Turn Coat

by Butcher, Jim

  “I’m not getting anything out here,” Billy said. “Is he sure?”

  Georgia murmured into the phone. “Yes. He’s sure it circled this way. It should be in sight from where you are.”

  “It isn’t,” Billy said. He turned his head over his shoulder and said, “Harry. Are you all right?”

  “I’ll survive,” I said, and paced over to the window. “It followed me here, huh?”

  “Something’s outside,” Billy said. “Something we’ve never run into before. It’s been playing hide-and-seek with Kirby and Andi for an hour. They can’t catch it or get a good look at it.”

  I gave Billy a sharp look. There weren’t many things that could keep ahead of the werewolves, working together. Wolves are just too damn alert and quick, and Billy and company had been working Chicago almost as long as I had. They knew how to handle themselves—and in the past couple of months, I’d been teaching my apprentice a little humility by letting her try her veiling spells against the werewolves. They’d hunted her down in moments, every time.

  “So whatever’s out there, it isn’t human,” I said. “Not if it can stay ahead of Kirby and Andi.” I crossed to the window and stared out with Billy. “And it can veil itself from sight.”

  “What is it?” Billy asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s real bad.” I glanced back at Georgia. “How long was I down?”

  She checked her watch. “Eighty-two minutes.”

  I nodded. “It’s had plenty of time to try to come in, if that’s what it wanted.” I felt a nauseated little quiver in my stomach as a tight smile stretched my lips. “It’s playing with me.”

  “What?” Billy said.

  “It’s dancing around in front of us out there, under a veil. It’s daring me to use my Sight so that I’ll be able to spot it.”

  From outside, there was a sound, a cry. It was short and high-pitched, loud enough to make the windows quiver. I’d never heard anything like it before. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, a purely instinctive reaction. My instincts had been tracking this thing well, so far, so I trusted them when they told me one more thing—that cry was a statement. The hunt was on.

  An instant later, every light in sight blew out in a shower of sparks, and darkness swallowed several city blocks.

  “Tell Andi and Kirby to get back here to the apartment!” I snapped at Georgia. I grabbed my staff from where it leaned against the wall by the door. “Billy, you’re with me. Get your game face on.”

  “Harry?” Georgia said, confused.

  “Now!” I snapped, flinging the bar off the door.

  By the time I’d reached the bottom of the stairs, there was the sound of a heavy, controlled impact, and a wolf with hair the same dark brown as Billy’s hit the floor next to me. It was an enormous beast, easily as heavy as Mouse, but taller and leaner—a wolf the world has rarely seen between here and the last ice age. I slammed open the door and let Billy out ahead of me. He bounded over a parked car—and I mean completely over it, lengthwise—and shot toward the buildings at the back of the complex.

  Billy had been in contact with Andi and Kirby, and knew their approximate positions. I followed him, my staff in hand, already summoning up my will. I wasn’t sure what was out here, but I wanted to be ready for it.

  Kirby appeared from around the northernmost corner of the other building. He hurried along with a cell phone pressed to his ear, a lanky, dark-haired young man in sweat pants and a baggy T-shirt. The active phone painted half his face like a miniature floodlight. I checked the southern corner of the building at once, and saw a dark, furry shape trotting around the corner—Andi, like Billy, in her wolf form.

  Wait a minute.

  If the whatever-it-was had taken out the local lights, how in the hell had Kirby’s cell phone survived the hex? Magic and technology don’t get along so well, and the more complex electronic devices tended to fall apart most quickly. Cell phones were like those security guys in red shirts on old Star Trek: as soon as something started happening, they were always the first to go.

  If the creature, whatever it was, had blown out the lights, it would have gotten the phone, too. Unless it hadn’t wanted to take the phone out.

  Kirby was the only clearly lit object in sight—an ideal target.

  When the attack came, it came fast.

  There was a ripple in the air, as something moving beneath a veil crossed between me and the light cast by Kirby’s phone. There was an explosive snarl, and the phone went flying, leaving Kirby hidden in shadow.

