by Jim Butcher
Bob whistled. “Wow. Your aura is different. You look a lot like—”
“Shut up, Bob,” I said, my voice very quiet.
He did.
I put on my bracelet, and took up my rod. I scanned around and found my staff wedged into a corner, and took it out as well. “Bob,” I asked. “What is all my stuff doing here?”
“Oh,” Bob said. “That. Well. Bianca got the idea, somewhere, that your stuff might explode if anyone messed around with it.”
I heard the wryness in my voice, though I didn’t feel it. “She did, did she.”
“I can’t imagine how.”
“I’m doubling your pay.” I took Bob’s skull and handed it back to Justine. “Carry this. Don’t drop it.”
Bob whistled. “Hey, cutie. That’s a real nice red cloak you got there. Will you let me see the lining?”
I swatted the skull on the way past, drawing an outraged, “Ow!” from Bob.
“Stop goofing around. We’re still inside Bianca’s, and we still have to get out.” I frowned, and glanced at Justine, then swiftly, left and right. “Where’s Susan?”
Justine blinked. “She was right here behind—” She turned, staring.
Water dripped.
Silence reigned.
Justine started trembling like a leaf. “Here,” she whispered. “They’re here. We can’t see them.”
“What’s this ‘we’ stuff, kimosabe,” Bob muttered. The skull spun about in its fishnet sack. “I don’t see any veils, Harry.”
I swept my eyes left and right, gripping my blasting rod. “Did you see her leave? Or anyone take her?”
Bob coughed. “Well. Truth be told, I was looking at Justine’s luscious little—”
“I get the point, Bob.”
“Sorry.”
I shook my head, irritated. “They snuck in, under a veil maybe. Grabbed Susan and went. Why the hell didn’t they stick around? Just put a knife in my back? Why didn’t they take Justine, too?”
“Good questions,” Bob said.
“I’ll tell you why. Because they weren’t here. They couldn’t have just carried Susan off that easy. Not now.”
“Why not?” Bob asked.
“Trust me. She’d be a handful. They couldn’t do it without making a fuss, which we’d notice.”
“Assuming you’re right,” Bob said, “why would she just walk away?”
Justine glanced back at me, and licked her lips. “Bianca could make her. I’ve seen her do it. She made Susan walk into the laundry room on her own.”
I grunted. “Looks like Bianca’s been hitting the books, Bob.”
“Vampire wizard,” Bob said. “Black magic. Could be very tough.”
“So can I. Justine, stay behind me. Keep your eyes open.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice quiet. I strode past her, toward the stairs. Some of the energy I’d felt before had faded away. My pain and weakness grew closer to me, more noticeable. I did everything I could to shove it to the back of my mind. A swift little thrill of panic gabbled in my throat and tried to make me start screaming. I shoved that away, too. I just walked to the bottom of the stairs, and looked up them.
The doors at the top were elegant wood, and standing open. A soft breeze and the smell of night air flowed down the stairs. Late night, faint with the traces of dusty dawn. I glanced back at Justine, and she all but flinched away from me.
“Stay down here,” I told her. “Bob, some things are going to start flying. Give her whatever help you can.”
“All right, Harry,” Bob said. “You know that door’s been opened for you. They’re going to be waiting for you to walk up there.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not getting any stronger. Might as well do it now.”
“You could wait until dawn. Then they’d—”
I cut him off, short. “Then they’d force their way down here to escape the sunlight. And it would still be a fight.” I glanced at Justine and said, “I’ll get you out, if I can.”
She chanced a swift glance at my face, and back down. “Thank you, Mister Dresden. For trying.”
“Sure, kid.” I flexed my left hand, feeling the cool silver of the shield bracelet there. I gripped my staff tight. Then rolled the blasting rod through my fingers, feeling the runes carved into the wood, formulae of power, fire, force.
I put one foot on the stairs. My bare foot made little sound, but the board creaked beneath my weight. I squared my shoulders, and went up the next stair, and the next. Resolute, I guess. Terrified, certainly. Seething with power, with a simmering anger ready to boil over again.
