Page 15 (1/2)

Chapter 35

By the tiunfire had erupted on the floors below us It didn&039;t sound likesounds - but anyone who&039;d heard shots fired in earnest would neverelse I hoped that nobody was carrying rounds heavy enough to co floors and nail me There just aren&039;t anylike that

"Those screaht?"

"Yeah Where&039;s Susan?"

"Interrogation room, that way" She nodded to the left, and I took the lead I walked with ing the sputtering Rudolph out of the office, walked a step behind ht, so that she could shoot past a bad caive her a clean shot

That would be critical, buying her the extra second to place her shot Vae bullets cause, but they can recover fro but the most lethal hits, and they know it A Red Court vaun how difficult it is to really place a shot with lethal effect, especially with a howlingtoward you You needed a hit square in the head, severing the spine, or in their gut, rupturing the blood reservoir, to really put a Red Court vaenerally recover, even froh time and blood to feed upon

Murphy knew exactly what she was shooting at and had proved that she could be steady enough to deal with a Red - but the other personnel in the building lacked her knowledge and experience

The FBI was in for a real bad day

We htened-looking clerical type stumbled out of a break rooh hi around her neck, and she instructed hiet back inside and barricade the door He was clearly terrified, and responded without question to the tone of calm authority in Murph&039;s voice

"Maybe we should do that," Rudolph said "Get in a rooot a heavy with the, fast Like the loup-garou It&039;s so-or-other"

Murphy cursed "Hoe kill it?"

"Not sure But daylight see down a hallway that had several offices with exterior s The light of the autumn afternoon, reduced by the occasional curtain, created a kind of h, and one that ht did little to disperse

Eerier than the lighting was the silence No air ducts sighed No elevators rattled No phones rang But twice I heard gunshots - the rapid bang-bang-bang of practically useless panic fire Va cries several different times And the thub-dub of the Ick&039;s bizarre heartbeat was steady, o louder

"Maybe we need a lot of ht in"

"Way harder to do than it looks in the ure I&039;ll just blow open a hole in the side of the building" I licked my lips "Crud, uh Which way is south? That&039;ll be the best side to do it on"

"You&039;re threatening to destroy a federal building!" Rudolph squeaked

Gunshots sounded somewhere close - maybe on the third floor, directly below us Maybe on the other side of the fourth floor, muffled by a lot of cubicle walls

"Oh, God," Rudolph whi that in a htened whisper

"Aha," I said as we reached the interrogation room "We have our Cowardly Lion Cover me, Dorothy"

"Re about later," Murphy said

I started to open the door, but paused Tilly was arh to be scared, and it probably wasn&039;t the best idea in the world to just open the door of the room and scare him So I moved as far as possible to one side, reached way over to the door, and knocked In code, even Shave and a haircut

There was a lengthy pause and then someone knocked on the other side of the door Two bits

I twisted the knob and opened the door very, very slowly

"Tilly?" I said in a hoarse whisper "Susan?"

The interrogation room didn&039;t have any s, and it was co up a hand to shield his eyes "Dresden?"

"Yeah, obviously," I said "Susan?"

"I&039; with fear "I&039;o"

"Working on it," I said quietly

"You don&039;t understand That thing, that druht them You run, and pray someone slower than you attracts its attention"

"Yeah Already met the Ick," I said "I&039;d rather not repeat the experience" I held out a hand to Tilly "I need cuff keys"

Tilly hesitated, clearly torn between his sense of duty and order and the pri He shook his head, but it didn&039;t seem like his heart was in it

"Tilly," Murphy said She turned to him, her expression ferociously deteroing to die as long as these three are in the building"

He passed me the keys

I took the in the sa my chat with the feds She wore her dark leather pants and a black T-shirt and looked oddly vulnerable just sitting there during a situation like this I went to her and started unfastening the cuffs

"Thank you," she said quietly "I was getting a little worried there"

"They h the basement somehow," I said

She nodded "They&039;ll work their way up, floor by floor Kill everyone they can It&039;s how they operate Ree for everyone else"

Tilly shook his head as if dazed "That&039;sWhat? That&039;s how some of the cartels operate in Coloave him an i you for the last fifteenscream, one not interdicted by floors

"They&039;re here," Susan whispered as she rubbed at her newly freed wrists "We have to move"

I stopped for a mo until they find the target, floor by floor," I said

Susan nodded tightly

I bitAll the way up"

Murphy turned her head to look at ht?"

