Turn Coat

Chapter Forty-eight

The truly scary part wasn’t that I was standing five feet away from a cloud of weapons-grade deathstone that would rip the very life force out of everything it touched. It wasn’t that I had confronted someone who was probably a member of the Black Council, probably as deadly in a tussle as their members always seemed to be, and who was certainly fighting with his back to the wall and nothing to lose. It wasn’t even the fact that the lights had all gone out, and that a battle to the death was about to ensue.

The scary part was that I was standing in a relatively small, enclosed space with nearly six hundred wizards of the White Council, men and women with the primordial powers of the universe at their beck and call—and that for the most part, only the Wardens among them had much experience in controlling violent magic in combat conditions. It was like standing in an industrial propane plant with five hundred chain-smoking pyromaniacs double-jonesing for a hit: it would only take one dummy to kill us all, and we had four hundred and ninety-nine to spare.

“No lights!” I screamed, backing up from where I’d last seen the cloud. “No lights!”

But my voice was only one amongst hundreds, and dozens of wizards reacted in the way I—and Peabody—had known they would. They’d immediately called light.

It made them instant, easy targets.

Cloudy tendrils of concentrated death whipped out to strike at the source of any light, spearing directly through anyone who got in the way. I saw one elderly woman lose an arm at the elbow as the mordite-laden cloud sent a spear of darkness flying at a wizard seated two rows behind her. A dark-skinned man with gold dangling from each ear roughly pushed a younger woman who had called light to a crystal in her hand. The tendril missed the woman but struck him squarely, instantly dissolving a hole in his chest a foot across, and all but cut his corpse in half as it fell to the floor.

Screams rose, sounds of genuine pain and terror—sounds the human body and mind are designed to recognize and to which they have no choice but to react. It hit me as hard as the first time I’d ever heard it happen—the desire to be away from whatever was causing such fear, combined with the simultaneous engagement of adrenaline, the need to act, to help.

Calmly, said a voice from right beside my right ear—except that it couldn’t have been there because bandages covered that side of my head completely, and it was physically impossible for a voice to come through that clearly.

Which meant that the voice was an illusion. It was in my head. Furthermore, I recognized the voice—it was Langtry’s, the Merlin’s.

Council members, get on the ground immediately, said the Merlin’s calm, unshakable voice. Assist anyone who is bleeding and do not attempt to use lights until the mistfiend is contained. Senior Council, I have already engaged the mistfiend and am preventing it from moving any farther away. Rashid, prevent it from moving forward and disintegrating me, if you please. Mai and Martha Liberty, take its right flank, McCoy and Listens-to-Wind its left. It’s rather strong-willed, so let’s not dawdle, and remember that we must also prevent it from moving upward.

The entire length of that dialogue, though I could have sworn it was physically audible, was delivered in less than half a second—speech at the speed of thought. It came accompanied with a simplified image of the Speaking Room, as if it had been drawn on a mental chalkboard. I could clearly see the swirling outline of the mistfiend surrounded by short blocks, with each block labeled with the names of the Senior Council and drawn to represent a section of three-dimensional dome that would hem the cloudy terror in.

Hell’s bells. The Merlin had, in the literal length of a second and a half, turned pure confusion into an ordered battle. I guess maybe you don’t get to be the Merlin of the White Council by saving up frequent-flier miles. I’d just never seen him in motion before.

Warden Dresden, the Merlin said. Or thought. Or projected. If you would be so good as to prevent Peabody from escaping. Warden Thorsen and his cadre are on the way to support you, but we need someone to hound Peabody and prevent him from further mischief. We do not yet know the extent of his psychic manipulations, so trust none of the younger Wardens.

I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.

I ripped off my ridiculous stole, robe, and cloak as I turned toward the doorway. The frantic motions of panic made the two or three light sources that had not been instantly snuffed into independent stroboscopes. Running toward the room’s exit was a surreal experience, but I was certain that Peabody had planned his steps before he’d begun to move, and he’d had plenty of time to sprint across the room in the darkness and leave the auditorium.

