The most important thing
I raced down the interstate like a Formula 1 suicide driver in my Jaguar, other cars between me a blur. Fuck them all, every single driver in my way today. They were all obstacles, and I was weaving between them with superhuman reflexes.
Gripping the steering wheel until the leather started to shred in my fingers, I raced out of Chicago. It was a school day, and Harry told me Maggie went to a facility in Orland Park. Horns honked around me, and if I had time, I'd smash their windows in. But time was the one thing I didn't have.
My phone rang, and I tapped the bud in my left ear.
"Where is she, Ashley?" I practically screamed at the hacker my family paid a hefty sum to be on-call for emergencies. One thing I'd learned early on in the digital age was never to go low on the technology budget.
"A Margaret Angelica Dresden is enrolled at Saint John's Middle School at 1206 56th Avenue. And, while I was poking around, I saw firefighters and EMTs have been called for some kind of structure collapse at the facility," she said.
I heard the clicking of keys in the background as my brain raced in 15 different directions, at the forefront, who would be stupid enough to attack the daughter of Harry fucking Dresden?
Doubtless, everyone in the supernatural community knew not to piss him off at the moment. Not that there was ever a good time to anger the man, but a week after half his city burned? It was suicide. Who would do this?
Squeezing between two tractor-trailers with an inch of room, I was gone before they'd even realized how close their trucks had come to shredding my car.
"What else can you tell me?" I demanded, nearly running a motorcycle into the median.
"Not much. Whatever's happening there only started about 10 minutes ago. The very first reports of something wrong just came across the wire. I can't tell if it's a fire or a gas leak or anything," Ashley said. "Oh, hang on. Shit. A call just went out for a fully armed police presence, Ms. Raith. Seems they've already confirmed two dead, both adults, likely faculty."
I gunned the engine until the RPMs threatened to go beyond the meter. Right now this vehicle made a new home in the red section of my RPM gauge. I was probably loud enough to shatter someone's eardrums if I drove by close enough.
A few minutes later, I skidded to a stop in the rear entrance of Maggie's school. What could have possibly attacked and been such force she felt the need to call me? She had that ridiculously overpowered mutt to watch her every move. There shouldn't have been any need to use the ring I gave her.
And yet, here we were. I needed to stop trying to figure out why things had happened this way and accept they had. Mouse wasn't enough, not this time. And Maggie had summoned me. Two buildings joined with a skywalk made up the middle school.
They were old, made of articulate stonework, and full of stained glass windows depicting men like Saint Thomas and Saint Andrew. Thick black smoke rose from the building closest to me, and I was glad I'd come in a back way.
The lot I'd screeched to a halt in looked like a few reserved spots for faculty. I heard firetrucks approaching the front end of the three-story building. And when I focussed, I heard children screaming. But where was Maggie?
"Got it!" Ashley's voice said in my ear, and I leaped out of my car's door. "She's got art this hour. Second floor, room 307. If you want to save this kid, I'd hurry. SWAT is going to be there in another three or four minutes. They aren't waiting around as they did after the War for Chicago."
The back door of the school opened, and out ran a few teachers leading a few classes of students. They were all coughing on smoke and collapsing to the ground.
I didn't see Maggie numbered among them, so I popped my trunk and pulled out a long sheath, almost as long as me. It was a simple scabbard made of leather and wood. The ends came apart to reveal two matching swords that reflected the school before me. I tossed the scabbard in the trunk and held the blades, walking toward the back door.
The teachers looked at me with shock, and why wouldn't they? A woman in a sleeveless white tunic and black pants shows up holding two swords on the day their school is attacked?
"What's in there?" I asked a balding man in an oversized gray hoodie on his knees, gasping for air.
He looked me over and shook his head, not refusing to answer, but unable to describe what he'd seen.
"Wings. . . horns. . . hooves," he said in between gasps. And I clenched my swords tight. "Red skin and eyes that. . . glowed. She was horrifying."
I nearly bit my tongue going over who could be doing this. The only group stupid enough to pursue revenge against my fiance after he'd bound a titan. . . and they knew about Maggie, fuck all.
