by Jim Butcher
“Of course it is,” Bob said. “It’s the biggest place in the Nevernever. You can’t get to anywhere without crossing through Faerie at one place or another.”
“Well hurry up and cross us out,” I said. “We can’t stay here.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to hang here, either. Either we get the Disney version of Faerie, with elves and tinkerbell pixies and who knows what sugary cuteness, or we get the wicked witch version, which is considerably more entertaining, but less healthy.”
“Even the Summer Court isn’t all sweetness and light. Bob, shut up. Which way?”
The skull turned mutely toward what seemed to be the western-most side of the hill, and we descended down it.
“It’s like a park,” Thomas commented. “I mean, the grass should be over our knees. Or no, maybe like a good golf course.”
“Harry,” Michael said, quietly. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”
The skin on my neck started to crawl, and I looked back to Michael, nodding. “Bob, which way out?”
Bob nodded ahead, as we rounded a stand of trees. An old, colonial-style covered bridge arched up over a ridiculously deep chasm. “There,” Bob said. “That’s the border. Where you’re wanting isn’t too far past that.”
In the distance, came the notes of a hunting horn, dark and clear—and the baying of hounds.
“Run for the bridge,” I snapped. Thomas sprinted beside me without apparent effort. I glanced at Michael, who had reversed his grip on the sword and held it pommel-first, the blade lying against his forearm as he ran. His face was twisted up in effort and pain, but he kept pace.
“Harry,” Bob commented. “If it’s all the same, you might want to run a bit faster. There’s a hunt coming.”
The horn belled again, backed up by the dolmens, and the cries of the pack rang out sharp and clear. Thomas whirled to look, running a few paces backward, before turning again. “I could have sworn they were miles away a moment ago.”
“It’s the Nevernever,” I panted. “Distance, time. It’s all fucked up here.”
“Wow,” Bob commented. “I hadn’t realized that they grew hellhounds that big. And look, Harry, it’s your godmother! Hi, Lea!”
If Bob had a body, he’d have been jumping up and down and waving his fingers at her. “Don’t be so enthusiastic, Bob. If she catches me, I get to join the pack.”
Bob’s eyelights swung toward me and he gulped. “Oh,” he said. “There’s been a falling out, then. Or a falling further out, at any rate, since you weren’t on such great terms to begin with.”
“Something like that,” I panted.
“Um. Run,” Bob said. “Run faster. You really need to run faster, Harry.”
My feet flew over the grass.
Thomas reached the bridge first, his feet thumping out onto it. Michael got there a pace later. With a broken rib and twenty years on me, he still outran me to that damn bridge. I’ve got to work out more.
“Made it!” I shouted, taking a last long step toward the bridge.
The lariat hit me about the throat before my feet had quite touched down, and jerked me back through the air with a snap. I lay on the ground, stunned, choking for the second time in two hours.
“Uh-oh,” Bob said. “Harry. Whatever you do, don’t drop me. Especially under a rock.”
“Thanks a lot,” I gasped, reaching up to jerk the rope from its constricting hold on my throat.
Heavy hooves sank into the turf on either side of my head. I gulped, and looked up at a night-black steed with black and silver tack. Its hooves were shod with bladed shoes of some silvery metal. It wasn’t iron or steel. There was blood on those shoes, as though the horse had trampled some poor, trapped thing to death. Or else sliced it apart.
My gaze slid on up past the horse, to its rider. Lea rode the beast sidesaddle, perfectly relaxed and confident, wearing a dress of sable and midnight blue, her hair caught back in a loose braid of flame. Her eyes gleamed in the starlight, the other end of the lariat held in one lovely hand. The hellhounds crowded around her steed, all of them focused on yours truly. Call it a wild impression of the moment, but they looked hungry.
“Feeling better, are we?” Lea asked, with a slow smile. “That’s wonderful. We can finally conclude our bargain.”
