by Jim Butcher
“Can you do it or not, Harry? Father Forthill is staying at my house with the children. If you can’t stop this thing now, I’ve got to go back to Charity.”
“I sure as hell can’t do it with you breathing down my neck. Hell’s bells, Michael, get out of the way and let me work.”
He growled something to himself about patience or turning the other cheek or something. I heard his feet on the floor above as he retreated from the door leading down to my lab.
Michael didn’t come down into the lab with me because the whole concept of using magic without the Almighty behind it didn’t sit well with him, regardless of what we’d been through together. He could tolerate it, but not approve of it.
I got back to work, closing my eyes and forcing myself to clear my thoughts, to focus on the task at hand. I started to draw my concentration toward the copper circle. The incense smoke tickled at my senses, and swirled about inside the perimeter of the outer circle, not leaving it. The energy grew slowly, as I concentrated, and then I picked up the knife in my right hand, and a handful of water from a bowl on my left.
Now for the three steps. “Enemy, mine enemy,” I spoke, slipping power into the words, “I seek you.” I passed the knife over the copper circle, straight down. I couldn’t see it, without opening my Sight, but could feel the silent tension as I cut a slit between the mortal world and the Nevernever.
“Enemy, mine enemy,” I spoke again. “I search for you. Show me your face.” I cast the water up, over the circle, where the energy of the spell atomized it into a fine, drifting mist, filled with rainbows from the surrounding candles, shifting shapes and colors.
Now for the hard part. “Azorthragal!” I shouted, “Azorthragal, Azorthragal! Appare!” I used the knife to cut my finger, and smeared the blood onto the edge of the copper circle.
Power surged out of me, into the circle, through the rent in the fabric of reality, and as it did, the circle sprang up like a wall around the band of copper in the floor. I felt the cut as an acute, vicious pain, enough to make me blink tears out of my eyes as the power quested out, fueled by the energy of the circle, guided by the articles spread around it.
The spell quested about in the Nevernever, like the blind tentacle of the Kraken scouring the deck, looking for some hapless soul to grab. It shouldn’t have happened like that. It should have zipped to the Nightmare like a lariat and brought it reeling in. I reached out and put more power into the spell, picturing the thing that I had been fighting, the results of its work, trying to give the spell more guidance. It wasn’t until I hit upon the sense of the Nightmare, for lack of a better word, the terror it had inspired that the spell latched onto something. There was a moment of startled stillness, and then a wild, bucking energy, a resistance, that made my heart pound in my chest, the cut in my finger burn as though someone had poured salt over it.
“Appare!” I shouted, forcing will into my voice, reeling back in on the spell. “I command thee to appear!” I slip into the archaic at dramatically appropriate moments. So sue me.
The swirling mist of rainbows swayed and wavered, as though some kind of half-solid thing were stirring the air within the summoning circle. It struggled like a maddened bull, trying to tear away from my spell. “Appare!”
Upstairs, the telephone rang. I heard Michael walk across the floor while I struggled through several silent, furious seconds, the Nightmare trying to escape the web of my concentration.
“Hello,” Michael said. He’d left the door open and I heard him clearly.
“Appare!” I grated again. I felt the thing slip, and I jerked it closer in vicious triumph. The mists and lights swirled, began to take on shape, vaguely humanoid.
“Oh. Yes, but he’s … a little busy,” Michael said. “Uh-huh. No, not exactly. I think—Yes, but—” Michael sighed. “Just a minute.” I heard his feet cross to the trapdoor again.
“Harry,” Michael called. “Susan’s on the phone. She says she needs to talk to you.”
I all but screamed, struggling to hold onto the Nightmare. “I’ll call her back,” I managed to gasp.
“She says it’s really important.”
“Michael!” I half-screamed. “I’m a little busy here!”
“Harry,” Michael said, his voice serious. “I don’t know what you’re doing down there, but she sounds very upset. Says she’s been trying to get in touch with you for a while without any luck.”
