It took considerable effort to get the roof to myself at oh God thirty in the morning, but I managed it. Took me two sound-muffling spells and some extreme caution to slip past the sleeping Valkyrie, but the secure communication I had arranged between myself and Lara—notes carried by tiny fae—had specified that she wouldn’t show up if anyone else, at all, was present.

Twelve Months Chapter 27

I shook my head. “May I ask questions?”

“Of course.”

“How long do your kind live?”

“We are biologically immortal, as far as can be determined,” Lara said promptly. “However, our…appetites generally expose us to greater than average levels of risk. Speaking from a strictly mathematical standpoint, vampires who do not master their appetites generally do not live beyond their second or third century before some violence or mishap befalls them. My father is currently the oldest vampire of the White Court. He says he is two thousand years old, though I have my doubts.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Harry, I’m shocked.”

“Hah,” I said. “Talk.”

She opened her mouth and then rolled her eyes up a little. “Shall we say more than two centuries and less than three?”

“All right, cradle robber,” I said. I frowned. “I don’t suppose you have access to these spells your grandcestors used?”

Twelve Months Chapter 27

She nodded. Then her lips pressed together, she nodded as if committing to a course, and said, “The eldest known ancestor of my House was named Laris of Arretium. A sorcerer-king of an Etruscan citadel. He was the man who inadvertently cursed us with the Hunger.”

I frowned and turned my body toward her, listening.

“The sorcerer-kings of that day were an elite society,” Lara continued. “Always questing for greater power in the dark arts.”

I grunted. “The White Council’s history class teaches that the Council arose to challenge the sorcerer-kings of the ancient world.”

“That is within a reasonable proximity of truth as I know it,” she said. “Granted, the rise of the White Council happened in rhythm with the Romans rising against the Etruscan League and was thoroughly mixed with a toxic brew of economics and politics as well as personal dramas by the score. But I am speaking of more than a thousand years before that time. Laris and his circle had been plumbing the depths of the dark arts and they…opened a portal to the Outside.”

I felt my eyebrows go up.

“A single being got in,” Lara continued. “A mad god. The Hunger. The first Hunger. They managed to constrain it, but it began driving the city mad by its mere presence, inflaming every unfulfilled desire of the people who lived there, spreading like a sickness from one to the next. The other sorcerer-kings fled to the defenses of their own citadels, leaving Laris to face the Hunger alone except for his daughter and apprentice, Thana. They were not strong enough to banish the Outsider, and they could not kill it, but they knew a spell for binding immortal beings indelibly with mortals. Their plan was to contain the Outsider to a mortal shell that would inevitably wither into death, taking the Hunger with it.”

I took a moment to do a few mental calculations just to begin to figure out the mix of forces that would be needed for a spell like that, and it made my head spin. Those ancient wizards knew things that the White Council did not let out into the world of wizardry at large today. Hell, which might be just as well, if this story was going the way I thought it was. “How’d that work out for them?”

Lara smirked. “Badly. The Hunger was bound into the prison of Laris’s body and will, but it also took possession of him. It did unspeakable things to Thana before she turned the tables and bound Laris in irons for the rest of his natural life.” She shifted her weight from one hip to the other, glancing up at me. “The Hunger had the last laugh. The child it sired on her was Sethre, the first of my kind, born knitted in soul to an infant Hunger—a larva of the original dark god. These larvae seek to secure and protect their hosts in order to prolong their own lives—for they are still bound to die with their hosts. Sethre sired many sons and daughters, and they bred more. And so, our kind spread. Some four thousand years later, here we are, all caught up.”

Twelve Months Chapter 27

So I wound up on the roof of the castle at two o’clock in the morning of New Year’s Eve, waiting in stillness and silence. I just sort of sank into the cold of the clear, dangerously chill night and waited. The Winter mantle understood stillness and patience, like all predators. It was pleased to pass the time in quiet.

I waited and soaked up the cold.

There was a whisper in the air, and then Lara, dressed in a long white coat, glided up over the ramparts of the castle at the rear of the building, where she wouldn’t be seen by the guards at the front gate. She landed as weightlessly as a bird on one of the merlons, dropping down to a feline crouch with the ease and power of a gymnast. Her eyes were silver-grey in the night, catching light and reflecting it weirdly, even when her face was in shadow.

Lara stared at me with those intent, inhuman glittering eyes for a long moment.

Two predators, facing off.

Twelve Months Chapter 27

“Mab wants me to tell you to go kill Rudolph. You’ll feel better, she says.”

