Blood Rites (18 page)

Thomas went mano a mano, no tricks, no subtlety. The living corpse got a hand on Thomas's throat and tried to tear his head off. Thomas writhed sinuously away from the full power of the creature, and then rolled over a couple of times. Thomas got hold of the thing's wrists and tried to force them away from his neck.

And then Thomas changed.

It wasn't anything so dramatic as the vampires of the Red Court, whose demonic forms lurked beneath a masquerade of seemingly normal human flesh. It was far subtler. A cold wind seemed to gather around him. His features stretched, changing, his cheekbones starker, his eyes more sunken, his face more gaunt. His skin took on a shining, almost luminescent luster, like a fine pearl under moonlight. And his eyes changed as well. His irises flickered to a shade of chrome-colored silver, then bleached out to white altogether.

He snarled a string of curses as he fought, and the sound of his voice changed as well—again, a subtle thing. It was more feral, more vicious, and its tone was not even remotely human. Thomas, despite his deathly injuries, went up against the Black Court killing machine in a contest of main strength and won. He forced the vampire's hands from his throat, rolled so that his good leg came up beneath the vampire, and, with the combined strength of his arms, Thomas threw the vampire into the brick wall of the nearest building.

Bricks shattered, and bits and pieces of them flew outward in a cloud of stinging shrapnel. The vampire collapsed to the ground for a moment, stunned. A heartbeat later, it stirred and began to rise again. Thomas's shoulders heaved, as though to push himself up and continue the fight, but whatever fuel had driven his transformation and sudden strength had been expended.

He fell limp and loose to the gravel, gaunt face empty of expression. His all-white eyes went out of focus, staring, and he did not move.

Lara Raith wasn't doing badly for herself. The wind was blowing the short little black silk robe back off of her, so it was all black lace and pale flesh that somehow did not present a contrast to the gun. One-ear had fallen on his side. Shards of brittle bone protruded from both thighs and both knees, where Lara Raith had exercised her marksmanship. One-ear pushed himself up, and Lara put a shot in the arm supporting the vampire's weight, One-ear's elbow exploded in a cloud of ruined cloth, moldy flesh, and bone splinters, and the creature fell back to the ground.

Lara put a bullet through One-ear's left eye. The smell was indescribably nauseating. Lara aimed at the vampire's other eye.

"This won't kill me," the creature snarled.

"I don't need to," Lara responded. "Just to slow you down."

"I'll be after you in hours," One-ear-one-eye said.

"Look somewhere sunny," she responded. "
Au revoir
, darling."

The gun's hammer clicked down and silence ensued.

Lara had time to blink in disbelief at the gun. Then the vampire Thomas had stunned rushed at Lara's back. The creature wasn't quite a blur, but it was fast as hell. I tried to shout a warning at her, but it came out more of a croak than anything.

Lara shot a glance over her shoulder and started to move, but my warning had come too late. The vampire seized her by her dark hair and spun her around. Then it hit her with a broad swing of its arm and literally knocked her out of her high-heeled shoes. She flew at the nearest wall, half spinning in the air, and hit hard. The gun tumbled from her fingers and she fell, her eyes wide and frightened, her expression stunned. Her face had been cut on the cheek, at the corner of her mouth, and on her forehead. She was bleeding odd, pale blood in thick, trickling lines.

The vampire shuddered and leapt after her, landing on all fours. It was graceful, but alien, far more arachnid than feline. The corpse prowled over to her, seized her throat, and shoved her shoulders against the wall. Then it thrust out a long, leathery tongue and started licking her blood, hissing in mounting pleasure.

One-ear slithered over to her as well, using his unwounded arm and a serpentine writhing of the rest of his body. "Raith's second in command," the vampire rasped. "As well as the White who betrayed us. Now you're both mine."

Lara tried to push the vampire licking her blood away, but she wasn't strong enough, and she still looked dazed. "Get away from me."

"Mine," One-ear repeated. It drew Lara's hair back away from her throat. The other vampire took her hands and pinned them against the wall above her head.