I tried to think like a wizard who had just been outed as Black Council and marked for capture, interrogation, and probable death. Given that I had been fairly sure it was going to happen to

me over the past few days, I’d already given consideration to how to get out of Council HQ, and I figured Peabody had taken more time to plan than I had.

If I was him, I’d rip open a Way into the Nevernever and close it behind me. I’d find a good spot to get out, and then I’d make sure it was prepared to be as lethally hostile to pursuers as I could make it. The centuries upon centuries of wards placed upon the Edinburgh tunnels by generations of wizards, though, prevented any opening to the Nevernever from inside the security checkpoints, so Peabody would have to get through at least one Warden-manned security gate before he enacted his plan.

I had to stop him before he got that far.

I plunged through the doorway and noted that both Wardens on guard outside were of the younger generation who had risen to the ranks since the disastrous battle with the Red Court in Sicily. Both young men were standing blankly at attention, showing no reaction whatsoever to the furor in the Speaking Room.

A corner of a black formal robe snapped as its wearer rounded a corner in the hallway to my right, and I was off and running. I felt like hell, but for a refreshing change of pace, I had an advantage over an older, more experienced wizard—I was younger and in better shape.

Wizards might stay alive and vigorous for centuries, but their bodies still tend to lose physical ability if they do not take great pains to stay in training. Even then, they still don’t have the raw capabilities of a young person—and running at a dead sprint is as raw as physical activity gets.

I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of Peabody, running up ahead of me. He turned another corner, and by the time I rounded that one, I had gained several steps on him. We blew through Administration and passed the Warden barracks, where three Wardens who were still freaking teenagers, the dangerous babies we’d hurried through military training for the war, emerged from the doors twenty feet ahead of Peabody.

“The end is nigh!” he snarled.

All three of them froze in their tracks, their expressions going blank, and Peabody went through the group, puffing, and knocked one of them down. I pushed harder, and he started glancing over his shoulder, his eyes wide.

He ducked around the next corner, and my instincts twigged to what he was about to try. I came around the corner and flung myself into a diving roll, and a spray of conjured liquid hissed as it went by overhead. It smacked against the wall behind me with a frantic chewing noise, like a thousand bottles of carbonated soda all shaken and simultaneously opened.

I hadn’t had time to recharge my energy rings, and they were still on my dresser back home, but I didn’t want Peabody to get comfortable taking shots at me over his shoulder. I lifted my right hand, snarled, “Fuego!” and sent a basketball-sized comet of fire flying down the hallway at him.

He spat out a few words and made a one-handed defensive gesture that reminded me of Doctor Strange, and my attacking spell splashed against something invisible a good three feet short of him. Even so, some of it wound up setting the hem of his formal robes on fire, and he frantically shucked out of it as he continued to flee.

I made up even more distance on him, and as he turned into one of the broad main hallways of the complex, I wasn’t twenty feet away, and the first security checkpoint was right in front of us. Four Wardens, all of them young, manned the gate—which was to say that, since all the grown-ups, grandpas, and fussbudgets who might object were at the trial, they were sitting on the floor playing cards.

“Stop that man!” I shouted.

Peabody shrieked, obviously terrified, “Dresden’s gone warlock! He’s trying to kill me!”

The young Wardens bounced to their feet with the reaction speed of youth. One of them reached for his staff, and another drew his gun. A third turned and made sure the gate was locked—and the fourth acted on pure instinct, whipping her hand around her head in a tight circle and making a throwing gesture as she shouted.

I brought up my shield in time to intercept an invisible bowling ball, but the impact hit the shield with enough force to stop me cold. My legs weren’t ready for that, and I staggered, bouncing a shoulder off of one wall.

Peabody ’s eyes gleamed with triumph as I fell, and he snapped, “The end is nigh!” freezing the young Wardens in place, as he’d done before. He ripped the key on its leather thong from around the neck of one of the Wardens, opened the gate, then turned with a dagger in his hand and sliced it along the thigh of the young woman who had clobbered me. She cried out and her leg began spurting blood in rhythm with her heart, a telltale sign of a severed artery.

I got back to my feet and hurled a club of raw force at Peabody, but he defeated it as he had the fireball, leapt through the gate, and ripped at the air, peeling open a passage between this world and the next.

