Part 44 (1/2)

Lasciel-Lash, rather-nodded once and said, ”I will tell you all that I can, Harry.”

Then she rose and stepped past me and toward the oncoming ghouls and Vitto Malvora. Her clothes made a slow, soft rustle as she stepped away from me, and Marcone's stopwatch went thud thud- Tick, tick, tick...

For just a second, no more than a heartbeat or two, I remained impaled on that horrible pike of psychic anguish. Then an odd sensation fell over me, and I don't know precisely how to describe it, except to say that it felt like stepping from brutal, burning sunlight into a sudden, deep shadow. Then that horrible pain eased-not much, but enough to let me suddenly move my arms and my head, enough to know that I could act.

So I froze in place.

”Mine!” howled a voice, so distorted with l.u.s.t and violence that it sounded like nothing human. ”She is mine!”

Footsteps came closer, thump-drag, thump-drag. thump-drag, thump-drag. I saw Vittorio's horribly burned leg go by in my peripheral vision. The sensation of shade began to fade at the edges, with the power of Vittorio's spell returning by slow degrees, like sunlight beginning to burn its way through a sheet of frosted gla.s.s. I saw Vittorio's horribly burned leg go by in my peripheral vision. The sensation of shade began to fade at the edges, with the power of Vittorio's spell returning by slow degrees, like sunlight beginning to burn its way through a sheet of frosted gla.s.s.

”Little Raith b.i.t.c.h,” Vittorio snarled. ”What I do to you will make your father's blood run cold.”

There was the sound of a heavy blow. I twitched my head a tiny bit to one side to get a look at what was around me.

A lot of really huge ghouls, that was what, apparently no less fierce for being battered and torn by the battle. Vittorio stood over Lara, his face pale, his leg horribly burned. He had his right hand held out, the hand that projects energy, fingers spread, and I could still feel the terrible power radiating from them. He was maintaining the pressure of the spell that held everyone down, then-and I could see, from the reaction of the ghouls around him, that they were feeling the bite of the spell, too. It seemed only to make them flinch and cower a little, rather than incapacitating them entirely. Maybe they were more used to feeling such things.

He kicked Lara in the ribs, twice more, heavy and ugly kicks that cracked bones. Lara let out little sounds of pain, and I think it was that, more than anything, that let me push the paralyzing awl of hostile magic completely away from my mind. I moved one hand, and that slowly. From the lack of outcry, I took it that no one noticed.

”We'll put a pin in this, for now, little Raith b.i.t.c.h.” He whirled toward my brother. ”I had intended to find you, you know, Thomas,” Vittorio continued. ”An outcast like you, I a.s.sumed, might be inclined to throw in his lot with someone with a more equitable vision for the future. But you're like some sad dog, too ugly to be allowed into the house, but faithfully defending the master that holds him in contempt. Your end isn't going to be pretty, either.” He started to turn toward me, smiling. ”But first, we start with the busybody wizard.” He finished the turn, saying, ”Burns hurt, Dresden. Have I mentioned how much I hate being exposed to fire?”

No sense in wasting perfectly good irony. I waited until he said fire fire to spin and pull the trigger on Marcone's shotgun. to spin and pull the trigger on Marcone's shotgun.

The weapon bucked hard-I hadn't had time to brace it properly-and slammed into my shoulder with bruising force only partly attenuated by my duster. The blast pretty well removed Vittorio's right hand at the middle of his forearm.

The way I hear it, amputation is bad for your concentration. It certainly wasn't good for Vittorio's, and you can't hold up the pressure on a spell like he'd been using without concentration. There was a sudden surge of particularly intense discomfort through the spell as Vittorio's physical trauma sent a flare of energy through it, like feedback on an enormous speaker. The ghouls howled in agonized reaction to the surge of discord, and it gave me a second or so to act.

I lashed out with both legs and got Vittorio in one of his knees-the one that wasn't all burned. A kick to the knees doesn't bother a vampire from the Red Court-their actual knees are all backward anyway. A Black Court vampire wouldn't have been anything but annoyed at having a hand blown off with a shotgun.

Vitto wasn't either.

When he wasn't drawing upon the power gained from his Hunger, he was pretty much human. And while I'm a wizard and all, I'm also a fairly big guy. Tall and skinny, sure, but when you get tall enough, even skinny guys are pretty darned heavy, and I've got strong legs. His knee bent in backward and he fell with a scream.

Before he could recover, I was up on one knee with the shotgun's stock against my shoulder and its long barrel against Vittorio's nose. ”Back off!” I shouted. I was going for cool and strong, but my voice came out sounding angry and not overly burdened with sanity. ”Tell them to back off! Now!”

