by Jim Butcher
“Less Carmen. More Pirates of Penzance,” I said.
She put the spread fingers of one hand over her heart. “Gilbert and Sullivan. I may never forgive you that.”
“How will I find the will to go on?” I asked, and rolled my eyes at Murphy. “And hey, while we’re on the subject of going on . . .”
Inari slammed the door of the house open and held it that way. Bobby came out a minute later, carrying an old woman in a white nightgown in his arms. The kid was big and strong, but he didn’t look like he needed to be to carry her. There was an ephemeral quality to the woman. Her silver hair drifted on any wisp of air, her arms and legs hung weakly, and she was almost painfully thin.
The kid came to us, and I got a better look. It wasn’t an old woman. Her skin was unwrinkled, even if it had the pallor of those near death, and her arms and legs weren’t wasted, but were simply slender with youth. Her hair, though, was indeed silver, white, and grey. The evening breeze blew her hair away from her face, and I knew it had gone grey literally overnight.
Because the girl was Justine.
“Hell’s bells,” I said quietly. “I thought she was dead.”
Lara stepped up beside me, staring at the girl, her features hard. “She should be,” she said.
Anger flickered in my chest. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“It’s a matter of perspective. I don’t bear the girl any malice, but given the choice I would rather she died than Thomas. It’s the way of things.”
I shot her a look. “What?”
Lara moved a shoulder in a shrug. “Thomas pulled himself away from her at the last possible instant,” she said. “Truth be told, it was after that instant. I don’t know how he managed it.”
“And that bothers you?” I demanded.
“It was an unwarranted risk,” she said. “It was foolish. It should have killed him to draw away.”
I gave her a look that managed to be both blank and impatient.
“It’s the intensity of it,” she said. “It’s . . . a unification. Thomas’s store of life energy was all but gone. Forcibly breaking away from a vessel—”
“From Justine,” I interrupted.
Lara looked impatient now. “Forcibly breaking away from Justine was an enormous psychic trauma, and he was at his weakest. Taking only lightly and breaking the contact isn’t difficult. In fact, it’s normally the way of things. But he’d been feeding regularly from the girl for several years. He could draw energy from her with a simple caress. To take her fully . . .” Lara’s eyes grew a shade paler, and the tips of her breasts tightened against her blouse. “There’s no thought involved in it. No judgment. No hesitation. Only need.”
“That’s horrible,” Murphy said, her voice a whisper. “To force that on her.”
Lara’s pale eyes drifted to Murphy. “Oh, no. It isn’t coerced, dear officer. She was more than willing to give. When prey has been taken so many times, they stop caring about death. There’s only the pleasure of being fed upon. They’re eager to give more, and they care nothing about the danger.”
Murphy sounded sickened. “Maybe she broke it off instead.”
Lara’s mouth curled into a smirk. “No. By the time my brother took enough to restore him to his senses, the girl was little more than an animal in season.”
Murphy’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Lara. “And talking about it excites you. That’s sick.”
“Have you never made yourself hungry by talking about food, Officer Murphy?” Lara asked.
Murphy scowled, but didn’t answer.
“In any case,” Lara said, “what Thomas did was cruel. Justine cared for him as much as any of our prey ever can. There was little left when he drew away, of her body or her mind. Strictly speaking, she is survived, Officer. But I’m not sure one could say that she is alive.”
“I get it,” I said. “She and Thomas had . . . made an impression on each other. A sort of psychic bond. And you think Justine might be able to tell us where he is.”
Lara nodded. “It happens when we keep someone too long. Though I’m surprised you know of it.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “But when Bianca took Justine from him, Thomas knew that she was being held in Bianca’s manor. He wouldn’t say how.”
Lara nodded. “If there is enough of her mind left, she might be able to lead us to my brother. I do not think he will be far from here. Father does not often travel far outside the property he controls.”
