Jim Butcher - White Night

And then I thought that I'd had enough will to wonder about something, rather than just being crushed and suffocated by despair and terror. Maybe that was how I was reacting to my imminent death: with denial and escapist self-induced hallucinations.

"Not precisely, my host," came Lasciel's voice.

I blinked, which was a lot more voluntary movement than I'd had a second before. I tried to look around.

"Don't try," Lasciel said, her voice a little alarmed. "You could harm yourself."

What the hell. Had she somehow slowed down time?

"Time does not exist," she said, her tone firm. "Not the way you consider it, at any rate. I have temporarily accelerated the processes of your mind."

The stopwatch thud-thumped again: 1:32.

Accelerating my brain. That made more sense. After all, we all use only about ten percent of our brain's capacity, anyway. There was no reason it couldn't handle a lot more activity. Well, except that…

"Yes," she said. "It is dangerous, and I cannot maintain this level of activity for very long before it begins inflicting permanent damage."

I presumed that Lasciel was about to make me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Her voice became sharp, angry. "Don't be a fool, my host. If you perish, I perish. I simply seek to give you an option that might enable us to survive."

Right. And by some odd coincidence, might that option just happen to involve the coin in my basement?

"Why do you continue to be so stubborn about this, my host?" Lasciel demanded, her voice tight with frustration. "Taking up the coin would not enslave you. It would not impede your ability to choose for yourself."

Not at first, no. But it would finish up with me enslaved to the true Lasciel, and she knew it.

"Not necessarily," she said. There was a tone of pleading to her voice. "Accommodations can be reached. Compromises made."

Sure, if I'm willing to go along with her every plan, I'm sure she'd be quite agreeable.

"But you would be alive," Lasciel cried.

It didn't matter, given that the coin was buried in the stone under my lab anyway.

"Not an obstacle, my host. I can teach you how to call it to you within a few seconds."

Thud-thump : 1:31.

A thud from behind me. Footsteps. The ghouls. They were coming. I could see part of Marcone's face, twisted in agony under Vittorio Malvora's psychic assault.

"Please," Lasciel said. "Please, let me help you. I don't want to die."

I didn't want to die, either.

I closed my eyes for another second.

Thud-thump : 1:30.

It took an effort of will, and what seemed like several moments of effort, but I managed to whisper aloud, "No."

"But you will die," Lasciel said, her voice anguished.

It was going to happen sooner or later. But it didn't have to be tonight.

"Then quickly! First, you must picture the coin in your mind. I can help you—"

Not like that. She could help me.

Silence.

Thud-thump : 1:29.

"I can't," she whispered.

I thought she could.

"I can't," she replied, her voice anguished. "She would never forgive that. Never accept me back into her… just take the coin. Harry, just take the coin. P-please."

I gritted my teeth.

Thud-thump : 1:28.

Again, I said, "No."

"I can't do this for you!"

Untrue. She'd already partially shielded me from the effects of Malvora's attack. The situation was simple, for her: She could do more of what she'd already done. Or she could stand by and do nothing. It was her choice.

Lasciel appeared in front of me for the first time, on her hands and knees. She looked… odd. Too thin, her eyes too sunken. She had always looked strong, healthy, and confident. Now, her hair was a wreck, her face twisted with pain, and…

… and she was crying. She looked blotchy, and she needed a tissue. Her hands touched either side of my face.

"It could hurt you. It could inflict brain damage. Do you understand what that could mean, Harry?"

Never can tell. It might be nice to have brain damage. I already liked Jell-O. And maybe they'd have cable TV at whatever home they wound up sticking me in. Either way, it would be better than having my brains scooped out by ghouls.

Lasciel stared at me for a moment and then let out a choking little laugh. "It's your brother. Your friends. That's why."

If frying my brain got Murphy, Ramirez, Thomas, and Justine out of the mess I'd gotten them into, it would be worth it.

She stared at me for another long moment.

Thud-thump : 1:27.

Then a look of almost childish resentment came over her face, and she looked over one shoulder before turning back to me. "I…" She shook her head and said, very softly, wonderingly, "She… doesn't deserve you."

Deserved or not, the fallen angel wasn't getting me. Not ever.

Lasciel squared her shoulders and straightened. "You're right," she said. "It is my choice. Listen to me." She leaned closer, her eyes intent. "Vittorio has been given power. That is how he can do this. He is possessed."

I wished I could have raised my eyebrows. Possessed by what?

"An Outsider," Lasciel said. "I have felt such a presence before. This attack is drawn directly from the mind of the Outsider."

Gosh, that was interesting. Not relevant, but interesting.

"It is relevant," Lasciel said, "because of the circumstances of your birth—because of why you were born, Harry. Your mother found the strength to escape Lord Raith for a reason."

What the hell was she talking about?

Thud-thump : 1:26.

"There was a complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances that would have given a child born under them the potential to wield power over Outsiders."

Which didn't make any sense. Outsiders were all but immune to magic. It took power garnered only from centuries of study and practice, wielded by the most powerful wizards on the planet, even to slow them down.

"Strange, then, don't you think, that you defeated one when you were sixteen years old?"

What? Since when? The only serious victory I'd had over a spiritual entity when I was that young had been when my old master had sent an assassin demon after me. It hadn't turned out the way DuMorne had been hoping.

Lasciel leaned closer. "He Who Walks Behind is an Outsider, Harry. A terrible creature, the most potent of the Walkers, a powerful knight among their ruling entities. But when he came for you, you overthrew him."

True. I had. It was all still a little blurry, but I remembered the end of the fight well enough. Lots and lots of kaboom, and then no more demon. And there was a burning building.

Thud-thump : 1:25.

"Listen," Lasciel said, giving my head a little shake. "You have the potential to hold great power over them. You may be able to escape the power now held over you. If you are sure it is what you want, I can give you an opportunity to defy Malvora's sending. But you'll have to hurry. I don't know how long it will take to throw it off, and they are almost upon you."

After which, we were going to have a long talk about my mother and these Outsiders and their relation to the Black Court and exactly what the hell was going on.

Lasciel—Lash, rather—nodded once and said, "I will tell you all that I can, Harry."

Then she rose and stepped past me and toward the oncoming ghouls and Vitto Malvora. Her clothes made a slow, soft rustle as she stepped away from me, and Marcone's stopwatch went thud —

Tick, tick, tick…

For just a second, no more than a heartbeat or two, I remained impaled on that horrible pike of psychic anguish. Then an odd sensation fell over me, and I don't know precisely how to describe it, except to say that it felt like stepping from brutal, burning sunlight into a sudden, deep shadow. Then that horrible pain eased—not much, but enough to let me suddenly move my arms and my head, enough to know that I could act.