Changes (The Dresden Files 12)

Chapter 46

Guys like the Red King just don't know when to shut up.

I fought to raise my hand, and it was more effort than anything I'd done that night. My hand shook and shook harder, but finally moved six inches, to touch the surface of the skull in the cloth bag on my hips.

Bob! I screamed, purely in my head, as I would have using Ebenezar's sending stone.

Hell's bells, he replied. You don't have to scream. I'm right here.

I need a shield. Something to ward off his will. I figure this is a spiritual attack. A spirit should be able to counter it.

Oh, sure. But no can do from in here, boss, Bob said.

You have my permission to leave the skull for this purpose! I thought desperately.

The skull's eye sockets flared with orange-red light, and then a cloud of glowing energy flooded out of the eyes and rose, gathering above my head and casting warm light down around me.

Seconds later, I heard Bob thinking, Take this, shorty!

And suddenly the Red King's will was not enough to keep me down. The pain receded, smothered and numbed by an exhilarating, icy chill that left my nerves tingling with energy. I clenched my teeth, freed from the burden of pain, and thrust my own will against his. I was a child arm wrestling a weight lifter - but his last remark gave me some extra measure of strength, and suddenly I drove myself to my feet.

The Red King turned to face me fully again, and extended both hands toward me, his face twisting with rage and contempt. The horrible pressure began to swell and redouble. I heard his voice quite clearly when he said, "Bow. Down. Mortal."

I took one dragging step toward my friends. Then another. And another. And another, moving forward with increasing steadiness. Then I snarled through clenched teeth and said, "Bite. Me. Asshole."

And I put my hand on Murphy's left shoulder.

She'd already moved her hand halfway to the sword. As I touched her, touched our auras together, spreading my own defenses over hers, and felt the direct and violent strength of her own will to defy the immortal power brought against us, her hand flashed up to the hilt of Fidelacchius and drew the katana from its plain scabbard.

White light like nothing that ancient stadium had ever seen erupted from the sword's blade, a bright agony that reminded me intensely of the crystalline plain. Howls of pain rose from around us, but were drowned by Murphy's sudden, silvery cry, her voice swelling throughout the stadium and ringing off the vaults of the sky:

"False gods!" she cried, her blue eyes blazing as she stared at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night. "Pretenders! Usurpers of truth! Destroyers of faith, of families, of lives, of children! For your crimes against the Mayans, against the peoples of the world, now will you answer! Your time has come! Face judgment Almighty!"

I think I was the only one close enough to see the shock in her eyes, and I realized that it wasn't Murphy speaking the words - but someone else speaking them through her.

Then she swept her sword in an arc, slashing the very air in front of us in a single, whistling stroke.

And the will of the Red King vanished. Gone.

The Red King let out a scream and clutched at his eyes. He screamed something, pointing in Murphy's direction, and in the same instant the rest of my friends gasped and rocked in place, suddenly free.

Every golden mask turned toward my friend.

Bob! I cried. Go with her! Keep her free!

Wahoo! the skull said, and gold-orange light fell from my head toward Murphy and gathered about her blond hair, even as the joined wills of the Lords of Outer Night fell upon her, so thick and heavy that I was knocked away from her as if by a physical force. The very air around her warped with its intensity.

White light from the sword flowed down and over her, and her garments literally transformed, as if that light had flowed into them, become a part of them, turning night to day, black to white. She staggered to one knee and looked up, her jaw set in stubborn determination, her teeth bared, her blue eyes, through the distortion, blazing like fire in defiance of thirteen dark gods - and with one of the most powerful spirits I'd ever met gathered around her head in a glowing golden halo.

Murphy came to her feet with a shout and a smooth stroke of the sword. The Lords of Outer Night all reacted, jerking back as if they'd been struck a blow in the face. Several golden masks were ripped from their faces, as if the blow had physically touched them - and the molten presence of their joined wills was suddenly gone.

With a scream, the jaguar warriors, half-breed and vampire alike, surged toward Murphy.

