by Jim Butcher
Charity looked a little lost, and she glanced at me. I nodded my head at her.
“Y-yes,” she said. “Yes.”
“So mote it be,” Lily said, bowing her head to Charity. “Then I owe you a debt, Lady. What may I do to repay it?”
Charity glanced at me again. I nodded and said, “Just tell her.”
Charity turned back to the Summer Lady. “Help us retrieve my daughter, Molly,” she said. “She is a prisoner of the fetches of the Winter Court.”
“I will be more than happy to do all in my power to aid you,” Lily said.
Charity closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
“It will not be as much help as you might desire,” Lily told her, her voice serious. “I dare not directly strike at the servants of Winter acting in lawful obligation to their Queen, except in self-defense. Were I to attack, the consequences could be grave, and retaliation immediate.”
“Then what can you do?” Charity asked.
Lily opened her mouth to answer, but then said, “The wizard seems to have something in mind.”
“Yep,” I said. “I was just coming to that.”
Lily smiled at me and bowed her head, gesturing for me to continue.
“This is where they took the girl across,” I told Lily. “Must be why they attacked Pell first—to make sure the building was shut down and locked up, so that they would have an immediate passage back, if they needed it. I’m also fairly sure they left some guardians behind.”
Lily frowned at me and walked over to the building. She touched it with her fingers, and her eyes closed. It took her less than a tenth of the time it had me, and she never moved from the spot. “Indeed,” she said. “Three lesser fetches at least. They cannot sense us yet, but they will know when anyone enters, and attack.”
“I’m counting on it,” I said. “I’m going to go in first and let them see me.”
Fix lifted his eyebrows. “At which point they tear you to bits? This is a craftier plan than I had anticipated.”
I flashed him a grin. “Wouldn’t want you to feel left out, Fix. I want Lily to hold a veil over everyone else. Once the fetches show up to rip off my face, Lily drops the veil, and the rest of you drop them.”
“Yeah, that’s a much better plan,” Fix drawled, his fingertips tracing over the hilt of his sword. “And I can cut up vassals of Winter, so long as it is no inconvenience to you, of course, m’lady.”
Lily shook her head. “Not at all, sir Knight. And I will be glad to veil you and your allies, Lady Charity.”
Charity paused and said, “Wait a minute. Do I understand this situation correctly? You are not allowed to assist Harry, but because Harry has…what? Passed his debt to me?”
“Banks buy and sell mortgages all the time,” I said.
Charity arched a brow. “And because he’s given me your debt to him, you’re doing whatever you can to help?”
Fix and Lily exchanged a helpless glance.
“They’re also under a compulsion that prevents them from directly discussing it with anyone,” I filled in. “But you’ve got the basics right, Charity.”
Charity shook her head. “Aren’t they going to be in trouble for this? Won’t…who commands her?”
“Titania,” I said.
Charity blinked at me, and I could tell she’d heard the name before. “The…the Faerie Queen?”
“One of them,” I said. “Yeah.”
She shook her head. “I don’t…enough people are already in danger.”
“Don’t worry about us, ma’am,” Fix assured her, and winked. “Titania has already laid down the law. We’ve obeyed it. Not our fault if what she decreed was not what she wanted.”
“Translation,” I said. “We got around her fair and square. She won’t like it, but she’ll accept it.”
“Oh yeah,” Thomas muttered under his breath. “This isn’t coming back to bite anyone in the ass later.”
“Ixnay,” I growled at him, then turned and walked toward the theater’s rear entrance. I took up my staff in a firm grip and put its tip against the chains holding the door shut. I took a moment to slow my breathing and focus my thoughts. This wasn’t a gross-power exercise. I wouldn’t have to put nearly as much oomph into shattering the chain if I kept it small, precise, focused. Blasting a door down was a relatively simple exercise for me. What I wanted here was to use a minimum of power to snap a single link in the chain.
I brought my thoughts to a pinpoint focus and muttered, “Forzare.”
