Small Favor

"How did you know?" Michael asked, panting. "How did you know they would break if we charged them?"

"You don’t survive two thousand years in a game like this one without predator reflexes," I replied. "Any predator in the world reacts the same way to a loud noise, a bright flash, and a noisy and unexpected charge. They get the hell out of the way. Can’t really help themselves. Habit of a couple millennia is a bitch to break."

Sanya calmly shot another beast.

I shrugged. "Nicodemus and company thought that they knew how things were going to proceed, and when they didn’t go the way they expected, they got flustered. So the Nickelheads got clear." I pursed my lips. "Of course, they’re going to be back in a minute. And very upset. Hey, there, Marcone."

"Dresden," Marcone said, as if we’d passed each other outside the coffee shop. He sounded a little tired, but calm. All things considered, that was probably an indicator of exactly how much moxie the crime lord had. "Can you help the child?"

Dammit. That’s the thing I hate most about Marcone. Every once in a while he says or does something that makes it difficult to label him "scum, criminal" and file him neatly away in a drawer somewhere. I glared at him. He returned the glare with a faint, knowing smile. I muttered under my breath and turned to study the elaborate circle, while Sanya finished the last of the beasts.

"I’ve never seen anything like this," Michael said quietly, staring.

I didn’t blame him. Even among professionals this circle was impressive. Lots of luminous, glowing lines and swirls involved, and that always looks fantastic, especially at night. The gold and silver and precious stones didn’t hurt things, either. The light and music show being put on by the chimes and crystals added a wonderful little eerie edge to it all, especially given the grotesque art that framed the interior magical symbology. "This is some upper-tier stuff," I said quietly. "It will be another century, maybe two, before I’m good enough to come close to this level of work. It’s delicate. One single thing a fraction of an inch out of place and the whole thing goes kablooie. It’s powerful. When you’re putting this together, if any one of a couple of dozen of the power flows slips for even an instant, the whole thing goes out of balance and could go up with enough force to blow the top off of this whole hillside. It took a freaking genius to put this together, Michael."

I hefted my staff.

"Fortunately," I said, and took a two-handed swing at the nearest stand of slender, delicate crystal. It shattered with gratifying ease, and the encasing light around the greater circle began to waver and dissipate. "It only takes a monkey with a big stick to take it apart."

And I waded into the circle, smashing things with my staff. It was therapeutic. God knows how many times the bad guys had destroyed the careful work of lifetimes when they’d robbed people of homes, of loved ones, of life itself. It felt sort of nice to bring a little cup of Shiva D into their lives for a change. I shattered the crystals that bent light into a cage to hold the Archive prisoner. I bent and mashed the tuning forks that focused sound into chains. I crushed the depictions of bondage and imprisonment meant to restrain the very idea of freedom, and from there I went on to break ivory rune sticks, to crush glyph-scribed gems, to pound into illegibility golden plates inscribed with sigils of imprisonment.

I’m not sure at which point I started screaming in outrage. Somewhere along the line, though, it hit me that these people had taken magic, the power of life, of creation, a force meant to create and protect, to learn and preserve, and they had bent and twisted it into a blasphemy, an obscenity. They had used it to imprison and torment, to torture and maim, all in an attempt to enslave and destroy. Worse, they had turned magic against the Archive, against the safeguard of knowledge itself-and still worse, against a child.

I didn’t stop until I had shattered their expensive, elaborate, elegant torture chamber, until I could deliberately drag my staff across the last, smooth golden circle at the innermost point of the design, marring it all the way across its surface, breaking the last remaining structure of the spell.

The energies of the prison let loose with an outraged howl, sailing straight up into the air overhead in a column of furious purple light. I thought I could see faces twisting and spinning inside it for a few seconds, but then the light faded, and Ivy fell limply to the cold ground, just a naked little girl, bruised and scratched and half-unconscious with cold.

Michael was at my side at once, removing his cloak. I took it and wrapped Ivy in it. She made whimpering sounds of protest, but she wasn’t really conscious. I picked her up and held her close to me, getting as much of my own coat around her as I could.

I looked up and found Marcone watching me steadily. Sanya had cut him free from the wall and evidently given the crime lord the cloak off his back. Marcone now hunched against the sleet in the white cloak, holding one of the chemical warming packs between his hands. He stood just a bit over average height and was of medium build, so Sanya’s cloak covered him like a blanket. "Will she be all right?" Marcone asked.

"She will," I said with determination. "She damned well will."

"Down!" barked Sanya.

Bullets raised sparks off the inside of the lighthouse and rattled wildly around its interior. Everyone got down. I made sure I had my body and my duster between Ivy and any incoming rounds. Sanya leaned out for a second and squeezed off a couple of shots, then hurriedly got back under cover again. The volume of fire from the outside grew.

"They’re bringing up reinforcements from down the hill," Sanya reported. "Heavier weapons, too."

Marcone glanced around the featureless interior of the ruined lighthouse. "If any of them have grenades, this is going to be a relatively brief rescue operation."

Sanya leaned out and snapped off another pair of shots, barely getting back before return fire started chewing at the stone where he’d been. He muttered under his breath and changed magazines on his rifle.

The enemy gunfire suddenly ceased. There was silence on the hilltop for twenty or thirty seconds. Then Nicodemus’s voice, filled with anger, came through the air. "Dresden!"

"What?" I called back.

"I’m going to give you one chance to survive this. Give me the girl. Give me the coins. Give me the sword. Do that, and I’ll let you walk away alive."

"Hah!" I said. It was possible that I didn’t feel quite as confident as I sounded. "Or maybe I’ll just leave from here."

"Cross into the Nevernever from where you’re standing?" Nicodemus asked. "You’d be better off asking the Russian to put a bullet through your head for you. I know what lives on the other side."