Interlude:
When she reached Kiev, she realized that she was feeling something she had not felt in a very long time; she was afraid. Afraid for Harry and his friends, afraid for herself, but most of all (and most surprisingly) she was afraid for the Wizards of the White Council that she had never known, had sworn never to join.
No, that wasn't quite right. Most of all, she was afraid for those who would get caught in the crossfire, injured in a battle they didn't understand or even, before they were thrust into it, imagine could ever happen.
I am… afraid for those I never met, never will meet… oh, Lord, this is— I remember this, this caring and—
—and I will not permit this! Innocents will not be harmed if I can stop it!
I may be mortal, but I will act on behalf of the Hosts of Heaven, as once I did before! Before I listened to the wrong brother, let him use my pride against me, against all I had once believed and stood for.
I remember— and I know that I have a great deal to do before I am truly worthy of those memories again.
I will do it— and if I fall, I will fall as Harry would; snarling my death curse at those who would harm those I care for, spitting my last breath in defiance.
I have hidden long enough. Today, the hiding ends— and, God willing, I will greet my friend and tell him of how his courage showed me the way to life and this miracle of caring!
She found herself smiling, though it was a hard smile, as she moved through the city towards the place where the White Council was under assault. It wasn't hard to locate the battle; people were moving away from it, most not knowing why, or caring, only moving away from a danger that they sensed in ways they could not name. Some moved under the effects of a gentle, subtle magic, something crafted with great care to avoid hurting those it affected, a magic that simply urged people to stay away from a certain part of town.
That magic would have been that of the Senior Council member Rashid, called 'the Gatekeeper,' she thought, though it might have been any of them. But when it came to mind magics this carefully designed, so meticulously constructed to avoid any damage to the minds of those affected, the Gatekeeper was the most likely candidate, with Joseph Listens-to-Wind a close second.
She smiled, moved against the spell. It required no defense past knowledge that it was a spell, which was in itself a masterful piece of spell-craft.
She got closer, and could hear the sounds of the battle. Closer still, and she heard a roared battlecry, a great many throats shouting "REMEMBER ARCHANGEL!"
Closer still, and she saw a group of eight people at the crossing of the alleys that quartered the block she had just entered, recognized Harry, even from the back, and Murphy, even Sanya. The others… the little blond must be the slayer— yes, there, she hefted the Scythe, shifted her grip on it, preparing for battle. The black-haired Caucasian with a sword— no, not with just "a sword," he carried Amoracchius! She smiled, thought about the Xander Harris she knew from Harry's memories of one of his favorite shows, and found herself thinking it appropriate that he carried the Sword of Love.
She didn't know the others with Harry and his friends, but that didn't matter, if they trusted these others, she could. She started to step that way, heard a distant gunshot—
—and suddenly, music filled the air, music that she knew, because Harry had known it and loved it.
As the theme from "Superman" blasted across the battlefield, Harry and his friends charged out onto the battlefield, shouting and yelling as they went.
For a moment, despite the danger in front of her, despite her determination to help, her worry for the man who had shown her how to be free, despite all of those things and many more that worried, upset or angered her—
—for a moment, all she could do was lean against the wall that formed this alley… and laugh at Harry's insane little touch to the battle.
After a moment, she forced herself to straighten up— and charge after Harry and his friends.
Harry:
I led the charge into the thick of the battle, looking for a sign of who to target first, trying to determine, without resorting to my wizard's Sight, which of the White Court vampires ahead of us had been possessed by an Outsider— and hoping like hell that it wasn't more than one of them.
That worried me. Toot-Toot had said "Outsiders," plural, which probably meant that my mysterious benefactor (benefactrix?), whoever she was, had probably used the plural, too. I had some magic back after my nap, but I was a long way from full strength. More than one Outsider… I didn't think I'd have the juice for that.
Unless, of course, I caught one by surprise….
Maybe the music was a bad idea. I didn't think so. Anything unusual in a battle has to be noticed, thought on, worried about— so having Molly give us a soundtrack, that would put the enemy off of their guard for a few moments, long enough, I hoped, for Team Dresden to get in there and start making mayhem before they realized what was happening.
