Jim Butcher - Changes

She’d already moved her hand halfway to the sword. As I touched her, touched our auras together, spreading my own defenses over hers, and felt the direct and violent strength of her own will to defy the immortal power brought against us, her hand flashed up to the hilt of Fidelacchius and drew the katana from its plain scabbard.

White light like nothing that ancient stadium had ever seen erupted from the sword’s blade, a bright agony that reminded me intensely of the crystalline plain. Howls of pain rose from around us, but were drowned by Murphy’s sudden, silvery cry, her voice swelling throughout the stadium and ringing off the vaults of the sky:

“False gods!” she cried, her blue eyes blazing as she stared at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night. “Pretenders! Usurpers of truth! Destroyers of faith, of families, of lives, of children! For your crimes against the Mayans, against the peoples of the world, now will you answer! Your time has come! Face judgment Almighty!”

I think I was the only one close enough to see the shock in her eyes, and I realized that it wasn’t Murphy speaking the words—but someone else speaking them through her.

Then she swept her sword in an arc, slashing the very air in front of us in a single, whistling stroke.

And the will of the Red King vanished. Gone.

The Red King let out a scream and clutched at his eyes. He screamed something, pointing in Murphy’s direction, and in the same instant the rest of my friends gasped and rocked in place, suddenly free.

Every golden mask turned toward my friend.

Bob! I cried. Go with her! Keep her free!

Wahoo! the skull said, and gold-orange light fell from my head toward Murphy and gathered about her blond hair, even as the joined wills of the Lords of Outer Night fell upon her, so thick and heavy that I was knocked away from her as if by a physical force. The very air around her warped with its intensity.

White light from the sword flowed down and over her, and her garments literally transformed, as if that light had flowed into them, become a part of them, turning night to day, black to white. She staggered to one knee and looked up, her jaw set in stubborn determination, her teeth bared, her blue eyes, through the distortion, blazing like fire in defiance of thirteen dark gods—and with one of the most powerful spirits I’d ever met gathered around her head in a glowing golden halo.

Murphy came to her feet with a shout and a smooth stroke of the sword. The Lords of Outer Night all reacted, jerking back as if they’d been struck a blow in the face. Several golden masks were ripped from their faces, as if the blow had physically touched them—and the molten presence of their joined wills was suddenly gone.

With a scream, the jaguar warriors, half-breed and vampire alike, surged toward Murphy.

She ducked the swing of a modern katana, shattered a traditional obsidian sword with a contemptuous sweep of Fidelacchius , and struck down the warrior wielding it with a precise horizontal cut.

But she was outnumbered. Not by dozens or scores, but by the hundreds, and the jaguar warriors immediately fanned out to come at her from several directions. They knew how to work together.

But then, so did Sanya and I.

Sanya came forward with Esperacchius , and as it joined the fray, it too kindled into blazing white light that seemed to lick out at the vampires, forcing them to duck, to slap at white sparks that danced in their eyes. His booted foot caught one jaguar warrior in the small of the back, and the raw power of the kick snapped the warrior’s head back with force enough to break his neck.

I followed Sanya in, unleashing a burst of freezing wind that took two warriors from their feet when they tried to flank Murphy from the other side.

She and Sanya went back-to-back, cutting down jaguar warriors with methodical efficiency for several seconds, as more and more of the enemy swarmed toward them. I kept slapping them away—not able to do any real harm, but preventing them from focusing overwhelming numbers on Murph and Sanya—but I could feel the fatigue setting in now. I couldn’t keep this up forever.

There were quick footsteps beside me, and then Molly pressed her back to mine. “You take that side!” she said. “I’ll take this one!”

DJ Molly C lifted both of her wands and turned the battle chaos to eleven.

Color and light and screaming sound erupted from those two little wands. Bands of light and darkness flowed around and over the oncoming jaguar warriors, fluttering images of bright sunshine intertwining with other images of yawning pits suddenly gaping before the feet of the attackers. Bursts of sound, shrieks and clashes and booms, and high-pitched noises like feedback on steroids sent the hyperkeen senses of full vampires into overload, literally forcing them back onto the weapons of those coming behind them.

Vampires staggered through the handiwork of the One-woman Rave, not stopped but slowed and stunned by the incredible field of sound and light.

“I love a good party,” Thomas shouted merrily, and he began to dance along the edges of Molly’s dance floor, his falcata whipping into the limbs and necks of the jaguar warriors as they wobbled forward, struck down before they could recover. I didn’t think anyone could have moved fast enough to catch them, but my brother evidently didn’t agree. He struck down the foe as they came for us, and he threw in a few dance moves along the way. The part he borrowed from break dancing, where a wave traveled up one arm and down the other, was particularly effective, aesthetically, when it was bracketed by his falcata beheading one vamp and his automatic blowing apart the skull of another.

The pressure of numbers increased, and Thomas started moving more swiftly, more desperately—until Mouse leapt in to help plug the leak in the dam of confusion that held the full power of the Red Court at bay.

I had my own side of the store to mind. Again I reached into the well of cold, ready power, and with a word blanketed the field before me in smooth, slick ice. Howling wind rose to greet any foe who stepped out onto the ice, forcing them to work around to the killing machine that was Sanya and Murphy, or else circle around to attempt an approach through Molly’s murderous light and sound show.

Someone touched my arm and I nearly roasted him without looking.

Martin flinched, as though he’d had a dodge ready to go if I had something for him. “Dresden!” he called. “Look!”

I looked. Up on the little temple at the end of the ball court, the Lords of Outer Night and the Red King were standing in a circle, and they were all gathering magical power—probably from one of the bloody ley lines, to boot. Whatever they were going to do, I had a bad feeling that I was reaching the very end of my bag of tricks.

I heard booted feet and saw the mortal security guards lining up along the sides of the stadium, rifles at the ready. When they were in position they would open fire, and the simple fact was that if they piled enough rounds into us, we would go down.

Who was I kidding?

I couldn’t keep the field of ice and wind together for very long. And I knew Molly couldn’t maintain her Rave at that intensity for long, either. Dozens of jaguar warriors had fallen, but that meant little. Their numbers had not been diminished by any significant measure.

We could fight as hard as we wanted—but despite everything, in the end it was going to be futile. We were never getting out of that stadium.

But we had to try.

“Lea!” I screamed.

“Yes, child?” she asked, her tone pleasant and conversational. I could still hear her perfectly clearly. Neat trick.

“The king and his jokers are about to hit us with something big.”