Proven Guilty df-8

by Jim Butcher

  So, like a crazed loner with more death wish than survival instinct, I boldly strode into the building, staff held ready, teeth bared in a fighting grin. The place was dim, and cooler than it should have been, even given the time of day. My breath turned to frost in front of my nose. The movie-theater scent of popcorn had sunk into the very foundations, and was now as much a part of the building as its walls and floor. My stomach rumbled. Like certain other portions of my anatomy, it had a tendency to become easily sidetracked, and to hell with little details like survival.

  The rest of me was nervous. I had seen how fast one of those creatures could move. I could have ducked out of the way if they’d come charging from the far end of the hall at me, but not by much. Maybe two or three steps in, I reached a point where I judged that I wouldn’t have time to retreat and let my allies ambush the attacker. For a few seconds, at least, I’d be on my own.

  A few seconds are forever in a fight.

  I shook out my shield bracelet, willed power into it, and walked with my left hand before me, both providing me some protection against a possible charge and casting low blue light that would let me see as I moved forward. “Do you know what part of a movie this is?” I said to myself as I moved. “This is the part where the old farmer with the torch and the shotgun just can’t keep himself from walking forward into the dark cave, even though he damn well knows there’s a monster in there.” I moved up to the hanging curtain and slid it aside with my staff. Several quick glances out showed me a small and dingy concessions stand to go along with the small and dingy lobby.

  Nothing tried to eat my face.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, louder. “I’m starting to feel a little insulted, here. If you guys keep this up, I’m going to take drastic, cliched measures. Maybe walk backward through a doorway or something.”

  My instincts suddenly screamed, and I flung myself through the curtained doorway, getting clear of the hall, as something darted toward me from the hall’s far end. I didn’t want to catch any bullets or blasts of fire or hurled hammers from my backup.

  There was a roar of sound from the hallway-something letting out a ululating howl, a heavy handgun, a roaring shotgun, and the buzzing snap of an arc of electricity. Blinding blue-white light blazed through the curtain as I dove through it-and showed me the fetch that had lurked in ambush on the other side.

  It was crouched on top of the glass cabinet atop the concessions stand’s popcorn machine, and had taken the form of a creature that could only loosely be called a “cat.” It was twice Mister’s size, and its moldy black fur stood out in tufts and spikes. Its shoulders were hunched, almost deformed with muscle, and its muzzle was broad and filled with teeth too heavy to belong to any feline short of a lion. Its eyes gleamed with a sickly, greenish luminescence, and it flashed through the air, claws extended, teeth bared, emitting a mind-splitting howl of rage.

  I had no time or space to strike first, and it was a damned good thing I’d prepared my shield ahead of time. I brought it up and into a quarter dome between me and the fetch, blue power hissing.

  I should have kept in mind how easily the Scarecrow had shed my magic the night before. The lesser fetch must have had some measure of the same talent, because it changed the tone of its howl in the middle of its leap, impacted my shield, and oozed through it as though the solid barrier was a thick sludge.

  There was no space to dodge in and no room to swing my staff, so I dropped it as the fetch’s face emerged from my shield and drove my fist into the end of its feline nose. I dropped the shield as I did. With the shield gone, the only force acting on the fetch was the impact of my punch, and the shapeshifter flew backward into the old cash register on the concessions counter. It was made of metal. Blue sparks erupted from the fetch as its flesh hit the iron, along with a yowl of protest, tendrils of smoke, and an acrid odor.

  I heard footsteps in the corridor behind me, and then a trio of gunshots.

  “Harry!” Murphy called.

  “Here!” I shouted. I didn’t have time to say anything else. The nightmare cat bounced up from the cash register, recovered its balance, and flung itself at me again, every bit as swiftly as the fetch I’d faced earlier. I ducked and tried to throw myself under the fetch, to get behind it, but my body wasn’t operating as swiftly as my mind, and the fetch’s claws raked at my eyes.