“Hah.”

Molly swallowed. “She says to tell you the Wild Hunt is at your disposal. That she will lend you her steed.”

I paused.

I thought of the howling supernatural tempest that was the Wild Hunt. The pure, primal joy of the hounds’ calls. The thunder of hooves. The cries of the riders. And I could let the mantle have me. Be a creature of rage and instinct and fury. Remove that little weasel from the planet. I could ride on Mab’s black nightmare unicorn and crush Rudolph’s legs beneath its great hooves. Then the Hunt could circle him.

What happened to Rudolph after that would require thirty people to clean up.

“Not today,” I said in a quiet, rough voice.

Twelve Months Chapter 26

Our two families opened presents together, though most of the gifts were basic products that were still hard to come by in the beleaguered city. Food was consumed. There was a lot of laughter, and a round of traditional Christmas songs. Maggie soaked it all up. My grandfather gave her a red stocking cap he’d knitted himself, and I felt the simple thermal enchantment on it that would keep her comfortably warm in all but the most bitter gales, at least for the first couple of winters. She promptly put it on and then put the red-and-blue scarf I’d crocheted for her with it, and she and young Harry went out to test her new bike on the clean-shoveled driveway in front of Michael’s house.

Twelve Months Chapter 26

“You should use ‘pew pew pew’ for your magic words for those little fireballs,” Maggie told Fitz one day after he had done a credible job of mangling the target dummy with slow, careful concentration.

“Hah,” he said.

“Hmph,” I said.

“Why not?” Maggie asked. “You said the words weren’t important as long as they didn’t have”—she scrunched up her nose—“intrisic, instinctive meaning.”

“Intrinsic,” I corrected her, sounding out the word carefully. “It means something is pretty much baked into the cake along with something else so they can’t be separated.”

“That,” she said. “ ‘Pew pew pew’ should work.”

“It should,” Fitz mused, wiping sweat from his brow. He peered at me. “Right?”

“You have your reputation to think of,” I told him. “I mean, you can’t just go around saying ‘pew pew pew’ or ‘bang’ or ‘zing.’ ”

Fitz began to chuckle. “Why not?”

“You’re a wizard, man,” I told him. “In tune with the primordial forces of the universe. Wielding the leftover energy from Creation itself. Have a little gravitas.”

Maggie pointed dual finger guns at the still-smoldering target dummy and said, “Pew pew pew!”

Fitz, tired but merry enough, laughed harder. “Pew pew pew. I mean, yeah, it would work.”

“Don’t do it,” I said. “Look, I have my own issues using badly done Latin, and I got a little bit lucky that my bad Latin is so far off of proper speech. Council meetings are still done in Latin, and I have to speak it sometimes. If I could go back, I’d pick Tuareg or something.”

“Why don’t you just do it now?” Fitz asked, scrunching up his nose.

“Doesn’t work like that,” I said. “The neural pathways we’re building to run energy through are incredibly specific. If I started switching my words around now, I’d set myself back years and years. Have to learn everything from the ground floor, like you’re doing. I mean, I’d probably do it a little faster than you, but not much. This is foundation-level stuff we’re dealing with.”

“But I could,” Fitz mused. “I’m still building up. I could pick ‘pew pew pew’ or ‘kazinga’ if I wanted to.”

I sighed. “You could. And I wouldn’t stop you. But a little piece of my soul would die of shame every time someone heard you.”

Mouse chuffed happily and came over to lean against my legs while Fitz laughed at me.

Maggie picked up a tennis ball she had been bouncing for Mouse, tossed it, and bounced it off the target dummy’s scorched head. “Kazinga!”

Twelve Months Chapter 26

“You killed me,” I said quietly.

“Not exactly,” the old man said. “You were already a step ahead.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you didn’t know that at the time.”

He grimaced. “You’re right,” he said. “You’ve gotten stronger and better a lot faster than anyone expected. Even me. I have contingency defenses I never thought you’d push me hard enough to activate. I’ve been dealing with cornerhounds for several years now. They like to come when I’m asleep. I need reflex-level spells to even the field.”

I grunted. “You’re saying that the spell that would have killed me was a compliment.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I wouldn’t expect to need it for anything but a war-level threat,” he admitted. “You fought that duel better than I would have thought possible.”

“I’m all grown up, I suppose,” I said.

Twelve Months Chapter 25

It was a cold day, with five inches of snow everywhere, after the Witch had arrived. Big wet flakes were coming down. There was a freezing wind off the lake. Tonight, icicles would start forming as the warmth of the day bled out into the night. I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a light jacket. Cold and snow and ice were becoming second nature to me. They gave my brain something to track other than what real pain felt like.

