“I’m six-nine and scarred; you’re furry and cute. She’s eleven—she’s going to like you.”
Will gave me a flat look, his gold eyes utterly unamused. On a wolf, that’s unsettling.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Wag your tail and paw your nose or something. Go!”
I’ll give Will this much: He knows when actions matter more than questions. He took off at once, vanishing into the oncoming evening.
Meanwhile, I put my guitar in the case, set it back into the alley, rose, and focused my will and my attention on the thug. Wizards and modern technology don’t get on well, and nothing dies as fast as cell phones when a wizard means to shut them down. I gathered up enough power to get the job done without taking out the lights on the whole block, flicked a finger at the man pacing the girl, and murmured, “Hexus.”
A wave of disruptive energy washed out across the street and over the man and his smartphone. There was a little flash of light and a shower of sparks from the phone, and the man flinched and dropped the device. Most people would have stared at it or looked wildly around. This guy did neither. He sank into a defensive crouch and started scanning his surroundings with wide eyes.
He knew he was being threatened, which meant he had some kind of idea that a wizard might be about. That meant he was no mere thug. He was clued in enough to the supernatural world to know the players and how they might operate. That meant he was elite muscle, and there were only so many players who he might be working for.
I checked the street, hurried through an opening in traffic, and went straight for him. He spotted me in under a second and ran without hesitation, both of which impressed me with his judgment—but he took off after the girl, which meant that he wasn’t giving up, either. I swerved to pursue him, leapt, and pulled my knees up to my chin in the air, hitting the hood of a blue Buick with my hands as I flew over it, and came down still running.
We rounded a corner, and I understood what was happening.
The thug I was pursuing wasn’t the grabber. He was just riding drag, making sure the girl didn’t bolt back the way she came. I saw the girl ahead, being hurried into a doorway by three more men, and my guy poured it on when he saw them.
I slowed down a little, taking stock. The goons ahead had seen me coming behind their buddy, and hands were going into coats. I flung myself into the doorway of an office-supply store, now closed for the evening, and the thugs all hustled through their own door, without producing guns on the street.
Suited me. I had been hoping to get them somewhere out of the way, anyhow.
I waited until they were inside, gave them a five count, and then paced down the street. The door they’d gone through belonged to a small nightclub. A sign hanging on the door read CLOSED FOR REMODELING.
The door was locked.
It was also made of glass.
I smiled.
I HUFFED AND I puffed and I blew the door in with a pretty standard blast of telekinetic force. I tugged my sleeve up to reveal the shield bracelet I’d thrown together out of a strip of craft copper and carefully covered with the appropriate defensive runes and sigils. I channeled some of my will down into the bracelet, and the runes hissed to life, spilling out green-gold energy and the occasional random spark.
“All right, people!” I called into the club as I stepped through the door. “You know who I am. I’m here for the girl. Let her go, or, so help me God, I will bring this building down around your ears.” I wouldn’t, not while the girl was still in here, but they didn’t know that.
There was silence for a long moment. And then music started playing from deeper inside the club. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Have it your way.”
I advanced into the darkened club, my shield bracelet throwing out a faint haze of light from the runes—just enough to keep me from bumping into walls. I went through the entry hall, past a collection window where I supposed cover fees would be paid, to double doors that opened onto the bar and dance floor.
I raised my left arm as if wielding an actual shield, the bracelet glowing, and stepped forward into the club.
The little girl was sitting in a booth against the far wall. The four thugs were fanned out on either side of her, guns in hand but pointing at the floor. Sitting with the little girl in the booth was the ADA’s pretty assistant. When I came through the door, she lifted a hand and clicked a remote, and Lady Gaga’s voice cut off in the midst of wanting my bad romance.
“Far enough,” the woman said. “It would be a shame if someone panicked and this situation devolved. Innocents could be hurt.”
I stopped. “Who are you?” I asked.
“Tania Raith,” she replied, and gave me a rather dizzying smile.
House Raith was the foremost house of the White Court of vampires. They were seducers, energy drainers, and occasionally a giant pain in the ass. The White Court was headed up by Lara Raith, the uncrowned queen of vampires, and one of the more dangerous persons I’d ever met. She wielded enormous influence in Chicago, maybe as much as the head of the Chicago outfit, Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, gangster lord of the mean streets.
I made damned sure to keep track of the thugs and precisely what they were doing with their hands as I spoke. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. Let her go.”
She rolled her eyes and spun a finger through fine, straight black hair. “Why should I?”
“Because you know what happened the last time some vampires abducted a little girl and I decided to take her back.”
Her smile faltered slightly. As it should have. When the bloodsucking Red Court had taken my daughter, I took her back—and murdered every single one of them in the process. The entire species.
I’m not a halfway kind of person.
“Lara likes you,” Tania said. “So I’m going to give you a chance to walk out of here peacefully. This is a White Court matter.”
I grunted. “Black was one of yours?”
“Gregor Malvora,” she confirmed. “He was Malvora scum, but he was our scum. Lara can’t allow the mortal buck who did it to go unpunished. Appearances. You understand.”
“I understand that Gregor abducted a child. He did everything he could to frighten her, and then fed on her fear. If Luther hadn’t killed him, what would he have done to the little girl?”
“Oh, I shudder to think,” Tania replied. “But that is, after all, what they do.”
“Not in my town,” I said.
She lifted her eyebrows. “I believe Baron Marcone has a recognized claim on this city. Or am I mistaken?”
“I’ve got enough of a claim to make me tickled to dump you and your brute squad into the deepest part of Lake Michigan if you don’t give me back the girl.”
“I think I’ll keep her for a day or two. Just until the trial is over. That will be best for everyone involved.”
“You’ll give her to me. Now.”
“So that she can testify and exonerate Mr. Luther?” Tania asked. “I think not. I have no desire to harm this child, Dresden. But if you try to take her from me, I will, reluctantly, be forced to kill her.”
The girl’s lower lip trembled, and tears started rolling down her face. She didn’t sob. She did it all in silence, as if desperate to draw no attention to herself.
Yeah, okay.
I wasn’t going to stand here and leave a little kid to a vampire’s tender mercies.
“Chicago is a mortal town,” I said. “And mortal justice is going to be served.”
“Oh, my God,” Tania said, rolling her eyes. “Did you really just say that out loud? You sound like a comic book.”
“Comic book,” I said. “Let’s see. Do I go for ‘Hulk smash,’ or ‘It’s clobberin’ time’?”
Tania tensed, though she tried to hide it, and her voice came out in a rush. “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think, that Chicago’s only professional wizard wound up on that jury?”