Tremendous heat and force expanded from the explosives. It swept through the cavern in an almighty sword of fire, laying low anything unfortunate enough to have remained within. I saw, for one flash-second, the outline of the ghouls, still charging us, unaware of what was about to happen, against the white-hot fireball that expanded through the chamber.
And then that blast hit my shield.
I didn't try to withstand that incredible sledgehammer of expanding force and energy. It would have shattered my shield, melted my bracelet to my wrist, and crushed me like an egg. The shield wasn't meant to do that.
Instead, I filled the space at the mouth of the cave with flexible, resilient energy, and packed layer upon layer of it behind the shield, and more of it all around us. I wasn't trying to stop the energy of the explosion.
I was trying to catch it.
There was an instant of crushing compression, and I felt the pressure on my shield like a vast and liquid weight. It flung me from my feet, and I held hard to Lara, whose arms gripped me in return. I began to tumble, blinded by the flame, and fought to hold the shield, now hardening it all around us, into a sphere, constricting it around us until we were pressed body-to-body. We hurtled up the tunnel, flung out ahead of the explosion like a ship ahead of a hurricane-or, more accurately, like a ball being fired down the barrel of a long, stony musket. The shield banged against the smooth walls, dragging more effort out of me. A single outcropping might have stopped our progress for a disastrous instant, shattering stone, shield, succubus, and shamus into one big mess. Thank God the vanity of Lara's family had made sure the walls of the tunnel were polished smooth and gleaming.
I didn't see the ghouls guarding the upper reaches of the tunnel, so much as I felt them hit the shield and be smashed aside and splattered like bugs, only to be consumed by the flood of fire washing up the tunnel after us. I don't know how fast we were going, beyond "very." The explosion flung us up the long tunnel, and out into the night air and up through the branches of a couple of trees-which shattered under the force. Then we were arcing through the night, spinning, with stars above us whipping by and a long tongue of angry flame emerging from the entrance to the Deeps below.
And all the while, I was locked in the heated ecstasy of Lara's kiss.
I lost track of what was happening somewhere near the top of the arc, right about when Lara's legs twined with mine and she ripped aside my shirt and hers to press her naked chest against me. I had just begun wondering what it was I'd forgotten about how kissing Lara was not the best idea when there was a horrible crashing sound that went on for several seconds.
We weren't moving. The shield wasn't under pressure, and I was so dizzy and tired that I couldn't string two thoughts together. I lowered the shield with a groan of relief that was lost in an answering moan of need from the succubus in my arms.
"St-stopped," I said. "Lara...st-stop."
She pressed closer, parted my lips with her tongue, and I thought that I was going to explode, when she suddenly let out a hiss and recoiled from me, a hand flying to her mouth-but not before I saw the blisters rising from the burned flesh around her lips.
I fell slowly to my back and lay there gasping in the near-dark. There were several small fires nearby. We were in a building of some kind. There were a lot of broken things.
I was sure to get blamed for this one.
Lara turned away from me, huddling in upon herself. "Bloody hell," she said after a moment. "I can't believe believe you're you're still still protected. But it's old.... My intelligence said Ms. Rodriguez hadn't left South America." protected. But it's old.... My intelligence said Ms. Rodriguez hadn't left South America."
"She hasn't," I croaked.
"You mean..." She turned and blinked at me, astonishment on her face. "Dresden...do you mean to say that the last time you had relations with a woman was nearly four years years ago?" ago?"
"Depressing," I said. "Isn't it."
Lara shook her head slowly. "I had just always assumed that you and Ms. Murphy..."
I grunted. "No. She...she doesn't want to get serious with me."
"And you don't want to be casual with her," Lara said.
"There's an outside chance that I have abandonment issues," I said.
"Still...a man like you and it's been four years years..." She shook her head. "I have enormous personal respect for you, wizard. But that's just...sad."
I grunted again, too tired to lip off. "Saved my life just now, I suppose."
Lara looked back at me for a moment and then she...turned pink. "Yes. It probably did. And I owe you an apology."
"For trying to eat me?" I said.
She shivered, and the tips of her breasts suddenly stood out against the white silk. She'd rearranged her clothes to cover them. I was too tired to feel more than a little disappointed about it. "Yes," she said. "For losing control of myself. I confess, I thought that we were facing our last moment. I'm afraid I didn't restrain myself very well. For that, you have my apologies."
I looked around and realized, dimly, that we were in some part of the Raith chateau itself. "Hngh. I'm, uh. Sorry about the damage to your home here."
"Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to be gracious. You saved my life."
"You could have saved yourself," I said quietly. "When the gate was closing. You could have left me to die. You didn't. Thank you."
