” Thomas said. “Bianca has the authority to allow it, now. And they lost too many in the fight and the fire. I know Mavra took a couple and took them with her when she left.”

  “Left?” I asked.

  Thomas nodded. “She skipped town just after sunset, word is. Couple of hungry new mouths to feed, you know?”

  “And how do you know all of this, Thomas? The last I heard, Bianca’s people were trying to kill you.”

  He shrugged. “There’s more to a good liar than meets the eye, Dresden. I was able to keep an eye on things for a while.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So they’ve got our people at the manor house. We just need to get inside, get them, and get out again.”

  Thomas shook his head. “We need something else. She’s brought in mortal security. Guards with machine guns. It would be a slaughter.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said, with a grim smile. “Where in the house are they keeping the captives?”

  Thomas looked at me rather blankly for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve known everything so far,” Michael said. “Why are you drying up on us now?”

  Thomas gave the Knight a wary look. “I’m serious. I haven’t seen any more of that house than you two.”

  Michael frowned. “Even if we do get in, we can’t go blundering around checking every broom closet. We need to know about the inside of the house.”

  Thomas shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m tapped.”

  I waved a hand. “Don’t worry. We just need to talk to someone who has seen the inside of the house.”

  “Capture a prisoner?” Michael asked. “I don’t know how much luck we’d have with that.”

  I shook my head, and glanced over at the sleeping figure of Lydia, who hadn’t stirred in all that time. “We just need to talk to her. She was inside. She might have some useful insights for us, in any case. She’s got a gift for it.”

  “Gift?”

  “Cassandra’s Tears. She can see bits of the future.”

  I got dressed, and we gave Lydia another hour or so. Thomas went into the bathroom to shower, while I sat out in the living room with Michael. “What I can’t figure,” I said, “is how we managed to get out of there so easily.”

  “You call that easy?” Michael said.

  I grimaced. “Maybe. I would have expected them to come after us by now. Or to have sent the Nightmare to get us.”

  Michael frowned, rolling the hilt of the sword between his two hands as though it were a golf club. “I see what you mean.” He was quiet for a minute, and then said, “You really think the girl will be of help?”

  “I hope so.”

  At that moment, Lydia started coughing. I moved to her side, and helped her drink some water. She seemed groggy, though she started to stir. “Poor kid,” I commented to Michael.

  “At least she got a little sleep. I don’t think she’d had any for days.”

  Michael’s words froze me solid.

  I started to push myself away from Lydia, but her fingers reached out and dug into the sweater I was wearing. I jerked against them, but she held me, easily, not at all moved. The pale girl opened her sunken eyes, and they were flooded with blood, all through the whites, scarlet. She smiled, slow and malicious. She spoke, and her voice came out in a low, harsh sound totally unlike her natural tones, alien and malevolent. “You should have kept her from sleeping. Or killed her before she woke.”

  Michael started to his feet. Lydia rose, and with one arm she lifted me clear off the ground, bloody eyes glaring up at me with wicked exultation. “I’ve waited long enough for this,” the alien voice, that of the Nightmare, purred. “Goodbye, wizard.” And the slender girl flung me like a baseball at the stone of my fireplace.

  Some days, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I flailed my arms and legs and watched the fireplace get closer to breaking open my head. At the last second, I saw a blur of white and pink, and then I slammed into Thomas, driving him into the stones of the fireplace. He let out a grunt, and I bounced off of him, and back to the floor, momentarily breathless. I shoved myself up to my hands and knees and looked at him. He’d wrapped a pink bath towel around his hips, but either the sheer speed of his movement or else the impact had knocked it mostly askew. His ribs jutted out on one side, oddly misshapen.

  Thomas looked up at me, his face twisted into a grimace. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “Look out.”

  I looked up to find Lydia stalking toward me. “Idiot,” she seethed at Thomas. “What did you think you could accomplish? So be it. You just got added to the list.”

  Michael slipped in between the possessed girl and me, the sword glittering in the low light of the room. “That’s far enough,” he said. “Get back.”

  I struggled back to my feet, and wheezed, “Michael, be careful.”

  Lydia let out another twisted laugh, and leaned forward, pressing her sternum against Amoracchius’s tip. “Oh yes, Sir Knight. Get back or what? You’ll murder this poor child? I don’t think so. I seem to remember, there was something about this sword not being able to draw innocent blood, wasn’t there?”

