Chapter 2: Predator
Stallings's killer—Stars and Stones he shouldn't have a killer—threw me a curveball. The being hadn't shown signs of mortal magic: no murphyonic aura with modern technology, no black taint of death magic, no trace of spells. Even old-fashioned mechanics will experience technical difficulties if someone fires a spell near it. Any magic capable of murder would slaughter the surrounding electronics. Yet the incriminating tape had survived.
And the glowing blood hadn't turned to ectoplasm; ruling out many types of immortals.
Which left untold legions of beings I hadn't the pleasure or damned luck to run into yet. An insane Wendigo maybe, but those things wouldn't have left…the meat. One of the other kinds of vampire courts I hadn't declared war on yet? A minor hunting deity? But why go after an ordinary human police officer? Nothing I could think of made sense. Which meant this thing was probably something I had never heard of.
That hunted people like trophy animals.
Again, sickness threatened my stomach. I'd seen death and horror visited on hundreds of people; sometimes from my spells or weapons. But Stallings. We hadn't been as close as Murphy had been, between war and Warden duties and my death and resurrection and Winter Knight duties. But he was still a friend. And I'd been caught up in my own magical problems.
A mistake that cost Stallings his life.
Stop. I took a deep breath, counting backwards from ten until I was calm enough to start being logical. "Anger won't help Stallings. Re-decorating the buildings with fire won't help Stallings. Arson is wrong and will only mean more work for SI." The flames, figuratively and literally, died down. This predator—one with neither normal mortal magic, nor common immortal magic—needed to be stopped; I needed to keep my head and think. It's glowing, green, inhuman blood resisted the dawn's cleansing. Something which hunted like a human down to taking a trophy and clearly wasn't one. A complete unknown, entirely unfamiliar.
But one capable of a decent veil as it followed me from Buttercup Park.
Give me some credit. I spent five years with an apprentice who could do a better veil at fifteen. A little tutoring and Molly could hide three humans from the supernatural senses of a Black Court Vampire. You think she never used her favorite spell to sneak past me? Or wait in ambush with water-balloons? Or in one truly epic near-disaster, potions.
Whoever stalked me couldn't vanish like Paris Hilton's morals, though they were clearly beyond my current efforts. Good enough to murder Stallings. Movement alone gave the hunter away, making the veil ripple like the edges of a mirage with every leap. By Listening I could hear the slightest sound of metal scraping stone as they bounded from building to building. The footsteps were even; no exertion scrambling over the concrete jungle to keep up with me in the unusual heat of the day. Aside from these faintest of sounds, the ripple of concealment, my stalker didn't exist.
Mysterious predatory beings were the last things any rational wizard wants to deal with. Rationality isn't an accusation most level at me but, experienced warden or not, I'd rather be enjoying breakfast with Maggie at the Carpenters. Except it had killed a friend and made this whole cat-and-mouse game personal. The Winter Knight mantle and my own darkness softly chanted vengeance. Not without some hefty backup. Heading home with its veritable fortress of wards would be my normal modus operandi but my daughter was still there. Hell would go through an ice age before I lead any of my enemies to my daughter.
I kept heading north, away from my home, toward another fortress with powerful wards. An island I claimed as sanctum years ago. A prison built by Merlin himself to lock away all those evil immortal beings who should be punished eternally.
The hunter climbed trees and buildings with inhuman ease, keeping with my pace even as I broke into a fast jog. Long legs, height and practice means very few people could keep up with me on the ground. Early pedestrians jerked out of my way with shock, annoyance and a little fear—guess they don't see too many big men in leather coats jogging in this heat. The stalker didn't fall back, not during the traffic cross, not a half-mile further. It had to move faster, pronouncing the outline distortions and giving me a good idea of its size and shape.
Big. As large as me, at least. Humanoid but arboreal, a born climber. A predatory Orangutan.
As Tao of Pratchett has taught us, Orangutans are not to be made fun of.
I slowed down to a quick, easy walk to keep from dying in the heat. The sun had barely risen and sweat already made my armor clingy, but I didn't dare take it off. The charred hole deep in asphalt and a headless corpse flashed through my mind. My stalker slowed; their even footsteps barely changing. Not an enemy I could beat in a footrace then. Inhuman eyes made the hairs on the back of my neck lift warily.
