Summer Knight

by Jim Butcher

Chapter Twenty

  "Murphy!" I screamed. "Get clear!"

  The plant monster - No, wait. I couldn't possibly refer to that thing as a "plant monster. " I'd be a laughingstock. It's hard to give a monster a cool name on the spur of the moment, but I used a name I'd heard Bob throw out before.

  The chlorofiend lifted me up and shook me like a set of maracas. I focused on my shield bracelet, running my will, bolstered by sudden fear, through the focus. My skin tingled as the shield formed around me, and I shaped it into a full sphere. I was barely in time. The chlorofiend threw me at a post in the chain-link fence. Without the shield, it would have broken my back. I slammed into it, feeling the energy of the shield tighten around me, spreading the impact over the whole of my body instead of solely at the point of impact. The shield transferred a portion of the kinetic energy of impact into heat and light, while the rest came through as an abrupt pressure. The result was like a sudden suit of oven-warmed elastic closing on me, and it felt about three sizes too small. It knocked the wind out of my lungs. Azure and argent light flashed in a vague sphere around me.

  I didn't bounce much, just fell to the concrete. The shield gave out a more feeble flash when I hit. I got up off the ground and dodged away from the chlorofiend, but it followed me, slapping aside a stand of wooden tomato stakes with one leafy arm. Its glowing green eyes blazed as it came. I ran up against the fence at the back end of the lot, and the chlorofiend's huge fist smashed down at me again.

  I lifted my shield bracelet against it, but the blow tossed me a dozen feet, down the length of fence and into a set of huge steel partitioned shelves holding hundreds of fifty-pound bags of mulch, potting soil, and fertilizer. I lay there dazed for a second, staring at an empty aisle display proclaiming in huge scarlet letters WEED-B-GONE ONLY 2. 99!!! I clutched at the display and got to my feet again in time to duck under the chlorofiend's fist as it punched at my head.

  It hit one of the metal shelves instead of me, and there was a shriek of warping metal, a creaking yowl of pain from the fiend, and a burst of sizzling smoke. The creature drew its smoking fist back and screeched again, eyes blazing even brighter, angrier.

  "Steel," I muttered. "So you're a faerie somethingorother too. " I looked up at the enormous shelves as I ran down the length of them, and a second later I heard the chlorofiend turn and begin pacing after me. I started gathering in my will as I ran, and I allowed the physical shield to fall, leaving me only enough defense to keep the mist from blitzing my head. I would need every bit of strength I could muster to pull off my sudden and desperate plan - and if it didn't work, my shield wouldn't protect me for long in any case. Sooner or later, the chlorofiend would batter its way through my defenses and pound me into plant food.

  I pulled ahead of it, but it started gaining momentum, catching up to me. As I reached the end of the row, the end of the steel shelves, I turned to face it.

  Hell's bells, that thing was big. Bigger than Grum. I could see through it in places, where twists of branches and leaves were not too closely clumped with earth, but that didn't make it seem any less massive or dangerous.

  If this didn't work, I wasn't going to last long enough to regret it.

  Most magic is pretty time-consuming, what with drawing circles and gathering energies and aligning forces. Quick and dirty magic, evocation, is drawn directly from a wizard's will and turned loose without benefit of guide or limit. It's difficult and it's dangerous. I suck at evocation. I only knew a couple that I could do reliably, and even they required a focus, such as my shield bracelet or blasting rod, to be properly controlled.

  But for doing big dumb things that require a lot of energy and not much finesse, I'm usually fine.

  I lifted my arms, and the mist was stirred by a sudden rush of moving air. The chlorofiend pounded closer, and I closed my eyes, pouring more energy out, reaching for the wind. "Vento," I muttered, feeling more power stir. The chlorofiend bellowed again, sending a jolt of fear through me, and the winds rose even more. "Vento! Vento, ventas servitas!"

  Power, magic, coursed through my outstretched arms and lashed out at the night. The wind rose in a sudden roar, a screaming cyclone that whirled into being just in front of me and then whirled out toward the heavy metal shelving.

  The chlorofiend screamed again, nearly drowned out by the windstorm I'd called, only a few yards away.

