Chapter Thirty-eight

Murphy zipped around the house, tearing up the lawn with her Harley. We were doing better than sixty by the time she cleared the smooth turf surrounding the manor and zipped through an open gate onto a long, narrow gravel lane lined with high hedges.

Ahead of us, headlights on high-beam flashed into our eyes and an engine roared.

Lara had been right. Raith's bodyguards knew we were coming.

The car surged toward us.

Murphy's head whipped left and right, but the hedges were old growth, impassable and unbroken. "Crap! No time to turn!"

Ahead of us, I saw the silhouette of the remaining Bodyguard Ken climb out of the car window to sit on it, and lift a gun to his shoulder.

I leaned forward into Murphy, and took my staff from the holster. "Murphy!" I shouted. "We need more speed! Go faster!"

She looked over her shoulder, blue eyes wide, blond hair lashing around her cheeks.

"Go!" I screamed.

I felt her shoulders set as she turned back to the front and stomped on gears with one foot, and the old Harley roared as it dug into the road with ferocious power and shot ahead at terrifying speed. Flame spat from the shape ahead of us, and bullets hit the road, kicking up sparks and bits of gravel with a series of whistling whiplash sounds that beat the sound of exploding shots to us by almost a second.

I ignored the gunman, focusing on the staff. Of all my foci, the staff was the most versatile. Meant simply to assist with the redirection of forces I could use to call wind, to bend steel bars, and to channel lightning. I had used my staff to erect barriers of force, disrupt hostile magics, and in a pinch to beat bad guys about the head and shoulders.

I took the tool, the trademark and icon of a wizard, and couched it under my arm like a lance, the tip extending past Murphy's bike. I reached out for my will and gathered up power, feeding it into the rune-carved wood.

"What are you doing?" Murphy screamed.

"Faster!" I thundered. "Don't turn!"

Murphy had another gear, and that damned Harley had to have been built by demons, not engineers. No vehicle without a roll cage had any business going that fast.

But I needed it to have enough force to survive. Even wizards cannot escape the consequences of physics. You can call up a storm of fire, but it won't burn without fuel and air. Want to infuse yourself with superhuman strength? It's possible. But keep in mind that just because your muscles have gotten supercharged, it doesn't mean that your bones and joints can support the weight of a Volkswagen.

By the same line of reasoning, force still equals mass times acceleration no matter how big your magic wand might be. Me plus Murphy plus her Harley didn't mass anywhere near what the car and the people in it did. I could give us an advantage, but even with the staff I could stretch the rules only so far. Our mass wasn't going to change-and that meant that we needed all the acceleration we could get.

I started channeling our force into the staff, focusing it into a blunted wedge in front of us. All the extra power flooding ahead of us started heating the air, and flickers of blue and purple fire began streaking back around us in a corona, like one of the space shuttles on reentry.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Murphy screamed.

The oncoming car got closer. The bodyguard started shooting again, then dropped the gun and slid back into the car in a panic, strapping on his seat belt.

"This is insane!" Murphy yelled. But the Harley kept going faster.

The oncoming headlights loomed up in blinding brilliance. The other driver leaned on the horn.

Murphy screamed in terror and challenge in response.

I shouted, "Forzare!" and unleashed my will. It went rocketing down through the staff. Again its runes and sigils flared into hellish light, and the flickering corona of fire ahead of us blazed into an incandescent cloud.

Murphy's bike didn't waver.

Neither did the bodyguards' car.

There was a flash of light and thunder as the force lance struck the car, and between the reckless speed of Murphy's Hog and my will, physics landed firmly on our side. Our side of the equation was bigger than theirs.

The car's hood and front bumper crumpled as if they'd hit a telephone pole. The windows shattered inward as force I'd redirected lashed through the car. I screamed as glass and steel started flying, and with every scrap of strength that I had, I willed an angle into the lance, deflecting the car. Its front right wheel flew up off the ground, and the rest of the car followed, flipping up into the air and into a lateral roll.

I heard the bodyguards inside screaming.

There was an enormous crunch, totally drowning out Murphy's cry and my own howling, and then we were through it, continuing down the lane, shedding flames behind us like bits of wax melting from a candle, and we were suddenly screaming in triumph. We'd survived. The smoldering staff suddenly felt like it weighed a ton, and I almost dropped it. Exhaustion followed into the rest of my body a breath later, and I slumped against Murphy's back, looking behind us.

The car hadn't exploded, like they do on TV. But it had torn through ten or twelve feet of heavy hedge and slammed into a tree. The car lay on its side, steaming. Glass and broken bits of metal were spread on the ground around it in a field of debris at least fifty feet across. The air bags had deployed, and I could see a pair of crumpled forms inside. Neither of them was moving.

