Turn Coat (The Dresden Files 11)

Lara's eyes snapped to me on that last. "Thomas?"

I leaned on my staff and watched her face closely. "Thomas managed to warn me about the hit man Evelyn Derek had directed to me, but he disappeared before he could get involved. He's not answering either of his phones and no one at the salon has seen him, either."

Lara's eyes went distant for a moment, and a frown line marred the perfection of her brow. "Is that all you have, Dresden? A fading psychic impression that one of my kind manipulated this lawyer and the apparent disappearance of my little brother? Is that the basis of reasoning that brought you here?"

"At the moment," I said. Now that I'd laid down a lot of truth, I threw in the little lie. "But by the time we finish tracing the money back to its source, we'll know for certain that you're involved. And after that, there won't be any going back."

Lara narrowed her eyes at that. "You won't find anything," she said in a firm cold tone. "Because nothing of the sort is going on."

Aha. That had touched a nerve. I applied pressure. "Come on, Lara. You know and I know how you and your folk do business-from behind proxies and cat's-paws. You can't possibly expect me to believe you when you say that you don't have a hand in what's going on."

Lara's eyes flickered in color, changing from deep grey to a far paler, more metallic shade, and she rose to her feet. "Frankly, I don't care what you believe, Dresden. I have no idea what kind of evidence you think you've discovered, but I am not involved in any internal affairs of the White Council." She lifted her chin as she sneered at us. "Contrary to your own perceptions, the world is a great deal larger than the White Council of Wizardry. You aren't a vital body in today's world. You're a sad little collection of self-deluded has-beens whose self-righteous prattle has always taken second place to its hypocritical practice."

Well. I couldn't argue with that, but the words made Anastasia's eyes narrow dangerously.

Lara leaned the heels of her hands on her desk and faced me, her words clipped and precise. "You think you can simply walk into my home and issue commands and threats as it pleases you? The world is changing, Wardens. The Council isn't changing with it. It's only a matter of time before it collapses under its own obsolescent weight. This kind of high-handed arrogance will only-"

She broke off suddenly, turning toward the window, her head tilted slightly to one side.

I blinked and traded a glance with Anastasia.

An instant later, the lights went out.

Red emergency lights snapped on immediately, though they weren't needed in the office. A few seconds after that, a rapid, steady chiming sound filled the room, coming from speakers on the wall.

I looked down from the speaker to find Lara staring intently at me.

"What's happening?" I asked her.

Her eyes widened slightly. "You don't know?"

"How the hell should I know?" I demanded, exasperated. "It's your stupid alarm system!"

"Then this isn't your doing." She gritted her teeth. "Bloody hell."

Her head whipped toward the window again and this time I heard it-the sound of a man screaming in high-pitched, shameless agony.

And then I felt it: a nauseating quiver of wrongness in the air, a hideous sense of the presence of something ancient and vile.

The skinwalker.

"We're under attack," Lara snarled. "Come with me."

Chapter Twenty-five

Justine knocked and entered the room, her eyes wide. "Ms. Raith?" "Security status?" Lara asked in a calm voice.

"Unknown," Justine said. She was breathing a little too fast. "The alarm went off and I called Mr. Jones, but the radios cut out."

"Most of your electronics are probably gone. You've been hexed," I said. "It's a skinwalker."

Lara turned and stared hard at me. "Are you sure?"

Anastasia nodded and drew the sword from her hip. "I feel it, too."

Lara nodded. "What can it do?"

"Everything I can, only better," I said. "And it's a shapeshifter. Very fast, very strong."

"Can it be killed?"

"Yeah," I said. "But it's probably smarter to run."

Lara narrowed her eyes. "This thing has invaded my home and hurt my people. Like hell." She turned, drove her fist with moderate force into a wooden wall panel and dislodged it completely. In the empty space behind the panel was a rack hung with a belt bearing two wavy-bladed swords and a machine pistol, like a baby Uzi. She kicked out of her expensive shoes, shrugged out of her coat, and began strapping on weapons. "Justine, how many of the blood are in the house?"

"Four, counting you," Justine replied immediately. "Your sisters, Elisa and Natalia, and your cousin Madeline."

She nodded. "Wardens," she said. "If you would not mind delaying our argument for a time, I would take it as a personal favor."

"Hell with that," I said. "This thing killed one of my friends."

Lara glanced at the two of us. "I propose a temporary alliance against this invader."

"Concur," Anastasia said sharply.

"Doesn't look like there's any way to get out of it," I said.

Gunfire erupted somewhere in the halls-multiple automatic weapons all going off at the same time.

Then there were more screams.

"Justine," I said, holding out my hand. "Get behind me."

The young woman hurried to comply, her expression strained but controlled.

Anastasia took up position on my right and Lara slid up next to me on the left. Her perfume was exquisite, and the surge of lust that hit me as I breathed it nearly had me turning to take a bite out of her, she smelled so good.

"It's fast and tough," I said. "And smart. But not invulnerable. We hit it from several directions at once and ran it off."

A shotgun boomed, much closer to us than the earlier gunfire had been. It was immediately followed by the sounds of something heavy being slammed several times into the walls and floor.

The psychic stench of the skinwalker abruptly thickened and I said, "Here it comes!"

By the time I got to "it," the skinwalker was already through the door to the outer office, seemingly moving faster than the splinters that flew off the door when the creature shattered it. Covered in a veil, it was just a flickering blur in the air.

I brought my shield up, focused far forward, filling the doorway to Lara's office with invisible force. The skinwalker hit the barrier with all of its strength and speed. The shield held-barely-but so much energy had gone into the impact that wisps of smoke began curling up from the bracelet, and the skin on my wrist got singed. So much force surged into my shield that it physically drove me back across a foot of carpet.