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Chapter 45

Both of us had been gathering up our wills during the snark-off, and the first instant of the duel nearly killed us both

I called forth force and fire, both laced with the soulfire that would help reinforce its reality, ate or withstand It took the shape of a sphere of blue-white fire the size of an inflatable exercise ball

Meanwhile, Arianna fluttered her hands in an odd, twisting gesture and a geyser of water erupted fro force

The two attacks met halfway between us, with results neither of us could prevent Fire and water turned to scalding-hot steam in a detonation that instantly washed back over us both My shield bracelet was ready to go, and a situation so like this one that had rendered my left hand into a horror prop had inspired me to be sure I could protect myself from this kind of heat in the future

I leapt back and landed in a crouch, raising the shield into a complete dome around rass as it ca to disperse, and when it finally did, I couldn&039;t see Arianna anywhere on the field

I kept the all-around shield in place for a moment, and rapidly focused upon a point a little bit above and ht and swept aze around the stadiu to put herself in position to shoot ic seemed to infest the air around her - the veil that ht, she was a Red Court vareasy than the normal vamp, a creature ancient in power and darkness

I tried not to see anything else, but there was only so much I could do I could see the deaths that had been heaped upon this field over centuries, lingering in a layer of translucent bones that covered the ground to a depth of three or four feet In the edges of rotesqueries that were the true appearance of the Red Court, every one of the to his particular madness I didn&039;t dare look directly up at the spectators, and especially not those gathered on the second floor of the little temple at the end of the stadiu and his Lords unveiled

I kept , as if I hadn&039;t spotted Arianna on the prowl, and kept turning in a circle, ti to be exposed to her before I dropped the shield and rose, panting, as if I couldn&039;t have held it any longer than that I kept on turning, and an instant before she would have released her spell, I whirled on her, pointed a finger, and snarled, "Forzare!"

Raill lashed out and exploded against her chest just before the flickers of electricity she&039;d gathered could congeal into a real stroke of lightning It threw her twenty feet back and sla the side of the ball court

Before she could fall, I looked up at the top of the wall, seized a section of large stones in fingers of unseen will, and raked theed thirty feet doard Arianna

She was superhumanly quick, of course Anyone lancing blow fro a sphere of lurid red light into a ball between her hands as she went

I didn&039;t want to be on the receiving end of that, whatever it was So I kept raking at the wall, over and over again, bringing down dozens of the stones and forcing her to keepstatic

We were both slinging ic on the run, but she had er in the Old West, she took her ti up her shot while I flailed away at her with rushed actions that had little chance to succeed All told, I must have dropped several dozen tons of rock down onto her as we ran, inflicting nothing worse than a few abrasions and heavy bruises

She threw lightning at me once

The world flashed red-white and sos obbly and I sat there for a subjective hour, stunned, and realized that whatever she had packed her lightning bolt with, it had been sufficient to throw me twice as far as my heavy punch had thrown her I&039;d bounced off the opposite wall I looked down at es - and instead found a black se on old filigree where the metal had partially melted

I was alive

My head ca I flung upit not into a portion of a sphere, as I usually did, but into a lengthy triangle in the shape of a pup tent I crouched beneath it and no sooner had I done so than stones froan to slarey stone, and tried desperately to get my impact-dizzied brain to think of a plan

The best I came up with under the circumstances was this: What would Yoda do?

There was a tinyand the next and I dropped the shield As the next rock began to fall, I stretched out ive it ain I screamed, "Forzare!" and with an enormous effort of will I altered the course of the stone&039;s fall, flinging it as hard as I could at Arianna, abetted by gravity and the re, but not until it was too late She lifted her hands, her fingers ic to bear The stone sht, and then struck her in the hip, spinning her about wildly and sending her to the ground

"Harry Dresden, human catapult!" I screaain in an instant: Her shield had bled enough of the energy fro into her with lethal force, but it had bought et out of the pile of rocks around me and away from the stadium wall I smashed at her withwater out of the air into wobbling spheres that intercepted the bolts of fla steam By the fifth or sixth bolt, I couldn&039;t see her with ies in motion behind the steay around her, and I saw her take off into an ani me to attackthe sa twice

Duels betizards are about y, just as boxing is abouthard punches There is an art to it, a science to it, in which one attempts to predict the other&039;s attack and counter it effectively You have to iht do, and have it ready to fly at an instant&039;s notice Sith of his defenses A duel of inations and raer of those involved

Arianna had obviously prepared against ent But she had tried this backstabbing ploy onit A wizard of any experience would tell you that she would never have tried that one again, for fear that the enemy would exploit it even further

Arianna was an experienced killer, but she hadn&039;t done a lot of dueling with nothing to rely on except her ic She&039;d always had the cushion of her extraordinary strength and speed to fall back upon Hell, it would have been the s attacks and h to end it decisively

Except here, she couldn&039;t And she wasn&039;t adjusting well to the handicap Flexibility of thought is alth of the truly ancienther by standing in place, as I had last tiive es of the concealing stea business I clenchedpast ht, waiting for ht as well

Apparently she didn&039;t, or wasn&039;t bothering to use it, relying upon her superior senses instead She got into position and seean to advance cautiously, gatheringto her cupped hands I saw the instant in which she began to spot my outline, the way she drew a breath to speak the word to unleash the lightning upon a," I hissed, and threw both hands forward "Infriga forzare!"