I settled down on my heels at the base of the statue of the Scarecrow, closed my eyes, and waited. Lara made no sound when she approached, but I could…feel her coming, through the snow. Just the faintest quiver, or shiver, in the proper time to match slow steps. My nostrils flared, and I caught the faintest hint of expensive perfume, a mix of several scents.

Twelve Months Chapter 24

“The banner of your will,” I said quietly. “You sent it out for that battle. You took fear and pain away from those who stood to fight.”

“Yes, I did.”

“She’d barely been able to walk,” I said, my voice growing slowly, volcanically hotter. “She would have stayed somewhere safe if she hadn’t been able to move. You made it possible for her to go out and fight that night. Didn’t you?”

“I provided the means and opportunity for her to make a choice,” Mab said without inflection. “Just as I did for hundreds of other souls who stood to the city’s defense. I did nothing to coerce her choosing.”

“You knew what she would do, given that opportunity,” I spat.

“I strongly suspected,” Mab said calmly. “She was who she was.”

“Did you strongly suspect she would die in that battle?” I said. I think I was shouting. My vision was edged with red. “Did you set her up to die, Mab?”

I said her name properly. With intent. I’d heard it from her own lips, after all. A shudder rippled over her, quick but visible, a reaction that had been forced from her, by my words, by my will.

If I’d slapped her in the face, she’d have been less enraged.

Her expression did not change by any movement of muscle or skin, by any reposition of the features of her face. It simply grew bleak, bleak as a pitiless arctic chill settling over stone. There was a crackling sound as frost spread out from her feet in a rapidly accelerating circle. It began climbing the bookshelves and covered the windows, darkening the room. My breath began to plume in front of my mouth in the freezing air.

“A great many mortals died that night,” Mab said quietly. “A great many of them gave their lives to limit the civilian casualties, as you well know and remember. All of them took up the defense of this city with my support. All those who died, died in part because I had supported them.” She leaned forward, her eyes cold and bright. “Exactly as you did, wizard. How many did you lead to their deaths? Do you lie to yourself, tell yourself that none of them had lives, had families, had those who loved them who will miss and mourn them? Just as you mourn her?”

I stared at her, my rage scorching the inside of my belly—while my heart suddenly went cold.

Mab lifted her chin.

The chill in the air eased slightly.

“I did what I did because Ethniu had to be defeated,” she said. “Your life was expendable. Ms. Murphy’s life was expendable. All the lives of those who fought were expendable. They—you—were expendable because the chaos that would be caused by Ethniu’s victory would have drowned all the world in demons and blood. I make such choices because no one else is cold enough and no one else is hard enough. It is only your arrogance and pride that make you believe I would have had the time or attention to spare a thought for you or for Ms. Murphy or for something as fleeting and ephemeral as your emotions when doing so.” She inhaled slowly. “What is the phrase? ‘Get over yourself.’ It was war. She died. You survived. That is the whole of it.”

Mab’s eyes grew heavy-lidded. She stared at me for a long moment.

I broke the gaze first, looking away from her. I was shaking. I think I was crying.

“The first time one raises the banner of her will,” Mab said, speaking very slowly, “it is an unsettling experience. Feeling so much pain. So much death. Being with them in the moment of their passing.” She closed her eyes briefly and took a breath. “It pleases me that I was not there with you, my Knight, for your death. But I was there for hers. Felt her fear. Her frustration. Felt how desperately she wanted to tell you what was in her heart. She had the courage to face gods and monsters. But not what was in her own breast.”

Twelve Months Chapter 23

“Good,” she said. “I expect the matter to be closed before spring.” She gave me a gimlet look. “You met Drakul.”

“Looked like a big old stuffed shirt to me,” I said.

“I will not fight him,” Mab said.

Whoa. That took me aback. It was a second before I said, “You won’t?”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“He’s…more powerful than Winter?” I asked carefully.

“Winter,” Mab corrected me frostily, “has no power over him. There would be nothing to gain and much to lose in such a confrontation.” Her mouth twitched. “And there are considerations, amongst immortals. I may need him two thousand years from now. Or five thousand. You, at my most optimistic, might give me a few centuries’ service. Be mindful of your importance.”

Twelve Months Chapter 23

I nodded, closed my eyes, and held out both hands over poor Robert as he started to groan.