Bobby reached us with the girl, and Inari ducked into the house and came out with a wheelchair. She rushed it over to Justine, and Bobby settled her into it.
I knelt down by the wheelchair. Justine lay almost bonelessly, barely holding her head up. Her dark eyes were heavy and unfocused. A small smile touched her mouth. Her eyes were sunken and her skin was almost translucent. She took slow, shallow breaths, and I heard her make a soft, pleased sound on each exhalation.
“Man,” I breathed. “She looks out of it.”
“Tick-tock,” Murphy reminded me.
I nodded and waved my hand in front of Justine’s eyes. No reaction. “Justine?” I said quietly. “Justine, it’s Harry Dresden. Can you hear me?”
A faint line appeared on her forehead, though her expression did not quite become a frown. But it was something.
“Justine,” I said. “Listen to me. Thomas is in trouble. Do you hear me? Thomas is in danger, and we need you to find him.”
A slow shudder rolled through her. She blinked her eyes, and though they didn’t quite focus, they stirred, looking around her.
“Thomas,” I said again. “Come on, Justine. I need you to talk to me.”
She took a deeper breath. The languid pleasure on her face faded, replaced with a portion of both sadness, and desire. “Thomas,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I said. “Where is he? Can you tell me where he is?”
This time her eyes lost focus completely, then closed. Her lovely face smoothed into an almost meditative concentration. “Feel.”
“Where?” Frustration threatened to overwhelm me. “What do you feel?”
She moved a hand and touched the opposite wrist. Then her knee. “Chains. Cold.”
Lara leaned over her and asked, “Is he far away?”
Justine shivered. “Not far.”
“Which direction?” I asked.
She made a feeble, vague motion with her hand, but frowned at the same time.
“I don’t think she’s strong enough to point,” I said to Lara.
Lara nodded and told Inari, “Turn the chair around slowly, please.”
“Justine,” I said, “can you tell us when he’s in front of you?”
The girl opened her eyes. They met mine for a heartbeat, and boy howdy did I chicken out and look away fast. No soulgaze, please. I’d had too many dying sheep tattooed into my memory for one day. But as Inari turned the chair, Justine suddenly lifted her head and her hand and pointed out into the darkness. The motion was weak, but in comparison to the others it was nearly forceful.
Lara stared out at the night for a moment and then said, “The Deeps. He’s in the Deeps.”
“What?” Murphy asked.
Lara frowned. “It’s an old cave on the northern edge of the property. There’s a shaft, a natural chasm, and no one is sure how far down it goes. We use it for . . .”
“Disposing of things,” I said quietly. “Like corpses.”
“Yes.”
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“There’s a service road to the groundskeeper’s cottage,” she said. “Go around the manor and head north. There’s a white fence on the far side of the lawn. Look for the gate.”
“I won’t have to. You’re coming with us,” I said.
Lara didn’t get to answer, because the night abruptly filled with deadly thunder, and a major-league pitcher planted a fastball directly between my shoulder blades. I went down hard, and concrete skinned my face. I heard Murphy grunt and hi
t the ground half of a heartbeat later.
I managed to move my head a second later, in time to see one of the Bodyguard Kens standing on the front porch of the manor. He worked the slide on a shotgun, the barrel tracking Lara. The succubus darted to her left, as swift and graceful as a deer, and the bodyguard followed her. The barrel of the gun found Inari before it caught up to Lara, and the girl stood frozen, her eyes as wide as teacups.
“Look out!” Bobby screamed. He hit Inari in a flying tackle that would have rattled the teeth of a professional fullback, and the gun went off. Blood scattered into the air in a heavy red mist.
Bodyguard Ken started pumping another round into the weapon, and the nearest target was Justine. The girl sat staring toward where she’d said Thomas was. I didn’t think she could even hear the shots, much less move to avoid them, and I knew that she was going to die.
