I came to with the sound of gunshots ringing in my ears and sunspots dancing before my eyes.
When I could finally blink them away I found myself on my back, staring at a star-strewn sky. The ground beneath me was pitted and uneven, with a layer of grit that shifted between my fingers when I moved. Something cold and metallic dug into the small of my back, a small but distracting ache to add to the pile of injuries I already sported. The air around me was warm, thick, and smelled strongly of cordite. My throat burned weakly, and I couldn't tell if it was a product of the screaming I'd done earlier or the acrid smoke curling over the ground.
The rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire split the still night air and sent a cascade of fear spiraling through me. A clap of thunderous sound followed not long after, and I jerked upright when fire blossomed across the sky, bathing my surroundings in scarlet light. The ground shook so hard that my teeth rattled and my gut squirmed toward my toward my toes in a bid to escape. You didn't have to be an ex-terrorist to recognize the aftermath of a bomb. Given what had happened in the foyer of Chateau Raith, I could only pray it wasn't the bomb going off. Again.
I got a good look at my surroundings before the light faded. A network of trenches tore ragged wounds into what had once been fertile ground. If I craned my neck I could almost spy the planks of bare wood that shored up the tunnels below. Barbed wire spooled like the world's deadliest slinky over the nearest of the trenches and made looking in almost impossible. The stench of blood, stagnant water, and unwashed bodies wafting from within was almost worse than the smell of gunfire. This was misery and desperation in their most concentrated forms.
I was in no man's land, a barren stretch of nothing where only the mentally imbalanced dared to tread. The question was, which side did I turn to? The sound opening fire, or the ones lurking in the trenches?
The wind picked up and whipped a nearby flag back and forth with sharp slaps of sound. I caught a glimpse of a flag flying to my right when another explosion rocked the battlefield. There were the usual number of stripes, but where stars ought to have been, there were only four letters. USOM.
The United States of Molly. It would seem I was the one cowering in the trenches. Fun.
An amused snort drew my attention to my left. I groped for my sword on instinct and came up empty. I found a rifle where my blade should have been. It looked old, but sturdy like I'd picked up a museum piece and taken it into battle. It looked like a Winchester Model, but I couldn't have said what year it had been made.
I brought the rifle up and had the stock pressed against my shoulder before I could really think it through. It was unthinking, a pure, primal reflex to protect myself. This was my mind, my sanctum, and someone had traipsed inside like they owned the damn place.
Lara stood a few feet away, wearing the hell out of what should have been a frumpy service uniform. She still managed to exude a sense of poise and sophistication while wearing a ridiculous velour hat. She looked like the love interest in a period drama, with a face too lovely to be thwarted by the realism of blood, grime, and sweat.
Her skin glowed faintly silver as she stared up at the flag. It would have been a breathtaking tableau, if not for the creature. Her hunger stretched out behind her, a ghostly shadow attached to her by the ankles. It was like a ghastly parody of Peter Pan, but where the shadow tried to run from Peter, this creature clung on, digging its claws into her flesh. It rippled with tiny snarls of fury as she moved, but didn't leap out to attack me. It was something at least.
"Leaning into the wounded soldier aesthetic a little hard, aren't you?" she mused, and there was an edge of laughter in her voice.
I lowered the gun and she offered me a hand, which I took after a few seconds of hesitation. If she meant me harm, she'd have been on me the second we landed here. I didn't believe she'd come in here with the altruistic notion of saving me but, for now, at least, I thought I was safe. While I was under someone else's thrall, I was a threat. If she could unravel the workings but into place and put me under her thrall, I was a useful tool. I was something pleasing to look at, to touch, to taste, and to mold into a weapon of her choosing. I'd look like vapid arm candy—until I didn't. But by then it was too late.
Lara brushed dirt from my uniform (which didn't look half as good on me as it did on her), lingering a little overlong on my chest. I got a feeling she was enjoying this, just a little. Her gaze swept over me, assessing.
"I keep track of Dresden's known associates," she began in a conversational tone. "The man is hideously gauche, but he has his uses. I knew your brother was his apprentice, but he's kept you exceptionally well-hidden. My records say you were declared dead almost three years after your sudden disappearance."
