Jim Butcher - Proven Guilty

“So was my Dad,” Thomas said. “And look how that turned out.”

“Then give me the sword and I’ll do it myself. I’m not leaving her.”

Lea made a sudden choking sound.

I frowned at her. Her eyes bugged out and her face contorted with apparent pain. Her mouth moved, lush lips writhing, twisting. A bestial grunt jerked out of her throat every second or two. The fingers of her freed hand arched into a claw. Then she suddenly sagged, and when she turned her eyes back to me, they were my godmother’s again; one part lust, one part cool, feline indifference, one part merciless predator.

“Child,” she said. Her voice was weak. “You must not free me.”

I stared at her, feeling confused. “Why?”

She gritted her teeth and said, “I cannot yet be trusted. It is not time. I would not be able to fulfill my promise to your mother, should you free me now. You must leave.”

“Trusted?” I asked.

“No time,” she said, voice strained again. “I cannot long keep it from taking hold of…” She shuddered and lowered her head. She lifted her face to me a few seconds later, and the madness had returned to her eyes. “Wait,” she rasped. “I have reconsidered. Free me.”

I traded a look with Thomas, and we both took a cautious step backward.

Lea’s face twisted up with rage and she let out a howl that shook icicles from their positions. “ Release me !”

“What the hell is going on here?” Thomas asked me.

“Uh,” I told him. “I’ll get back to you after we get out of Dodge.”

Thomas nodded and we both hurried toward the stairs. I glanced back over my shoulder, once. The fountain was already building itself up again, freezing water to ice. A thin sheet of it already covered my godmother. I shuddered and looked away, directly at the delirious Lloyd Slate. My footsteps quickened even more.

And then, just as I was leaving, only for an instant, I thought I saw one more thing. The triangle of statues of Sidhe noblewomen caught a stray beam of moonlight, while thin clouds made it jump and shift. In that uncertain light, I saw one of the statues move. It turned its head toward me as I left, and the white marble of its eyes was suddenly suffused with emerald green the same color as Mab’s eyes.

Not just the same color.

Mab’s eyes.

The statue winked at me.

The sounds of the approaching fae grew even louder, reminding me that I had no time to investigate. So I shivered and hurried down the stairs beside Thomas, leaving the parapet and its prisoners and-perhaps-its mistress behind me. I had to focus on getting us back to Lily’s rift in one piece, so I forced all such questions from my mind for the time being.

The four of us were slogging through snow up to my knees a few moments later, while I spent the last reserves of power I’d taken from Lily’s butterfly to keep us from going into hypothermia.

I took the lead and ran for the rift as a nightmarish symphony of wails and horns and howls closed in all around us.

Shielded by the good graces of Summer, we fled Arctis Tor. The winds outside howled louder, kicking up increasingly intense clouds of mist, snow, and ice. Beyond the wind, still vague but growing slowly more clear and immediate, I could hear the cries of things that thrived in the dark and the cold. I heard drums and horns, wild and savage and inspiring the kind of terror that has nothing to do with thought, and everything to do with instinct.

I heard the cry of the Erlking’s personal horn, unmistakable for any other such instrument.

I traded a quick glance with Thomas, who grimaced at me. “Keep moving!” he called.

“Duh,” I grunted.

Immediately behind me, Murphy panted, “What was that about?”

“Erlking,” I told her. “Big-time bad guy. Wants to eat me.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Well. I met him,” I said.

“Ag,” Murph said. Even with her labored breathing, the nonword managed to be dry. “Last October?”

“Yeah. He thinks I insulted him.”

“You’re never mouthy, Harry. Must have been someone who looks like you.” She grimaced and clutched at her belt, her balance wavering. There was a long, open slice in the tough leather, where a claw or blade had nearly struck home. The belt gave way, and the oversized mail she wore flopped down, binding her legs, almost tripping her. “Dammit.”

“Hold up,” I called before Murphy could fall down, and we all staggered to a halt. Molly all but dropped into the snow.

“We can’t stand around like this!” Thomas called.

“Charity, Murph, we’ve got to travel as light as we can. Ditch the armor.” I ripped off my duster and wriggled like an eel to get out of my own mail. Then I tossed it at Thomas.

“Hey!” he said, and scowled.

“Don’t leave it on the ground,” I said. “Thomas, carry it.”

“What?” he demanded. “Why?”

“You’re strong enough that it won’t slow you down,” I said, and got my coat back on. “And we don’t dare leave this much iron lying on the ground here.”

“Why not?”

I saw Murphy get out of her gear, and turn to support Molly so Charity could, too. “Would you want visitors leaving radioactive waste around behind them when they left your place?”

“Oh,” he said. “Good point. Because we wouldn’t want to get them mad at us.” He started rolling the mail into a bundle, which he tied into a rough lump with a belt, and slung it over his shoulder.

Howls and wails and horn cries grew louder, though now all to our flanks and the rear. Somehow, in the gale of snow and wind, we had slipped out of the noose the encircling forces had formed around us. If we kept moving, we stood a real chance of getting away clean.

“This entire field trip isn’t what we were meant to think it was,” I told him. “We’ve been used.”

“What? How?”

“Later. Now carry the damn armor, and don’t leave anything lying behind. Move.” The little flutter of Summer fire left in me began to waver, and for a second the wind gained frozen teeth sharp enough to sink all the way into my vitals. “Move!”

I started slogging through the snow again, doing my best to break a path for those coming behind me. Time went by. Wind howled. The snow slashed at my face, and the Summer fire sank to low embers that would not last much longer. They fluttered and faded at almost the precise moment I sensed a rippling of magical energy nearby, and got a whiff of stale popcorn.

The rift shone in the air thirty yards up the slope.

Things, big shaggy things with white fur and long claws, emerged from the snows behind us, running as lightly over the snow and ice as if it had been a concrete sidewalk.

“Thomas!” I pointed at the oncoming threat. “Murph, Charity! You get the girl out of here. Move!”

Murphy looked back and her eyes widened. She immediately ducked under Molly’s other arm and began to help Charity. Charity staggered for a step, then drew the sword from her belt and thrust it into the snow at my feet, before redoubling her efforts to get Molly over those last few yards.

I transferred my staff to my left hand and took the deadly iron in my right. The last bit of the power Lily loaned me played out, and I didn’t have enough magic left in me to light a candle, much less throw around fire or even use my shield. This was going to be about steel and speed and skill, now, purely physical. Which meant that I probably would have gotten myself quickly killed if Charity hadn’t thought fast and armed me with iron.

As things stood, my brother and I only needed to hold the oncoming yeti-looking things off until the ladies escaped. We didn’t have to actually beat them.