A gunshot barked, sharp and loud, and Meryl jerked and staggered to one side. She looked down at blood spreading over her jeans, her expression one of startled shock.
"Down!" I said, and hit her at the waist, bearing her to the ground as the gun barked again. I grabbed at the glow stick and shoved it into my coat. "Put out those lights!"
Fix fumbled with the flashlight as another shot rang out, sending a sputter of sparks from his toolbox. Fix yelped and dropped the light. It rolled over to one side, slewing a cone of illumination out behind us.
The light spilled over the form of the Tigress, the ghoul a.s.sa.s.sin, not even bothering to try a human shape now. In her natural form, she was a hunch-shouldered, grey-skinned fiend, something blending the worst features of mankind, hyena, and baboon. Short, wiry red hairs p.r.i.c.kled over her whole body. Her legs were stunted and strong, her arms too long, and her hands tipped in spurs of bone that replaced nails. Her hair hung about her head in a soggy, matted lump, and her eyes, furious as she came running forward, glared with malice. Pink and grey scars stood out against her skin, swollen areas where she"d healed all the damage Murphy had inflicted on her the night before. She flew toward us over the ground, running with all four limbs, mouth gaping wide.
She didn"t see the Alphas closing in behind her.
The first wolf, black grease still in half-circles under its eyes, hit her right leg, a quick snapping, jerking motion of its jaws. The ghoul shrieked in surprise and fell, tumbling. She regained her feet quickly and struck out at the wolf who had bloodied her, but the big grey beast rolled aside as a taller, tawnier wolf leapt over him. The second wolf took the ghoul"s other leg, bounding away when the ghoul turned on it, while a third wolf darted in at the Tigress"s back.
The ghoul screamed and tried to run again. The wolves didn"t let her. I watched as another wolf slammed into her, knocking her down. She rolled to her front, but she"d been hamstrung, and her legs were now useless weight. Claws flashed out and drew flecks of blood, but the wolf she"d hit scrambled onto her back, jaws closing in on the back of the ghoul"s neck. She let out a last frantic, gurgling scream.
Then the werewolves buried her in a tide of fur and flashing fangs. When they drew away half a minute later, I couldn"t have recognized the remains for what they were. My stomach curled up on itself, and I forced myself to look away before I started throwing up.
I grabbed Meryl underneath her arms and started tugging her toward the nearest warehouse. I snarled, "Help me," at Fix, and he pitched in, surprisingly strong.
"Oh, G.o.d," Fix whimpered. "Oh, G.o.d, Meryl, oh, G.o.d."
"It"s not bad," Meryl panted, as we dragged her around a corner of the building. "It isn"t too bad, Fix."
I got out the glow stick and checked. Her jeans were stained with blood, black in the green light, but not as badly as they should have been. I found a long tear along the fabric of one leg, and whistled. "Lucky," I said. "Grazed you. Doesn"t look like it"s bleeding too bad." I poked at her leg. "Can you feel that?"
She winced.
"Good," I said. "Stay here. Fix, stay with her."
I left my bag there and unlimbered my gun. I kept it pointed at the ground and made sure my shield bracelet was ready to go, gathering energy into it in order to shield myself from any more rifle shots. I didn"t raise the gun to level. I didn"t want it to go off accidentally and bounce a bullet off my own shield and into my head.
As I stepped around the corner, I heard a short scream and then a series of sharp barks. One of the wolves appeared in the cone of Fix"s fallen light, picked it up in his mouth, and trotted toward me.
"All clear?" I asked.
The wolf ducked his head in a couple of quick nods and dropped the flashlight on my foot. I picked it up. The wolf barked again and started off toward the wharf. I frowned at him and said, "You want me to follow you?"
He rolled his eyes and nodded again.
I started off after him. "If it turns out that Timmy"s stuck down the well, I"m going home."