She ducked the swing of a modern katana, shattered a traditional obsidian sword with a contemptuous sweep of Fidelacchius, and struck down the warrior wielding it with a precise horizontal cut.

But she was outnumbered. Not by dozens or scores, but by the hundreds, and the jaguar warriors immediately fanned out to come at her from several directions. They knew how to work together.

But then, so did Sanya and I.

Sanya came forward with Esperacchius, and as it joined the fray, it too kindled into blazing white light that seemed to lick out at the vampires, forcing them to duck, to slap at white sparks that danced in their eyes. His booted foot caught one jaguar warrior in the small of the back, and the raw power of the kick snapped the warrior's head back with force enough to break his neck.

I followed Sanya in, unleashing a burst of freezing wind that took two warriors from their feet when they tried to flank Murphy from the other side.

She and Sanya went back-to-back, cutting down jaguar warriors with methodical efficiency for several seconds, as more and more of the enemy swarmed toward them. I kept slapping them away - not able to do any real harm, but preventing them from focusing overwhelming numbers on Murph and Sanya - but I could feel the fatigue setting in now. I couldn't keep this up forever.

There were quick footsteps beside me, and then Molly pressed her back to mine. "You take that side!" she said. "I'll take this one!"

DJ Molly C lifted both of her wands and turned the battle chaos to eleven.

Color and light and screaming sound erupted from those two little wands. Bands of light and darkness flowed around and over the oncoming jaguar warriors, fluttering images of bright sunshine intertwining with other images of yawning pits suddenly gaping before the feet of the attackers. Bursts of sound, shrieks and clashes and booms, and high-pitched noises like feedback on steroids sent the hyperkeen senses of full vampires into overload, literally forcing them back onto the weapons of those coming behind them.

Vampires staggered through the handiwork of the One-woman Rave, not stopped but slowed and stunned by the incredible field of sound and light.

"I love a good party," Thomas shouted merrily, and he began to dance along the edges of Molly's dance floor, his falcata whipping into the limbs and necks of the jaguar warriors as they wobbled forward, struck down before they could recover. I didn't think anyone could have moved fast enough to catch them, but my brother evidently didn't agree. He struck down the foe as they came for us, and he threw in a few dance moves along the way. The part he borrowed from break dancing, where a wave traveled up one arm and down the other, was particularly effective, aesthetically, when it was bracketed by his falcata beheading one vamp and his automatic blowing apart the skull of another.

The pressure of numbers increased, and Thomas started moving more swiftly, more desperately - until Mouse leapt in to help plug the leak in the dam of confusion that held the full power of the Red Court at bay.

I had my own side of the store to mind. Again I reached into the well of cold, ready power, and with a word blanketed the field before me in smooth, slick ice. Howling wind rose to greet any foe who stepped out onto the ice, forcing them to work around to the killing machine that was Sanya and Murphy, or else circle around to attempt an approach through Molly's murderous light and sound show.

Someone touched my arm and I nearly roasted him without looking.

Martin flinched, as though he'd had a dodge ready to go if I had something for him. "Dresden!" he called. "Look!"

I looked. Up on the little temple at the end of the ball court, the Lords of Outer Night and the Red King were standing in a circle, and they were all gathering magical power - probably from one of the bloody ley lines, to boot. Whatever they were going to do, I had a bad feeling that I was reaching the very end of my bag of tricks.

I heard booted feet and saw the mortal security guards lining up along the sides of the stadium, rifles at the ready. When they were in position they would open fire, and the simple fact was that if they piled enough rounds into us, we would go down.

Who was I kidding?

I couldn't keep the field of ice and wind together for very long. And I knew Molly couldn't maintain her Rave at that intensity for long, either. Dozens of jaguar warriors had fallen, but that meant little. Their numbers had not been diminished by any significant measure.

We could fight as hard as we wanted - but despite everything, in the end it was going to be futile. We were never getting out of that stadium.

But we had to try.

"Lea!" I screamed.

"Yes, child?" she asked, her tone pleasant and conversational. I could still hear her perfectly clearly. Neat trick.

