Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

“Oh. Right.” I shook my head. “But this whole place is open territory. There’s no threshold to use to anchor anything heavier than a web. At least if I do that much, maybe I can get into position fast enough to directly intervene when the thing shows up again.”

“Things,” Bob corrected me. “Plural. Phages are like ants. First one shows up, then two, then a hundred.”

I exhaled. “Crap,” I said. “Maybe we can come at this from a different angle. Is there any way I can redirect them while they’re crossing over? Make it harder for them to get here?”

Bob’s eyelights brightened. “Maybe. Maybe, yes. You might be able to raise a veil over this whole place-from the other side.”

“Urk,” I said. “You’re saying I could hide this place from the phages, but only from the Nevernever?”

“Pretty much,” Bob said. “Even then, it would be a calculated risk.”

“How so?”

“It all depends on how they’re finding this place,” Bob said. “I mean, if these are just naturally arriving phages finding a hunting ground, a veil won’t stop them. It might slow them down, but it won’t stop them.”

“Let’s assume that it isn’t a coincidence,” I said.

“Okay. Assuming that, the next variable is finding out whether they’re being summoned or sent.”

I frowned. “There are things strong enough to send them through from the other side? I didn’t think that ever happened anymore. Hence the popularity of working through mortal summoners.”

“Oh, it’s doable,” Bob assured me. “It just takes a hell of a lot more juice to open the way to the mortal world from the other side.”

I frowned. “How much power are we talking?”

“Big,” Bob assured me. “Like the Erlking, or an archangel, or one of the old gods.”

I got a shivery feeling in my stomach. “A Faerie Queen?”

“Oh, sure. I guess so.” He frowned. “You think this is Faerie work?”

“Something is definitely screwy in elfland,” I said. “More so than normal, I mean.”

Bob made a gulping sound. “Oh. We’re not going to go visiting the faeries or anything, are we?”

“Not if I can help it,” I said. “I wouldn’t take you with me, if it came to that.”

“Oh,” he sighed. “Good.”

“One of these days, you’re gonna have to tell me what you did to make Mab want to kill you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bob said, in that tone of voice you use while sweeping things under the rug. “But we should also consider the third possibility.”

“A summoner,” I said. “Given that someone actually threw a ward in my way the last time the phage showed up, that seems to be the most likely of the three.”

“I think so, too,” Bob said. “In which case, you’re in trouble.”

I grunted, and started unpacking candles, matches, and my old army-surplus knife. “Why?”

“Without a threshold to build on, you can’t put up any proper defense. And even if you do cross over and set up a veil to try to keep the phages from finding the place…”

“Their summoner is going to draw them in,” I finished, following the line of reasoning. “It’s like… I could blanket the surrounding area in fog, but if they have someone on this end, the phages will have a beacon they can use to home in on the hotel.”

“Right,” Bob said. “And then the summoner just opens the door from his side, and they’re in.”

I frowned and said, “It’s all about finding the summoner, then.”

“Which you can’t do, until they actually summon something,” Bob said.

“Hell’s bells,” I complained. “There’s got to be something we can do to prevent it.”

“Not especially,” Bob said. “Sorry, boss. Until you know more, you can’t do anything but react.”

I scowled. “Dammit. Then it’s the web or nothing. At least if I use that, I might be able to identify the summoner.” At the low, low cost of the phages mauling or killing someone else. Unless…

“Bob,” I said, frowning over the idea. “What if I didn’t try to hide the hotel or keep these things away. What if I, uh… just put a little topspin on the phages on the way in?”

Bob’s eyelights brightened even more. “Ooooooo, classic White Council doctrine. When the phages come through, you point them straight at the guy who summoned them. Give him a dose of his own medicine.”

“Right up the ass,” I confirmed.

“There’s an image,” Bob said. “A summoning suppository.”

“It’s doable, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Bob said. “I mean, you have everything you need for that. You know the phages are after fear, and that they’re probably using his power as a beacon. Your web tells you something is stirring. You conjure up a big ball of fear, target the same beacon the phages are using, and let it fly.”

“It’ll be like hanging a steak around his neck and throwing him to the lions,” I said, grinning.

“Hail Caesar,” Bob confirmed. “The phages will go right after him.”

“And once he’s out of the game, I veil the hotel from the phages. No more convention attendees get hurt. Bad guy gets a lethal dose of dramatic irony.”

“The good guys win!” Bob cheered. “Or at least you do. You’re still a good guy, right? You know how confusing the whole good-evil concept is for me.”

“I’m thinking about changing it to ‘them’ and ‘us,’ for simplicity’s sake,” I said. “I like this plan. So there’s got to be a catch to it somewhere.”

“True,” Bob admitted. “It’s gonna be a little tricky when it comes to the timing. You won’t be able to sense the beacon until the phages actually step through from the Nevernever and take material form. If you haven’t redirected them by then, it’ll be too late.”

I nodded, frowning. “That gives me what? Maybe twenty seconds?”

“Only if they’re really lame,” Bob said. “Probably ten seconds. Maybe even less.”

I frowned. “Dammit, that’s a small window.” I thought of another problem. “Not only that, but I’ll be shooting blind. There won’t be any way to tell who I’m setting the phages after. What if he’s standing in a crowd?”

“He’s going to be summoning fiends from the netherworld to wreak horror and death on the populace,” Bob pointed out in a patient voice. “That won’t lend itself to blending into a crowd.”

“Good point. He’ll probably be somewhere private, quiet.” I shook my head. “Even so, I’d be a lot happier if this was a little less dicey. But I don’t see any other way to stop these things from hurting anyone else.”

“Until we have more information, I don’t see what else you could do, boss.”

I grunted. “I’d better get this web up and running, then.”

Mouse’s collar tag clinked against the buckle, and I looked over my shoulder. The dog had lifted his head from the floor, staring intently at the door. A second later, someone knocked.

Mouse hadn’t started growling, and his tail thumped the wall a few times as I went to the door, sounding the all-clear. “That was fast,” I said, opening the door. “I thought you were going to be half an hour, Murph-”

Molly stood in the hallway, an overnight bag hung over her shoulder. She drooped, the way my house plants always used to when I was still optimistic enough to keep buying new ones. Her pink-and-blue hair hung down listlessly, and her cheeks were marked with the remains of several mascara-laden tear tracks. She looked rumpled, tired, uncertain, and lonely-

“Hi,” she said. Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

“Hey,” I told her. “I thought you were waiting for your mom.”

“I was,” she said. “I am. But… I’m kind of messed up.” She waved her hand gingerly at herself. “I wanted to clean up a little, but they won’t let me use the bathroom in Nelson’s room. I was hoping I could borrow yours. Just for a minute.”