She lifted the struggling girl with ease, so that I could see her mascara-streaked face. “Wizard,” Drulinda said. Ennui had been cut by flying glass or the fall at some point, and some blood had streaked out of her slicked-back hair, over her ear, and down one side of her throat. The vampire leaned in, extending a tongue like a strip of beef jerky, and licked blood from the girl’s skin. “You can hide behind your light. But you can’t save her.”

I ground my teeth and said nothing.

“But your death will profit me, grant me standing with others of my kind. The feared and vaunted Wizard Dresden.” She bared yellowed teeth in a smile. “So I offer you this bargain. Throw away the amulet. I will let the girl go. You have my word.” She leaned her teeth in close and brushed them over the girl’s neck. “Otherwise…well. All of my new friends are gone. I’ll have to make more.”

That made me shudder. Dying was one thing. Dying and being made into one of those…

I lowered the amulet. I hesitated for a second, and then dropped it.

Drulinda let out a low, eager sound and tossed Ennui aside like an empty candy wrapper. Then she was on me, letting out rasping giggles, for God’s sake, pressing me down. “I can smell your fear, wizard,” she rasped. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

She leaned closer, slowly, as she bared her teeth, her face only inches from mine.

Which is where I wanted her to be.

I reared up my head and spat out a gooey mouthful of powdered garlic directly into those cataract eyes.

Drulinda let out a scream, bounding away in a violent rush, clawing at her eyes with her fingers—and getting them burned, too. She thrashed in wild agony, swinging randomly at anything she touched or bumped into, tearing great, gaping gashes in metal fences, smashing holes in concrete walls.

“Couple words of advice,” I growled, my mouth burning with the remains of the garlic I’d stuffed it with as she’d come sneaking up on me. “First, any time I’m not shooting my mouth off to a clichéd, two-bit creature of the night like you, it’s because I’m up to something.”

Drulinda howled more and rushed toward me—tripping on some rubble and sprawling on the ground, only to rush about on all fours like some kind of ungainly and horrible insect.

I checked behind me. Ennui was already out, and Thomas was beginning to stir, maybe roused by the snow now falling on him. I turned back to the blinded, pain-maddened vampire. We were the only ones left in that wing of the mall.

“Second,” I spat. “Never touch my brother on his fucking birthday.”

I reached for my will, lifted my hand, and snarled, “Fuego!”

Fire roared out to eagerly engulf the vampire.

What the hell. The building was burning down anyway.

“Freaking amateur villains,” I muttered, glowering down at the splatters on my car.

Thomas leaned against it with one hand pressed to his head, a grimace of pain on his face. “You okay?”

I waved my left arm a little. “Feeling’s coming back. I’ll have Butters check me out later. Thanks for loaning Molly your car.”

“Least I could do. Let her drive Sarah and Ennui to the hospital.” He squinted at the rising smoke from the mall. “Think the whole thing will go?”

“Nah,” I said. “This wing, maybe. They’ll get here before too much more goes up. Keef and his folk should be all right.”

My brother grunted. “How they going to explain this one?”

“Who knows,” I said. “Meteor, maybe. Smashed holes in the roof, crushed some poor security guard, set the place on fire.”

“My vote is for terrorists,” Thomas said. “Terrorists are real popular these days.” He shook his head. “But I meant the larpers, not the cops.”

“Oh,” I said. “Probably, they won’t talk to anyone about what they saw. Afraid people would think they were crazy.”

“And they would,” Thomas said.

“And they would,” I agreed. “Come tomorrow, it will seem very unreal. A few months from now, they’ll wonder if they didn’t imagine some of it or if there wasn’t some kind of gas leak or something that made them hallucinate. Give it a few more years, and they’ll remember that Drulinda and some rough-looking types showed up to give them a hard time. They drove a car through the front of the mall. Maybe they were crazy people dressed in costumes who had been to a few too many larps themselves.” I shook my head. “It’s human nature to try to understand and explain everything. The world is less scary that way. But I don’t think they’ll be in any danger, really. No more so than anyone else.”

“That’s good,” Thomas said quietly. “I guess.”

“It’s the way it is.” In the distance, sirens were starting up and coming closer. I grunted and said, “We’d better go.”

“Yeah.”

We got into the Beetle. I started it up and we headed out. I left the lights off. No sense attracting attention.

“You going to be all right?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Take me a few days to get enough back into me to feel normal, but…” He shrugged. “I’ll make it.”

“Thanks for the backup,” I said.

“Kicked their freaky asses,” he said, and held out his fist.

I rapped my knuckles lightly against it.

“Nice signal. The birthday present.”

“I figured you’d get it,” I said. Then I frowned. “Crap,” I said. “Your present.”

“You didn’t remember to bring it?”

“I was a little busy,” I said.

He was quiet for a minute. Then he asked, “What was it?”

“Rock’em Sock’em Robots,” I said.

He blinked at me. “What?”

I repeated myself. “The little plastic robots you make fight.”

“I know what they are, Harry,” he responded. “I’m trying to figure out why you’d give me them.”

I pursed my lips for a minute. Then I said, “Right after my dad died, they put me in an orphanage. It was Christmastime. On television, they had commercials for Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Two kids playing with them, you know? Two brothers.” I shrugged. “That was a year when I really, really wanted to give those stupid plastic robots to my brother.”

“Because it would mean you weren’t alone,” Thomas said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry I forgot them. And happy birthday.”

He glanced back at the burning mall. “Well,” my brother said. “I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”

Grave-Robbed

P. N. Elrod

P. N. Elrod has sold more than twenty novels and as many short stories and is best known for The Vampire Files series, featuring undead detective Jack Fleming. She’s cowritten three novels with actor/director Nigel Bennett, has edited and coedited several genre collections, and is an incurable chocoholic. More news on her toothy titles may be found at www.vampwriter.com.

CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 1937

When the girl draped in black stepped in to ask if I could help her with a séance, Hal Kemp’s version of “Gloomy Sunday” began to murmur sadly from the office radio.

Coincidences annoy me. A mournful song for a dead sweetheart put together with a ceremony that’s supposed to help the dead speak with the living made me uneasy—and I was annoyed it made me uneasy.

I should know better, being dead myself.

“You sure you’re in the right place?” I asked, taking in her outfit. Black overcoat, pocketbook, gloves, heels, and stockings—she was a walking funeral. Along with the mourning weeds she wore a brimmed hat with a chin-brushing veil even I couldn’t see past.

“The Escott Agency—that’s what’s on the door,” she said, sitting on the client chair in front of the desk without an invitation. “You’re Mr. Escott?”

“I’m Mr. Fleming. I fill in for Mr. Escott when he’s elsewhere.” He was visiting his girlfriend tonight. I’d come over to his office to work on his books since I was better at accounting.