Chapter 2

Hell Fire

How's this for another life update: things were still not going great.

I had no idea who the man and the woman were, but I was fairly certain that the man who approached us was bad news. The threat of death was a bit of a giveaway.

The woman – Ray – froze. The expression in her eyes went from calmly businesslike to frightened deer in two seconds flat. The man beside her stiffened too, but shifted almost immediately into a defensive stance, pushing his companion behind him.

That was a lot of interest in one book.

The man smiled a smile with too many teeth. 'Give me the book, Ray.'

Ray swallowed. 'No,' she said. Of course, even if she wanted to, she couldn't give it. The book was still in my pocket. I'd checked.

'You have so much potential, Ray,' said the man, shaking his head in apparent disappointment. 'The Library stifles that potential. I could show you so much. Just give me the book.'

He sounded both seductive and threatening. I was reluctantly impressed. There aren't many people who can pull that off.

The downside was that I had no idea of course what I was walking into. Clearly these people knew each other. They had unpleasant history together. What I did know was that everyone who wanted this particular book had an unhealthy interest in dark magic and necromancy, and they didn't mind killing to get what they wanted.

Besides, call me old-fashioned, but I just don't like it when evil men threaten women, not even when the woman in question has the power to make a car double in weight.

'She can't,' I said, before I could think better of it. 'It's mine. I paid for it. Get your own copy.'

If anything, all this interest really made me want to sit down and read what was getting all these necromancers so very excited.

His attention shifted to me. It was easily as unsettling as Cowl had been. The slow smile spreading across his face didn't promise much good either. 'You perceive…'

He didn't get any further. Ray's companion dashed forward, fast as a snake, and delivered a hard blow to the man's throat that shut him up. I had a feeling that was just as well; there was powerful compulsion in these two words alone.

I know magic. It can be done in rituals, or in fast and dirty evocation. It draws from life or, if you are an evil bastard like Cowl and Grevane, from death. But neither kind of magic can be done just by stating one's desire, like Ray had done, and now her opponent did.

It shouldn't work, but it did. I had seen what Ray had done to Cowl, just by spelling out what she wanted to happen. Even the start of this new clown's spell had some sort of effect. It tried to grab hold of my mind, to twist how I saw things. The hold slipped the moment his words were cut off by the fist to the throat, but it was a hard warning.

I was severely outclassed.

The bastard staggered, but remained upright. He hissed. 'Dragon,' he said.

Odd name, but who was I to judge?

Dragon easily outdid him in the hissing department. 'Whose body is that?' he demanded. He had his back to me, but he stood almost directly under the lamppost. The skin of his hands changed into bluish scales as I watched. His fingernails lengthened into claws.

It occurred to me that Dragon might be more of a description of what he was.

I was in over my head.

A flash of panic flashed across his face, but it quickly changed into a snarl. 'Dragon, assume human form,' he snapped. 'Pavement, encase the Dragon's feet.'

I wasn't the intended recipient, but I saw what the words did. The scales retreated. At the same time the pavement beneath the Dragon's feet became almost liquid. The Dragon sank into it. Even as he sank, the pavement hardened again, effectively trapping him.

Preliminaries over, the man turned his attention to Ray.

But I was ready for him. 'Forzare!'

Throwing around more power after I'd already expended a great deal was not a great idea. The energy drained out of me. Good thing that the wall was still within easy leaning distance. But the spell worked. It came at him from an angle, picked him up and pushed him most of the way across the street. He slammed into a car.

Ray didn't question it. She was already working. 'Pavement, release Kai. Wind, blow Alberich away from us!'

The wind did blow Alberich away, but not very far. He made some gestures with his hand that made the wind release him. The air around him seemed to simmer, like air does sometimes above asphalt on a hot day. It became almost liquid, malleable around him. Even from where I was standing, I could feel how deeply wrong this kind of magic was. It wasn't like Cowl's. Cowl was only strong and evil, but otherwise just as human as I was.

Alberich was something else. I didn't know what he was, but the list of things that could take possession of human bodies included nothing you'd ever want to meet in a dark alley.

My stomach turned. I was outclassed, but so were my temporary allies. My spell had done no major damage. Any human would be winded after a throw like that. You'd expect broken ribs, concussions, some indication of pain or discomfort. Alberich showed none. Ray's spell had pushed him away, and he had just shaken it off. He wasn't tired, or sweating, or even a little out of breath.

He was enraged.

