by Jim Butcher
Of course, it would be after sundown. The Nightmare, if it was inside Lydia, would be free to leave her then, to roam abroad. If I could get to her, exorcise this thing now, I could end the spree of destruction it was on.
If, if, if. I had a lot of ifs. But I didn’t have much time. The sun was swiftly vanishing. I reached inside my duster and got out my blasting rod, transferring my exorcism bag to the same hand as the tuning fork. Then I headed across the street, to the garage doors of the building. I tested one, and to my surprise it rolled upwards. I glanced left and right, then slipped inside into the darkness, shutting the door behind me.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The room was lit only by the fading light that slipped its fingers beneath the plyboard over the windows, the edges of the garage doors. It was a loading dock that encompassed almost the entire first floor, I judged. Stone pillars held the place up. Water dripped somewhere, from a broken pipe, and there were pools of it everywhere on the floor.
A brand-new side-panel van, its engine still ticking, cooling off, stood parked at the far side of the loading dock, next to a five-foot-high stone abutment, where trucks would once have backed up to load and unload goods. A sign hanging by one hinge, over the van, read SUMNER’S TEXTILES MFG.
I approached the van slowly, my blasting rod held loosely at my side. I swept the tuning fork, and my eyes, around the shadowed chamber. The fork hummed every time it swept past the van.
The white van all but glowed in the half-light. Its windows had been tinted, and I couldn’t see inside of them, even when I came within ten feet or so.
Something, some sound or other cue that I hadn’t quite caught on the conscious level made the hair on the back of my neck prickle up. I spun to face the darkness behind me, the tip of my blasting rod rising up, my bruised fingers wrapped tight around its haft. I focused my senses on the darkness, and listened, honing my attention to the area around me.
Darkness.
Drip of water.
Creak of building, above me.
Nothing.
I put the tuning fork in my duster pocket. Then I turned back to the van, closed the distance quickly, and hauled open the side door, leveling my rod on the inside.
A blanket-wrapped bundle, approximately Lydia-sized, lay inside the van. One pale hand lay limp outside of it, my talisman, scorched-looking and bloodstained, wrapped around the slender wrist.
My heart leapt into my throat. “Lydia?” I asked. I reached out and touched her wrist. Felt the dull, slow throb of pulse. I let out a breath of relief, pulled the blankets from her pale face. Her eyes were open, staring, the pupils dilated until there was barely any color left in them at all. I waved my hand in front of her eyes and said again, “Lydia.” She didn’t respond. Drugged, I thought.
What the hell was she doing here? Lying in a van, covered up in blankets drugged and placed as neatly as could be. It didn’t make sense, unless she was . . .
Unless she was a distraction. The bait for a trap.
I turned, but before I got halfway around that cold energy I’d felt the night before flooded over the side of my face, my throat. Something blonde and incredibly swift slammed into me with the force of a rushing bull, throwing me off my feet and into the van. I spun around onto my elbows to see the vampire Kyle Hamilton coming for me, his eyes black and empty, his face screwed up into a grimace of hunger. He still wore his tennis whites. I kicked at his chest, and superhuman strength or no, it lifted him up off the ground for a second, brought me a half-breath of life. I lifted my right hand, the silver ring there gleaming, and cried, “Assantius!”
The energy stored in the ring, all kinetic stuff that it saved back a little every time I moved my arm, unloaded in a flood, right in the vampire’s face, an unseen fury of motion. The raw force split his lips—but no blood flowed out. It dug into the corners of his eyes and tore the skin away, but there was still no blood. It ripped the skin from his cheekbones, all rubbery black beneath the Anglo-Saxon pink, strips of flesh flapping back in the wave of force like flags in a high wind.
The vampire’s body flew back and up. It thudded hard against the ceiling and then fell to the floor with a thump. I struggled out of the van, my chest aching with a dull sort of pain. I left the doctor’s bag behind, shook out the shield bracelet and extended my left arm in front of me.