I tried to clear my mind, to hang onto the anger and to dismiss the fear. I had limited success, but I made it up the stairs.
At the top, Bianca stood at one end of the great hall through the open doors. She wore the white gown I’d seen her in before, the soft fabric draping and stretching in alluring curves, creating shadows upon her with an artist’s conviction. Susan knelt beside her, shaking, her head bowed. Bianca kept one hand on her hair.
Spread out around and behind Bianca were a dozen vampires; skinny limbs, flabby black bodies and drooling fangs, the flaps of skin between arm and flank and thigh stretched out, here and there, like half-functional wings. Some of the vampires had climbed up the walls and perched there, like gangly black spiders. All of them, even Susan, had huge, dark eyes. All of them stood looking at me.
In front of Bianca knelt a half-dozen men in plain suits that bulged in odd places. They held guns in their hands. Great big guns. Some kind of assault weapons, I thought. Their eyes looked a little vague, like they’d only been allowed to see some of what was in the room. Just as well.
I looked back at them and leaned on my staff. And I laughed. It came out a wheezing cackle, that echoed around the great hall, and caused the vampires to stir restlessly.
Bianca let her lips curve into a slow smile. “And what do you find so amusing, my pet?”
I smiled back. There was nothing friendly in it. “All of this. For a guy with two sticks and a pair of yellow ducky boxer shorts, you must think I’m a real dangerous man.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Bianca said. “Were I you, I would consider it flattery.”
“Would you?” I asked.
Bianca let her smile widen. “Oh. Oh, yes. Gentlemen,” she said, to the men with guns. “Fire.”
Chapter
Thirty-eight
I lifted my left hand before me, pouring energy into the shield bracelet, and shouted, “Riflettum!”
The guns roared with fire and thunder. Sparks showered off of a barrier less than six inches away from my hand. The bracelet grew warm as the security men poured a hail of gunfire at me. It stopped, just short, and bullets shot aside, chewing through the expensive woodwork and bouncing wildly around the room. One of the vampires let out a yowl and dropped from the wall to splat on the ground like a fat bug. One of the security men’s guns suddenly jumped and twisted, and he cried out in pain, reeling back, blood streaming from his hands and the ruins of his face.
Technology doesn’t tend to work too well around magic. Including the feeding mechanisms of automatic weapons.
Two of the guns jammed before dumping their full clips, and the others fell silent, spent. I still stood, one hand extended. Bullets lay all over the floor in front of me, misshapen slugs of lead. The security men stared, and stumbled away from me, behind Bianca and the vampires, and out the door. I don’t blame them. If all I had was a gun, and it had just been that useless, I would run, too.
I took a step forward, scattering bullets with my bare feet. “Get out of my way,” I said. “Let us out. No one else has to get hurt.”
“Kyle,” Bianca said, stroking Susan’s hair. “Kelly. She was quite mad in any case. Not all of them make the transition well.” Her gaze traveled down to Susan.
The smile I wore sharpened. “Last chance, Bianca. Let us out peacefully, and you walk away alive.”
“And if I say no?” sh
e asked, very mild.
I snarled, my temper snapping. I lifted the blasting rod, whirled it around my head as I drew in my will, and snarled, “Fuego!” Power exploded from the rod, circular coruscations following a solid scarlet column of energy that lanced forward, toward the vampire’s head.
Bianca kept smiling. She lifted her left hand, mumbled some gibberish, and I saw cold darkness gather before her, a concave disk that met my energy lance and absorbed it, scattered it, sent smaller bolts of fire darting here and there, splashing on the floor in small, blazing puddles.
I just stared at her for a moment. I knew that she’d known some tricks, maybe a veil or two, a glamour or two, maybe how to whip up a fascination. But that kind of straightforward deflection wasn’t something just anyone could do. Some of the people on the White Council couldn’t have stopped that shot without help.
Bianca smiled at me, and lowered her hand. The vampires laughed, hissing, inhuman laughter. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a cold shudder glided gleefully up and down my spine.
