Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  A corpse lay on the floor of the entry hall. It was black and furry and big, and I couldn’t tell much more about it than that. The top four-fifths of its head were gone and presumably accounted for the mess all over the opposite wall. Its guts were spilled out on either side of its body, steaming in the cold air drifting through the shattered front door. Hendricks crouched in the shadowed living room, covering the entryway with his shotgun.

  Something scraped over the floorboards of the ceiling above us.

  “What’s that?” Thomas asked.

  “A giant preying mantis demon, dragging itself over the floor.”

  Thomas blinked at me.

  “That’s just a guess,” I said.

  Hendricks growled, “How is she?”

  “Not good,” I said. “This is a bad spot to be in. No defenses here, not even a threshold to work with. We need to bail.”

  “Shouldn’t move her,” Hendricks said. “It could kill her.”

  “Not moving her will kill her,” I countered. “Us too.”

  Hendricks stared at me, but he didn’t argue.

  Thomas was already reaching into his pocket. He was tense, his eyes flicking restlessly, maybe in an attempt to track things that he could hear moving around outside. He dug out his key ring and held it with his teeth. Then he took his saber in one hand, that monster Desert Eagle in the other, and started humming “Froggy Went A-Courting” under his breath.

  Gard had slowly grown limp, and her head lolled bonelessly. I was having trouble keeping her steady. “Hendricks,” I said, nodding at Gard.

  Without a word he set the shotgun aside and took the woman from me. I saw his eyes as he did, touched with worry and fear—and not for himself. He took her very gently, something I would never have imagined him doing, and growled, “How do I know you won’t leave us behind? Let them rip us apart while you run?”

  “You don’t,” I said curtly, picking up my staff. “Stay if you want. These things will kill you both; I guarantee it. Or you take a chance with us. Your call.”

  Hendricks glared at me for a moment, but when he glanced down at the unconscious woman in his arms, the rocky scowl faded. He nodded once.

  “Harry?” Thomas asked. “How do you want to do this?”

  “We head straight for your oil tanker,” I said. “Shortest route between two points and all.”

  “They’ll have the door covered,” Thomas said.

  “I hope so.”

  “Okay,” he said, rolling his eyes. “As long as there’s a plan.”

  Footsteps crossed the floor above us, and paused at the top of the stairs.

  Thomas’s gun swiveled toward the stairs. I didn’t turn. I covered the doorway.

  A voice like out-of-tune violin strings stroked by a rotting cobra hide drifted down the stairs. “Wizard.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “This situation might be resolved without further conflict. Are you willing to parley?”

  “Why not,” I answered. I didn’t turn away from the door.

  “Have I your word of safe passage?”

  “You do.”

  “Then you have mine,” the voice answered.

  “Whatever,” I said. I lowered my voice to an almost subvocal whisper I was sure only Thomas could hear. “Watch them. They’ll try something the second they get a chance.”

  “Why give them the opportunity?” Thomas murmured.

  “Because we might find out something important by talking. It’s harder to question corpses. Switch with me.”

  We traded places, and I kept my staff pointed at the stairs as the mantis-thing came down them. It crouched on the topmost step it could occupy while still maintaining visual contact with the entry hall. It looked none the worse for wear for being blown to hamburger by Gard’s rifle.

  It crouched, the motion eerie and alien, and tilted its head almost entirely to the horizontal, first one way, then the other, as it looked at us. Then its stomach heaved. For a second I thought it was throwing up, as a yellow-and-pink mucus began to emerge from its mouth. After a second, though, it lifted its clamplike claws and gripped its head, then peeled it back and away from the mucus, the motion disturbingly akin to someone donning a too-small turtleneck sweater. A human face emerged from the mucus and gunk, while the split carapace of the head flopped about on its chest and upper back.

