Jim Butcher - Blood Rites

I pulled up the rug that covered the entrance to the subbasement, a trapdoor set into the floor. It was deep enough underground to keep a subterranean chill the year-round, so I juggled the puppy while putting on a heavy flannel robe. Then I got a candle, opened the trapdoor, and descended the folding stepladder into my laboratory.

I had forbidden the cleaning service to move around my lab, and as a result it had been slowly losing the war against entropy for a couple of years. The walls were lined with wire racks, and I'd filled them with Tupperware, boxes, bags, tubs, bottles, cups, bowls, and urns. Most of the containers had a label listing their contents, ingredients for any number of potions, spells, summonings, and magical devices I had occasion to make from time to time. A worktable ran down the middle of the room, and at its far end was a comparatively recent concrete patch that did not match the rest of the floor. The patch was surrounded by the summoning circle set into the stone. I'd splurged on replacing the old ring with a new one made of silver and I'd moved everything in the room as far from it as I could.

The thing I'd locked up under the circle had been quiet since the night I had sealed it into a spirit-prison, but when it came to entombing a fallen angel, I was pretty sure that there was no such thing as too much caution.

"Bob," I said as I lit some more candles. "Get up."

One shelf didn't match the rest of the room. Two simple metal struts held up a plain wooden plank. Mounds of old candle wax spread in multicolored lumps at either end of the board, and in the middle rested a human skull.

The skull shivered a little, teeth rattling, and then a dim glow of orange light appeared in its empty eye sockets. Bob the Skull wasn't really a skull. He was an air spirit, a being with a great deal of knowledge and centuries of magical experience. Since I'd stolen him from Justin DuMorne, my own personal childhood Darth Vader, Bob's knowledge and skills had let me save lives. Mostly my own, maybe, but a lot of other lives, too.

"How did it go?" Bob asked.

I started rummaging through the various and sundry. "Three of the little bastards slipped through that paralysis charm you were so sure of," I said. "I barely got out in one piece."

"You're so cute when you whine," Bob said. "I'd almost think that-Holy cats, Harry!"

"Eh?"

"You stole one of the temple dogs?"

I petted the puppy's fur and felt a little offended. "It wasn't anything I meant to happen. He was a stowaway."

"Wow," Bob said. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Not sure yet," I said. "Brother Wang's already gone. I tried to call his contact number just now, but it was out of service. I can't call up a messenger and send it back to the temple, because that entire area of mountains is warded, and a letter might take months to get through. If it gets through at all." I finally found a big enough box, scrounged around a bit more, and dropped a couple of old flannel bathrobes into it, followed by the exhausted puppy. "Besides, I've got better things to worry about."

"Like what?"

"Like the Black Court. Mavra and her… her… Hey, what's the term for a group of Black Court vampires? A gaggle? A passel?"

"A scourge," Bob said.

"Right. Looks like Mavra and her scourge are in town. One of them came pretty close to punching my ticket tonight."

Bob's eyelights flickered with interest. "Neat. So the usual drill? Wait for them to try again so you can backtrack the attackers to Mavra?"

"Not this time. I'm going to find them first, kick down their door, and kill them all in their sleep."

"Wow. That's an atypically vicious plan, Harry."

"Yeah. I liked it too."

I put the puppy's box on the table. "I want you to take Mister out on the town in the morning. Find wherever it is Mavra is holing up during the day, and for the love of Pete, don't step on any more warding spells."

Bob somehow gave the impression that he shivered. "Yeah. I've been a lot more careful. But the vampires aren't stupid, Harry. They know they're helpless during daylight. They'll have taken some measures to protect their refuge. They always do."

"I'll take care of it," I said.

"It might be more than you can handle alone."

"That's why I'm going Justice League on them," I said, fighting a yawn. I put the cardboard box with the puppy on the worktable, picked up my candle, and went to the stepladder.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Bob asked.

"Bed. Early day tomorrow. New case."

"And the temple dog is staying here why?"

"Because I don't want to leave him all by his lonesome," I said. "If I take him with me I think Mister would eat him after I went to sleep."

"Dammit, Harry, I'm a voyeur, not a veterinarian."

I scowled. "I need shut-eye."

"And I get to babysit the dog?"

"Yeah."

"My job sucks."

"Form a union," I said heartlessly.

"What's the new case?" Bob asked.

I told him.

"Arturo Genosa?" Bob asked. " The Arturo Genosa? The movie producer?"

I lifted my eyebrows. "Yeah, I guess. You've heard of him?"

"Heard of him? Heck, yeah! He's the best there is!"

My intuition piped up again, and I felt something in my insides drop. "Uh. What kind of movies?"

"Critically acclaimed erotic features!" Bob said, fairly bubbling with enthusiasm.

I blinked. "There are erotic film critics?"

"Sure!" Bob bubbled. "All kinds of periodicals."

"Like what?"

" Juggs, Hooters, Funkybuns, Busting Out- "

I rubbed at my eyes. "Bob, those are porno magazines, not trade journals."

"Four stars, four boners, what's the difference?" Bob asked.

I wasn't going to touch that one.

The skull sighed. "Harry, I'm not trying to call you stupid or belabor the obvious, but you did get hired by a vampire of the White Court. An incubus. What kind of job did you think this was going to be?"

I glowered at Bob. He was right. I should have known it wasn't going to be simple.

"Speaking of," I said, "how much do you know about the White Court?"

"Oh, the usual," Bob said, which meant he knew plenty.

"I saw Thomas get real weird tonight," I said. "I don't know how to describe it, exactly. But Justine was there, and she said that he was freezing and that it worried her. Then he hit her with some kind of mind-magic hypnosis whammy, and zoned her out entirely."

"He was Hungry," Bob said. "I mean, capital H kind of Hungry. The Hunger is a kind of… I don't know. Symbiotic spirit, inside a White Court vamp. They're born with it."

"Ah," I said. "That's where they get the strength and powers and stuff."

"Among them nigh-immortality," Bob said. "But it don't happen for free. That's why they do the whole feeding thing. The Hunger needs it to survive."

"I got it, I got it," I said, through a yawn. "They use their powers and it makes the spirit hungry so they have to feed." I frowned. "What happens if they don't feed?"

"Short- term? Moodiness, anger, violent behavior, paranoia. In the long term, they'll use up whatever reservoir of life energy they have. Once that happens, the Hunger pretty much takes over and makes them hunt."

"If they can't hunt?"

"They go insane."

"What about the people they feed on?" I asked.

"What about them?" Bob said. "They get little pieces of their life nibbled away. It does a form of spiritual damage, like when the Nightmare mauled Mickey Malone. It leaves them vulnerable to the Whites' mental allure and control, so it's easy for the Whites to come by for another bite."

"What happens if they keep getting fed on?"

"It's fed upon , o Bard, and if it keeps up the mortal burns out early. Sort of fades away into a kind of mindless daze. Heart attack during an intense feeding usually kills them."