Jim Butcher - Grave Peril

Someone lay in the piled clothing. Someone in a white shirt, a dark skirt, and a red cloak.

"Stars above," I swore. "Susan."

She groaned, faintly, as though very much asleep or drugged. I hunkered down and moved clothing off of her. "Hell's bells. Susan, don't try to sit up. Don't move. Let me see if you're hurt, okay?"

I ran my hands over her in the dimness. She seemed to be whole, not bleeding, but her skin was blazing with fever.

"I'm dizzy. Thirsty," she said.

"You've got a fever. Can you roll over here toward me?"

"The light. It hurts my eyes."

"It did mine too, when I woke up. It will pass."

"Don't," Justine whispered. She sat on her heels and rocked slowly back and forth. "You won't like it. You won't like it."

I glanced back at Justine as Susan turned toward me, and then looked down at my girlfriend. She looked back up to me, her features exhausted, confused. She blinked her eyes against the light, and lifted a slim, brown hand to shield her face.

I caught her hand halfway, and stared down at her.

Her eyes were black. All black. Black and staring, glittering, darker than pitch, with no white to them at all to distinguish them as human. My heart leapt up into my throat, and things began to spin faster around me.

"You won't like it," Justine intoned. "They changed her. The Red Court changed her. Bianca changed her."

"Dresden?" Susan whispered.

Dear God, I thought. This can't be happening.

"Mister Dresden? I'm so thirsty."

Susan let out a whimper and a groan, moving fitfully. By chance, her mouth brushed against my forearm, still stained with drying blood. She froze, completely, her whole body shuddering. She looked up at me with those dark, huge eyes, her face twisting with need. She moved toward my arm again, and I jerked it back from her mouth.

"Susan," I said. "Wait."

"What was that?" she whispered. "That was good." She shivered again and rolled to all fours, eyes slowly focusing on me.

I shot a glance toward Justine, but only saw her feet as she pulled them back to her, slipping back into the tiny space between the washing machine and the wall. I turned back to Susan, who was coming toward me, staring as though blind, on all fours.

I backed away from her, and fumbled out to my side with one hand. I found the bloodstained towel I'd been using before, and threw it at her. She stopped for a moment, staring, and then lowered her face with a groan, beginning to lick at the towel.

I scooted back on all fours, getting away from her, still dizzy. "Justine," I hissed. "What do we do?"

"There's nothing to do," Justine whispered. "We can't get out. She isn't herself. Once she kills, she'll be gone."

I flashed a glance at her over my shoulder. "Once she kills? What do you mean?"

Justine watched me with solemn eyes. "Once she kills. She's different. But she isn't quite like them until it's complete. Until she's killed someone feeding on them. That's the way the Reds work."

"So she's still Susan?"

Justine shrugged again, her expression disinterested. "Sort of."

"If I could talk to her, though. Get through to her. We could maybe snap her out of it?"

"I've never heard of it happening," Justine said. She shivered. "They stay like that. It gets worse and worse. Then they lose control and kill. And it's over."

I bit my lip. "There's got to be something."

"Kill her. She's still weak. Maybe we could, together. If we wait until she's further gone, until the hunger gives her strength, she'll take us both. That's why we're in here."

"No," I said. "I can't hurt her."

Something flickered in Justine's face when I spoke, though I couldn't decide whether it was something warm or something heated, angry. She closed her eyes and said, "Then maybe when she drinks you she'll die of the poison in you."

"Dammit. There's got to be something. Something else you can tell me."

Justine shrugged and shook her head, wearily. "We're already dead, Mister Dresden."

I clenched my teeth together and turned back to Susan. She kept licking at the towel, making frustrated, whimpering noises. She lifted her face to me and stared at me. I could have sworn I saw the bones of her cheeks and jaw stand out more harshly against her skin. Her eyes became drowning deep and pulled at me, beckoned to me to look deeper into that spinning, feverish darkness.

I jerked my eyes away before that gaze could trap me, my heart pounding, but it had already begun to fall away. Susan furrowed her brow in confusion for a moment, blinking her eyes, whatever dark power that had touched them fading, slipping unsteadily.

But even if that gaze hadn't trapped me, hadn't gone all the way over into hypnosis, it made something occur to me: Susan's memories of the soulgaze hadn't been removed. My godmother couldn't have touched those. I was such an idiot. When a mortal looks on something with the Sight, really looks , as a wizard may, the memories of what he sees are indelibly imprinted on him. And when a wizard looks into a person's eyes, it's just another way of using the Sight. A two-way use of it, because the person you look at gets to peer back at you, too.

Susan and I had soulgazed more than two years before. She'd tricked me into it. It was just after that she began pursuing me for stories more closely.

Lea couldn't have taken memories around a soulgaze. But she could have covered them up, somehow, misted them over. No practical difference, for the average person.

But, hell, I'm a wizard. I ain't average.

Susan and I had always been close, since we'd started dating. Intimate time together. The sharing of words, ideas, time, bodies. And that kind of intimacy creates a bond. A bond that I could perhaps use, to uncover fogged memories. To help bring Susan back to herself.

"Susan," I said, forcing my voice out sharp and clear. "Susan Rodriguez."

She shivered as I Named her, at least in part.

I licked my lips and moved towards her. "Susan. I want to help you. All right? I want to help you if I can."

She swallowed another whimper. "But I'm so thirsty. I can't."

I reached out as I approached her, and plucked a hair from her head. She didn't react to it, though she leaned closer to me, inhaling through her nose, letting out a slow moan on the exhale. She could smell my blood. I wasn't clear on how much of the toxin would be in my bloodstream, but I didn't want her to be hurt. No time to dawdle, Harry.

I took the hair and wound it about my right hand. It went around twice. I closed my fist over it, then grimaced, reaching out to grab Susan's left hand. I spat on my fingers and smoothed them over her palm, then pressed her hand to my fist. The bond, already something tenuously felt in any case, thrummed to life like a bass cello string, amplified by my spit upon her, by the hair in my own hands, the joining of our bodies where our flesh pressed together.

I closed my eyes. It hurt to try to draw in the magic. My weakened body shook. I reached for it, tried to piece together my will. I thought of all the times I'd had with Susan, all the things I'd never had the guts to tell her. I thought of her laugh, her smile, the way her mouth felt on mine, the smell of her shampoo in the shower, the press of her warmth against my back as we slept. I summoned up every memory I had of us together, and started trying to push it through the link between us.

The memories flowed down my arm, to her hand—and stopped, pressing against some misty and elastic barrier. Godmother's spell. I shoved harder at it, but its resistance only grew greater, more intense, the harder I pushed.

Susan whimpered, the sound lost, confused, hungry. She rose up onto her knees and pressed against me, leaning on me. She snuggled her mouth down against the hollow of my throat. I felt her tongue touch my skin, sending an electric jolt of lust flashing through me. Even close to death, hormones will out, I guess.