  The Denarian looked like she was about fifteen years old, except for her hair, which was silvery grey, short, and plastered to her skull. She had huge and gorgeous green eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a delicate, pointy chin. Her skin was pale and clear, her cheekbones high, her features lovely and symmetrical. The second set of green eyes and the sigil of angelic script still glowed faintly on her forehead.

  She smiled slowly. “I wasn’t expecting the chain. I thought fire and force were your weapons of choice.”

  “You were standing on top of someone I knew,” I said. “I didn’t feel like burning her or blasting her through the wall.”

  “Foolish,” the girl murmured.

  “I’m still here.”

  “But so am I.”

  “You have five seconds to get to the fucking point,” I said. “I’m not going to let you stall while your buddies get into position.”

  Mantis Girl narrowed her eyes. The eyes on her forehead narrowed as well. Très creepy. She nodded at Hendricks and Gard. “My business is with them. Not you, O Warden of the White Council. Give them to me. You may leave in peace. Once they are dead, I will gather my compatriots and we will depart the city without harm to any innocents.”

  I grunted. “What if I need them alive?”

  “If you wish, I can wait until you have interrogated them.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I want: you, standing around behind my back.”

  She lifted a talon. “I give you my solemn word. No harm will come to you or your companion.”

  “Tempting,” I said.

  “Shall I add in material reward as well?” Mantis Girl asked. “I’ll pay you two hundred thousand, in cash.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “My quarrel is with the upstart Baron and his subjects—not the White Council. I would prefer to demonstrate my respect to your people, instead of causing an untoward altercation with them over the matter of your death.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Her smile turned sharper. “If it pleases you, I might offer to entertain you, once business is done.”

  I let out a harsh burst of laughter. “Oh,” I said, still chortling. “Oh, oh, oh. That’s funny.”

  She blinked and stared at me, uncomprehending.

  The expression made me laugh even harder. “You…you want me to…I mean, Hell’s bells, do you think I don’t know what happens to a mantis’s mate once the deed is done?”

  She bared her teeth in sudden anger. They were shiny and black.

  “You want me to trust you,” I went on, still laughing, “and you think waving some bling and some booty at me is going to get it done? God, that’s so cute I could just put you in my pocket.”

  “Do not deny me what is mine, wizard,” she snarled. “I will have them. Make a pact with me. I will honor it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen the way you people honor your pacts. Let me make you a counteroffer. Give me Marcone, safe and whole, and get out of town, now, and I’ll let you live.”

  “Suppose your offer appeals. Why should I believe you would allow us to leave in peace?”

  I gave her a faint smile and quietly paraphrased a dead friend. “Because I know what your word is worth, Denarian. And you know the worth of mine.”

  She stared at me for a moment. Then she said, “I will consult my companions and return in five minutes.”

  I bowed my head slightly to her. She returned the gesture and started up the stairs again.

  She vanished from sight. Glass broke somewhere upstairs.

  Then a red-and-black blur flashed down the stairs towar
d us, simultaneously with a chorus of hellish cries from outside.

  Treachery doesn’t work so well when the other guy expects it, and I’d had the spell ready to go since the second she’d turned her back. Mantis Girl didn’t get to the bottom of the stairs before I pointed my staff at her and snarled, “Forzare!”

  A hammer of pure kinetic energy slammed against her. She went flying back the way she’d come, and when she reached the top of the stairs she kept going, crashing through the wall of the house with a tremendous crunch.

  No time to lose. Something came charging through the doorway, to be met by Thomas’s sword and pistol. I didn’t get a good look at it, but got an impression of spiraling antlers and green scales. I drew in my will, pointed my staff at the front wall of the house and murmured, “Forzare,” sending out a slow pulse of motion. I let it press up against the front wall of the house, and then fed more energy into it, hardening it into a single striking surface.

  Then I drew back and really let loose, roaring “Forzare!” at the top of my lungs. I unleashed everything I had into a blast of energy, which struck against the plate of force I’d just created. There was an enormous sound of screaming wood and steel, and the entire front wall of the house blasted free from its frame.

