by P. N. Elrod
Well. The wizard would immediately recognize that the claymores, the running water, and the magic-defense-piercing bullet had not been put into place to counter Mag or his odd folk at all.
They were there to kill Harry Dresden.
And they worked. Mag had proven that. An eventual confrontation with Dresden was inevitable—but murdering Justine would guarantee it happened immediately, and I wasn’t ready for that, not until I had rebuilt the defenses in the new location.
Besides, the young woman had rules of her own. I could respect that.
I would test myself against Dresden in earnest one day—or he against me. Until then, I had to gather as many resources to myself as possible. And when the day of reckoning came, I had to make sure it happened in a place where, despite his powers, he would no longer have the upper hand.
Like everything else.
Location, location, location.
Jim Butcher enjoys fencing, martial arts, singing, bad science-fiction movies, and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog. You may learn more at www.jim-butcher.com.
THE BEACON
by SHANNON K. BUTCHER
There were ten rounds in Ryder Ward’s Glock, but he was going to need only one.
The Beacon was here in this small, middle-of-nowhere, so-cute-it-made-him-want-to-puke Minnesota town. He could feel the deep, almost inaudible thrumming of its heart.
All he had to do was put one round between the Beacon’s eyes and he could go back home to his life, such as it was. At least until the next Beacon summoned him. There was always another one—always someone who needed killing.
He hoped like hell that this time, the Beacon would be an old man.
Daddy? Daddy, wake up.
Ryder shoved the orphaned child’s voice from his head and popped a trio of antacids into his mouth. He didn’t want to think about his last job—the lifeless body of the last Beacon sprawled on the toy-littered living room carpet. And Ryder sure as hell didn’t want to think about the tiny, chubby hand of the little girl trying to shake her dead father awake.
Daddy, are you sick?
He ground his back teeth together and focused on driving through the thickening snow. The sooner he finished this job, the sooner he’d see things were back to normal and he’d be offing old men with only a few good years left. That young man was an anomaly, that’s all.
Ryder eased his truck over the icy streets. Snow was falling harder now as the forecasted blizzard rolled in, and even with his windshield wipers on high, it was getting hard to see where he was going. The bump of his tire against the curb told him he was still on the street, though just barely.
He pulled into the alley behind a coffeehouse where the deep beat of the Beacon’s heart was the loudest. The alley where he left his truck was narrow and choked with snow. Getting out of here once the job was done was going to be tricky, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Just like all the other times.
Since his birthright had kicked in, he’d killed seventeen Beacons, and so far he’d never once been hauled in by police for questioning. Why would he be? There was nothing to tie him to his victims, no apparent motivation for him to do what he did.
When it came to solid motivation for a serial killer, cops didn’t tend to buy in to magical birthrights or the inherited ability to locate human magnets for otherworldly evil. If he ever got caught, he’d just tell them the voices in his head told him to kill—it’d be a lot simpler for everyone that way.
Not that Ryder was planning on getting caught. Get in, kill the Beacon, get out. Simple.
He trudged around the building through the snow, guessing he had maybe twenty minutes of daylight left—more than enough time to get the job done and get out of this too-cute town and back to his garage where he belonged, back to engines and wrenches and grease, all of which made perfect sense and didn’t burn his guts.
The lights inside the coffeehouse were dimmed by the falling snow, but he managed to find the door and slip inside. Bells tinkled merrily against the glass, announcing his arrival.
Great. So much for stealth.
The smell of fresh coffee and cinnamon filled his nose. The snow sticking to his eyelashes began to melt in the humid warmth. The gust of cold wind he’d let in subsided, allowing the lacy curtains on the windows to settle back into place.
No one sat at any of the small tables or booths. As far as he could see, the place was deserted, but he knew better. He could feel how close the Beacon was—feel a throbbing in the air, as waves of sound too low for a normal person to hear emanated from the Beacon’s heart. The sound thudded against his ears, resonated inside his chest. He could tell by the slowly increasing cadence that he was running out of time.
“I didn’t think anyone was out in this mess,” came a soft, feminine voice through an open doorway behind the counter. “Be right with you.”
Ryder froze in place. The Beacon was a woman?
She hurried through the door, drying her hands with paper towels. Her soft brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. A white apron tied around her waist showed off slim curves. She had a wide smile and the sweetest, most angelic face he’d ever seen. He doubted she was even thirty years old.
Too young to die.
How could he pull the trigger and end her life?
How could he not?
Melted snow dripped from his hair and ran down his neck, leaving cold paths of frigid water in their wake. The gun in the holster under his arm burned his skin. His ears were clogged with the sound of his racing pulse.
Ryder stood there, dripping, and as she watched him, her smile began to fade.
“Are you okay? Do you need help?” she asked.
His jaw clenched against the urge to answer her innocent questions. He couldn’t speak to her. If he did, it would only make his job that much harder. If he spoke to her, she’d be a real person.
