Jim Butcher - Blood Rites

"Christ, Dresden. We don't have time to wander around the woods in the dark hoping to smell our way to the cave. Isn't there some way you could find it?"

"With magic? Iffy. I'm not sure what I would do to look for a cave."

Murphy frowned. "Then this is stupid," she said. "We'd be smarter to back off and come back with help and light. You could defend yourself against this curse, couldn't you?"

"Maybe," I said. "But that last one came in awfully strong and fast, and it changes everything. I can swing at a slow-pitch softball and hit it every time. Not even the best hitter can hit five hundred against major-league pitching."

"How did they do it?" she asked.

"Blood sacrifice," I said. "Has to be. Raith is involved with the ritual now." My voice twisted with bitter anger. "He's got experience using it. He's got Thomas now, which means he isn't going to target him with the curse. Raith's going to bleed him to help kill me. The only chance Thomas has is for me to stop the curse."

Murphy sucked in a breath. She hopped off the bike and drew her gun, holding it down by her leg. "Oh. You circle left and I'll circle right and we'll sniff for the cave, then."

"Argh, I'm an idiot," I said. I leaned my still-glowing staff against the bike and jerked the silver amulet off my neck. "My mother left this to me. Thomas has one like it. She had forged a link between them so that when one of us was touching both of them we got a… sort of a psychic voice mail."

"Meaning what?" Murphy asked.

I twisted the chain around the index finger of my burned hand, letting it dangle. "Meaning I can use that link to find the other amulet again."

"If he has it," Murphy said.

"He will," I said. "After last night, he won't take it off."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know it," I said. I held my right hand palm up and tried to focus upon it. I found the link, the channel through which my mother's latent enchantment had contacted Thomas and me, and I poured some of my will into it, trying to spread it out. "Because I believe it."

The amulet quivered on its string and then leaned out toward the night to our left.

"Stay close," I said, and turned in that direction. "Okay, Murph?"

There was no answer.

My instincts clamored in alarm. I dropped my concentration and looked around, but Murphy was nowhere in sight.

Directly behind me there was a muffled sound, and I turned to find Lord Raith standing there with an arm around Murphy's neck, covering her mouth and with a knife pressed up hard against her ribs. He was wearing all black this time, and in the autumn moonlight he looked like little more than a shadow, a pale and grinning skull, and a very large knife.

"Good evening, Mister Dresden."

"Raith," I said.

"Put the staff down. Amulet too. And the bracelet." He pressed the knife and Murphy sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. "Now."

Dammit. I dropped the bracelet, the staff, and my amulet to the grass.

"Excellent," Raith said. "You were right about Thomas keeping his amulet with him. I found it around his neck when I was cutting his shirt off to have him chained down. I was fairly certain that you would judge such an obviously linked item to be too hazardous to employ in any location magic, but on the off chance I was wrong, I kept my own location spell going. I've been watching you since you arrived."

"You must feel smug and self-satisfied. Are you getting to a point?" I asked.

"Absolutely," he said. "Kneel and place your hands behind your back."

The remaining Bodyguard Barbie appeared. She had a set of prisoner's shackles.

"What if I don't?" I asked.

Raith shrugged and shoved an inch of knife between Murphy's ribs. She bucked in sudden, startled pain.

"Wait!" I said. "Wait, wait! I'm doing it."

I knelt, put my hands behind my back, and Bodyguard Barbie hooked steel links to my wrists and ankles.

"That's better," Raith said. "To your feet, wizard. I'm going to show you the Deeps."

"Kill me with that entropy curse from point-blank range, eh?" I said.

"Precisely," Raith responded.

"Gaining you what?" I asked.

"Immense personal satisfaction," he said.

"Funny," I said. "For a guy warded against magic, you seemed to want to get rid of my gear pretty bad."

"This is a new shirt," he said with a smile. "And besides, can't have you killing the help-or Thomas-to spite me."

"Funny," I said. "You seem to be a lot of talk and not much do. I've heard about all kinds of things you are capable of. Enslaving women you feed on. Killing with a kiss. Superhuman badassedness. But you aren't doing any of it."

Raith's mouth set into a snarl.

"The White Council has taken a few shots at you, but when they quit you didn't go gunning for anyone," I continued. "And hey, what with you being invincible and all, there's got to be a reason for that. You must have been approached by others. I bet you got some pretty juicy offers. And I just can't square that with someone who allows a tart like Trixie Vixen to snap at him over the phone like she did to you today."

Raith's white face went whiter with rage. "I would not say such things were I in your position, wizard."

"You're going to kill me anyway," I said. "Hell, you've pretty much got to. I mean, we're at war, after all, and there you are all immune to magic. Must be a lot of pressure from the Reds for the White Court to get off its ass and do something. Makes you wonder why you didn't just wham, kiss-of-death me back there. Maybe get it on tape or something so you could show it off. Or hell, why you haven't socked the kiss of death on Murphy there just to shut me up."

"Is that what you want to see, wizard?" Raith said, his tone threatening.

I smiled at Raith's threat, and said, my tone a schoolyard singsong, "Lord Raith and Murphy, sitting in a tree, not K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Raith clutched harder at Murphy's throat, and she arched her back, gasping, " Dresden. "

I subsided with the chant, but I didn't let up. "See, immune to getting hurt is one thing," I said. "But I'm thinking my mother's death curse hit you where it hurt-a while later. There's a parasite called a tick. Lives in the Ozarks. And it is nigh invulnerable," I said. "But it isn't unkillable. Hard to squash, sure. But it can still be pierced with the right weapon. Or it can be smothered." I smiled at Raith. "And it can starve."

He stood as still as a statue, staring at me. His grip on Murphy's throat slackened.

"That's why you've been old news," I said quietly. "Mom said she arranged it so that you would suffer. And since the night you killed her, you haven't been able to feed. Have you. Haven't been able to top off the tank of vampire superpower gas. So no kisses of death. No assaults on wizards. No direct assaults on Thomas when a couple of deathplots failed. You even had to have willing help for this operation, 'cause there was no more enslaving women to your will. Though I take it from Inari being alive that the plumbing works. And after that, I take it from the fact that you haven't raped her into psychic slavery that you can't do that part. Must have made things hard for you, huh, Raith. Did you get the double entendre there, man? Made things hard?"

"Insolent," Raith said at last. "Utterly insolent. You are like her."

I let out a breath. It had been only a strong theory until his reaction had confirmed it. "Yeah. Thought so. You've been nothing but talk since my mom got finished with you. Living for years, talking a good game and hoping that no one noticed what you weren't doing. Hoping no one figured out that one of your broodmares gelded you. Bet that was terrifying. Living like that."

"Perhaps," he said in a low murmur.

"They're going to figure it out," I said quietly. "This is a pointless exercise. It will cost you to kill us, and you aren't getting any more. Ever. You'd be smarter to cut your losses and start running."