Dead Beat (The Dresden Files 7)

Kumori said, "Let me tell him."

"Pointless."

"It costs nothing," Kumori said.

"It's going to if you keep dawdling," I said. "I'm going to start billing you for wasting my time."

She made a weird sound that I only just recognized as a sigh. "Can you believe, at least, that the contents of the book are dangerous?"

Grevane had seemed fond enough of his copy. But I wouldn't know for sure what the big stink was about until I had time to read the book myself. "For the sake of expediency, let's say that I do."

"If the knowledge inside the book is dangerous," Cowl said, "what makes you think that the Wardens or the Council would use it any more wisely than Kemmler's disciples?"

"Because while they are a bunch of enormous ass**les, they always try to do the right thing," I said. "If one of the Wardens thought he might be about to practice black magic, he'd probably cut off his own head on pure reflex."

"All of them?" Kumori asked in a quiet voice. "Are you sure?"

I looked back and forth between them. "Are you telling me that someone on the Council is after Kemmler's power?"

"The Council is not what it was," said Cowl. "It has rotted from the inside, and many wizards who have chafed at its restrictions have seen the war with the Red Court reveal its weakness. It will fall. Soon. Perhaps before tomorrow night."

"Oh," I drawled. "Well, gee, why didn't you say so? I'll just hand you my copy of the book right now."

Kumori held up a hand. "This is no deception, Dresden. The world is changing. The Council's end is near, and those who wish to survive it must act now. Before it is too late."

I took a deep breath. "Normally I'm the first one to suggest we t.p. the Council's house," I said. "But you're talking about necromancy. Black magic. You aren't going to convince me that the Council and the Wardens have suddenly gotten a yen to trot down the left-hand path. They won't touch the stuff."

"Ideally," Cowl said. "You are young, Dresden. And you have much to learn."

"You know what young me has learned? Not to spend too much time listening to the advice of people who want to get something out of me," I said. "Which includes car salesmen, political candidates, and weirdos in black capes who mug me on the street in the middle of the night."

"Enough," Cowl said, anger making his voice almost unintelligible. "Give us the book."

"Bite my ass, Cowl."

Kumori's hood twitched back and forth between Cowl and me. She took three steps back.

"Just as well," Cowl murmured. "I have wanted to see for myself what has the Wardens so nervous about you."

The cold wind rose again, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose up stiffly. A flash of sensation flickered over me as Cowl drew in power. A lot of power.

"Don't," I said. I lifted my shield bracelet, weaving defensive energy before me with my thoughts. I solidified my hold on my own power, wrapping my fingers tight around my staff, and then slammed it down hard on the concrete. The cracking sound of it echoed back and forth from darkened buildings and the empty street. "Walk away. I'm not kidding."

"Dorosh," he snarled in reply, and extended his right hand.

He hit me with raw, invisible force-pure will, focused into a violent burst of kinetic energy. I knew it was coming, my shield was ready, and I braced myself against it in precisely the correct way. My defense was perfect.

It was all that saved my life.

I've traded practice blows with my old master Justin DuMorne, himself at one time a Warden. I fought him in earnest, too, and won. I've tested my strength in practice duels against the mentor who succeeded him, Ebenezar McCoy. My faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe, has a seriously nasty right hook, metaphysically speaking, and I've even gone up against the least of the Queens of Faerie. Throw in a couple of demons, various magical constructs, a thirteen-story fall in a runaway elevator, half a dozen spellslingers of one amount of nasty or another, and I've seen more sheer mystic violence than most wizards in the business. I've beaten them all, or at least survived them, and I've got the scars to show for it.

Cowl hit me harder than any of them.

My shield lit up like a floodlight, and despite all that I could do to divert the energy he threw at me, it hit me like a professional linebacker on an adrenaline frenzy. If I hadn't been able to smooth it out and take the blow evenly across the whole front of my body, it might have broken my nose or ribs or collarbone, depending on where the energy bled through. Instead it felt like the Jolly Green Giant had slugged me with a family-sized beanbag. If there had been any upward force on it, it would have thrown me far enough to make me worry about the fall. But the blow came head-on, driving me straight back.

I flew several yards in the air, hit on my back, scraped along the sidewalk, and managed to turn the momentum into a roll. I staggered to my feet, leaning hard against a parked car. I must have clipped my head at some point, because stars were swirling around in my vision.

By the time I got myself upright again, the panic had set in. No one had ever thrown power like that at me. Stars and stones, if I hadn't been absolutely prepared for that blow...

I swallowed. I'd be dead. Or at best broken, bleeding, and utterly at the mercy of an unknown wizard. One who was still nearby, and probably getting ready to hit me again. I forced thoughts and doubts from my mind and readied my shield, my bracelet already grown so warm that I could feel it through the ugly scars on the skin of my wrist. I couldn't even think about hitting back, because if my shield wasn't back up and ready for another blow, I wouldn't live long enough to get the chance.

Cowl walked slowly toward me down the sidewalk, all cloak and hood and shadows. "Disappointing," he said. "I hoped you were ready for the heavyweight division."

He flicked his wrist, and the next blow howled at me in the freezing wind blowing off the lake. This one came in at an angle, and I didn't even try to stop it cold. I sidestepped like a nervous horse, angling my shield to deflect the blow. Again energy leaked through, but this time it only shoved me across the sidewalk.

My shoulder hit the building, and it drove the breath out of me. I've had shoulder injuries before, and it probably made it feel worse than it was. I bounced off the building and kept my feet, but my legs wobbled- not from the effort of holding me up, but from the energy I'd had to expend to survive the attacks.

Cowl kept walking toward me. Hell's bells, it didn't even look like he was trying all that hard.