"Harry."

"Mmmph."

"Harry."

"Mmmph?"

"Wake up."

My eyelids pulled apart, very reluctantly. The van's dashboard clock greeted them in brilliant green monochrome. I was curled mostly-comfortably in the van's passenger seat while Fix drove. "Five minutes, Molly? You let me sleep exactly five minutes?"

"Harry, I'm sorry. But… there's someone here."

I looked at her, and she was looking through the windshield. I shook my head, mostly clearing it. Fix wasn't in the driver's seat. He was outside, beside the other van, with Ana, Sanya, Thomas and Elaine, talking to a very tall blonde woman.

I checked my pocket for my revolver, then popped my door open and all but fell out of my seat. Lash, help.

You won't like it, but… as you wish.

My nerves suddenly caught fire, and I was dunked in a pain tank. I felt like I'd just had acid poured over me, after I'd been subjected to 1000 paper cuts and soaked in lemon juice, then told I had to give a speech naked in front of all my friends and relatives after swallowing an entire box of laxatives.

It hurt like Hell.

Ha. See what I did there?

However, consciousness did come roaring back. I blinked. Uh, thanks.

I stepped forward, Molly beside me. The blonde woman turned, crossed her arms, and waited, straight-backed and tense. She looked a bit like Charity, but even more athletic, if that was possible, and younger, though that was just a trick of immortality. "Dresden," she said.

Ms. Gard was the 'security consultant' kept on retainer by John Marcone, Chicago's godfather. I also only had about three inches on her in height, which is strange for me. Nice for my neck, though.

"Hi, Sigrun," I said, using her actual, Old-God-given name. My tone was flippant, as it usually was when dealing with criminals. Even the ones I got on with. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

She looked around. "Everything."

I looked her over; her usually prim business suit was dirty, covered in slash marks and some blood stains. In fact, the left side of her blouse and blazer were almost solid red, though she didn't appear injured. And her hair was a mess.

And her usual partner was missing. "Where's Hendricks?" I asked.

"In the van," Thomas answered. His voice was thick, and he was pointedly not looking that direction.

I craned my neck to look through the van's sliding door, which sat open. Hendricks is a big guy, in the same way that Mouse is a big dog. His legs dangled out of the door at the knees. I stepped around Ana to get a closer look. McCoy was kneeling beside him, a few vials of odd-coloured liquids getting mixed back and forth by the door light while Georgia and Billy tore strips off his shirt and turned them into bandages.

Hendricks was a mess. He was covered in blotchy, bruise-like marks, as though he'd been hit with a baseball bat repeatedly by Maguire and Sosa. One of his ribs on the right side was sticking through the skin, and that was where most of the blood on Gard had likely come from. One of his eyes was swollen shut and the other was going to join it shortly. A large chunk was simply missing from his right thigh. The fingers of his left hand were all obviously broken. But even lying there, barely conscious, his muscles looked like they could beat up my muscles.

I've seen worse, but rarely on anyone I know. Thomas' vampiric instincts would tell him to devour the weak target; he was barely holding himself back. It was pretty obvious Lara had stepped away for the same reason.

"Everything okay, sir?"

"Not sure yet, Hoss. Let me work." He punctuated the sentence by upending a vial into Hendricks' mouth.

I stepped back and turned to Gard. "The hell happened?"

She arched an eyebrow at me. "Do you actually care?"

"Hey, anything that can put Cujo down, I want to know about."

She sniffed and crossed her arms.

"What's with the hostility?"

She looked me in the nose and said a single word. "Marcus."

Whoops. I grinned and scratched the back of my neck. "I'm guessing you pulled collection duty?"

"You put a dozen einharjar at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Retrieving them was not what I would call fun. In fact, it a pain in the ass."

"Hey, you're a Valkyrie. You collect dead warriors from the field as a – well, not for a living, but you do it. So don't get high and mighty on me just because you had a bad day at the office."

She took a deep breath, uncrossed her arms, and closed her eyes. When she spoke, she sounded reluctant. "You're right." She looked at me again. "And even I can admit it was an impressive victory."

"So, tell us," I said, hooking a thumb back at Hendricks. "What happened?"

"We were at the Velvet Room."

Ah. Marcone owns a lot of 'legitimate' businesses. I mean, a lot. Think of a triple-digit number, double it, and add your age, and you might be getting close to how many pies he has his thumbs in. The Velvet Room was one of his more… popular pies. It was, ostensibly, a gym on the second floor of an office building, the first floor occupied by a mini-mall. There were six other floors above that, filled with legitimate offices, as the building had once been a cheap hotel.

Inside, members were almost entirely middle-aged men of influence in the circles of politics and money. And the trainers were all young, attractive women, and very helpful to middle-aged men of influence.

"Late-night business?"

"Ms. Demeter called. She said there was a problem between one of her girls and one of the clients. Ms. Demeter is very protective of her employees."

"And Marcone is very protective of his interests, I get it. This was the night of the first earthquake?"

"About 40 minutes before the first one, yes. The three of us arrived at the office less than 10 minutes before the quake. The initial problem was easily dealt with – the man wasn't a client, but a guest of a client, who was repentant. He and Mr. Marcone had a conversation. As they were finishing, the building started shaking."

"And you all just stayed there?"

"No. Marcone needed to check on his other assets. He promised Ms. Demeter he would return the following day. After a rather whirlwind tour of Chicago, including a close look at those demonic fires, we got back at five to midnight. And within a few minutes, they were everywhere."

"Who?"

She hesitated. "Many of Mr. Marcone's… former associates."

I felt my mouth and eyes open wide.

Molly asked, "What do you mean, 'former associates'?"

"We're literally in Hell's waiting room, Sigrun," I said. "Kill the euphemisms."

She took a deep breath and looked at Molly. "His dead enemies. They've come back for him."

Behind us, McCoy heaved himself out of the van. He looked at Gard. "He'll live. For now. Tough son of a bitch, but he needs a hospital."

She let out a breath. "Good."

"So," Sanya said, "crime boss is still surrounded by dead enemies?"

"Yes. We fought our way out, to find help. He refused to leave."

"Why would he refuse to leave?" Fix asked.

"The girls," I said. "How many are still there?"

"A dozen," Gard said. "When we left, he had them holed up in one of the… massage rooms." I rolled my eyes. "I have no idea how long he could hold out, but we barely escaped half an hour ago." She looked at me with sad Scandinavian eyes. "I came to find help. And I found you, before any of Marcone's lieutenants."

