The Dresden Files Collection 1-6

by Jim Butcher

  I sighed and stood up, then tested the door again. It was firmly bolted shut from the other side. I couldn’t move it.

  “Super.” I sighed. “That’s great. I’m never going to get out of here.”

  Behind me, something whispered. I spun, putting the door at my back, searching for the source of the sound.

  A low mist crept out of the wall, a smoky, slithery mass that whirled itself down onto the floor like ethereal lace. The mist touched lightly at my blood on the floor where I’d thrown up, and then began to swirl and shape itself into something vaguely human.

  “Great,” I muttered. “More ghosts. If I get out of this alive, I’ve got to get a new job.”

  The ghost took shape before me, very slowly, very translucently. It resolved itself into the form of a young woman, attractive, dressed like an efficient secretary. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, but for a few appealing tendrils that fell down to frame her cheeks. Her ghostly wrist was crusted with congealed blood, spread around a pair of fang-punctures. Abruptly, I recognized her, the girl Bianca had fed upon until she died.

  “Rachel,” I whispered. “Rachel, is that you?”

  As I spoke her name, she turned to me, her eyes slowly focusing on me, as though beholding me through a misty veil. Her expression turned, no pun intended, grave. She nodded to me in recognition.

  “Hell’s bells,” I whispered. “No wonder Bianca got stuck on a vengeance kick. She literally was haunted by your death.”

  The spirit’s face twisted in distress. She said something, but I could hear it only as a distant, muffled sound accompanying the movement of her lips.

  “I can’t understand you,” I said. “Rachel, I can’t hear you.”

  She almost wept, it seemed. She pressed her hand to her ghostly breast, and grimaced at me.

  “You’re hurt?” I guessed. “You hurt?”

  She shook her head. Then touched her temple and drew her fingers slowly down over her eyes, closing them. “Ah,” I said. “You’re tired.”

  She nodded. She made a supplicating motion, holding out her hands as though asking for help.

  “I don’t know what I can do for you. I don’t know if I can help you rest or not.”

  She shook her head again. Then she nodded, toward the door, and made a bottle-shaped curving gesture of her hands.

  “Bianca?” I asked. When she nodded, I went on. “You think Bianca can lay you to rest.” She shook her head. “She’s keeping you here?”

  Rachel nodded, her ghostly, pretty face agonized.

  “Makes sense,” I muttered. “Bianca fixates on you as you die tragically. Binds your ghost here. The ghost appears to her and drives her into a vengeance, and she blames it all on me.”

  Rachel’s ghost nodded.

  “I didn’t kill you,” I said. “You know that.”

  She nodded again.

  “But I’m sorry. I’m sorry that me being in the wrong place at the wrong time set you up to die.”

  She gave me a gentle smile—which transformed into a sudden expression of horror. She looked past me, at Justine, and then her image began to fade, to withdraw into the wall.

  “Hey!” I said. “Hey, wait a minute!”

  The mist vanished, and Justine started to move. She rose, casually, and stretched. Then glanced down at herself and ran her hands appreciatively down over her breasts, her stomach. “Very nice,” she said, voice subtly altered, different. “Rather like Lydia, in a lot of ways, isn’t she, Mister Dresden.”

  I tensed up. “Kravos,” I whispered.

  Justine’s eyes flooded with blood through the whites. “Oh yes,” she said. “Yes indeed.”

  “Man, you need to get a life in the worst way. That was you, wasn’t it. The telephone call the night Agatha Hagglethorn went nuts.”

  “My last call,” Kravos said through Justine’s lips, nodding. “I wanted to savor what was about to happen. Like now. Bianca has ordered that you should receive no visitors, but I just couldn’t resist the chance to take a look at you.”

  “You want to look at me?” I asked. I tapped my head. “Come on in. There’s a few things in here I’d like to show you.”

  Justine smiled, and shook her head. “It would be too much effort for too little return. Even without the shelter of a threshold, possessing even a mind so weak as this child’s requires a considerable amount of effort. Effort,” she added, “which was made possible by a grant from the Harry Dresden Soul Foundation.”