  Demonic voices howled. I turned to find Thomas taking advantage of the distraction to whip his saber through scything arcs, rondello-style, cutting his opponent to ribbons. The Denarian bounded away, screaming in brassy pain.

  “Dammit!” Thomas screamed at me. “That’s a brand-new car!”

  “Quit whining and go!” I shouted back, suiting words to action. The front wall of the house had come down like a tidal wave, shattering into a small ocean of rubble, covering the hood of the Hummer. Somewhere beneath the rubble I could hear the other Denarians trying to get free.

  We rushed for the Hummer and piled in. Thomas got it started just as Mantis Girl sailed down from overhead and landed on the hood of the Hummer, denting it in sharply.

  “God dammit!” Thomas snarled. He slapped the Hummer into reverse and started driving backward—while emptying his gun into Mantis Girl. Bursts of fluttering insect forms flew up from the gunshots instead of sprays of blood, but judging by the screaming it hurt her plenty. She tumbled back off the hood and vanished.

  Thomas manhandled the Hummer into a turn, and we left, heading back out into the heavy snowfall.

  We all rode in silence for several moments while our heart rates slowed and the terror-fueled adrenaline rush faded.

  Then Thomas said, “I don’t think we learned much.”

  “The hell we didn’t,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “We know that there are more than five Denarians in town. And we know that they’re signatories of the Accords—who apparently object to Marcone’s recent elevation.”

  Thomas grunted acknowledgment. “What now?”

  I shook my head wearily. That last spell had been a doozy. “Now? I think…” I turned my head and studied the unconscious Gard. “I think I’d better call the Council.”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  Now that I had not one, but two supernatural hit squads with a good reason to come after me, my options had grown sort of limited. In the end there was really only one place I could take Gard and Hendricks without endangering innocent lives: St. Mary of the Angels Church.

  Which was why I told Thomas to drive us to the Carpenter house.

  “I still think this is a bad idea,” Thomas said quietly. The plow trucks were working hard, but so far they’d barely been keeping even with the snow, ensuring that the routes to the hospitals were clear. The streets in some places looked like World War I trenches, snow piled up head-high on either side.

  “The Denarians know that we use the church as a safehouse,” I said. “They’ll be watching it.”

  Thomas grunted and checked the rearview mirror. Gard was still unconscious, but breathing. Hendricks’s eyes were shut, his mouth slightly open. I didn’t blame him. I hadn’t been standing watch over a wounded comrade all night, and I felt like I could have taken a nap, too.

  “What were those things?” Thomas asked.

  “The Knights of the Blackened Denarius,” I replied. “You remember Michael’s sword? The nail worked into the hilt?”

  “Sure,” Thomas said.

  “There are two others like it,” I said. “Three swords. Three nails.”

  Thomas’s eyes widened for a moment. “Wait. Those nails? From the Crucifixion?”

  I nodded. “Pretty sure.”

  “And those things were what? Michael’s opposite number?”

  “Yeah. Each of those Denarian bozos has a silver coin.”

  “Three silver coins,” Thomas said. “I’m drawing a blank.”

  “Thirty,” I corrected him.

  Thomas made a choking sound. “Thirty?”

  “Potentially. But Michael and the others have several of them hidden away at the moment.”

  “Thirty pieces of silver,” Thomas said, understanding.

  I nodded. “Each coin has the spirit of one of the Fallen trapped inside. Whoever possesses one of the coins can draw upon the Fallen angel’s power. They use it to shapeshift into those forms you saw, heal wounds, all kinds of fun stuff.”

  “They tough?”

  “Certifiable nightmares,” I said. “A lot of them have been alive long enough to develop some serious talent for magic, too.”

  “Huh,” Thomas said. “The one who came through the door didn’t seem like such a badass. Ugly, sure, but he wasn’t Superman.”

