by Jim Butcher
Something told me that Alicia the Corpsetaker wasn’t an amateur.
“That’s close enough,” I said in a cold voice.
She kept walking, very slowly, a sort of sinuous enjoyment in her stride. “Last chance.”
“I mean it,” I said. “Stay ba—”
Before I could finish the word, she made a rippling gesture with the shimmering fingers of her left hand.
There was a whirling sensation, and I was suddenly caught in a gale, a whirlwind that tried to carry me toward the girl. My feet started sliding across the floor. I leaned back with a cry, lifting my shield bracelet, and it blazed into a dome of solid blue light before me. It did nothing—nothing at all. The vicious vortex continued to draw me to her outstretched hand.
I started to panic, and then realized what was happening. There was no wind—not physically, anyway. The books on the shelves were not stirring, nor was my long leather duster. My shield offered me no protection from a wholly nonphysical threat, and I released it, saving my strength.
The hideous vacuum wasn’t meant for my body. It was targeting my thoughts.
“That’s right,” Alicia said.
Holy crap. She’d heard me thinking.
“Of course, young man. Give me what I want now and I may leave you enough of your mind to feed yourself.”
I gritted my teeth, marshaling my thoughts, my defenses.
“It’s too late for that, boy.”
Like hell it was. My thoughts coalesced into a unified whole, an absolute image of a wall of smooth, grey granite. I built the image of the wall in my mind and then filled it with the power I’d been holding at the ready. I felt a nauseating confusion for a second, and then the mental gale ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
Alicia’s head jerked as if she’d been slapped across the cheek.
I glared at her, teeth gritted, and asked, “Is that all you got?”
Corpsetaker snarled out a spiteful curse, lifted her left arm, and twisted her fingers into a raking claw.
There was a hideous pressure against the image of the granite wall in my mind. It wasn’t a single, resounding blow, as I had expected from my training, a kind of psychic battering ram. Instead it was an enormous, steady weight, as if a sudden tide had flooded in to wash the wall away completely.
I thought that pressure would ease in a moment, but it only became more and more difficult to bear. I struggled to hold the image of the wall in place, but despite everything I could do, dark and empty cracks began to appear and spread through it. My defenses were crumbling.
“Delicious,” Corpsetaker said, and her voice didn’t sound strained at all. “After a century, they’re still teaching the young ones the same tripe.”
I saw movement beyond Corpsetaker, and Li Xian appeared in the shattered plywood doorway. Half of his face was lumpy and purpled with bruising, and one shoulder had been smashed grossly out of shape. He was bleeding a thin, greenish-brown fluid, and moved as if in great pain, but he came in on his own power, and his eyes were alert.
“My lord,” Xian said. “Are you well?”
“Perfectly,” Corpsetaker purred. “Once I have his mind, the rest is yours.”
His misshapen face twisted into a smile that spread too wide for human features. “Thank you, lord.”
Holy crap. It was time to leave.
But my feet wouldn’t move.
“You needn’t bother, young wizard,” Corpsetaker said. “If you take the attention you would need to free your feet, your wall will fail. Just open to me, boy. You will feel less pain.”
I ignored the necromancer and tried to think of other options. My mental defenses were indeed crumbling, but any strength of will I spent to move my legs would collapse the defenses entirely. I had to get the pressure off of me for a moment—only time enough to distract Corpsetaker, to give me time to get the hell away. But given that I could barely move at all, my options were severely limited.
Part of the wall began to crumble. I felt Corpsetaker’s will begin pouring in, the first trickle from a dark sea.
If I wanted to live, I had little choice.
I reached my thoughts down into the smoldering Hellfire burning in the runes of my staff, and sent it flooding into my mind, into the failing wall that protected me. The cracks in the cold grey granite filled with crimson flame, and where the dark sea of Corpsetaker’s will pressed against it there was a screaming hiss of freezing water boiling into a cloud of steam.