She blinked at me as if I had just started speaking in alien tongues. "Wizard," she said after a moment. "I gave you my word of safe passage. A member of my my Court betrayed you. Betrayed us all. I could not leave you to die without forsaking my word-and I take my promises seriously, Mister Dresden." Court betrayed you. Betrayed us all. I could not leave you to die without forsaking my word-and I take my promises seriously, Mister Dresden."
I stared quietly at her for a moment and then nodded. Then I said, "I notice that you didn't go terribly far out of your way to save Cesarina Malvora."
Her lips twitched up at the corners. "It was a difficult time. I did all that I could to protect my House and then the other members of Court in attendance. More's the pity that I could not save that usurping, traitorous bitch."
"You couldn't save that usurping, traitorous Lord Skavis, either," I noted.
"Life is change," Lara replied quietly.
"You know what I think, Lara?" I asked.
Her eyes narrowed and fastened on me.
"I think someone got together with Skavis to plan his little hunt for the low-powered-magic folks. I think someone encouraged him to do it. I think someone pointed it out as a great plan to usurp mean old Lord Raith's power base. And then I think that same someone probably nudged Lady Malvora to move, to give her a chance to steal Lord Skavis's thunder."
Lara's eyelids lowered, and her lips spread in a slow smile. "Why would someone do such a thing?"
"Because she knew that Skavis and Malvora were going to make a move soon in any case. I think she did it to divide her enemies and focus their efforts into a plan she could predict, rather than waiting upon their ingenuity. I think someone wanted to turn Skavis and Malvora against one another, keeping them too busy to undermine Raith." I sat up, faced her, and said, "It was you. Pulling their strings. It was you who came up with the plan to kill those women."
"Perhaps not," Lara replied smoothly. "Lord Skavis is-was-a well-known misogynist. And he proposed a plan much like this one only a century ago." She tapped a finger to her lips thoughtfully and then said, "And you have no way of proving otherwise."
I stared at her for a long moment. Then I said, "I don't need proof to act on my own."
"Is that a threat, dear wizard?"
I looked slowly around the ruined room. There was a hole in the house, almost perfectly round, right through the floors above us and the roof four stories above. Bits and pieces were still falling. "What threat could I possibly be to you, Lara?" I drawled.
She took in a slow breath and said, "What makes you think I won't kill you right here, right now, while you are weary and weakened? It would likely be intelligent and profitable." She lifted her sword and ran a fingertip languidly down the flat of the blade. "Why not finish you right here?"
I showed her my teeth. "You gave me your word of safe passage."
Lara threw back her head in a rich laugh. "So I did." She faced me more directly, set the sword aside, and rose. "What do you want?"
"I want those people returned to life," I spat at her. "I want to undo all the pain that's been inflicted during this mess. I want children to get their mothers back, parents their daughters, husbands their wives. I want you and your kind never to hurt anyone ever again."
Right in front of my eyes, she turned from a woman into a statue, cold and perfectly still. "What do you want," she whispered, "that I might give you?"
"First, reparations. A weregild to the victims' families," I said. "I'll provide you with the details for each."
"Done."
"Second, this never happens again. One of yours starts up with genocide again, and I'm going to reply in kind. Starting with you. I'll have your word on it."
Her eyes narrowed further. "Done," she murmured.
"The little folk," I said. "They shouldn't be in cages. Free them, unharmed, in my name."
She considered that for a moment, and then nodded. "Anything else?"
"Some Listerine," I said. "I've got a funny taste in my mouth."
That last remark drew more anger out of her than anything else that had happened the entire night. Her silver eyes blazed with rage, and I could feel the fury roiling around her. "Our business," she said in a whisper, "is concluded. Get out of my house."
I forced myself to my feet. One of the walls had fallen down, and I walked creakily over to it. My neck hurt. I guess being moved around at inhuman speed gives you whiplash.
I stopped at the hole in the wall and said, "I'm glad to preserve the peace effort," I said, forcing the words out. "I think it's going to save lives, Lara. Your people's lives, and mine. I've got to have you where you are to get that." I looked at her. "Otherwise, I'd settle up with you right now. Don't get to thinking we're friends."
She faced me, her face all shadowed, the light of slowly growing fires lighting her from behind. "I am glad to see you survived, wizard. You who destroyed my father and secured my own power. You who have now destroyed my enemies. You are the most marvelous weapon I have ever wielded." She tilted her head at me. "And I love peace, wizard. I love talking. Laughing. Relaxing." Her voice dropped to a husky pitch. "I will kill your folk with peace, wizard. I will strangle them with it. And they will thank me while I do."
A cold little spear slid neatly into my guts, but I didn't let it show on my face or in my voice. "Not while I'm around," I said quietly.