  Billy flung himself forward, even as I ripped the silver pentacle amulet from around my neck and lifted it, calling forth silver-blue wizard light with my will. Light flooded the area between the complex’s buildings.

  Kirby was on his back, in the center of a splatter of black that could only be blood. Billy was standing crouched over him, his teeth bared in a snarl. He suddenly lunged forward, teeth ripping, and a distortion of the air in front of him bounded up and then to one side. I lurched forward, feeling as if I was running through hip-deep peanut butter. I got the impression of something four-legged and furry evading Billy’s attack, a raw flicker of vision like something seen out of the very corner of the eye.

  Then Billy was on his back, slashing with canine claws, ripping savagely with his teeth, while something shadowy and massive overbore him, pinning him down.

  Andi, a red-furred wolf that was smaller and swifter than Billy’s form, hurtled through the air and tore at the back of the attacker.

  It screamed again, the sound deeper-chested than before, more resonant. The creature whirled on Andi, too swiftly to be believed, and a limb slammed into her, sending her flying into a brick wall. She hit with a yipping cry of pain and a hideous snapping sound.

  I raised my staff, anger and terror and determination surging down into the wooden tool, and shouted, “Forzare!”

  My will unspooled into a lance of invisible energy and slammed into the creature. I’ve flipped over cars with blasts of force like that, but the thing barely rocked back, slapping at the air with its forelimbs. The blast shattered against it in a shower of reddish sparks.

  The conflicting energies disrupted its veil, just for a second. I saw something somewhere between a cougar and a bear, with sparse, dirty golden fur. It must have weighed several hundred pounds. It had oversized fangs, bloodied claws, and its eyes were a bright and sickly yellow that looked reptilian, somehow.

  Its snarling mouth twisted in a way that no animal’s could, forming words, albeit words that I did not understand. Its form twisted, changing with liquid speed, and in maybe half a second, a cougar bigger than any mountain lion I’d ever even heard about was hurtling toward me, vanishing into the rippling colors of a veil as it came.

  I brought up my left hand, slamming my will into the bracelet hung upon it. The bracelet, a braid of metals hung with charms in the shape of medieval shields, was another tool like the staff, a device that let me focus the energies I wielded more quickly and efficiently.

  A quarter dome of blue-white light sprang into existence before me, and the creature slammed into it like a brick wall. Well. More like a rickety wooden wall. I felt the shield begin to give as the creature struck it—but at least initially, it stopped it in its tracks.

  Billy hit it low and hard.

  The great dark wolf sailed in, teeth ripping, and got hold of something. The creature howled, this time more in pain than fury, and whirled on Billy—but the leader of Chicago’s resident werewolves was already on the way back out, and he bounded aside from the creature’s counterattack.

  It was faster than Billy was. It caught him, and I saw Billy hunch his shoulders against its attack, his fur being bloodied as he crouched low, standing his ground.

  So that Georgia could hit it low and hard.

  Georgia’s wolf form was dusty brown, taller and lither than Billy’s, and moved with deadly precision. She raked at the creature, forcing it to turn to her—only
to be forced to keep whirling as Billy went after its flank.

  I brandished my staff, timing my shot with my teeth gritted, and then screamed again as I sent another lance of force at the creature, aiming for its legs. The blast tore gashes in the asphalt and brought the nearly invisible thing to the ground, once more disrupting its veil. Billy and Georgia rushed toward it to keep it pinned down, and I raised my staff, calling up more energy. My next shot was going to pile-driver the thing straight down into the water table, by God.

  But once more, its shape turned liquid—and suddenly a hawk with a wingspan longer than my car tore into the air, reptilian yellow eyes glaring. It soared aloft, its wings beating twice, and vanished into the night sky.

  I stared after that for a second. Then I said, “Oh, crap.”

