Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

Mouse had given Thomas an opening, and my brother leapt to the top of an old metal trash bin, then bounded fifteen feet through the air, whipping the sword down on the wrist of the arm that held me in choke. Thomas was never weak, but he was tapping into his powers as a vampire of the White Court as he attacked, and his skin was a luminous white, his eyes metallic silver. The blow parted the Scarecrow's hand from its arm, and dropped me a good five or six feet to the ground.

Even as I fell, I knew I had to move away from the creature, and fast. I managed to have my balance more or less in place when I hit, and I fell into a roll, using the momentum to help me rise to a running start. But a problem developed.

That damned Scarecrow's hand had not ceased choking me, and had not lost any of its strength. My headlong retreat turned into a drunken stumble as my air ran out, and I clutched at the tough vine-fingers crushing my windpipe shut. I went to my knees and one hand, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Rawlins lift the shotgun and begin pumping rounds into the oncoming Scarecrow from where he sat on the ground. The rounds slowed the oncoming creature, but they did nothing to harm it.

My throat was on fire, and I knew I had only seconds of consciousness left. In pure desperation, I took my staff and, in a dizzying gesture, dragged it through a complete circle in the gravel at my feet. I touched my hand to the circle, willing power into it, and felt the field of magic that it formed spring up around me in a silent, invisible column.

The circle's power cut the Scarecrow's severed hand off from the main body of the creature, and like the phage in the hallway of the hotel, it abruptly transformed into transparent jelly that splattered down onto the gravel beneath my chin and soaked my shirt in sticky goo.

I sucked in a breath of pure euphoria, and though I was on my knees, I turned to face the Scarecrow and did not retreat. So long as the circle around me maintained its integrity, there was no way for the phage to get to me. It should buy me a little time, to get the air back into my lungs and to work out my next attack.

The Scarecrow let out an angry hissing sound and swung its stump of an arm down at Rawlins. The veteran cop saw it coming and rolled out of the way as though he were an agile young man, barely avoiding the blow. Thomas used an old metal oil drum as a platform for another leap, this time driving his heels into the Scarecrow's back, at what would have been the base of its spine on a human. The impact sent the Scarecrow to the ground, but as it landed it kicked a long leg at Thomas and struck his saber arm, breaking it with a wet snap of bone.

Thomas howled, scrambling back, leaving his fallen sword on the ground. The Scarecrow whirled back to me, eyes blazing with an alien rage, and I could swear that I saw recognition in them. It looked from me to Rawlins, and then with a hissing cackle it went after the cop.

Dammit. I waited until the last second and then broke the circle with a sweep of my foot, snatching up Thomas's sword. I charged forward.

The Scarecrow whirled the moment the circle went down, sweeping out a great fist that could have broken my neck, but it hadn't expected me to charge, and I was inside its reach before it realized what I had done. I let out a shout and struck at one of the Scarecrow's legs, but it was quicker than I thought, and the saber's blade barely clipped the thick, sturdy, viny limb. The Scarecrow let out a hiss loud and sharp enough to hurt my ears and tried to kick me, but I slipped to one side just in time, and the blow intended for me instead scattered several stacks of tires.

Madrigal Raith rose up from among the fallen tires only a couple of feet away from me, shrieking with fear. The Scarecrow's eyes blazed into painfully bright flames when it saw Madrigal, and it started for him.

"Get to the van!" I shouted, hopping back to stand beside Madrigal. "We need wheels if we're going to get away from this-"

Without so much as a second's hesitation, Madrigal stuck out his hand and shoved me between himself and the monster, sending me into a sprawl at the Scarecrow's feet while he turned to flee in the opposite direction.

Before I hit the ground, I was already calling power into my shield bracelet and I twisted to land on my right side, holding my left hand and its shield up. If I'd been half a second slower, the Scarecrow would have stomped its foot down onto my skull. Instead, it hit the half sphere of my sorcerous shield with so much force that the shield sent off a flare of light and heat, so that it looked like an enormous blue-white bowl above me.

Furious, the Scarecrow seized an empty barrel and hurled it down at my shield. I hardened my will as it struck, and turned the force of the throw, sending the barrel bouncing over the gravel, but it had gotten closer to me than the first blow. A second later, its fist hammered down, and then it found a bent aluminum ladder in a pile of junk and slammed it down at me.

I managed to block the attacks, but each one came a little closer to my hide. I didn't dare to let up my concentration for a moment in an effort to move away. The damned thing was so strong. I wouldn't survive a mistake. A single blow from one of its limbs or improvised weapons would probably kill me outright. But if I didn't get away, the creature would hammer through the shield anyway.

Mouse charged in again, on three legs this time, bellowing an almost leonine battle roar as he did so. The Scarecrow struck out at Mouse, but the dog's attack had been a feint, and he avoided the blow while remaining just out of the Scarecrow's reach. The Scarecrow turned back to me, but Mouse rushed it again, forcing the Scarecrow to abandon its attack lest Mouse close in from behind.

I rolled clear of the Scarecrow's reach and regained my feet, sword in my right hand, shining blue shield blazing on my left. I'd been throwing an awful lot of magic around tonight, and I was feeling it. My legs trembled, and I wasn't sure how much more I could do.

Mouse and I circled the monster opposite one another, playing wolf pack to the Scarecrow's bear, each of us menacing the creature's flanks when it turned to the other. We held our own for maybe a minute, but it was a losing bet, long-term. Mouse was moving on three legs and tiring swiftly. I wasn't much better off. The second one of us slipped or moved too slowly, the Scarecrow would drive us into the ground like a fence post. A wet, red, squishy fence post.

Light shone abruptly on my back, an engine roared, and a car horn blared. I hopped to one side. Madrigal's rental van shot past me and slammed into the Scarecrow. It knocked the creature sprawling all the way across the parking lot to the edge of the street.

Thomas leaned his head out the window and shouted, "Get in!"

I hurried to oblige him, snatching up my staff on the way, and Mouse was hard on my heels. We piled into the van, where I found Rawlins unconscious in the back. I slammed the side door shut. Thomas threw up a cloud of gravel whirling the van around, banged over the concrete median between the gravel lot and the street, and shot off down the road.