That is, until Murphy popped up into a kneeling firing stance, gun in hand. The gunman spun to aim at her and fired. He’d rushed himself, and the blast went wide of Murphy. It tore into the white sports car and shredded its left front tire.
Murphy didn’t shoot back right away. She aimed her pistol for an endless half second while Bodyguard Ken ejected the previous shell and began to squeeze the trigger again. The spent shell hit the ground. Murphy’s gun barked.
Bodyguard Ken’s head jerked to one side, as if someone had just asked him a particularly startling question.
Murphy shot him three more times. The second shot made a fingertip-sized hole in the gunman’s cheekbone. The third shattered against the brick of the house, and the fourth smacked into his chest. He must have been wearing armor, but the impact of the hit was enough to send him toppling limply backward. The shotgun went off as he fell, discharging into the air, but he was dead before the echoes faded away.
Murphy watched the gunman with flat, icy eyes for a second and then spun to me, setting her gun aside to reach under my coat.
“I’m okay,” I wheezed. “I’m okay. The coat stopped it.”
Murphy looked startled. “Since when has the duster been lined with Kevlar?”
“It isn’t,” I said. “It’s magic. Hurts like hell but I’ll be all right.”
Murphy gripped my shoulder hard. “Thank God. I thought you were dead.”
“Check the kid. I think he took a hit.”
She went to over to Bobby and Inari, and was joined by Lara. I followed a moment later. Inari was whimpering with pain. Bobby was in shock, lying there quietly while he bled from his shredded shoulder and arm. He’d been lucky as hell. Only part of the blast had taken him, and while the wound would leave him with some nasty scars, it hadn’t torn open any arteries. He’d live. Murphy grabbed a first-aid kit off of her bike and got the wound site covered up and taped down with a pressure bandage. Then she moved on to the girl.
“Is he all right?” Inari’s voice was panicky. “He was so brave. Is he all right?”
“He should be,” Murphy said. “Where’s it hurt?”
“It’s my shoulder,” Inari said. “Oh, God, it hurts.”
Murphy tore open the girl’s T-shirt with ruthless practicality and examined the injury. “Not shot,” she said. “Looks like she did it when the kid pulled her out of the line of fire.” Murphy moved her hand and Inari went breathless and pale with pain. “Crap, it’s her collarbone, Harry. Maybe a dislocated shoulder too. She can’t move herself. Both of them need an ambulance, and now.” She looked over at the bodyguard and shook her head. “And there’s a fatality on the scene. This is getting bad, Dresden. We have to put this fire out before it goes wild.”
“We don’t have time to wait around while the cops sort things out,” I said.
“And if we don’t report the shooting along with the gunshot wounds, we’re going to have police crawling through every inch of our lives.”
“It was an accident,” Lara said. “The boy and Inari were looking at my father’s collection of guns. She slipped and fell. The shotgun went off.”
“What about the body?” Murphy demanded.
Lara shrugged. “What body?”
Murphy glared at Lara and cast me a glance of appeal. “Harry?”
“Hey, telling the truth keeps getting me put in jail. And the last time I tried to engineer a cover-up, I wound up cleverly running off with the murder weapon and covering it with my prints before handing it over to someone who thought I was a murderer at the time. So don’t look at me.”
“There’s no time to argue about this,” Lara said. “If one of my father’s guards saw you, he’ll have reported you. The others will be on their way, and will be more heavily armed.” She focused on Murphy. “Officer, let me handle this quietly. It will only protect the mortal officers who might get involved. And, after all, only the man who died committed any crime.”
Murphy narrowed her eyes.
“I will owe you a favor,” Lara said. “If matters go well tonight, it could be a considerable asset to you in the future. Dealing with the Raiths is a dark business. Let it stay in the dark.”
Murphy hesitated. Then her mouth firmed into a line and she nodded once. She changed out the clip in her pistol to a fresh one. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s move before I start thinking about this.”
“Moving before I think is my specialty,” I said.