"The king and his jokers are about to hit us with something big."

"Oh, my, yes," the Leanansidhe said, looking skyward dreamily.

"So do something!" I howled at her.

"I already am," she assured me.

She removed a small emerald from a pocket of her gown and flung it skyward. It sparkled and flashed, and flew up out of the light of torches and swords, and vanished into the night. A few seconds later, it exploded in a cloud of merry green sparks.

"There. That place will do," she said, clapping her hands and bouncing up and down on her toes. "Now we shall see a real dance."

Green lightning split the sky, erupting with such a burst of thunder that the ground shook. Instead of fading, though, the thunder grew louder as more and more strokes of lightning flared out from the area of sky where Lea's gem had exploded into light.

Then a sheet of a dozen separate green bolts of lightning fell all at the same time onto the ground of the ball court twenty yards away, blowing smoking craters in the ground.

It took my dazzled eyes a few seconds to recover from that, and when they did, my heart almost stopped.

Standing on the ball court were twelve figures.

Twelve people in shapeless grey robes. Grey cloaks. Grey hoods.

And every single one of them held a wizard's staff in one hand.

The Grey Council.

The Grey Council!

The nearest figure was considerably shorter than me and stout, but he stood with his feet planted as if he intended to move the world. He lifted his staff, smote it on the ground, then boomed, "Remember Archangel!" He spoke a single, resonating word as he thrust the tip of the implement at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night.

The second floor of the stadium-temple where they stood . . . simply exploded. A force hit the ancient structure like an enormous bulldozer blade rushing forward at Mach 2. It smashed into the temple. Stone screamed. The Red King, the Lords of Outer Night, and several thousand tons of the temple's structure went flying back through the air with enough violent energy to send a shock wave rebounding from the point of impact.

The massive display of force brought a second of stunned silence to the field - and I was just as slack-jawed as anyone.

Then I threw back my head and let out a primal scream of triumph and glee. The Grey Council had come.

We were not alone.

The echo of my scream seemed to be a signal, sending the rest of us back to fighting for our lives. I blew a few more vampires away from my friends, and then sensed a rush of supernatural energy coming at me. I turned and caught a tide of ruinous Red power upon my shield, and hurled a blast of flame back at a Red Court noble in massive amounts of jewelry. Others in their ranks began to open up on the newly arrived Grey Council, who responded in kind, and the air was filled with a savage crisscross of exchanged energies.

The stocky figure in grey stumped up to me and said casually, "How you doing, Hoss?"

I felt my face stretch into a fierce grin, but I answered him just as casually. "Sort of wish I'd brought a staff with me. Other than that . . . can't complain."

From within his hood, Ebenezar grunted. "Nice outfit."

"Thanks," I said. "I liked your ride. Good mileage?"

"As long as there's some carpet to scuff your feet on," he said, and tossed me his staff. "Here."

I felt the energies moving through the implement at once. It was a better-made staff than mine, but Ebenezar had been the one to teach me how they were made, and both staves I had used over the years had been carved from branches of the lightning-struck oak in the front yard of his little farm in the Ozarks. I could make use of this staff almost as well as if it were my own.

"What about you?" I asked him. "Don't you want it?"

He batted a precisely aimed thrown ax from the air with a flick of his hand and a word of power, and drawled, "I got another one."

Ebenezar McCoy extended his left hand and spoke another word, and darkness swirled from the shadows and condensed into a staff of dark, twisted wood, unmarked by any kind of carving whatsoever.

The Blackstaff.

"Fuego!" shouted someone on the walls - and for a second I was hit with a little sting of insult. Someone was shouting "fuego" and it wasn't me.

While I was feeling irrational pique, guns started barking, and they aimed at me first. Bullets rang sharply as they hit my armor, rebounding from it and barely leaving a mark. It was like getting hit with small hailstones: uncomfortable but not really dangerous - unless one of them managed a head shot.