Everyone looked at me, and I ignored them, putting a hand to my face and rubbing my eyes. I took a couple of breaths. It would almost be poetic justice to leave Marcone to deal with his old mistakes again. All those people he'd killed, out for vengeance…

Except, it wasn't just him, was it? The girls working there were not violent offenders.

Lash, I might need a few fatigue-suppressing techniques.

I will help you, but I can only do so much.

I know.

A second later, I felt some of the weight on my eyelids yielding. A little.

I opened my eyes and looked at Gard, who seemed calm, but was obviously tense to anyone who knew her. "Okay," I said. "Alright. But first things first; we have injured who have to get back to the church, and someone has to go with them to make sure they get there."

On cue, there was a loud, high-pitched roar in the distance.

"Huh," Molly said. "That was eerily well-timed."

I looked down at McCoy. "Sir, I'd obviously prefer to have you with me, but…" I looked at the vans.

"I get it, Hoss. I'll get them back to the church. I'll need someone in the other van, though."

I turned to Molly, and took a breath.

She cut me off. "I'm coming with you, obviously."

"Obviously," I said, smiling. "Fix?"

"Where goes Summer, so goes Winter," he said.

I turned to Elaine next, and opened my mouth. "Not a chance in Hell, literally or otherwise," she said, arms crossed.

I looked at Ana, and sighed. She tilted her head to the side, her face unreadable. "Well, one of the big guns has to go with him, Captain."

She looked at the vans for a moment. Two. Probably thought about Chandler. She didn't look at me. She licked her lips and said, "Alright. But if it looks hopeless, you retreat, and come get help."

I nodded. "Harry?" Billy. "Georgia wants to stay with Hendricks, make sure he holds together."

"And you should probably get back; check on the rest of the pack."

He looked at his wife. "Yeah. Yeah, I should."

I shook his hand. "We'll see you soon, man. Take care of them."

He turned and in a blink, was replaced by a large wolf. "Sanya?"

"I go with you. Is always more fun to attack demons than to wait on guard duty."

"Thomas?"

"Same. I shouldn't be around the wounded, anyway."

"Right. Where'd Lara go?"

"For a walk, as soon as the vans stopped. We start moving, she'll catch up."

"Okay. In that case let's - " I stifled a yawn " – get going."

"Wait," Gard said, "one moment." She twisted and tugged open a small pouch she had tied around her waist. She pulled out a small piece of what looked like slate. She turned to me, and held it out before her, gripped between her thumbs and forefingers of both hands, eyes closed. She murmured under her breath for a few seconds, then snapped the thin little stone in half.

A night's sleep washed over me. The fatigue I'd been mired in was just gone. I didn't need to yawn, my eyes weren't heavy. "Whoa," I said.

"Wow," Elaine said beside me. She'd caught some the effects, too. "That's some good stuff."

"Life rune," Gard said. She looked at the pieces in her hand, then dropped them. "I really need to carve more of those. The effects will last about an hour."

"Then let's get moving." Sigrun turned, grabbed a huge battleaxe from where it leaned against a wall, and started down an alley. I was right behind her.

Getting to the Velvet Room took about fifteen minutes at a light jog, during which Lara appeared out of nowhere beside Thomas. "Where were you?" I asked.

"Meditating," she deadpanned.

"What can we expect?" Fix asked Gard.

"For a start, the Vargassi Family."

"Who?"

"They controlled the organised crime in Chicago before Marcone," I said. We all paused at the mouth of an alleyway before proceeding into the street. Gard led us left. The darkness – the complete lack of artificial light – was creepy as anything. "He started as a minor enforcer with them before his quick climb to the top." We all stopped again when we heard a building collapse in the distance. A dust cloud came up on the southeast horizon, against a marred, black-red-grey background.

We kept moving, a little faster now, and I kept talking, probably due to nerves. "Marcone is ruthless, and brilliant. It didn't take him too long to become one of the favoured lieutenants in the Family, and that earned him the ire of a couple guys whose name actually was Vargassi." I paused. "Within a couple of years, those men had… taken a sabbatical."

"For a mortal," Lara put in, "Marcone is quite capable. And willing to do whatever he feels he must. Honestly, Harry, he reminds me of you."

I gave her a genuine, disgusted look, which she smiled at. "I am nothing like John Marcone."

Gard piped up. "Mr. Marcone has noted the similarity before, himself. You are both men of means and power, though you use it differently, with very strict moral codes."

I barked out a laugh. "Marcone? Moral?"

"He has his rules."

"He only has one rule – no children. And that's only because - " I cut myself off.

"What?" Elaine asked. "Only because of what?"

I sighed. Stupid mouth. "The Vargassi's first attempt at taking him out, a little girl was… in the line of fire."

Gard continued, "Marcone does not allow collateral damage. In Chicago, you either follow his rules…"

"Or you don't get to play the game," I finished.

The whole story behind that little girl was a bit more complicated, but telling everyone the details would have gone against an unspoken agreement between me and Marcone. The girl had gone into a coma, and was essentially brain-dead. The Vargassis had faked her death, hoping to use her if the shooter had been charged with murder, or maybe to pin the blame on Marcone himself. Before that plan could be put in motion, Gentleman Johnny had wiped them out. When he found out about her, he'd had her moved out of state and given the best care possible.

Her name was Amanda Beckitt. Her parents had never recovered, emotionally, spiritually. They had joined up with a man, a minor magic user backed up by the Black Council, named Victor Sells, and his magically-enhanced drug operation to take a bite out of Marcone, who they blamed. A certain foolish wizard had dismantled that operation and sent the Beckitts to prison. When Helen, Amanda's mother got out, she was offered employment with Marcone, who suggested the nom-de-plume Demeter for her.

She didn't know her daughter was alive, and probably had a right to know, but since the whole incident - and everything in her life since – had shaken her sanity, there was a chance that finding out she was still alive would break her. I'd been torn on whether to just tell her myself for a while. Just as I'd been torn on whether to tell Marcone that Helen really, really wanted to get revenge on him.

Honestly, half the world's problems could be solved if people would just talk to each other.

"The Vargassis have spent much time here. They have taken on… demonic aspects."

"Terrific. How many?"

"At least six."

"Okay, who else?" I asked.

Gard smiled. "Some who you are familiar with."