My desire to charge into the school had lessened a bit now knowing what was in there waiting. But then I was awash in Maggie's fear, her desperation. The terror transferred cleanly from her ring to my very mind.
And I knew right there and then I would not rest until she was safe again.
The shit this girl's been through. . . it's more than enough. She's owed a feeling of goddamned safety, I thought, holding my swords tight enough they began to rattle.
As I walked into the back door, I was bathed in smoke, so I kicked the metal door clear off its hinges and sent it out into the parking lot, crashing into an SUV. The smoke followed, and soon the hallway was a little more clear.
"Stairs," I said, looking back at the man.
He raised a shaky arm and pointed to a metal door about 15 feet ahead of me on the left side.
Running in, I moved to the side so more kids could escape with a teacher guiding them. They didn't even look at me, desperate for a light at the end of the hallway.
Opening the door I'd been pointed to, I ran up a flight of stairs and found a dead man cut nearly in half, his blood smeared across the floor. He appeared to be in his 60s and had been holding a mop.
The smell of death and smoke filled the air as I looked down at the black and white tile below me. I heard more screams as kids from the upper floor ran into a room and slammed the door shut, locking it.
There's no drill suited for this kind of thing, no practice they can do, I thought grimly. And a wooden door was no defense for what roamed these hallways.
Fear and desperation blanketed this entire building. Malvora and Skavis vampires would be right at home here, feeding on every child and teacher that cowered, hoping the monster that'd attacked this school would pass them by without noticing.
But what terrified Maggie was much older and more deadly than either of those families.
Running into the second-floor hallway, I looked through the smoke and saw an ancient evil, something that did not fear Harry Dresden's wrath and maybe even sought to encourage it.
About 50 feet ahead of me was Maggie Dresden, on her rear and crawling backward slowly away from something. Her terror was made all the more apparent by my proximity now. And my blood nearly turned to ice when I saw what was walking toward her slowly.
It was three or four feet taller than me and covered in scarlet flesh with glowing eyes looking down at her target practically giddy. Her cloven hooves clomped on the tile floor as she stepped closer and closer to Maggie. Horns hid most of her forehead from view, and I saw a large set of black bat-like wings hanging behind her.
In this form, the monster's voice sounded distorted in the worst way, as if it scraped across the skin of those who heard it. And in the monster's left hand sat an ancient silver coin.
She lined it up on her thumb and said, "I think you're going to like being one of us."
With those words, I watched the monster flip that silver coin down toward Maggie, and I didn't hesitate. I moved with the speed of an apex predator, racing down the hall, gone in the blink of an eye.
I knew what fell toward my step-daughter and what it would do to her. I knew what it would do to Harry, what one had done to Harry.
And Maggie's cry only drove me forward faster, running at the speed of Maggie's fear, putting every ounce of power I had into my lunge forward. It had to be enough, because letting Maggie touch that piece of silver wasn't an option.
I appeared next to Maggie when the coin was inches from her and swung my blade with even greater speed, knocking the piece of silver away and back toward its previous handler.
Maggie looked up at me as I filled my lungs with smoky air. Her eyes locked with mine, and I saw at that moment renewed hope. Light filled her senses as she hugged my leg for dear life, believing against all hope she was safe from the monster that'd invaded her school and killed her teachers and classmates without regard for their importance to future weeping parents and siblings.
She didn't understand the power difference between myself and the ancient evil that stood before us both. And it didn't matter, because as I picked her up and put her behind me, I knew I would overcome this challenge at any cost.
"You came," she whispered, clutching the ring on her finger.
"I gave you my word, child. My protection is yours always and forever," I found myself saying.
"You need to help Mouse, too!" she suddenly shrieked, and I found myself looking around for the guard dog.
The dog was growling in pain behind the monster that'd attacked Maggie, and I saw what appeared to be a web of black pulsing energy trapping the foo dog. He was bleeding from both sides, and the black web was only growing tighter around the animal, cracking nearby bricks in the wall and tile on the floor.
