JIM BUTCHER - SMALL FAVOR

“But you said you couldn’t get through the, uh…the obscuring magic that the Nickelheads have.”

“Probably not. But if I know Marcone, he also collected samples of hair or blood from his people. To find them if they ever needed help or…”

Murphy grimaced. “If they rated early retirement.”

“I’m hoping Gard can give us an inside track on finding the leak, too,” I said.

Meanwhile, Molly hurried over to Thomas with her makeup kit and began modifying his face. Thomas’s face was about level with the chin of the illusion-me, if not a little lower, but I’d taught Molly the basics behind my illusion magic-such as it was. My skill with illusions was pretty basic, and it wouldn’t stand up to any serious examination. Molly was able to scrunch up her eyes and see past it.

Of course, you didn’t have to make the illusion utterly convincing if you could manage to keep people from having a good reason to take a hard look at it in the first place. The illusion doesn’t have to be fancy-it’s the misdirection behind it that really matters.

Molly had been caught in a Goth undertow of the youth culture, and it showed in her makeup. She had plenty of blues and purples and reds to darken Thomas’s eyes with, and the illusion of my face assumed an appearance fairly close to my own, sans the swollen nose.

“It’ll do,” I said. “Murph, you’re driving. Molly, if you don’t mind.”

My apprentice grinned as she hurriedly pulled on her coat. Then she stuck her tongue between her teeth, frowned fiercely, and waved her hand at me with a murmur. I felt the kid’s veil congeal about me like a thin layer of Jell-O, a wobbly and slippery sensation. The world went a little bit blurry, as if I were suddenly looking at everything through hazy green water, but Murphy’s face turned up into a grin.

“That’s very good,” she said. “I can’t see him at all.”

Molly’s face was set with concentration as she maintained the spell, but she glanced at Murphy and nodded her head in acknowledgment.

“Right,” I said. “Come on, Mouse.”

My dog hopped to his feet and trotted over eagerly, waving his tail.

Murphy looked in my general direction, and arched an eyebrow.

“If the gruffs don’t buy it, I want all the early warning I can get,” I told her.

She lowered her voice and murmured, “And maybe you’re a little nervous about going out without the coat and the staff?”

“Maybe,” I said.

It was only a half lie. Insulting nickname or not, coat and staff or not, the more I thought about what we were up against, the more worried I became.

I wasn’t nervous.

I was pretty much terrified .

I t was dark by the time we got to Chez Carpenter, and we were beginning to slow down to turn into the driveway when Murphy said, “Someone’s tailing us.”

“Keep driving,” I snapped at once, from where I was crouched down in the back of Murphy’s Saturn. I felt like a groundhog trying to hide in a golf divot. “Go past the house.”

Murphy picked up speed again, accelerating very slowly and carefully on the snowbound streets.

I poked my head up just enough to peer into the night behind us. Mouse sat up with me and looked solemnly and carefully out the back window when I did. “The car with one headlight pointing a little to the left?” I asked.

“That’s the one. Spotted him about ten minutes ago. Can you see his plates?”

I squinted. “Not through this snow and with his lights in my eyes.”

Molly turned and knelt in the passenger seat, peering through the back window. “Who do you think it is?”

“Molly, sit down,” Murphy snapped. “We don’t want them to know that we’ve seen-”

The headlights of the car behind us grew brighter and began to sweep closer. “Murph, they saw her. Here they come.”

“I’m sorry!” Molly said. “I’m sorry!”

“Get your seat belts on,” Murphy barked.

Murphy began accelerating, but our pursuer closed the distance within a few seconds. The headlights grew brighter, and I could hear the roar of a big old throaty engine. I scrambled up to the backseat and clawed at the seat belt, but Mouse was sitting on the other side of the buckle, and before I could get it out from under him Murphy screamed, “Hang on!”

Collisions are always louder than I expect, and this one was no exception. The pursuing car smashed into the rear of the Saturn at maybe forty miles an hour.

Metal screamed.

Fiberglass shattered.

I got slammed back against my seat and then whiplashed into the back of the driver’s seat.

Mouse bounced around, too.

Molly screamed.

Murph swore and wrenched at the steering wheel.

It could have been worse. Murphy had gained enough speed to mitigate the impact, but the Saturn went into a spin on the snowy streets and revolved in a graceful, slow-motion ballet.

Slamming my nose into the back of Murphy’s seat didn’t feel very good. In fact, it felt so not-good that I lost track of what was going on for a few seconds. I was vaguely aware of the car spinning and then crunching broadside into an enormous mound of snow.

The Saturn’s engine coughed and died. My pounding heart sent thunder to my ears and agony to my nose. I barely heard the sound of a car door opening and closing somewhere nearby.

I heard Murphy twist around in her chair and gasp, “Gun.” She drew her weapon, unfastened her seat belt, and tried her door. It was pressed into a solid wall of white. She snarled and crawled across a stunned Molly’s lap, fumbling at the door.

I lurched to the other side of the car and clawed at the door until it opened. When it did I saw a slightly smashed-up car in the middle of the street, idling with both doors open. Two men stalked toward us through the snow. One was holding what looked like a shotgun, and his partner had an automatic in either hand.

Murphy threw herself out of the car and darted to one side. It wasn’t hard to figure out why-if she’d started shooting immediately, Molly would have been in the line of any return fire. Murphy moved swiftly, crouched as close to the ground as she could get, but to do so cost her a precious second.

The shotgun roared and spat fire.

The blast smashed Murphy to the ground like a blow from a sledgehammer.

At the sight my scrambled brain congealed. I drew up my will, flung out a hand, and screamed, “ Ventas servitas! ”

Wind roared forth from my outstretched fingers. I directed it at the snow-covered ground in front of our attackers, and a sudden storm of flying bits of ice and snow engulfed the gunmen.

I kept the pressure on them, maintaining the spell, as I shouted, “Molly! Get to Murphy! Veil and first aid!”

Molly shook her head and gave me a glassy-eyed stare, but she climbed out of the car and staggered over to Murphy. A second later both of them vanished from sight.

I let up on the wind spell. Moving enough air to keep a gale-force wind going is a lot more work than anyone thinks. The air went still again except for swirling eddies of wind, frost devils that danced about in half a dozen whirling helices of snow. The two gunmen were revealed, crouching low, their arms still upraised to shield their eyes from the wind and stinging flakes of ice.

I missed my staff. I missed my duster. But I wasn’t missing the.44 revolver I drew from my coat’s pocket and aimed at the bad guys, while I raised my left hand, shaking the shield bracelet there out from under the sleeve of my coat.

I recognized one of the two gunmen, the one with the brace of pistols. His name was Bart something or other, and he was muscle for hire-cheap muscle, at that, but at least you got what you paid for. Bart was the kind of guy you called when you needed someone’s ribs broken on a budget.