  Michael blinked, and darted a glance back at me. “What?”

  I got to my feet. “This is really Lydia. It isn’t a magical construct, like we saw before. The Nightmare is possessing her. Anything we do to Lydia’s body, she’s going to have to live with, later.”

  The girl ran a hand over her breasts, beneath the taut Lycra, licking her lips and staring at Michael with bloody eyes. “Yes. Just a sweet little innocent lamb, wandered astray. You wouldn’t want to hurt her, would you, Knight?”

  “Harry,” Michael said, “how do we handle this?”

  “You die,” Lydia purred. She rushed Michael, one hand reaching out to strike the sword’s blade aside.

  When she rushed me, I just got grabbed. But Michael had training, experience. He let the sword fall to the floor and rolled back with Lydia’s rush. He grabbed her forearms as she reached for his throat, whirled, and sent her tumbling into the couch, knocking it over backwards and sending her into a sprawl on the far side.

  “Keep her busy!” I shouted to him. “I can get it out of her!” And then I rushed back into my bedroom, searching for the ingredients for an exorcism. My room was a mess. I scrambled through it, while out in the living room, Lydia screamed again. There was another thump, this one rattling the wall beside the bedroom door, and then the sounds of panting, scuffling.

  “Hurry up, Harry!” Michael gasped. “She’s strong!”

  “I know, I know!” I jerked open the door to my closet and started knocking things off the shelves, rather than hunt through them.

  Behind the spare cans of shaving cream, I located five trick birthday candles, the kind that you can’t blow out, and a five-pound bag of salt. “Okay!” I called. “I’m coming!”

  Michael and Lydia lay on the floor, his legs wrapped around hers, while his arms pinned hers back behind her in some kind of modified full Nelson hold.

  “Hold her there!” I shouted. I rushed in a circle around them, shoving back a chair and a footrest, kicking rugs and carpets aside, finally jerking the last one out from beneath Michael. Lydia fought him, twisting like an eel and screaming at the top of her lungs.

  I tore open the salt and ran about the pair of them, dumping it out into a white mound in a circle. Then I ran about again, setting the candles down, piling up enough salt around them to keep them fro
m being turned over. Lydia saw what I was doing and screamed again, redoubling her efforts.

  “Flickum bicus!” I shouted, shoving a hurried effort of will into the little spell. The effort made me dizzy for a moment, but the candles burst to light, the circle of candles and salt gathering power.

  I rose, reaching out my right hand and feeding more energy into the circle, setting it up in a spinning vortex winding about the three beings inside it—Lydia, Michael, and the Nightmare. Energy gathered in the circle, spinning around, whirling magic down into the earth, grounding and dispersing it. I could almost see the Nightmare clutching tighter to Lydia, holding on. All I needed was the right move to stun the Nightmare, to lock it up for a second, so that the exorcism could sweep it away.

  “Azorthragal!” I shouted, bellowing out the demon’s name. “Azorthragal! Azorthragal!” I stretched out my right hand again, concentrating fiercely. “Begone!”

  Energy rushed out of my body as I completed the spell, swept toward the Nightmare within Lydia like a wave lifting a sleeping seal off a rock—

  —and passed over, leaving it untouched.

  Lydia began to laugh wildly, and managed to catch one of Michael’s hands in hers. She gave a twist, and bones snapped with sharp pops and crackles. Michael let out an agonized scream, twisting and jerking. He knocked the circle of salt askew, and Lydia escaped him, rising to face me.

  “Such a fool, wizard,” she said. I didn’t banter. I didn’t even stand there, stunned that my spell had failed so miserably. I wound back a hand and threw a punch at her as hard as I could, hoping to stun the body the demon was riding in, to keep it from reacting.

  The possessed Lydia glided from the path of my punch, caught my wrist, and dumped me onto my back. I started to push myself up, but she threw herself astride me, and slammed my head back against the floor, twice. I saw stars.

  Lydia stretched above me, purring, and thrusting her hips down against mine. I tried to escape during the moment of gloating, but my arms and legs just didn’t respond. She reached down, laying both of her hands almost delicately on my throat, and murmured, “Such a shame. All this time, and you didn’t even know who it was after you. You didn’t even know who else wanted revenge.”