Jim Butcher: Side Jobs

I nudged the door open a few more inches, then slid into the warehouse, moving with as much speed and silence as I possessed, my gun at the level and ready.

I MOVED DOWN the length of the warehouse, mostly hidden behind a shelving unit more than twenty feet high. It was stacked with pallets, loading gear, storage bins, and the occasional barrel or box of unknown provenance. The shifting, constantly wavering light made an excellent cover for motion, and I timed my steps to move in rhythm with the dancing illumination.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and it felt like every inch of my skin was covered in gooseflesh. I’d been in the presence of dangerous magic often enough to know the feeling of dark power in motion. It had been like this at Chichen Itza, and in the waters off the island of Demonreach, and in the Raith Deeps, and at Arctis Tor, and in the nest of Black Court vampires, and at . . .

You get the point. This wasn’t my first rodeo.

The most important thing would be to take out Nothing’s presumptive boss, and fast—preferably before anyone knew I was here at all. The warehouse reeked of magic, and if a mortal goes into a fair fight against a wizard, the mortal loses. Period. They have power that is literally almost unimaginable, and if the bad guy got a chance to defend himself, the only uncertainty remaining would be how much creativity he put into killing me.

At the end of the shelving unit, there was a rolling ladder, one made to run all the way up and down the shelves and provide easy access. The warehouse was darker up near the ceiling than at floor level. I didn’t even slow down. I went up the ladder to the top of the shelving unit and froze in place, getting a good, clear look at the enemy for the first time.

There were half a dozen of them including Nothing, and they all shopped at the same store. Their outfits were conspicuous due to their uniformity, though some instinct made me think that they had been intended as disguises—that individuality, as a concept, wasn’t of any particular concern to Nothing and his crew. Nothing was, by far, the largest of the men, though none of them looked like featherweights.

They were loading cages into a railroad cargo container, a fairly common sight on large ships, some of which could carry hundreds of the metal boxes. The cages had been sized to stack exactly into the railroad car, two across and three high, with no consideration whatsoever for the human cargo. There were no blankets, no pads—nothing but metal cages and vulnerable skin.

I spotted Andi’s cage, not far from Georgia’s. The redheaded girl had evidently lacked some critical capacity to resist whatever had been done to her. She lay on her back, staring blankly up at the roof of her cage. The werewolf girl was a bombshell. Even lying in completely passive relaxation, her curves beckoned the eye—but the hollow despair of her expression was haunting.

Nothing was standing over Will and Marcy, who lay limp and motionless on the floor at his feet. A couple of turtlenecks were hauling an empty cage toward them. “How long will it take?” he was asking a third man.

“Without knowing the exact drug, several hours,” the man replied. His voice was plainly human, and sounded nothing like whoever it was I’d spoken to on the phone. “Perhaps more.”

Nothing frowned. “Can you make a determination of their viability by dawn?”

“If I am able to isolate the substance that incapacitated them before then,” he said. “I have no means of determining how many attempts will be required. It will take as long as it takes.”

“He will not be pleased,” Nothing said.

The man bowed his head. “My life for the master. I will do all in my power to serve him. Should he be disappointed in me, it is meet for him to take my life.”

Nothing nodded. “Be about it.”

The man turned and walked quickly away, holding two small vials of rich red blood in his hand—samples from Will and Marcy, I assumed.

By then, the empty cage had arrived. Nothing picked up Marcy and lifted her toward the waiting cage. I bit down on a curse. If I let him imprison her, a full third of my team would be neutralized, as helpless as the prisoners who had already been taken. But if I started the music early, I risked throwing away my sucker punch. Nothing’s master might show up at any time.

On the other hand, Nothing seemed to be large and in charge. Perhaps the hissing person I’d spoken to on the phone had left matters in Nothing’s shovellike hands. Or perhaps I’d read the situation incorrectly. What if one of the other turtlenecks had been the first speaker, and Nothing was really the boss?

I made up my mind and settled the P-90’s crosshair onto Nothing’s head, a little below the tip of his nose. The weapon was set for automatic fire, and while I could control the weapon fairly well, especially when it was loaded with subsonic rounds, the recoil would tend to carry the weapon’s muzzle higher after the first shot.

Against anything human, more than one round to the head would be overkill: When the merely mortal goes up against the supernatural, there’s no such thing as overkill.

I snuggled the gun in close and tight, took a deep breath in, let it halfway out, held it, and began to slowly squeeze the weapon’s trigger.

The instant before the trigger would have broken, there was a shimmering in the air and a man stepped out of it, appearing as if from nowhere.

I backed off the tension on my finger, feeling my heart surge with unspent adrenaline.

The man was of medium height, with sallow skin and greasy, straight black hair that hung past his shoulders. His lips were very thick and his mouth very wide, almost to the point of deformity. His large eyes were dark and watery and bulging, his nose sunken, as small as any I had ever seen. He was soaking wet and naked, his limbs scrawny and long, his hands very, very wide. Except for the hair, I couldn’t help but compare him to a frog—a sullen, vicious frog.

The man let out a sound somewhat like a muffled belch, then vomited water onto the floor. Flaps of skin at his neck flared in and out, spewing smaller sprays of water several times, until he drew in a breath through his mouth, evidently filling his lungs with air.

All of the turtlenecks turned to face the creature and fell to their knees, including Nothing, who calmly set Marcy aside and went into a full kowtow, his palms flat on the floor, his forehead pressed down onto his knuckles.

“Sssssso,” he hissed, “did the inssssolent creature deliver our prizesss?”

I recognized the voice from the telephone.

“Yes, my lord,” rumbled Nothing. “As promised and in plenty of time to move.”

“Did you sssstrike the bitch down?”

Nothing rocked back and then bowed again, somehow giving the impression that he was doing it more deeply. “She was clever enough to build safeguards into the meeting. I could not do so without attracting attention.”

Frogface hissed. “I will sssettle with the mortal another time,” he said. “Sssuch insssolence cannot be countenanced.”

“No, my lord.”

“Bring the new acquisitionsss. I will bind them.”

“They have been given drugs, my lord. The binding could damage them.”

Without looking particularly excited about it, Frogface kicked Nothing in the armpit. The blow was a more powerful one than Frogface’s frame would suggest he was capable of giving. It flung Nothing from his hands and knees and onto his side by main force.

“Bring them.”

“I obey,” wheezed Nothing. He rose unsteadily and went to pick up Will. He dropped the young werewolf onto the floor beside Marcy.

“Sssuch disgusssting thingsss, mortalsss,” Frogface murmured. His eyes lifted to Georgia in her cage. “She hasss not yet capitulated.”