"What do you mean?"

"Mr. Marcone said the name Victor Sells, at one point."

"Ah, hell's bells. Who else?"

"Phil Denton, and his team."

"Seriously? Crap. Shouldn't have let Billy and Georgia go."

"Who is – or, who was – Phil Denton?" Fix asked.

"An FBI agent," I said. "He and his team got some backing from the Black Council: enchanted belts. Let them turn into hexenwulfen."

"What, like the Alphas?"

"No. With the Alphas, the magic is part of them; they keep their human minds and sense of identity when they transform. Hexenwulfen become subsumed in the power of the wolf totem." I shook my head, thinking about the brief minutes I'd worn one of the belts myself. "You lose yourself. Lose your conscience. You become less than a person, less than a beast; you become a monster."

Fix nodded uncomfortably.

"Quite literally," Gard said. "Their bodies have… changed."

"Changed how?"

She looked me in the nose. "How do you think?" Eyes forward. "There may be others. I don't know."

Up ahead, I saw something that caught my eye, but I wasn't sure why. There was no particular detail standing out. The surfaces of the buildings were mostly the same, there didn't appear to be any nasty beasties waiting for us in the alleys or on the rooftops. The shadows were –

Shadows. There was light up ahead, around the corner. Artificial light. I slowed, as did Gard. Everyone else followed suit.

"Lights?" I asked.

She nodded. "I don't know what they're doing, but the building's power is back on. Though it is… odd."

"Odd?"

"The lights, the heat, the air conditioning; they aren't behaving as they should." We came to the corner, and paused. Everyone took quick turns poking their heads just a little way around the corner, just far enough to see the building that housed the Velvet Room. My turn came, and I looked with Mouse. He let out a low growl. The building stood across the road, between a fenced-off vacant lot, nearer to us, and a parking lot, further away. And the lights in the windows were multi-coloured.

Fierce red, sickly green, searing yellow. The glares coming out of the windows on all four floors were flaring and waning randomly. It was nauseating. The backlit signs for the various fast food places and offices seemed to have melted, exposing pulsing, seizure inducing lights. They weren't the only things that had changed.

Tearing my eyes off the rainbow of the damned, I looked around. There were three – no, four – large, slowly-moving shadows surrounding the building, slowly patrolling. I squinted a bit.

They could only generously be called wolves. They were enormous, canine-like shapes, but twisted and distorted. The limbs were uneven, the jaws so full of teeth they couldn't close properly. The muscles were so huge and disproportionate that the bodies gave the impression of cartoon body-builders. And the paws looked more like claws.

"Terrific," I muttered, pulling back. "The Wolf-B-I are on patrol."

"Demon wolves. Nice. How do we get past them?" Thomas asked.

"I'm open to suggestions."

"Simply charging is suicidal," Lara said. She crossed her arms, indicating that line of thought was closed.

"Very true," I said. "That would be the dumbest possible thing we could do."

"Stars above, Harry," Elaine cursed.

"What? We're short on time. Whatever we bought ourselves by killing Mavra and Taira is burning up, fast. We need to get in there."

"So, 'Charge of the Light Brigade' is your solution?"

"They wouldn't be expecting it."

"That," Sanya piped up, "is because it is stupid." The he grinned. "I love it."

"Cool," I said. "You're with me, then."

"Da."

"With you?" Elaine took a step closer. "Harry, what are you – those are demons. And we're not in the real world. Not completely. You don't know what they're capable of!"

"Good point. You're with me, too."

"I what?"

"Seriously. Marcone's not alone in there. There are a dozen young women with him, none of whom are as capable as he is. Do you want it any other way?"

She paused a moment, letting anger wash over her. She took a deep breath. I saw her make a pair of fists, and knew I had her.

She spoke softly. "I'm coming in." She drew a pair of wands from leather holsters on her hips.

"Okay. Mouse?"

He huffed in the affirmative.

"Knew I could count on you. Sigrun, you'll be in the lead. The rest of you - "

"Harry," Molly said. "I have to come."

I gave a small sigh. "I know. Okay, the rest of you," I said, pointedly looking at Thomas and Fix, "please keep the Fucked-up Bureau of Insanity off us?"

Thomas glanced at his sister, who was shaking her head, but looking at me. "So bold," she muttered. "Yes. We'll watch the outside."

Thomas looked at me and nodded, pulling out an oversized handgun from I-didn't-want-to-know-where. Fix drew his sword. Lara simply cracked her knuckles.

"Okay. You three on point. Gard and me right behind you. Then Elaine. The rest of you, bring up the rear."

"I take it you want me to open the door?" Elaine asked.

"Exactly."

"Open the door?" Fix asked. He was checking a shotgun that he'd had over his non-sword shoulder.

Everyone looked at him. "You didn't notice that the door was missing? Sealed over?"

"Uh, no." He had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I guess I was a little distracted but the Pink Floyd show."

I shrugged and Molly shook her head. We exchanged a look that said, Amateur.

"Alright, everybody ready?"

Everyone tensed, weapons ready. I hoisted my borrowed staff, took three quick breaths, then said, quietly, "Half a league, half a league." Then I shouted, "Forward!"

We all started at the same time, but Thomas and Lara were ten steps ahead in less than two seconds.

The demon wolves and their garish faces locked onto us before I'd finished saying 'forward.' All four of the insults to wolf-kind charged us, mouths frothing, muscles bulging, skin tearing. I drew in my will, and started to form a shield.

Thomas waited until the lead wolf – with redder fur than the others - got close, then emptied an entire clip into its head at point blank range. The demon that had once been a man fell, and instantly began to liquefy. Two of the other three just kept coming, oblivious.

In life, they had all been perilously close to losing their minds to the power of the totems; in death, it seemed, they hadn't recovered.

The next wolf, heavier-set than the others, with more grey in its crusty, diseased fur, charged in blindly. Lara and Mouse both threw themselves at it, Lara landing on its back with an arm around its neck, Mouse ripping at the joints on its front legs. I could safely count that one out.

Fix and Gard started swinging at the smallest wolf, but it dodged them, almost – but not quite – gracefully. There was far too much wildness and jerkiness to its motions.

I turned to the last wolf-thing, the one that had held back. This one was much more cautious. Its face wasn't quite so deformed, its jaw almost able to close. In fact, it still had a vestige of humanity to it. "Hiya, Phil," I said. The wolf stopped in its tracks. His head tilted to the side, eyes wide, and lips peeling back. He recognized me. "Been a few years, huh? How you been?"