Corpsetaker let out a sudden, hollow gasp, and the pressure on my thoughts vanished.
I spun, wobbled, got my balance, and then ran for the back door.
“Take him!” Corpsetaker snarled behind me. “He has the book and the Word!”
There was a sickly ripping, crackling sound, and Li Xian let out a bestial and inhuman howl.
I dashed through the back room of the bookstore, and to the back door. I slammed its opening bar and sprinted through it, out into the alley behind the shop. I heard two sets of feet following me, and Corpsetaker began chanting in a low, growling voice. That hideous pressure began to surge against my thoughts again, but this time I was ready for it, and my defenses fell into place more quickly, more surely. I was able to keep running.
I ran down the alley, and made it maybe thirty yards before a sudden fire exploded through my right calf. I crashed down to the ground, barely holding on to my mental defenses. I dropped my staff and reached down to my calf, to feel something metal and sharp protruding from it. I cut my fingers on an edge and jerked them back. I couldn’t get a good look, but I saw a flash of steel and a lot of blood—and Corpsetaker and the ghoul were still coming.
There was no way I could have whipped up any magic to stop them—not with all of my power focused on keeping Corpsetaker from invading my mind. I wouldn’t be able to overcome the ghoul physically—even wounded, Xian was quick on his feet, and closing the distance fast.
I drew the .44 and sent three shots back down the alley. Corpsetaker darted to one side, but the ghoul never even slowed down. He flung one too-long arm through an arc, and there was a glitter of steel in the gloomy alley. Something hit me in the ribs nearly hard enough to knock me down, but the spell-covered leather of my duster stopped it from piercing through. A triangle of steel fell to the ground, each point sharpened and given a razor’s edge.
“All I needed,” I muttered. “Ninja ghouls.” I emptied the revolver at Xian. He wasn’t ten feet from me on the last shot, and I must have hit him. He jerked, careened off a wall, and stumbled, but he was a long way from down.
Corpsetaker’s will continued to erode my defenses. I had to get away from her, or she’d open up my brains like a tin of sardines—and then Xian would eat them.
The three-pointed shuriken still in my calf, I forced myself to my feet through the screaming pain. I seized my staff, hobbling in earnest this time, and struggled toward the end of the alley. My only chance was to make it to the street, to flag down a cab, somehow beg a ride from a passing car, or maybe get some help. I knew there wasn’t much hope of any of those things happening, but it was all I had.
I almost got to the end of the alley, the pain in my leg growing steadily worse—and then I abruptly lost track of what was going on.
One moment I’d been busy, I knew. I was doing something important. The next I was just standing there, sort of floundering. Whatever I’d been doing, it was right on the tip of my tongue. I knew that if I could just focus for a second, I’d be able to remember it and get back on track. My leg hurt. I knew that. And my head felt jumbled, the thoughts there, but in disarray, as if I’d gone through a drawer of folded laundry, pulled out something from the bottom, and then slapped the drawer shut again without straightening anything up.
I heard a snarl behind me, and realized that whatever I’d been doing, it was too late to get back on track now. I tried to turn around, but for some reason I couldn’t remember how.
“I have it,” panted a woman’s voice behind me. “Numbers.
It’s only…He only has numbers.”
“My lord,” snarled a thick, deformed voice. “What is your command?”
“He doesn’t know where the Word is. He is useless to me. The book is in the right pocket of his coat. Take it, Xian. Then kill him.”
Chapter
Eighteen
I was pretty sure that Corpsetaker was talking about me, and I knew for sure that getting killed was a bad thing. I just couldn’t figure out how to go about doing something to stop it. Something about my mind. That it wasn’t working right.
A battered-looking man entered my field of view, and I was able to turn my head enough to watch him. Oh, crap, it was Li Xian, the ghoul. I had a bad feeling that he was going to do something unpleasant, but he just stuck his hand in my coat pocket and pulled out the slender copy of Erlking.