Murphy kept the Harley racing forward, and was casting laughter into the wind all the way down the road.

"What?" I called to her. "Why are you laughing?"

She half turned her head. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling. "I think you were right about the vibrator thing."

Half a mile later we rolled up to a house that could have handled a family of four without trouble. By the standards of the Raith estate, I guess that qualified it as a cottage. Murphy killed the bike's engine maybe two hundred yards out, and we coasted in the rest of the way, the only sound the crunching grind of gravel under the tires. She stopped the bike, and we both sat there in the silence for a minute.

"See a cave?" she asked me.

"Nope," I said. "But we can't wait for Lara to show up."

"Any ideas how to find it?" Murphy asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I've never heard of a ritual spell that didn't involve fire and some chanting and some smelly incense and stuff."

"Christ, Dresden. We don't have time to wander around the woods in the dark hoping to smell our way to the cave. Isn't there some way you could find it?"

"With magic? Iffy. I'm not sure what I would do to look for a cave."

Murphy frowned. "Then this is stupid," she said. "We'd be smarter to back off and come back with help and light. You could defend yourself against this curse, couldn't you?"

"Maybe," I said. "But that last one came in awfully strong and fast, and it changes everything. I can swing at a slow-pitch softball and hit it every time. Not even the best hitter can hit five hundred against major-league pitching."

"How did they do it?" she asked.

"Blood sacrifice," I said. "Has to be. Raith is involved with the ritual now." My voice twisted with bitter anger. "He's got experience using it. He's got Thomas now, which means he isn't going to target him with the curse. Raith's going to bleed him to help kill me. The only chance Thomas has is for me to stop the curse."

Murphy sucked in a breath. She hopped off the bike and drew her gun, holding it down by her leg. "Oh. You circle left and I'll circle right and we'll sniff for the cave, then."

"Argh, I'm an idiot," I said. I leaned my still-glowing staff against the bike and jerked the silver amulet off my neck. "My mother left this to me. Thomas has one like it. She had forged a link between them so that when one of us was touching both of them we got a... sort of a psychic voice mail."

"Meaning what?" Murphy asked.

I twisted the chain around the index finger of my burned hand, letting it dangle. "Meaning I can use that link to find the other amulet again."

"If he has it," Murphy said.

"He will," I said. "After last night, he won't take it off."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know it," I said. I held my right hand palm up and tried to focus upon it. I found the link, the channel through which my mother's latent enchantment had contacted Thomas and me, and I poured some of my will into it, trying to spread it out. "Because I believe it."

The amulet quivered on its string and then leaned out toward the night to our left.

"Stay close," I said, and turned in that direction. "Okay, Murph?"

There was no answer.

My instincts clamored in alarm. I dropped my concentration and looked around, but Murphy was nowhere in sight.

Directly behind me there was a muffled sound, and I turned to find Lord Raith standing there with an arm around Murphy's neck, covering her mouth and with a knife pressed up hard against her ribs. He was wearing all black this time, and in the autumn moonlight he looked like little more than a shadow, a pale and grinning skull, and a very large knife.

"Good evening, Mister Dresden."

"Raith," I said.

"Put the staff down. Amulet too. And the bracelet." He pressed the knife and Murphy sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. "Now."

Dammit. I dropped the bracelet, the staff, and my amulet to the grass.

"Excellent," Raith said. "You were right about Thomas keeping his amulet with him. I found it around his neck when I was cutting his shirt off to have him chained down. I was fairly certain that you would judge such an obviously linked item to be too hazardous to employ in any location magic, but on the off chance I was wrong, I kept my own location spell going. I've been watching you since you arrived."

"You must feel smug and self-satisfied. Are you getting to a point?" I asked.

"Absolutely," he said. "Kneel and place your hands behind your back."

The remaining Bodyguard Barbie appeared. She had a set of prisoner's shackles.

"What if I don't?" I asked.

Raith shrugged and shoved an inch of knife between Murphy's ribs. She bucked in sudden, startled pain.

"Wait!" I said. "Wait, wait! I'm doing it."

I knelt, put my hands behind my back, and Bodyguard Barbie hooked steel links to my wrists and ankles.

"That's better," Raith said. "To your feet, wizard. I'm going to show you the Deeps."

"Kill me with that entropy curse from point-blank range, eh?" I said.

"Precisely," Raith responded.

"Gaining you what?" I asked.

"Immense personal satisfaction," he said.

"Funny," I said. "For a guy warded against magic, you seemed to want to get rid of my gear pretty bad."