(Besides, the Superman theme made me feel like a superhero.)
So in we went, passing through the outer ranks of innocent people who'd been jerked into this by having their emotions manipulated virtually unnoticed, making it to the second group— the White Court vampires of House Méreg, monsters who fed on the life force of ordinary people, and preferred that energy flavored with anger, unlike my brother's former house, House Raith, which fed on lust.
The strange thing (at least I'd always found it strange) was that White Court vampires could incite the emotion in people that they fed on. That seemed to me too much like picking yourself up by your own belt, but Bob always said it was more like making your own barbecue sauce to put on ribs.
Either way, they were monsters, they were killers— and there was no law that said I couldn't kill them with magic.
But since I was trying to save my magic, when the first of them saw me— saw us and leapt at me since I was leading— so pale he was practically glowing, his eyes a deadly shade of silver, a leap that no human could have made—
—I drew my Beretta from my duster pocket and shot him three times in the chest and stomach as he fell towards me. That slowed him, even tossed him back a little, and Buffy, taking her cue from me, lopped off his head with a casual swipe of the Scythe as we passed him.
He hadn't been Outsider possessed. Don't ask me how I knew that, but I did, and from more than just the ease of killing him.
Others in the inner circle of mages and monsters were starting to turn towards us, now, and I spotted a wizard— no, he was preparing to attack a group of people, not monsters, he was a warlock— raising his staff to toss a spell of some sort our way. I shot him, too, and he screamed a mixture of pain and rage as my shot punched through the shoulder of his staff arm, dropped his staff and started screaming for help.
Which is when it got crazy, as Luccio and the wardens, much more used to this sort of confrontation than the average wizard, and fresher by far than those who'd been fighting this running battle for who knew how long, hit the ring of normals, and started taking them down as gently as they could with fists, feet, and the occasional smack with a blunt instrument. (Wizard's staff? Great for that sort of thing!)
Oh, sure, the wardens were outnumbered by better than seven-to-one— there were about five hundred rage-crazed people in the crowd around the bad guys, and maybe seventy wardens— but the mob wasn't thinking, they were tearing into any targets in front of them like rabid dogs, attacking without thought or plan.
The wardens, on the other hand, were trained in hand-to-hand, not just combat magic, and they were organized, thinking, and fighting smart. In the couple of seconds I watched, maybe forty magically-enraged people went unconscious from carefully controlled blows from the wardens.
Then another House Méreg vampire was in my face, snarling something at me in a language I didn't know, and punching me in the ribs, this one a woman who was really pretty— or would have been if not for the snarling thing.
Nice thing about my duster? It works pretty well against any physical force. I felt her blows, they hurt, but they didn't, you know, cave in my ribs and destroy my lungs, like they would have without the enchantments on my coat.
Buffy reached over and hauled the woman off of me with one hand, and immediately the vampire shifted its focus to attacking Buffy. I knew she could handle it, so I looked around for some clue as to which of the House Méreg vamps were being possessed by Outsiders.
One of them caught my eye immediately; another female vampire, this one small and delicate, with long red hair swirling around her as she stood near the front of the group facing the incoming wardens… and danced, danced in place and laughed as she called instructions (or, more likely, encouragement, since the people she was talking to weren't exactly in a frame of mind for taking instructions) at the crowd in front of her. Something about her was… wrong. Off. She didn't feel… I don't know, like an "ordinary" White Court vampire. I started her way, stumbled over the corpse of the vampire that had been attacking me (Buffy works fast— it's amazing), caught myself, looked around, saw my friends involved in thoroughly screwing up the bad guys' plans, saw Buffy stepping up beside me, and grinned.
"That one," I said, nodding at little miss dancer and dropping my gun back into my duster pocket. "She's possessed, I'm sure."
"Let's go then," Buffy said, and caught my hand just long enough to squeeze it. "Remember— just do what you do. Nothing special, no extra jazz— just take it down like any old demon, Harry."
"Yes ma'am," I said— and she rolled her eyes at me before she started clearing a path in that direction.
