Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,110

silent terror, flinching away from the doorway and from the light.

Children.

Someone was going to regret this. If I had to take this building, hell, this block apart with nothing but raw will and my bare hands, someone was going to pay. Even the monsters should draw a line somewhere.

Then again, I guess that's why they call them monsters.

"Son of a bitch," I snarled, and ducked my head to step into the room.

Kincaid abruptly threw his weight against me, shoving me aside from the door. "No," he growled.

"Dammit, get out of my way," I said.

"It's a trap, Dresden," Kincaid said. "There's a trip wire. Go through that door and you'll kill all of us."

Murphy checked over her shoulder and returned to watching the darkness for trouble.

I frowned at Kincaid and picked up the plastic light stick, holding it out. "I don't see a wire."

"Not a literal wire," Kincaid. "It's a net of infrared beams."

"Infrared? How did you—"

"Dammit, Dresden, if you want to know about me, wait for the autobiography like everyone else."

He was right. It was a little late to be worrying about Kincaid's background now. "Hey, kids," I said. "Everybody stay really still and keep back, okay? We're going to get you out of here." I lowered my voice and said to Kincaid, "How do we get them out of there?"

"Not sure we can," Kincaid said. "The beam is rigged up to an antipersonnel mine."

"Well," I said. "Can't we just… can't you put a weight on a land mine and leave it there? So long as the weight holds the trigger down, it doesn't explode, right?"

"Right," Kincaid said. "But that's assuming we've gone back in time to World War Two." He shook his head. "Modern mines are pretty good at killing people, Dresden. This one's British, pretty recent."

"How can you tell?"

He tapped his nose. "The Brits use a different chemical priming charge than most. It's probably a bouncer, very nasty."

"Bouncer?"

"Yeah. If something interrupts the beam, the charge activates. Several individual submunitions get blown up into the air, or sideways, or however they want to set it up, in a pattern. Then they explode maybe five or six feet in the air. Sends a couple of thousand steel balls out in a big cloud. Kills everything in thirty, maybe forty meters if you're in the open, maybe a lot farther in a tight space like this. If it was me, I'd have set the charges up to get thrown straight down this hall. All these stone walls, the shrapnel would shred everything real good."

"I could hex down whatever is sending the beam," I said.

"Thus interrupting it," Kincaid said. "Thus kablowie. Thus death."

"Dammit." I swallowed and took a step back from the doorway, hoping the presence of my magic wouldn't screw up the device in a moment of monumentally bad timing. "I can shield us, if it's all coming in from one direction."

Kincaid arched an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Damn. But it won't help those kids much. They're over there."

I scowled ferociously. "How do we disarm the device?"

"You still don't want the Bolshevik Muppet solution, right?"

"Right."

"Then someone has to crawl in there without setting it off, find the explosive, disable it and unhook it from the sensors."

"Right," I said. "Do it."

Kincaid nodded. "Can't."

"What?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

He nodded at the doorway. "There are three beams set up in an asymmetrical crisscross over the doorway. There isn't enough room for me to get through the open spaces."

"I'm thinner than you," I said.

"Yeah, but longer and a hell of a lot gawkier. And I know what happens to tech when nervous wizards get close."

"Someone has to do it," I said. "Someone small enough to…"

We both looked down the hall at Murphy.

Murphy didn't look away from her vigil, and said, "How do I disarm it?"

"I'll talk you through," Kincaid said. "Dresden, better take her gun and cover us."

"Hey," I said. "I'm in charge here. Kincaid, talk her through it. Murphy, give me your gun so I can cover you."

I tied the handle of the paintball gun into my coat where my blasting rod usually went. I winked at Murphy, who saw the gesture and did not respond to it. She just passed me the gun and turned her baseball cap around. Then she walked down the hall, slipping out of her coat and gun belt on the way.

"Better lose the Kevlar too," Kincaid said. "I can pass it to you. Bottom left corner looks like the best bet. Stay as flat as you can and as much to the left