"This is a new shirt," he said with a smile. "And besides, can't have you killing the help-or Thomas-to spite me."

"Funny," I said. "You seem to be a lot of talk and not much do. I've heard about all kinds of things you are capable of. Enslaving women you feed on. Killing with a kiss. Superhuman badassedness. But you aren't doing any of it."

Raith's mouth set into a snarl.

"The White Council has taken a few shots at you, but when they quit you didn't go gunning for anyone," I continued. "And hey, what with you being invincible and all, there's got to be a reason for that. You must have been approached by others. I bet you got some pretty juicy offers. And I just can't square that with someone who allows a tart like Trixie Vixen to snap at him over the phone like she did to you today."

Raith's white face went whiter with rage. "I would not say such things were I in your position, wizard."

"You're going to kill me anyway," I said. "Hell, you've pretty much got to. I mean, we're at war, after all, and there you are all immune to magic. Must be a lot of pressure from the Reds for the White Court to get off its ass and do something. Makes you wonder why you didn't just wham, kiss-of-death me back there. Maybe get it on tape or something so you could show it off. Or hell, why you haven't socked the kiss of death on Murphy there just to shut me up."

"Is that what you want to see, wizard?" Raith said, his tone threatening.

I smiled at Raith's threat, and said, my tone a schoolyard singsong, "Lord Raith and Murphy, sitting in a tree, not K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Raith clutched harder at Murphy's throat, and she arched her back, gasping, "Dresden."

I subsided with the chant, but I didn't let up. "See, immune to getting hurt is one thing," I said. "But I'm thinking my mother's death curse hit you where it hurt-a while later. There's a parasite called a tick. Lives in the Ozarks. And it is nigh invulnerable," I said. "But it isn't unkillable. Hard to squash, sure. But it can still be pierced with the right weapon. Or it can be smothered." I smiled at Raith. "And it can starve."

He stood as still as a statue, staring at me. His grip on Murphy's throat slackened.

"That's why you've been old news," I said quietly. "Mom said she arranged it so that you would suffer. And since the night you killed her, you haven't been able to feed. Have you. Haven't been able to top off the tank of vampire superpower gas. So no kisses of death. No assaults on wizards. No direct assaults on Thomas when a couple of deathplots failed. You even had to have willing help for this operation, 'cause there was no more enslaving women to your will. Though I take it from Inari being alive that the plumbing works. And after that, I take it from the fact that you haven't raped her into psychic slavery that you can't do that part. Must have made things hard for you, huh, Raith. Did you get the double entendre there, man? Made things hard?"

"Insolent," Raith said at last. "Utterly insolent. You are like her."

I let out a breath. It had been only a strong theory until his reaction had confirmed it. "Yeah. Thought so. You've been nothing but talk since my mom got finished with you. Living for years, talking a good game and hoping that no one noticed what you weren't doing. Hoping no one figured out that one of your broodmares gelded you. Bet that was terrifying. Living like that."

"Perhaps," he said in a low murmur.

"They're going to figure it out," I said quietly. "This is a pointless exercise. It will cost you to kill us, and you aren't getting any more. Ever. You'd be smarter to cut your losses and start running."

Raith's cold face again lifted into a smile. "No, boy. You aren't the only one who worked out what your mother did to me. And how. So instead, you and your brother are going to die tonight. Your deaths will end your mother's paltry little binding, along with her bloodline, of course." His eyes flashed to Murphy and he said with a slow smile, "And then perhaps something to eat. I am, after all, very hungry.

"You son of a bitch," I snarled.

Raith smiled at me again. Then told the Barbie, "Bring him."

And with that, Murphy still pinned on his knife-don't miss the symbolism there, Doc Freud-he led us through thirty yards of trees and down a rough slope into cold and darkness.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Lord Raith led us into the cave he called the Deeps, and the Bodyguard Barbie kept her gun on me while simultaneously remaining well out of easy reach. She wasn't any Trixie Vixen anyway. If I jumped her, she'd shoot me, and that would be that. Not that I could have done much jumping, what with the leg irons and all. I had trouble just shuffling along while ducking my head low enough to keep from bumping into rocky protrusions from the cave's roof.

"Murph?" I said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm feeling a little repressed," she responded. There was tight pain in her voice. "I'm fulfilling this hostage stereotype, and it's pissing me off."

"That's good," Raith said. He still had her by the neck, with the knife he held actually pressed a tiny bit into the wound he'd already given. "Defiance adds a great deal of enjoyment to feeding, Ms. Murphy." He put a contemptuous emphasis on the honorific. "It is, after all, a great deal more pleasurable to conquer than to rule. And defiant women can be conquered again and again before they break."