Watching Buffy work was a treat— had been a treat back when I was watching her on a TV screen, was so much cooler live, up-close-and-personal. I felt almost guilty for not doing more than smacking the occasional combatant that tried to flank her with my staff, or shooting them, if they were plainly not human. She just moved along, smacking the people with fists and feet, occasionally with the mace-end of the Scythe, taking the blade of the weapon to those monsters who got too close for their own good.
Then we were close enough that the possessed House Méreg vamp saw us during one of her pirouettes, and stopped dancing, stood facing us— and spoke.
"You!" she snarled, her voice ordinary enough. "You! I know you! You have spoiled our fun before, mortal!
"This time, I will spoil YOU!"
Buffy started to step in front of me, but I stopped her with a shake of my head, said, "No, this is why I'm here, Buffy. She's mine."
The woman looked at Buffy, pointed a finger at her, and said something in another language— then looked hugely puzzled, and repeated herself, shouted it, the second time.
"No idea what it is you're wanting, sweetie, but you aren't gonna get it," Buffy said, sounding almost bored. She stepped sideways to intercept some incoming normals and added, "All yours, big guy. Do what you do!"
The White Court vampire snarled wordlessly— and raised both hands to point at me, palms out.
I didn't know what to expect, so I shook out my shield bracelet and brought up my shield on all three available defenses, electrical, fire and kinetic. An instant after I did so, brilliant red lightning leapt off of the woman's hands and hit my shield. When the spell failed to hurt me, she dropped her hands to her sides and started walking towards me, slowly, menacingly, and as though there was no one around but us.
Okay. I dropped the electrical and fire portions of my defense, kept the kinetic shield between me and her, and gave Buffy's suggestion a try. I did nothing special, I just leveled my staff at the woman, and, in order to save energy, hit her with my most familiar spell.
"Fuego!" I cried, and a jet of orange-yellow fire as thick as my staff jetted at the woman, hit her in the chest— and punched right on through, set her clothes on fire as it went, then seemed to start on her flesh.
She staggered, looked up at me (she was short, maybe five feet tall) and started trying to walk on towards me, trying to cover the thirty feet or so between us before she… I don't know, burned too much to move?
She didn't make it. She got three steps, then fell to the ground, burning all over now (which really shouldn't have happened, the flames shouldn't have spread like that). Her head came up and I heard a cracked voice, nothing like the woman's, say, "Not… possible. You are… insig—insi…."
"Not today, I'm not," I said, staring at the corpse in disbelief. Buffy had been right, I'd been able to just… just kill it, like it was the White Court vampire it had been inhabiting.
I heard something, then, a welcome sort of sound; I heard a whole lot of people, all around me, start making noises of confusion. I looked around, saw the raging crowd no longer raging, saw the innocent people in the park looking around, dumbfounded, as the vampires of House Méreg— or at least the Outsider-controlled ones who had the power for inciting rage in that many people— stopped trying to make the crowd crazy-angry. Cool!
Oh. Wait, that might mean—
"KILL HIM!" shrieked a man's voice, impossibly loud and not really all that human. "KILL DRESDEN! KILL HIM NOW!"
Uh-oh….
Then I saw what had shrieked, and I upgraded that "uh-oh" to a hearty "oh, shit!"
Something was growing inside one of the vampires from House Méreg, and as it grew, it tore its way out of the body of the White Court monster.
It was hideous. It shouldn't have existed, not ever, not anywhere. It stood ten feet tall on legs that bent the wrong way at the knee, and its arms hung low, its claw-tipped hands almost touching the ground. It was thin, painfully thin, and shaped like… I don't know what. From the waist to shoulders, it looked like a starving bear, only its fur was a shade of yellow that doesn't exist in nature, shouldn't exist at all. Its arms were humanlike except for the fur— and an extra set of joints between shoulder and elbow, and those extra joints bent both ways. The hands were big, too big, and had six fingers and two opposable thumbs, all capable of bending either way, towards the palm or the back of the hand. The legs looked like a big cat's, though they ended in talons that would have been at home on a velociraptor. It was horribly, hideously obvious that the thing was male, too. But the head… it was the worst.
