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"You really shouldn&039;t just hand someone else a demon&039;s name," I told him Then I drew in a breath, and shouted out in a voice of command, "Kalshazzak!"

The deony and rage as I called its naainst it

"Kalshazzak," I snarled again The de slippery and sli like a venomous tadpole It was a pressure, a horrible pressure on my teh ofto the floor

I tried to speak again and the words stuck in my throat The demon hissed in anticipation, and the pressure on ive up the struggle, at which point the de blue of its eyes becaht, painful to look upon

I thought of little Jenny Sells, oddly enough, and of Murphy, lying pale and unconscious on a stretcher in the rain, of Susan, crouched next to me, sick and unable to run

I had beaten this frog once I could do it again

I cried out the demon&039;s na and raw The word ca ain, and hurled itself furiously to the floor, thrashing its lireat swaths out of the carpet I sagged, the weariness that ca to ?" Victor said, his voice rising to a high-pitched shriek "What are you doing?" He was staring at the demon in horror "Kill him! I ae, turned its burning glare toto decide who to devour first Its eyes settled on Victor, ent pale and ran for the doors

"Oh no you don&039;t," I e One final tiasps of my power, the winds rose and lifted ainly cannonball, driving him away froe at us, and toward the railing of the balcony

We fell in a confused heap at the edge of the balcony that overlooked the roolow of flarown alht and blinding than anything I had ever iined, and I sucked in a breath The sasp

I looked up Fire was spreading everywhere The dee of the balcony was only chaos and flae, dark s, but instead wasThe pain was too great I sih breath to screaained his feet and hauled th "Damn you," he repeated "What happened? What did you do?"

"The Fourth Law of Magic forbids the binding of any being against its will," I grated out Pain was tight around ht to speak the words "So I stepped in and cut your control over it And didn&039;t establish any of my own"

Victor&039;s eyes widened, "You lanced at the dery"

"What do we do," Victor said His voice was shaking, and he started shaking me, too "What do we do?"

"We die," I said "Hell, I was going to do that anyway But at least this way, I take you out with lance at the de "Work with ain We can beat it, together, and leave"

I studied hiic I didn&039;t want to And it would only have brought a death sentence onAnd that&039;s exactly what I did I s

"Fuck you, then, Dresden," Victor snarled "It can only eat one of us at a tiet eaten today" And he picked me up to hurl ile tenacity We grappled Fire raged S through the hell-lit gloo, and he hadn&039;t been shot in the hip He leveredfree end of Murphy&039;s handcuffs, breaking his ed hiuardrail of the balcony, and we both toppled over

Desperation gives aand caught it at the base, keepings brown hide of one of the scorpions, its stinging tail held up like the h sry clicking, scuttling sounds Even in a single desperate glance, I saw a couch torn to pieces by a pair of scorpions in less time than it took to take a breath They loos froolf carts Hell&039;s bells

Victor had grabbed on to the railing a little abovedemon with a face twisted with hatred I saw hih to free one hand to point at the oncoical attack or defense

I couldn&039;t allow Victor to get out of this He was still whole If he could knock the deht still slip out So I had to tell hih to try to take my head off "Hey, Vic," I shouted "It was your wife It was Monica that ratted on you"

The words hit him like a physical blow, and his head whipped around towardto me, the words of a spell meant to blow me to bits,up with an angry hiss and snapping its jan over Victor&039;s collarbone and throat Bone broke with audible snaps, and Victor squealed in pain, his ar He tried to push his way doay from the deritted my teeth and tried to hold on A scorpion leapt at s up out of reach of its pincers, just barely

"Bastard," Victor cried, struggling uselessly in the de down his body, fast and hot The de at the edge of the balcony as Victor struggled and started kicking at my near hand He hitA quick glance belowready to juht I should have listened to you If the scorpions didn&039;t kill me, the de to killto die

There was a certain peace in thinking that, in knowing that it was all about to be over I was going to die It was as si I could think of, and it was over I foundthat I could have had tiize to Jenny Sells for killing her daddy, that I could apologize to Linda Randall for not figuring things out fast enough and saving her life Murphy&039;s handcuffs lay tight and cold against my forearm as monsters and demons and black wizards and smoke closed in all around me I closed my eyes

Murphy&039;s handcuffs

My eyes snapped open

Murphy&039;s handcuffs

Victor swung his foot at s and hauled with rabbed Victor Sells&039;s pant leg in ht, I flicked the free end of the handcuffs around one of the bars of the guardrail The ring of e and locked into place

Then, as I started to fall back down, I hauled hard on Victor&039;s leg He screah-pitched squeal, as he started to fall Kalshazzak, finally overbalanced by the additional weight and leverage I had added to Victor&039;s struggles, pitched over the balcony guardrail and into the s Victor with hi sounds, a piercing whistle-hiss froh-pitched and horrible, until he sounded hter, than afrom the balcony, my feet several feet above the fray, held suspended in an acutely painful fashion by Murphy&039;s handcuffs, one loop aroundI looked down asplates of seg tails flashing down, over and over again I saw the lightning eyes of Kalshazzak&039;s physical vessel, and I saw one of the of one of the scorpions

And I saw Victor Sells, struck over and over again by stingers the size of ice picks, the wounds foaers of the scorpions to begin tearing hie and fear

The strong survive, and the weak get eaten I guess Victor had invested in the wrong kind of strength

I didn&039;t want to watch as happening belowabove were rather beautiful, actually, rolling waves of flaet out of thisand painful to even consider anymore I just watched the fla And no wonder I hadn&039;t eaten a decent s in those finalthings For instance, I saw Morgan co in from the outside deck, the silver sword of the White Council&039;s justice in his hands I saw one of the scorpions, now the size of a Gerure out the stairs, scuttle up thean&039;s silver sword slash, snickersnack, and leave the scorpion in writhing pieces on the floor

Then I saw Morgan, his expression gri the fire-chewed balcony shudder, come for me His eyes narrohen he sawfar over the balcony railing The blade flashed bright silver in the firelight as it started to coht How perfectly typical, to survive everything the bad guys could do, and get taken down by the people for whose cause I had been fighting