  I looked around in the wildly dancing light of my amulet, and rushed toward Andi. She was unconscious, her body reverted to its human form—that of a redhead with a killer figure. One entire side of her body was a swelling purple bruise. She had a broken arm, shoulder, ribs, and her face was so horribly damaged that I had to worry about her skull as well. She was breathing, barely.

  The shapeshifter had been strong.

  Georgia arrived at my side in wolf form, her eyes, ears, and nose all alert, scanning around us, above us.

  I turned my head to see Billy, nude and in human form, crouched over Kirby. I lifted my light and moved a couple of steps over toward him so I could see.

  Kirby’s throat was gone. Just gone. There was a scoop of flesh as wide as my palm missing, and bare vertebrae showed at the back of it. The edges of the gaping wound were black and crumbling, as if charred to black dust. Kirby’s eyes were glassy and staring. His blood was everywhere.

  “Hell’s bells,” I breathed. I stared at the dead young man, a friend, and shook my head hard once. “Billy, come on. Andi’s still alive. We can’t leave her out here. We’ve got to get her behind your threshold and get her an ambulance, now.”

  Billy crouched over Kirby, his face twisted in confusion and rage.

  “Will!” I shouted.

  He looked up at me.

  “Andi,” I said. “Help me get her inside.”

  He nodded jerkily. Then the two of us went to her. We laid my duster out on the ground and got her onto it as gently as we could. Then we picked her up and carried her back toward the apartment building. People were calling out in the buildings around us, now. Flashlights and candles and chemical glow lights had begun to appear. I had no doubt that within a few minutes, we’d get sirens, too.

  From somewhere above us, there was a contemptuous brassy cry—the same tone I heard before, though modulated differently now, coming from an avian throat.

  “What was that?” Billy asked, his tone dull and heavy. “What was that thing?”

  “I’m not certain,” I answered, breathing hard. Georgia was coming along behind us, dragging my staff in her jaws. “But if it’s what I think it is, things just got a lot worse.”

  Billy looked up at me, Kirby’s blood all over his face and hands. “What is it, Harry?”

  “A Native American nightmare,” I said. I looked at him grimly. “A skinwalker.”

  Chapter Six

  Georgia told the EMTs she was Andi’s sister, which was true in a spiritual sense, I suppose, and rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital. The EMTs looked grim.

  The cops had gathered around Kirby’s body, and were busy closing off the scene.

  “I have to be here,” Billy said.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m on the clock, Billy. I can’t stay. I can’t lose the time.”

  He nodded. “What do I need to know about skinwalkers?”

  “They’re . . . they’re just evil, man. They like hurting people. Shape-shifters, obviously—and the more afraid of them you are, the more powerful they get. They literally feed on fear.”

  Billy eyed me. “Meaning you aren’t going to tell me anything more. Because it won’t help me. You think it will scare me.”

  “We knew it was here, we were ready for a fight, and you saw what happened,” I said. “If it had hit us from a real ambush, it would have been worse.”

  He bared his teeth in a snarl. “We had it.”

  “We had it at a momentary disadvantage—and it saw that, and it was smart enough to leave and come back later. All we did was prove to it that it would have to take us seriously to kill us. We won’t get another opportunity like that one.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You and Georgia stay close to Andi. This thing likes hurting people. And it gets off on hunting down wounded prey. She’s still in danger.”

  “Got it,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do?”

  “Find out why it’s here,” I said. “There’s Council business afoot. Christ, I didn’t mean to bring you into this.” I stared toward the knot of officers around Kirby’s corpse. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “Kirby was an adult, Dresden,” Billy said. “He knew what could happen. He chose to be here.”

  Which was the truth. But it didn’t help. Kirby was still dead. I hadn’t known what the skinwalker was before, beyond something awful, but that didn’t change anything.

  Kirby was still dead.

  And Andi . . . God, I hadn’t even thought about that part. Andi and Kirby had been an intense item. She was going to be heartbroken.

  Assuming she didn’t die, too.

