Jim Butcher - Changes

The energy involved had been enormous, and as I was bounced up about a foot into the air, I was hit with the wave of exhaustion that came along with it. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Technically, I was only channeling and rearranging forces that were already in existence and motion, not creating them from my will, or I could never have managed to affect an area so big, and to do it so violently. But believe you me, it was still hard.

I was thrown several inches up along with everything and everyone else that wasn’t secured. I landed with only one foot beneath me, so I dropped to one knee, catching myself on my hands. Panting, I looked up to see the results of the spell.

A couple of acres of flat, dead, and a few horribly wounded and dying vampires lay strewn about like so many crushed ants, and standing over them, each in a combat pose, as if ready to keep on swinging, were the friends I had sent running ahead, entirely unaffected.

“Good,” I said, panting. “That’s enough, kid.”

I heard Molly, several feet behind me, let out a sigh of relief herself, and the lights and shining auras vanished from the three figures wielding a Sword.

“Well-done, little one,” the Leanansidhe said, and as she spoke the five figures themselves vanished. “A most credible illusion. It is always the little touches of truth that make for the most potent deceptions.”

“Well, you know,” Molly said, sounding a little flustered. “I just watched my dad a few times.”

Mouse stayed close at my side. His head was turned to the right, focused upon the trees and the darkness that way. A growl I felt more than heard came from deep in his chest.

Susan stepped up to my side and looked at the crushed vampires with undisguised satisfaction, but frowned. “ Esclavos de sangre ,” she said.

“Yes,” said Martin from somewhere behind me.

“What?” I asked.

“Blood slaves,” Susan said to me. “Vampires who have gone entirely feral. They can’t create a flesh mask. They’re almost animals. Scum.”

“Cannon fodder,” I said, forcing my lungs to start taking slower, deeper breaths. “A crowd of scum at a top-end Red Court function.”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out why they’d been there. Mouse’s interest in whatever it was he sensed in the trees was deepening. “The Red Court was expecting company.”

“Yes,” Susan said, her voice tight.

Well. Nothing’s ever simple, is it?

That changed everything. A surprise raid upon an unsuspecting, unprepared target was one thing. Trying to simply kick in the teeth of a fully armed and ready Red Court obviously expecting someone with my firepower was something else entirely. Namely, sheer stupidity.

So.

I had to change the game and change it fast.

A gong began to clash slowly, a monstrous thing, the metallic roar of its voice something low and harsh that reminded me inexplicably of the roar Martin had produced earlier. The tension got thicker, and except for the sounds of the drum and the gong, there were no other noises, not of the creatures of the jungle or any other kind.

The quiet was far more terrifying than the noise had been.

“They’re out there,” I said quietly. “They’re moving right now.”

“Yes,” said Lea, who had suddenly appeared at my left side, opposite Mouse. Her voice was very calm, and her feline eyes roamed the night, bright and interested. “That mob of trash was merely a distraction. Our own tactic used against us.” Her eyes narrowed. “They are employing veils to hide themselves—and they are quite skilled.”

“Molly,” I said.

“On it, boss,” she replied.

“Our distraction was an illusion. It didn’t cost us any lives,” Murphy pointed out.

“Neither did theirs, from their perspective, Sergeant,” Martin said. “Creatures who cannot control themselves are of no use to the Red King, after all. Their deaths simply reduced the number of useless, parasitic mouths he had to feed. He may think of humans as a commodity, but he’d rather not throw that wealth away.”

“Harry?” Murphy asked. “Can you do that anvil thing again?”

“Hell. I’m sorta surprised I got away with it the first time. Never done anything with that much voltage.” I closed my eyes for a second and began to reach down for the ley line again—and my brain contorted. Thoughts turned into a harsh explosion of images and memories that left long lacerations on the inside of my skull, and even after I had moved my mind away from those images, it took several seconds before I could open my eyes again. “No,” I croaked. “No, that isn’t an option. Even if they gave me enough time to pull it off.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Thomas asked. He held a large pistol in his left hand, his falcata in his right, and stood at my back, facing the darkness behind us. “Stand here until they swarm us?”

“We’re going to show them how much it will cost to take us down,” I said. “How’s it coming, padawan?”

Molly let out a slow, thoughtful breath. Then she lifted one pale hand, rotated an extended finger in a circle around us, and murmured, “Hireki.”

I felt the subtle surge of her will wash out and drew in my own as it did. The word my apprentice whispered seemed to flow out from her in an enormous circle, leaving visible signs of its passing. It fluttered leaves and blades of grass, stirred small stones—and, as it continued, it washed over several shapes out in the night that rippled and became solid black outlines, where before there was only indistinct darkness and shadow.

“Not all that skilled,” Molly said, panting, satisfaction in her voice.

“Fuego!” I snarled, and threw a small comet of fire from my right hand. It sailed forth with a howling whistle of superheated air and smashed into the nearest of the shadowed forms, less than a dozen yards away. Fire leapt up, and a vampire screamed in rage and pain and began retreating through the trees.

“Infriga!” I barked, and made a ripping gesture with my left hand. I tore the fire from the stricken vampire—and then some. I sent the resulting fireball skipping over to the next form—and left the first target as a block of ice where the damp jungle air had emptied its water over the vampire’s body and locked it into place, rigid and very slightly luminous with the residue of the cold energy I felt in me, the gift of Queen Mab. Which was just as well—there were a dozen closing attackers in my immediate field of vision alone, which meant another fifty or sixty of them if they were circling in from all around us, plus the ones I couldn’t see, who may have employed more mundane techniques of stealth to avoid the eye.

I wanted them to see what I could do.

The second vampire fell as easily as the first, as did the third, and only then did I say quietly, “One bullet apiece, Martin.”

Martin’s silenced pistol coughed three times, and the slightly glowing forms of the ice-enclosed vampires shattered into several dozen pieces each, falling to the ground where the luminous energy of Winter began to bleed slowly away, along with the ice-riddled flesh.

They got the point. The vampires stopped advancing. The jungle became still.

“Fire and ice,” murmured the Leanansidhe. “Excellent, my godson. Anyone can play with an element. Few can manipulate opposites with such ease.”

“Sort of the idea,” I said. “Back me up.”

“Of course,” Lea said.

I stepped forward and slightly apart from the others and lifted my hands. “Arianna!” I shouted, and my voice boomed as though I’d been holding a microphone and using speakers the size of refrigerators. It was something of a surprise, and I looked over my shoulder to see my godmother smiling calmly.