  “Maybe you got lucky,” I said. “As long as they have the coins, ‘hard to kill’ doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  “Ah,” Thomas said. “That explains it, then.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Thomas reached into his pants pocket and drew out a silver coin a little larger than a nickel, blackened with age, except for the shape of a single sigil, shining cleanly through the tarnish. “When I gutted Captain Ugly, this went flying out.”

  “Hell’s bells!” I spat, and flinched away from the coin.

  Thomas twitched in surprise, and the Hummer went into a slow slide on the snow. He turned into it and regained control of the vehicle without ever taking his eyes off me. “Whoa, Harry. What?”

  I pressed my side up against the door of the Hummer, getting as far as I physically could from the thing. “Look, just…just don’t move, all right?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Ooookay. Why not?”

  “Because if that thing touches your skin, you’re screwed,” I said. “Shut up a second and let me think.”

  The gloves. Thomas had been wearing gloves earlier, when fingering Justine’s scarf. He hadn’t touched the coin with his skin, or he’d already know how much trouble he was in. Good. But the coin was a menace, and I strongly suspected that the entity trapped inside it might be able to influence the physical world around it in subtle ways—enough to go rolling away from its former owner, for example, or to somehow manipulate Thomas into dropping or misplacing it.

  Containment. It had to be contained. I fumbled at my pockets. The only container I was carrying was an old Crown Royal whiskey bag, the one that held my little set of gaming dice. I dumped them out into my pocket and opened the bag.

  I already had a glove on my left hand. My paw had recovered significantly from the horrible burns it had gotten several years before, but it still wasn’t what you’d call pretty. I kept it covered out of courtesy to everyone who might glance at it. I held the little bag open with two fingers of my left hand and said, “Put it in here. And for God’s sake, don’t drop it or touch me with it.”

  Thomas’s eyes widened further. He bit his lower lip and moved his hand very carefully, until he could drop the inoffensive little disk into the Crown Royal bag.

  I jerked the drawstrings tight the second the coin was in, and tied the bag shut. Then I slapped open the Hummer’s ashtray, stuffed the bag inside, and slam
med it closed again.

  Only then did I draw a slow breath and sag back down into my seat.

  “Jesus,” Thomas said quietly. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Harry…is it really that bad?”

  “It’s worse,” I said. “But I can’t think of any other precautions to take yet.”

  “What would have happened if I’d touched it?”

  “The Fallen inside the coin would have invaded your consciousness,” I said. “It would offer you power. Temptation. Once you gave in enough, it would own you.”

  “I’ve resisted temptation before, Harry.”

  “Not like this.” I turned a frank gaze to him. “It’s a Fallen angel, man. Thousands and thousands of years old. It knows how people think. It knows how to exploit them.”

  His voice sharpened a little. “I come from a family where everyone’s an incubus or a succubus. I think I know a little something about temptation.”

  “Then you should know how they’d get you.” I lowered my voice and said gently, “It could give Justine back to you, Thomas. Let you touch her again.”

  He stared at me for a second, a flicker of wild longing somewhere far back in his eyes. Then he turned his head slowly back to the road, his expression slipping into a neutral mask. “Oh,” he said quietly. After a moment he said, “We should probably get rid of the thing.”

  “We will,” I said. “The Church has been up against the Denarians for a couple of thousand years. There are measures they can take.”

  Thomas glanced down at the ashtray for a second, then dragged his eyes away and glowered at the dented hood of his Hummer. “They couldn’t have shown up six months ago. When I was driving a Buick.”

  I snorted. “As long as you’ve got your priorities in order.”

  “I just met them, but already I hate these guys,” Thomas said. “But why are they here? Why now?”

  “Offhand? I’d say that they were out to wax Marcone and prove to the other members of the Accords that vanilla mortals have no place among us weirdos—I mean, superhumans.”

  “They’re members of the Accords?”

  “I’d have to look it up,” I said. “I doubt they’re signed on as the ‘Order of Demon-possessed Psychotics.’ But from the way Mantis Girl was talking, yeah.”