Chapter Thirty-three
It only takes a couple of these rough little episodes of life to teach a man a certain amount of cynicism. Once a rogue wizard or three has tried to end your life, or some berserk hexenwolves have worked really hard to have your throat torn out, you start to expect the worst. In fact, if the worst doesn’t happen, you find yourself somewhat disappointed.
So really, it was just as well that Godmother had caught up to me, in spite of my best efforts to avoid her. I’d hate to find out that the universe really wasn’t conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex.
Therefore, working on the assumption that some sadistic higher power would make sure my evening got as complicated as it possibly could, I had formed a plan.
I jerked the lariat from about my throat and croaked, “Thomas, Michael. Now.”
The pair of them produced small cardboard boxes from their pockets, palm-sized and almost square. With a shake, Michael cast the contents of the first box forward, slewing the box left and right, like a man scattering seeds. Thomas followed his lead, on the other side of my body, so that objects began to rain down atop and nearby me.
The faerie hounds let out startled yelps and leapt away. My godmother’s horse let out a scream and pranced back several steps, putting distance between us.
I scrunched up my face and did my best to shield my eyes from the scattering nails. They fell over me in a sharp-toothed shower, prickling as they struck, and settled around me. Godmother had to let out on the rope that had looped about my throat as her horse backed away, giving me a bit of slack.
“Iron,” hissed my godmother. Her lovely face turned livid, furious. “You dare defile the Awnsidhe soil with iron! The Queen will rip your eyes from your skull!”
“No,” Thomas said. “They’re aluminum. No iron content. That’s a lovely horse you have. What’s its name?”
Lea’s eyes flashed to Thomas, and then at the nails all over the ground. While she did, I dipped a hand into my pocket, palmed my contingency plan, and popped it into my mouth. Two or three chews and a swallow and I was finished.
I tried not to let the abrupt surge of terror show.
“Not steel?” Lea said. She beckoned sharply at the ground, and one of the nails leapt up to her hand. She gripped it, frowning, her expression abruptly wary. “What is the meaning of this?”
“It’s meant to be a distraction, Godmother,” I said. I coughed, and patted my chest. “I just had to eat something.”
Lea laid a hand on her horse’s neck, and the savage beast calmed. One of the shadowy hounds nosed forward, nudging one of the nails with its snout. Lea gave the rope a little jerk, taking up the slack again, and said, “It will do you no good, wizard. You cannot escape this rope. It is bound to hold you. You cannot escape my power. Not here, not in Faerie. I am too strong for you.”
“All true,” I agreed, and got to my feet. “So let’s get cracking. Turn me into a doggie and show me which trees I can pee on.”
Lea stared at me as though I’d gone mad, her expression wary.
I took hold of the rope and shook it impatiently. “Come on, Godmother. Make with the magic already. Do I get to pick my color? I don’t think I want to be that charcoal grey. Maybe you could do a nice sandy pelt for me. Or oh, I know, winter white. With blue eyes, I always wanted blue eyes, and—”
“Be silent!” Lea snarled, and shook the rope. There was a sharp, stinging sensation, and my tongue literally stuck to the roof of my mouth. I tried to keep talking, but it made my throat buzz as though bees were in it, angry, stinging. I kept silent.
“Well,” Thomas said. “I’d like to see this. I’ve never seen an external transforma
tion before. Do proceed, madame.” He waved his hand impatiently. “Dog him, already!”
“This is a trick,” Lea hissed. “It will avail you naught, wizard. No matter what hidden powers your friends are preparing to cast at me—”
“We’re not,” Michael put in. “I swear it on the Blood of Christ.”
Lea sucked in a breath, as though the words had brought a sudden chill over her. She rode the horse up to me, close, so that the animal’s shoulder pressed against mine. She reeled in on the braided leather of the lariat as she did, until she held it by a length of no more than six inches, jerking hard against my throat, hauling me almost off balance. She leaned down close to me and whispered, “Tell me, wizard. What are you hiding from me?”
My tongue loosened again, and I cleared my throat. “Oh. Nothing much. I just wanted a bite to eat before we left.”