The wolf led me to the wharf the stone had pointed to, and there I found a young man in dark slacks and a white jacket on the ground in a circle of wolves. He held one bleeding hand against his belly and was panting. A rifle lay on the ground nearby, next to a broken pair of sungla.s.ses. He looked up at me and grimaced, his face pale behind his goatee.
"Ace," I said. I shook my head. "You were the one who hired the ghoul."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," he lied. "Get these things away from me, Dresden. Let me go."
"I"m running late, Ace, or I"d have the patience for more chitchat." I nodded at the nearest wolf and said, "Tear his nose off."
Ace screamed and fell back, covering his face with both arms. I winked at the wolf and stepped forward to stand over the changeling. "Or maybe his ears. Or toes. What do you think, Ace? What"s going to make you talk fastest? Or should I just try them all one at a time?"
"Go to h.e.l.l," Ace gasped. "You can do whatever you want, but I"m not talking. Go to h.e.l.l, Dresden."
Footsteps came up behind us. Meryl limped close enough to see Ace, and then just stood there for a minute, staring at him. Fix followed her, staring.
"Ace," Fix said. "You? You shot Meryl?"
The bearded changeling swallowed and lowered his arms, looking at Meryl and Fix. "I"m sorry. Meryl, it was an accident. I wasn"t aiming at you."
The green-haired changeling stared at Ace and said, "You were trying to kill Dresden. The only one besides Ron who has ever taken a step out of his way to help us. The only one who can help Lily."
"I didn"twant to. But that was their price." to. But that was their price."
"Whose price?" Meryl asked in a monotone.
Ace licked his lips, eyes flicking around nervously. "I can"t tell you. They"ll kill me."
Meryl stepped forward and kicked him in the belly. Hard. Ace doubled over and threw up, gasping and twitching and sobbing. He couldn"t get enough breath to cry out.
"Whose price?" Meryl asked again. When Ace didn"t speak, she shifted her weight as though to repeat the kick and he cried out.
"Wait," he whimpered. "Wait."
"I"m done waiting," Meryl said.
"G.o.d, I"ll tell you, I"ll tell you, Meryl. It was the vampires. The Reds. I was trying to get protection from Slate, from that b.i.t.c.h Maeve. They said if I got rid of the wizard, they"d fix it."
"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," I muttered. "So you hired the Tigress."
"I didn"t have a choice," Ace whined. "If I hadn"t done it, they"d have taken me themselves."
"You had a choice, Ace," Fix said quietly.
I shook my head. "How did you know we"d be coming here?"
"The Reds," Ace said. "They told me where you"d show up. They didn"t say you wouldn"t be alone. Meryl, please. I"m sorry."
She faced him without expression. "Shut up, Ace."
"Look," he said. "Look, let"s get out of here. All right? The three of us, we can get clear of this. We need to before we can"t help it anymore."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," Meryl said.
"You do," Ace said, leaning up toward Meryl, his eyes intent. "You feel it. You hear her Calling us. You feel it just like I do. The Queen Calls us. All of Winter"s blood."
"She Calls," Meryl said. "But I"m not answering."
"If you don"t want to run, then we should think about what we"re going to do. After this battle is over, Maeve and Slate are just going to come for us again. But if we declare a loyalty, if we Choose-"
Meryl kicked Ace in the stomach again. "You worthless trash. All you ever think of is yourself. Get out of my sight before I kill you."
Ace gagged and tried to protest. "But-"
Meryl snarled, "Now!"
The force of the word made Ace flinch away, and he turned it into a scramble before rising to run. The wolves all looked at me, but I shook my head. "Let him go."
Meryl shrugged her shoulders and lifted her face to the rain.
"You okay?" Fix asked her.
"Have to be," she said. Maybe it was just me, but her voice sounded a little lower, rougher. Trollier. Gulp. "Let"s move, wizard."