I ignored Raith. "How's your side?"

Murphy shot a glare over her shoulder at her captor. "A little prick like this? It's nothing."

In answer, Raith threw Murphy against the wall. She caught herself and turned, her hand blurring in a short, vicious strike.

Raith wasn't human. He caught her hand without so much as looking at it. He drove her hand and wrist back against the wall, and brought the bloodied tip of his knife sharply up under her chin. Her lip twisted into a defiant snarl and her knee lashed up as she kicked. Raith blocked it with a sweep of his thigh and pressed in close to her, all sinuous, serpentine speed and strength, until he was pressed to her front, his face to hers, raven-black hair mingling with her dark gold.

"Warrior women are all the same," Raith said, his eyes on Murphy's. His voice was low, slow, lilting. "You all know your way around struggling with other bodies. But you know little about the needs of your own."

Murphy stared at him, shoulders twitching, and her lips slowly parted.

"It's bound into you," Raith whispered. "Deeper than muscle and bone. The need. The only way to escape the blackness of death. You cannot deny it. Cannot escape it. In joy, in despair, in darkness, in pain, mortalkind still feels desire." His hand slid down from her wrist, his fingertips lightly brushing the thick veins. A soft sound escaped from Murphy's throat.

Raith smiled. "There. You already feel yourself weakening. I've taken thousands like you, lovely child. Taken them and broken them. There was nothing they could do. There is nothing you can do. You were made to feel desire. I was made to use it against you. It is the natural cycle. Life and death. Mating and death. Predator and prey."

Raith leaned closer with each word, and brushed his lips against Murphy's throat as he spoke. "Born mortal. Born weak. And easily taken."

Murphy's eyes went wide. Her body arched in shock. She let out a low, sobbing sound, as she tried and failed to hold back her voice.

Raith drew his head slowly back, smiling down at Murphy. "And that's only a taste, child. When you know what it is to be truly taken later this night, you will understand that your life ended the moment I wanted you." His hand moved, sudden and hard, digging his thumb against the wound in her ribs. Her face went white, and another, similar cry escaped her. She crumpled, and Raith let her fall to the ground. He stood over her for a moment, and then said, "We'll have days, little one. Weeks. You can spend them in agony or in bliss. The important thing to realize is that I'll be the one who decides which. You are no longer in command of your body. Nor your mind. You no longer have a choice in the matter."

Murphy gathered herself together and managed to lift her eyes again. They were defiant, and blurred with tears, but I could see the terror in them as well-and a sort of sickened, hideous desire. "You're a liar," she whispered. "I am my own."

Raith said, quietly, "I can always tell when a woman feels desire, Ms. Murphy. I can feel yours. Part of you is so tired of being disciplined. Tired of being afraid. Tired of denying yourself for the good of others." He knelt down, and Murphy's eyes shied away from his. "That part of you is what wanted to feel the pleasure I just gave. And it is that part of you that will grow as it feels more. The defiant young woman is already dead. She is simply too afraid to admit it."

He seized her hair and started dragging her, careless and hard. I saw her face for a second, confusion and fear and anger warring for control of her expression. But I knew she'd taken a wound far more grievous than any physical injury I'd seen her sustain. Raith had forced her to feel something, and there had been nothing she could do to stop him. She'd done her best to tear into him, and he had slapped her down like a child. It wasn't Murphy's fault that she'd lost that fight. It wasn't her fault that he'd forced sensation upon her. I mean, hell, he was the lord of the freaking nation of sexual predators, and even weakened and hampered by my mother's curse, he had been able to take apart Murphy's psychic and emotional defenses.

If he got the full measure of his powers back, what he would do to Murphy in retaliation for what my mother had done to him would be worse than death.

The damnedest thing was that there wasn't much I could do about it. Not because I was chained up, held at gunpoint, and probably going to die-though I had to admit, that might make things somewhat difficult-but because this wasn't a fight that someone else could win for Murphy. The real battle was inside of her-her strength of will against her own well-founded fears. Even if I did ride in on a white horse to save her, it would mean only that she would be forced to question her own strength and integrity thereafter, and that would be nothing more than a slow death of her self-reliance and strength of will.

It was something I could not save her from.

And I had asked her to face it.

Raith hauled on her hair as if it had been a dog's lead.

Murphy didn't fight back.

I clenched my hands into impotent fists. Murphy was in very real danger of dying that night, even if she kept on breathing and her heart kept on beating. But she would have to be the one to save herself.

The best thing I could do was nothing. The best thing I could say was nothing. I had some power, but it couldn't help Murphy now.

Hell's bells, irony blows.