“A bite,” Lea murmured. Then she jerked me over toward her and leaned down close, dainty nostrils flaring. She inhaled, slow, the silken mass of her hair brushing against my cheek, her mouth almost nuzzling mine.
I watched her face, her expression changing to slow surprise. I spoke to her in a quiet voice. “You recognize the smell, yes?”
The whites showed around her emerald eyes as they opened wider. “Destroying Angel,” she whispered. “You have taken death, Harry Dresden.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “Toadstool. Amanita virosa. Whatever. The amantin toxin is going to show up in my blood in about two minutes. After that, it will start tearing apart my kidneys and liver. A few hours from now, I’ll collapse, and if I don’t die then, then I’ll apparently recover for a few days while my innards fall apart, and then drop into arrest and die.” I smiled. “There’s no specific antidote for it. And I kind of doubt even you could use magic to put me back together again. Stitching closed a wound is a lot different from major internal transmutation. So, shall we?” I started walking in the direction Lea had come from. “You should be able to enjoy tormenting me for a few hours before I start vomiting blood and die.”
She jerked the lariat tight, halting me. “This is a trick,” she hissed. “You are lying to me.”
I looked up at her with a lopsided grin. “Now, Godmother,” I said. “You know I’m a terrible liar. Do you think I could really lie to you? Do you not smell it yourself?”
She stared at me, her face twisting slowly into an expression of horror. “Merciless winds,” she breathed. “You have gone mad.”
“Not mad,” I assured her. “I know precisely what I’m doing.” I turned to glance back at the bridge. “Goodbye, Michael. Goodbye, Thomas.”
“Harry,” Michael said. “Are you sure we shouldn’t—”
“Shhh,” I said, shooting him a look. “Ixnay.”
Lea’s eyes flickered back and forth between us. “What?” she demanded. “What is it?”
I rolled my eyes, and gestured at Michael.
“Well,” Michael said. “As it happens, I have something here that might help.”
“Something?” Lea demanded. “What?”
Michael reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a small vial, capped at one end. “It’s extract of St. Mary’s Thistle,” he said. “They use it in a lot of hospitals in Europe, for mushroom poisoning. Theoretically, it should do quite a bit to help a poisoning victim survive. Provided it’s taken in time, of course.”
Lea’s eyes narrowed. “Give it to me. Now.”
I tsked. “Godmother. As your faithful pet and companion, I feel I should warn you about how dangerous it is for one of the high sidhe to accept gifts. It could bind you to the giver if you don’t return a gift in kind.”
Lea’s face slowly flushed scarlet, sweeping up from the creamy skin of her collarbones and throat over her chin and cheeks and up into her hair. “So,” she said. “You would drive a bargain with me. You would take deadly toadstool to force me to release you.”
I lifted my eyebrows and nodded, with a smile. “Essentially, yes. You see, I figure it’s like this. You want me alive. I’m not of any use to you dead. And you won’t be able to undo the poisoning with magic.”
“I own you,” she snarled. “You are mine now.”
“Beg to differ,” I said. “I’m yours for the next couple of days. After that, I’m dead, and I won’t be doing you any more good.”
“No,” she said. “I will not set you free in exchange for this potion. I too can find the thistle.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “Maybe you can even do it in time. Maybe not. Either way, without a trip to the hospital, there’s not much chance of me living, even with the extract. And none at all, really, if I don’t get it soon.”
“I will not trade you away! You have given yourself to me!”
Michael shrugged one shoulder. “I believe that you wrought a bargain with a foolish young man caught in the heat of the moment. But we aren’t asking you to undo it altogether.”
Lea frowned. “No?”
“Naturally not,” Thomas said. “The extract only offers Harry a chance at life. That’s all we’d ask from you. You’d be obliged to let him go—and bound for a year and a day to do no harm to him or his freedom so long as he remains in the mortal world.”
“That’s the deal,” I said. “As a faithful pet, I should point something out: If I die, you never get me, Godmother. If you let me go now, you can always give it a shot another night. It isn’t as though you have a limited number of them, is it. You can afford to be patient.”