Power lashed through the length of the staff, and there was a hiss and a sharp crack nearly as loud as a gunshot. The chain jumped. I lowered my staff, to find one single link split into two pieces, each broken end glowing with heat. I nudged the heated links to the ground with the tip of my staff, faintly surprised and pleased with how little relative effort it had taken.
I reached out and tried the doorknob.
Locked.
“Hey, Murph,” I said. “Look at that zeppelin.”
I heard her sigh and turn around. I popped a couple of stiff metal tools out of my duster’s pocket and started finagling the lock with them. My left hand wasn’t much help, but it was at least able to hold the tool steady while my right did most of the work.
“Hey,” Thomas said. “When did you get those?”
“Butters says it’s good for my hand to do physical therapy involving the use of manual dexterity.”
Thomas snorted. “So you started learning to pick locks? I thought you were playing guitar.”
“This is simpler,” I said. “And it doesn’t make dogs start howling.”
“I might have killed you if I’d heard ‘House of the Rising Sun’ one more time,” Thomas agreed. “Where’d you get the picks?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Murphy and said, “Little bird.”
“One of these days, Dresden,” Murphy said, still stubbornly faced away.
I got the tumblers lined up and twisted with slow, steady pressure. The dead bolt slid to, and I pulled the door slightly ajar. I rose, put the tools away, and took up my staff again, ready for instant trouble. Nothing happened for a moment. I Listened at the door for half a minute, but heard not a sound.
“All right,” I said. “Here we go. Everyone ready to—”
I glanced over my shoulder and found the parking lot entirely empty except for me.
“Wow,” I said. “Good veil, Lily.” Then I turned back around just as if my nerves weren’t jangling like guitar strings and said, “Ding, ding. Round one.”
Chapter
Thirty-five
I kicked the door open, staff held ready to fight, and shouted, “And I’m all outta bubble gum!”
The pale grey light of the overcast sunrise coming in over the lake showed me a service corridor, the kind with walls that have marks and writing all over them, floors with the paint chipped off all down the middle of the walkway, and lots of stuff stacked up here and there. At the far end of the hallway was a door, propped open with a rubber wedge. A worn sign on the door read EMPLOYEES ONLY. A curtained doorway about halfway down the hall opened onto what must have been the concessions counter in the little theater’s lobby.
Silence reigned. Not a single light shone within.
“Guess you had to see that one,” I said to the empty building. “John Carpenter. Rowdy Roddy Piper. Longest fight scene ever. You know?”
Silence.
“Missed that one, huh?” I asked the darkness.
I stood there, hoping the bad guys would make this one easy. If they charged me, I could duck aside and then let my concealed allies take them apart. Instead, as bad guys so often do, they failed to oblige me.
I started to feel a little silly just standing there. If I went ahead, the narrow passage would negate the participation of those now lurking in veiled ambush behind me. But had I really been alone, the hallway would have been as reasonable a fighting position as I could hope to gain—no way for the fetches to encircle me, no way to use their
advantage of numbers. Had I really been alone, I would have needed to jump on an opportunity like that. There are stupid faeries, but fetches aren’t among them. If I didn’t behave like a lone wolf come to party, it would tip off the presence of my entourage.
So, like a crazed loner with more death wish than survival instinct, I boldly strode into the building, staff held ready, teeth bared in a fighting grin. The place was dim, and cooler than it should have been, even given the time of day. My breath turned to frost in front of my nose. The movie-theater scent of popcorn had sunk into the very foundations, and was now as much a part of the building as its walls and floor. My stomach rumbled. Like certain other portions of my anatomy, it had a tendency to become easily sidetracked, and to hell with little details like survival.
The rest of me was nervous. I had seen how fast one of those creatures could move. I could have ducked out of the way if they’d come charging from the far end of the hall at me, but not by much. Maybe two or three steps in, I reached a point where I judged that I wouldn’t have time to retreat and let my allies ambush the attacker. For a few seconds, at least, I’d be on my own.
A few seconds are forever in a fight.
