JIM BUTCHER - SMALL FAVOR

Thomas blinked at me.

“That’s just a guess,” I said.

Hendricks growled, “How is she?”

“Not good,” I said. “This is a bad spot to be in. No defenses here, not even a threshold to work with. We need to bail.”

“Shouldn’t move her,” Hendricks said. “It could kill her.”

“ Not moving her will kill her,” I countered. “Us too.”

Hendricks stared at me, but he didn’t argue.

Thomas was already reaching into his pocket. He was tense, his eyes flicking restlessly, maybe in an attempt to track things that he could hear moving around outside. He dug out his key ring and held it with his teeth. Then he took his saber in one hand, that monster Desert Eagle in the other, and started humming “Froggy Went A-Courting” under his breath.

Gard had slowly grown limp, and her head lolled bonelessly. I was having trouble keeping her steady. “Hendricks,” I said, nodding at Gard.

Without a word he set the shotgun aside and took the woman from me. I saw his eyes as he did, touched with worry and fear-and not for himself. He took her very gently, something I would never have imagined him doing, and growled, “How do I know you won’t leave us behind? Let them rip us apart while you run?”

“You don’t,” I said curtly, picking up my staff. “Stay if you want. These things will kill you both; I guarantee it. Or you take a chance with us. Your call.”

Hendricks glared at me for a moment, but when he glanced down at the unconscious woman in his arms, the rocky scowl faded. He nodded once.

“Harry?” Thomas asked. “How do you want to do this?”

“We head straight for your oil tanker,” I said. “Shortest route between two points and all.”

“They’ll have the door covered,” Thomas said.

“I hope so.”

“Okay,” he said, rolling his eyes. “As long as there’s a plan.”

Footsteps crossed the floor above us, and paused at the top of the stairs.

Thomas’s gun swiveled toward the stairs. I didn’t turn. I covered the doorway.

A voice like out-of-tune violin strings stroked by a rotting cobra hide drifted down the stairs. “Wizard.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“This situation might be resolved without further conflict. Are you willing to parley?”

“Why not,” I answered. I didn’t turn away from the door.

“Have I your word of safe passage?”

“You do.”

“Then you have mine,” the voice answered.

“Whatever,” I said. I lowered my voice to an almost subvocal whisper I was sure only Thomas could hear. “Watch them. They’ll try something the second they get a chance.”

“Why give them the opportunity?” Thomas murmured.

“Because we might find out something important by talking. It’s harder to question corpses. Switch with me.”

We traded places, and I kept my staff pointed at the stairs as the mantis-thing came down them. It crouched on the topmost step it could occupy while still maintaining visual contact with the entry hall. It looked none the worse for wear for being blown to hamburger by Gard’s rifle.

It crouched, the motion eerie and alien, and tilted its head almost entirely to the horizontal, first one way, then the other, as it looked at us. Then its stomach heaved. For a second I thought it was throwing up, as a yellow-and-pink mucus began to emerge from its mouth. After a second, though, it lifted its clamplike claws and gripped its head, then peeled it back and away from the mucus, the motion disturbingly akin to someone donning a too-small turtleneck sweater. A human face emerged from the mucus and gunk, while the split carapace of the head flopped about on its chest and upper back.

The Denarian looked like she was about fifteen years old, except for her hair, which was silvery grey, short, and plastered to her skull. She had huge and gorgeous green eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a delicate, pointy chin. Her skin was pale and clear, her cheekbones high, her features lovely and symmetrical. The second set of green eyes and the sigil of angelic script still glowed faintly on her forehead.

She smiled slowly. “I wasn’t expecting the chain. I thought fire and force were your weapons of choice.”

“You were standing on top of someone I knew,” I said. “I didn’t feel like burning her or blasting her through the wall.”

“Foolish,” the girl murmured.

“I’m still here.”

“But so am I.”

“You have five seconds to get to the fucking point,” I said. “I’m not going to let you stall while your buddies get into position.”

Mantis Girl narrowed her eyes. The eyes on her forehead narrowed as well. Trиs creepy. She nodded at Hendricks and Gard. “My business is with them. Not you, O Warden of the White Council. Give them to me. You may leave in peace. Once they are dead, I will gather my compatriots and we will depart the city without harm to any innocents.”

I grunted. “What if I need them alive?”

“If you wish, I can wait until you have interrogated them.”

“Yeah, that’s what I want: you, standing around behind my back.”

She lifted a talon. “I give you my solemn word. No harm will come to you or your companion.”

“Tempting,” I said.

“Shall I add in material reward as well?” Mantis Girl asked. “I’ll pay you two hundred thousand, in cash.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “My quarrel is with the upstart Baron and his subjects-not the White Council. I would prefer to demonstrate my respect to your people, instead of causing an untoward altercation with them over the matter of your death.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her smile turned sharper. “If it pleases you, I might offer to entertain you, once business is done.”

I let out a harsh burst of laughter. “Oh,” I said, still chortling. “Oh, oh, oh. That’s funny.”

She blinked and stared at me, uncomprehending.

The expression made me laugh even harder. “You…you want me to…I mean, Hell’s bells, do you think I don’t know what happens to a mantis’s mate once the deed is done?”

She bared her teeth in sudden anger. They were shiny and black.

“You want me to trust you,” I went on, still laughing, “and you think waving some bling and some booty at me is going to get it done? God, that’s so cute I could just put you in my pocket.”

“Do not deny me what is mine, wizard,” she snarled. “I will have them. Make a pact with me. I will honor it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen the way you people honor your pacts. Let me make you a counteroffer. Give me Marcone, safe and whole, and get out of town, now, and I’ll let you live.”

“Suppose your offer appeals. Why should I believe you would allow us to leave in peace?”

I gave her a faint smile and quietly paraphrased a dead friend. “Because I know what your word is worth, Denarian. And you know the worth of mine.”

She stared at me for a moment. Then she said, “I will consult my companions and return in five minutes.”

I bowed my head slightly to her. She returned the gesture and started up the stairs again.

She vanished from sight. Glass broke somewhere upstairs.

Then a red-and-black blur flashed down the stairs toward us, simultaneously with a chorus of hellish cries from outside.

Treachery doesn’t work so well when the other guy expects it, and I’d had the spell ready to go since the second she’d turned her back. Mantis Girl didn’t get to the bottom of the stairs before I pointed my staff at her and snarled, “ Forzare! ”

A hammer of pure kinetic energy slammed against her. She went flying back the way she’d come, and when she reached the top of the stairs she kept going, crashing through the wall of the house with a tremendous crunch.