Small Favor (28 page)

Something took a swipe at me, and several feet away my gun went off. I ducked, but I guess Tessa wasn’t much of a shot. I didn’t get hit. A second later I grabbed Ivy by the waist and lifted her to my hip.

“Keep clear of my arms, please!” Ivy commanded.

I made sure to. I was getting dizzier, but anywhere was better than here.

“His legs!” Tessa commanded.

I had a feeling that those people tried to do a lot of disturbing things to my pins, but I didn’t stop to watch them try it. I ran for the stairs, trusting the skill of the Archive to keep me mobile. It was a good bet. Ivy murmured and waved her arms the whole while, and I felt her little body tingling with the live current of the energy she was working.

She was using what power she had left for all it was worth, but it wasn’t bottomless. She was running dry. This fight was almost over.

Time, I thought muzzily, panting. We just needed a little more time.

Gravity suggested that I keep on going down, and it seemed an excellent idea. I staggered down the stairs into the lower level, running past the underwater vistas of the whale and dolphin tanks, past the cute penguins and the sea otters, the Denarians in pursuit, their sorceries flashing past us while Ivy shielded us with the last bits of energy in her reservoir. I felt it when she ran dry, and labored to keep my legs moving, to keep ahead of the pursuit.

Then the ground hit me with an uppercut. Everyone else in the Oceanarium suddenly fell sideways.

Or wait. Maybe it was me.

I realized belatedly that, given that I’d been at ground level near that one container, and breathing hard with pain and exertion to boot, I’d probably given myself a nice large dose before I’d ever gotten up. Furthermore, if the gas was heavier than air, there was probably even more of it down here than there had been up in the bleachers.

I had bought us a few seconds. It just hadn’t been time enough.

Ivy landed beside me. She blinked, and her eyes abruptly went wide with panic. She lifted her arms again, but they came up slowly, sluggishly, and her fingers stayed half-closed, like a sleepy child’s.

The black rope-spell wrapped around Ivy’s throat, and dozens of Deirdre’s tendrils twined around her arms and legs. They jerked her out of my sight.

I looked up to find the Denarians standing as a group in the hallway, lit by the eerie blue light coming in from the big tanks. Rosanna stared intently at Ivy for a moment before she shuddered and folded her dark bat wings around herself, shivering as if with cold, and turned away from the scene, her glowing eyes narrowed. She reached into the bag and produced another canister. She offered it to Tessa without being prompted.

Tessa took it, twisted something on the nozzle, and gave Ivy a polite smile. Then she quite literally jammed the nozzle into the little girl’s mouth and held it there.

Ivy panicked and cried out. I saw her kick and twist. She must have bitten her tongue or cut her lip on one of her teeth. Blood ran from her mouth. She bucked and fought uselessly for a few seconds, and then went rag-doll limp.

“Finally,” Tessa said, expelling her breath in irritation. “Could it have been any more annoying?”

“Damn you,” I slurred. I shoved myself up to one knee and glared at Tessa. “Damn you all. You can’t have her.”

“Clichéd,” Tessa singsonged. “Boring.” She tapped her chin with one claw-hand. “Let me see. Where were we when we were so rudely interrupted? Ah!” She stepped closer, smiling cheerily, and lifted my .44.

Just then, I felt the snap of magic rushing back into the Oceanarium as the enormous symbol collapsed and the circle fell.

I took my frustration and rage and turned it into raw force, screaming, “
Forzare
!”

I didn’t direct it at Tessa and her crew.

I aimed it at the glass wall that was the only thing between all of us and three million gallons of seawater.

The force of my will and my rage lashed out and shattered the wall into powder.

The sea came in with a roar, one enormous impact that felt like the strike of a hammer being applied to every square inch of my body at once.

Then it was cold.

And black.

Chapter Thirty-four

T
he next thing I knew, I was coughing, and my chest hurt, and my head hurt, and everything else hurt, and I was colder than hell. I choked in a breath and felt my body getting ready to send up everything. I tried to roll onto my side and couldn’t, until someone pulled on my coat and helped me.