  I threw up an arm, and the fetch slammed into it with a sudden, harsh impact that made my arm go numb from the elbow down. Claws and fangs flashed. The spell-bound leather of my duster held, and the creature’s claws didn’t penetrate. Except for a shallow cut a random claw accidentally inflicted on my wrist, below the duster’s sleeve, I escaped it unharmed. I hit the ground and rolled, throwing my arm out to one side in an effort to slam the fetch onto the floor and knock it loose. The creature was deceptively strong. It braced one rear leg against the counter, claws digging in, robbing the blow of any real force. It bounced off the floor with rubbery agility, pounced onto my chest, and went for my throat.

  I got an arm between the fetch and my neck. It couldn’t rip its way through the duster, but it was stronger than it had any right to be. I was lying mostly on my back and had no leverage. It wrenched at my arm, and I knew I only had a second or two before it overpowered me, threw my arm out of its way, and tore my throat out.

  I reached down with my other hand and ripped my duster all the way off the front of my body. Cold iron seared the nightmare cat’s paws in a hissing fury of sparks and smoke. The fetch let out another shrieking yowl and bounded almost straight up.

  Gunshots rang out again as the fetch reached the apogee of its reflexive leap. It twitched and screamed, jerking sharply. As it came back down, it writhed wildly in midair, altering its trajectory, and landed on the floor beside me.

  Murphy’s combat boot lashed out in a stomping kick that sent the fetch sliding across the floor, and the instant it was clear of me she started shooting again. She put half a dozen shots into the creature, driving it over the floor, howling in pain but thrashing with frenzied strength. The gun went empty. Murphy slammed another clip into the weapon just as the fetch began gathering itself up off the floor. She kept pouring bullets into it as fast as she could accurately shoot, and stepped with deliberate care to one side as she did so.

  Thomas came through the curtain with preternatural speed, his face bone white. He seized the stunned fetch by the throat and slammed it overhand into the cash register, again and again, until I heard its spine snap. Then he threw it over the concessions stand into the lobby.

  Light flashed. Something that looked like a butterfly sculpted from pure fire shot over my head like a tiny comet. I scrambled to my feet, to see the blazing butterfly hit the fetch square in the chest. The thing screamed again, front legs thrashing, rear legs entirely limp, as fire exploded over its flesh, burned a hole in its chest, and then abruptly consumed it whole.

  I leaned on the counter and panted for a second, then looked around to see the curtain slide aside of its own accord as Lily stepped through it. At that moment, the Summer Lady did not look sweet or caring. Her lovely face held an implacable, restrained anger, and half a dozen of the fiery butterflies flittered around her. She stared at the dying fetch until the fire winked out, leaving nothing, not even residual ectoplasm, behind.

  Murphy reloaded and came over to me, though her eyes were still scanning for danger. “You’re bleeding. You all right?”

  I checked. Blood from the injury on my wrist had trickled down over my palm and fingers. I pushed back my sleeve to get a look at the wound. The cut ran parallel to my forearm. It wasn’t long, but was deeper than I’d thought. And it had missed opening up the veins in my wrist by maybe half an inch.

  My belly went cold and I swallowed. “Simple cut,” I told Murphy. “Not too bad.”

  “Let me see,” Thomas said. He examined the injury and said, “Could have been worse. You’ll need a stitch or three, Harry.”

  “No time,” I told him. “Help me find somethin
g to wrap it up good and tight.”

  Thomas looked around the concessions area and suggested, “Silly straws?”

  I heard an expressive sigh. Charity appeared at the curtained doorway, flipped open a leather case on her sword belt, and tossed Thomas a compact medical kit. He caught it, gave her a nod, and went to work on my hand. Charity stepped back into the hallway, her expression alert. Fix glanced in and then went by the curtained doorway, presumably to the other end of the hall.

  “What happened?” I asked Murphy.

  “One of those things charged down the hall to jump on your back,” she said. “Looked like some kind of mutant baboon. We took it down.”