Take the head of a king cobra, then blow it up to maybe twice the size of the average human head. Cover it in that painful-neon-vomit-pus yellow fur, then make the mouth… wider. Fill that mouth with not just one pair of fangs, but two, top and bottom, then crowd the rest of the mouth with teeth that looked like broken glass mixed with razor blades, all stuck at random into the gums between and around the fangs. Then make the eyes glow a shade of green that exactly, perfectly clashes with that horrible yellow fur.
I came pretty close to vomiting, and it's not like I'm new to the seriously gross stuff.
"DRESDEN!" it shrieked in a voice that could've shattered glass. "YOU HAVE INTERFERED FOR THE LAST TIME, YOU PATHETIC CREATURE! NOW YOU FACE—"
Maybe I should've waited, let it tell me who I was facing, but really? I was too close to panic for that. Instead, I cut loose with a bolt of force from my staff, let it go with a near-scream of "FORZARÉ!" and a convulsive expulsion of will through my arm and my staff.
The Outsider took the blast of raw force on the chin— and staggered back a single step before shaking its head and starting to stalk towards me.
What the hell? As panicked as I was, as terrified as I felt, that shot should've sent the damned thing flying most of the way out of the damned park at the minimum. Yet here it came, stalking towards me as though it hadn't felt the hit at all. What the hell?
"Shit!" I snarled, then I flipped my staff to my left hand and drew my blasting rod. Yes, the staff could project fire, but the blasting rod was made solely for that purpose— and it took less energy to get the same amount of flame with the blasting rod.
I got the rod out, aimed it at the Outsider's center mass, and cried, "Fuego!"
I was still scared, and that drove the magic out very powerfully, added strength to the spell— so I grinned when the fire punched through the Outsider's gut and lit it up from within.
At least, I grinned until it howled a word— and the fire went out. Apparently, Outsiders are tougher when they aren't possessing someone, when they're in their own forms.
Crap.
It leaped the last of the distance between us, snatched at my head, and I ducked even as I raised my shield, put up my defense against kinetic energy and tried to stand my ground as the thing started pounding on my shield with powerful, rhythmic blows. I tried, but it drove me back a little with each blow, and I felt my bracelet starting to get warm, meaning that I was overworking the focus. I had to come up with something, soon, or it would be a case of the damned thing would melt and burn me— and I'm still kind of twitchy about being burned. Okay, really twitchy. My left hand was mostly scar-free now, only the outer half of my left pinky and a narrow ring of scar tissue encircling my wrist remaining as evidence that my left hand had been burned most of the way off of my body several years before. The doctors I'd seen had all suggested amputation, but I'd refused, hoping that my wizard's metabolism would allow me to heal it. That hope had paid off— but it hadn't erased my fear of being burned again.
I figure it was that pure, blind, unreasoning fear that led me to the answer.
I didn't really remember the fight against He Who Walks Behind, the Outsider I'd defeated at age sixteen when my former mentor sent it out to kill me, not knowing then that it was an Outsider. I pretty much remembered a lot of fire, an explosion— and the first in a too-long series of burning buildings.
Wait— a lot of fire…. I'd thrown fire at it again and again and then again, because I was terrified, and fire magic was my default attack. Over and over, fire and heat, time after time….
I didn't have the energy for that sort of repeat spell, not right now— but I had something just as good, maybe better.
Buffy chose that moment to attack the Outsider before me, bless her, or at least sort of attack it. She'd been fighting a non-Outsider White Court vampire pretty close by, and seeing me being driven back, Buffy opted to kick said vampire as hard as she could— directly into King Yellow the Grotesque.
King Yellow staggered sideways under the unexpected hit from the vampire, and I had my moment. I called up all of the magic I could find in me at that moment, then reached into that well of power that I rarely tapped— and pushed all the Soulfire that the spell would hold into it as well.
I leveled my blasting rod at King Yellow's chest as he turned his head to snarl a wordless threat at Buffy, and I roared, "PYROFUEGO!" at the top of my lungs.