Kyle stirred for a moment and then flung himself to all fours, his body weirdly contorted, shoulders standing up too much, his back bent at a crooked angle. Shreds of flesh dangled from his face, slick-looking, rubbery black beneath them. His eyes also had the skin torn away from them, like pieces of a rubber mask, and bulged out black and huge and inhuman. His jaws parted, showing dripping fangs, saliva pattering to the damp floor.
“You,” the vampire hissed, his voice calm, normal, disconcerting.
“Whoah, that was original,” I muttered, drawing in my will. “Yeah, me. What the hell are you doing here? Where do you think you’re going with Lydia?”
His inhuman expression flickered. “Who?”
My chest panged, hard, sharp, hot, as if something was broken. Broken badly. I remained standing, though, not letting him see weakness. “Lydia. Bad dye job, sunken eyes, in your van, wearing my talisman on her wrist.”
He hissed out a dripping runnel of laughter. “Is that what she told you her name was? You’ve been used, Dresden.”
I got a shivery feeling again, and narrowed my eyes. I didn’t have any warning but instinct to make me throw myself to one side in an abrupt leap.
The vampire’s sister, Kelly, as blonde and pretty as he had been a moment before, landed in the space I had occupied. She too dropped to her knees with a drooling hiss, fangs showing, eyes bulging. She wore a white cat suit, clinging tight to her curves, along with white boots and gloves, and a short white cape with a deep hood. Her clothing was smudged, imperfect, spotted with flecks of scarlet, and her blonde hair in disarray. Blood stained her mouth, like smeared lipstick, or a child with a big cup of juice. A blood mustache. Hells bells.
I kept my blasting rod trained on Kelly, my left hand thrust out before me. “So you two are putting the snatch on Lydia, eh? Why?”
“Let me kill him,” moaned the female, her eyes all black, empty and hungry. “Kyle. I’m hungry.”
So sue me, I weird out when someone starts talking about eating me. I swung the blasting rod right at Kelly’s face and started sending power into it, setting the tip to glowing. “Yeah, Kyle,” I said. “Let her try.”
Kyle rippled, beneath his skin, and it was enough to make my stomach turn. Something like that just ain’t right, even when you know what’s underneath. “This affair is none of yours, wizard.”
“The girl is under my protection,” I said. “You two clear out, now, and I won’t have to get rough with you.”
“That will not happen,” Kyle said, his voice deadly quiet.
“Kyle,” the female moaned again. More drool slithered out of her mouth, dripping to the floor. She started shaking, quivering, as if she were about to fly apart. Or at me. My mouth went dry, and I got ready to blast her.
I saw Kyle move out of the corner of my eye. I lifted the shield bracelet toward him, transferred my will to it, but in time only to partially deflect the broken chip of concrete that he threw at my head. It slammed against my temple and sent me spinning. I saw Kelly blur toward me, white cape flying, and I lifted the blasting rod toward her, shouting, “Fuego!”
Fire slammed out the end of the rod, missing Kelly by at least a foot, but still hot enough to set the hem of her cloak ablaze. The flame slewed in an arch across the ceiling and down the wall as I started falling, cutting through wood and brick and stone like an enormous arc-welder.
She flung herself atop me, straddling my hips with her thighs, moaning in excitement. I thrust the blasting rod toward her, but she batted it aside, laughing in a wild, hysterical tone, throwing her smoldering cloak off with the other hand. She plunged toward my throat, but I lifted my hands to ca
tch at her mane of hair. I knew it was a futile gesture—she was just too damned strong. I wouldn’t be able to hold her off of me for long, a few seconds at most. My heart pounded in my burning chest, and I struggled, gasping in air.
And then droplets of her spittle fell onto my throat, my cheek, into my mouth. And none of it mattered any more.
It was a glorious sensation, that spread over me—warmth, security, peace. Ecstasy began at my skin and spread through me, easing all the horrid tension from my muscles. My fingers slackened in Kelly’s lovely hair, and she purred, her hips writhing against mine. She lowered her mouth toward me, and I felt her breath on my skin, her breasts press against me through the thin material of her bodysuit.