"We won&039;t win," I said, certain "Not here, on their ties But we can&039;t just abandon all those people, either"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly "No, we can&039;t," Murphy said "So What are we going to do?"

"Does anyone have an extra weapon?" Susan asked No one said anything, and she nodded, turned to the heavy conference table, and flipped it over with one hand She tore off a heavy steel leg as if it had been attached with a kindergartner&039;s glue rather than high-grade steel bolts

Tilly stared, his mouth open Then he said, very quietly, "Ah"

Susan whirled the table leg once, testing its balance, and nodded "It will do"

I grunted Then I said, "Here&039;s the plan We&039;re going to show ourselves to the va to hit whoever they have out front with everything we have and squash them flat That should make sure we have the attention of the entire strike team"

"Yes," Murphy said in a dry tone "That&039;s brilliant"

I ood and interested, you, Tilly, and Rudolph are going to split off froency exit If it co a ju in here You with me?"

Murphy frowned "What about you?"

"Susan,to juuys after us"

"Stunt doubles?" Murphy asked

"We are?" Susan asked, alarhty thews to protectsuperchick and all"

"Okay," Susan said, eyeingmy mind - which, hey, I admit Totally possible "What&039;s on the other side?"

"No clue," I said, and a touch to em toldon her di jaunts "We&039;ll hope it isn&039;t an ocean of acid or a patch of cloud five thousand feet above a big rock"

Susan&039;s eyes widened slightly And then she shot ht you would," I said "Meanwhile, you three get out Does this place have an exterior fire escape?"

Rudolph just rocked back and forth,noises Tilly still looked stunned at what he had just seen frohtly on the back of the head "Hey Barry"

Tilly shook his head and looked at her "Fire escape No"

"Find a stairwell, then," I told Murphy "Go quiet and fast, in case some of them were too stupid to follow ave Tilly&039;s shoulder a little shake "Hey Tilly You&039;re in charge of Rudolph All right? Keep hi and out of any lines of fire"

The slender little man nodded, slowly at first, and then more rapidly as he seemed to take control of himself "Okay I&039;rin and a firreat plan or what? I&039;"

"Got it," Susan said

The faint, constant druot fractionally louder

"Go," I said, and hit the hallways again At my request, Tilly steered us toward the central staircase running parallel to the elevator shafts, because I figured it would make sense for most of the strike team to use the central stairwell, while the others were covered by uard

We ran into another handful of people ere hovering, uncertain of what to do, and who looked at ested they would find my advice less than credible

"Tilly," I said, half pleading

Tilly nodded and started speaking in a calm, authoritative tone "There&039;s some kind of attack under way Taet to one of the offices with aYou got that? ATake the curtains down, let the light in, barricade the door, and sit tight" He looked at me and said, "Help&039;s on the way"

I swapped a look with Murphy, who nodded confidently at otten the supernatural shoved in his face pretty hard, but he&039;d rebounded with treuessed we&039;d see eventually

The federal personnel scurried to obey Tilly, running down the hall we&039;d just come from

If we&039;d been about ten seconds slower, the vampire would have found them first instead of us

I heard a scream, shrill and terrible, h the prey so that the va about the Red Court, that simple tactic Animals would never have been startled into i to reason its way to as happening, to fall for a psychological ploy like that one

And it probably said so about me that it completely failed to startlea deal As the Scarecrow, I felt that I had amply proven that I didn&039;t have much of a brain hich to be et waiting for him, the Red Court vaht th, that didn&039;t increase its mass It bounced offsomeone&039;s front bumper at fifty or sixty ht, and I released the shield with a little English on it, tossing the vahthand side of the hallway, squarely in Murphy&039;s line of fire, and started ain

Murphy calmly put two bullets into the vampire&039;s head, which made an unholy orged belly on the way by, and as Susan passed, I heard an ugly,for a second, frozen Then Susan nudged hied him after Murphy and me

We found the first hu woman covered in her own blood Beyond her, a man in a suit lay sprawled on his face in death, and the corpses of two more women lay within a few feet of him

There was the most furtive of sounds from a darkened supply closet near an intersection of hallways, its doorway gaping wide open I didn&039;t let on that I&039;d heard it

"You knohat?" I said quietly to no one in particular "Thatrod&039;s runes blazing into sudden life and roared, "Fuego!"