White hot fire, flickering with silver all through the beam, jetted out of my blasting rod's tip in a beam no thicker than a pencil, far more concentrated than I could usually manage, and it hit King Yellow squarely in the notch at the bottom of the sternum.
King Yellow suddenly lit up from the inside, white and silver light glowing from inside him for just a moment—
—then the hideous thing pretty much blew up, though (thankfully!) the pieces all either burned up or evaporated into ectoplasm before they got on anyone.
(I was relieved. The only thing I could think of that might be more gross than King Yellow's outside was his insides. Yuck!)
"NICE ONE, DRESDEN!" Murphy yelled from somewhere nearby, and I glanced around to see her moving along with Sanya, shooting anything that tried to attack the big Russian from the side or behind.
Nearby, I saw Janduski moving along beside Xander as he cut his way determinedly through the ranks of White Court vamps that were massing between him and the warlocks at the center of the crowd. She was on his blind side, tossing little bolts of lightning around at the enemy, not always killing the vamps— but always leaving them stunned and jittering at least.
Killian and Marshall were standing back to back between a bunch of House Méreg vamps and a group of normals as the pale and pretty monsters tried to get close enough to the confused and frightened people surrounding the fight to take hostages. Killian's sword was out and flashing around her body in tight, deadly arcs that chopped off vampire hands and feet so easily that I was put in mind of those old Ginsu knife commercials where they'd cut through a tin can, then, immediately after, slice a tomato with the same knife. Scary. Of course, there was plainly something very magical about Marshall's whip, as she was amputating vampire parts at damned near the same rate as Killian and her sword.
Carlos was moving along a little ways behind Buffy and I, picking off House Méreg stragglers that got too close to the normals even as he yelled at the normals to get out of the area. I don't know how many of them spoke English, but most of them seemed to get the message, maybe from his tone of voice. Or maybe they were fleeing the weird shit going on all around them. I could make a case.
I was tucking my blasting rod back into my duster and looking towards Carlos when a House Méreg vampire leaped over the crowd with a big damned sledge hammer— probably a twenty-pounder— back over his head, headed right for Carlos.
I didn't have time for a spell, and frankly, I didn't have the energy, so I yelled, "Carlos, LOOK OUT!"
He turned, but too slowly, and I was afraid that I was about to see my friend die—
—and a beam of white-gold energy, shaped vaguely like a bull's head came from somewhere behind Carlos, slammed into the vampire horns-first, punched into its left side and the left side of its throat, and sent it back towards the crowd of warlocks, trailing too-pale blood in two streams as it fell.
Carlos didn't look back that way, he had more vamps coming his way, but he yelled, "Whoever you are, thank you!"
"You're welcome!" called a pleasant, almost musical, female voice.
I looked towards where the voice and the magical construct had come from, and saw the woman— girl, maybe?— who'd just saved my friend's life.
She was little, almost tiny— smaller, overall, than Murphy, and that takes some doing. She might have stood five feet, but I'd have bet on four-ten or -eleven, and if she weighed more than ninety-five pounds, then it was because she had adamantium laced bones, or something. Her hair was almost-black, a rich, darker-than-dark brown, and long— I could see the end of a cloth-wrapped ponytail swinging out from behind her, and it hung below the middle of her back. She had skin that told me that she either had a tan or— more likely, given her features— had some Asian blood in her. Her eyes— even from forty feet or so, I was pretty sure they had the epicanthic fold that denotes Asian ancestry, and I thought they were brown. Also, I was pretty sure that she was really pretty….
(What? I'm a guy. We can't help but notice that sort of thing, even when we're only ten feet or so from someone as gorgeous as Buffy. Union rules!)
She wore practical clothing, heavy canvas pants and a leather jacket over a denim shirt. She had a shinai— one of those bamboo practice swords used by students of kendo, the art of wielding a katana— in her right hand, a small pistol of some sort in her left. I could see that the shinai had runes carved or maybe burned into it, all over it, and I realized that it was her focus, like my staff was mine. Pretty cool.
She saw me looking at her— and she smiled suddenly, a wide, delighted smile that looked pretty genuine.
"Is there room on your team for one more?" she called.