Besides, what was there for him to say? Hi, I’m here to kill you. I’m sorry it has to end this way. If you don’t die, a monster will appear and all the people around you will be eaten.
No words would make this any easier, for either of them. Best just to get it done and get the hell away from here.
The woman stepped toward him. Ryder unzipped his leather jacket and reached for his gun.
“Did you get stuck in the storm? You’re soaking wet.” Sweet concern filled her voice, and it was all he could do not to turn around, walk out, and let her live the last few hours of her life in peace.
But what about the rest of this too-cute town? Didn’t its residents deserve to live?
The only way that was going to happen was if he put a bullet right between her pretty blue eyes. One woman’s life in trade for that of hundreds more. She was going to die tonight. There was nothing he could do to change that. It was his job to make sure she was the only one who had to die.
Ryder cursed his birthright for the millionth time.
“Have a seat,” she told him. “I’ll get you something hot to drink.” She hurried off before he could stop her.
Get a grip. He needed to stop thinking and just do this thing. Get it over with.
A deep sound of mourning rose up from his chest, despite his intent to remain silent. He tossed another pair of antacids in his mouth. He doubted they’d help, but it was something to do with his hands—something that didn’t involve pulling out his Glock.
The woman came back moments later, gripping a tall mug in her slender hands. “I made you hot cocoa. I hope you like it.” She set it on a nearby table and pulled out a chair for him. “You should sit. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
Ryder took one step after another, hauling his dripping ass over to the table. He told himself that the shot would be easier to take if he was closer. It had nothing to do with the lure of her caring tone or the warmth of the drink she’d made for him.
He didn’t deserve warmth, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve her care.
/>
He looked down at the chair she’d offered, then at the steaming mug. He couldn’t accept either. Not when he knew what he had to do to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He wanted to ask for her forgiveness, but he didn’t deserve that, either.
He pulled out his weapon and aimed it at her head.
Those pretty blue eyes widened, and her lips parted on a gasp of shock. She stepped back, lifting her hands. They trembled.
“I’ll give you whatever you want. There isn’t much cash, but it’s yours. Please, don’t do this,” she begged.
“I’m sorry,” Ryder repeated. What else could he say?
A loud pounding of footsteps came from the far side of the room. Ryder swung his weapon to the left, aiming it at the noise. A wooden door swung open, revealing a staircase leading up. And a little girl.
“Mama, can I go online?”
The little girl couldn’t have been more than seven years old. She had her mother’s pretty blue eyes and the cutest pointed chin he’d ever seen. She saw his gun pointing at her and came to a dead stop. The air around her throbbed, beating out a deep, almost inaudible rhythm—one only Ryder and men like him could hear.
This woman wasn’t the Beacon.
The little girl was.
Hell, no. He couldn’t do this. Let whatever demon was coming have this town. He was going to throw the woman and her kid into his truck and get them out of here.
And go where? The Terraphage would follow the Beacon wherever Ryder took her. With the roads as bad as they were, he’d have no hope of outrunning it.
If they were going to survive this, he was going to have to make a stand. Kill the Terraphage when it came.
A mocking bubble of laughter rose up inside of him. No one could kill one of those things. Anyone who had been stupid enough to try had failed. The Terraphage was huge, evil, and unstoppable.
Which meant he needed every second possible to come up with some kind of plan.
Ryder didn’t see the chair coming at his head until it was too late. He tried to duck it, but the woman’s aim was true and the metal leg connected with the side of his skull.
Lights out.
Jordan watched the man crumple to the ground, lifting the chair to strike at him again. Rage poured through her limbs, making her stronger than she would have imagined. She shook with the force of it, clenching her teeth against the need to let out a battle cry.
How dare he point that gun at her baby?
Anne started toward her, but Jordan held up a hand. “Stay back, honey. He’s dangerous.”
Or he had been. Right now he was limp and bleeding, lying utterly still. Maybe she’d killed him.
Part of her hoped so. A man who would draw a weapon on a child deserved to die.
He was a big man, filling out that worn leather jacket with wide shoulders and a thick chest. His hair was dark, damp, and mussed. Small scars marred the backs of his hands, especially his knuckles. Jordan guessed they were from bar fights or something equally distasteful. Any man who would point a gun at a child wouldn’t have hesitated to take out his anger with his fists.
Jordan had never regretted her divorce; her ex was a loser who had never wanted Anne. But for the first time since turning her back on men, Jordan wished she had one around—someone willing to protect her and her daughter from the threat this man posed.
Anne took a tentative step closer. “Mama, that’s the man I dreamed about. The one that came right before the monster.”
A cold, heavy dread slithered down Jordan’s spine. Her daughter’s dreams had been getting progressively worse for weeks now, but Jordan thought they’d been making progress. “No, it’s not. That’s just your imagination playing a dirty trick on you.”
“No. That’s him. I’m sure that’s him. He’s even got the same messy hair.”
