Part 17 (1/2)

The thief was examining another trapped doorway when I heard something-the tromp of approaching feet. The holy woman was in the middle of another sermon, about attentiveness or was in the middle of another sermon, about attentiveness or something, but I held up my hand for silence and she obliged. I could hear twenty sets of feet, maybe more.

I let out a low growl and reached for my sword. ”Company.”

”Easy, my son,” the holy woman said. ”We don't even know who it is yet.”

The ruined mausoleum was far enough off the beaten path to make it unlikely that anyone had just wandered in on us. The holy woman was dreaming if she thought the company might be friendly. A moment later they appeared-the local magistrate and two dozen of his thugs.

”Always with the corrupt government officials,” muttered the wizard from behind me. I glanced back at him and then looked for the thief. The nimble little minx was nowhere to be seen.

”You are trespa.s.sing!” boomed the magistrate. He had a big boomy voice. ”Leave this place immediately on pain of punishment by the Crown's law!”

”Sir!” replied the holy woman. ”Our mission here is of paramount importance. The writ we bear from your own liege requires you to render aid and a.s.sistance in this matter.”

”But not to violate the graves of my subjects!” he boomed some more. ”Begone! Before I unleash the nine fires of Atarak upon-”

”Enough talk!” I growled, and threw my heavy dagger at his chest.

Propelled by my ma.s.sive thews, the dagger hit him two inches below his left nipple-a perfect heart shot. It struck with enough force to hurl him from his feet. His men howled with surprised fury.

I drew the huge sword from my back, let out a leonine roar, and charged the two dozen thugs.

”Enough talk!” I bellowed, and whipped the twenty-pound greatsword at the nearest target as if it were a wooden yardstick. He went down in a heap.

”Enough talk!” I howled, and kept swinging. I smashed through the next several thugs as if they were made of soft wax. Off to my left, the thief came out of nowhere and neatly sliced the Achilles tendons of another thug. The holy woman took a ready stance with her quarterstaff and chanted out a prayer to her deities at the top of her lungs.

The wizard shrieked, and a fireball whipped over my head, exploding twenty-one feet in front of me, then spread out in a perfect circle, like the shock wave of a nuke, burning and roasting thugs as it went and stopping a bare twelve inches shy of my nose.

”Oh, come on!” I said. ”It doesn't work like that!”

”What?” demanded the wizard.

”It doesn't work work like that!” I insisted. ”Even if you call up fire with magic, it's still like that!” I insisted. ”Even if you call up fire with magic, it's still fire fire. It acts like fire fire. It expands in a sphere. And under a ceiling, that means it goes rus.h.i.+ng much farther down hallways and tunnels. It doesn't doesn't just go twenty feet and then just go twenty feet and then stop stop.”

”Fireb.a.l.l.s used to work like that.” The wizard sighed. ”But do you know what a ch.o.r.e it is to calculate exactly how far those things will spread? I mean, it slows everything down.”

”It's simple math,” I said. ”And it's way better than the fire just spreading twenty feet regardless of what's around it. What, do fireb.a.l.l.s carry tape measures or something?”

Billy the Werewolf sighed and put down his character sheet and his dice. ”Harry,” he protested gently, ”repeat after me: It's only a game.”

I folded my arms and frowned at him across his dining room table. It was littered with snacks, empty cans of pop, pieces of paper, and tiny model monsters and adventurers (including a ma.s.sively thewed barbarian model for my character). Georgia, Billy's willowy brunette wife, sat at the table with us, as did the redheaded bombsh.e.l.l Andi, while lanky Kirby lurked behind several folding screens covered with fantasy art at the head of the table.

”I'm just saying,” I said, ”there's no reason the magic can't be portrayed at least a little more accurately, is there?”

”Again with this this discussion.” Andi sighed. ”I mean, I know he's the actual wizard and all, but Christ.” discussion.” Andi sighed. ”I mean, I know he's the actual wizard and all, but Christ.”

Kirby nodded glumly. ”It's like taking a physicist to a Star Trek Star Trek movie.” movie.”

”Harry,” Georgia said firmly, ”you're doing it again.”

”Oh, no, I'm not!” I protested. ”All I'm saying is that-”

Georgia arched an eyebrow and gave me a steady look down her aquiline nose. ”You know the law, Dresden.”

”He who kills the cheer springs for beer,” chanted the rest of the table.

”Oh, bite me!” I muttered at them, but a grin was diluting my scowl as I dug out my wallet and tossed a twenty on the table.

”Okay,” Kirby said. ”Roll your fireball damage, Will.”

Billy slung out a double handful of square dice and said, ”Hah! One-point-two over median. Suck on that, henchmen!”

”They're all dead,” Kirby confirmed. ”We might as well break there until next week.”

”c.r.a.p,” I said. ”I barely got to hit anybody.”

”I only got to hit one one!” Andi said.

Georgia shook her head. ”I didn't even get to finish casting my spell.”

”Oh, yes,” Billy gloated. ”Seven modules of identifying magic items and repairing things the stupid barbarian broke, but I've finally come into my own. Was it like that for you, Harry?”

”Let you know when I come into my own,” I said, rising. ”But my hopes are high. Why, this very morrow, I, Harry Dresden, have a day off.”

”The devil you say!” Billy exclaimed, grinning at me as the group began cleaning up from the evening's gaming session.

I shrugged into my black leather duster. ”No apprentice, no work, no errands for the Council, no Warden stuff, no trips out of town for Paranet business. My very own free time.”

Georgia gave me a wide smile. ”Tell me you aren't going to spend it puttering around that musty hole in the ground you call a lab.”

”Um,” I said.

”Look,” Andi said. ”He's blus.h.i.+ng!”

”I am not blus.h.i.+ng,” I said. I swept up the empty bottles and pizza boxes, and headed into Billy and Georgia's little kitchen to dump them into the trash.

Georgia followed me in, reaching around me to send several pieces of paper into the trash, too. ”Hot date with Stacy?” she asked, her voice pitched to keep the conversation private.

”I think if I ever called her 'Stacy,' Anastasia might beat the snot out of me for being too lazy to speak her entire name,” I replied.

”You seem a little tense about it.”

I shrugged a shoulder. ”This is going to be the first time we spend a whole day together without something trying to rip us to pieces along the way. I . . . I want it to go right, you know?” I pushed my fingers back through my hair. ”I mean, both of us could use a day off.”

”Sure, sure,” Georgia said, watching me with calm, knowing eyes. ”Do you think it's going to go anywhere with her?”

I shrugged. ”Don't know. She and I have very different ideas about . . . well, about basically everything except what to do with things that go around hurting people.”

The tall, willowy Georgia glanced back toward the dining room, where her short, heavily muscled husband was putting away models. ”Opposites attract. There's a song about it and everything.”