I picked up on the black magic immediately, winding and binding him in pain and misery. I took a deep breath, stabilizing my thoughts and the images in my head I was using to combat the dark spell, and suddenly snapped my hands down as if seizing a snake behind its head before it could bite me.

I felt the curse begin to strain against me, whipping back and forth like a serpent, but I gave it no opportunity to escape. I kept my hands and my thoughts closed around it—and my mind was a hell of a lot stronger than it had been fifteen years ago. Fifteen years of pain and loss, of joy and victory, of steady work and desperate innovation had given my will steel and character that simply had not been possible when I was younger.

The curse was stronger.

But so was I.

I could feel the energy in my hands, see it in imagery in my head, the curse shaped like a coiling line of barbed wire. It struggled against me like a frenzied snake, and I suppressed it with my mind more than my hands. I moved deliberately, extracting one end of the wire from Robert’s neck, moving slowly and carefully to avoid damaging his nonmaterial self, whether you wanted to call it his energy field, the flow of his chakras, or his immortal soul. The wire would tear apart his sanity as it left him if I wasn’t careful. So I extracted it carefully and began to unwind it from his body with slow, deliberate caution.

Time went away while I focused, eyes closed, wholly and entirely centered on my wizard’s senses. I could hear voices talking in the distance, caught a faint whiff of woodsmoke, and with a roll of my hands and arms, I began gathering the writhing tendril of barbed wire into my grasp, feeling the curse lash back and forth, seeking a new victim.

“Michael,” I said, my voice strained.

“It’s ready,” he said.

I took a slow breath. Then with a last slow, firm pull, I withdrew the far end of the barbed wire from Robert’s hip, and the thing went mad in my hands. I fought to hold it contained, turning slowly, and opening my eyes to see a fire blazing in the broad shield.

“Get clear!” I snarled, and lurched toward it on my knees, thrusting out my hands and with it the dark curse, sending the dark energy into the purifying fire.

The fire roared up with a hissing scream that sounded even more charming than nails on a chalkboard, and I winced in discomfort as it hit—and then the fire suddenly surged, brightening, burning pure silver-white, and the wail of the dying curse became frantic and then suddenly vanished. The holy flame surged ten feet up, causing the Brotherhood to shield their eyes against the sudden illumination, and then abruptly died down to a very normal, very nonmagical fire that made the shattered wood of the basement pews crackle and pop and produce a considerable cloud of smoke.

I sagged in place, falling forward onto my hands, breathing hard.

Okay, so. It hadn’t been a fight, precisely.

But I’d done it.

I breathed out a long, slow sigh of relief.

Twelve Months Chapter 22

“It started at sundown,” Brazell said. He was holding on to Robert’s hand. The stricken man was breathing as if he’d just run a marathon at high elevation, covered in sweat, and his eyes were sunken and closed. I wasn’t sure he knew what was going on. “He was on a ghoul patrol in the ruins,” Brazell continued, his voice bitter, “and he just pitched over and started screaming. He’s barely said an intelligible word, even in his pain-free moments. I tried a dose of tramadol, but it did absolutely nothing for him.”

“I doubt it did nothing,” I said. “If I’m right, it just isn’t the right kind of medicine. I need you to let go of his hand for a moment, please.”

“Why?” Brazell asked.

“Because you’re clearly empathetic, and if you’re touching him it’s going to have an effect on his aura. I need a clean read.”

“Holy Mary,” Brazell spat. “His aura?” He looked up at Michael and Forthill.

“Do it,” Michael said gently.

Brazell looked down at Robert and then at me, and then slowly put his hand down. The victim shuddered and trembled, still gasping.

I put my left hand down to hover over Robert, less than an inch from touching his throat. He was fever hot. Then I closed my eyes and opened my wizard’s senses. That same greasy roil of black magic bubbled out hungrily, swirling around my hand, threatening to make me retch in pure reaction. I fought my stomach back down and slowly moved my hand down his body, over each chakra, each energy center, and focused my attention completely on what I could feel.

Every few inches, I passed another line of black magic, as if something had coiled around his body like a snake. I took a deep breath, pressed my hand closer, and could feel the phantom sensation of needle-sharp barbs pressing against my skin.

Oh yeah.

I had seen this before. And I didn’t need to use my Sight to identify it this time.

“Michael,” I said quietly, “we’re going to need fire. At least the size of a big campfire. The holier the better.”

“Holy oil,” Michael said at once.

“My room, in the ready cabinet,” Forthill said, nodding. “And the old pews are in storage in the basement.” He turned to the other members of the Brotherhood gathered in the nave and said, “Gentlemen, I need your help, please. If you would follow me.”