He started to growl, and I assumed he hadn't been well.

"Yeah, me too. Fuego!" I threw my anxiety and bone-deep fear into my fire, and tossed it at him. Without my blasting rod, it spread out, unfocused, just like on the roof of the shelter. It was my equivalent of a blast of birdshot.

He moved like the Flash. He dashed off to the side, across the street and my flames never touched him.

Behind me, I heard Elaine shout, "Fulminaris!"

There was an explosion. A light wave of pressure buffeted me from behind. I lost Denton in the movement, and when I looked for him, he was gone. "Oh, no." I turned and ran for the Velvet Room.

The opening Elaine had ripped open was already starting to close. The edges of the hole were blood red, maybe even actual blood red. Goopy strings of sinewy metal and mortar were flowing, connecting… healing. The wall itself had been turned into a mockery of life. And a gross one at that.

"Get in!" Thomas shouted. He had somehow produced another large handgun and now looked like a gangster extra in a John Woo movie. "If we see the other two, we'll put them down! Now hurry!"

Elaine and Gard had already thrown themselves through the opening, into a vestibule that looked like a cow had exploded in it. Sanya joined them. Lara and Fix joined Thomas as Molly hopped through the rapidly-shrinking hole. "Come on Mouse!"

The big dog and I both jumped. I hit the floor and rolled onto my back, my staff clattering away. I turned back to the hole just before it closed. I saw Thomas looking at me. "Good luck!" he shouted, then we were sealed off.

Molly helped me up. The one-time entry way looked like a whale's throat – coated in red and black muck, all of it soft and a little runny, mostly concentrated in the corners. "Delightful," I said.

"It gets worse," Gard said, her voice flat. She led the way forward, battleaxe at the ready, through a smashed second set of doors out into the open area of the first floor. There were various shops under a 12-foot high ceiling, with a small seating area in the middle, with half a dozen eight-foot high oak trees evenly spaced in a rectangular pattern, and public washrooms at the far end. It wasn't a bad little shopping space. Normally.

The whole space looked like Hannibal Lecter and Freddy Krueger had done the interior decorating. It was covered in redish-black goop, just like the entry way. Pieces of bone and entrails were lying – or worse, hanging – everywhere. The steel security gates had all been ripped down and twisted, shattered to bits and bars. There wasn't a pane of glass left intact anywhere. The trees were dead, ages-dead, like the life itself had been sucked out of them. And maybe it had. The lights were on, but damned if they didn't seem to be pulsing in time to my heartbeat.

"Where are the stairs?" I asked.

"Far end, by the bathrooms."

"Alright, slowly." We moved, one step at a time, through the strobe-lit seating area, around tables, staying away from the doors, counters and blind corners. It was when we were just about dead centre of the room that they came at us; two monstrous, ugly demons. The hairs on the back of neck tingled, and I threw up my shield without looking.

They basically exploded out of a candle shop and a sushi place, pulling debris with them.

At first glance, they reminded me a bit of Red Court vampires; their skin was mostly black, but cracked and torn, showing blood and sinew and muscle beneath. Their eyes were sunken, blackened, almost vanishing within their skulls. But they wore uneven, asymmetrical armour, forged from metal I couldn't identify. They had no distended stomachs, but massive muscles beneath their armour. Horns. Heavy, ugly, spiky boots. Large, spiked maces in hand.

I didn't see anything else before the first one bounced off a quarter-dome of my will, smashing backwards through the sushi counter. Some of the soy sauce caught in its wake flew over and landed on me. I turned; Elaine had blocked the other one, though it was still on its feet. Sanya and Mouse had her back.

Molly and Gard flanked me. "The Vargassis," Gard said.

"These?" I asked. The beastie recovered, tossing small shelving and pieces of metal aside. For good measure, it flared out a pair of wings I hadn't seen before, and hopped to its feet. Then it opened its mouth and growled; the mouth cavity was red and fiery, and steam came out.

"Yes," she said, axe at her shoulder. "These."

"Huh. How… stereotypical."

"They're kind of biblical," Molly said, disbelief in her voice. Nonetheless, she lifted her sword and stared the thing down. A glance over my shoulder showed me a similar scene with Elaine in the middle.

As I was turning my head back, they both struck again, screaming their steam-engine screams, crashing into the wizards in their ways with the full force of a small freight train. My shield held; I didn't. I reeled backwards, stumbled into a chair and fell over it. I saw Elaine stumbling back, but keeping her feet. I heard Gard grunting in a very un-ladylike way.

I struggled to my feet, brought my staff up. Sanya had one of the Vargassi demons held at bay with Esperacchius while Mouse circled around; Molly and Gard were staying out of the other one's range. Elaine let loose a blast of force with a cry I didn't understand, smashing the one that had knocked me over back into the sushi place again.

As it landed in a soda machine, I took a step forward for a better line of sight, and Gard stepped in to bring her axe down. As she did, the demon's mace came up, taking her full in her left side. The spikes must have each been at least 4 inches long, and I saw three of them go in.

"No!" Molly shouted before I could. I blanked out for a second, remembering only red panic. When I blinked, Gard was down, Molly's sword was smoking, the demon's right arm had been severed, and my revolver, which I'd almost forgotten I brought, was in my hand. The demon's face was a bloody, pulpy mass, and it wasn't moving.

I looked at the other fight; Sanya's Sword and Mouse were both glowing with a strong, bright light, and what was left of the demon was writhing in pain between them. I'd probably missed a good one. Elaine was already kneeling beside Gard. I took a step towards them, heard the demon move, turned back and emptied two more chambers into its head. It stopped moving.

I turned back to Gard, Molly stepping past me to kneel at her side. The Valkyrie's breathing wasn't strong. The bloodstains on her clothes had grown. The head of the mace was still buried in her side. Elaine was fishing through a couple of vials in a pouch. "Sigrun?" I asked. I didn't hold out much hope for an answer, but I'd seen her get through pretty awful injuries before.

Her eyes fluttered open. "Ow," she through clenched teeth. She looked down at the mace. "This hasn't happened in a very long time."

"Once. A long time ago."

"Will you survive?"

"Oh, probably. My employer says pain is good for you. Builds character."

