Part 21 (1/2)

There is an enormous amount of difference between the weapons and ammunition employed by your average Chicago thug and military-grade weaponry. Military rounds, fully jacketed in metal, would not smash and deform as easily as bullets of simple lead. They were heavier rounds, moving a lot faster than you'd get with civilian small arms, and they kept their weight focused behind an armor-piercing tip, all of which meant that while military rounds didn't tend to fracture on impact and inflict horribly complicated damage on the human body, they did did tend to smash their way through just about anything that got in their way. Personal body armor, advanced as it is, is of very limited use against well-directed military-grade fire-particularly when exposed from ten feet away. tend to smash their way through just about anything that got in their way. Personal body armor, advanced as it is, is of very limited use against well-directed military-grade fire-particularly when exposed from ten feet away.

The shots. .h.i.t me not in a string of separate impacts, the way I had thought it would be, but in one awful roar of noise and pressure and pain. Everything spun around. I was flung over the fracturing ice, my body rolling. The sun found a hole in the smoke and glared down into my eyes. I felt a horrible, nauseated wave of sensation flood over me, and the glare of light in my eyes became h.e.l.lish agony. I felt suddenly weak and exhausted, and even though I knew there was something I should have been doing, I couldn't remember what it was.

If only the d.a.m.ned light wouldn't keep burning my eyes like that...

”... it wouldn't be so bad out here,” I growled to Ramirez. I held up a hand to s.h.i.+eld my eyes from the blazing New Mexico sun. ”Every morning it's like someone sticking needles in my eyes.”

Ramirez, dressed in surplus military BDU pants, a loose white cotton s.h.i.+rt, a khaki bush hat folded up on one side, wraparound sungla.s.ses, and his usual c.o.c.ky grin, shook his head. ”For G.o.d's sake, Harry. Why didn't you bring sungla.s.ses?”

”I don't like gla.s.ses,” I said. ”Things on my eyes, they bug me.”

”Do they bug you as much as going blind?” Ramirez asked.

I lowered my hand as my eyes finished adjusting, and squinting hard made it possible to bear the glare. ”Shut up, Carlos.”

”Who's a grumpy wizard in the morning?” Carlos asked, in that tone of voice one usually reserves for favorite dogs.

”Get a couple more years on you and that many beers that late at night will leave you with a headache, too, punk.” I growled a couple of curses under my breath, then shook my head and composed myself as ought'to be expected of a master wizard-which is to say, I subtracted the complaining and was left with only the grumpy scowl. ”Who's up?”

Ramirez took a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. ”The Terrible Twosome,” he replied. ”The Trailman twins.”

”You're kidding. They're twelve years old.”

”Sixteen,” Ramirez contradicted me.

”Twelve, sixteen,” I said. ”They're babies.”

Ramirez's smile faded. ”They don't have time to be babies, man. They've got a gift gift for evocation, and we need them.” for evocation, and we need them.”

”Sixteen,” I muttered. ”h.e.l.l's bells. All right, let's get some breakfast first.”

Ramirez and I marched to breakfast. The site Captain Luccio had chosen for teaching trainee Wardens evocation had once been a boomtown, built up around a vein of copper that trickled out after a year or so of mining. It was pretty high up in the mountains, and though we were less than a hundred miles northwest of Albuquerque, we might as well have been camped out on the surface of the moon. The only indications of humanity for ten or twelve miles in any direction were ourselves and the tumbledown remains of the town and the mine Upslope from it.

Ramirez and I had lobbied to christen the place Camp Kaboom, given that it was was a boomtown and we a boomtown and we were were teaching magic that generally involved plenty of booms of its own, but Luccio had overridden us. One of the kids had heard us, though, and by the end of the second day there, Camp Kaboom had been named despite the disapproval of the establishment. teaching magic that generally involved plenty of booms of its own, but Luccio had overridden us. One of the kids had heard us, though, and by the end of the second day there, Camp Kaboom had been named despite the disapproval of the establishment.

The forty-odd kids had their tents pitched within the stone walls of a church someone had built in an effort to bring a little more stability to the general havoc of boomtowns in the Old West. Luccio had pitched her tent with them, but Ramirez, me, and two other young Wardens who were helping her teach had set up our tents on the remains of what had once been a saloon, a brothel, or both. We'd taught kids all day and evening, and once it had gotten cold and the trainees were asleep, we played poker and drank beer, and if I got enough in me, I would even play a little guitar.