Buildings made way for docks and ships like a lake-going Wal-Mart. Chicago's wharf. Safety. I would get to Demonreach and then…then the monster would regret laying eyes on SI's leader.
The skin on the center of my spine, between my shoulder blades, prickled. I'd been shot there once before by a sniper. Only by Listening did the faintest click come to my ears. The sound of a weapon being sighted.
I wasn't going to make it to the island.
One knee hit the ground, a blast of white-hot plasma tore through the space my spine occupied a second ago, brushing over my shoulder. Molten light scorched stubble and the skin beneath less than an inch from my pounding pulse.
Too close.
Time to do the last thing prey ever does to a predator. Will gathered, I turned to face the hunter, raising my staff as I got up. Hoping my guess was on the mark, I launched the easiest, fastest spell a wizard could.
"Hexas."
Mortal magical practitioners are the anti-tech and I'm one of the worst. A cough from me can kill a computer at fifty meters. When I'm trying? The wharf blackened out. Tech within half a mile in all directions fell silent with final shrieks of agony. In the distance where my spell had been aimed building lights died in a line stretching the length of the city. In the cloud-blackened morning the only light to be had were three red dots fixated unwaveringly on my chest.
Oh shit.
Dah'Mei chuckled. So the humans had invented some way of disrupting technology, at least their primitive technology. Of course such things wouldn't work on Yautja tech. Foolish human. The hunt would be over soon then. She felt a twinge of disappointment, but pulled the trigger without hesitation.
In the breath of time the laser took to reach her prey, it dodged.
Dah'Mei had hunted human soldiers. Athletes. Martial artists and knights. She targeted only the best of the most physically fit across hundreds of cultures and hundreds of years. More than the finest human scientist, she knew just how swift and powerful a human could be. Knew the limits of adrenaline-fueled strength and reflexes better than they.
This human was faster. Searing laser-fire should have punched a hole through his ribs and one lung instead of brushing the leather of his dark coat. No material tore away from heat capable of melting through stone and metal alike. Unnatural. New armor technology too? He jabbed his staff toward her and snarled a word.
"Fuego!"
The word meant nothing but a lance of fire, blue with heat, shot from the staff toward her chest. Fire like that of a laser canon, hundreds of years more advanced than any technology these primitive apes could claim. But the staff was supposed to launch EMP's? Dah'Mei felt as dizzy as when she'd first been introduced to the wonderful invention of fire-arms.
Then instinct, which remembered the shocking, deep flash of pain from the first bullet overtook her and she moved. The heat brushed by her own throat as it passed, searing half her canon off her shoulder. The useless, half-molten slag fell to the ground.
No ordinary fire could melt through predator-forged canons. A new weapon. Why hadn't the other human used one of these strange fire staffs? No time to contemplate; the human fired again. She dodged the second shot completely, a spear of ice so cold its passing left frost on her armor and a chill against protected flesh. Fascinating. She would have to examine the versatile weapon after prying it from her prey's cold, dead paws. She fired back, forcing the human on the defensive, to act as prey.
It dodged behind some primitive human ship but she could see it's legs and lined up her next shot. The trio of red dots wouldn't give her away this time.
She pulled the trigger.
The human's legs collapsed.
Then it sprang over the wheeled ship in a single bound, slashing its staff like a spear in mid-air with another shouted word. Dah'Mei warily dodged, escaping the weapon's unnatural blow.
Or so she thought.
Force as powerful as the heat of a hunting laser, concentrated across a centimeter-thick space slammed into her helmet, just above the eye-sockets. Metal capable of withstanding gunshots crumpled beneath power unlike any human weapon she had ever encountered. It tore into her helmet, but the Yautja-forged metal stopped the force from cleaving the whole thing off. Her head snapped back from the blow. Her body followed and she had to flip over in mid-air to keep from slamming to the ground in a vulnerable heap.
She landed on her feet as lightly as any cat. The human stared at her with calculating eyes, hand going to his pocket. Dah'Mei had to temper the electric thrill in her veins. The drug of challenge. Two wrist blades snapped into being with an unfamiliar click, the very newest and best technology.