Something, some nagging thought, bothered me for a moment. Perhaps it was something about the perfect, lightless depths of her eyes, or the way her fangs rubbed against my throat—no matter how good it felt. But then I felt her lips on my skin, felt her draw in her breath in shivering anticipation, and it stopped mattering. I just wanted more.
Then there was a roaring sound, and I dimly perceived the west wall of the building collapsing, falling away in great, flaming sections of wood and brick. The blast I had sent spewing at Kelly had sliced through the ceiling, walls, and support beams. It must have weakened the structure of the entire building as it had.
Oops.
Sunlight flooded in, through the falling bricks and clouds of dust, the last rays of daylight, warm and golden on my face, painfully bright in my eyes.
Kelly screamed and, wherever her skin wasn’t covered by cloth, from her chin up, mostly—she burst into flame. The light hit her like a physical blow, hurling her away from me. I became aware of a dull pain, uncomfortable heat on my cheek, my throat, where her saliva had coated my skin.
Everything was light and heat and pain for a few moments, and someone was screaming. I struggled up a moment later, peering around the inside of the building. Fire spread, a dull chewing sound on the floors above me, and through the missing section of wall I could hear sirens in the distance. There were smears of something black and greasy on the concrete floor, leading to the white van. The sunlight barely touched the back window of the vehicle. The side door stood wide open, and Kyle, his face still hanging in ragged strips, hauled something grotesque—his sister, her true form no longer shrouded by its mask of flesh. The vampire girl made keening sounds of agony while her brother pitched her into the back of the van. He slammed the door shut, a snarl rippling his split lips. He took a step toward me, then clenched his jaws in frustration, stopping just short of the sunlight.
“Wizard,” he hissed. “You’ll pay. I’ll make you pay for this.” Then he spun back to the van, with its dark-tinted windows, and leapt in. A moment later, the engine roared to life, and the van sped toward the garage doors, plowed through one of them, sending shards of wood flying, jounced into the street, and vanished from sight, engine racing.
I remained in place, stunned, burnt, hurting, my brain clouded. Then I stumbled to my feet, and staggered toward the hole in the wall, and out into the fading daylight. Sirens got closer.
“Damn,” I mumbled, looking back at the spreading fires. “I’m kinda hard on buildings.”
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. Dark. It was getting dark. Had to get home. Vampires could come out after dark. Home, I thought. Home.
I started stumbling back toward the Beetle.
Behind me, as I did, the sun sank beneath the horizon—freeing all the things that go bump in the night to come out and play.
Chapter Seventeen
I don’t remember how I managed to get home again. I have a vague image of all the cars around me going way too fast, and then of Mister’s rumbling purr greeting me as I got into my apartment and locked the door behind me.
The vampire’s narcotic saliva had soaked in through my skin in a matter of a second or three, spreading into my system in short order after that. I felt numb, light, all over. The room wasn’t quite whirling, but when I moved my eyes, things almost seemed to blur a little, then to settle when I focused on something. I throbbed. Every time my heart beat, my entire body pulsed with a slow, gentle pang of pleasant sensation.
Something inside me couldn’t help but love every second of it. Even counting the times I’d been juiced up in a hospital, it was the best drug I’d ever had.
I stumbled to my narrow bed and dropped onto it. Mister came and prowled around my face, waiting for me to get up and feed him. “Go away,” I heard myself mumble. “Stupid furball. Go on.” He put one paw on my throat, and touched the area of burned skin where the sunlight had struck the smear of Kelly Hamilton’s saliva. Pain flared through me, and I groaned, forcing myself into the kitchen. I got some cold cuts out of the icebox and dropped them onto Mister’s plate. Then I stumbled into the bathroom and flicked on the light.
It hurt.
I shielded my eyes and studied myself in the mirror. My pupils had dilated out nice and big. The skin on my throat, my cheek, was red and glowing, as though from falling asleep outside on a summer afternoon—painful, but not dangerous. I couldn’t find any marks on my throat, so the vampire hadn’t bitten me. I was pretty sure that was a good thing. Something about a bite being a link to a victim. If she’d bitten me, she could have gotten into my head. Usual mind-control enchantment. Breaking one of the Laws of Magic.