The ghoul turned away from me and offered the book to someone out of my field of view.
There was the sound of flipping pages. “Excellent,” Corpsetaker said. “Take him back from the street and finish him. Hurry. He’s stronger than most. I’d rather not hold him all day.”
Oh, right. Corpsetaker was holding my mind captive. That meant that she was in my head. That meant she had beaten my defenses down. Just pulling those thoughts together made me feel stronger. My head started clearing, and as it did the pain in my wounded leg grew more intense.
“Hurry,” she said, her voice now strained.
Rough hands seized the back of my coat. I wanted to run, but I still couldn’t get everything to respond together. An inspiration seized me. If Corpsetaker was in my head, it meant that she could feel everything I was feeling—such as the burning pain in my leg.
When the ghoul started pulling me backward, I couldn’t struggle, but I managed to twist my hips a little and bend my good knee. I fell over sideways, onto the wounded leg. The fall drove the shuriken a little harder into my calf, and the world went white with pain.
Corpsetaker shrieked. I heard a metallic clatter, as if she had stumbled into a trash can, and I felt my arms and legs come all the way back under my command. The ghoul stumbled on his mangled leg. He pushed off the wall and came at me. I spun on the small of my back and kicked out hard and straight at his good knee.
That’s a nasty defensive technique Murphy taught me, and one that doesn’t rely upon raw physical power. The ghoul’s weight was all on that leg, and the kick connected hard. There was a grinding pop, and he let out a spitting snarl of pain.
I scrambled away from him on one leg and the heels of my hands. I could see my blood on the floor of the alley, smeared in a trail from my wounded leg. There were little stars fluttering through my vision, and I felt as weak as a starved kitten. Everything was spinning around so much that I didn’t even bother to get to my feet. I crawled out of the cold shadows of the alley, onto the sidewalk, and into broad daylight.
I heard someone shout something. There were police sirens a block or two away. They were doubtless heading for Bock’s place, after someone had seen me throw the ghoul out through the plywood-covered door. Give them two minutes to sort out what was going on, and I’d have men with silver shields and a strong desire to speak to the dead professor’s missing assistants all around me.
Of course, by then I’d probably have been dead for a minute and a half.
The wounded ghoul, his face twisted, jaws lolling open wide to show yellowed fangs, came shambling out of the alley after me.
I heard a woman shout, the sound high and furious and totally unafraid. There was a whooshing sound, a spinning shape, and then an ax—a freaking double-bladed ax—buried itself to the eye in the ghoul’s flank. Just as it hit, there was a flash of light from a spot on the blade, so bright that it left a red mark in the shape of a single rune burned into my vision. There was a loud bark of sound as the ax hit the ghoul. The creature was thrown forcefully to the sidewalk, and thin, greenish-brown fluid sprayed everywhere in a disgusting shower.
A woman in a dark business suit stepped into my line of sight. She was better than six feet tall, blond, and coldly beautiful. Her blue eyes burned with battle-lust and excitement as she drew a sword with a straight, three-foot blade from the scabbard at her side. As I watched, she took several smooth steps to place herself between the ghoul and me. Then she pointed the tip of the sword at him and snarled, “Avaunt, carrion.”
The ghoul tore the ax from his side and staggered into a crouch, holding the weapon in both hands with a panicked desperation. He took a pair of awkward, shuffling steps back.
An engine roared and a grey sedan swerved up onto the sidewalk.
“Avaunt!” cried the woman; then she raised the sword and glided toward the ghoul.
Li Xian didn’t want any part of it. His inhuman face twisted in recognizable fear. He dropped the ax and fled back down the alley.
“Coward.” The woman sighed, clearly disappointed. She snatched up the ax, then said to me, “Get in.”
“I know you,” I said. “Miss Gard. You work for Marcone.”
