Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files 8)

Murphy frowned and shook her head. "Whatever."

A light appeared in the hallway leading back to the actual theater. In an eyeblink, Murphy and Thomas both had their guns pointed at it and my shield bracelet was dripping heatless blue sparks, ready to spring into place.

"It's all right," Lily said, her voice low.

Fix appeared in the doorway at the far end of the lobby, sword in hand. Fire gleamed along the length of the blade as if it had been coated in kerosene and ignited. He looked around, frowning, and said, "It isn't back this way."

"What isn't?" I asked.

"The third," Lily said. "There will be a third fetch."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because they're fetches," Fix answered. "We should check the bathrooms."

"Not alone," I said. "Murph, Charity."

Murphy nodded and slipped around the counter to join Fix. Charity slipped through the curtain and to the lobby in her wake. The three of them moved in cautious silence and entered the restrooms. They returned a moment later. Fix shook his head.

"There," Thomas said, finishing off the bandage. "Too tight?"

I flexed the fingers of my right hand and stooped to recover my staff. "It's good." I squinted around the place. "One room left."

We all looked at the double doors leading to the actual theater. They were closed. Faint lights flickered, barely noticeable from within the radius of our own illumination.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," I said, walking around the counter and into the lobby. I headed for the doors and tried to project confidence. "Same plan."

I paused at the doors while everyone gathered behind me. I looked back to check that they were ready, which is why I was the only one who saw what happened.

The plastic trash can about six inches behind Charity suddenly exploded, the top flipping off, and paper cups and popcorn bags flew everywhere. Something humanoid and no larger than a toddler shot from the trash can. It had red hair and overalls, and it held a big old kitchen knife in one tiny hand. It hit Charity just above her tailbone, driving her into the ground, and lifted the knife.

My companions had been taken by surprise-just a second or two, but as far as Charity was concerned it might as well have been forever. There was no time for thought. Before I realized what I was doing, I took a pair of long steps, shifting my grip on my staff as I went, and swung it like a golf club at the fetch's head. It impacted with a meaty thunk.

Its head flew off, bounced off of a pillar, and rolled to a stop not far from the rest of the thing. I had only a second to regard the doll's features before it began dissolving into ectoplasm.

Thomas blinked at it and said, "That was Bucky the Murder Doll."

"Kind of a wimp," I said.

Thomas nodded. "Must have been the runt of the litter."

I traded a glance with Murphy. "Personally," I said, "I never understood how anyone could have found that thing frightening to begin with." Then I went to Charity's side and offered her a hand up. She grimaced and took it. "Are you all right?"

"Nothing broken," she replied. She winced and put her hand to her back. "I should have stretched out."

"Next time we'll know better," I said. "Lily? Is that it?"

The Summer Lady's eyes went distant for a moment and then she murmured, "Yes. There are no longer agents of Winter in this place. Come."

She stepped forward and the doors to the theater proper opened of their own accord. We followed. It was your typical movie theater. Not one of the new stadium-seating fancy theaters, but one of the old models with only a slight incline in the floor. Light played over the screen, though the projector was not running. Spectral colors shifted, faded, changed, and melded like the aurora borealis, and I was struck with the sudden intuition that the color and light were somehow being projected from the opposite side of the screen. The air grew even colder as we followed Lily down the aisle.

She stopped in front of the screen, staring blankly at it for a moment, then shuddered. "Dresden," she said quietly. "This crossing leads to Arctis Tor."

My stomach fluttered again. "Oh, crap."

I saw Thomas arch an eyebrow at me out of the corner of my eye.

"Crap?" Murphy asked. "Why? What is that place?"

I took a deep breath. "It's the heart of Winter. It's like..." I shook my head. "Think the Tower of London, the Fortress of Solitude, Fort Knox, and Alcatraz all rolled up into one giant ball of fun. It's Mab's capital. Her stronghold." I glanced at Lily. "If what I've read about it is correct, that is. I've never actually seen the place."

"Your sources were accurate enough, Harry," Lily said. Her manner remained remote, strained. "This is going to severely limit what help I can give you."

"Why?" I asked.

Lily stared intently at me for a second, then said, "My power will react violently to that of Mab. I can open the way to the Arctis Tor, but holding the way open for your return will occupy the whole of my strength. Furthermore, so long as I hold the way open I run the risk of letting creatures from deep Winter run free in Chicago. Which means that Fix must remain here to guard the passage against them. I cannot in good conscience send him with you."

I scowled at the shifting colors on the screen. "So once we go in, we're on our own."

"Yes."

Super. Without Lily and Fix's power to counter that of the Winter fae within Arctis Tor, our odds of success would undergo a steep reduction- and I had hoped we would be attacking an independent trio of faeries lairing in a cave or under a bridge or something. I hadn't figured on storming the Bastille.

I looked up and met Charity's eyes for a second.

I turned back to the dancing lights on the movie screen and told the others, "Things just got a lot worse. I'm still going. None of you have to come with me. I don't expect you to-"

Before I finished speaking, Charily, Murphy, and Thomas stepped up to stand beside me.

A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching-they are your family.

And they were my heroes.

I nodded at Lily. She closed her eyes, and the shimmering colors on the screen grew brighter, more vibrant. The air grew colder.

"All right," I said quietly. "Each of you get a hand on my shoulder." I resettled my grip on my wizard's staff and murmured, "Round two."