White Night (The Dresden Files 9)

Luccio was fully engaged in treating the wounded. Three had been hit by gunfire, and several others, including one of the other adult Wardens, had been wounded by shards of shattered rock or splinters thrown from the folding tables and chairs.

Ramirez came hurrying up to me and said, "You get him?" His eyes trailed past me to the enormous area blackened with smoke and half a dozen patches of brush still on fire, and he said, "Yeah, I guess you kind of did."

"Kind of," I agreed. "You said they had two of our kids?"

He nodded once, his face grim. "The Terrible Twosome. They were heading up the slope to find a spot above the camp for the lesson. Wanted to show off, I expect."

"Sixteen," I muttered. "Jesus."

Ramirez grimaced. "I was yelling at them to Come back when the ghouls hopped up out of the bush and brought them down, and the three assholes who had sneaked into the old smithy opened up."

"How are you at following tracks?" I asked him.

"Thought they taught that Boy Scout stuff to all you Anglos. I grew up in L.A."

I blew out a breath, thinking fast. "Luccio's busy. She'll call in help for the wounded. That leaves you and me to go get the twins."

"Fucking right we will," Ramirez said. "How?"

"You got prisoners?"

"The two I didn't blast, yeah."

"We'll ask them."

"Think they'll rat out their buddy?"

"If they think it'll save their lives?" I asked. "In a heartbeat. Maybe less."

"Weasels," Ramirez muttered.

"They are what they are, man," I said. "There's no use in hating them for it. Just be glad we can use it to advantage. Let's go."

Chapter Twenty-Three

The ghouls lay covered in grey-white dust as fine as baby powder - the remains of the wall Ramirez had blasted, their companion, his weapon, and the right arm and leg of one of the captive ghouls. The wounded ghoul, body shifted into its natural form under the stress of injury, lay panting and choking, spitting out dust. The second ghoul still looked mostly human, and was dressed in a ragged old set of sand-colored robes that looked like something out of Lawrence of Arabia. Another Kalashnikov lay several feet away, behind Bill Meyers, the young Warden now standing over them with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun pointed at the unwounded one of the pair.

"Careful," Meyers said. He had the rural drawl that seems largely common to any town west of the Mississippi located more than an hour or so from a major city, though he was himself a Texan. "I ain't searched them, and they don't 'pear to understand English."

"What?" Ramirez said. "That's stupid. Who bothers to sneak ghouls into the country as covert muscle if they can't pass as locals?"

"Someone who doesn't have to worry about customs or border guards or witnesses or cops," I said quietly. "Someone who takes them through the Nevernever straight here from wherever the hell they came from." I glanced back at Ramirez. "How else do you think they got past the outer wards and sentries and right up to the camp?"

Ramirez grunted. "I thought we had those approaches warded, too."

"Nevernever's a tricksy kind of place," I said. "Tough to know it all. Somebody was sneakier than us."

"Vampires?" Ramirez asked.

I very carefully said nothing about a Black Council. "Who else would it be?"

Ramirez said something to them in Spanish.

"Shoot," Meyers drawled. "You think I didn't try that already?"

"Hey," I said. I stepped closer to the unwounded ghoul and nudged him with one foot. "What language do you speak?"

The not-quite-human-looking man shot a quick, furtive glance at me, and then at his companion. He sputtered something quick and liquid-sounding. His companion snarled something back through its muzzle and fangs that sounded vaguely similar.

Seconds were ticking by, and we had a pair of kids in the hands of one of these things. I directed my thoughts inward, to the corner of my brain where Lasciel's shadow lived, and asked, You get any of that?

Lasciel's presence promptly responded. The first asked the second if he understood anything we were saying. The second replied that he hadn't and you were probably deciding which one of us would kill them.

I need to talk to them, I said. Can you translate for me?

There was a sudden sense of someone standing close to me - an almost tangible physical sensation of someone slim and feminine pressed against my back, arms casually around my waist, soft breath and lips moving near my ear. It was odd, but not at all unpleasant. I caught myself enjoying it, and firmly reminded myself of the danger of allowing the demon to do that.

With your permission, you need only speak to them in English, my host, Lasciel said. I will translate it between mind and mouth, and they will hear their tongue from your lips.

I so did not need any image involving their tongues and my lips, I responded.

Lasciel let out a delighted laugh that bubbled through my mind, and I was smiling a little when I faced the ghoul and said, "Okay, asshole. I've got two kids missing, and the only chance you have of getting out of this alive is if I get them back. Do you understand me?"

Both ghouls looked up at me, surprise evident even on the inhuman one's face. I got a similar look from Ramirez and Meyers.

"Do you understand me?" I asked the ghouls quietly.

"Yes," stammered the wounded ghoul, apparently in English.

Ramirez's dark, heavy eyebrows tried to climb up under his bush hat.

I had to remind myself that this was not very cool. I was using a dangerous tool that would one day turn on me. No matter how savvy and tough it made me look in front of the other Wardens.

Kids, Harry. Focus on the kids.

"Why did you take those children?" I demanded of the ghoul.

"They must have wandered too close to Murzhek's position," the mostly human ghoul said. "We did not come here for hostages. This was to be a raid. We were to hit you, then fade away."

"Fade to where?"

The ghouls froze, and looked at each other.

I drew back one of my hiking boots and kicked the mostly human ghoul in the face. He let out a high-pitched squeal - not a snarl of rage and pain, but a sound a dog makes when it's trying to submit beneath an attacker.

"Where ?" I demanded.

"Our lives," hissed the wounded ghoul. "Promise us our lives and freedom, great one. Give us your word of truth."

"You gave up your freedom the moment you spilled our blood," I snarled. "But if I get the kids back, you keep your life," I said. "My word is given."