by Jim Butcher
“Gravitus!” I thundered, releasing a second earthcrafting.
Once again, everything jumped up—but this time, it wasn’t quiet. The circle of nullified gravity embraced every shop nearby in the mall, sending merchandise and shelves and dishes and furniture and cash registers and dressing dummies and God knew what other sundry objects flying up, to come crashing back down to the floor again. A great uproar of hundreds of impacts came down from the floors above us as well.
Once again, the circle of supergravity crushed a brown-shirted vampire flat to the floor—only I’d forgotten about the levels above. There was a shriek of tortured metal, and a great crashing rain of debris came down in a nearly solid column as floors and ceilings gave way under the sudden, enormous stress. It all thundered down on the pulped vampire.
There was a second of shocked silence, while objects continued falling from their shelves and bins and who knew what else. Evidently, the damage to the ceiling had torn through some plumbing; a steady stream of water began to patter down from overhead onto the mound of rubble, along with occasional bits of still-falling material.
Then two things happened, almost at the same time.
First, my brother chose his moment.
The front wall of the bistro exploded outward. I saw the flying form of another vampire security guard hurtle across the hallway into the opposite wall with no detectable loss of altitude, and it smashed against a metal security grate with terrifying force.
Second, Drulinda let out an eerie howl of fury. It was a horrible sound, nasty and rasping and somehow spidery, for all that it was of inhuman volume. There was a crash from inside the bistro. Young men and women started screaming.
There wasn’t any time to waste. I ran for the vampire my brother had thrown from the bistro. It had bounced off and fallen on the ground and was still gathering itself up. I had hoped it would take it a moment to recover from the blow, to give me time to get close enough to act.
It didn’t work out that way.
The vampire was on its feet again before I could get halfway there, one of its shoulders twisted and deformed by the impact, one arm hanging loosely. It spun toward me with no sense of discomfort evident in its expression or posture, and it let out a very human-sounding scream of fury and flung itself at me.
I reacted with instant instinct, raising my right hand, with my will, and calling, “Fuego!”
Fire kindled from my open palm and rushed out in a furious torrent, spewing raggedly across the tile floor in a great, slewing cone. It splashed against the floor, up onto the metal grate, and all over the vampire in question, a sudden, if clumsy, immolation.
But without my blasting rod to help me focus the attack, it was diffused; the heat was spread out over a broad area instead of focused into a single, searing beam. Though I’m sure it hurt like hell, and though it set the security guard vampire’s uniform on fire, it didn’t cripple him. It might have sent up an older, more withered vampire like a torch, but the newbie was still too . . . juicy. It didn’t burn him up so much as broil him a bit.
Pretty much, it just pissed him off.
The vampire came at me with another, higher-pitched scream, and swung a flaming arm at me. Maybe the fire had disoriented him a little, because I was able to get out of the way of the blow—sort of. It missed my head and neck and instead slammed into my left shoulder like a train wreck.
Pain flooded through me, and the canister of garlic went flying. The force of the blow spun me around, and I fell to the floor. The vampire came down on top of me, teeth bared, still on freaking fire as he leaned in with his non-pointy, still-white teeth, which were plenty strong enough to rip my throat open.
“Harry!” Thomas screamed. There was a rushing sound, and a tremendous force pulled the vampire off me. I sat up in time to see my brother drive his shoulder into the vampire’s chest, slamming the undead thing back against the concrete wall between two stalls. Then Thomas whipped out what looked like a broken chair leg and drove the shattered end of the wood directly into the vampire’s chest, a couple of inches below the gold, metallic security badge on his left breast, slightly off center.
The vampire’s mouth opened, too-dark blood exploding from it in a gasp. The creature reached for the chair leg with its remaining arm.
Thomas solved that problem in the most brutal way imaginable. His face set in fury, my brother ignored the flames of the vampire’s burning clothing, seized the remaining arm with both of his hands, and with a twist of his hips and shoulders, ripped it out of the socket.
More blood splashed out, if only for a second—without a heartbeat to keep pumping it, blood loss is mostly about leakage—and then the mortally crippled vampire fell, twitching and dying as the stake of wood through its heart put an end to its unlife.
I felt Drulinda coming, more than I saw it happen, the cold presence of a Black Court vampire in a fury, rubbing abrasively against my wizard’s senses. “Thomas!”
My brother turned in time to duck a blow so swift I didn’t even see it. He returned it with one of his own, but Drulinda, though new to the trade, was a master vampire, a creature with its own terrible will and power. Thomas had fought other Black Court vamps before—but not a master.
He was on the defensive from the outset. Though my brother was unthinkably strong and swift when drawing upon his vampiric nature, he wasn’t strong or swift enough. I lay sprawled on the ground, still half paralyzed by the pain in the left side of my body, and tried to think of what to do next.
“Get out!” I screamed at the bistro. “Get out of here, people! Get the hell out now!”
While I screamed, Drulinda slammed my brother’s back into a metal security grate so hard that it left a broad smear of his pale red blood on its bars.
People started hurrying out of the bistro, running for the parking lot.