  The enormous, heavy shelves, loaded with tons of materials, let out a groan of protest and then fell, toppled over onto the chlorofiend with a deafening din that ripped at my ears and shook the concrete floor.

  The chlorofiend was strong, but it wasn't that strong. It went down like a bush under a bulldozer, shrieking again as the steel shelves crushed it and burned into its substance. A foul greyish smoke rose from the wreckage, and the chlorofiend continued to scream and thrash, the shelves jerking and moving.

  Exhaustion swept over me with the effort of the spell, and I glowered down at the fallen shelves. "Down," I panted, "but not out. Dammit. " I watched the shelves for a moment and decided that the chlorofiend probably wouldn't shrug it off for a few minutes. I shook my head and headed for the gate into the enclosure. Hopefully, Grum hadn't twisted things up so badly that I couldn't get out.

  He had. The metal latch on the gate had been pinched into a mess by his talons. They had scored the metal in sharp notches, like an industrial cutter. Note to self: Don't think steel can stop Grum's fingernails. I checked above and decided to risk climbing the fence and getting through the barbed wire.

  I had gotten maybe halfway up the chain-link fence when Murphy limped out of the mist on the other side, her gun pointed right at me.

  "Whoa, whoa, Murph," I said. I showed her my hands and promptly fell off the fence. "It's me. "

  She lowered the gun and let out her breath. "Christ, Harry. What are you doing?"

  "Texas cage match. I won. " From behind me, the chlorofiend let out another shriek and the shelving groaned as it shifted. I gulped and looked back. "Rematch doesn't look promising, though. Where have you been?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Shopping. "

  "Where's Grum and the ghoul?"

  "Don't know. The ghoul's blood trail went out, but someone shot at me when I followed it. Haven't seen the ogre. " She blinked at the gate's latch. "Damn. Guess he shut you in here, huh?"

  "Pretty much. You get shot?"

  "No, why?"

  "You're limping. "

  Murphy grimaced. "Yeah. One of those bastards must have thrown a bunch of marbles on the floor. I slipped on one. It's my knee. "

  "Oh," I said. "Uh. "

  Murphy blinked at me. "You did that?"

  "Well, it was a plan at the time. "

  "Harry, that's not a plan, it's a Looney Tune. "

  "Kill me later. Help me out of here now. " I squinted up at the barbed wire. "Maybe if you get a rake, you can push it up for me so that I can slide between it and the fence. "

  "We're twenty feet from the hardware department, genius," Murphy said. She limped back into the mist, and returned half a minute later carrying a pair of bolt cutters. She cut a slit in the chain link fence and I squeezed through it while the chlorofiend thrashed, still pinned.

  "I could kiss you," I said.

  Murphy grinned. "You smell like manure, Harry. " The smile faded. "What now?"

  The trapped monster's thrashing sent several smaller shelves toppling over, and I rubbernecked nervously. "Getting out is still first priority. That thing is down, but it'll be coming before long. "

  "What is it?"

  "Chlorofiend," I said.

  "A what?"

  "Plant monster. "

  "Oh, right. "

  "We need to get out. "

  Murphy shook her head. "Whoever was covering the exit out front can probably see the other doors too. A silhouette in a doorway is a great target. It's just like a shooting range. "

  "How the blazes did they see you through the mist?"r />
  "Is that really important right now? They can, and it means we can't go out the front. "

  "Yeah," I said. "You're right. The main exits are covered, that thing is in the garden center, and ten to one Ogre Grum is watching the back. "

  "Ogre, check. What's his deal?"

  "Bullets bounce off him, and he shakes off magic like a duck does water. He's strong and pretty quick and smarter than he looks. "

  Murphy let out a soft curse. "You can't blast him like you did the loup-garou?"

  I shook my head. "I gave him a hard shot once already. I may as well have been spitting on him. "

  "Doesn't look like we have much choice for getting out. "

  "And even if we do, Grum or that plant thing could run us down, so we'll need wheels. "

  "We have to go through one of them. "

  "I know," I said, and headed back into the store.

  "Where are you going?" Murphy demanded.

  "I have a plan. "

  She limped after me. "Better than the Looney Tune one, I hope. "

  I grunted in reply. No need to agree with her.

  We both realized that if this plan wasn't better than the last one, then, as Porky Pig would say, That's all, folks.