“Thomas!” I shouted. Or tried to shout. The acoustics were odd in this tunnel within which I was suddenly sprawled. “Get up, man!”

He gave me a blank, concussed stare.

The creature’s movements had slowed. I turned to see it beginning to relax, its body shuddering, the drumbeat of its heart steadying, and I got a better look at it than I had before.

It was huge, easily the size of a full-grown bull, and it carried a stench with it that was similar in potency. Or maybe that was because I had just overcooked it. Its body was odd, seemingly able to move on two legs or four with equal efficiency. Its flesh was a spongy blackness, much like the true skin of a Red vampire, and its head was shaped like something mixing the features of a human being, a jaguar, and maybe a crocodile or wild boar. It was pitch-black everywhere, including its eyes, its tongue, and its mouth.

And, despite the punishment I had just dealt out, it was getting up again.

“Thomas!” I shouted. Or wheezed.

The creature shook its head and its dead-black eyes focused on me. It started toward me, pausing briefly to swat my stunned dog out of its path. Mouse landed in a tumble, seemingly struggling to find his balance but unable to do so.

I lifted my blasting rod again as it came on, but I didn’t have enough juice left in me to make the rod do anything but smoke faintly.

And then a stone sailed in from nowhere and struck the creature on the snout.

“Hey!” called Molly’s voice. “Hey, Captain Asphalt! Hey, tar baby! Over here!”

The creature and I turned to see Molly standing maybe twenty yards away, in plain sight. She flung another rock, and it bounced off the creature’s broad chest. Its heartbeat began to accelerate and grow louder again.

“Let’s go, gorgeous!” Molly called. “You and me!” She turned sideways to the thing, rolled her hips, and made an exaggerated motion of swatting herself on the ass. “Come get some!”

The thing tensed and then rushed forward, covering the ground with astonishing speed.

Molly vanished.

The creature smashed into the earth where she’d been standing, with its huge talons balled into furious fists, slamming them eight inches into the earth.

There was a peal of mocking laughter, and another rock bounced off of the thing, this time from the left. Furious, it whirled to rush Molly again—and again, she vanished completely. Once more it struck at empty ground. Once more, Molly got its attention with a rock and a few taunts, only to vanish from sight as it came at her.

Each time, she was a little closer to the creature, unable to match its raw speed. And each time, she led it a little farther away from the three of us. A couple of times, she even shouted, “Toro, toro! Olé!”

“Thomas!” I called. “Get up!”

My brother blinked his eyes several times, each time a little more quickly. Then he swiped a hand at the bloodied side of his face, shook his head violently to get the blood out of his eyes, and looked down at the section of metal bar sticking out of his stomach. He clenched it with his hand, grimaced, and drew it slowly out, revealing a six-inch triangle that must have been a corner brace in the wall he’d gone through. He dropped it on the ground, groaning in pain, and his eyes rolled briefly back into his head.

I saw his other nature coming over him. His skin grew paler, and almost seemed to take on its own glow. His breathing stabilized immediately, and the cut along his hairline where he’d been bleeding began to close. He opened his eyes, and their color had changed from a deep, contented blue to a hungry, metallic silver.

He got up smoothly and glanced at me. “You bleeding?”

“Nah,” I said. “I’m good.”

A few feet away, Mouse got to his feet and shook himself, his tags jingling. Molly had gotten as far as the street again, and there was an enormous crashing sound.

“This time, we do it smart,” Thomas said. He turned to Mouse instead of me. “I’m going to go in first and get its attention. Go for its strings. I think you’ll have to hit two limbs to really cripple it.”

Mouse woofed, evidently an affirmative, let out a grumbling growl, and once more very faint, very pale blue light gathered around him.

Thomas nodded, and picked up a section of ruined deck that had scattered around where he landed. He shouldered a corner post, a section of four-by-four about a yard and a half long, and said, “Don’t sweat, Harry. We’ll be back for you in a minute.”

“Go, Team Dresden,” I wheezed.

The two of them took off, zero to cheetah speed in about a second. Then they were out of sight. I heard Thomas let out a high-pitched cry that was a pretty darn good Bruce Lee impersonation, and there was a thunder crack of wood striking something hard.

An instant later, Mouse let out his battle roar. There was a flicker of strobing colors of light as Molly pitched a bit of dazzling magic at the creature. It wouldn’t hurt the thing, but the kid could make eye-searing light in every color imaginable burst from empty air, accompanied by a variety of sounds if she so chose. She called it her One-woman Rave spell, and during the last Independence Day, she had used it to throw up a fireworks display from her parents’ backyard so impressive that evidently it had caused traffic problems on the expressway.

It was hard to lie there twisted halfway around at the waist, to see only the occasional flash of light or to hear the thumps and snarls of combat. I tried my leg again and had no luck. So I just settled down and concentrated on not blacking out or breathing too hard. The creature had definitely cracked at least one of my ribs.

That was when I noticed the two sets of glowing red eyes staring at me from the forest, staring with the unmistakable fixation of a predator, and coming slowly, steadily, silently closer.

I suddenly realized that everyone around who might have helped me was sort of distracted at the moment.

“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh, crap.”

Chapter 26

The eyes rushed toward me, and something dark and strong struck me across the jaw. I was already close to losing consciousness. The blow was enough to ring my bells thoroughly.

I was aware of being picked up and tossed over someone’s shoulder. Then there was a lot of rapid, sickening motion. It went on long enough for me to throw up. I didn’t have enough energy to aim at my abductor.

A subjective eternity later, I was thrown to the ground. I lay still, hoping to fool my captor into thinking I was barely conscious and weak as a kitten. Which should be easy, since I was. I’ve never really had much ambition as a performer.

“We don’t like it,” said a woman’s voice. “Its Power smells foul.”

“We must be patient,” replied a man’s voice. “It could be a great asset.”

“It is listening to us,” the woman said.

“We know that,” replied the man.

I heard soft footsteps, cushioned by pine needles, and the woman spoke again, more slowly and lower. She sounded . . . hungry. “Poor thing. So battered. We should give it a kiss and let it sleep. It would be merciful. And He would be pleased with us.”

“No, our love. He would be satisfied with us. There is a difference.”

“Have we not come to understand this simple fact?” she shot back, acid in her voice. “Never will He name us to the Circle, no matter how many prizes we bring into the Court. We are interlopers. We are not of the first Maya.”

“Many things can change in the span of eternity, our love. We will be patient.”

“You mean that He might fall?” She let out a rather disconcerting giggle. “Then why aren’t we currying favor with Arianna?”

“We shall not even consider it,” he replied, his voice hard. “Should we even think of it too often, He might know. He might act. Do we understand?”