Drulinda looked over her shoulder and let out another hissing squall of rage. At this opening, Thomas managed to get a grip on her arm, set his feet, and swing her into the wall, sending cracks streaking through the concrete. On the rebound, he swung her up and around and then down, smashing her down onto the floor, then up from that and into a security mesh again, crushing tile and bending metal with every impact.
I heard a scream and looked up to see Ennui fall from her impossibly high black heels in her tiny, tight black dress, as she tried to flee the bistro.
A horribly disfigured hand had reached out from the rubble over the crushed vampire, and now it held her.
I ran for the girl as my brother laid into Drulinda. My left arm wasn’t talking to me, and I fumbled the second canister out of my left jacket pocket with my right arm, then dumped garlic over the outstretched vampire’s hand.
It began smoking and spasming. Ennui screamed as the crushing grip broke her ankle. I stood up in frustration and started stomping down on the vampire’s arm. Supernaturally strong it might be, but its bones were made of bone, and it couldn’t maintain its grip on the girl without them.
It took a lot of stomping, but I was finally able to pull the girl free. I tried to get Ennui to her feet, but her weight came down on her broken ankle, and from there it came down on my wounded shoulder. I went down to one knee, and it was all I could do not to fall.
I almost didn’t notice when my brother flew through the air just over my head, smashed out what had to be the last remaining pane of glass at the mall entrance, and landed limply in the parking lot.
I felt Drulinda’s presence coming up behind me.
The vampire let out a dusty laugh. “I thought it was just some poor pretty boy to play with. Silly me.”
I fumbled with the canister for a second, and then whirled, flinging its contents at Drulinda in a slewing arc.
The vampire blurred to one side, dodging the garlic with ease. She looked battered and was covered with dust. Her undead flesh was approximately the consistency of wood, and so it wasn’t cut and damaged so much as chipped and crushed. Her clothes were torn and ruined—and none of
that mattered. She was just as functional and just as deadly as she had been before the fight.
I dropped the canister and drew forth my pentacle amulet, lifting it as a talisman against her.
The old bit with the crucifix works on the Black Court—but it isn’t purely about Christianity. They are repelled not by the holy symbol itself, but by the faith of the one holding it up against them. I’d seen vampires repulsed by crosses, crucifixes, strips of paper written with holy symbols by a Shinto priest—once even a Star of David.
Me, I used the pentacle, because that was what I believed in. The five-pointed star, to me, represented the five elements of earth, air, water, fire, and spirit, bound within the solid circle of mortal will. I believed that magic was a force intended to be used to create, to protect, and to preserve. I believed that magic was a gift that had to be used responsibly and wisely—and that it especially had to be used against creatures like Drulinda, against literal, personified evil, to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. That was what I thought, and I’d spent my life acting in accordance with it.
I believed.
Pale blue light began to spill from the symbol—and Drulinda stopped with a hiss of sudden rage.
“You,” she said after a few seconds. “I have heard of you. The wizard. Dresden.”
I nodded slowly. Behind her, the fire from my earlier spell was spreading. The power was out, and I had no doubt that Drulinda and her former security-guard lackeys had disabled the alarms. It wouldn’t take long for a fire to go insane in this place, once it got its teeth sunk in. We needed to get out.
“Go,” I mumbled at Ennui.
She sobbed and started crawling for the exit, while I held Drulinda off with the amulet.
The vampire stared steadily at me for a second, her eyes all milky white, corpse cataracts glinting in the reflected light of the fire. Then she smiled and moved.
She was just too damn fast. I tried to turn to keep up with her, but by the time I did, Ennui screamed, and Drulinda had seized her hair and dragged her back, out of the immediate circle of light cast by the amulet.
She lifted the struggling girl with ease, so that I could see her mascara-streaked face. “Wizard,” Drulinda said. Ennui had been cut by flying glass or the fall at some point, and some blood had streaked out of her slicked-back hair, over her ear, and down one side of her throat. The vampire leaned in, extending a tongue like a strip of beef jerky, and licked blood from the girl’s skin. “You can hide behind your light. But you can’t save her.”
I ground my teeth and said nothing.
“But your death will profit me, grant me standing with others of my kind. The feared and vaunted Wizard Dresden.” She bared yellowed teeth in a smile. “So I offer you this bargain. Throw away the amulet. I will let the girl go. You have my word.” She leaned her teeth in close and brushed them over the girl’s neck. “Otherwise . . . Well, all of my new friends are gone. I’ll have to make more.”
That made me shudder. Dying was one thing. Dying and being made into one of those . . .
I lowered the amulet. I hesitated for a second, and then dropped it.
Drulinda let out a low, eager sound and tossed Ennui aside like an empty candy wrapper. Then she was on me, letting out rasping giggles, for God’s sake, pressing me down. “I can smell your fear, Wizard,” she rasped. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”
She leaned closer, slowly, as she bared her teeth, her face only inches from mine.
Which was where I wanted her to be.
I reared up my head and spat out a gooey mouthful of powdered garlic directly into those cataract eyes.