Before I could answer, she leveled her shinai at a nearby member of House Méreg who'd started towards her, and a burst of gold-white force leapt out at the vampire, this time shaped like a big curved blade— like in the movie version of the Pit and the Pendulum, only it was a little smaller. It struck the vampire in the neck and his head flew off as neatly as though it had been struck by a freaking light saber.
"You save my friend's life, you get to join up," I called back. "Welcome to Team Dresden!"
She laughed, started moving my way more quickly, and called, "Behind you, Harry!"
I spun around, saw the incoming House Méreg vampire, jerked my gun out of my duster pocket, shot him three times, then popped the clip and grabbed a new one from my other pocket, holding my staff against my body with my arm while I did so. While I swapped clips, Buffy finished off the vampire for me.
For a moment, it was simply a matter of "shoot the vampires" (they should make a video game for that) as things seemed to lull just a bit. The warlocks at the middle of the muddle, they weren't doing much of anything, and I couldn't decide if they were saving up their energy for defense, simply drained by the long fight, or planning something nasty, though my money went on the last option.
Then I heard Janduski scream something in German, and I looked over her way— to find that Xander was flying backwards and away, over the crowd of normals, Amoracchius in his hand, clutched close to his chest.
"MARSHALL, CATCH HIM!" I roared, even as Buffy yelled, "XANDER!"
I glanced back towards where he'd been fighting, saw Janduski backpedaling like mad from… hell's bells, that had to be another Outsider!
It was oozing out of the cuts on a White Court vampire, who had been a tall and gorgeous woman, and as it oozed out, it seemed to be… eating her body. The stuff that came out of the many wounds she had was a shade of purple that, if I remembered my crayons right, the Crayola people liked to call "red-violet," which was pretty apt. It oozed out quickly, as though the thick, gelid stuff was under pressure. The gunk was translucent, allowing me to see the way the vampire at the center was being consumed by the stuff, as though it was some sort of acid. Here and there inside the gunk, things floated, glowing things in various shades of orange, red and yellow, none of them any particular shape, each flowing like— like the stuff in lava lamps, really.
The thing kept growing, devouring its former host and growing impossibly large, and generally human-shaped. It stopped at eight and a half feet tall or so, though it was also about seven feet wide, and probably a good five feet thick. It had no head, exactly, just a dome-shaped lump between the shoulders. Two things you would probably have to call arms hung from those shoulders to about where it would have knees, if it had bothered with those.
It was like a big, roughly human form made by a three year old with a bunch of translucent Play-Do. It was the general shape of a human, but too thick in every direction, and it looked… unfinished. It had no features at all, its feet were two broad pads on the ends of its thick, trunk-like legs, its hands like mittens at the ends of its arms.
Worst of all, perhaps, worse than the vaguely lava-like shapes that floated all through it, was the fact that it had no skeleton. I don't know how it kept its shape, but I'm gonna write it off as magic that I don't need (or want) to understand.
The thing turned towards me, and it spoke, sort of, when it was, for lack of a better term, facing me.
"DREZZZ-DUNNN," it cried in a buzzing, shrieking voice that was much too high-pitched for comfort. "YYYOU HAVVVVVE DONNNNNE US A GREAT INNNNNSULLLT! FOR THIS YYYOU WILLLLL PAY WWWWWITH YYYOUR SOULLLLL!"
"Screw you, Lava Lamp!" I managed to say, though I don't think it could have heard me— I wasn't exactly shouting with confidence.
I had no magic left, and it was pretty damned plain that bullets weren't gonna bother "el Blobbo."
Buffy leapt at it, the Scythe out and reaching for the Outsider's, um, flesh. It hit an arm, just below the shoulder, cut through it neatly, and the arm dropped to the ground—
—where it was promptly absorbed into the Outsider's foot, or pad, or whatever— and grew out of the shoulder again fast enough that it got a frighteningly quick swing off at Buffy. She went under the swing, tried to take out a leg with the Scythe, didn't even succeed in chopping the leg off— it grew back together behind the passing blade, and Buffy wisely backed off, got out of the thing's reach.
