by Jim Butcher
The ghoul threw her arms up and recoiled, turning, screaming, and threw herself at the ferns.
Murphy kept shooting.
The ghoul stumbled and dropped down amid the ferns, still kicking and struggling wildly, knocking pots over, breaking others, scattering vegetable matter and dirt all over the floor.
Murphy kept shooting.
The gun clicked empty, and the ghoul half-rolled onto her ruined back, the stolen blue smock now ripped with huge holes and soaked through with blood. The ghoul choked and gagged, scarlet trickling out of her mouth. She let out another hiss, this one bubbling, and held up her hands in supplication. “Wait,” she rasped. “Wait, please. You win, I give up.”
Murphy ejected the clip, put in a fresh one, and worked the slide on the gun. Then she took a shooting stance again and sighted down the barrel, her blue eyes calculating, passionless, merciless.
She didn’t see the sudden shadow against the mist to her right, huge and hulking, backlit by emergency lights at the other end of the garden center. I did, and finally shoved my dazed self back to my feet. “Murph!” I shouted. “To your right!”
Murphy’s head snapped around, and she darted to her left, even as a garden hoe swept down and shattered against the concrete where she’d been standing. The ghoul scrambled back through the ferns and vanished into the mist, leaving blood smeared everywhere. Murphy backpedaled and shot at the form in the mist, then ducked as another arm swept a shovel in a scything arc that just missed her head.
Grum the Ogre rolled forward out of the mist, in his scarlet-skinned, twelve-foot-tall hulking form, a shovel clenched in one fist. Without slowing a step, he scooped up a twenty-gallon ceramic pot and threw it at Murphy like a snowball. She scooted behind a stack of empty loading palettes, and the pot exploded against them.
Magic would be useless against the ogre. I looked wildly around me, then seized a jumbo-sized plastic bag of round, tinted-glass potting marbles. “Hey!” I shouted. “Tall, red, and ugly!”
Grum’s head spun around further than I would have thought possible with a neck that thick, and his already beady eyes narrowed even more. He let out a bellowing roar and turned toward me, his huge feet slamming down on the concrete.
I tore open the bag and dumped it out toward him. Blue-green marbles spread over the floor in a wave. Grum’s foot slammed down on several as he advanced, and I hoped for the best. Grum continued toward me unslowed, and when his great foot lifted, I saw small circles of powdered glass on the ground.
I snarled a curse and ran deeper into the garden center, Grum’s footsteps heavy behind me. I heard Murphy shoot again, a pair of shots, and tried to keep a mental count of her rounds. Four, in the new clip? Did she have another reload? And how many rounds did that Colt hold anyway?
A sharper, more piercing report cracked through the area—rifle fire. Murphy’s Colt barked twice more, and she called, “Harry, someone’s covering the exit with gunfire!”
“Kinda busy here, Murph!” I shouted.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“Faerie!” I shouted. Grum was already trying to kill me, so there was no point in being diplomatic. “It’s a big, ugly faerie!” I started swiping things off of shelves to crash in the aisle behind me. I’d gained some distance on Grum, but it could be that he just needed time to gather momentum. I heard him snarl again, and he took a swing with the shovel in his hand. He was short of me, but it whooshed loudly enough to make me flinch.
I looked wildly for something made of steel to throw at the ogre or to defend myself with. The mist kept me from seeing more than a couple of yards ahead of me, and from what I could see, I was just heading deeper and deeper into the plant-vending area. The smell of summer-heated greenery, of fertilizer and mild rot, filled my nose and mouth. I rounded the end of the aisle and ducked through a narrow gate and out from under the canopy top that gave shade to this part of the garden center, into a roofless area bounded by a high chain-link fence and filled with young trees and greenery standing in silent rows.
I looked around wildly for a way out into the parking lot at large, and checked how close the ogre was, flicking a glance back over my shoulder.