  I bared my teeth. “Leave the girl alone.”

  “Oh, but she’s fine,” Kravos said, through Justine’s lips. “She’s really happier like this. She can’t hurt anyone, you see. Or herself. Her ranting emotions can’t compel her to act. That’s why the Whites love her so much. They feed on emotion, and this little darling is positively mad with it.” Justine’s body shivered, and arched sensuously. “It’s rather exciting, actually. Madness.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Look, if we’re going to fight, let’s fight. Otherwise, blow. I’ve got things to do.”

  “I know,” Justine said. “You’re busy dying of some kind of poisoning. The vampires tried to drink from you, but you made some of them very sick, and so they left you more or less untapped. Highly miffed, Bianca was. She wanted you to die as food for her and her new children.”

  “What a shame.”

  “Come now, Dresden. You and I are among the Wise. We both know you wouldn’t want to die at the hands of a lesser being.”

  “I might rank among the wise,” I said. “You, Kravos, are nothing but a two-bit troublemaker. You’re the stupid thug of wizard land, and that you managed to live as long as you did without killing yourself is some kind of miracle in itself.”

  Justine snarled and lunged for me. She pinned me to the door with one hand and a casual, supernatural strength that told me she could have pushed her hand through me just as easily. “So self-righteous,” she snarled. “Always sure that you’re right. That you’re in command. That you have all the power and all the answers.”

  I grimaced. Pain flared through my belly again, and it was suddenly all I could do not to scream.

  “Well, Dresden. You’re dead. You’ve been slated to die. You’ll be gone in the next few hours. And even if you aren’t, if you live through what they have planned, the poison will kill you slowly. And before you go you’ll sleep. Bianca won’t stop me, this time. You’ll sleep and I’ll be there. I’ll come into your dreams and I will make your last moments on earth a nightmare that lasts for years.” She leaned up close, standing on tiptoe, and spat into my face. Then the blood rushed from Justine’s eyes and her head fell loosely forward, as though she’d been a horse struggling against the reins, to find their pressure gone. Justine let out a whimper, and sank against me.

  I did my best to hold her. We sort of wound up on the floor together, neither one of us in much shape to move. Justine wept. She cried piteously, like a small child, mostly quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I want to help. But there’s too much in the way. I can’t think—”

  “Shhhhh,” I said. I tried to stroke her hair, to soothe her before she could become agitated again. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “We’ll die,” she whispered. “I’ll never see him again.”

  She wept for some time, as the nausea and pain in my belly grew. The light outside the door never wavered. It didn’t know if it was dark or light outside. Or if Thomas and Michael were still alive to come after me. If they were gone, and it was my fault, I’d never be able to live with myself in any case.

  I decided that it must be night. It must be fullest, darkest night. No other time of day could possibly suit my predicament.

  I rested my head on Justine’s, after she fell quiet, and relaxed, as though she were falling asleep after her weeping. I closed my eyes and struggled to come up with a plan. But I didn’t have anything. Nothing. It was all but over.

  Something stirred, in the shadows where the
laundry was piled.

  Both of us looked up. I started to push Justine away, but she said, “Don’t. Don’t go over there.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “You won’t like it.”

  I glanced at the girl. And then got up, unsteadily, and made my way over to the piled laundry. I clutched the towel in my hand, for lack of any other weapon.

  Someone lay in the piled clothing. Someone in a white shirt, a dark skirt, and a red cloak.

  “Stars above,” I swore. “Susan.”

  She groaned, faintly, as though very much asleep or drugged. I hunkered down and moved clothing off of her. “Hell’s bells. Susan, don’t try to sit up. Don’t move. Let me see if you’re hurt, okay?”

  I ran my hands over her in the dimness. She seemed to be whole, not bleeding, but her skin was blazing with fever.

  “I’m dizzy. Thirsty,” she said.

  “You’ve got a fever. Can you roll over here toward me?”

  “The light. It hurts my eyes.”

  “It did mine too, when I woke up. It will pass.”