A spear of white-hot fire erupted froh the interior wall in a concussive chorus of shattering th of the closet at waist height, cutting through the wall like an enorony greetedup the shield again A second va on all fours along the wall, and threw itself at me At the same time, another of the rubbery black creatures exploded out of an air vent I would have sas too tiny to contain it, coht overhead

I rebounded the first vamp froun began to bark the instant it bounced off the wall and to the floor

I couldn&039;t getdown from overhead

It landed on ht, and with the crystalline perceptions of surging adrenaline I saw its jaws dropping open nightleamed Black claws on all four liue lashed atexposed skin in order to deliver its stupefying venom

I went down to the floor onmy head with my arms The vampire raked at me furiously, but the defensive spells onThe va , sliue lashed at my face, now vulnerable

Susan&039;s hand closed on that tongue in midmotion, and with a twist of her wrist and shoulders, she ripped it out of the vampire&039;s mouth The vamp threw its head back and shrieked - and my ex-sweetie&039;s improvised mace smashed its skull down into its torso

The vaht, continued to wail its agony as I rose again and checked around me to make sure everyone was there "Anyone hurt?"

"W-we&039;re fine," Tilly said For a guy who&039;d just had a couple of close encounters with iinary creatures, he seemed to be fairly coherent Rudolph had retreated to his happy place, and just kept on rocking, crying, and whispering "What about you, Dresden?"

"Peachy"

Murphy turned toward the closet, her face griun in her hand I shook my head at her "No Let it scream It&039;ll draw the others to us and away from anyone else"

Murphy looked at ently, but nodded "God, that&039;s cold, Harry"

"I lost o," I said The wounded vah on them Their outer layer of skin is combustible My attack had probably left it in two pieces, or otherwise pared down its bodyon the floor, in sobut scream

And that suitedhere, are we?" Tilly asked

A pair of particularly loud, sih the vents and shafts, ululating over and under each other They were particularly strident and piercing, and went on for longer than the others A chorus of lesser shrieks wailed briefly in reply

The Eebs, as generals, sending orders to the troops It had to be, coordinating the raid and directing it toward the injured ht, folks Murph, Tilly, Rudolph, get scarce Follow Murphy and do whatever the hell she tells you to do if you want to get out of this alive"

Murphy grimaced at that "Be careful, Dresden"

"You too," I said "See you at the church"

She gave me a sharp nod, beckoned Tilly, and the two of them started off down another hallway to one of the side stairwells With any luck, the Eebs had just sent everyone they had running toward ured they&039;d probably have only a single sentry to deal with, at thethat A 50 percent chance of survival wasn&039;t real encouraging, but it was about 50 percent higher than if they&039;d stayed

Susan watched theo and then looked at me "You and Murphy never hooked up?"

"You&039;re asking this now?" I demanded

"Should I fix us both a nice cup of tea, in our copious free time?"

I rolled my eyes and shook my head "No We haven&039;t"

"Why not?" she asked

"A lot of reasons Bad ti, deep breath and said, "Keep an eye out I&039;ve got to pull off soht," Susan said She went back to watching the gloom, her club held ready

I closed my eyes and summoned up my will Time for some real razzle-dazzle stuff

Illusions are a fascinating branch of e thee and put it in someone else&039;s head There&039;s no actual visible object there, but their brain tells the as life - a phantas real close to the borders of the Laws of Magic to go that way, but it could be very effective

The second method is the creation of an actual visible object or creature - a kind of hologras are much harder to produce, because you have to pour a lot y into them, and while a phantasm uses a foe&039;s own ot to do it the hard ith holoe was easy to fix in ht have ht actually have been My holoetting the ie of the actor from The X Files confabulated with the actual Tilly, and the final result was kinda inal But I was in a rush

I pictured the ies with asa tiny bit of soulfire, into creating the es

Soulfire isn&039;t really a destructive force It&039;s sort of the opposite, actually And while I used it in fights to enhance s

I whispered, "Luy into the rams of Murphy, Tilly, and Rudolph shi that even I thought they ht have been solid !" Susan said abruptly She turned tothe illusions Then she waved a hand at Tilly&039;s ih She let out a lohistle and said, "Tirew abruptly louder, a vibration I could feel through the soles of my shoes

Vampires boiled out of the central stairwell, a sudden tide of flabby, rubbery black bodies and all-black eyes, of spotted pink tongues and gleas At their center, in their flesh- behind them was the Ick

Susan and I turned and sprinted The three illusions did the sa footfalls and heavy breathing With a group howl the vampires ca upsoet Faustian bargain

I gathered my will, shouted, "Aparturuht hand

I&039;d used a lot of energy to open the Way, and it tore wide, a diagonal rip in the fabric of space, crooked and off center to the hallway It hung there like soeo wordlessly to Susan She shouted soround with every second