And the entire cloud bank of steaealed into needle-pointed spears of ice that flew at her as if fired froun

They struck her just as she unleashed her lightning bolt, which shattered one of the spears and tore a two-foot furrow in the dirt some twenty feet to my side

Arianna stood still for adown at the spears and shards of ice that had slammed deep into her flesh She looked up at me for a second and opened her mouth

A blob of black blood burst out and spilled down over her chin Then she shuddered and fell, siround

Froodmother throw back her head and let out an eerie howl of excitehter and scorn

I watched Arianna twisting upon the spears of ice She&039;d been pierced in dozens of places The worst hit came from an icicle as thick as h the belly and co the blood reservoir of the creature beneath Arianna&039;s flesh lih a prisain and again I didn&039;t knohat language it was, but I knehat it meant: No, no, no, no

I stood over her for a ic to bear against me, but the cruel torment of those frozen spears was a pain she had never experienced and did not kno to fight I stared down at the creature that had taken hter and felt

I felt only a cold, cal like a blizzard of snow and sleet in the storm of my wrath

She stared up ather mouth "Cattle You are c-cattle"

"Moo," I said And I lifted asped a word I didn&039;t know

Fro rise from his distant throne

I poured all that was left of irl"

The explosion of force and fire tore a crater in the ground seven feet across and half as deep

Arianna&039;s broken, headless corpse lay spraithin it

Silence fell over the ruined city

I turned toward the Red King and started walking that way I stopped on ould have been the ten-yard line in a football stadiuhter," I said

He stared at me, bleak and remote as a far lish, "I think not"

I clenched my teeth "We had a deal"

He looked ateyes and said, "I never spoke a word to you A god does not converse or bargain with cattle He uses and dispenses with them as he sees fit You have served your purpose, and I have no further use for you - or thechild"

I snarled "You promised that she would not be harmed"

"Until after the duel," he said, and sycophantic chuckles ran through the vampires all around me "It is after the duel" He turned his head to one side and said to one of the jaguar warrior vampires in his retinue, "Go Kill the child"

I al while his head was turned, but some instinct seemed to warn him at the last instant, and he ducked The bolt of flauar warrior vamp&039;s jaw off of his head and set hi, hisfree of hiswhirled toward me in a fury, and those black eyes pressed down upon es I was driven to my knees by a blanket of pure will - and not just will, but horrible pain, pain that originated not in my body but in the nerves themselves - pain I was helpless to resist

I heard soures upon the teun went off, and then someone screamed I heard a bellow, and looked up to seethe ht Sanya was on his feet butEsperacchius in both hands Murphy was on one knee and had dropped her P-90 One hand wasslowly, deterround

I couldn&039;t see any of the others I couldn&039;t turnNone of us couldand the Lords of Outer Night

"Insolent beast," snarled the Red King "Die in agony" He seized another guard by his jaguar skin and jerked him close, as if the brawny vampire had been a child "Need I repeat myself?" he seethed, and shoved his bloodstained ritual knife into the warrior&039;s hands "Place that child upon the altar and kill her"

Chapter 46

Guys like the Red King just don&039;t knohen to shut up

I fought to raiseI&039;d done that night My hand shook and shook harder, but finally moved six inches, to touch the surface of the skull in the cloth bag on my hips

Bob! I screa Ebenezar&039;s sending stone

Hell&039;s bells, he replied You don&039;t have to screaht here

I need a shield Soure this is a spiritual attack A spirit should be able to counter it

Oh, sure But no can do from in here, boss, Bob said

You have ht desperately

The skull&039;s eye sockets flared with orange-red light, and then a cloud of glowing energy flooded out of the eyes and rose, gathering above ht down around , Take this, shorty!