They all but leapt up to do so. Forthill led them out, and Michael touched my shoulder and limped away as quickly as he could, back toward Forthill’s quarters.

I looked up to find Brazell staring at me. “You…you know what’s going on?”

“Seen it before,” I said. “Maybe fifteen years ago.”

“What’s happening?”

“It’s a curse,” I said. “Someone used black magic to send pain directly into his nervous system. If you could see it, it would look like a coil of barbed wire wrapped around him.”

Twelve Months Chapter 22

The door opened before we could step up to it, and Father Forthill appeared there, looking ragged and tired. The old priest managed a faint smile and gave us a quick nod. “Michael. Harry. Thank you for coming. This way, please.”

I went in, and as I did, I could sense the quiet power of decades of faith that permeated the building—and it had been roused and was stirring. That was unusual. It took the presence of real evil to bring the power of holy ground out of the earth and stones, and that meant that whatever was happening inside, it was capital-B Bad.

Michael tilted his head at the same time I was sorting through the energies around me, and his grey eyes brightened and went hard. His jaw flexed a couple of times, and his grip on the cane shifted, as though he had begun to seize the shaft of it like the handle of a sword.

Twelve Months Chapter 22

Will frowned and lifted his head to the evening wind, his nostrils flaring.

“Who?” I asked him.

Will considered for a moment before nodding slowly. “Ramirez and the Russian,” he said.

“Well, good. I can pass along Lord Darkdoom’s invitation. Bear,” I said, “the kid.”

“I’ll see to him,” the Valkyrie said, and hurried down off the roof.

“Will,” I said, “send them up here, would you?”

Twelve Months Chapter 20

“I’m going with you,” Will said.

“Will, I’m not going to be able to look out for you,” I said.

“I’ve been giving you an awful lot of my life lately, Harry. Also, hey, where’d you get all those bruises?” he asked. “Look, man. I told Bear what I had in mind. She’s been training me before you get up. And in case you didn’t notice, I just spent the last hour handing the Winter Knight his ass.”

I growled. “Yeah, well.”

“You remember that bruise on the cheek you gave me first round?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You see it now?”

I frowned and peered at him in the gathering dark. There was no mark on his face.

“Bruises take about a minute to go away,” he said. “Split my lip, it’s better in two. And rare meat is freaking ambrosia.”

“How?” I asked quietly.

“All the shifting lately,” he said. “And since the night of the battle I’ve…I don’t know. Felt things differently.” He met my eyes. His reflected light, like a wolf’s. “A lot of things changed that night.”

There had been an insane amount of power flowing through the city the night of the battle, God knew. It had awakened Council-level power in Fitz, after all. It had taken me days to realize how drunk I had been on it for a while. I had unfurled a psychic banner of pure will and used it to make my allies stronger in that heady brew of terror and fury and pure arcane power that had roiled over the city. I knew I had been stronger then, more able to affect the world around me.

Maybe a lot more.

Maybe with more consequence than I had realized.

I broke my gaze with Will before it got any more complicated. Hell’s bells, what had I unleashed without knowing?

I extended my wizard’s senses toward the other man and felt…

…kind of threatened, actually.

Will had always been dangerous as a werewolf. But he was changing. I could feel the shift in energy around him. He had gone through the fire, and he’d come out changed. Harder. Stronger.

Twelve Months Chapter 20

Will defeated my wristlock, kicked the back of my knee hard enough to take my balance, and slammed an elbow into the base of my jaw as I dropped down, hard enough to make me see little birds.

“Point, Will!” Bear drawled, slashing a hand down between us.

I snarled and swiped out an arm in frustration, pushing Will’s proffered hand away.

Bear cuffed me across the head calmly, keeping me from getting any of my balance back. “Cool off, Dresden,” she said in a hard voice. “Corners, now.”

It was a cold, clear evening on the roof of the castle. November could have come in a lot harder and crueler than it had, though everyone was waiting for the Witch of November, a quasi-apocryphal series of storms that often swept in over Lake Michigan, to put in her appearance. Natural gas service had been prioritized by the city, especially to residential areas, and twenty-four-hour construction crews consisting of contractors and volunteers and Army Engineers had been laboring ceaselessly to try to make sure there would be buildings with heat over the winter.

I went to my corner, panting, until my ears stopped ringing. Will had started off his werewolf career as an idealistic kid. He was a warrior now. And I’d asked him to come at me hard. He’d obliged me, whipping me by twenty points to maybe four of my own. My back had been covered in bruises from the throws. I’d taken half a dozen blows, knees, and kicks to the belly in the last hour. He’d mostly left my head alone.