Vittorio's face was twisted with surprise and pain. He blinked at the shotgun, then at me, and then at the stump of his right hand.

I couldn't hear or see the stopwatch anymore, but my head provided the sound effect. Tickticktickticktick. Tickticktickticktick. How much time was left? Less than sixty seconds? How much time was left? Less than sixty seconds?

Around me, the ghouls, recovered from their moment of pain, began to let out a steady, low growl, like the rumbling engines of several dozen motorcycles. I kept my eyes focused on their boss. If I took a moment to get a good look at all the bits of feral anatomy around me that might start ripping into my flesh at any second, I would probably cry. That would be unmanly.

”B-back!” Vittorio stammered. Then he said something in a language that sounded vaguely familiar, but that I didn't understand. He repeated it in a half scream, and the ghouls edged a couple of inches away from us.

Ticktickticktick.

”This is what happens,” I told Vittorio. ”I take my people. I go through the gate. I close it. You get to live.” I leaned into the shotgun a little, making him flinch. ”Or we can all go down together. I'm feeling ambivalent toward which way we go, so I'll leave it up to you.”

He licked his lips. ”Y-you're bluffing. Pull that trigger, and the ghouls will kill everyone. You won't l-let them die for the pleasure of killing me.”

”It's been a long day. I'm tired. Not thinking real clearly. And the way I see it, you got me pretty much dead to rights here, Vitto.” I narrowed my eyes and spoke very quietly. ”Do you really think I'll let myself go down without taking you with me?”

He stared at me for a long moment, and licked his lips.

”G-go,” he said, then. ”Go.”

”Thomas!” I shouted. ”Wakey, wakey! Now is not the time to lie down and die.”

I heard my brother groan. ”Harry?”

”Lara, can you hear me?”

”Quite,” she said. Thomas's older sister was already on her feet, from the sound, and her voice was coming from close behind me.

”Thomas, get Marcone and get him through the gate.” I gave Vittorio a fierce glare. ”Don't move. Don't even twitch.”

Vittorio, his face in agony, held up his left hand, fingers spread. He was bleeding, a lot, and started s.h.i.+vering. There wasn't any fight left in his face. He'd hit me with his best shot, and I'd apparently shrugged it off. I think it had scared the h.e.l.l out of him. Losing his hand hadn't helped his morale any, either. ”Don't shoot,” he said. ”Just... d-don't shoot.” He shot a glance around at the ghouls and said, ”L-let them go.”

I heard Marcone let out a groan, and Thomas grunted with effort. ”Okay,” Thomas said from behind me. ”I'm through.”

I kept the gun on Vittorio and stood up, trying not to let the barrel waver. How many seconds did I have left? Thirty? Twenty? I've heard about people who can keep track of wild situations like this while keeping a steady count, but apparently I wasn't one of them. I took a step back, and felt Lara's back pressing against mine. From the corner of my eye, I could see that the ghouls had spread out all around us. If she hadn't been there, one of them could have blind-sided me without any trouble the second I was a couple of feet away from Vittorio. Gulp.

I took a step back, forcing myself to move smoothly, steadily, when my instincts were screaming at me to run.

”Three more steps,” Lara told me in a whisper. ”A little more to your left.”

I corrected the direction of my next step, trusting her word. One step more, and I could hear winter wind sighing behind me. Silver moonlight shone on the barrel of the shotgun.

And then I found out whether or not Cowl was actually there.

There was a surge of power, an abrasive scream against my arcane senses, and the offspring of a comet and a pterodactyl came hurtling out of the darkness at the far end of the cavern. My eyes had adjusted enough to see a dim oval of reddish light that outlined a heavily cloaked figure-Cowl, standing in his own gate.

”Master!” Vittorio cried, his voice slurred.

”Look out!” I screamed, and thrashed behind me with my arm as I ducked and lurched to one side, trying to sweep Lara out of the flying thing's path as I did. It missed us by inches, but we got out of the way.

Cowl's leathery, rasping voice hissed something in a slithering tongue, and a second surge of power lashed invisibly across the cavern-not at us, but at my gate. gate.

And as quickly as that, my gate began to close, the opening sewing itself shut like a Ziploc bag-starting with the end closest to me.

Tickticktickticktick.

The gate was closing far more quickly than I could have gotten up and moved. I wasn't getting out. But Lara might.

”Lara!” I shouted. ”Go!”

Something with the strength of a freight train and the speed of an Indy car seized my duster and hauled on it so hard that it wrenched my neck and nearly dislocated my arms.