Fishy salt water and whatever had been in my stomach came out in equal proportions.

“Oh,” someone said. “Oh, thank You, God.”

Michael, then.

“Michael!” Sanya shouted from somewhere nearby. “I need you!”

Work boots pounded away at a sprint.

“Easy, Harry,” Murphy said. “Easy.” She helped me turn back over when I was done puking. I was lying at the top of the stairs to the lower level. My lower legs were actually on the stairs. My left foot was in cold water to the ankle.

I put a hand to my chest, wincing. Murphy smoothed a hand over my head, brushing hair and water away from my eyes. The lines in her face looked a little deeper, her eyes worried.

“CPR?” I asked her. My voice felt weak.

“Yeah.”

“Guess we’re even,” I said.

“Like hell we are,” she said quietly. “I only spit fruit punch into
your
mouth.”

I laughed weakly, and that hurt, too.

Murphy leaned down and rested her forehead gently against mine. “You are such an enormous pain in my ass, Harry. Don’t scare me like that again.”

Her fingers found mine and squeezed really tight. I squeezed back, too tired to do anything else.

Something brushed my foot, and I nearly screamed. I sat up, reaching for power, raising my right hand, while invisible force gathered around it in shimmering waves.

A corpse floated in the water, nude, facedown. It was a man I’d never seen before, his hair long, grey, and matted. His limp, outstretched hand had bumped against my foot.

“Jesus, Harry,” Murphy said, her voice shaking. “He’s dead. Harry, it’s okay. He’s dead, Harry.”

My right hand remained where it was, fingers outspread, ripples of light flickering over them. Then they started shaking. I lowered my hand again, releasing the power I’d gathered, and as I did I felt my fingers tingle and go numb once more.

I stared at them, puzzled. That wasn’t right. I was fairly sure that I should be a lot more worried about that than I was at the moment, but I couldn’t put together enough cohesive thought to remember why.

Murphy was still talking, her voice steady and soothing. I dimly realized, a minute later, that it was the tone of voice you use with crazy people and frightened animals, and that I was breathing hard and fast despite the lack of any exertion to explain it.

“It’s all right, Harry,” she said. “He’s dead. You can let go of me.”

That was when I realized that my left arm had pulled Murphy tight against me, drawing her across my body and away from the corpse as I’d gotten ready to do…whatever it was I had been about to do. She was, at the moment, more or less sitting across my lap. Wherever she was touching me, I was warm. It took me a moment to figure out exactly why it was a good idea to let her go. Eventually, though, I did.

Murphy slid carefully away from me, shaking her head. “God,” she said. “What happened to you, Harry? What did they do to you?”

I slumped, too tired to move my foot out of the water, too tired to try to explain that I’d failed to stop the demons from carrying away a little girl.

After a moment of silence Murphy said, “That’s it. I’m getting you to a doctor. I don’t care who these people think they are. They can’t just waltz into town and tear apart my—” She broke off suddenly. “Hngh. What do you make of this, Harry?”

She took a step down into the water and bent over.

“No!” I snapped.

She froze in place.

“Jesus, those things get predictable,” I muttered. “Silver coin just fall out of the corpse’s fingers?”

Murphy blinked and looked at me. “Yes.”

“Evil. Cursed. Don’t touch it.” I shook my head and stood up. The wall had to help me, but I made it all the way up, thinking out loud on the way. “Okay, we’ve got to make sure there’s no more of these lying around, first thing. I’m already carrying one. We limit the risk. I carry them all for now. Until they can be properly disposed of.”

“Harry,” Murphy said in a steady voice. “You’re mumbling, and what’s coming through is making a limited amount of sense.”

“I’ll explain. Bear with me.” I bent over and found another stained denarius gleaming guiltily in the water. “Moron,” I muttered at the coin, then picked it up with my gloved hand and put it in my pocket along with the other one.
In for a penny, in for a pound, ah hah hah
.

Damn, I’m clever.