One-ear touched its tongue to Lara's mouth and shivered. "I'll show you what real vampires are like. You'll see things differently soon. And you'll be lovely, still. For a little while. I'll enjoy that."

Lara struggled, but the haze of confusion over her eyes did not clear, and her motions had a dreamlike lack of coordination. Her face took on an expression of horror as both vampires leaned into her, their withered teeth settling onto her flesh. They bit her, and she bucked in terror and agony. There were ugly, slurping sounds beneath Lara Raith's screams.

Which was what I'd been waiting for. Once they had bitten down, I gathered up momentum as quietly as I could, closed the last few yards in the springing strides I would have used on a fencing strip, and drove the six-inch heel of one of Lara's black pumps as hard as I could into the space between the unwounded vampire's shoulder blades. I had the heel of my hand and the full weight of my body behind the blow, and I hit square and hard, so that the heel drove into its back, just left of its spine, directly at the vampire's withered heart.

I didn't get the response I would have liked best. The vampire didn't disintegrate or explode into dust. But it did convulse with a sudden scream, its body going into almost the same kind of spastic seizure the other one had displayed on having a turkey rammed through its chest. It staggered and fell to the ground, its dead face locked into a grimace of surprise and helpless pain.

One-ear was slow to react. By the time it tore its mouth from the gnawed and bleeding slope of Lara Raith's left breast, I had my mother's pentacle out and had focused all of my attention on it.

Now I've heard that the power of faith is simply another aspect of the magic I used all the time. I've also heard that it is a completely different kind of energy, totally unrelated to the living power I felt all around me. Certainly it garnered a very different reaction from various supernatural entities than my everyday wizardry did, so maybe they weren't related at all.

But that didn't matter. I wasn't holding a crucifix in the thing's face. I was holding the symbol of what
I
believed in. The five-pointed star of the pentacle represented the five forces of the universe, those of air, fire, water, earth, and of spiritual energy, laid into patterns of order and life and bound within a circle of human thought, human will. I believed that magic was fundamentally a force of life, of good, something meant to protect and preserve. I believed that those who wielded it therefore had a responsibility to use that power in the way it was meant to be used—and that was belief enough to tap into the vast power of faith, and to direct it against One-ear.

The pentacle burst into silver and blue light, a blaze as bright as an airborne flare. One-ear's stretched facial skin began to peel away, and the thick fluids oozing from its ruined eye socket burst into silver flame. The vampire screamed and threw itself away from that silver fire. If he'd had a crony left, they could have come at me from opposite directions, so that the blazing light from the pentacle could sear only one. But he didn't, and I followed after One-ear, keeping the pentacle held before me, my concentration locked upon it.

One-ear scrambled over the writhing vampire with the turkey-crushed chest, and the creature, maybe younger or more vulnerable than its leader, simply burst into flame as the pentacle glared down upon it. I had to skip back a step from that sudden heat, and the fallen vampire was consumed by blinding fire until nothing was left of it.

By the time my eyes had adjusted to the comparative darkness of the parking lot again, One-ear was nowhere to be seen. I checked over my shoulder and saw the transformed Lara Raith straddle the staked vampire, her eyes blazing silver and bright, her skin shining as Thomas's had. She drove blows down at its face, crushing it with the first few, then driving
into
its skull with sickening squelching sounds during subsequent blows. She continued, screaming at the top of her lungs the whole while, until she'd crushed its face and moved onto its neck, beating it into shapeless pulp.

And then she tore the vampire's head off its shoulders, killing it.

She rose slowly, pale eyes distant and inhuman. Her white skin was streaked with ichor of black, brown, and dark green, mingling with the pale, pinkish blood around her cuts and the bite wounds. Her dark hair had fallen from its mostly up style, and hung around her in a wild tangle. She looked terrified and furious and sexy as hell.

The succubus turned hungry eyes on me, and began a slow stalk forward. I let the gathered light ease out of my pentacle. It wouldn't do me any good against Lara. "We have a truce," I said. My voice sounded harsh, cold, though I hadn't tried to make it that way. "Don't make me destroy you too."