"And you'd be right. My parents decided not to set the record straight, even after they knew better."
Lara tugged me forward, her grip tightening when I tried to pull away from her steely grasp. I let out a squeak of fright when she swung me up and into her arms, vaulting over a line of barbed wire like it was as harmless as a discarded party streamer. A sound caught in my throat as we plummeted toward the trench floor, but couldn't give voice to it until Lara's boots sank into the muck at the bottom, sliding several feet before she was able to regain her balance. Muck spilled into her boots and smeared across the mustard green of her breeches. She set me on my feet and stared down at them with a grimace.
"Yes, you're definitely leaning into this. If you were going to pick a war-ravaged landscape, why not try something with an open field or a more stylish outfit?"
"We're here to sniff out a bomb lurking somewhere in my cranium and you're bitching about your clothes?" I asked, a little breathless. "Besides, it's my head. What I say goes. So there."
Lara sighed and started forward. "You are remarkably like him, you know. I can't decide if that's advantageous or not, given the delicacy of what we're attempting. Honestly, what was Thomas thinking, bringing you into our orbit?"
An excellent question. I wasn't always the most prescient individual in a room, but even I'd known it was a bad idea to loiter in the foyer of the Raith house. I was damaged, and that was like throwing chum into open water. Sooner or later a shark was going to turn up and take a bite.
"I don't think Thomas was thinking when he brought me here. This Daniel thing has shaken everyone up. He's missing, and we can't get in contact with Harry for help-"
"Because there is no one to help," Lara said, cutting across me. "That was what I pulled my brother aside to discuss. Chicago PD found his effects in the cabin of my brother's trawler. There was a significant amount of blood found, and the prevailing theory is that the body fell into the lake, or was perhaps pushed in after the fact. Either way, he is almost certainly dead. If blood loss didn't do the trick, suffocation or hypothermia will have finished the job."
There was a touch of regret in her admission, like an avid collector who'd been sniped at the end of the auction. She didn't relish the loss, but there was no weight to it. She could still draw breath, could keep herself upright. She didn't feel like a metric ton had just landed between her shoulder blades.
My knees buckled, and I ended up on the ground, saved from faceplanting in the mud by a handy sandbag. The impact probably hurt, but I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything.
Harry was dead. My friend, my quasi-mentor, my knight in leather armor, and the best chance I had of finding my brother alive was gone. No more pizza, no more game nights, no more magic lessons, or updates from the outside world.
Harry. Was. Dead.
I understood Thomas' desperation now. He wasn't just keeping me alive for my father's sake. He was going against his family in one of the most transparent ploys possible because it was what Harry would have wanted, what he'd have done if he were here.
I wasn't sure when the tears had started, or when they'd graduated to wracking sobs, but when I became sensible again I found Lara crouched over me. Her eyes were a luminous silver, and she was watching me with the sort of dethatched curiosity one found in zoos. I was interesting, but I didn't really matter.
"You should count yourself fortunate that I am not of House Skavis or Malvora. What Thomas tore from you was a mere amuse-bouche. You'd be a feast for others of my kind. Your lusts don't run deep, but your fear and despair..." She lifted one elegant shoulder. "Not to my taste, but I can appreciate the scope of it."
A sound echoed down the tunnel toward us, and I knew on a gut level what it must be. Once you've seen, heard, or fired a shotgun, you know the sound it makes when a round is chambered.
Private Molly stepped from the shadows, a shotgun snugged against one shoulder. Her gaze never left Lara's face.
"Appreciate this, bitch," she said. "You try anything hinky and your ass is grass."
"Hinky?" Lara let out a high, trilling laugh. "Oh, it's lovely to work alongside such an erudite individual. What exactly do you propose to do if I fail to cooperate?"
Molly only smiled. "Have you seen what an anti-tank rifle can do to the human body?"
Lara's smile slipped a little.
"Picture that," Molly continued sweetly. "But psychically. You're inside us as much as we're inside you. If the General gives the order, the others will fire. So I'll repeat. Nothing hinky. Got it?"
Lara's eyes sparkled with malice, and she showed her teeth. "I understand. Now let's go meet this General of yours."