Footsteps sounded, brisk and precise, and Luccio walked into view beside Gard. There was a subtle difference in Gard’s body language toward Luccio, something a shade more respectful than was there before. The captain of the Wardens was wiping her sword clean on her grey cloak—blood wouldn’t stain it, which made it handy for such things. Luccio paused for a moment upon seeing me, her expression carefully guarded, then nodded. “Warden. How are you feeling?”

“I’ll live,” I rasped. “What happened?”

“Two Denarians,” Gard replied. She nodded her head briefly to Luccio. “Both dead.”

Luccio shook her head. “They’d been half-drowned,” she said. “I only finished them off. I shouldn’t have liked to fight them fresh.”

“Take me to the bodies,” I said quietly. “Hurry.”

There was a sighing sound from behind us. I didn’t freak out about it this time, but Murphy did, her gun appearing in her hand. To be fair, Luccio had her sword half out of its sheath, too. I checked and found what I’d more or less expected: The body of the former Denarian, relieved of its coin, was decomposing with unnatural speed, even in the cold water. The Fallen angel in the coin might have been holding off the ravages of time, but the old man with the hourglass is patient, and he was collecting his due from the fallen Denarian with compounded interest.

“Captain, we’ve got to get every single coin we possibly can, and we’ve got to do it now.”

Luccio cocked her head at me. “Why?”

“Look, I don’t know what arrangements Kincaid made, but somebody is going to notice something soon, and then emergency services will be all over this place. I don’t want some poor fireman or cop accidentally picking up one of these things.”

“True enough,” she said, nodding—and then glanced at Murphy. “Sergeant, do you concur?”

Murphy grimaced. “Dammit, there’s always something….” She held up her hands as if pushing away a blanket that was wrapped too tightly around her and said, “Yes, yes. Round them up.”

“Michael,” I said. “Sanya?”

“When we got here,” Murphy said, “a bunch of those things were pulling you out of the water.”

“They ran. We went different directions, pursuing them,” Gard supplied.

“Where’s Cujo?” I asked.

Gard gave me a blank look.

“Hendricks.”

“Ah,” she said. “Lookout. He’ll give us a warning when the authorities begin to arrive.”

At least someone was thinking like a criminal. I suppose she was the right person for the job.

I raised my voice as much as I could. It came out sort of furry and rough. “Michael?”

“Here,” came the answer. He came walking around the curving path toward us a few moments later, wearing only his undershirt beneath his heavy denim jacket. I hadn’t seen him wearing that little before. Michael had some serious pecs. Maybe I should work out. He was carrying with both hands part of his blue-and-white denim shirt folded into a careful bundle in front of him.

Sanya came along behind Michael, soaking wet, his chest bare underneath his coat. Never mind Michael’s pecs. Sanya made us both look like we needed to eat more wheat germ or something. He was carrying
Esperacchius
and
Amoracchius
over one shoulder—and Kincaid over the other.

Kincaid wasn’t moving much, though he was clearly trying to support some of his weight. His skin was chalk white. He was covered in blood. The rest of Michael’s shirt, and both of Sanya’s, had been pressed into service as emergency bandages—and layers of duct tape had been wrapped around and around them, sealing them into place around both arms, over his belly, and around one leg.

Murphy hissed and went to him, her voice raw. “Jared.”

Jared. Huh.

“Dresden.” Kincaid gasped. “Dresden.”

They laid him down, and I shambled over. I managed not to fall down on him as I knelt beside him. I’d seen him wounded before, but it hadn’t been as bad as this. He’d used the tape the same way, though. I checked. Sure enough, there was a roll of tape hanging from a loop on Kincaid’s equipment harness.

“Just like the vampire lair,” I said quietly.

“No claymores here,” Kincaid said. “Should have had claymores.” He shook his head and blinked his eyes a couple of times, trying to focus them. “Dresden, not much time. The girl. They got out with her. She’s alive.”

I grimaced and looked away.

His bloody hand shot out and seized the front of my coat. “
Look
at me.”

I did.

I expected rage, hate, and blame. All I got was a look of…just, desperate, desperate fear.

“Go after them. Bring her back. Save her.”

“Kincaid…” I said softly.

“Swear it,” he said. His eyes went out of focus for a second, then glittered coldly. “Swear it. Or I’m coming for you. Swear it to me, Dresden.”