In front of the web hovered some sort of dark crystal pulsing in time with the black strands holding back the foo dog. I was no mage, but I could tell an ungodly amount of power radiated from the crystal as if it'd been designed specifically to ensnare something as strong as Mouse.
They knew to get to Maggie they'd need to bind her guardian first, I thought, eyeing the crystal again, realizing it was the focal point for whatever spell trapped Harry's dog.
"Please! She's hurting Mouse!" Maggie shrieked, pulling on my tunic.
Figures. Now that I was on the scene, she was more worried about her pet than herself. What a bleeding heart. . . just like her father.
Looking up at the creature before me, I pushed Maggie further back and held my dual swords out before me.
"This doesn't concern you, vampire. Leave now before I shred you like I have to so many others in my path today," she said and bared her teeth.
"This concerned me the moment you attacked my step-daughter, Rosanna. You fucked up in ways you can't even imagine, and before this day is over, you'll understand why," I said.
She sneered, revealing a few jagged teeth of her own.
"You don't want to do this, vampire. I can assure you it'll just end with your entrails decorating the lockers beside you and that girl still made into a Denarian. We have a coin picked out for her and everything," Rosanna said.
I shook my head. That wouldn't happen, not on my watch, not while Maggie Dresden rested under my protection.
"Maggie, listen very carefully to me. You need to leave. My car is parked out back. I don't know if Harry has taught you to drive yet, but you need to get inside and figure it out. Keys are still in the ignition," I said.
But she held tight to me, clinging with too much fear to do anything but stand. I'd both felt and inspired this level of fear before.
"I can't. Don't make me leave you," she said, on the verge of tears again.
Sighing and nodding, I told her to back up a few feet.
"You're a fucking fool to fight me over the girl," Rosanna said, taking a step forward and bending down to pick up the coin I'd swatted away with my blade.
Locking eyes with the Denarian, I grinned and said, "The only fool here is you. Attacking the daughter of Harry Dresden, Wizard of Chicago, and binder of titans? Your arrogance is supreme, Rosanna. I can't even imagine what drove you to act so brazenly today."
Her eyes flickered into a shade of gold as she gritted her teeth.
"You're nothing, White Court trash. If you had any clue how far you were down the food chain from me, you'd be on the floor begging me to let you go," she growled and lunged at me.
Maggie screamed, and I blocked a swipe of her claws with both my blades. Her strength was, as I anticipated, far greater than mine. But this is what my betrothed did all the time, right? Stepped into the crosshairs to take on opponents he had no right to even challenge?
This wasn't me. It wasn't what Lara Raith did, the demon inside of me shrieked as my arms began to shake from the weight of Rosanna's attack. She outclassed me in pure power, and my inner demon knew it.
I backed up and let her have a few inches of ground before coming back and slashing her left arm open, causing Rosanna to hiss at me.
And our fight went on that way for another 30 seconds or so, me getting in little cuts here and there. Technical points if this was a mere duel, but I was fighting for my life and rapidly tiring.
Finally, Rosanna managed to grab my arm and swing me into a nearby trophy case shattering the glass and scattering wood chips and choir awards all through the hall.
Then she brought one of her hooves down on my left shoulder and thoroughly shattered it. Pain radiated through my body, and I screamed to show it. My left side went numb, and I dropped my blade.
Before I could recover, Rosanna picked me up by the throat and slammed me into a wall of lockers, denting several inward, the metal groaning under her pressure.
I coughed up several lung-fulls of pale blood, and Rosanna sneered down at me. She was enjoying illustrating the difference in our power class to me.
"This is almost more fun than watching the kid crawl away from me in terror, you know? And what makes it all better is knowing you've contributed absolutely nothing to her efforts to flee," Rosanna said.
I rose and headbutted her face because it seemed like something Harry would do, and she grimaced in annoyance, a little blood leaking from her nose.
"You know what, vampire? It wasn't arrogance that led me to attack today. It was careful planning and research, finding Harry's daughter, learning her schedule, powering up a deadly artifact to disable her guardian, and waiting until she was on this side of the school, well away from the hallowed ground of the other half's sanctuary. And now I add killing a White Court vampire to the list. But in the end, it didn't make that much difference. You bought the kid another minute or two of her humanity. Hope it was worth it," Rosanna said.