Lea fell silent, staring at me. The night fell silent as well. We all waited, saying nothing. The quiet panic I already felt, after eating the toadstool, danced about my belly, making it twitch and jerk.
“Why?” she said, finally, her voice very quiet, pitched only for me. “Why would you do this to yourself, Harry? I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t think you would,” I said. “There are people who need me. People who are in danger because of me. I have to help them.”
“You cannot help them if you are dead.”
“Nor if I am taken by you.”
“You would give your own life in place of theirs?” she asked, her tone incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because no one else can do this. They need me. I owe it to them.”
“Owe them your life,” Lea mused. “You are mad, Harry Dresden. Perhaps it comes of your mother.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lea shrugged. “She spoke as you do. Near the end.” She lifted her eyes to Michael and straightened on the horse. “A dangerous play, you made tonight, wizard. A bold play. You cut the traditions of my people very close to the bone. I accept your bargain.”
And then, with a casual flick, she removed the lariat from me. I stumbled back, away from her, gathered up my fallen staff and rod, and Bob in his net sack, and made my way to the bridge. Once there, Michael gave me the vial. I unstoppered it and drank. The liquid within tasted gritty, a little bitter. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, after swallowing it down.
“Harry,” Michael said, watching Lea. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“If I get to the hospital soon,” I said. “I’ve got somewhere between six and eighteen hours. Maybe a little longer. I drank all that pink stuff before we left to line my stomach. It might slow down the rate of digestion on the mushroom, give the extract a chance to beat it to my guts.”
“I don’t like this,” Michael muttered.
“Hey. I’m the one who ate the deadly poison, man. I don’t much care for it myself.”
Thomas blinked at me. “You mean, you were telling her the truth?”
I glanced at him, nodding. “Yeah. Look, I figure we’ll be in there and out again in an hour, tops. Or else we’ll be dead. Either way, it will happen in plenty of time before the first round of symptoms sets in.”
Thomas just stared at me for a moment. “I thought you were lying,” he said. “Bluffing.”
“I don’t b
luff if I can help it. I’m not too good at it.”
“So you really could die. Your godmother is right, you know. You are mad as a hatter. Nutty as a fruitcake.”
“Crazy like a fox,” I said. “All right. Bob, wake up.” I shook the skull, and its empty eye sockets kindled with orange-red lights, somehow too far back inside them.
“Harry?” Bob said, surprised. “You’re alive.”
“For a while,” I said. I explained to him how we’d gotten me away from my godmother.
“Wow,” Bob said. “You’re dying. What a great plan.”
I grimaced. “The hospital should be able to take care of it.”
“Sure, sure. In some places, the survival rate is as high as fifty percent, in the case of amantin poisoning.”
“I took extract of milk thistle,” I said, a little defensive.
Bob coughed, delicately. “I hope you got the dosage right, or it could do more harm than good. Now, if you’d come to me about this to begin with—”
“Harry,” Michael said, sharply. “Look.”
I turned to look at my godmother, who had ridden a little way off and sat still upon her dark steed. She raised in her hand something dark and gleaming, maybe a knife. She waved it to the four corners, north, west, south, east. She said something in a twisting, slippery tongue, and the trees began to moan as the wind rose, washing through them. Power washed out from the sidhe sorceress, from the dark knife in her hand, and raised the hairs on my arms, the nape of my neck.
“Wizard!” she called to me. “You have made bargain with me tonight. I will not seek you. But you have made no such bargain with others.” She threw back her head in a long, loud cry, somehow terrifying and beautiful at once. It echoed over the rolling land, and then was answered. More sounds came drifting back, high-pitched howls, whistling shrieks, and deep, throaty coughing roars.
“Many there are who owe me,” Lea sneered. “I will not be cheated of you. You have had the potion. You would not have placed your life in such jeopardy without a cure to hand. I will raise no hand against you—but they will bring you to me. One way or another, Harry Dresden, you will be mine this night.”