I stumbled back to my bed and sank down onto it, trying to sort out my thoughts. My lovely, throbbing body made this fairly difficult. Mister came nosing around again, but I shoved him away with one hand and forced myself to ignore him.
“Focus, Harry,” I mumbled to myself. “Got to have focus.”
I’d learned to block out pain, when necessary. Studying under Justin, it had been a practical necessity. My teacher hadn’t believed in sparing the rod and spoiling the potential wizard. You learn very quickly not to make mistakes given the correct incentive to avoid them.
Blocking out pleasure was a more difficult exercise, but I somehow managed. The first thing I had to do was separate my sense of enjoyment. It took me a while, but I slowly marked out the boundaries of the parts of me that liked all the wonderful, warm sensations, and walled them away. Then the actual pounding happiness itself. I found my heart rate and slowed it a bit, though it was already going too slowly, then started shutting down perception of my limbs, pushing them behind the walls with the rest of me that wasn’t doing any good. Giddy delight went next, leaving only a dull fuzz across my thinking, chemically unavoidable.
I closed my eyes and breathed, and tried to sort through things.
Lydia had fled the shelter of the church, and Father Forthill’s protection. Why? I thought back, over the details of everything I knew about her. Her sunken eyes. The tingle of touching her aura. Had her hands been shaking, just a little? I think they had, in retrospect. I thought of what I had seen of her in the van, of the bracelet on her wrist. Her beating pulse. Had it been slow? I’d thought so, at the time—but then my own had been racing. I focused on the moment I’d been touching her.
Sixty, I thought. She’d been around sixty beats per minute. My own heart rate was about a sixth of that at the moment. Had been half that, before I’d slowed it down to quiet the song of the drug in my blood.
(Song, pretty song, why the hell did I have it shut away, when I could just lower the walls, listen to the music, lay here all happy and quiet and just feel, just be . . .)
I took a moment to prop the walls up again. Lydia’s heart rate had been at human normal, nominally. But she’d been lying limp and still, much as I was, now. Kyle and Kelly had poisoned her, as they had me, I was sure of it. Then why had her heart been beating so quickly, in comparison?
She left the church and had been taken, perhaps, by the Nightmare. Then gone to Malone’s house under its guidance, and gotten an invitation in. But why go to Malone’s house? What did he have to do with anything?
Malone and Lydia. They’d both been attacked by the Nightmare. What was
the connection? What linked them together?
More questions. What did the vampires want with her? If Kyle and his sister had been after Lydia, that meant that Bianca wanted her. Why? Was Bianca in league with the Nightmare? If she was, why the hell would she need to use her most powerful goons to kidnap the girl, if she was possessed by Bianca’s ally?
And how the hell had the Nightmare gone through the threshold? An even better question, how had it gotten through the protection offered to Lydia by my Dead Man’s talisman? No ghost should have been able to offer her any direct harm or contact through that thing. It didn’t make any sense.
(Why should it? Why should anything need to mean anything at all? Just sit back, Harry. Lie back and feel good and relax and let your blood sing, let your heart beat, just ease down into the wonderful, warm, spinning dark and stop worrying, stop caring, drift and float and . . .)
The walls started to crumble.
I struggled, but sudden fear made my heartbeat quicken. I fought against the pull of the poison in my blood, but that struggle only made me more vulnerable, more susceptible. I couldn’t fail, now. I couldn’t. People were depending upon me. I had to fight—
The walls fell, and my blood surged up with a roar.
I drifted.
And it was nice.
Drifting turned into sleep. Gentle, dark sleep. And sleep, in time, turned into dreams.
In my dream, I found myself back at the warehouse down by Burnham Harbor. It was night, beneath a full moon. I was wearing my duster, my black shirt and jeans, my black sneakers, which were better for . . . well. Sneaking. Michael stood beside me, his breath steaming in the winter air, dressed in his cloak, his full mail, his bloodred surcoat. Amoracchius rode his hip, a source of quiet, constant power. Murphy and the other members of Special Investigations all wore dark, loose clothing and their flack vests, and everyone had a gun in one hand and something else—like vials of holy water or silver crucifixes—in the other.