"Here," Elaine said. "McCoy gave me this. He said it will speed up the healing process a bit." She up ended the vial into Gard's mouth. "I'm afraid to take that thing out, though."

"Leave it. I'll work it out myself."

"It's the size of a basketball. And those spikes went in deep."

"I'll work it out slowly." She looked at me. "You have to keep going."

"We can't leave you here alone. You said there were six of those things." I heard a squishy, crunchy sound from where Santa was standing. Mouse had just crushed the head of the other demon with his jaw. "And there are still four left."

"I will stay," Sanya said. He kicked the remains of the demon just to be sure, then patted Mouse on the head.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"These three will not be separated from you," he said, tilting his head in turn to Mouse, Molly and Elaine. "And you will not leave her alone. I am… less attached." Now he tilted at the stairs. "Go. Others still need you."

I hated leaving a wounded person behind, but the other option – just staying where we were – appealed even less. Besides, if the Knight of Hope couldn't protect her, what chance did I have? "All right. We'll be as fast as we can. Sigrun, where would Marcone most likely be?"

She groaned, then said in short sentences, "There's a storage room. Heavy steel door. Reinforced walls. Far end." She gestured weakly to the other end of the building. "He keeps weapons. It's the safest place he could go. If not… they could be anywhere in the offices above."

"Great. Okay, let's go."

The stairway was just as bad as the first floor. All the corners had been rounded out with a collection of muck, some of it still flowing. The stairs themselves were the steep, narrow variety, bereft of carpet or anything like comforting like that, two half-flights to each floor. The bigger problem was the lack of light. There were only emergency lights burning in here, casting everything with a red hue, emphasizing the feeling that the Hellgoop was alive.

I took the lead, Mouse at my heel. I went up four stairs, enough to see the landing above us, and waved Elaine up. She and Mouse took the steps two at a time, and spun into a crouch, wands levelled at the door to the second floor.

I got past her and took the stairs backwards, staying out of Elaine's firing line by hugging the rather gross and slick wall, staff aimed at the steps coming down from the third floor. When I was on the landing, next to the door, I nodded at Elaine, and she waved Molly up.

"Okay," I whispered. "Veil, then open the door. All clear, open up. See anything that wants to kill us, close it."

"Got it," she said softly back. She took a breath, put her hand on the knob, and vanished. A second later, the knob slowly twisted, and the door pulled itself open quietly, just a couple of inches. It stayed that way, and I stayed next to it, not daring to move, hardly breathing, eyes on the next landing up.

The door didn't shut, and Molly slid back into the visible spectrum. "Clear," she whispered. I gave Elaine a thumbs-up, and she and Mouse moved up behind the Invisible Woman. They went through the door, Mouse first, his teeth bared. I went though last.

"Uh, Harry, it's not supposed to be like this, is it?" Molly asked. The walls were… flowing. I remembered the basic layout; this was the hallway near the offices. In fact, if memory served, Marcone and Demeter's offices were each less than twenty feet away. But the shape of everything was wrong.

The large, open area, where all the workout equipment was located, should have been thirty feet away. This hallway was supposed to open onto it; I should have seen the dumbbells and treadmills from here, and the ceiling should have been less than a foot above me.

Instead, it was cavernous, stretching away in every direction. I felt like I'd stepped into the TARDIS. The amount of space I could see made no sense; the building wasn't big enough to contain it. There was no workout equipment. Instead, there was rock and bone, blood and ash. I looked back; the door to the stairs was still there, fixed into what remained of the real wall. But that wall was rapidly being consumed by Hellgoop.

The floor itself was uneven, dipping and rising in roller-coaster fashion, scraped bare and transformed into a blasted, rocky landscape. The light was coming from somewhere overhead, somewhere far overhead; the fluorescents were long gone, and a nauseating, chaotic rainbow of randomly pulsing light came from behind corners I couldn't quite define. And the colours of everything, rocks, walls, shadows, were off.

Straight across the rock field, looking like it was at least a mile away, was another hallway. It was easy to lose among the rest; it almost looked like a cave. But the regular, rectangular shape gave it away as something natural.

"No, Molly," I said. "Nothing is supposed to be like this. And in the real world, nothing could be. Keep your eyes open. We're heading straight across."

Shield bracelets out, we started moving, Mouse and I in the lead. Where the last of the tiles ended in goopy dirt, I sank in an inch, and was glad I wore heavy workman's boots. I did not want any of that crap on my skin.

Overhead, the sound of hollow laughter. Nothing moved but the light. It wasn't quite a disco, but it was getting worse.

Lash, this is going to get distracting. Can you –

Fill in the blanks? Of course.

My vision instantly stabilized. She was projecting what I was able to see during the bright seconds into my mind during the dark seconds. It wasn't perfect, but it would work. The pulsing continued in my peripheral vision.

"Whoa!" I spun to see Elaine slipping, and Molly's hand gripping her shoulder.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Just can't see very well."

"No kidding. Let's pick it up, I don't want to be here any longer than we have to. Look at the ground instead of the far wall. It'll be easier.

I kept moving, and they kept up. We moved over a jagged rise, and started down into a wide dip. It wasn't quite as deep as I was tall, but I just about lost sight of the storage room door. At the deepest part of the dip, there was a trickling sound.

I looked down. There was blood flowing across the ground in a thin line. I breathed through my mouth and hopped it. A few feet later, we were rising again. I caught sight of the door. A few steps later, I caught sight of the moving shadow.

I froze, Mouse growled, and Molly bumped into me. "What? She asked, sword coming out. "What is it? Another demon?"

"Shadowman," I said. I almost laughed. "In Hell, everyone takes on demonic aspects that reflect what they were in life. Denton's team became warped versions of wolves. The Vargassis became stereotypical warriors.

"And Victor Sells was a guy who liked to dabble in magic, thought he was more substantial than he was, and always stayed out of the way." I focussed on the amorphous blob of not-light. "He was a shadow."

Unfortunately, he'd also been a wily little bastard, and his new form had emphasized that, too. It zipped across my vision, and vanished behind a rock pile. "Crap. Okay, his favourite MO was to blow people's hearts out of their chests. Just so you know."

"Do I ever tell you how much fun it is hanging out with you, Harry?" Elaine asked.

"Are you being sarcastic?" I asked, taking a few steps towards the pile.

"Me? Never."

We were about two feet away when a cloak of darkness exploded upwards from the rocks and covered us all. It hit like a truck, and I fell back.