The stupid thing was that now I was really pressed hard, and really scared, and really panicking, I didn't even have to think about it. 'Fuego!' I snarled.

The First Law only applied to humans after all.

Hellfire burst across the street. It burned hotter than anything I had cast before, dark and hungry and with a focus I didn't know I was capable of. Alberich didn't have the time to prepare for it. The fire completely enveloped him. The air still simmered, but it was the heat that caused it. Whatever magic he had been working was cut off in the preparation phase.

I kept it up as long as I could, but it was costing me. I almost certainly wouldn't be able to do anything else after this, including walking. Probably. I leaned against my wall and waited for the world to stop spinning.

Alberich screamed, too high and cold to be anything human. Even now, the scream was not of pain, but of fury. The fire obscured him from sight, but I could feel him working magic again. The air around him bubbled and roiled. Underneath his feet the asphalt melted.

Then he was gone. I blinked, so I missed it. One moment he was there, the next he wasn't. All he left behind was a smoking gooey puddle in the middle of the street.

Somehow I didn't think he was dead.

That would be too easy.

Ray staggered and joined me at my stretch of wall. Out of the three of us, only the supposed Dragon was still on his feet. If Cowl came back now, he could just walk over, reach into my pocket to take the book and there wouldn't be a single thing I could do to stop him.

In the absence of inhuman screaming, the sirens sounded alarmingly close.

'We must go,' the Dragon said.

Ray looked at me. I didn't meet her eyes. This was not the time or place for a soulgaze. 'I swear to you that we mean you no harm and that neither my companion nor I myself shall take your book from you.' She spoke in English, but with a strange accent I couldn't place. The words had the same sort of weight behind them as the ones that commanded the wind. 'We need shelter for the night. Somewhere with a lot of books ideally.'

I didn't know these people, but they had been on my side in both fights tonight. The way she had spoken the oath sounded as binding as one I would swear if I swore on my power. And my apartment had a lot of books in it.

I took a chance.

'Come with me if you want to live.' It would have been more impressive if I had been able to stay upright without help.

I really hoped that Mavra wasn't watching right now. This wasn't doing it alone. She could interpret this as me seeking help and then Murphy would pay the price. But I needed the help. I could barely stand. The world had stopped spinning, but I didn't know for how long.

Given the way the night was going, it would not surprise me if some other villain would crawl out of the woodwork and have a go at me. I was in no shape to defend myself from a wet blanket right now, never mind a necromancer of Cowl's calibre.

Ray exchanged a glance with her companion, who considered me, then nodded. He took my left arm and draped it over his shoulder. 'Can you walk, Irene?' he asked Ray.

The business of names was getting a little confusing. We should probably do introductions.

I gave the good example myself: 'Harry Dresden, wizard,' I said. I would have offered my hand for shaking, but my useless left hand was hanging over a shoulder, and I was holding my staff with the other. Besides, it was hard to shake hands when a stranger is dragging you along like a heavy sack of potatoes.

You try it.

The two exchanged another look. Then the woman nodded. 'Irene Winters, Librarian.' She spoke her job title with such emphasis, it deserved capitalisation.

'Kai Strongrock,' the man said. After a short hesitation, he added: 'Dragon.'

Dragons were not exactly a new one for me, but from what I'd seen so far Kai was obviously a huge improvement on Ferrovax. A great deal friendlier at the very least, and a great deal more helpful.

Kai half-dragged, half-carried me out of the street and then a good way through a few others. Irene walked behind us, looking over her shoulder every ten seconds to see if something was following us.

It didn't look like it.

The sirens were more distant.

I realised a little late in the proceedings that I had parked the Blue Beetle in another street in the opposite direction of where we were headed. I'd have to go back for it tomorrow.

A problem for another day.

'I will go and find us a cab,' Kai announced when we entered a busier street. There were only a few passers-by, but enough cars that there was a decent chance of one of them being a taxi. I had no idea how I was going to pay for that; I had just spent half a month's rent on a book.

He considerately left me at a convenient wall to sag against. Irene took the spot next to me. Unlike me, she could at least still walk on her own.

She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment, so I had the chance to get a decent look at her without her noticing. She didn't have a particularly noticeable or interesting face. She was the kind of woman that, if you didn't know her, you walked past in the street and five minutes later you'd be hard-pressed to describe her.

Right now, most of her brown hair was beginning to fall out of the neat do she'd had it in. Under her baggy overcoat she wore a dress that looked Victorian to me. I know everyone always says that librarians wear old-fashioned clothes, but this was very old-fashioned.