The human drew a gun in response. A disappointingly familiar weapon, though larger and heavier than what normal humans carried. His reflexes were a hair faster than she was used to dodging and the bullets fired—larger, heavier—plowed deeper into her unarmored side. She closed the distance, wrist blades flashing.
He whipped the staff toward her head, forcing her to duck, caught the end in his other hand and thrust the tip at her chest with another unknown word. She caught the wood against her gauntlet, the energy channeled within it reverberating into her flesh as the blow shot beneath her arm-pit where no armor protected tender flesh. Another step brought her blades slashing into exposed skin. He roared but did not falter, slamming the butt of his staff against her foot, thrusting the head into her chin and wrenching the whole thing to the side, tangling it in her arms. Dah'Mei took a step closer, stealing his leverage before he could flip her. This was an intimate dance with prey; a fatal one. No human was as strong as a Yautja. She wrestled him to the ground.
Or tried to.
Teeth gritted, tendons tight as bowstrings, muscles bulged like immobile iron against her strength. Blood dripped down his face like sweat, mingling with salt-water, tracing his brows, threatening the corner of his burning eyes. Dark eyes that bored into hers like twin plasma shots.
He didn't move.
How? Average Yautja were larger and stronger than all but the most massive and physically gifted humans and she was large and strong even for a Predator. This human was her equal in height and weight but he couldn't be in strength. No human was. Dah'Mei redoubled her force.
Little by little his joints bowed but every inch was a strain for her own muscles. She shifted her stance and grip, trying to crush his knees to concrete and heaved the full of her bodily strength and weight against him. Suddenly the human dropped to the ground so swiftly Dah'Mei faltered. A second's stumble. He twisted his staff and the Yautja had to turn a mid-air flip to keep from being smashed to the ground herself. Landing neatly, she used the momentum and power of legs, hips and shoulders to slash her wrist-blades from his ribs to his shoulder.
The force of the blow staggered him but the coat didn't give way. Did the humans have such incredible armor to repel Yautja blades now?
"Fuego!" This fire was less a spear and more a wave, bathing her in a tsunami of flame. Powerful muscles spurred her away in a leap few predators could have matched. Pure heat washed over the armor encasing her feet. He followed up swiftly with a spear but she anticipated the move and evaded an icy shaft large enough to tear out her heart. Rising, she aimed her canon.
"Forzare!"
Another wave of strange force shot out but this time Dah'Mei dodged and the wave of power ripped a boat away from its dock and into the water. He was panting slightly, the unnatural attacks draining him and slowing his reactions.
Dah'Mei almost didn't fire, not out of weakness or sympathy but because she wanted most desperately for the hunt to continue. No human had lasted so long against her in centuries; the thrill made adrenaline sing in her veins as it hadn't sang for decades. But granting mercy was a disgrace to such worthy prey. If he couldn't evade in time, so be it. She pulled the trigger.
"Defendarius!" He spoke with instinctive swiftness. A wall of strange energy appeared—
—Bouncing the laser back toward her.
The angle was wrong for the deadly beam to skewer her chest. That alone saved her life. Her abused helmet took most of the blast; the laser-fire tore through the remaining crumpled metal. Useless. Blood dripped hot from a too-close shave. She tore the obscuring scrap away.
Unlike most humans, this prey did not reel back in horror at the sight of her true face. He hardly blinked. That blank-faced reaction was… perversely stimulating. She shook such thoughts away. Not even with this human who stared at her true face so fearlessly, who attacked her first, who wielded weapons almost equal to her own and fought her nearly to a stand-still.
Dah'Mei had little reason to learn any of earth's many languages, given how swiftly their languages changed but she knew a few words. And now she used them.
"Your name worthy one." She had to have it. This prey could not simply be the human, indistinguishable from so many thousands of others, not when she regaled the story of his glory or her triumph.
"Dresden," he growled.
"Dres-den," she repeated.
"And the name of the man you murdered was Stallings. Pyrofuego!"