“The road,” Lara said. “Through the gate behind the house I’ll meet you at the groundskeeper’s cottage.”
“Why not squeeze onto the bike?” I said.
Murphy gave me an arch look.
“I’m just being practical,” I said defensively.
“Someone has to call the ambulance and move the body,” Lara said. “And I’d get there faster on my own in any case. I’ll catch up to you when I can.”
Which I figured was as much assurance as I’d get from her. It wasn’t encouraging, but time was short, my options few, and standing around outdoors was likely to get everyone a bad case of deaditis.
So I strode to Murphy’s bike. “Let’s go.”
Murphy came over to me, eyes on Lara. “She’ll turn on us,” she said quietly.
“She’ll back the winning horse. So it had better be you and me. Can you handle the vigilante thing?”
She smiled at me, nervous but game. “Get on the bike, bitch.”
She got on, I got on behind her, and, rebels that we were, neither of us put on a helmet.
What can I say? I like to live dangerously.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Murphy zipped around the house, tearing up the lawn with her Harley. We were doing better than sixty by the time she cleared the smooth turf surrounding the manor and zipped through an open gate onto a long, narrow gravel lane lined with high hedges.
Ahead of us, headlights on high-beam flashed into our eyes and an engine roared.
Lara had been right. Raith’s bodyguards knew we were coming.
The car surged toward us.
Murphy’s head whipped left and right, but the hedges were old growth, impassable and unbroken. “Crap! No time to turn!”
Ahead of us, I saw the silhouette of the remaining Bodyguard Ken climb out of the car window to sit on it, and lift a gun to his shoulder.
I leaned forward into Murphy, and took my staff from the holster. “Murphy!” I shouted. “We need more speed! Go faster!”
She looked over her shoulder, blue eyes wide, blond hair lashing around her cheeks.
“Go!” I screamed.
I felt her shoulders set as she turned back to the front and stomped on gears with one foot, and the old Harley roared as it dug into the road with ferocious power and shot ahead at terrifying speed. Flame spat from the shape ahead of us, and bullets hit the road, kicking up sparks and bits of gravel with a series of whistling whiplash sounds that beat the sound of exploding shots to us by almost a second.
I ignored the gunman, focusing on the staff. Of all my foci, the staff was the most versatile. Meant simply to assist with the redirection of forces I could use to call w
ind, to bend steel bars, and to channel lightning. I had used my staff to erect barriers of force, disrupt hostile magics, and in a pinch to beat bad guys about the head and shoulders.
I took the tool, the trademark and icon of a wizard, and couched it under my arm like a lance, the tip extending past Murphy’s bike. I reached out for my will and gathered up power, feeding it into the rune-carved wood.
“What are you doing?” Murphy screamed.
“Faster!” I thundered. “Don’t turn!”
Murphy had another gear, and that damned Harley had to have been built by demons, not engineers. No vehicle without a roll cage had any business going that fast.
But I needed it to have enough force to survive. Even wizards cannot escape the consequences of physics. You can call up a storm of fire, but it won’t burn without fuel and air. Want to infuse yourself with superhuman strength? It’s possible. But keep in mind that just because your muscles have gotten supercharged, it doesn’t mean that your bones and joints can support the weight of a Volkswagen.
By the same line of reasoning, force still equals mass times acceleration no matter how big your magic wand might be. Me plus Murphy plus her Harley didn’t mass anywhere near what the car and the people in it did. I could give us an advantage, but even with the staff I could stretch the rules only so far. Our mass wasn’t going to change—and that meant that we needed all the acceleration we could get.
I started channeling our force into the staff, focusing it into a blunted wedge in front of us. All the extra power flooding ahead of us started heating the air, and flickers of blue and purple fire began streaking back around us in a corona, like one of the space shuttles on reentry.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Murphy screamed.
The oncoming car got closer. The bodyguard started shooting again, then dropped the gun and slid back into the car in a panic, strapping on his seat belt.