Kai must have been extremely lucky, because he found a taxi barely five minutes after he started looking. In that time I tried to keep an eye out for danger, but it was an effort to even keep my eyes open. I tried to remember if I had ever used that much power in one go before, but my memory was as foggy as my eyelids were heavy.

Kai had to pull me along into the cab. It was a tight fit, but all three of us managed to squeeze in, and I was too tired to care about it. I was just conscious enough to give my address to the driver and then I thought I'd just close my eyes for a second.

I opened them in the middle of a library.

It must be a dream, because I had never been in any library like it. I couldn't see any windows or an obvious source of light, but it wasn't dark. All around me were bookshelves and bookcases. Some looked like they had been handmade, with elaborate carvings along the shelves. Others were straight out of an IKEA catalogue. All of them were crammed full with books, from cheap paperbacks to hardcovers, from old leather-bound tomes to scrolls piled haphazardly on top of one another.

I myself was sitting in a comfortable armchair, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and, for some reason, a bathrobe tied with a sash around my waist.

I knew I must be dreaming, so there was no harm in getting up and seeing just how far my unconscious mind could take the illusion. The titles on the books I could mostly read, except for the ones that weren't in English. I picked out a book at random and opened it. The text was comprehensible and formed a coherent narrative.

There is nothing wrong with my imagination, but this was a lot of detail for a dream.

'Hello? Is anyone there?' I called.

A very beautiful woman stepped out from behind the tallest bookcase, smiling at me. 'I thought it was time we had a talk,' she said. 'Given recent events, these surroundings seemed appropriate.'

I searched my memory, but I couldn't recall ever meeting her. Unlike Irene, this woman had the kind of features a man would not quickly forget. Golden hair, blue eyes, lovely curves… She had embraced the librarian-aesthetic, although the skirt and cardigan clung to her curves in a very appealing way, and the glasses that she wore on a cord around her neck were clearly for show rather than use.

'Who are you?'

She simply smiled enigmatically at me.

Even when I asked, I knew the answer. 'Lasciel.'

Some time ago I had picked up a coin of the Order of the Blackened Denarius, one of those thirty pieces of silver that had one of the Fallen attached to it. It was me or a toddler. What would you have done?

It was a while ago, I had never used it. I had seen where that led. So Lasciel's coin was cemented two feet deep in the floor of my lab, where no one could reach it and where I didn't have to see it. I probably should have realised that things like that just don't go away if you put them out of sight. There was a reason I hadn't used fire magic in a while.

Not until today.

It seemed unlikely that this was a coincidence.

'You are supposed to be under my floor.'

Lasciel grimaced. 'I am under your floor,' she said, which was not as reassuring as it might have been, given that I was talking to her. 'But today you chose to use what I had to offer. Now we can speak.'

Which would mean that she was not as bound to that coin as I had thought, which was bad news.

'This is not my true self,' she replied to the thought I had not voiced out loud. 'I am merely a copy, an imprint on your mind, though not without power.'

Ah, I knew how this game went. 'No, thank you.'

She looked at me, puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

For someone who was apparently reading my mind, she was not reading this thought. 'I mean: no, I don't want your power.'

'You have not yet heard what it is that I have to offer,' she pointed out.

'Don't need to,' I said. 'I know how this game works. You'll offer me snippets of power or information, for free at first, but with every exchange the price goes up. And one day, your price will be me picking up your coin and I'll be so desperate that I'll do it.'

I had a brief flash of the poor bastard Ursiel had ridden and, judging by the look on Lasciel's face, she had seen it too. 'Ursiel is a thug,' she said, disdain dripping from her voice. 'We are not all like him.'

'Save it,' I snapped. 'Maybe you're not all like him, but I won't play on Nicodemus's team. The answer is no.'

Her face remained perfectly pleasant, but I could see she didn't understand my point. 'Nicodemus has more of an equal partnership with Anduriel. I thought that might appeal to you.'

'You thought wrong.' I would sooner shoot my own brains out than become like that. In many ways Nicodemus was the perfect deterrent; he reminded me of what I might become if I gave in to this temptress in my head. 'Now, get out.'

She smiled again. 'I cannot depart, my host. You chose to accept me when you took up the coin.'

On the bright side, I wouldn't be the first person talking with the voice in his head. I had known, even when I used the hellfire, that there were likely to be consequences. But the fact that she was trying to talk and cajole me into picking up the coin likely meant that she couldn't force me to pick it up.