“Well, Mister Dresden,” she purred. “It would appear that Mavra was an able instructor, and my lessons well learned. We seem to be at something of a standoff. But there’s one more piece I’d like to put on the board.” She clapped her hands, and gestured to one side.
One of the vampires opened a door. Standing behind it, both hands on a stylish cane, stood a medium-sized man, dark of hair and coloring, brawny through the chest and shoulders. He wore a tailored suit of dark grey in an immaculate cut. He made me think of native South Americans, with a sturdy jaw and broad, strong features.
“Nice suit,” I told him.
He looked me up and down. “Nice … ducks.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll bite. Who’s that?”
“My name,” the man said, “is Ortega. Don Paolo Ortega, of the Red Court.”
“Hiya, Don,” I said. “I’d like to lodge a complaint.”
He smiled, a show of broad, white teeth. “I’m sure you would, Mister Dresden. But I have been monitoring the situation here. And the Baroness,” he nodded to Bianca, “has broken none of the Accords. Nor has she violated the laws of hospitality, nor her own given word.”
“Oh come on,” I said. “She’s broken the spirit of all of them!”
Ortega tsked. “Alas, that in the Accords it was agreed that there is no spirit of the law, between our kinds, Mister Dresden. Only its letter. And Baroness Bianca has strictly adhered to its letter. You have instigated multiple combats in her home, murdered her sworn bondsman, inflicted damage to her property and her reputation. And now you stand here prepared to continue your grievance with her, in a most unlawful and cavalier fashion. I believe that what you do is sometimes referred to as ‘cowboy justice.’ ”
“If there’s a point in here, somewhere,” I said, “get to it.”
Ortega’s eyes glittered. “I am present as a witness to the Red King, and the Vampire Courts at large. That is all. I am merely a witness.”
Bianca turned her eyes back to me. “A witness who will carry word of your treacherous attack and intrusion back to the Courts,” she said. “It will mean war between our kindred and the White Council.”
War.
Between the vampires and the White Council.
Son of a bitch. It was unthinkable. Such a conflict hadn’t happened in millennia. Not in living memory—and some wizards live a damned long time.
I had to swallow, and hide the fact that I had just gulped. “Well. Since he isn’t running off to tattle right this second, I can only assume that you’re about to offer me a deal.”
“I never thought you were slow on the uptake, Mister Dresden,” Bianca said. “Will you hear my offer?”
I ached more with every moment that went by. My body was failing. I had ridden the rush of magic through the last several moments, but I had spent a lot of that power. It would come back, but I was running the batteries down—and the more I did it, the more I couldn’t ignore my weakness, my dizziness.
Legally speaking, the vampires had me over a barrel. I needed a plan. I needed a plan in the worst way. I needed time.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll hear you out.”
Bianca curled her fingers through Susan’s hair. “First. You shall be forgiven your … excesses of bad taste of the last few days. But for the two deaths, none of it is unworkable—and those two would have died shortly, in any case. I will forgive you, Mister Dresden.”
“That’s so kind.”
“It gets better. You may take your equipment, your skull, and the White bastard’s whore with you when you leave. Unharmed and free of future malice. All accounts will be called even.”
I let the dry show in my tone. “How could I possibly say no.”
She smiled. “You killed someone very dear to me, Mister Dresden—not directly, true, but your actions mandated her death. For that, too, I will forgive you.”
I narrowed my eyes.
Bianca ran her hands over Susan’s hair. “This one will stay with me. You stole away someone dear to me, Mister Dresden. And I am going to take away someone dear to you. After that, all will be equal.” She gave Ortega a very small smile and then glanced at me and asked, “Well? What say you? If you prefer to remain with her, I’m sure a place could be made for you here. After suitable assurances of your loyalty, of course.”
I remained silent for a moment, stunned.
“Well, wizard?” she snapped, harsher. “How do you answer? Accept my bargain. My compromise. Or it is war. And you will become its first casualty.”