  “Don’t,” Justine whispered. She sat on her heels and rocked slowly back and forth. “You won’t like it. You won’t like it.”

  I glanced back at Justine as Susan turned toward me, and then looked down at my girlfriend. She looked back up to me, her features exhausted, confused. She blinked her eyes against the light, and lifted a slim, brown hand to shield her face.

  I caught her hand halfway, and stared down at her.

  Her eyes were black. All black. Black and staring, glittering, darker than pitch, with no white to them at all to distinguish them as human. My heart leapt up into my throat, and things began to spin faster around me.

  “You won’t like it,” Justine intoned. “They changed her. The Red Court changed her. Bianca changed her.”

  “Dresden?” Susan whispered.

  Dear God, I thought. This can’t be happening.

  “Mister Dresden? I’m so thirsty.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Susan let out a whimper and a groan, moving fitfully. By chance, her mouth brushed against my forearm, still stained with drying blood. She froze, completely, her whole body shuddering. She looked up at me with those dark, huge eyes, her face twisting with need. She moved toward my arm again, and I jerked it back from her mouth.

  “Susan,” I said. “Wait.”

  “What was that?” she whispered. “That was good.” She shivered again and rolled to all fours, eyes slowly focusing on me.

  I shot a glance toward Justine, but only saw her feet as she pulled them back to her, slipping back into the tiny space between the washing machine and the wall. I turned back to Susan, who was coming toward me, staring as though blind, on all fours.

  I backed away from her, and fumbled out to my side with one hand. I found the bloodstained towel I’d been using before, and threw it at her. She stopped for a moment, staring, and then lowered her face with a groan, beginning to lick at the towel.

  I scooted back on all fours, getting away from her, still dizzy. “Justine,” I hissed. “What do we do?”

  “There’s nothing to do,” Justine whispered. “We can’t get out. She isn’t herself. Once she kills, she’ll be gone.”

  I flashed a glance at her over my shoulder. “Once she kills? What do you mean?”

  Justine watched me with solemn eyes. “Once she kills. She’s different. But she isn’t quite like them until it’s complete. Until she’s killed someone feeding on them. That’s the way the Reds work.”

  “So she’s still Susan?”

  Justine shrugged again, her expression disinterested. “Sort of.”

  “If I could talk to her, though. Get through to her. We could maybe snap her out of it?”

  “I’ve never heard of it happening,” Justine said. She shivered. “They stay like that. It gets worse and worse. Then they lose control and kill. And it’s over.”

  I bit my lip. “There’s got to be something.”

  “Kill her. She’s still weak. Maybe we could, together. If we wait until she’s further gone, until the hunger gives her strength, she’ll take us both. That’s why we’re in here.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t hurt her.”

  Something flickered in Justine’s face when I spoke, though I couldn’t decide whether it was something warm or something heated, angry. She closed her eyes and said, “Then maybe when she drinks you she’ll die of the poison in you.”

  “Dammit. There’s got to be something. Something else you can tell me.”

  Justine shrugged and shook her head, wearily. “We’re already dead, Mister Dresden.”

  I clenched my teeth together and turned back to Susan. She kept licking at the towel, making frustrated, whimpering noises. She lifted her face to me and stared at me. I could have sworn I saw the bones of her cheeks and jaw stand out more harshly against her skin. Her eyes became drowning deep and pulled at me, beckoned to me to look deeper into that spinning, feverish darkness.

  I jerked my eyes away before that gaze could trap me, my heart pounding, but it had already begun to fall away. Susan furrowed her brow in confusion for a moment, blinking her eyes, whatever dark power that had touched them fading, slipping unsteadily.

  But even if that gaze hadn’t trapped me, hadn’t gone all the way over into hypnosis, it made something occur to me: Susan’s memories of the soulgaze hadn’t been removed. My godmother couldn’t have touched those. I was such an idiot. When a mortal looks on something with the Sight, really looks, as a wizard may, the memories of what he sees are indelibly imprinted on him. And when a wizard looks into a person’s eyes, it’s just another way of using the Sight. A two-way use of it, because the person you look at gets to peer back at you, too.

