Jim Butcher - Dresden files:Side jobs

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."

"No, my lord," Nothing muttered.

"Interesssting," Frogface said, and a leer spread over his broad mouth. "When we arrive, transport her to my chambers. We will sssee what is left of her ssstrength when the ssspawn is taken from her womb."

Jesus, men can be assholes. Even when they're barely human. Frogface was officially elected.

Georgia shuddered. She lifted her head, very slowly, as if it had been held down with vast weights-and the glare she turned on Frogface was nothing less than murderous.

Frogface chuckled at the expression and turned to face Will and Marcy. He dipped his fingers into a pouch that hung around his neck, almost invisible against his leathery skin, and withdrew what looked like a small seashell from it. He leered at the motionless Marcy and said, "Firssst, the female."

He closed his eyes and made a low sound in his throat, then began chanting words that bubbled and gobbled out from between his rubbery lips.

Now I've got you, I thought to myself, and sighted the gun on Frogface's rubbery lips. I didn't have Dresden's knowledge of magic, but I knew any wizard was vulnerable when they began working forces, the way Frogface was doing. The concentration needed was intense. If I'd understood Dresden correctly, it would mean that Frogface would have to be focusing his entire attention on his spell-leaving nothing remaining for defending his sallow hide.

The air began to shimmer around Frogface's hands, and fine, slithering tendrils emerged from the brightly colored shell and began to drift down toward Marcy, a cloud of tendrils as fine as a cobweb.

Certain now of my target, I breathed, held it, and squeezed the trigger.

Say what you like about the Belgians. They can make some fine weaponry.

The silenced P-90 barely whispered when the burst of automatic fire erupted from the end of the suppressor. There was no flash, no thunder-just a soft, wheezing sound and the click of the gun's action cycling. Thanks to the subsonic ammunition, the discharge itself actually made less noise than the rounds striking Frogface's skull.

There were several wet, loud cracking sounds, and every one of the rounds I'd fired struck home. One round would have been messy enough. When half a dozen of them hit, Frogface's head quite literally exploded, shattered to pulp and shards of bone by the bullets' impact, and two-thirds of his skull, from the upper lip on up, simply vanished into green-blooded spray.

There was a flash of angry red light from the seashell. Frogface let out a high-pitched, tinny scream, and the near-headless body began to topple, thrashing wildly.

The turtlenecks all came to their feet, looking around in wide-eyed confusion. My weapon had given them absolutely no clue as to where the attack had come from. I sighted in on Nothing, but from my angle, any rounds that went through him would threaten Will and a caged prisoner, beyond him.

I shifted targets, settling the red crosshairs on another turtleneck standing just past Will. I squeezed off another whispering burst of a half-dozen or so rounds, and the creature's neck exploded into a cloud of scarlet gore the consistency of mucus. It went limp, settling to the floor like a deflating balloon.