"Yeah," I said. "Uh, yeah." I lifted the Gatekeeper"s stone and followed it down the wharf to the last pier, then down to the end of the last pier, empty of any ships or boats. A dozen wolves and two changelings followed me. Nothing but the cold waters of Lake Michigan and a rolling thunderstorm surrounded me at the end of the pier, and the stone twitched, swinging almost to the horizontal on its pale thread.
"No kidding," I muttered. "I know it"s up." I reached out a hand and felt something, a tingle of energy, dancing and swirling in front of me. I reached a bit further, and it became more tangible, solid. I drew up a little of my will and sent it out, toward that force, a gentle surge of energy.
Brilliant light flickering through opalescent shades rose up in front of me, as bright as the full moon and as solid as ice. The light resolved itself into the starry outline of stairs, stairs that began at the end of the pier and climbed into the storm above. I stepped forward and put one foot on the lowest step. It bore my weight, leaving me standing on a block of translucent moonlight over the wind-tossed waters of Lake Michigan.
"Wow," Fix breathed.
"We go up that?" Meryl asked.
"Woof," said Billy the Werewolf.
"While we"re young," I said, and took the next step. "Come on."
Chapter Thirty [image]
Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you b.u.mp into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that has seams tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears, and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.
But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks.
Thedrinks , people. , people.
That was me on the staircase to Chicago-Over-Chicago. Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.
But all I could think to say, between panting breaths, was, "Yeah. Sure. They couldn"t possibly have made this anescalator ." ."
Long story short: we climbed about a mile of stairs and came out in the land my G.o.dmother had shown me before, standing on the storm clouds over Chicago.
But it didn"t look like it had before the opening curtain.
What had once been rolling and silent terrain sculpted of cloud, smooth and naked as a dressing dummy, had now been filled with sound, color, and violence. The storm below that battlefield was a pale reflection of the one raging upon it.
We emerged on one of the hills looking down into the valley of the Stone Table, and the hillside around us, lit with flashes of lightning in the clouds beneath, was covered in faeries of all sizes and descriptions. Sounds rang through the air-the crackling snap of lightning and the roar of thunder following. Trumpets, high and sweet, deep and bra.s.sy. Drums beat to a dozen different cadences that both clashed and rumbled in time with one another. Shouts and cries rang out in time with those drums, shrieks that might have come from human throats, together with bellows and roars that couldn"t have. Taken as a whole, it was its own wild storm of music, huge, teeth-rattling, overwhelming, and charged with adrenaline. Wagner wished he could have had it so good.
Not twenty feet away stood a crowd of short, brown-skinned, white-haired little guys, their hands and feet twice as large as they should have been, bulbous noses the size of lightbulbs behind helmets made out of what looked like some kind of bone. They wore bone armor, and bore shields and weaponry, and stood in rank and file. Their eyes widened as I came up out of the clouds in my billowing black duster, leather slick with rain. Billy and the werewolves surrounded me in a loose ring as they emerged, and Fix and Meryl pressed up close behind me.
On the other side of us stood a troll a good eight feet tall, its skin upholstered in k.n.o.bby, hairy warts, lank hair hanging greasily past its ma.s.sive shoulders, tiny red eyes glaring from beneath its single craggy brow. Its nostrils flared out and it turned toward me, drool dribbling from its lips, but the wolves crouched down around me, snarling. The troll blinked at them for a long moment while it processed a thought, and then turned away as though disinterested. More creatures stood within a long stone"s throw, including a group of Sidhe knights, completely encased in faerie armor and mounted on long-legged warhorses of deep blue, violet, and black. A wounded sylph crouched nearby and would have looked like a lovely, winged girl from fifty yards away-but from there I could see her bloodied claws and the glittering razor edge of her wings.
I couldn"t see the whole of the valley below. Some kind of mist or haze lay over it, and only gave me the occasional glimpse of whirling ma.s.ses of troops and beings, ranks of somewhat human things ma.s.sed together against one another, while other beings, some of which could only be called "monsters," rose up above the rest, slamming together in t.i.tanic conflicts that crushed those around them as mere circ.u.mstantial casualties.