Ebenezar turned toward the walls from which the soldiers were firing. Hits thumped into his robes, but seemed to do little but stir the fabric and then fall at his feet. The old man said, mostly to himself, "You took the wrong contract, boys."

Then he swept the Blackstaff from left to right, murmured a word, and ripped the life from a hundred men.

They just . . . died.

There was absolutely nothing to mark their deaths. No sign of pain. No struggle. No convulsion of muscles. No reaction at all. One moment they were firing wildly down at us - and the next, they simply -

Dropped.

Dead.

The old man turned to the other wall, and I saw two or three of the brighter soldiers throw their guns down and run. I don't know if they made it, but the old man swept the Blackstaff through the air again, and the gunmen on that side of the field dropped dead where they stood.

My godmother watched it happen, and bounced and clapped her hands some more, as delighted as a child at the circus.

I stared for a second, shocked. Ebenezar had just shattered the First Law of Magic: Thou shalt not kill. He had used magic to directly end the life of another human being - nearly two hundred times. I mean, yes, I had known what his office allowed him to do. . . . But there was a big difference between appreciating a fact and seeing that terrible truth in motion.

The Blackstaff itself pulsed and shimmered with shadowy power, and I got the sudden sense that the thing was alive, that it knew its purpose and wanted nothing more than to be used, as often and as spectacularly as possible.

I also saw veins of venomous black begin to ooze their way over the old man's hand, reaching up slowly, spreading to his wrist. He grimaced and held his left forearm with his right hand for a moment, then looked over his shoulder and said, "All right!"

The farthest grey figure, tall and lean, lifted his staff. I saw light gleam off of metal at one end of the staff, and then green lightning enfolded the length of wood as he thrust the metal end into the ground. He took the staff back - but the twisting length of green lightning stayed. He drove the staff down again about six feet away, and again lightning sheathed it. Then he removed the staff, reversed his grip on it, and with a sweep of his arm drew another shaft of lightning between the two upright columns of electricity, bridging the gap.

He was opening a Way.

There was a flash of light, and the space between the bolts of lightning warped and went dark - then exploded with black figures bearing swords. For the first moment, I thought that they were wearing odd costumes, or maybe weird armor. Their faces were shaped something like a crow's, complete with a long yellow beak. They were wearing clothes that seemed to be made from feathers - and then I got it.

They actually were beak-faced creatures, covered in soft black feathers and carrying swords, each and every one of them a Japanese-style katana. They poured out of the gate by the score, by the hundreds, and began to bound forward with unnaturally long leaps that seemed only technically different from flying. They looked deadly and beautiful, all grace, speed, and perfection of motion. The wild light of the One-woman Rave glittered off of their blades and glassy black eyes.

"The kenku owed me a favor," Ebenezar drawled. "Seemed like a good time to call it in."

With sharp whistles and wails of fury, the strange creatures bounded up out of the ball court and began to engage the Red Court in numbers.

It was too much to take in. Sorcery flew beside bullets on a scale larger than anything I'd ever seen. Stone weapons clashed against steel. Blood flew: the black of the vampires, the blue of the kenku, and, mostly, flashes of scarlet mortal blood. There was too much terror and incongruous beauty in it, and I think my head reacted by tuning out everything that wasn't threatening my life, or was more than a few yards away.

"Maggie," I said. I grabbed the old man's shoulder. "I've got to get to her."

He grimaced and nodded his head. "Where?"

"The big temple," I said, pointing at the pyramid. "And about four hundred meters north of the temple, there's a trailer cattle car," I said. "It was guarded the last time I looked. There are human prisoners still in it."

Ebenezar grunted and nodded. "Get the girl. We'll take care of the Red Court and their Night Lords." The old man spat on the ground, his eyes alight with excitement. "We'll see how the slimy bastards like eating what they've been dishing out."

I gripped his hand, hard, then put my other one on the old man's shoulder and said, "Thank you."

His eyes welled up for an instant, but he only snorted and squeezed back. "Get your girl, Hoss."

The old man winked at me. I blinked a few times myself and then turned away.

Time was running out - for Maggie, and for me.