A moment later, the darkness coalesced into a shape. A man. Sitting on my chest, hands around my neck.

I got one good breath in, then started to squeeze. He was much more substantial than a shadow now.

"Hello, wizard," he said, somehow making the second word an insult. He'd had no use for the White Council or the Laws of Magic in life, and it seemed, still did not. I tried to get my hands around his hands, but I passed right through.

I saw Molly's sword swing right through his face on an upward angle, passing through like he was mist. He didn't even look at her as he grew a third arm, and threw a piece of darkness at her. It caught around her head, covered her eyes like a blindfold. She fell with a cry.

Mouse jumped right through him, too, and Vic responded the same way, blinding him and pinning him to the ground, his eyes never leaving my rapidly-purpling face.

I got a hand on my old .44, pulled it out and put three shots through Vic's chest. He just laughed.

"Not so great now, are you, wizard? So high and mighty? Where are your Laws now?"

Man, I'd forgotten what a freaking drama queen he'd been.

"Hey, asshole," Elaine said from somewhere. "The only laws I respect are the laws of physics. Like the speed of light."

Blue-white light, gentle, steady and pure, started to grow somewhere outside my field of vision.

Vic cried out, and the pressure on my throat vanished. I sucked in breath. Vic's weight on my chest disappeared, too. Elaine stood beside me, her amulet, the one that looked so much like my own, hanging from her hand and glowing with the light of her will.

Sells was cowering back from it. More interestingly, the weird lighting effects surrounding us seemed to have been toned down.

I pulled out my own amulet, and flooded my own power into it. I was short of breath, exhausted, and I knew the effects of Gard's rune weren't going to last too much longer, but could still shine a light with the best of them.

Sells fell back, some of his body vanishing. He was yelping in pain.

Then another light joined ours. Molly was up, and a ring her parents had given her as an eighteenth birthday present was glowing on her finger. Sells was surrounded, and as we poured on the light, he was starting to fade away. Mouse joined us, his fur glowing brighter than any light we could put out. With a defiant scream, the Shadowman vanished.

With him went the psychotic lighting effects, including ours. We all took a second to breathe, especially me. "You okay, Harry?" Elaine asked. Mouse hopped over to me, worry in his big doggy eyes.

"Yeah," I croaked out. I gave Mouse a thankful pat, cleared my throat. "Been worse. He was kind of pathetic when he was alive, too, now that I think about it. Let's go."

We headed for the storage room again, across the blasted and weird landscape. We were about ten feet away when we heard gunshots. I threw up a shield without thinking about it, but no further sound came. I walked up to the door and knocked, politely. "Hello? Marcone, you in there? It's Dresden."

There was no sound for a moment, then I heard a woman's voice, faint, asking, "How do I know it's you?"

My eyebrows creased. Marcone, if he was alive and in there, wouldn't have made one of the girls answer for him. But also didn't employ the types of girls who would be trigger-happy. Which meant…

"You don't," I said. "But if he were in there, he wouldn't have let you answer, Helen. Am I wrong?" I paused. "Hendricks and Gard found me. I've brought some help, and I'm going to get you and your girls out. But I won't try to open this door if you tell me to go away."

"Describe the very first time you saw me."

"At O'Hare. I was talking to your driver, when you came out of the terminal and got in your limo."

The door cracked open, and the barrel of a mid-size Glock emerged, pointed at my face. I didn't move. Beckitt's hair was dyed a deep auburn, covering the grey that should have been there. Her eyes were hard and cold. "Helen."

She didn't respond.

I glanced down at my dog. "You remember Mouse."

She looked down, and the sight of him seemed to be what convinced her I was me. The gun lowered, and the door opened. Behind her, there were four young women in tight-fitting shirts and shorts, crouched on the floor. They looked haggard, but alive. On the far side of the room, there was a large hole torn in the wall, and the body of one of the Vargassi demons, its head oozing.

"You okay in here?"

"Yes. The girls are alive."

"Where are the rest? Gard said there were a dozen. And where's Marcone?"

"We were separated. There was an attack. John took the others."

"Where?"

"Upstairs. He has the penthouse office. It's the only other safe room in the building. Hello, Ms. Mallory."

Elaine had once been hired by Helen and some of her acquaintances a couple of years ago. It was the last time she'd been in town; a couple of serial killers had been going after women. "Hello, Helen. It's good to see you."

I made a snap decision. "Elaine, can you get them out?"

She looked back and forth from me to the cowering women. She probably had a flashback to a couple of years ago, herself.

"Yeah. Yes. I'll get them out."

Helen turned to her charges. "Go with this woman. She'll get you to safety."

"Wait, what?" I asked. "What are you taking about?"

"You'll need me to lead you to John. And convince him you're really you." Her voice was matter-of-fact. She rarely used any form of emotional inflection.

I sighed. She was right. I might be able to talk Marcone around, but it would take time. If she came along, it would speed things up.

"Alright. Guide us."

"Us?"

"Me, Molly and Mouse."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think one person can protect them."

"Look, we don't have time - "

"That's right, we don't," she said, cutting me off.

"You did just fine."

"In a small room. Against one attacker."

I rolled my eyes. She was right again. "Fine. Mouse, go with Elaine."

He groaned at me.

"I'll be fine, pal. Molly's going to be with me. But there are still 3 Vargassis here. Protect the girls. Please."

He looked at the young women, then looked back and huffed.

"Thanks. Elaine, if all goes well, we're going to need a couple cars."

"No problem." Then she leaned in and kissed me. "All will go well," she said.

I nodded, then turned to the madam. "Okay, lead on."

There was a private elevator, which had once been the service elevator when the building had been a hotel, near the back of the building. We had to hug the edge of the killing fields while the others crossed over, heading for the stairs.

I let my eyes linger on Elaine's diminishing form for half a second, then followed Helen, Molly at my side. We hopped across a dark chasm, about two feet wide. My foot knocked a stone into it. I did not hear it hit bottom.

The elevator itself was much like the doors here; on the verge of being absorbed by the Hellgoop and stretched into a part of the landscape. In fact, the goop was already starting to pull on one of the doors.

Helen fished a keycard out of a slacks pocket, and stuck it in a slot beside the elevator. She hit a button and waited, while I checked the sky – and yeah, it was far enough overhead now that I considered it the sky – and Molly kept an eye on the ground.