Jordan stepped to the left to block Anne’s line of sight. “Just go upstairs and get me that big roll of tape out of the toolbox. We’ll talk about this later.”
The pounding of little feet told Jordan her daughter had done as she asked.
She kicked the gun out of reach and poked the man’s leg with the toe of her shoe. He didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. Encouraged by his stillness, she moved closer and poked him in the ribs.
Nothing. He was out cold. Or doing one heck of an acting job.
Anne returned with the duct tape. “Who is he, Mama?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why’d he have a gun?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“What are we gonna do with him?”
Jordan let out a sigh that shook with nerves. “I’m going to tie him up so he can’t get away, then call the police.”
“I’ll call. I know the number.”
Of course she did. Jordan had made sure Anne knew how to stay safe. Even though they lived in a small town with nearly no crime, that didn’t mean things couldn’t go wrong.
The man bleeding on her floor was proof of that.
Jordan prayed the man wasn’t acting. She prayed even harder that his appearance wouldn’t set Anne back in dealing with her nightmares.
She rolled the man onto his stomach and went to work taping him up nice and tight. He was heavy, and his limbs were thick with muscle, but she was still riding that adrenaline high and managed to get him trussed up, taped from wrists to elbows and ankles to knees.
He wasn’t going anywhere unless she let him.
Now that it was safe, Jordan pressed her finger to the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse. His beat strong and steady, and she let out a small sigh of relief. She hadn’t killed him.
Whether or not he deserved it, she didn’t like the idea of being the executioner any more than she liked the idea of having a dead man lying in her coffee shop.
Jordan heard her daughter tell the sheriff’s department what had happened. Her high, sweet voice sounded odd describing something as grim as facing off against an armed intruder.
“Mama, Cindy says she needs to talk to you.”
Jordan picked up the gun with two fingers, as though it were covered in acid, and set it on the counter. She took the phone from Anne.
“Hey, Cindy.”
Cindy was the dispatcher at the sheriff’s station, and they’d gone to high school together. Her voice was rough from years of smoking, but she’d always been calm in the midst of chaos, even during the days of high school drama. “I heard you caught yourself a robber.”
Something about the way the man had acted made Jordan wonder if that was what he’d been up to, but there’d be time to figure that out later. “Guess so. When can you send someone to come get him? I whacked him on the head pretty hard.”
“The roads are a mess. We’ve got several injury accidents and no staff to spare. If you’re not in danger, it’s going to have to wait until we get things back under control.”
“We’re fine, but he may not be.”
“Is he breathing?”
“Yeah.”
“That’ll have to be good enough. Call me if anything changes. I’ll send someone as soon as possible, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll be here.”
Jordan hung up and saw Anne inching closer to the unconscious man, leaning forward as far as she could without falling over. “Stop right there, nosy. You go upstairs and keep yourself out of trouble while I wait for the police.”
“I’m sure that’s the man from my dreams.”
“And I’m sure he’s not. Go on upstairs, now.”
“Can I go online?”
“Sure. You know the rules.”
Anne nodded and pounded up the stairs, sounding as though she weighed as much as a grown man.
Jordan sat at a nearby table to watch her captive, sipping the hot chocolate she’d made for him. Her hands were still shaking, but at least she’d gotten through the worst of this ordeal.
Anne was safe, and that’s what really mattered.
The gunman needed a shave and a haircut.
Everything about him screamed bachelor, from his wrinkled shirt to his bad-boy leather jacket to his overworn boots. Still, there was something about him that intrigued her. Maybe that’s what Anne felt that made her think she’d dreamed about him.
He was definitely dreamy in a your-mama-warned-you kind of way. Six-feet-and-change worth of walking trouble.
His eyes cracked open and he sucked in a hissing breath.
“Does your head hurt?” she asked him.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
He struggled to sit up, but with his hands trapped behind him, he had no leverage.
“I wouldn’t bother,” said Jordan. “You’re tied up way too tight to move.”
“Guess so.”
“Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said the man.
“If it doesn’t matter, then tell me your name.”
“Ryder Ward.”
“Want to tell me why you’re here?” she asked.
“Not particularly. What time is it?”
“Why? Got somewhere to be?”
“Anywhere but here if it’s nightfall.”
Jordan looked outside at the falling snow. She couldn’t tell if the streetlights were on or not, but there was enough of a glow outside to know it wasn’t full dark. “Not quite.”
“We don’t have much time, lady,” he said.
“The name’s Jordan, not lady, and we have all the time in the world until the police show up. Just sit tight and I won’t have to knock you out again.”
He looked up at her, his dark eyes haunted by something she could only imagine. “I know what this looks like, but I swear to you I never wanted to hurt you. Either of you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it. Pointing a gun at someone usually indicates an intention to harm them.”
He sighed. Incredibly, his body twisted and he managed to sit up. Sweat had broken out along his hairline at the effort, but it was more than she’d thought he could manage.
Maybe she hadn’t tied him up tight enough.