I shook out my shield bracelet, willed power into it, and walked with my left hand before me, both providing me some protection against a possible charge and casting low blue light that would let me see as I moved forward. “Do you know what part of a movie this is?” I said to myself as I moved. “This is the part where the old farmer with the torch and the shotgun just can’t keep himself from walking forward into the dark cave, even though he damn well knows there’s a monster in there.” I moved up to the hanging curtain and slid it aside with my staff. Several quick glances out showed me a small and dingy concessions stand to go along with the small and dingy lobby.
Nothing tried to eat my face.
“Oh, come on,” I said, louder. “I’m starting to feel a little insulted, here. If you guys keep this up, I’m going to take drastic, clichéd measures. Maybe walk backward through a doorway or something.”
My instincts suddenly screamed, and I flung myself through the curtained doorway, getting clear of the hall, as something darted toward me from the hall’s far end. I didn’t want to catch any bullets or blasts of fire or hurled hammers from my backup.
There was a roar of sound from the hallway—something letting out a ululating howl, a heavy handgun, a roaring shotgun, and the buzzing snap of an arc of electricity. Blinding blue-white light blazed through the curtain as I dove through it—and showed me the fetch that had lurked in ambush on the other side.
It was crouched on top of the glass cabinet atop the concessions stand’s popcorn machine, and had taken the form of a creature that could only loosely be called a “cat.” It was twice Mister’s size, and its moldy black fur stood out in tufts and spikes. Its shoulders were hunched, almost deformed with muscle, and its muzzle was broad and filled with teeth too heavy to belong to any feline short of a lion. Its eyes gleamed with a sickly, greenish luminescence, and it flashed through the air, claws extended, teeth bared, emitting a mind-splitting howl of rage.
I had no time or space to strike first, and it was a damned good thing I’d prepared my shield ahead of time. I brought it up and into a quarter dome between me and the fetch, blue power hissing.
I should have kept in mind how easily the Scarecrow had shed my magic the night before. The lesser fetch must have had some measure of the same talent, because it changed the tone of its howl in the middle of its leap, impacted my shield, and oozed through it as though the solid barrier was a thick sludge.
There was no space to dodge in and no room to swing my staff, so I dropped it as the fetch’s face emerged from my shield and drove my fist into the end of its feline nose. I dropped the shield as I did. With the shield gone, the only force acting on the fetch was the impact of my punch, and the shapeshifter flew backward into the old cash register on the concessions counter. It was made of metal. Blue sparks erupted from the fetch as its flesh hit the iron, along with a yowl of protest, tendrils of smoke, and an acrid odor.
I heard footsteps in the corridor behind me, and then a trio of gunshots.
“Harry!” Murphy called.
“Here!” I shouted. I didn’t have time to say anything else. The nightmare cat bounced up from the cash register, recovered its balance, and flung itself at me again, every bit as swiftly as the fetch I’d faced earlier. I ducked and tried to throw myself under the fetch, to get behind it, but my body wasn’t operating as swiftly as my mind, and the fetch’s claws raked at my eyes.
I threw up an arm, and the fetch slammed into it with a sudden, harsh impact that made my arm go numb from the elbow down. Claws and fangs flashed. The spell-bound leather of my duster held, and the creature’s claws didn’t penetrate. Except for a shallow cut a random claw accidentally inflicted on my wrist, below the duster’s sleeve, I escaped it unharmed. I hit the ground and rolled, throwing my arm out to one side in an effort to slam the fetch onto the floor and knock it loose. The creature was deceptively strong. It braced one rear leg against the counter, claws digging in, robbing the blow of any real force. It bounced off the floor with rubbery agility, pounced onto my chest, and went for my throat.
I got an arm between the fetch and my neck. It couldn’t rip its way through the duster, but it was stronger than it had any right to be. I was lying mostly on my back and had no leverage. It wrenched at my arm, and I knew I only had a second or two before it overpowered me, threw my arm out of its way, and tore my throat out.