It started towards me, and I backed up, thinking furiously. I had a big fat zero on the magic meter, and had no idea what to do next— except maybe call for a retreat.
A hand landed on my arm, and I glanced down to see my mystery helper, who was both as Asian and as pretty as I'd thought. She looked at me, her brown eyes serious, and said, "Shouldn't you be attacking that thing? You're the strongest wizard here, after all."
"I'm tapped out," I said, still backing up, keeping an eye on the blob-like Outsider. "I've taken two of these damned things down already, but the last one— magically, I couldn't light a candle."
"Oh," the girl said— and she smiled at me, an almost impish grin, then added, "I can fix that. Put your gun away, please."
I did as she asked as she tugged me backwards more rapidly for a moment, then stopped and took both of my hands in hers. She muttered something in a language that sounded like singing— and suddenly, I felt magic flowing out from her hands, into mine, a charge of magic like— like I hadn't felt since I'd drawn in as much magic as I could before the Knights of the Blackened Denarius cut me off from all magic with a greater circle, back in the case that had gotten Michael hurt.
I stared at my new teammate for a moment after, watched as she puffed for breath and armed sweat off of her forehead. "That's all I can do without a circle and a ritual, Harry— so for God's sake, make it be enough!
"If it helps any, I think that's the last Outsider here."
"Who are you!" I asked, staring at her in wonder— I'd never even heard of a wizard being able to pass their power to another wizard, let alone doing it without a circle or ritual.
"I'm a friend," she said, and her smile was so big, so delighted, that I probably would have accepted that as enough, but she went on. "Also, I play a mean harmonica!"
I stared for a second understanding the message that she'd been the blind boy outside the funeral home at Charity Carpenter's visitation, then pointed a stern finger at her and said, "Don't you dare run off or get killed before we have a chance to talk, lady!"
She laughed, nodded, and said, "Go kill that thing, please?"
I nodded, turned to see Buffy beside me, looking from me to the mystery girl with an expression of something like amusement. "What he said," Buffy added. "He's grumpy when he doesn't know what's going on."
"You have my word, sworn on my power," the Asian girl said solemnly, "that I will not leave before I explain myself to Harry, and any he chooses to have with him. And that I will try very, very hard, not to get killed!"
"DREZZZ-DUNNN!" Lava-Blob screeched as it got a little closer. "IIIII HUNNNNNNGER! COMMMME, LLLLLLET MMME FEAST ONNN YYYOUR SOULLLL!"
"Would you shut up already!" I said, turning to face it. "Jeeze, you sound like the bad guy from some direct-to-video fantasy movie, or something! Get some better dialogue, if you want to play in my league!"
It bellowed— and raised a hand my way. I got my shield up, again on all three levels, since I had no idea what was coming, then relaxed the fire and electricity defenses as a gel-like blob of goop hit my shield and slid off. I started to move towards Lava-Blob to line up a better shot, but Buffy grabbed my arm and jerked me sideway, hard enough that my feet actually left the ground.
"What the hell— oh!" I looked at the pavement I'd been about to step on, saw the acidic whatever-the-hell the Lava-Blob had shot at me eating the pavement away like the acidic alien blood in the Alien movies. "Thanks, Buffy."
"No problem. Just kill it, already, okay?"
"On it." I turned back to the Lava-Blob and drew my blasting rod from my duster. I leveled the rod, called up my power, wrapped a healthy dose of Soulfire around it, and roared, "PYROFUEGO!"
Again, silver-white fire leapt out of my blasting rod, this time a thicker beam, since I wasn't as terrified, didn't have quite as much fear to lend me focus. It hit Lava-Blob pretty much center mass, around where its navel would have been if it had a navel. Immediately, the fire started to spread inwards— then stopped, and simply burned Lava-Blob's skin furiously for a long moment, but didn't go any deeper, didn't spread.
Crap.
"IIII AMMMM THE PATIENNNNNT DEATH," Lava-Blob screeched. "IIII DO NNNNNNOT FEAR YYYOUR FIRE, LLLLITTLLLE WIZARD!"