Finally, the door opened. Nothing was waiting inside for us except a dull, flickering light bulb. The box itself looked perfectly normal. We piled in, and she slid the card into a different slot, hitting the button for the penthouse. The elevator shook a bit, but the doors closed and we started moving up.

"Just think calm thoughts, Harry."

"Thank you, Molly. Great advice." The elevator took its sweet time. Finally, we heard an incongruously chipper 'ding' and the door opened on a small, wood-panelled room. I could only tell that much by the light from the elevator spilling out; the only light in this room was from a tiny red dot over yet another card slot. Beckitt opened this door, too, and we followed her through.

The penthouse hadn't been corrupted and altered by the Hellgoop. The lights were mostly off, and what little there was filtered in from the streets through enormous windows, along with gusts of wind, as many were shattered. The 'office' was huge, easily taking up the whole floor. Off to the left, there was a wall with two doors, presumably leading to a bathroom or some other, smaller storage space. The same to the right.

Every chair, bookcase and table had been tossed against the walls, some of them through the windows. Exactly one piece of furniture was left in the entire place: Marcone's desk.

I knew it was his because he was lying on top of it.

"Hell's bells," I muttered.

"Where are the girls?" Helen asked. She started forward.

"Helen, wait!" I hopped to keep up with her, and she did not slow down. She got to the desk. Marcone was tied to it with heavy chains criss-crossing his body. His shirt was torn, and his face bruised. His pants had been shredded up to his knees. He was missing his shoes and socks. All of his exposed skin was covered in shallow cuts, some healing, some too fresh to do so.

"John," Beckitt said. "Can you hear me? Where are they?"

His eyes pulled open. "Helen, they're safe, you have to get out - "

The door to one of the storage room blew open, and one of the Vargassi demons took a heavy step out. It roared. Beckitt and I had our guns on it in a second. "Molly, him loose."

Before she could respond, there was another crash from behind us; I turned to find another Vargassi enforcer. "Okay," I said. "We can still handle this. Molly, hurry up." She was already working with the lock. I moved around the desk to put myself between the demon and my former apprentice.

Then a third crash, from above. I looked up as part of the drop-tile ceiling collapsed to the floor not ten feet from us. The third demon was waiting for us there, crouched and ready to spring from the rafters.

"Oh, shit," I cursed.

They all charged at the same time. The one above was the biggest threat; I lifted my staff and shouted, "Forzare!"

The blast caught it, knocking it off to the side and away from landing on my face. I spun to one approaching from my side and got my shield up just as it hit me. As before, the shield took most of the impact, but I still fell back, hitting the desk. Behind me, I heard two quick shots, then felt another impact; the other demon hitting the desk.

I turned. It had its arm up, ready to bring them down on Molly and Marcone. Another "Forzare!" and it stumbled back.

Molly gave up on the chains, and brought her sword to bear on the demon. I turned around in time to see the last one, the one from the ceiling, spinning its mace overhead. I pulled out my gun and got one loud, lucky shot off. I didn't hit its skin, but I did break its concentration, causing it to lower the weapon.

There were two more gunshots behind it, and its face exploded outward. Helen was quite the shot; she'd have given Murphy a run for her money.

I turned back to the second demon, just in time for it to back hand me in the shoulder. With no shield, I felt the whole of the impact, my duster barely taking the edge off. I flew up and over the desk, twirling in the air. My staff went flying, my duster twisted around me, and my right arm went numb.

I landed on the floor, dazed, but face up. I saw Molly duelling with one Vargassi, and heard a couple of shots out of sight; Helen and the other one. I had to help. I got my left hand up on the edge of the desk and pulled myself into a sitting position.

"Dresden." Marcone.

"Yeah?"

"These chains are too tight."

"I noticed." A little higher. I could look Marcone in the face now.

"There's no way to undo them."

"I noticed that, too, John."

"So break the desk."

I did a double take. That was simple enough to work. Hell, breaking things was one of my acknowledged specialties. Half a smile lit up my face. "Brace yourself," I said.

I held my right hand with my left one, pointed it like a rifle at a joint between a bank of drawers and the backing, drew in my will, and shouted, "Forzare!"

The desk cracked, jerked, jumped, then collapsed in a broken heap. Which got everyone's attention. Helen was almost back at the elevator, having drawn the demon that far away. It snorted at us, and started coming.

Molly was much closer. She took her eyes off her monster for just a second.

It brought its mace down with one hand, hard, but she parried, taking an awkward step back. With its free hand, it grabbed her ankle, and pulled.

"Molly!" The demon yanked her off her feet, pulled her up, and swung her around its head. I couldn't do anything without the risk of hitting her. I just stared, with no idea what to do. Then, with a grunt, it threw her.

Not at me, but at a nearby wall. My eyes followed her, not willingly, but I couldn't look away. She hit the wall with a crunch, and fell to the floor, not moving. I screamed something incoherent, saw red, and ran at the beast. Just outside its reach, I drew back my right hand, numbness forgotten, and yelled a nonsensical jumble of syllables.

I swung my hand and released the energy, full into its chest. The son of a bitch flew backwards, hitting a wall itself. 'You like that?" I shouted. I ran at it, ready to smack it with anything I could, staff or no, magic or no, bare hands or no, but when I got close, it flared its wings, and caught me in the shoulder.

I fell on my side. And of all the times for Gard's rune to start to wear off, it chose right then. I could barely get a breath in, and I certainly couldn't concentrate. Adrenaline was keeping me conscious. I saw the demon rearing up over me, bringing its mace up…

Then I heard another gunshot, this one a little louder than Beckitt's 9mm. The demon staggered as a piece of skin was ripped off its skull. Then another shot, and another flying piece of monster. It dropped the mace over its shoulder, turned, and took yet another shot to the face. It toppled over on its back.

I turned my head far enough to see Marcone walking calmly towards me, .45 in hand. He stepped right up to the body, looked at the head, and methodically put three more shots in it. He glanced at me, I nodded at him, and he turned back to Beckitt and her monster, which was no longer menacing anyone; it was nursing several heavy wounds, bleeding smoke and fire.

I struggled up to my feet, and started working my way over to Molly. She was moving her head, which I took as a good sign.

"Oh, Marco," Marcone was saying. "It didn't have to be like this. We didn't have to be rivals."

"Molly," I said when I reached her. "You with me?"

"My leg," she said. I helped her sit up, and she gasped, teeth together. "Oh, it hurts. Oh, God, it hurts."