  “Nature Red,” Thomas mused. “Remember that movie? The one where the retrovirus gets loose in the zoo and starts mutating the animals? Baboon was from there. That cat thing, too.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t get it,” Murphy said. “Why do they all look like movie monsters?”

  “Fear,” I said. “Those images have been a part of this culture for a while now. Over time, they’ve generated a lot of fear.”

  “Come on,” Murphy said. “I saw Nature Red. It wasn’t that scary.”

  “This is a case of quantity over quality,” I said. “Even if it only makes you jump in your chair, there’s a little fear. Multiply that by millions. The fetches take the form so that they can tap into a portion of that fear in order to create more of it.”

  Murphy frowned and shook her head. “Whatever.”

  A light appeared in the hallway leading back to the actual theater. In an eyeblink, Murphy and Thomas both had their guns pointed at it and my shield bracelet was dripping heatless blue sparks, ready to spring into place.

  “It’s all right,” Lily said, her voice low.

  Fix appeared in the doorway at the far end of the lobby, sword in hand. Fire gleamed along the length of the blade as if it had been coated in kerosene and ignited. He looked around, frowning, and said, “It isn’t back this way.”

  “What isn’t?” I asked.

  “The third,” Lily said. “There will be a third fetch.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because they’re fetches,” Fix answered. “We should check the bathrooms.”

  “Not alone,” I said. “Murph, Charity.”

  Murphy nodded and slipped around the counter to join Fix. Charity slipped through the curtain and to the lobby in her wake. The three of them moved in cautious silence and entered the restrooms. They returned a moment later. Fix shook his head.

  “There,” Thomas said, finishing off the bandage. “Too tight?”

  I flexed the fingers of my right hand and stooped to recover my staff. “It’s good.” I squinted around the place. “One room left.”

  We all looked at the double doors leading to the actual theater. They were closed. Faint lights flickered, barely noticeable from within the radius of our own illumination.

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I said, walking around the counter and into the lobby. I headed for the doors and tried to project confidence. “Same plan.”

  I paused at the doors while everyone gathered behind me. I looked back to check that they were ready, which is why I was the only one who saw what happened.

  The plastic trash can about six inches behind Charity suddenly exploded, the top flipping off, and paper cups and popcorn bags flew everywhere. Something humanoid and no larger than a toddler shot from the trash can. It had red hair and overalls, and it held a big old kitchen knife in one tiny hand. It hit Charity just above her tailbone, driving her into the ground, and lifted the knife.

  My companions had been taken by surprise-just a second or two, but as far as Charity was concerned it might as well have been forever. There was no time for thought. Before I realized what I was doing, I took a pair of long steps, shifting my grip on my staff as I went, and swung it like a golf club at the fetch’s head. It impacted with a meaty thunk.

  Its head flew off, bounced off of a pillar, and rolled to a stop not far from the rest of the thing. I had only a second to regard the doll’s features before it began dissolving into ectoplasm.

  Thomas blinked at it and said, “That was Bucky the Murder Doll.”

  “Kind of a wimp,” I said.

  Thomas nodded. “Must have been the runt of the litter.”

  I traded a glance with Murphy. “Personally,” I said, “I never understood how anyone could have found that thing frightening to begin with.” Then I went to Charity’s side and offered her a hand up. She grimaced and took it. “Are you all right?”

  “Nothing broken,” she replied. She winced and put her hand to her back. “I should have stretched out.”

  “Next time we’ll know better,” I said. “Lily? Is that it?”

  The Summer Lady’s eyes went distant for a moment and then she murmured, “Yes. There are no longer agents of Winter in this place. Come.”

  She stepped forward and the doors to the theater proper opened of their own accord. We followed. It was your typical movie theater. Not one of the new stadium-seating fancy theaters, but one of the old models with only a slight incline in the floor. Light played over the screen, though the projector was not running. Spectral colors shifted, faded, changed, and melded like the aurora borealis, and I was struck with the sudden intuition that the color and light were somehow being projected from the opposite side of the screen. The air grew even colder as we followed Lily down the aisle.

