Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

"Let's start simple," I said. "Where's the key to the manacles?"

"Van," he replied, his tone calm.

"My stuff?"

"Van."

"Keys." I held out my hand.

Madrigal drew a rental-car key ring from his pocket and tossed it to me, underhand.

"Thomas," I said, holding them up.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Mouse can watch him. I want this fucking thing off my arm."

Thomas took the keys and paced over to the van. He paused to idly check his hair in the reflection in the windshield before opening the van. Vanity, thy name is vampire.

"Now for the real question," I told Madrigal. "How are you involved with the attacks?"

"I'm not involved," he said quietly. "Not in the planning and not in the execution. I've been scheduled here for more than a year."

"Doesn't scream alibi to me," I said.

"I'm not," he insisted. "Of course, I thought them entertaining. And yes, the..." His eyelids half lowered and his voice went suddenly husky. "The... storm of it. The horror. Empty night, so sweet, all those souls in fear..."

"Get off the creepy psychic vampire train," I said. "Answer the question."

He gave me an ugly smile and gestured at his healing legs. "You see. I've fed, and fed well. Tonight, particularly. But you have my word, wizard, that whatever these creatures are, they are none of my doing. I was merely a spectator."

"If that's true," I said, "then why the hell did you grab me and bring me here?"

"For gain," he said. "And for enjoyment. I don't let any buck talk to me as you did. Since I'd planned on replying to your arrogance anyway, I thought I might as well turn a profit on it at the same time."

"God bless America," I said. Thomas returned with my magical gear- staff, backpack, a paper sack with my various foci in it, and an old-fashioned key with big teeth. I popped it in the slot on the manacles, fumbling with the stiff, uncooperative fingers of my left hand, and got the thing off my arm. My skin tingled for a moment, and I reached experimentally for my magic. No whiteout of pain. I was a wizard again.

I put on my amulet, bracelet, and ring. I felt the backpack to make sure Bob's skull was still in there. It was, and I breathed a mental sigh of relief. Bob's arcane knowledge was exceeded only by his inability to distinguish between moral right and wrong. His knowledge, in the wrong hands, could be dangerous as hell.

"No," I said quietly. "It isn't a coincidence that you're there, Madrigal."

"I just told you-"

"I believe you," I said. "But I don't think it was a coincidence, either. I think you were there for a reason. Maybe one you didn't know."

Madrigal frowned at that, and looked, for a moment, a little bit worried.

I pursed my lips and thought aloud. "You're high-profile. You're known to feed on fear. You're at war with the White Council." Two and two make four. Four and four make eight. I glanced up at Thomas and said, "Whoever it is behind the phage attacks, they wanted me to think that Darby, here, was it."

Thomas's eyebrows went up in sudden understanding. "Madrigal's supposed to take the fall."

Madrigal's face turned even whiter. "What do you-"

He didn't get to finish the question.

Glau screamed. He screamed in pure, shrieking terror, his voice pitched as high as a woman's.

Everyone turned in surprise, and we were in time to see something haul the wounded Glau out of sight on the other side of the van. Red sprayed into the air. A piece of him, probably an arm or a leg, flew out from behind the van and tumbled for several paces before falling heavily to earth. Glau's voice abruptly went silent.

Something arched up from behind the van and landed, rolling. It bumped over the gravel and came to a stop.

Glau's head.

It had been physically ripped from his body, the flesh and bone torn and wrenched apart by main strength. His face was stretched into a scream, showing his sharklike teeth, and his eyes were glazed and frozen in death.

Orange light rose up behind the van, and then something, a creature perhaps ten or eleven feet in height, rose up and turned to face us. It was dressed all in rags, like some kind of enormous hobo, and was inhumanly slender. Its head was a bulbous thing, and it took me a second to recognize it as a pumpkin, carved with evil eyes like a jack-o'-lantern's. Those eyes glowed with a sullen red flame, and flashed intensely for a moment as it spied us.

Then it took a long step over the hood of the van and came at us with strides that looked slow but ate up yards with every step.

"Good God," Rawlins breathed.

Mouse snarled.

"Harry?" Thomas said.

"Another phage in a horror movie costume. The Scarecrow, this time," I murmured. "I'll handle it." I took my staff in hand and stepped out to meet the oncoming phage. I called up the Hellfire once more, as I had against the other phage, until my skin felt like it was about to fly apart. I gathered up energy for a strike more deadly than I had used earlier in the night. Then I cried out and unleashed my will against the creature, hitting it as hard as I possibly could.

The resulting cannonball of blazing force struck the Scarecrow head-on while it was twenty feet away, exploding into a column of searing red flame, an inferno of heat and light that went off with enough force to throw the thing halfway across Lake Michigan.

Imagine my surprise when the Scarecrow stepped through my spell as if it had not existed. Its eyes regarded me with far too much awareness, and its arm moved, striking-snake fast.

Fingers as thick and tough as pumpkin vines suddenly closed around my throat, and in a rush of sudden, terrifying understanding, I realized that this phage was stronger than the little one I'd beaten at the hotel. This creature was far older, larger, stronger, more dangerous.

My vision darkened to a star-spangled tunnel as the Scarecrow wrapped its other hand around my left thigh, lifted me to the horizontal over its head, and started to rip me in half.

Chapter Twenty-nine

"Harry!" Thomas shouted. I heard a rasp of steel, and saw Thomas draw an old U.S. Cavalry saber from inside my duster. He tossed the shotgun to the wounded Rawlins and rushed forward.

Mouse beat him there. The big dog snarled and threw himself at the Scarecrow, obliging the creature to release my leg so that it could swing a spindly arm and fist at my dog. The Scarecrow was strong. It struck Mouse in midleap and batted him into the corrugated steel wall of the Full Moon Garage like he was a tennis ball. There was a crash, and Mouse bounced off the wall and landed heavily on his side, leaving a dent in the steel where he'd hit. He thrashed his legs and managed to rise to a wobbly stand.