I touched the place she was grabbing, halfway along the thigh. It was broken. In a way, she was lucky she wore tight jeans; they were holding the swelling in check. Then again, I didn't know enough about the various arteries and nerves in there to know if that was even a good thing.

"Okay, okay. Uh, do you think you can stand?"

"Not on this leg."

There was an eruption of gunshots from the other side of the room, fast enough that I lost track of the count. Then Marcone and Helen were walking towards us. He had discarded his gun, but she still had hers. "Are you okay?" he asked Molly.

"Her leg's broken," I said.

"Hurts like Hell," she said.

"Help me get her up."

He nodded, and between us, we got her more or less standing with a minimum of gasps of pain.

"Where are the girls?" Helen asked.

Marcone nodded to a far corner. "The safe room. They couldn't get in because of certain… reinforcements used in its construction. They were torturing me to get the access code. They wanted to kill the girls in front of me."

She was already moving. "What is the code?"

He followed her. "One, zero, one, three, seven, five."

That number sounded familiar, but I was too tired to think about it. In the distance, through the open window, I heard a steady thumping sound. "Molly, put your right leg behind your left, and hold it straight. Then brace yourself, I'm going to pick you up."

"Okay." She did as instructed, and leaned back into my arms, her own arms around my neck. Gently as I could, I put my right arm under her legs, then started to straighten up. She winced once, but I got her up without too much trouble. She honestly didn't weigh that much. Or I was just stronger than I remembered.

I am masking some of the pain, Harry, Lash said.

Oh. Well, that works, too.

I started, slowly, towards the elevator. Near to it, a large, heavy door, ,which I had thought was a wall, cracked open. Helen went in, and I heard numerous platitudes and reassurances. The working girls came out, one at a time. Some of them were wearing their uniforms, some were in street clothes. All were in their early twenties, in good shape, and quite pretty.

"John," I asked, "would you mind bringing my staff along?"

The elevator was crowded on the way down, but everyone gave Molly's legs space. We bypassed the second floor completely by common assent. We emerged into a storage room behind one of the shops, and Marcone led us out, towards the usual place for the front door. Gard was not on the floor, but the blood-covered mace was.

When we got to the entranceway, a six-foot hole had been opened in the wall, about three feet off the ground. Elaine saw us first. "Harry! Hey, they're down! Harry, what - ?" Her hand went to her mouth. "Molly."

Marcone and Helen waited while their employees charged out the hole in the wall. Elaine, Sanya and Fix helped them over the barrier.

"Fix, where are the wolves?"

"Dead," he said.

"How?"

"Uh, it was, uh…"

Lara appeared beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder. "The word he's looking for is, 'yucky.' But Thomas and I are feeling much better."

"That's… terrific. Really great. Thanks for the image. Would you mind putting that better-ness to use and giving me a hand here?"

She sighed, but she took Molly, gently as a new born. I turned to Marcone. "Okay, John, your turn."

There was one last gunshot from behind us, and Marcone staggered, then slid to the floor.

I spun, throwing up a shield, which sprang to glittering, blue life between us and the shooter.

Helen Beckitt.

"Please don't get in the way, Mr. Dresden."

"Helen, please don't do this."

"The world is ending, Mr. Dresden. I have one bullet left. This is my only chance to do this. Now please get out of the way." Her voice was flat as ever.

Marcone grunted from the floor, and turned himself. His shoulder was a bloody mess. I've been shot before, in both shoulders, actually. Hurts like a bastard, but as long as the bullet goes through and there is prompt medical attention, it can be survivable.

"Helen, you don't have to do this."

"If my girls are safe, this is all I have left. Please move."

"Helen…" I glanced down at Marcone. He was glaring at me.

"No," he said.

"She's still alive."

Beckitt's eyes flicked to me.

"Amanda is still alive."

"Dresden, you don't have the right - "

"What are you talking about? Don't lie to me about my daughter." And for the first time, was that a hint of anger?

"He didn't shoot her. One of the Vargassis hit her, trying to kill Marcone. But she didn't die, Helen. They lied."

Her mouth twitched. "No. No, the coroner - "

"Was on their payroll. Tell her, John."

"Dresden, this isn't the time - "

"She's going to kill you, as soon as my concentration breaks. This is the only time you've got!"

He waited for another moment, thinking it through. Finally, he turned to her. "Amanda is currently in a long-term care facility in Wisconsin."

Helen's upped lip quivered. "That's impossible."

"It's not," I said. "She's been there for about 12 years, on his dime. She's the reason for his 'no-children' rule."

Her head was shaking, just a little. "Why? If this is true, why didn't you tell before now?" Her voice was rising.

"Because," he said, "I didn't want you to see her that way."

"What way?" Her voice was, dare I say, upset? Normal, even?

Marcone dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a small picture and handing it to me. It was a shot of Amanda Beckitt, lying in her hospital bed, eyes closed, arms still, sheets crisp. It wasn't exactly the same little girl's face from the soulgaze I'd once traded with Helen, but it was close. I willed my shield smaller, stepped forward, and put the picture on the floor, then retreated. Helen stepped forward and picked it up.

She stared at it, her mouth falling open as Marcone said, "She's in a coma. She has been since the day she was shot. Completely non-responsive. That picture is less than three months old. I thought… I thought you deserved to remember her the way she was."

"If she's alive, I deserve to see my daughter!" she shouted. She sounded borderline hysterical. Waving a gun in one hand and a photo in another didn't help.

Marcone raised his uninjured arm. "You're right. You do. I was just afraid that, after everything you've been through… it would be too much."

"Too much?" A tear spilled out of her eye. "I don't – I don't – how could it?" She looked at the photo again. "I mean… I…" Now she was crying, from both eyes. She dropped the gun and held the picture with both hands. "Amanda?" she whispered. She collapsed to her knees.

I stepped forward, dropped my shield and kicked her gun away. She didn't seem to notice. I ducked down. "He'll take you to her. As soon as we get out of here, he'll take you to her. Okay?"

She nodded, sniffing her nose. She didn't look away from the picture.

"Okay." I put an arm around her and helped her to her feet. At the hole in the wall, a very relieved-looking Elaine and Molly helped her out.

I ducked down to get an arm under Marcone. "For the record, I'm sorry I broke your confidence, John."

"Don't worry, Dresden. I'm sure you'll make it up to me somehow."