Even as it spoke, the fire began to gutter out, and one of the glowing orange-yellow worm things flowed into the hole where it had burned, solidified, and turned the same off-fuchsia shade as the rest of the thing's skin.
"Oh, that's so not good!" Buffy said. "Harry, what next!"
I looked inside myself as Buffy and the Asian girl tugged me backwards, all of us retreating from Lava-Blob, and figured that I had enough juice for one more serious spell— so I had to choose the right thing.
"Only one choice, really," I said, gently disentangling myself from the two of them. I put my blasting rod back in my inner duster pocket and hefted my staff. "Force, against that thing? Kind of pointless, even if I made it edge-shaped. It'd just patch itself, pull itself together— something. Air blast? I doubt I could stagger it, let alone hurt it that way.
"Well, that thing may not burn, but electricity does more than just burn!"
Again, I gathered up my will, and again, I added Soulfire to the spell I crafted. I decided that, since this thing was so big, and the glowing worm-things seemed to be part of it, but independent, too, I'd go with my newer version of the lightning spell.
"Hey, you walking lava lamp!" I shouted at the Lava-Blob. "Got a question for you; 'do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?' "
I guess Lava-Blob didn't care, and didn't get the X-men reference, because it just let out a wordless, spine-wracking scream of hate, and kept moving my way at its endless, plodding pace.
"FULMINOS DIRUPTUM!" I bellowed— and a ball of blue-silver energy the size of a basketball poured out of my staff, flew across the distance between me and the Lava-Blob, hit it again center mass (don't be impressed with my aim— its center mass was bigger than most archery targets), and poured into the thing.
Immediately, lines of electrical energy started spreading out from the impact point to each of the many glowing worm-things that floated through "the Patient Death," linking them all in a web of lightning that was… well, really cool-looking, if I do say so myself.
When the last of the worm-things had been connected to the web of lightning, the whole thing flared a brilliant white— and Lava-Blob, "the Patient Death," whatever the hell you want to call him, blew up like an electric skyrocket.
Again, the pieces either burned away before they hit us, or turned into ectoplasm and evaporated before they got to us. Either way, it was kind of a relief.
"Well," I panted as I leaned heavily on my staff, "at least he didn't slime me!"
I sank to the ground, exhausted beyond words, and Buffy came to kneel beside me. "You okay, Harry?" she asked, looking worried. Mystery Girl dropped next to Buffy and looked at me just as worriedly.
"Exhausted," I panted. "Not hurt. Go. Fight! I'll be okay."
Which is when I heard another bellow of "REMEMBER ARCHANGEL!"— this one from a lot closer than the last— and suddenly, there were wardens and other wizards streaming past me, Buffy and the Asian Mystery Girl, heading for the center of the battle with bellows of anger and shouted spells.
Then Xander was standing over us, dripping on us, and Buffy was bouncing up to hug him. A few seconds later, all of Team Dresden was gathered around me, even Dawn and Molly, now that the seriously nasty parts were over. I managed, with help from Buffy and Sanya, to get to my feet, even as Xander gushed his thanks to Warden Marshall, who'd caught him in a ball of water as she had me— wow, just a few hours ago. It felt kind of like weeks had passed.
"Okay," I said, my voice raised to make myself heard as I faced the Mystery Girl. "Everyone in this group is someone that I trust with my life, and every damned one of them has earned that— so you can tell me now, miss— who are you!"
She smiled up at me, and her eyes— brown, not as dark as I would have expected, the color of milk chocolate— glittered with mischief and delight.
"My first name," she said, slowly, "which was chosen for me by a man who forges identities, is Janet.
"My last name— which I insisted on, so had to accept whatever first name could be attached to it— is one that I chose for myself, chose to accept after it was given to me by the man who taught me how to be free, and I would prefer it if you all use it.
"My last name…." Her smile grew, her voice became a laugh, and she finished, "…is Lash!"
I stared for a long moment, unable to speak for shock and purest delight—
— then I grabbed Lash, literally picked her up, and hugged her for all I was worth, even as she returned the favor and we both laughed and shouted like a couple of overgrown kids.