Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,92

Wardens' files. They suspect she's got a little skill at dark sorcery and consider her to be very dangerous."

"It's more than a little skill," I said.

The old man frowned. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I've seen her throw raw power around, and put up the best veil I've ever seen through. I also saw her using some long-range mental communications with her flunkies."

The old man frowned. "That's more than a little."

"Uh-huh. She's gunning for me. Only, you know, without the guns."

Ebenezar frowned, but nodded. "She holding that mess at the Velvet Room against you?"

"That's how it looks from here," I said. "She's taken two swings at me. But I found where she's laired, and I want to take her down before she gets to three."

"Makes sense," he said. "What's your plan?"

"I've got help. Murphy—"

"The police girl?" he interrupted.

"God, don't call her a girl," I said. "At least not to her face. Yeah, her, and a mercenary named Kincaid."

"Haven't heard of him," Ebenezar said.

"He works for the Archive," I said. "And he's good at killing vampires. I'm going in with those two, but we need someone standing by to get us out in a hurry."

"I'm your driver, eh?" he mused. "And I suppose you want someone to lock down Mavra's power, if she's got access to that much magic."

"It hadn't occurred to me, really," I lied. "But hey, if you are bored and want to do that to pass the time while you keep the car running, I don't mind."

The old man's teeth flashed in a wolfish smile. "I'll keep that in mind, Hoss."

"I don't have anything to use as a channel, though," I said. "Are you going to be able to target her without hair or blood or something?"

"Yes," Ebenezar said. He didn't elaborate how he'd do it. "Though I doubt I can get her down to nothing. I can prevent her from working anything big, but she might have enough left in her to be annoying."

"I'll take what I can get," I said. "But we need to move right now. She's already taken several people."

"Vampires are that way," Ebenezar agreed in a casual tone, but I saw the way his eyes narrowed. He didn't care for monsters like Mavra any more than I did. I could have kissed him.

"Thank you."

He shook his head. "What about her death curse?"

I blinked.

"You'd thought of that, right?" he asked.

"What death curse?" I stammered.

"Use your head, boy," Ebenezar said. "If she's got a wizard's power, she might well be able to level a death curse at you when she goes down."

"Oh, come on," I muttered. "That's no fair. She's already dead."

"Hadn't thought of that, eh?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Though I should have. Been a busy couple of days, what with dodging all the certain death coming at me from every direction. Not a second to spare for thinking. We have precious little time."

He grunted. "So where we going?"

I checked the time at a passing bank billboard. "A picnic."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

What looked like a small army had invaded a portion of Wolf Lake Park and claimed it in the name of God and Clan Murphy. Cars filled the little parking lot nearby, and lined the nearest lane for a hundred yards in either direction. Summer had been generous with the rain for once, and all the trees in the park had put on glorious autumn colors so bright that if I scrunched up my eyes until my lashes blurred my vision they almost seemed to be afire.

In the park, a couple of gazebos had been stockpiled with tables and lots of food, and a pair of portable pavilions flanked them, giving shade to maybe a dozen people who had fired up their grills and were singeing meat. Music was playing from several different locations, the beats of the various songs stumbling into one another, and evidently someone had brought a generator, because there was an enormous TV set up out in the grass while a dozen men crowded around it, talking loudly, laughing, and arguing about what looked to be a college football game.

There were also a pair of volleyball nets and a badminton net, and enough Frisbees flying around to foul up radar at the local airports. A giant, inflatable castle wobbled dramatically as a dozen children bounced around on the inside of it, caroming off the walls and one another with equal amounts of enthusiasm. More kids ran in packs all over the place, and there must have been a dozen dogs gleefully racing one another and

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