I looked at Susan. She stared blankly, her mouth partially open, caught in a trance of some kind. I could probably snap her out of it, provided a bunch of vampires didn’t tear me limb from limb while I tried. I looked up at Bianca. At Ortega. At the hissing vampire cronies. They were drooling on the polished floor.
I hurt all over, and I felt so very damned tired.
“I love her,” I said. I didn’t say it very loud.
“What?” Bianca stared at me. “What did you say?”
“I said, I love her.”
“She is already half mine.”
“So? I still love her.”
“She isn’t even fully human any longer, Dresden. It won’t be long before she is as a sister to me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said. “Get your hands off my girlfriend.”
Bianca’s eyes widened. “You are mad,” she said. “You would flirt with chaos, destruction—with war. For the sake of this one wounded soul?”
I smote my staff on the floor, reaching deep for power. Deeper than I’ve ever reached before. Outside, in the gathering morning, the air crackled with thunder.
Bianca, even Ortega, looked abruptly uncertain, looking up and around, before focusing on me again.
“For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life.” I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. “The way I see it, there’s nothing else worth fighting a war for.”
Bianca’s face distorted with fury. She lost it. She split apart her skin like some gruesome caterpillar, the black beast clawing its way out of her flesh mask, jaws gaping, black eyes burning with feral fury. “Kill him!” she shouted. “Kill him, kill him, kill him!”
The vampires came for me, across the floor, along the walls, scuttling like roaches or spiders—too fast for easy belief. Bianca gathered shadow into her hands and hurled it at me.
I fell back a pace, caught Bianca’s strike with my staff, and parried it into one of her flunkies. The darkness enfolded the vampire, and it screamed from within. When the fog around it vanished, nothing remained but dust. I responded with another gout of fire from the rod, sweeping it like a scythe through the oncoming vampires, setting them aflame. They writhed and screamed.
Spittle sliced toward me from above and to one side, and I barely ducked away in time. The vampire clinging to the ceiling followed its venom down, but it met the end of my staff in its belly, the
other end solidly planted against the floor. The vampire rebounded with a burping sound and landed hard on the floor. I lifted the staff and smote down on the thing’s head, to the sound of more thunder outside. Power lashed down through the staff, and crushed the vampire’s skull like an egg. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and the vampire’s claws scratched a frantic staccato on the floor as it died.
I had done well for the moment—the vamps nearest me were falling back, teeth bared. But more were coming, from behind them. Bianca hurled another strike at me, and though I interposed both staff and shield, the deathly cold of it numbed my fingers.
I was running out of strength, panting, my weariness and weakness struggling to claim me. I fought off the dizziness, enough to send another flash of fire at an oncoming vampire, but it skittered aside, and all I did was plow a blazing furrow in the floorboards.
They fell back for a moment, separated from me by an expanse of flame, and I struggled to catch my breath.
They were coming. The vampires would be coming for me. My brain kept chattering at me, frantic, panicked. They’re coming. Justine, Susan, and I might as well be dead. Dead like all the others. Dead like all their victims.
I leaned against the wall by the stairs, panting, fighting to hold on to some sense of clarity. Dead. Victims. The victims below. The dead.
I dropped the blasting rod. I fell to my knees.
With my staff, I scratched a circle around me, in the dust. It was enough. The circle closed with a thrum of power. Magic ran rampant in that house, the sea of supernatural energy stirred to froth.
I had no guide for this kind of spell. I had no focus, nothing to target, but that wasn’t the kind of magic I was working with. I shoved my senses down, into the earth, like reaching fingers. I blanked out the burning hall, my enemies, Bianca’s howling. I shut away the fire, the smoke, the pain, the nausea. I focused, and reached beneath me.
And I found them. I found the dead, the victims, the ones who had been taken. Not just the few piled below, like so much trash to be discarded. I found others. Dozens of others. Scores. Hundreds. Bones hidden away, never marked, never remembered. Restless shades, trapped in the earth, too weak to act, to take vengeance, to seek peace. Maybe on another night, or in another place, I couldn’t have done it. But the way had been prepared for me, by Bianca and her people. They’d thought to weaken the border between life and death, to use the dead as a weapon against me.