The Nightmare started slipping away from me. I gritted my teeth and hung on. “Not now!”
“All right,” Michael said. He retreated from the door down to the lab, and I heard him speaking quietly on the phone again.
I blocked it out, blocked out everything but my spell, the circle, and the thing on the other end of it. I was tiring, but so was it. I had all the props, the power and focus of the circle—it was strong, but I had the leverage on it, and after another minute, minute and a half, I shouted, “Appare!” for the last time.
The mist in the circle swirled and trembled, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape. The shape screamed, a faint and bubbly sound, still trying to escape.
“You can’t get away!” I shouted at it. “Who brought you over! Who sent you!”
“Wizard,” the thing screamed. “Release me!”
“Yeah, right. Who sent you!” I forced more energy into my voice, compulsion.
It screamed, a distorted sound, like a radio getting interference. The shape refused to clarify or solidify anymore. “No one!”
“Who sent you!” I said, hammering on the spell and the Nightmare, with my will. “Who has compelled you to harm these people? Hell’s bells, you will answer me!”
“No one,” the Nightmare snarled. Its struggling redoubled, but I grabbed on tightly.
And then I felt it—a third party, intruding from the other side. I felt that cold, horrible power that had been behind the torment-spell on Micky Malone and on Agatha Hagglethorn’s ghost. It poured into the Nightmare like nitrous into an engine, supercharging it. The Nightmare went from raging bull to frenzied elephant, and I felt it begin to tear free of my spell, to get loose.
“Wizard!” it howled in triumph. “Wizard, the sun is sinking! I will tear out thy heart! I will hunt thy friends and their children! I will slay them all!”
“It’s thine heart,” I muttered. “And no you won’t.” I lifted my left hand and slashed it at the sparkling mist, sprinkling droplets of blood at it. “Bound, thou art,” I snarled. I reached out toward the thing, and found the part of me that was still inside of it, a warm sensation, like coming home again after a long trip. I could only barely brush it, but it was enough for what I wanted to do. “No other souls wilt thou harm, no other blood wilt thou spill. Thy quarrel is now with me. Bound, I make thee! Bound!” And with the third repetition of the word, I felt the spell lock, felt it settle around the Nightmare like steel coils. I couldn’t keep it from getting away, I couldn’t forbid it from the mortal world altogether, but I could damn well make sure that the only person it could mess with would be me. “Now let’s see how you do in a fair fight, asshole.”
It screamed, all but bursting the bonds of my spell, the sound reverberating through the room. I lifted the knife in my other hand and ripped it at the air over the circle, releasing the holding spell, pouring everything I had left into the strike. I saw the magic lance out into the circle, even as the Nightmare faded. It split the rainbow mist like the sweep of some invisible woodsman’s axe, and once more, the Nightmare screamed.
Then the mist gathered together in a horrible rush, an implosion of space, and the creature was gone. A handful of water splattered the ground, and the candles went out.
I collapsed forward, to my forearms, wheezing and gasping for breath, my muscles shaking. I’d hurt the bastard. It wasn’t invincible. I’d hurt it. Maybe nothing much more inconvenient than the cut on my finger, or a slap in the face, but it hadn’t expected that.
I hadn’t been able to get to the person behind it, but I’d felt so
mething—I’d sensed their presence, gotten a clear whiff of their perfume, in a metaphysical sense. Maybe I could use that.
“Take that, jerk,” I mumbled. I lay there gasping for several minutes, my head spinning from the effort of the spell. Then I put my things away and shambled up out of my lab, into the room above.
Michael helped me to a seat. He’d built up the fire, and I soaked in its warmth gratefully. He went to the kitchen and brought me a Coke, a sandwich. I drank and ate greedily. Only after I’d finished the last of the drink did he ask, “What happened?”
“I called it up. The Nightmare. Someone helped it get away, but not before I laid a binding on it.”
He frowned at me, grey eyes studying my face. “What kind of binding?”
“I kept it from going after you. Or Murphy. Or your family. I couldn’t keep it out, but I could limit its targets.”