  Billy—I just couldn’t think of him as Will—blinked tears out of his eyes and said, “You didn’t know it was going to come down like that, man. We all owe you our lives, Harry. I’m glad we got the chance to be there for you.” He nodded toward the police. “I’ll do the talking, then get to Georgia. You’d better go.”

  We traded grips, and his was crushingly tight with tension and grief. I nodded to him, and turned to leave. The city lights were starting to come back on as I went out the back entrance to Will’s building, down a side street, and through an alley that ran behind an old bookstore where I wasn’t welcome anymore. I passed the spot in that alley where I’d nearly died, and shivered as I did. I’d barely dodged the old man’s scythe, that day.

  Tonight, Kirby hadn’t.

  My head felt dislocated, somehow. I should be feeling more than I was. I should be madder than hell. I should be shaking with fear. Something. But instead, I felt like I was observing events from a remote cold place somewhere up above and behind me. It was, I reasoned, probably a side effect of exposing myself to the skinwalker’s true form. Or rather, a side effect of what I’d had to do to get over it.

  I wasn’t worried about the skinwalker sneaking up on me. Oh, sure, he might do it, but not cold. Supernatural beings like the skinwalker had so much power that reality itself gets a little strained around them wherever they go, and that has a number of side effects. One of them is a sort of psychic stench that goes with them—a presence that my instincts had twigged to long before the skinwalker had been in a position to do me any real harm.

  Read a little folklore, the stuff that hasn’t been prettied up by Disney and the like. Start with the Brothers Grimm. It won’t tell you about skinwalkers, but it will give you a good idea of just how dark some of those tales can be.

  Skinwalkers are dark compared to that. You’ve got to get the real stories from the peoples of the Navajo, Ute, and other Southwestern tribes to get the really juicy material. They don’t talk about them often, because the genuine and entirely rational fear the stories inspire only makes the creatures stronger. The tribes rarely talk about them with outsiders, because outsiders have no foundation of folklore to draw upon to protect themselves—and because you never know when the outsider to whom you’re telling dark tales might be a skinwalker, looking to indulge a sense of macabre irony. But I’ve been in the business awhile, and I know people who know the stories. They’d confided a handful to me, in broad daylight, looking nervously around them as they spoke, as if afraid that dredging up the dark memories might catch a skinwalker’s attention.
/>   Because sometimes it did.

  That’s how bad skinwalkers are. Even amongst the people who know the danger they represent, who know better than anyone else in the world how to defend against them, no one wants to talk about skinwalkers.

  But in a way, it worked in my favor. Walking down a dark alley in the middle of a Chicago night, and stepping over the spot on the concrete where I’d almost been ripped to pieces just wasn’t spooky enough to encompass the presence of a skinwalker. If things got majorly Tales from the Darkside creepy and shivery, I’d know I was in real trouble.

  As it was, the night was simply—

  A small figure in a lightweight Cubs jacket stepped around the corner at the end of the alley. The newly restored streetlight shone on blond hair, and Sergeant Karrin Murphy said, “Evening, Dresden.”

  —complicated.

  “Murph,” I responded woodenly. Murphy was a sergeant with Chicago PD’s Special Investigations department. When something supernaturally bad happened and the cops got involved, Murphy often contacted me to get my take on things. The city didn’t want to hear about “imaginary” things like skinwalkers or vampires. They just wanted the problem to go away—but Murphy and the rest of SI were the people who had to make it happen.

  “I tip a guy down at impound to keep an eye out for certain vehicles,” Murphy said. “Pay him in bottles of McAnally’s ale. He calls me and tells me your car got brought in.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  Murphy fell into pace beside me as I turned out onto the sidewalk. She was five feet nothing, with blond hair that fell a little past her shoulders and blue eyes. She was more cute than pretty, and looked like someone’s favorite aunt. Which seemed likely. She had a fairly large Irish Catholic family.

  “Then I hear about a power outage,” she said, “and a huge disturbance at the same apartments where your werewolf friends live. I hear about a girl who might not make it and a boy who didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” I said. It might have come out a little bleak.

  “Who was it?” Murphy asked.