More important, I couldn"t see the Stone Table, and I couldn"t even make a decent guess as to where I was standing in relation to where it should have been. The stone the Gatekeeper had given me leaned steadily in one direction, but that led straight down into the madness below us.
"What next?" Meryl yelled at me. She had to shout, though she was only a few feet away-and we were standing above the real fury of the battle below.
I shook my head and started to answer, but Fix tugged on my sleeve and piped something that got swallowed by the sounds of battle. I looked to where he was pointing, and saw one of the mounted Sidhe knights leave the others and come riding toward us.
He raised the visor of his helmet, an oddly decorated piece that somehow seemed insectoid. Pale faerie skin and golden cat-eyes regarded us from atop the steed for a moment, before he inclined his head to me and lifted a hand. The sounds of battle immediately cut off, boom, like someone had turned off a radio, and the silence threatened to put me off balance.
"Emissary," the Sidhe knight said. "I greet thee and thy companions."
"Greetings, warrior," I said in response. "I needs must speak with Queen Mab posthaste."
He nodded and said, "I will guide thee. Follow. And bid thy companions put away their weapons ere we approach her Majesty."
I nodded and said to those with me, "Put the teeth and cutlery away, folks. We need to play nice a while longer."
We followed the knight up the slope of the hill to its top, where the air grew cold enough to sting. I gathered my coat a little closer around me and could almost see the crystals of ice forming on my eyelashes. I just had to hope that my hair wouldn"t freeze and break off.
Mab sat upon a white horse at the top of the hill, her hair down, rolling in silken waves to blend in with the mane and tail of her horse. She was clothed in a gown of white silk, the sleeves and trains falling in gentle sweeps to brush the cloudy ground at her steed"s feet. Her lips and eyelashes were blue, her eyes as white as moonlight clouds. The sheer, cold, cruel beauty of her made my heart falter and my stomach flutter nervously. The air around her vibrated with power and shone with cold white and blue light.
"Oh, my G.o.d," Fix whispered.
I glanced back. The werewolves were simply staring at Mab, much as Fix was. Meryl regarded her from behind a forced mask of neutrality, but her eyes were alight with something wild and eager. "Steady, folks," I said, and stepped forward.
The Faerie Queen turned her regard to me and murmured, "My Emissary. You have found the thief?"
I inclined my head to her. "Yes, Queen Mab. The Summer Lady, Aurora."
Mab"s eyes widened, enough that I got the impression that she understood the whole of the matter from that one fact. "Indeed. And can you bring proof of this to us?"
"If I move swiftly," I said. "I must reach the Stone Table before midnight."
Mab"s empty eyes flickered to the stars above, and I thought I saw a hint of worry in them. "They move swiftly this night, wizard." She paused and then breathed out, almost to herself, "Time himself runs against thee."
"What can be done to get me there?"
Mab shook her head and regarded the field below us again. One entire swath of the battlefield flooded with a sudden golden radiance. Mab lifted her hand, and the aura around her flashed with a cerulean fire, the air thickening. That flame lashed out against the gold, and the two clashed in a shower of emerald energy, canceling one another out. Mab lowered her hand and turned to look at me again. Her eyes fell on the chip of stone on its pale thread and widened again. "Rashid. What is his interest in this matter?"
"Uh," I said. "Certainly he isn"t, uh, you know, it isn"t like he"s representing the Council and they"re interfering."
Mab took her eyes from the battle long enough to give me a look that said, quite clearly, that I was an idiot. "I know that. And your ointment. It"s his recipe. I recognize the smell."
"He helped me find this place, yes."
Mab"s lips twitched at the corners. "So. What does the old desert fox have in mind this time?" She shook her head and said, "No matter. The stone cannot lead you to the table. The direct route would place you in the path of battle enough to destroy any mortal. You must go another way."