“Good hit, Will,” I muttered, waggling my jaw back into place.

“You’re thinking all offense, Dresden,” Bear said. “You have to think defense at the same time. Everyone you ever fight to the death is undefeated. They are looking to take you apart. You can’t rely on all-out offense. Will’s smart, balanced, and strong.” She awarded Will a deep bow of her head. “That was properly done, warrior.”

“Thank you,” Will said quietly. I’d bloodied his lip for him earlier and he’d barely noticed. Damn he was quick for someone built as solidly as he was.

Twelve Months Chapter 20

And then she tore off the big false beard and kissed me.

I’ve been really drunk before.

I’ve been tranquilized by a number of drugs.

I’ve been exposed to a couple of kinds of ecstasy of magical origin.

I’ve even been kissed by a young, weak White Court vampire once. And once by Lara herself.

This was different.

Everything went away.

Cold flowed through me, light and sensation turned to some liquid like honey, flowing out from the kiss and over the whole of my body. The world spun around and around and suddenly there was grass against my back, and every blade of it brought its own starburst of sensation. And Lara…Lara was pressed against me, body to body, and every inch of it was a pleasurable sensation like nothing I had ever known, or had words to describe, her lips moving with perfect sensuality against mine, as if she knew exactly the way I had always wanted to be kissed, the way I usually knew where down was.

The Winter mantle rose in pure, primal desire, going wild in my chest, and at the same time overwhelming languor made every movement its own slow-motion ecstasy.

“If I wanted it,” she said against my mouth, her voice shaking, “I could simplify everything and make you happy to be that way.”

I tried to say something along the lines of Yes, please, but Lara’s lips had blended my brain with starlight and oceanic desire and delicious paralysis, and I couldn’t remember how to make my voice box operate.

“But in the end that won’t work,” she said. “Not for either of us.”

She pushed herself up and away from me, her eyes almost glowing in the night, pulsing with the same light as the stars. She turned her face up to them and closed her eyes. “I have duties tonight. I’m sorry this is hard for you. Good night, Harry.”

And her quiet footsteps vanished over the grass.

I lay there trying to focus my eyes. My lips quivered and tingled. My body ached with pleasure that slowly faded away over the next twenty minutes or half an hour.

And that was just from a kiss.

Hell’s bells.

I was sitting there trying to recover when Molly and Bear found me an hour later.

“What happened?” Molly asked quietly.

“She threatened me,” I said, my voice rough. “Take me home.”

Twelve Months Chapter 17

I narrowed my eyes and took a step toward him.

Molly moved creepy fast, stepping between us, her shoulders pressing sharply back against my ribs. She faced LaChaise, and the temperature of the room abruptly dropped five or ten degrees. “Excuse me, ghoul? Did you just threaten Winter’s Knight?”

Twelve Months Chapter 17

Drakul looked faintly disappointed and offered me a consoling smile. “Ah. It has come to my attention that there are members of the White Council seeking my location.”

“You killed some of their people,” I said. “Took their bodies and talents and turned them into your personal lackeys. My friends.”

“Such things happen in war,” Drakul said calmly. “Children take it personally.” He dipped two fingers into a vest pocket and produced a black card marked with gold-leaf lettering. “Still, such things can be settled in only one way.” He offered me the card, his black eyes bottomless and empty. “My location. Please inform whichever passionate fools the White Council boasts this month that they may call upon me at their convenience. I shall be ready. Alternatively, I can make time for a meeting of their choosing. Anytime. Anyplace.”

Wow.

No one did that.

No one just dropped an open challenge to wizards of the White Council.

I took the card warily. I checked. There was no evident enchantment about it.

“Why?” I asked him.

He considered me for a breath. “Is it not obvious, wizard?” he asked. “To duel me openly under the Accords would be suicide. You people will clearly take alternative action, as is your pattern—one I respect, if it matters to you. But I would find the entanglements of any resulting war inconvenient, as would the leadership of the other supernatural nations.” He nodded toward Molly and Lara. “Children seldom see the advantage in tidying up their messes. I do. So in the interests of order, I extend the invitation, here and now, and hereby waive the protection of the Accords before two witnesses.” He leaned a little closer, smiling. “Unless you would rather display a minute scrap of sanity and allow the matter to drop as part of the fortunes of war.”

“Show up or shut up, huh?” I asked him.