Drulinda let out a scream, bounding away in a violent rush, clawing at her eyes with her fingers—and getting them burned, too. She thrashed in wild agony, swinging randomly at anything she touched or bumped into, tearing great, gaping gashes in metal fences, smashing holes in concrete walls.
“Couple words of advice,” I growled, my mouth burning with the remains of the garlic I’d stuffed it with as she’d come sneaking up on me. “First, anytime I’m not shooting my mouth off to a clichéd, two-bit creature of the night like you, it’s because I’m up to something.”
Drulinda howled more and rushed toward me—tripping on some rubble and sprawling on the ground, only to rush about on all fours like some kind of ungainly, horrible insect.
I checked behind me. Ennui was already out, and Thomas was beginning to stir, maybe roused by the snow now falling on him. I turned back to the blinded, pain-maddened vampire. We were the only ones left in that wing of the mall.
“Second,” I spat, “never touch my brother on his fucking birthday.”
I reached for my will, lifted my hand, and snarled, “Fuego!”
Fire roared out to eagerly engulf the vampire.
What the hell. The building was burning down, anyway.
“FREAKING AMATEUR VILLAINS,” I muttered, glowering down at the splatters on my car.
Thomas leaned against it with one hand pressed to his head, a grimace of pain on his face. “You okay?”
I waved my left arm a little. “Feeling’s coming back. I’ll have Butters check me out later. Thanks for loaning Molly your car.”
“Least I could do. Let her drive Sarah and Ennui to the hospital.” He squinted at the rising smoke from the mall. “Think the whole thing will go?”
“Nah,” I said. “This wing, maybe. They’ll get here before too much more goes up. Keef and his folk should be all right.”
My brother grunted. “How are they going to explain this one?”
“Who knows,” I said. “Meteor, maybe. Smashed holes in the roof, crushed some poor security guard, set the place on fire.”
“My vote is for terrorists,” Thomas said. “Terrorists are real popular these days.” He shook his head. “But I meant the larpers, not the cops.”
“Oh,” I said. “Probably, they won’t talk to anyone about what they saw. Afraid people would think they were crazy.”
“And they would,” Thomas said.
“And they would,” I agreed. “Come tomorrow, it will seem very unreal. A few months from now, they’ll wonder if they didn’t imagine some of it or if there wasn’t some kind of gas leak or something that made them hallucinate. Give it a few more years, and they’ll remember that Drulinda and some rough-looking types showed up to give them a hard time. They drove a car through the front of the mall. Maybe they were crazy people dressed in costumes who had been to a few too many larps themselves.” I shook my head. “It’s human nature to try to understand and explain everything. The world is less scary that way. But I don’t think they’ll be in any danger, really. No more so than anyone else.”
“That’s good,” Thomas said quietly. “I guess.”
“It’s the way it is.” In the distance, sirens were starting up and coming closer. I grunted and said, “We’d better go.”
“Yeah.”
We got into the Beetle. I started it up, and we headed out. I left the lights off—no sense attracting attention.
“You going to be all right?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Take me a few days to get enough back into me to feel normal, but”—he shrugged—“I’ll make it.”
“Thanks for the backup,” I said.
“Kicked their freaky asses,” he said, and held out his fist.
I rapped my knuckles lightly against it.
“Nice signal. The birthday present.”
“I figured you’d get it,” I said. Then I frowned. “Crap,” I said. “Your present.”
“You didn’t remember to bring it?”
“I was a little busy,” I said.
He was quiet for a minute. Then he asked, “What was it?”
“Rock’em Sock’em Robots,” I said.
He blinked at me. “What?”
I repeated myself. “The little plastic robots you make fight.”
“I know what they are, Harry,” he responded. “I’m trying to figure out why you
’d give me them.”
I pursed my lips for a minute. Then I said, “Right after my dad died, they put me in an orphanage. It was Christmastime. On television, they had commercials for Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Two kids playing with them, you know? Two brothers.” I shrugged. “That was a year when I really, really wanted to give those stupid plastic robots to my brother.”
“Because it would mean you weren’t alone,” Thomas said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry I forgot them. And happy birthday.”
He glanced back at the burning mall. “Well,” my brother said, “I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”
HEOROT
—from My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon, edited by P. N. Elrod
Takes place between White Night and Small Favor
Once more, Pat invited me to come play at her literary club-house, and once more, I cheerfully agreed.
What can I say? I fear change.
The last anthology’s theme had been weddings, and this one was the logical sequel—honeymoons. Research into the etymology of “honeymoon” led me back to its roots in Scandinavia and in the British Isles, where a newly wed bride and groom would depart their village and remain in solitude for a lunar month, while being well provided with mead (which is made from honey).
I think the idea was to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that any child conceived in that time was the legitimate heir of the groom. Or maybe it was just to get a pretty young bride liquored up and wild for a month—Viking Girls Gone Wild, as it were.
I have no idea if the information I found, mostly on the Internet, was academically accurate. For my purposes, that wasn’t nearly as important as finding a solid inspiration. So, from newlyweds, mead, and Norse-Scandinavian backgrounds, I developed a story using everything from the Dresden Files’ story line that had the flimsiest of connections to those base ideas.