I reached down with my other hand and ripped my duster all the way off the front of my body. Cold iron seared the nightmare cat’s paws in a hissing fury of sparks and smoke. The fetch let out another shrieking yowl and bounded almost straight up.
Gunshots rang out again as the fetch reached the apogee of its reflexive leap. It twitched and screamed, jerking sharply. As it came back down, it writhed wildly in midair, altering its trajectory, and landed on the floor beside me.
Murphy’s combat boot lashed out in a stomping kick that sent the fetch sliding across the floor, and the instant it was clear of me she started shooting again. She put half a dozen shots into the creature, driving it over the floor, howling in pain but thrashing with frenzied strength. The gun went empty. Murphy slammed another clip into the weapon just as the fetch began gathering itself up off the floor. She kept pouring bullets into it as fast as she could accurately shoot, and stepped with deliberate care to one side as she did so.
Thomas came through the curtain with preternatural speed, his face bone white. He seized the stunned fetch by the throat and slammed it overhand into the cash register, again and again, until I heard its spine snap. Then he threw it over the concessions stand into the lobby.
Light flashed. Something that looked like a butterfly sculpted from pure fire shot over my head like a tiny comet. I scrambled to my feet, to see the blazing butterfly hit the fetch square in the chest. The thing screamed again, front legs thrashing, rear legs entirely limp, as fire exploded over its flesh, burned a hole in its chest, and then abruptly consumed it whole.
I leaned on the counter and panted for a second, then looked around to see the curtain slide aside of its own accord as Lily stepped through it. At that moment, the Summer Lady did not look sweet or caring. Her lovely face held an implacable, restrained anger, and half a dozen of the fiery butterflies flittered around her. She stared at the dying fetch until the fire winked out, leaving nothing, not even residual ectoplasm, behind.
Murphy reloaded and came over to me, though her eyes were still scanning for danger. “You’re bleeding. You all right?”
I checked. Blood from the injury on my wrist had trickled down over my palm and fingers. I pushed back my sleeve to get a look at the wound. The cut ran parallel to my forearm. It wasn’t long, but was deeper than I’d thought. And it had missed opening up the veins in my wrist by maybe half an inch.
My belly went cold and I swallowed. “Sim
ple cut,” I told Murphy. “Not too bad.”
“Let me see,” Thomas said. He examined the injury and said, “Could have been worse. You’ll need a stitch or three, Harry.”
“No time,” I told him. “Help me find something to wrap it up good and tight.”
Thomas looked around the concessions area and suggested, “Silly straws?”
I heard an expressive sigh. Charity appeared at the curtained doorway, flipped open a leather case on her sword belt, and tossed Thomas a compact medical kit. He caught it, gave her a nod, and went to work on my hand. Charity stepped back into the hallway, her expression alert. Fix glanced in and then went by the curtained doorway, presumably to the other end of the hall.
“What happened?” I asked Murphy.
“One of those things charged down the hall to jump on your back,” she said. “Looked like some kind of mutant baboon. We took it down.”
“Nature Red,” Thomas mused. “Remember that movie? The one where the retrovirus gets loose in the zoo and starts mutating the animals? Baboon was from there. That cat thing, too.”
“Huh,” I said. “Yeah.”
“I don’t get it,” Murphy said. “Why do they all look like movie monsters?”
“Fear,” I said. “Those images have been a part of this culture for a while now. Over time, they’ve generated a lot of fear.”
“Come on,” Murphy said. “I saw Nature Red. It wasn’t that scary.”
“This is a case of quantity over quality,” I said. “Even if it only makes you jump in your chair, there’s a little fear. Multiply that by millions. The fetches take the form so that they can tap into a portion of that fear in order to create more of it.”
Murphy frowned and shook her head. “Whatever.”
A light appeared in the hallway leading back to the actual theater. In an eyeblink, Murphy and Thomas both had their guns pointed at it and my shield bracelet was dripping heatless blue sparks, ready to spring into place.
“It’s all right,” Lily said, her voice low.