Michael blinked at me for a moment. Then said, slowly, “By making it come after you.”
I grinned at him, a fierce show of teeth, and nodded. A touch of pride filled my voice. “I had to do it at the last second, on the fly. I hadn’t really planned it, but it worked. So long as I’m alive, it can’t mess with anyone else.”
“So long as you’re alive,” Michael said. He frowned, and leaned his thick forearms on his knees, pressing his palms together. “Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“Doesn’t that mean it’s certainly going to try to kill you? No torment, no sadistic tortures—just flat-out mayhem and death.”
I nodded, sobering. “Yeah.”
“And … whatever person is behind the Nightmare, whoever helped it escape—that means that you’ve just put yourself in their way. They can’t use their weapon until they’ve removed you.”
“Yeah.”
“So … if they didn’t need you dead before, they’re going to stop at nothing else now.”
I was quiet for a moment, thinking about that. “I made my choice, man,” I said, finally. “But hell, I’m already in water so deep, it doesn’t matter if it gets any deeper. Let the Nightmare and my godmother duke it out for who gets to be first in line.”
His eyes flickered up at mine. “Oh, Harry. You shouldn’t have done that.”
I scowled at him. “Hey. It’s better than anything else we’ve managed, so far. You’d have done the same thing, if you could.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “But my family is well provided for.” He paused, and then added, in a gentle voice, “And I’m sure of my soul’s destination, when it’s time for me to go.”
“I’ll worry about Hell later. Besides, I think I have a plan.”
He grimaced. “You aren’t concerned about your soul, but you have a plan.”
“I don’t intend to get killed just yet. We’ve got to take the offensive, Michael. If we just sit back and wait, it’s going to be able to take us apart.”
“Take you apart, you mean,” he said. His expression grew more troubled. “Harry, without Amoracchius … I’m not sure how much help I’ll be to you.”
“You know what you’re doing, Michael. And I don’t think the Almighty is going to quit the team just because we fumbled the ball, right?”
“Of course not, Harry. He is ever faithful.”
I leaned toward him, put a hand on his shoulder, and looked him right in the eyes. I don’t do that to people very often. There aren’t many I can. “Michael. This thing is big, and it’s bad, and it scares the hell out of me. But I might be the only one who can stop it, now. I need you. I need your help. Hell, man. I need to know that you’re at my back, that you believe in what I’m doing here. Are you with me or not?”
He studied my face. “You’ve lost much of your power, you say. And I don’t have the sword anymore. Our enemies know it. We could both be killed. Or worse.”
“If we stay here doing nothing, we’re going to get killed anyway. And maybe Murphy and Charity and your kids with us.”
He bowed his head, and nodded. “You’re right. There’s not really any choice.” His hand covered mine for a moment, big and calloused and strong, and then he stood up again, his back straight and his shoulders squared. “We just have to have faith. The good Lord wouldn’t give us more than we could bear.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
“So what’s the plan, Harry? What are we going to do?”
I got up and went to the mantel over the fire, but what I needed wasn’t there. I frowned, looking around the room, and spied it on the coffee table. I bent down and plucked up the white envelope, taking the gold-lettered invitation Kyle and Kelly Hamilton had delivered.
“We’re going to a party.”
Chapter
Twenty-four
Michael parked his truck on the street outside Bianca’s mansion. He put the keys in his leather belt pouch, and buttoned it with the silver cross button. Then he straightened the collar of his doublet, which showed through the neck of the mail, and reached behind the seat for the steel helmet that slipped on over his head. “Tell me again, Harry, why this is a good idea. Why are we going to a masquerade ball with a bunch of monsters?”
“Everything points us this way,” I said.
“How?”
I took a breath, trying to be patient, and passed him the white cloak. “Look. We know that someone’s been stirring up the spirit world. We know that they did it in order to create this Nightmare that’s been after us. We know that the girl, Lydia, was connected to the Nightmare somehow.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “All right.”