Then I turned and walked away from the house. I looked blearily around me, got my directions, and started limping for the front gate. On the way there, I fumbled Mouse's whistle out of my pocket and started blowing it.
I remember my dog reaching my side, and holding on to his collar the last fifty yards or so down the road out, until Molly came sputtering up in the Blue Beetle and helped me inside.
Then I collapsed into sleep.
I'd earned it.
Chapter Forty-Three
I didn't wake up until I was back home, and then only long enough to shamble inside and fall down on my bed. I was out for maybe six hours, and then I woke up with my whole back fused into one long, enormous muscle cramp. I made some involuntarily pathetic noises, and Mouse rose up from the floor beside my bed and jogged out of my room. didn't wake up until I was back home, and then only long enough to shamble inside and fall down on my bed. I was out for maybe six hours, and then I woke up with my whole back fused into one long, enormous muscle cramp. I made some involuntarily pathetic noises, and Mouse rose up from the floor beside my bed and jogged out of my room.
Molly appeared from the living room a moment later and said, "Harry? What's wrong?"
"Back," I said. "My back. Freaking vampire tart. Wrenched my neck."
Molly nodded once and vanished. When she came back, she had a small black bag. "You were holding yourself sort of strangely last night, so after I dropped you off, I borrowed Mother's medicine bag." She held up a bottle. "Muscle relaxants." A jar. "Tiger Balm." She held up a plastic container of dust. "Herbal tea mix Shiro found in Tibet. Great for joint pain. My father swears by it."
"Padawan," I said, "I'm doubling your pay."
"You don't pay me, Harry."
"Tripling it, then."
She gave me a broad smile. "And I'll be happy to get you all set up just as soon as you promise to tell me everything that happened. That you can, I mean. Oh, and Sergeant Murphy called. She wanted to know as soon as you were awake."
"Give her a ring," I said. "And of course I'll tell you about it. Is there any water?"
She went and got me some, but I needed her help to sit up enough to drink it. That was embarrassing as hell. I got more embarrassed when she took my shirt off with a clinical detachment, and then winced at all the bruises. She fed me the muscle relaxants and set to with the Tiger Balm, and it hurt like hell. For about ten minutes. Then the stuff started working, and the not-pain was a drug of its own.
After a nice cup of tea-which tasted horrible, but which made it possible to move my neck within ten or twenty minutes of drinking it-I was able to get myself into the shower and get cleaned up and into fresh clothes. It was heavenly. Nothing like a nightmarish near-death experience to make you appreciate the little things in life, like cleanliness. And not being dead.
I spent a minute giving Mister some attention, though apparently he'd slept with Molly, because he accepted maybe a whole thirty seconds of stroking and then dismissed me as unnecessary once he was sure I was in one piece. Normally, he needs some time spread across someone's lap to be himself. I ruffled Mouse for a while instead, which he enjoyed dutifully, and then got myself some food and sat down in the chair across from Molly on the couch.
"Sergeant Murphy's on the way," Molly reported.
"Good," I told her quietly.
"So tell me about it."
"You first."
She gave me a semiexasperated look, and started talking. "I sat in the car being invisible for...maybe an hour? Mouse kept me company. Nothing much happened. Then bells started ringing and men started shouting and shooting and the lights went out. A few minutes later, there was a great big explosion-it moved the rearview mirror out of position. Then Mouse started making noise like you said he would, and we drove to the gate and he jumped out of the car and came back with you."
I blinked at her for a minute. "That sounds really boring."
"But scary," Molly said. "Very tense." She took a deep breath and said, "I had to throw up twice, just sitting there, I was so nervous. I don't know if...if I'm going to be cut out for this kind of thing, Harry."
"Thank God," I said. "You're sane." I took a few more bites of food and then said, "But I need to know how much you want to know."
Molly blinked and leaned toward me a little. "What?"
"There's a lot I can tell you," I said. "Some of it is just business. Some of it is going to be dangerous for you to know about. It might even obligate you in ways you wouldn't like very much."
"So you won't tell me that part?" she asked.
"Didn't say that," I said. "I'm willing. But some of this stuff you'd be safer and happier not knowing. I don't want to endanger you or trap you into feeling you have to act without giving you a choice about it."
Molly stared at me for a minute while I gobbled cereal. Then she frowned, looked down at her hands for a minute, and said, "Maybe just tell me what you think is best. For now."
"Good answer," I said quietly.
And I told her about the White Court, about the challenge and the duel, about Vittorio's betrayal and how he gated in the ghouls and how I'd had my own backup standing by in the Nevernever.
"What?" Molly said. "How did you do that?"
"Thomas," I said. "He's a vampire, and they have the ability to cross into the Nevernever at certain places."
"What kind of places?" Molly asked.