Dah'Mei had to leap a good thirty feet and even then heat washed over her side from the fury of his fire. She did not know or care what most of his chatter meant but his name in Yautja language sounded like 'Victorious blade.' A fitting name for a terrifying prey. With another bound she closed the distance and stabbed her blade at the sliver of chest unprotected by leather. It sliced through fuzzy fabric, and stopped. Again. He snatched her wrist, clasping it to his chest and twisted.
She was jerked forward, wrist held in an iron grip, bones unable to withstand the sudden, wrenching force tearing her in two different directions. They gave way with a muffled, sickening crack before she was flung to unforgiving concrete. Dah'Mei ignored the pain with centuries of experience. Rolling into a crouch she fired another blast from her remaining canon, sending him reeling back, the leather armor once more protecting him. She needed to trap him somehow. If only she could land a proper hit on his unarmored head.
She would have to mar that beautiful skull. A pity. But sacrifices must be made and this was a sacrifice for the ultimate trophy. She cloaked herself. Dark eyes followed her but the technology masked her subtle activation of spear and canon. Dropping the cloak, she aimed. The sight of her weapons, primed and ready, inches from him, took him by surprise. This time he was a moment too slow. "Fueg—"
She slashed. He bowed his head, trying to shield it with another piece of leather but her strike rent true. Blood burst. The blow carved his face from the top of the dome down to his jaw, scarring beautiful bone. Her activated canon fired with a whine of energy. So close, so badly hurt, blinded by his own blood, he was too slow. Dresden still raised a hand, a strange chain dangling around his wrist. "Defen—"
Laser-blast tore through the chain, releasing a wild explosion of energy and searing his wrist, before hitting his stomach next to the strange dark leather-armor. Laser and unnatural energy sent her prey flying. He halted in a gangly, tangled knot of limbs on the concrete, blood sprayed in wild arcs to leave a glistening red trail to his unmoving body. One bloodless hand clenched the stave in a deathly grip.
Or did he die?
She approached him warily and primed her canon for another shot, just in case. A trio of red dots centered on his back. "You are truly worthy prey Dres-den."
A second round should have finished him off. Instead he shot off the ground like a startled feline, her finishing fire missing his back by millimeters. On his knees, Victory Blade pointed his staff toward her, another strange word on his lips. Dah'Mei was dodging before she realized he wasn't targeting her.
Blood, smeared on the ground, dripping off his face and oozing from a dozen wounds rose in an odd, foggy mist. Dah'Mei flattened herself to the ground to escape the worst of it. The world turned white. Without her helmet, she had only her ordinary senses and the fog blocked her sight. The stench of burning flesh and smoke kept her from scenting him. She could hear nothing but the distant wailing alarms of lesser hunter-humans closing in.
Her helmet might have been destroyed, along with a dozen sensors capable of picking up any living being in pitch blackness or beneath cloaking, but one did not rise to greatness among the Yautja by leaning on a crutch. She focused carefully on her hearing, taking soft breaths and shutting out distractions until she could pick out footsteps, oddly muffled and distorted ones.
Dres-den whispered another strange word, weariness thick in his voice.
No time for a planned shot. Dres-den's weapons, his unnatural shield, his abilities were foreign to her and she hadn't a clue how he'd turned blood to fog, but the habits of prey were familiar. He was going to escape using the mist as cover and distraction. Retreat to his den. With her hearing amplified to the highest, she picked up the sound of something tearing, not cloth or metal or anything that should be torn. Harsh wind blew from nowhere, chilling the vapor with winter's icy breath.
No, she would not lose this one! Aiming the canon on sound alone, she had no time to focus, no time to steady herself. She could only hope all her training and experience would pay off. Could only hope she didn't hit armor.
She fired. The laser shot into the haze at Dres-den's head-height.
Distorted footsteps stopped. Something hit the ground so hard the thud made her ears cringe.
The fog died.
A/N: If Dresden could short out all Yautja tech with a single spell this would be one really short fight, so that's not going to happen. Why is Dah'Mei's tech so resistant? Well Predator technology is as alien as the beings who made it, so it doesn't run like ours does. Magic can't shut down any more easily than it can short out a sword or a rock. Also, as one of my readers has pointed out, the Yautja have never heard of magic, let alone it's anti-tech properties. Magic is affected by belief and the lack of belief keeps magic from affecting the technology.