Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

Rawlins arched an eyebrow. “You ever handle any divorce negotiations?

I jerked my head at Mouse and said, “Come on. Before his brains unscramble.”

Rawlins fell into pace beside me. “Where are we going?”

I gave him the short version of what I’d done with the other three phages. “So now I track them, and make sure the guy who called them up is out of play.”

“Demons,” Rawlins said. “Wizards.” He shook his head.

“Look, man-”

He held up a hand. “No. I think about this too much and I won’t be any good to you. Don’t explain it. Don’t talk about it. Let me get through tonight and you can blow my mind all you want.”

“Cool,” I told him. “You got a car?”

“Yup.”

“Let’s go.”

We went outside and down the street to the nearest parking garage. Rawlins drove an old, blue station wagon. A bumper sticker on the back read my kid is too pretty to date your honor student.

Mouse let out a sudden warning growl. An engine raced. The dog flung his weight at my thigh and sent me slamming up against Rawlins’s station wagon. A van rushed at me in my peripheral vision, too fast for me to try to avoid. It missed me by less than six inches.

It didn’t miss Mouse. There was a meaty sound. The dog let out a bawl of pain. Brakes screeched.

I turned, furious and terrified, and the runes in my staff seethed with sudden Hellfire.

I had a split second to see Darby Crane swinging a tire iron. Then stars exploded in front of my eyes and the parking garage rotated ninety degrees. I saw Mouse, sprawled motionless on the concrete thirty feet away. Glau, Crane’s lawyer, stood beside the open driver’s door of the van, holding a gun on Rawlins.

See what I mean about head shots?

Fade to black.

I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache. I was pretty sure any light that got into my eyes would hurt like hell.

My nose was filled with scents. Old motor oil. Gasoline vapors. Dust. Something metallic and elusively familiar. I knew the smell, but I couldn’t place it.

I lay prostrate on some cold, hard surface-concrete, at a guess. My arms were held up above my head, my wrists bound in something cold that prickled with many tiny, sharp points. Thorn manacles, then. They were meant, along with the gag and blindfold, to keep me from using my magic. If I tried to start focusing my will, they would bite and freeze. I didn’t know where the damned things came from, but Crane wasn’t the first bad guy I’d met who kept a pair on hand. Maybe there’d been a sale.

I’d heard one person claim that they’d been invented by a two-thousand-year-old lunatic named Nicodemus, and I’d heard others claim they were of faerie make. Personally, I figured they were more likely a creation of the Red Court, materiel for their war with the Council. It would certainly be to their advantage to make sure as many people as possible had a set of restraints with no purpose but to render a mortal wizard helpless.

Hell, if I was in the Red Court, I’d be giving the things away like Halloween candy. It was a scary notion, and for more than one reason.

I was in trouble up to my eyebrows, but my nausea was severe enough that it took me several minutes of effort to care. Come on, Harry. You aren’t fighting your way clear of this. Use your head .

For starters, I was still alive, and that told me something all by itself. If Crane had wanted to kill me, he’d had all the time he would need to do it. He wouldn’t even have had to worry about the death curse a wizard could lay down on his enemies on his way into the hereafter. Unconscious wizards can’t throw curses. I was still breathing, which meant…

I swallowed. Which meant that he had other plans for me. It did not seem like a promising way to begin thinking my way clear.

I tried to say Rawlins’ name, but my tongue was being held in place by something, and it sounded like, “Lah-tha?”

“Here,” Rawlins replied, his tone very quiet. “How you doing?”

“La tha yahnah.”

“They got me cuffed to a wall,” he said. “My own damned cuffs, too, and they took my keys. I can’t get to you, man. Sorry.”

“Ooahahyee?”

“Where? Where are we?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yah.”

“Looks like an old auto workshop,” he replied. “Abandoned. Metal walls. Windows are painted over. Doors chained shut. Lots and lots of cobwebs.”

“Ooah lah kuh phruh?”

“The light? Big old shop lamp.”

“Ah eeoh heh?”

“Anyone here?” Rawlins asked.

“Yah.”

“Creepy little guy with fish lips. He won’t talk to me, even when I asked pretty please. He’s sitting in a chair about three feet from you pretending he’s a guard dog.”

Anger returned to me in full force, and made my head pound even harder. Glau. Glau’d been driving the van. Glau had killed my dog. Without consciously making the effort, I found myself reaching for my magic, for fire enough to cremate the little toad. The manacles became a frozen agony that wiped anything resembling thought from my head.

I bit down on the mouthpiece and forced myself to relax my will. I could not afford to allow my impulses to control me, or I’d never get out of this. There would come a time when I wouldn’t have to bite back on my emotions-but that time was not yet here.

Wait , I promised my anger. Wait. I need to think for now, to get clear of my captors .

And as soon as I did, Glau was going to have a real bad day.

I relaxed my will and the pain of the manacles faded. Patience, Harry. Patience.

A door creaked open and footsteps approached. A moment later, Crane’s voice murmured, “Awake, I see, Dresden. Your head must be as hard as everyone says. Mr. Glau, if you would be so kind?”

Someone fumbled at the hood over my face, and it withdrew along with the mouthpiece, and I could see that hood and gag were all of a piece. Charming. The mouthpiece had gripped my tongue with two little clamps. I spat the taste of metal out of my mouth, along with a little bit of blood. The hood and muzzle had torn my gums open in a couple of places.

I lay on my back, staring up at a corrugated metal ceiling, then looked around at a dim, ugly, forlorn-looking auto shop. The nagging sense of familiarity increased. The only doors leading out were chained shut and padlocked on the inside, and no keys were in sight.

Crane stood over me, looking down, smiling, as tall and dark and handsome as you please. My eyes went past him to Rawlins. The dark-skinned cop stood leaning against the wall, one wrist cuffed to a metal ring in a steel support beam. A bruise severe enough to show even on his dark skin covered one cheek entirely. Rawlins looked calm, remote, and unafraid. I was fairly sure it was only an act, but if so, it was a good one.

“Crane,” I said. “What do you want?”

He smiled a nasty smile. “To build the future,” he replied. “Networking is very important in my business.”

“Cut the crap and talk,” I said in a flat tone.

The smile vanished. “You would be wise not to anger me, wizard. You’re hardly in a position to make demands.”

“If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already.”

Crane let out a rueful laugh. “I suppose that’s true enough. I was going to finish you and drop you in the lake, but imagine my surprise when I made some calls and it turns out that you’re…”

“Infamous?” I suggested. “Tough? A good dancer?”