Grum stopped at the gate to the fenced area and, with a small smile on his lips, swung the gate shut. As I watched, he covered his hand with a plastic trash bag, and bent the latch like soft clay. Metal squealed and the gate fastened shut with no more effort than I would need to close a twist-tie.
My heart fell down through my stomach, and I looked around me.
The chain-link fence was at least nine feet high, with a strand of barbed wire at the top, meant to stop incursions of baby-tree nappers, I guessed. A second gate, much bigger, stood closed—and the latch had been twisted exactly like the other, warped closed. It was a neat little trap, and I’d been chased right into it.
“Dammit,” I said.
Grum let out a grating laugh, though I could barely see anything but his outline, several yards away in the mist. “You lose, wizard.”
“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “Who the hell are you working for?”
“You got no guess?” Grum said. There was a note of casual arrogance to his voice. “Gee. That’s too bad. Guess you go to your grave not knowing.”
“If I had a nickel for every time I’d heard that,” I muttered, looking around me. I had a few options. None of them were good. I could open a way into the Nevernever and try to find my way through the spirit realm and back into the real world somewhere else—but if I did that, not only might I run into something even worse than I already had in front of me, but if I got unlucky I might hit a patch of slower time and not emerge back into my Chicago for hours, even days. I might also be able to melt myself a hole in the fence with conjured flame, providing I didn’t burn myself to a cinder doing it. I didn’t have my blasting rod with me, and without it my control could be shaky enough to manage just that.
I could probably pile a bunch of baby trees, loading palettes, sacks of potting soil, and so on against the outer wall of chain-link fence and climb out. I might get cut up on the barbed wire, but hell, that would be better than staying here. Either way, there was no time to waste standing around deciding. I turned toward the nearest set of young trees, picked up a couple, and tossed them against the fence. “Murphy! I’m stuck, but I think I can get clear! Get out of here now!”
Murphy’s voice floated to me, directionless in the fog. “Where are you?”
“Hell’s bells, Murph! Get out!”
Her gun barked twice more. “Not without you!”
I threw more stuff on the pile. “I’m a big boy! I can take care of myself!” I took a long step up onto the pile, and tested my grip. It was enough to let me reach the top. I figured I could pull myself up and worry about the barbed wire when I got there. I started climbing out.
I was looking at a faceful of barbed wire and pushing at the fence with my toes when I felt something wrap around my ankles. I looked down and saw a branch wrapped around my legs. I kicked at it irritably.
And then as I watched, another branch lifted from the pile and joined the first. Then a third. And a fourth. The branches beneath my feet heaved and I suddenly found myself hauled up into the air, swinging upside down from my heels.
It was an awkward vantage point, but I watched as the trees and plants and soil I’d thrown into a pile surged and writhed together. The young trees tangled their limbs together, growing before my eyes as they did, lengthening and growing thicker to become part of a larger whole. Other bits of greenery, clumps of dirt, and writhing vines and leaves joined the trees, whipping through the air apparently of their own volition and adding to the mass of the thing that held me.
It took shape and stood up, an enormous creature of vaguely human shape made all of earth and root and bough, twin points of brilliant emerald-green light burning in its vine-writhing, leaf-strewn head. It had to have been nine or ten feet tall, and nearly that far across. Its legs were thicker than me,
and branches spread out above its head like vast horns against the background of luminous mind fog. The creature lifted its head and screamed, a sound of tortured wood and creaking limb and howling wind.
“Stars and stones, Harry,” I muttered, my heart pounding, “when will you learn to keep your mouth shut?”
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?”
“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.
Chapter Twenty-one
Three minutes later Murphy and I went out the back door, and Grum was waiting for us.
He rose up out of the shadows by the large trash bins with a bull elephant’s bellow and stomped toward us. Murphy, dragging a leg and wrapped somewhat desperately in a plaid auto blanket, let out a shrill cry and turned to run, but tripped and fell to the ground before the ogre.