When she lifted an arm to finish me, I saw my chance and drove my remaining sword into her side. She flinched some but ultimately returned the favor with her claws, tearing into my left side and likely rupturing my kidney.
I coughed up even more blood in between screams, and Rosanna just started laughing.
"I knew you White Court types were the weakest vampires, but holy shit. You didn't put up hardly any fight," Rosanna said, picking me up by the throat.
She slammed me into the ground, shattering several tiles and shaking what lockers hadn't fallen off the wall yet. I felt the impact race through me and knew there wasn't any strength left in my body. My stamina was well spent, and anything I had left was working desperately to stop the bleeding and keep me alive so my inner demon could find something and feed.
The edges of my vision started to fade, and I felt like I couldn't get any air into my body. What air I did manage to get inside just went to more coughing anyway.
One eye closed, and the other was starting to as Rosanna kicked me behind her several feet.
My blood covered what tiles were still intact and a broken half of a bulletin board with no paper or pins remaining attached.
The inner demon was screaming at me for putting us in this predicament. It wasn't something Lara Raith would do. She'd never make an opponent of a Denarian, and certainly not for some human child. The leader of the White Court would never be so foolish as to charge into battle alone against something this much stronger than her.
It suddenly occurred to me that fighting this battle alone was the dumbest thing I'd done today. In my haste to find Maggie, I didn't call for any backup. That was a blunder truly worthy of my betrothed. And I hated myself for it.
A whimper of pain caused me to open my good eye, and I looked up at Mouse, still bleeding by a now much tighter web of black magic. It was growing smaller by the second, closing in on the foo dog.
He looked down at me and managed to get out one good bark, enough to snap me back to full consciousness. It didn't erase the pain that filled every nook and cranny of my body. But it was enough to get me slowly off the floor.
I looked up at that crystal fueling the spell and felt around me on the floor for my sword. When I didn't feel it, I cursed and slowly sat up, reaching behind me and pulling loose a dagger I'd brought from under my bed at home.
After what felt like hours, I was on my feet again and barely standing. Mouse was suspended in the air by this web of pain and misery, almost eye level with me.
He bared his fangs, but I knew we'd both walked into losing battles today.
"Help me save her. She's all that matters," I said, and Mouse let out another bark.
With every ounce of strength I had left, I drove my blade down into the crystal. My strength was just enough to shatter it, and a red wave of magic shot outward, blowing me back onto the floor.
Another loud bark snapped me back to my senses, and I saw a grand temple dog standing on all fours, eyes locked on me.
"Get up," he practically said. "We've got work to do."
And as if on cue, Mouse's aura filled the entire hallway around me. His black fur started to glow, and a pale blue light emanated from Mouse's paws as the floor began to quake around him. I locked eyes with the animal and was filled with a renewed sense of hope and determination.
Failure is not an option, I thought, acknowledging a reality I knew Harry Dresden faced on every single impossible mission he'd undertaken.
There was warmth, reassurance, and light in Mouse's aura. It told me we would be victorious today, because there was no alternative.
I wished right then and there young Lara had a Mouse to charge to her aid each time her father had barged into her room and made her feel weak and powerless. Every time young Lara's father had assaulted her and pushed her sanity beyond what any child could possibly endure. I wished a Mouse had burst into the room and rescued that little girl.
But there wasn't anything I could do for her right now. What I could do was ensure the girl before me went home today safe and loved, two things I never got to feel when I was her age.
Mouse barked again, and I found some renewed strength to stand next to the foo dog as Rosanna turned to see what was causing all the noise behind her.
I watched the sneer fade from her face when she realized Mouse was free, and I was standing again. And I could do one more thing to stack the odds of survival in our favor. Consequences would have to be dealt with later, which seemed like the ultimate Harry Dresden strategy I could copy today.
Future me would have to figure it all out, but present me needed more power if I wanted to rescue my step-daughter. And that need overwhelmed every single instinct screaming through my mind. So I took as deep a breath as I could and yelled, "Uriel, give me that goddamn coin right now!"