And suddenly the Red King&039;s as not enough to keep me down The pain receded, s, icy chill that left y I clenched my teeth, freed froainst his I was a child arave th, and suddenly I droveturned to face ain, and extended both hands toward e and contean to swell and redouble I heard his voice quite clearly when he said, "Bon Mortal"

I took one dragging step towardforith increasing steadiness Then I snarled through clenched teeth and said, "Bite Me Asshole"

And I put my hand on Murphy&039;s left shoulder

She&039;d already moved her hand halfway to the sword As I touched her, touched our auras together, spreading my own defenses over hers, and felt the direct and violent strength of her oill to defy the iainst us, her hand flashed up to the hilt of Fidelacchius and drew the katana fro that ancient stadiuht agony that reminded me intensely of the crystalline plain Howls of pain rose from around us, but were drowned by Murphy&039;s sudden, silvery cry, her voice swelling throughout the stadiuods!" she cried, her blue eyes blazing as she stared at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night "Pretenders! Usurpers of truth! Destroyers of faith, of faainst the Mayans, against the peoples of the world, noill you answer! Your tihty!"

I think I was the only one close enough to see the shock in her eyes, and I realized that it wasn&039;t Murphy speaking the words - but soh her

Then she swept her sword in an arc, slashing the very air in front of us in a single, whistling stroke

And the will of the Red King vanished Gone

The Red King let out a screa in Murphy&039;s direction, and in the saasped and rocked in place, suddenly free

Every golden mask turned toward my friend

Bob! I cried Go with her! Keep her free!

Wahoo! the skull said, and gold-orange light fell froathered about her blond hair, even as the joined wills of the Lords of Outer Night fell upon her, so thick and heavy that I was knocked away from her as if by a physical force The very air around her warped with its intensity

White light froarht had flowed into theht to day, black to white She staggered to one knee and looked up, her jaw set in stubborn deterh the distortion, blazing like fire in defiance of thirteen dark gods - and with one of the athered around her head in a glowing golden halo

Murphy came to her feet with a shout and a sht all reacted, jerking back as if they&039;d been struck a blow in the face Several golden masks were ripped from their faces, as if the blow had physically touched them - and the one

With a screaed toward Murphy

She ducked the swing of a modern katana, shattered a traditional obsidian sith a contemptuous sweep of Fidelacchius, and struck down the warrior wielding it with a precise horizontal cut

But she was outnumbered Not by dozens or scores, but by the hundreds, and the jaguar warriors immediately fanned out to coether

But then, so did Sanya and I

Sanya came forith Esperacchius, and as it joined the fray, it too kindled into blazing white light that see them to duck, to slap at white sparks that danced in their eyes His booted foot caught one jaguar warrior in the small of the back, and the raer of the kick snapped the warrior&039;s head back with force enough to break his neck

I followed Sanya in, unleashing a burst of freezing wind that took tarriors from their feet when they tried to flank Murphy from the other side

She and Sanya went back-to-back, cutting down jaguar warriors with methodical efficiency for several seconds, as more andthe the nuue setting in now I couldn&039;t keep this up forever

There were quick footsteps beside me, and then Molly pressed her back to mine "You take that side!" she said "I&039;ll take this one!"

DJ Molly C lifted both of her wands and turned the battle chaos to eleven

Color and light and screaht and darkness flowed around and over the oncoht sunshine intertwining with other i before the feet of the attackers Bursts of sound, shrieks and clashes and booh-pitched noises like feedback on steroids sent the hyperkeen senses of full va the behind theh the handiwork of the One-woman Rave, not stopped but slowed and stunned by the incredible field of sound and light

"I love a good party," Thoes of Molly&039;s dance floor, his falcata whipping into the liuar warriors as they wobbled forward, struck down before they could recover I didn&039;t think anyone could have h to catch theree He struck down the foe as they ca the way The part he borrowed fro, where a wave traveled up one arm and down the other, was particularly effective, aesthetically, when it was bracketed by his falcata beheading one va apart the skull of another

The pressure of nu more swiftly,the leak in the dam of confusion that held the full power of the Red Court at bay

I had ain I reached into the well of cold, ready power, and with a word blanketed the field before reet any foe who stepped out onto the ice, forcing the machine that was Sanya and Murphy, or else circle around to atteht and sound show

So

Martin flinched, as though he&039;d had a dodge ready to go if I had so for him "Dresden!" he called "Look!"

I looked Up on the little teht and the Red King were standing in a circle, and they were all gathering ical power - probably frooing to do, I had a bad feeling that I was reaching the very end ofof tricks

I heard booted feet and saw thethe sides of the stadium, rifles at the ready When they were in position they would open fire, and the sih rounds into us, ould go down

Who was I kidding?

I couldn&039;t keep the field of ice and wind together for very long And I knew Molly couldn&039;t , either Dozens of jaguar warriors had fallen, but that nificant ht as hard as anted - but despite everything, in the end it was going to be futile We were never getting out of that stadium

But we had to try

"Lea!" I screamed

"Yes, child?" she asked, her tone pleasant and conversational I could still hear her perfectly clearly Neat trick

"The king and his jokers are about to hit us with so"