She stopped in her stockinged tracks. Her expression flickered with uncertainty and fear, and she looked a hell of a lot shorter without the do-me pumps. She shuddered and folded her arms over her stomach, closing her eyes for a moment. The luminous, compelling glow faded from her skin, her features becoming less unreal, if no less lovely. When she opened her eyes again, they were almost human. "My family," she said. "I have to get them out of here. Our truce stands. Will you help me?"

I looked at Inari, on the ground and paralyzed with pain. Thomas wasn't moving. He might have been dead.

Lara took a deep breath and said, "Mister Dresden, I can't protect them. I need your help to get them to safety. Please."

The last word had cost her something. Somehow, I held back from agreeing to help her on pure reflex.
That is a monumentally bad idea, Harry
, I cautioned myself. I shoved the knee-jerk chivalry aside and scowled at Lara.

She stood facing me, her chin lifted proudly. Her injuries looked vicious, and she had to be in pain, but she refused to let it show on her face—except for one moment, when she glanced at Thomas and Inari, and her eyes suddenly glistened. The tears fell, but she did not allow herself to blink.

"Dammit." I let out my breath in disgust at myself and said, "I'll get my car."

I debated talking to Arturo before I left but decided against it. Thomas and Inari were hurt, and the sooner they got medical care, the better. Additionally, One-ear the vampire had consciously gotten his own flunky immolated in order to escape. If he had some mystical method of communicating with Mama Mavra—or a cell phone—she might already be on the way with reinforcements.

One-ear was still pretty new to the vampire game, and his pair of followers had been virtual infants, and they had almost been more than all of us could handle. Mavra was in a different league entirely. She had been killing for centuries, and the near-extermination of the Black Court had meant that only the smartest, strongest, and most deadly of its members had survived. One-ear was dangerous enough, but if Mavra caught us in the open, she would take us apart.

So I ran to get the Blue Beetle from the row of parking spaces near the building Arturo was using. It was a quick run, a couple of plots up and one over from where Thomas and Inari lay. I slipped into the building. Only a couple of people saw me, and I ignored them as I ducked into the studio doors, seized my backpack, my coat, and the sleeping puppy, and fumbled in the coat until I found my car keys. I carried the whole kit and caboodle out to the car.

I coaxed the Beetle to life and tore down the gravel lanes with all the speed its little engine could manage. The Beetle's single headlight glared over Lara, who had Thomas in a fireman's carry. She'd taken off the short black robe and had tied it into an improvised sling for Inari, who stumbled along behind her older sister.

I opened the doors and helped her lower Thomas into the back of the Beetle. Lara stared for a second at my car's interior. It didn't look like she approved of the stripped and improvised quality of it. "There's no seat in back," she said.

"That's why there's a blanket," I answered her. "Get in. How is he?"

"Alive, for now," Lara said. "He's breathing, but he's emptied his reserves. He'll need to refresh them."

I paused and stared at her. "You mean he needs to feed on someone."

Her eyes slid aside to Inari, but the girl had her hands full simply staying vertical through the pain, and probably wouldn't have heard the space shuttle lifting off. Nonetheless, Lara lowered her voice. "Yes. Deeply."

"Hell's bells," I said. I got the door for Inari and helped her into the passenger-side seat, buckled her in, and dropped the puppy in her lap. She clutched at him with her unwounded arm, whimpering.

I got the Beetle the hell away from the little industrial park. After several moments of hurried driving, I started to relax. I kept checking, but I saw no one following me. I played a few trail-shaking tricks, just in case, and finally felt able to speak. "I'll get you to my place," I told Lara.

"You can't possibly think that the basement of a boardinghouse will be secure."

"How do you know where I live?" I demanded.

"I've read the Court's defensive assessment of your home," she said with an absent wave of her hand.

Which was scary as hell, that someone had assessed my freaking apartment. But I wasn't going to show her that. "It's kept me alive pretty well. Once we get there we can fort up under my heavy defenses. We'll be stuck inside, but safe until morning."

"If you wish. But if he does not feed, Thomas will be dead within the hour."

I spat an oath.

"Mavra knows where you live, in any case, Dresden. She will doubtless have some of her personnel waiting near your apartment."