“I work for Monoc Securities,” the woman corrected me. Her hand clamped down on my arm like a slender steel vise, and she hauled me to my feet without effort. My wounded calf clenched into a nasty cramp, and I could feel the steel blades continuing to cut at my muscles. I clenched my teeth, snarling my defiance at the pain. Gard gave me a quick glance of approval and tugged me toward the grey sedan. I still had to hobble on my staff, but with her help I made it to the car and fumbled my way into the backseat. More hands pulled me in.
The whole time Gard kept her sharp, cold blue gaze on the alley and the street around us. Once I was in, she shut the door, sheathed the sword, and unclipped the scabbard from her belt before getting into the passenger’s seat. The grey sedan pulled out into the street again, and started away from the scene.
The driver turned his head just enough to catch me in his peripheral vision. His neck was too thick for any more movement than that. He had red hair clipped into a close buzz, shoulders wide enough to build a deck on, and he’d had to get his business suit at the big-and-tall store.
“Hendricks,” I greeted him.
He looked up into the rearview mirror with his beady eyes and glowered.
“Nice to see you again, too,” I said. I settled back into the seat as much as I could, trying to ignore my leg, and refusing to look at the man sitting beside me.
I didn’t really need to look at him. He was a man a little over average height, somewhere in the late prime of his life, his dark hair flecked with grey. He had skin that had seen a lot of time out in the weather, leaving him with a perpetual boater’s tan, and eyes the color of wrinkled old dollars. He’d be wearing a suit that cost more than some cars, and making it look good. He looked handsome and wholesome, more like the coach of a successful sports team than a gangster. But John Marcone was the most powerful figure in Chicago’s criminal underworld.
“Isn’t that a little childish?” he asked me, his voice amused. “Refusing to look at me like that?”
“Indulge me,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”
“How serious is your injury?” he asked.
“Do I look like a doctor to you?” I asked.
“You look more like a corpse,” he answered.
I squinted at him. He sat calmly in his seat, mirroring me. “Is that a threat?” I asked.
“If I wanted you dead,” Marcone said, “I would hardly have come to your aid just now. You must admit, Dresden, that I have just saved your life. Again.”
I closed my eye again and scowled. “Your timing is improbable.”
He sounded amused. “In what way?”
“Coming to my rescue just as someone was about to punch my ticket. You must admit, Marcone, that it smells like a setup.”
“Even I occasionally enjoy good fortune,” he replied.
I shook my head. “I called you less than an hour ago. If it wasn’t a setup then how did you find me?”
“He didn’t,” said Gard. “I did.” She lo
oked over her shoulder at Marcone and frowned. “This is a mistake. It was his fate to die in that alley.”
“What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?” Marcone asked.
“There will be consequences,” she insisted.
Marcone shrugged. “When aren’t there?”
Gard turned her face back to the front and shook her head. “Hubris. Mortals never understand.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “Everyone makes that mistake but me.”
Marcone glanced at me, and his eyes wrinkled at the corners. It was very nearly a smile. Gard turned her head slowly and gave me a cold glare that wasn’t anywhere close to smiling.
“Let’s get to the part of the conversation where you tell me what you want,” I said. “I don’t have time for any more banter.”
“Ah,” Marcone said. “I suspected you would somehow become involved in the events at hand.”
“What events would those be?” I asked.
“The situation concerning the death of Tony Mendoza.”
I scowled at him. “What do you want?”
“Unless I miss my guess,” Marcone said, “I want to help you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Right.”
“I’m quite serious, Dresden,” he told me. “I allow no one to harm those in my employ. Whoever murdered Mendoza must be chastised immediately—whether or not they happen to be necromancers.”
I blinked. “How did you know what they were?”
“Miss Gard,” he replied serenely. “She and her colleagues have outstanding resources.”
I shrugged. “Good for you. But I’m not interested in helping you maintain your empire.”
“Naturally. But you are interested in stopping these men and women before they accomplish whatever goal it is that they are pursuing.”