I tuned in to a memory of a particularly powerful evocation, when I had blown a rampaging loup-garou straight through the brick wall of one building and entirely through the building across the street. I left out all the details except for the energy blast itself, vanished, and reappeared in front of the oncoming servitors, and snarled, “Fuego!”
A blast of flame and raw kinetic force exploded from my outflung right hand. It hit the front of the enemy formation like a blazing locomotive—
—and washed completely through them, having no effect whatsoever. I didn’t even ruffle their clothes.
“Oh, come on!” I shouted. “That is just not fair!”
I still couldn’t act, couldn’t touch, couldn’t help.
Molly faced the men alone.
She kept walking back until she emerged from the alley into a small parking lot contained within concrete walls and open to the sky. There were only a handful of cars in it, along with a motorcycle and a couple of mounds of piled snow. There were doors fitted with those magnetic card-swipe locks on two of the lot’s walls—employee or executive parking, obviously. The fourth opening led out to the lower avenue, where dull yellow lights cast a feeble gleam.
Molly walked to the middle of the little lot, looked around her, and nodded. “Well, boys,” she said aloud. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could talk about this over a cup of coffee at Denny’s? I’m starving.”
One of the turtlenecks, presumably their leader, said, “Submit yourself to the will of the masters. Your pain will be much shortened.”
“Right,” Molly said. She rolled her neck as if to loosen it up and nodded at the speaker. “You’re my huckleberry.”
The turtleneck tilted his head to one side, frowning.
Molly blew him a kiss.
A gust of wind, channeled through the lower street, rushed by, tugging at her ragged clothes, pulling her long coattails out like a flag beside her—and then she exploded.
It happened so fast that I could barely understand what was happening, much less anticipate what would come next. Where my apprentice had been standing suddenly became half a dozen identical, leanly ragged figures darting in every direction.
One Molly flew sideways, both arms extended in front of her, firing a pair of 1911 Colts, their hammering wham-wham-wham as recognizable as familiar music. Another flipped into a cartwheel and tumbled out of sight behind a parked car. Two more ran to each door, virtually mirror images of each other, swiping a card key and slamming into the buildings. A fifth Molly ducked behind a mound of snow and emerged with a shotgun, which she began emptying at the turtlenecks. The sixth ran to the motorcycle, picked it up as if it had been a plastic toy, and flung it toward her attackers.
My jaw dropped open. I mean, I had known the kid was good with illusions, but Hell’s bells. I might have been able to do one of the illusions Molly had just wrought. Once, I had managed two, under all kinds of mortal pressure. She had just thrown out six. Simultaneously. And at the drop of a hat, to boot.
My gast was pretty well flabbered.
The turtlenecks clearly didn’t know how to react, either. The ones with guns returned fire, and they all scattered for cover. The motorcycle didn’t hit anyone as it tumbled past the group, though the crashing sound it made when it landed was so convincing that it made me doubt my such-as-they-were senses. The guns barked several times as the illusionary Mollys all sought cover behind the snow mounds and cars.
I gritted my teeth. “You aren’t one of the rubes, Dresden. You’ve got a backstage pass.” I bent my head, touched my fingers to my forehead for a moment, and opened up my own Sight.
The scene changed colors wildly, going from a dull winter monochrome to an abstract done in smearing, interweaving watercolor. The blurs of magic in the air were responsible for all the tinting—Molly had unleashed a hell of a lot of energy in very little time, and she’d done so from the point of exhaustion. I’d been there enough times to know the look.
Now I could see the illusions for what they were—which was the single largest reason why the wizards of the White Council didn’t put much stock in illusion magic: It could be easily nullified by anyone with the Sight, which was the same thing as saying “anyone on the Council.”
But against this band of hipster, emo, mooklosers? It worked just fine.
Molly, behind an almost perfect magical