That was an encouraging thought.

Having said that, I would prefer to keep the talking to a minimum. 'House rules: no speaking unless spoken to, no distracting me while I'm working, and no loud music after ten p.m.'

Lasciel arched an eyebrow mockingly. 'You are not as funny as you think you are.'

'I don't take constructive criticism on my humour from one of the Fallen.'

She did not respond to that, neither by commenting on it nor – my chosen outcome – getting out of my dream and leaving me alone. Instead she regarded me calmly. 'If you need me, you need only think of my name.'

'No,' I said.

It didn't faze her. 'It may soon be the difference between life and death,' she warned me. 'You tangle with a power that even the Fallen do not entirely comprehend.'

I found that hard to believe. 'What? Never seen a necromancer before? I thought you guys would be all into that.'

She was not amused. 'That is not who I mean. You have the power to defeat them, and you could do that more easily with my help.'

I didn't bite.

'You know that the Librarian wields a great power,' she said calmly, confirming my theory that somehow she saw and felt what I did. I felt my skin crawl a bit. 'So does the Dragon with her.' Lasciel met my eyes and held them. 'I understand that you hesitate to listen to me, but it is in my best interest too to counsel you wisely in this matter, If you die, my host, I shall die with you.'

'Not my problem,' I said. 'I shall be dead and I don't care about you.' If she thought that this was the way to get me to ask questions about my two new friends, she was mistaken.

Clearly my continued refusal to play her game frustrated the hell out of her. 'The Librarian serves the Library,' she said.

'Didn't ask,' I reminded her. 'And I don't like the price tag.'

'There is no price tag on this,' she said.

'Right, I forgot: the first taste is free.' I wasn't going to fall for that.

Lasciel ignored me. 'The Library exists between the worlds. The Fallen cannot go there.' Beneath the calm exterior I suspected that it was the not knowing that was freaking her out more than the things the Librarian could do. 'The power Librarians wield comes from that place. It is not native to your world. We do not understand it, but we know that Librarians can force their will on the world around them.'

Between worlds, as in plural. Interesting. But not interesting enough for me to go fishing for more information. It was the principle of the thing. I had a feeling they were going to explain a thing or two anyway. And I doubted I would have to pay them with my soul in exchange for the information.

My turn to mock. 'That was the free sample?' I asked, not impressed. 'Wow, you really know how to intrigue a guy.'

She staggered back as if I had slapped her. I don't think she was used to people not taking her seriously. She seemed almost insecure. 'Do you not wish to know about the Dragons?'

'I'll ask the Dragon.' I stretched out. 'Time to wake up, I think.'

For once, I had timed it perfectly. Something tugged on my arm and the next thing I knew, the library had disappeared and I blinked in the half-dark of the street lights outside the car windows. The car had stopped in front of my apartment.

I must have been asleep the entire way home.

I did feel better, though. Not recovered enough to go for another round against Cowl or Alberich, but at least recovered enough to get out without help. Good thing, too. I still had work to do, questions to ask and books to read.

I led the way down the stairs and disabled the wards on my apartment. It only just occurred to me that with Mister, Mouse, Thomas, Butters, myself and now the two extra guests, the apartment might be a bit too crowded for comfort. Most of them would have to sleep on the floor.

It would not be me.

Mister launched his usual assault on my legs the minute I opened the door. He is the biggest cat I've ever met and with my balance being not what it was supposed to be, I would have fallen on my arse had Kai not steadied me.

I started to like the guy.

Butters was nowhere to be seen, but Thomas was on the couch, still awake despite how late it was. He relaxed when he saw that it was me, but he frowned in deep suspicion at our guests.

'All right?' I asked.

He nodded. 'All quiet on the basement front.' He didn't mention Butters, probably because of our guests.

For whom I had some questions myself.

Irene and Kai walked into the room. I closed the door behind them and put the wards back up. That made me feel a little bit better, but not much. Lasciel was right about one thing; I didn't know much about these two other than they had helped me in a fight and they hadn't killed me in my sleep.

To be fair, I've had acquaintances start off worse.

Kai looked around and spotted Mouse, curled up before the fire. 'You have a highland cow,' he said, surprised.

Thomas guffawed. Mouse lifted his head and opened his mouth in a very doggy grin.

We were off to a tremendous start.

Next time: pizza!

Reviews would be much appreciated.