  She stopped in front of the screen, staring blankly at it for a moment, then shuddered. “Dresden,” she said quietly. “This crossing leads to Arctis Tor.”

  My stomach fluttered again. “Oh, crap.”

  I saw Thomas arch an eyebrow at me out of the corner of my eye.

  “Crap?” Murphy asked. “Why? What is that place?”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s the heart of Winter. It’s like…” I shook my head. “Think the Tower of London, the Fortress of Solitude, Fort Knox, and Alcatraz all rolled up into one giant ball of fun. It’s Mab’s capital. Her stronghold.” I glanced at Lily. “If what I’ve read about it is correct, that is. I’ve never actually seen the place.”

  “Your sources were accurate enough, Harry,” Lily said. Her manner remained remote, strained. “This is going to severely limit what help I can give you.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Lily stared intently at me for a second, then said, “My power will react violently to that of Mab. I can open the way to the Arctis Tor, but holding the way open for your return will occupy the whole of my strength. Furthermore, so long as I hold the way open I run the risk of letting creatures from deep Winter run free in Chicago. Which means that Fix must remain here to guard the passage against them. I cannot in good conscience send him with you.”

  I scowled at the shifting colors on the screen. “So once we go in, we’re on our own.”

  “Yes.”

  Super. Without Lily and Fix’s power to counter that of the Winter fae within Arctis Tor, our odds of success would undergo a steep reduction- and I had hoped we would be attacking an independent trio of faeries lairing in a cave or under a bridge or something. I hadn’t figured on storming the Bastille.

  I looked up and met Charity’s eyes for a second.

  I turned back to the dancing lights on the movie screen and told the others, “Things just got a lot worse. I’m still going. None of you have to come with me. I don’t expect you to-”

  Before I finished speaking, Charily, Murphy, and Thomas stepped up to stand beside me.

  A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching-they are your family.

  And they were my heroes.

  I nodded at Lily. She closed her eyes, and the shimmering colors on the screen grew brighter, more vibrant. The air grew colder.

  “All right
,” I said quietly. “Each of you get a hand on my shoulder.” I resettled my grip on my wizard’s staff and murmured, “Round two.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Every time I opened a way to the Nevernever, it always looked pretty much the same-an uneven vertical rip in the air that let in the sights and sounds and scents of the world on the other side. The longer I wanted the rift to stay open, the bigger I’d rip the hole. More experienced wizards had made a comment or two over the years to suggest that I still had a lot to learn on the subject.

  When Lily opened the way to Arctis Tor, I understood why. Light and color shifted over the screen, their flow quickening, deepening. At first nothing else happened. The movie screen was simply a surface. Then the hairs on the back of my neck rose, and a cold wind wafted into my face, bringing with it the dry, sterile scent of winter in high, barren mountains and the high, lonely cry of some kind of wild beast like nothing in the real world.

  Deep blue came to dominate the colors on the screen, and a moment later resolved itself into the shapes of mountains towering beneath the light of an impossibly enormous silver moon. They were bleak and hateful stone peaks, wreathed in mist and wrapped in ice and snow. The wind moaned and blew frozen crystals into our faces, then sank into a temporary lull.

  The blowing snow cleared just enough to get me my first look at Arctis Tor.

  Mab’s stronghold was a fortress of black ice, an enormous, shadowy cube sitting high up the slope of the highest mountain in sight. A single, elegant spire rose above the rest of the structure. Flickers of green and amethyst energy played within the ice of the walls. I couldn’t make a good guess at how big the thing was. The walls and battlements were lined with inverted icicles.

  They made me think of the fanged jaws of a hungry predator. A single gate, small in comparison to the rest of the fortress, stood open.

  Hell’s bells. How the hell was I supposed to get in there? It was almost a relief when the wind rose again, and blowing snow once more obscured the fortress from view.