“I’m too damned tired to be scared of you,” I said.

Kincaid closed his eyes. “She doesn’t have anybody else. No one.”

Murphy knelt down by Kincaid across from me. She stared at me for a moment, then said quietly, “Jared, rest. He’s going to help her.”

I traded a faint, tired smile with Murphy. She knows me.

“But—” Kincaid began.

She leaned down and kissed his forehead, blood and all. “Hush. I promise.”

Kincaid subsided. Or passed out. One of the two.

“Dresden, get out of the way,” Gard said in a patient voice.

“Don’t tell me you’re a doctor,” I said.

“I’ve seen more battlefield injuries than any bone-saw-flourishing mortal hack,” Gard said. “Move.”

“Harry,” Murph said, her voice tight. “Please.”

I creaked to my feet and shambled over to Michael and Sanya, who stood looking out at the dolphins and the little whales in the big pool. The water level had dropped seven or eight feet, and the residents were giving the newly inundated area of the pool a wide berth. If the presence of the rotting thing behind me made the water feel anything like the air was starting to smell, I couldn’t blame them.

“He looks pretty bad,” I told them.

Michael shook his head, his eyes distant. “It isn’t his time yet.”

I spocked an eyebrow and gave him a look. Sanya gave him one very nearly as dubious as mine.

Michael glanced at me and then back out at the water. “I asked.”

“Uh-huh,” I said quietly.

Sanya smiled faintly and shook his head.

I glanced at him. “Still agnostic, huh?”

“Some things I am willing to take on faith,” Sanya said with a shrug.

“Luccio took down two,” I told Michael. “What’s the count?” I didn’t need to be any more specific than that.

Sanya’s grin broadened. “That is the good news.”

I turned to face Sanya. “Those assholes just carried off a child that they plan to torture into accepting a Fallen angel,” I said quietly. “There isn’t any good news.”

The big Russian’s expression sobered. “Good is where you find it,” he seriously.

“Eleven,” Michael said quietly.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Eleven,” he repeated. “Eleven of them fell here today. Judging from the wounds, Kincaid killed five of them. Captain Luccio killed two more. Sanya and I caught a pair on the way out. One of them was carrying a bag with the coins of those who had already fallen.”

“We found the coin of Urumviel, which we knew to be in possession of a victim,” Sanya said, “but we were short by one body.”

“That one was mine,” I said. “He’s tiny pieces of soot and ash now. And that only brings us to ten.”

“One more drowned when that tank collapsed,” Michael said. “They’re floating down there. Eleven of them, Harry.” He shook his head. “Eleven. Do you realize what this means?”

“That if we whack one more, we get the complimentary steak knives?”

He turned to me, his eyes intent and bright. “Tessa escaped with only four other members of her retinue, and Nicodemus was nowhere to be found. We have recovered thirteen coins already—and eleven more today, assuming we can find them all.”

“Only six coins remain free to do harm,” Sanya said. “Only six. Those six are the last. And they are all
here
in Chicago. Together.”

“The Fallen in the coins have been waging a war for the minds and lives of mankind for two thousand years, Harry,” Michael said. “And we have fought them. That war could end. It could all be
over
.” He turned back to the pool and shook his head, his expression that of a man baffled. “I could go to Alicia’s softball games. Teach little Harry to ride a bicycle. I could build
houses
, Harry.”

The longing in his voice was so thick, I could practically feel it brushing against my face.

“Let’s round up the coins and get out of here before the flashing lights show up,” I said quietly. “Michael, open up the bundle.”

He frowned at me but did, revealing disks of tarnished silver. I drew the pair of coins I’d found from my pocket with my gloved hand and added them to the pile. “Thanks,” I said. “Let’s get moving.”

I turned and walked away as Michael folded the cloth closed around the coins again, his eyes distant, presumably focused on some dream of shoving those coins down a deep, dark hole and living a boring, simple, normal life with his wife and kids.

I let him have it while he could.

I was going to have to take that dream away from him, dammit.

Whether he wanted to go along with the idea or not.