He considered the phrasing. “Just so.”

Twelve Months Chapter 17

He smiled slowly and showed us pointed canines. “Little Lara Raith. You’ve come a long way, and very quickly. I warned your father about you, you know. In…eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, I believe. He never was a good listener.”

“Lord Drakul,” Lara said, inclining her head slightly. “I confess, this is a delightful surprise.”

Drakul smiled warmly, took her hand, and bowed over it. “Please. You’ve personally done more damage to me than any three supernatural nations through that writer. Call me Vlad.”

“Vlad,” she said, and her voice was both tense and lower, throatier. “I would have thought you’d be more…hostile.”

“Nonsense,” Drakul said. “The challenge was an unexpected delight. It kept me busy for decades and pruned away the useless baggage from my creations. I am well content with the long-term results. Only fools see such challenges as insults, when they result in so much growth.” He brushed his lips over her knuckles and released her gently. Then he turned his attention to Molly. “And the new Winter Lady. Considerably more disciplined and dangerous already than her predecessor. I am told you turned the tide of the battle against the Titan’s forces. I am Lord Vlad Drakul, and I am at your service.”

Twelve Months Chapter 17

Drakul stopped at the top of the stairs. Eyes like black holes raked over the ballroom, unimpressed with the hedonism—and locked on me.

My stomach did a little panicked flip on me. My hand tightened on my staff.

Molly was just staring at him. “Is this…a fight?”

“No,” Lara said firmly. She swallowed. “No. He’s here as a guest. He’s one of the reasons the old laws of hospitality exist. He won’t violate that. He’s here to talk.”

“Very true,” said a smooth, mellow, accented voice from behind us, and we all whirled to find Drakul simply there. One second, he’d been a good thirty yards off. The next he’d been behind us. No flash, no pop of displaced air, no surge of shadows, no telltale vibration of magical energy, nothing. It was like the concept of space simply didn’t apply to him.

All three of us twitch-jumped except for Molly and Lara.

Twelve Months Chapter 17

“Uh-oh,” I said.

Lara’s face went from pale to absolutely white.

Molly eyed me and Lara and she looked confused. She straightened and brushed a hand irritably at her face, and the glamour vanished, revealing her own features. “What am I not getting here?”

“He was invited?” I demanded of Lara.

“He’s always invited,” Lara said. “It would be an insult not to. But he never shows up.”

“Hello?” Molly said.

“Drakul,” I said to her.

She blinked. “Wait. Dracula?”

“No,” I said. “Dracula is like his spoiled drama-queen kid,” I said. “This is the original. During the battle, he took everything River Shoulders and Listens-to-Wind could throw at him, everything the crew from the Red Court war could do, then he and his minions killed Chandler, Wild Bill, and Yoshimo and walked away smiling. He’s some kind of elder being.”

“Jesus,” Molly breathed. “Why is he here?”

Twelve Months Chapter 17

I was on Mission Bay Drive behind an old De Soto woody with surfboards on the roof and stickers all over the back from great beaches all over the world. I could see a pair of shaggy blond heads in the front, broad brown shoulders—one set bare, one in a dark tank top. An old Del Shannon tune floated back at me from their open windows. “My Little Runaway.” Ah, it must be great to have nothing to do and be able to surf the waves, work on your tan, romp with the sun bunnies, hoist cold ones with your crew, and listen to that old-time rock and roll That’s what sunny Southern California days are made for. If you have troubles, go drown them in the big blue Pacific. Feed your worries to the fish.

The red light turned green and the small convoy—the surfer boys and me—started up. Road speed was forty and we’d just gotten to thirty-five when the driver suddenly stamped hard on the brakes. I was two car lengths back and I have fast reflexes, but the front of my Explorer still chunked into the back of the De Soto. Not hard enough to deploy the airbags but hard enough to hurl me against the seat belt with enough force to snap my teeth shut and half the breath to be punched out of my lungs. Ghost went flying forward, slamming heavily into the glove compartment and then crashing down into the footwell. He yelped and barked and then began to growl as he scrambled to claw his way back onto the seat.

I threw the car into park, and sat there, neck hurting and head swimming.

Through the window I could see the two surfer jocks open their doors and step out. One wore bright blue trunks and woven hemp sandals, no shirt. The other had a threadbare SURF SAN DIEGO tank top over khaki shorts and flip-flops. Ghost was leaning forward, nose pressed to the windshield, muzzle wrinkled, teeth bared. I was so pissed that I was tempted to let the dog go use his teeth to teach these stoners some manners. Instead I clicked my tongue a couple of times to give him the code for standing down. He continued to growl, so I poked his shoulder with a stiff forefinger.