  Susan and I had soulgazed more than two years before. She’d tricked me into it. It was just after that she began pursuing me for stories more closely.

  Lea couldn’t have taken memories around a soulgaze. But she could have covered them up, somehow, misted them over. No practical difference, for the average person.

  But, hell, I’m a wizard. I ain’t average.

  Susan and I had always been close, since we’d started dating. Intimate time together. The sharing of words, ideas, time, bodies. And that kind of intimacy creates a bond. A bond that I could perhaps use, to uncover fogged memories. To help bring Susan back to herself.

  “Susan,” I said, forcing my voice out sharp and clear. “Susan Rodriguez.”

  She shivered as I Named her, at least in part.

  I licked my lips and moved towards her. “Susan. I want to help you. All right? I want to help you if I can.”

  She swallowed another whimper. “But. I’m so thirsty. I can’t.”

  I reached out as I approached her, and plucked a hair from her head. She didn’t react to it, though she leaned closer to me, inhaling through her nose, letting out a slow moan on the exhale. She could smell my blood. I wasn’t clear on how much of the toxin would be in my bloodstream, but I didn’t want her to be hurt. No time to dawdle, Harry.

  I took the hair and wound it about my right hand. It went around twice. I closed my fist over it, then grimaced, reaching out to grab Susan’s left hand. I spat on my fingers and smoothed them over her palm, then pressed her hand to my fist. The bond, already something tenuously felt in any case, thrummed to life like a bass cello string, amplified by my spit upon her, by the hair in my own hands, the joining of our bodies where our flesh pressed together.

  I closed my eyes. It hurt to try to draw in the magic. My weakened body shook. I reached for it, tried to piece together my will. I thought of all the times I’d had with Susan, all the things I’d never had the guts to tell her. I thought of her laugh, her smile, the way her mouth felt on mine, the smell of her shampoo in the shower, the press of her warmth against my back as we slept. I summoned up every memory I had of us together, and started trying to push it through the link between us.

  The memories flowed down my
arm, to her hand—and stopped, pressing against some misty and elastic barrier. Godmother’s spell. I shoved harder at it, but its resistance only grew greater, more intense, the harder I pushed.

  Susan whimpered, the sound lost, confused, hungry. She rose up onto her knees and pressed against me, leaning on me. She snuggled her mouth down against the hollow of my throat. I felt her tongue touch my skin, sending an electric jolt of lust flashing through me. Even close to death, hormones will out, I guess.

  I kept struggling against Godmother’s spell, but it held in place, powerful, subtle. I felt like a child shoving fruitlessly at a heavy glass door.

  Susan shivered, and kept licking at my throat.

  My skin tingled pleasantly and then started to go numb. Some of my pain faded. Then I felt her teeth against my throat, sharp as she bit at me.

  I let out a startled cry. It wasn’t a hard bite. She’d bitten me harder than that for fun. But she hadn’t had eyes like that then. Her kisses hadn’t made my skin go narcotic-numb then. She hadn’t been halfway to membership in Club Vampire then.

  I pushed harder at the spell, but my best efforts grew weaker and weaker. Susan bit harder, and I felt her body tensing, growing stronger. No longer did she lean against me. I felt one of her hands settle on the back of my neck. It wasn’t an affectionate gesture. It was to keep me from moving. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

  “In here,” she whispered. “It’s in here. It’s good.”

  “Susan,” I said, keeping the feeble pressure on my godmother’s spell. “Susan. Please don’t. Don’t go. I need you here. You could hurt yourself. Please.” I felt her jaws begin to close. Her teeth didn’t feel like fangs, but human teeth can rip open skin just fine. She was vanishing. I could feel the link between us fading, growing weaker and weaker.

  “I’m so sorry. I never meant to let you down,” I said. I sagged against her. There wasn’t much reason to keep fighting. But I did anyway. For her, if not for me. I held on to that link, to the pressure I had forced against the spell, to the memories of Susan and me, together.

  “I love you.”