He plunged through it.

“Son of a bitch,” I snarled. None of the young Wardens were moving, not even the wounded girl. If she didn’t get help, she would bleed to death in minutes. “Dammit!” I swore. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” I threw myself onto the girl, ripping the belt off of my jeans and praying that the wound was far enough down her leg for a tourniquet to do any good.

Footsteps hammered the floor, and Anastasia Luccio appeared, gun in her good hand, her face white with pain. She slid to a halt next to me, breathing hard, set the weapon on the floor, and said, “I’ve got her. Go!”

On the other side of the security gate, the Way was beginning to close.

I rose and rushed it, diving forward. There was a flash of light, and the stone tunnel around me abruptly became a forest of dead trees that smelled strongly of mildew and stagnant water. Peabody was standing right in front of the Way as he tried to close it, and I hit him in a flying tackle before he could finish the job. He went over backward and we hit the ground hard.

For a stunned half second, neither of us moved, and then Peabody shifted his weight, and I caught the gleam of the bloodied dagger at the edge of my vision.

He thrust the point at my throat, but I got an arm in the way. He opened a vein. I grabbed at his wrist with my other hand, and he rolled, gaining the upper position and gripping the dagger with both hands, leaning against my one arm with all of his weight. Drops of my own blood fell onto my face as he forced the point slowly toward my eye.

I struggled to throw him off me, but he was stronger than he looked, and it was clear that he had more experience in close-quarters fighting than I did. I clubbed at him with my wounded arm, but he shrugged it off.

I felt my triceps giving way and watched the tip of the knife come closer. The breaking point was at hand and he knew it. He threw more effort into his attack, and the dagger’s tip suddenly stung hot against my lower eyelid.

Then there was a huge noise, and Peabody went away. I remained still for a stunned moment, and then looked up.

Morgan lay on the ground just inside the still-open Way, Luccio’s gun smoking in his hand, his wounded leg a mass of wet scarlet.

How he’d managed to run after us given his injury, I had no idea. Even with painkillers, it must have hurt like hell. He stared at Peabody’s body with hard eyes. Then his hand started to shake, and he dropped the gun to the ground.

He followed it down with a groan.

I went to him, breathing hard. “Morgan.” I turned him over and looked at his wound. It was soaked in blood, but it wasn’t bleeding much anymore. His face was white. His lips looked grey.

He opened his eyes calmly. “Got him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You got him.”

He smiled a little. “That’s twice I pulled your ass out of the fire.”

I choked out a little laugh. “I know.”

“They’ll blame me,” he said quietly. “There’s no confession from Peabody, and I’m a better candidate politically. Let them pin it on me. Don’t fight it. I want it.”

I stared down at him. “Why?”

He shook his head, smiling wearily.

I stared down at him for long seconds, and then I got it. Morgan had been lying to me from the very start. “Because you already knew who killed LaFortier. She was there when you woke up in his chambers. You saw who did it. And you wanted to protect her.”

“Anastasia didn’t do it,” Morgan said, his voice intense and low. “She was a pawn. Asleep on her feet. She never even knew she was being used.” He shuddered. “Should have thought of that. She got put in that younger body, made her mind vulnerable to influence again.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Woke up, LaFortier was dead, and she had the knife. Took it from her, veiled her, and pushed her out the door,” Morgan said. “Didn’t have time to get both of us out.”

“So you took the blame thinking you’d sort things out in the aftermath. But you realized that the frame was too good for anyone to believe you when you tried to tell them what was up.” I shook my head. Morgan hadn’t given a damn about his own life. He’d escaped when he realized that Anastasia had still been in danger, that he wouldn’t be able to expose the real traitor alone.

“Dresden,” he said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t tell anyone about Molly. What she tried to do to Ana. I . . . I didn’t tell.”

I stared at him, unable to speak.

His eyes became cloudy. “Do you know why I didn’t? Why I came to you?”

I shook my head.

“Because I knew,” he whispered. He lifted his right hand, and I gripped it hard. “I knew that you knew how it felt to be an innocent man hounded by the Wardens.”

It was the closest he’d ever come to saying that he’d been wrong about me.

He died less than a minute later.