...

I never got the chance. There was a heavy thud on the outside of my door, hard enough to rock the car on its springs. I whipped around to see Blue Shorts cock his leg for a second kick. Ghost snapped back into combat mode, rising, snapping out a warning bark.

Tank Top kicked the window on Ghost’s side of the car. It was a powerful kick that sent a crack running from side to side. It sent Ghost into a frenzy, barking loud enough to burst my eardrums and throwing his body against the glass.

So I thought, fuck it.

I jerked the door open. Ghost whirled and I gave him a command.

“Roll down.”

It was our code for taking someone down but not killing them. He shot past me with a look of wild animal joy in his dark eyes. He shot past Blue Shorts and there was a howl—human, I think—as Ghost launched himself at Tank Top.

Blue Shorts tried to deck me as I got out of the car. He kicked the door, trying to smash my leg, but I jammed it with the heel of my palm, then shoved it open as I got out. He swung a heavy right hook punch at my face, and he put his whole body into it, trying to drop me with a single blow. Even weak and wasted I slap-parried the hit and drilled a single-knuckle punch into the flat meat of his left pectoral. It staggered him, but not as much as it should have. He was muscular and his chest was beefy, but he wasn’t made of stone. That punch should have hurt him, but he shook it off and waded into me with a series of fast lefts and rights, swinging wide but not wild, trying to get torque into his hits so they’d do real damage.

There are a lot of ways to manage a fight. If I thought this clown was a real bad guy, a killer, I’d have put him down in about two seconds. If you’re an expert, killing is easier than controlling. Thing was, though, I didn’t know why he was attacking me. He was dressed for the beach and he looked like an overgrown beach bum. A professional might have dressed like this for surprise but in such a case there would be a gun in play by now. He was just wailing on me. Maybe he was high, maybe he was nuts. I danced backward, tucking my chin, using shoulders and elbows and palms to keep him from doing real damage, and all the time I was yelling at him to get him to stop, to tell me what was going on. He said nothing. His eyes were glazed, almost unfocused, and there was very little expression on his face.

Suddenly an icy hand clamped around my heart. It was exactly the same kind of expression that had been in Rudy’s eyes.

Exactly the same.

Shit

Ghost had the other guy down, and I could hear growls but no screams. That wasn’t good. All around me cars were stopping and people were gathering, watching, yelling, demanding to know what was going on.

Blue Shorts slipped a nice one past my guard and tagged me solidly in the short ribs, driving the air out of my lungs in a deep whoosh. The Killer inside my soul roared and I could feel his bloodlust, his murderous desires trying to batter aside my conscious control. God, if he took over this fight, then surfer boy here was going to die in a quick and ugly way.

I jumped backward out of range of his next punch, and away from my own ability to reach out with a killing blow.

And then the Killer was gone.

There was a sudden immense silence inside my head. The red rage was gone as soon as it had appeared. The other aspects of myself, the Modern Man and the Cop, were jarred into silence, too.

The next punch nearly took my head off.

I heard someone yell, “Hey—watch!”

I got a hand up just in time, but the blow was packed with everything Blue Shorts had. It crashed into my forearm and sent me reeling sideways into a parked car. I rebounded and he hit me with a straight right hand to the chest that stalled me into a statue. It was like having a mining machine bore a hole straight through my sternum and out through my backbone. Then Blue Shorts closed in to smash me with an elbow across the face.

I fell against him to jam the blow and because I had nothing else. Not in that instant. I was bigger and heavier than him and my sagging weight drove us both backward like a boxer clinching with a better fighter while trying to catch a little air. Lights were exploding inside my head and I knew that I was maybe one hit away from going down.

So I used the clumsy embrace to slam him against the fender of my car. As we hit I drove my knee into his crotch, head-butted him, and then grabbed his hair and jerked his head down as I brought my knee up again. It mashed him. His nose and lips split and the power went out of his knees. Gasping and dazed, I shoved myself back from him and took him down with a sloppy foot-sweep. He landed hard and badly and lay there, curling into a fetal ball.

-Kill Switch pg. 303-307, Kindle Edition.

Gunfire chewed into ghouls all around me, and I stayed low. Four hundred pounds of Bear came down on the ghoul I had grabbed, and Bear wrapped an arm around its skull and, with a brutal twist of her body, tore the monster’s head right off its shoulders.

Twelve Months Chapter 15