Ramirez and his cronies got up every morning just as bright eyed and bushy tailed as if they'd had a full night's sleep. The c.o.c.ky little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Breakfast was dished up and served by the trainees every morning, built around several portable grills and several folded tables situated near a well that still held cool water, if you worked the weather-beaten pump long enough. Breakfast was little more than a bowl of cereal, but part of the little more was coffee, so I was surviving without killing anyone-if only because I took breakfast alone, giving the grumpy time to fade before exposing myself to anyone else.

I collected my cereal, an apple, and a big cup of the holy mocha, walked a ways, and settled down on a rock in the blinding light of morning in desert mountains. Captain Luccio sat down beside me.

”Good morning,” she said. Luccio was a wizard of the White Council, a couple of centuries old, and one of its more dangerous members. She didn't look like that. She looked like a girl not even as old as Ramirez, with long, curling brown locks, a sweetly pretty face, and killer dimples. When I'd met her, she'd been a lean, leathery-skinned matron with iron grey hair, but a black wizard called the Corpsetaker had suckered her in a duel. Corpsetaker, then in Luccio's current body, had let Luccio run her through-and then Corpsetaker had worked her trademark magic, and switched their minds into the opposite bodies.

I'd figured it out before Corpsetaker had time enough to abuse Luccio's credibility, but once I'd put a bullet through Corpsetaker's head, there hadn't been any way for Luccio to get her original body back. So she'd been stuck in the young, cute one instead, because of me. She had also ceased taking to the field in actual combat, pa.s.sing that off to her second in command, Morgan, while she ran the boot camp to train new Wardens in how to kill things without getting killed first.

”Good morning,” I replied.

”Mail came for you yesterday,” she said, and produced a letter from a pocket.

I took it, scanned the envelope, and opened it. ”Hmmm.”

”Who is it from?” she asked. Her tone was that of one pa.s.sing the time in polite conversation.

”Warden Yos.h.i.+mo,” I said. ”I had a few questions for her about her family tree. See if she was related to a man I knew.”

”Is she?” Luccio asked.

”Distantly,” I said, reading on. ”Interesting.” At Luccio's polite noise of inquiry, I said, ”My friend was a descendent of Sho Tai.”

”I'm afraid I don't know who that is,” Luccio said.

”He was the last king of Okinawa,” I said, and frowned, thinking it over. ”I bet it means something.”

”Means something?”

I glanced at Captain Luccio and shook my head. ”Sorry. It's a side project of mine, something I'm curious about.” I shook my head, folded up the letter from Yos.h.i.+mo, and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans. ”It isn't relevant to teaching apprentices combat magic, and I should have my head in the game, not on side projects.”

”Ah,” Luccio said, and did not press for further details. ”Dresden, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about.”

I grunted interrogatively.

She lifted her eyebrows. ”Have you never wondered why you did not receive a blade?”

The Wardens toted silver swords with them whenever there was a fight at hand. I had seen them unravel complex, powerful magic at the will of their wielders, which is one h.e.l.l of an advantage when taking on anything using magic as a weapon. ”Oh,” I said, and sipped some coffee. ”Actually I hadn't really wondered. I a.s.sumed you didn't trust me.”

She frowned at me. ”I see,” she said. ”No. That is not the case. If I did not trust you, I would certainly not allow you to continue wearing the cloak.”

”Is there anything I could do to make you not trust me, then?” I asked. ” 'Cause I don't want to wear the cloak. No offense.”

”None taken,” she said. ”But we need you, and the cloak stays on.”

”d.a.m.n.”

She smiled briefly. The expression had entirely too much weight and subtlety for a face so young. ”The fact of the matter is that the swords the Wardens have used in your lifetime must be tailored specifically to each individual Warden. They were also all articles of my creation-and I am no longer capable of creating them.”

I frowned and imbibed more coffee. ”Because...” I gestured at her vaguely.

She nodded. ”This body did not possess the same potential, the same apt.i.tudes for magic as my own. Returning to my former level of ability will be problematical, and will happen no time soon.” She shrugged, her expression neutral, but I had a feeling she was covering a lot of frustration and bitterness. ”Until someone else manages to adapt my design to their own talents, or until I have retrained myself, I'm afraid that no more such blades will be issued.”

I chewed some cereal, sipped some coffee, and said, ”It must be hard on you. The new body. A big change, after so long in the first one.”

She blinked at me, eyes briefly wide with surprise. ”I... Yes, it has been.”

”Are you doing okay?”

She looked thoughtfully at her cereal for a moment. ”Headaches,” she said quietly. ”Memories that aren't mine. I think they belong to the original owner of this body. They come mostly in dreams. It's hard to sleep.” She sighed. ”And, of course, it had been a hundred and forty years since I'd put up with either s.e.xual desire or a monthly cycle.”

I swallowed cereal carefully instead of choking. ”It sounds, ah, awkward. And unpleasant.”