“Bianca,” I said, “sent out her thugs to take Lydia. And Bianca’s hosting a party for the nastiest bad guys in the region. Stallings told me that people have been going missing off the streets. They’ve probably been taken for food or something. Even if Bianca isn’t behind it, and I’m not saying she isn’t, chances are that anyone who could be is going to be at the party tonight.”
“And you think you’ll be able to spot them?” Michael asked.
“Pretty sure,” I responded. “All I’ll have to do is get close enough to touch them, to feel their aura. I felt whoever was backing the Nightmare when they helped it get away from me. I should be able to tell when I feel them again.”
“I don’t like it,” Michael said. “Why didn’t the Nightmare come after you the minute the sun went down?”
“Maybe I scared it. I cut it up a little.”
Michael frowned. “I still don’t like it. There are going to be dozens of things in there that have no right to exist in this world. It will be like walking into a roomful of wolves.”
“All you have to do,” I said, “is keep your mouth shut and watch my back. The bad guys have to play by the rules tonight. We’ve been given the protection of the old laws of hospitality. If Bianca doesn’t respect that, it’s going to kill her reputation in front of her guests and the Vampire Court.”
“I will protect you, Harry,” Michael said. “As I will protect anyone who these … things threaten.”
“We don’t need any fights, Michael. That’s not why we’re here.”
He looked out the truck window and set his jaw.
“I mean it, Michael. It’s their turf. There’s probably going to be bad stuff inside, but we have to keep the big picture in focus here.”
“The big picture,” he said. “Harry, if there’s someone in there that needs my help, they’re getting it.”
“Michael! If we break the truce first, we’re open game. You could get us both killed.”
He turned to look at me, and his eyes were granite. “I am what I am, Harry.”
I threw my arms up in the air, and banged my hands on the roof of the truck. “There are people who could get killed if we mess this up. It isn’t only our own lives we’re talking about, here.”
“I know,” he said. “My family are some of them. But that doesn’t change anything.”
“Michael,” I said. “I’m not asking you to smile and chat and get cozy. Just keep quiet and stay out of t
he way. Don’t shove a crucifix down anyone’s throat. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I won’t stand by, Harry,” he said. “I can’t.” He frowned and said, “I don’t think you can, either.”
I glared at him. “Hell’s bells, Michael. I don’t want to die, here.”
“Nor do I. We must have faith.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s just great.”
“Harry, will you join me in prayer?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“A prayer,” Michael said. “I’d like to talk to Him for a moment.” He half smiled at me. “You don’t have to say anything. Just be quiet and stay out of the way.” He bowed his head.
I squinted out the window of the truck, silent. I don’t have anything against God. Far from it. But I don’t understand Him. And I don’t trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they’re working in His best interests. Faeries and vampires and whatnot—those I can fathom. Even demons. Sometimes, even the Fallen. I can understand why they do what they do.
But I don’t understand God. I don’t understand how He could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.
I guess He’s just bigger about it than I would be.
“Lord,” Michael said. “We walk into darkness now. Our enemies will surround us. Please help to make us strong enough to do what needs to be done. Amen.”
Just that. No fancy language, no flashy beseeching the Almighty for aid. Just quiet words about what he wanted to get done, and a request that God would be on his side—on our side. Simple words, and yet power surrounded him like a cloud of fine mist, prickling along my arms and my neck. Faith. I calmed down a little. We had a lot going for us. We could do this.
Michael looked up at me and nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”
“How do I look?” I asked him.
He smiled, white teeth showing. “You’re going to turn heads. That’s for sure.”
I had to smile back at him. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s party.”
We got out of the truck, and started walking toward the gates around Bianca’s estate. Michael buckled on the white cloak with its red cross as he went. He had a matching surcoat, boots, and armored guards on his shoulders. He had a pair of heavy gauntlets tucked through his boots, and wore a pair of knives on his belt, one on either side. He smelled like steel and he clanked a little bit when he walked. It sounded comforting, in a friendly, dreadnought kind of way.