Grave Peril (The Dresden Files #3) - Jim Butcher Page 0,109

she'd just killed the thingreally and truly taken one of them out. A fierce pride shot through me, and I headed down the stairs.

And then our streak of luck ended.

Justine took a step too far to one side, and Bianca appeared out of nowhere, seizing the girl by the hair and dragging her away from Thomas. Thomas whirled, but too late. Bianca held the girl's back against her front, her fingers wound with deceptive gentleness around Justine's throat. With the other hand, Bianca, still quite human-seeming and calm, caressed the girl's belly. Justine struggled, but Bianca simply turned her head to one side and drew her tongue slowly, sensuously over Justine's throat. The girl's eyes widened, panicked. Then they grew heavy. She shuddered, her body relaxing toward Bianca, arching slowly. Bianca's rich mouth quirked, and she murmured something into Justine's ear that made the girl whimper.

"Enough," Bianca said. And as quickly as that, the courtyard grew silent. Michael and I stood on the stairs a bit above Thomas and Susan. The vampires ringed them in, just out of reach of Thomas's sword. I held Lydia unmoving in my arms. Bianca looked up at me and said, "The game has ended, wizard."

"You haven't taken us down yet," I shot back. "Smart for you and your people to get out of my way, before I get cranky."

Bianca laughed, idly plucking some of the petals from Justine's top, baring a bit more of her breasts. "Surely you don't think me so stupid as to be bluffed now, Dresden. You have already had a measure of your strength taken. What remains barely keeps you standing. If you could force your way out, you'd have done it already." Her eyes moved to Michael. "And you, Sir Knight. You will die gloriously and take many of the horrid creatures of the night with you. But you are outnumbered and alone, and without the sword. You will die."

I glanced at Thomas and Susan and said, "Well, then. I guess it's a good thing we brought help. Your whole Court, Bianca, and you couldn't take us down." I swept my eyes back and forth over the vampires below, and said, "All of your little minions here have eternity laid out before them. Eternity is a bad thing to lose. And maybe you would get us, eventually. But whichever one of you would like to lose eternity first, please. Just go ahead and step on up."

Silence reigned over the courtyard for a moment. I allowed a bit of hope to seep into my pounding heart. Kenny Rogers, eat your heart out. If this bluff worked, I'd be more of a gambler than he'd ever dreamed.

Bianca only smiled, and said, to Thomas, "She's so beautiful, my cousin of the White Court. I've wanted her ever since the moment I saw her." Bianca licked her lips. "What would you say to a bargain?"

I sneered. "You think we would do business with you?"

Thomas glanced back up at me. Incredibly, he was cleanbut for a sprinkling of scarlet droplets on his pale flesh, unmarred, loincloth, wings, and all. "Go ahead," he said. "I'm listening."

"Give them to us, Thomas Raith," Bianca said. "Give us these three, and take the girl as your own, uncontested. I will have as many little pets as I wish, now. What is one over another?"

"Thomas," I said. "I know we just met, but don't listen to her. She set you up to get killed already."

Thomas glanced back and forth between us. He met my eyes for a momentalmost long enough to let me see inside him. Then looked away. I had the impression that he was trying to tell me something. I don't know what. His expression seemed apologetic, maybe. "I know, Mister Dresden," he said. "But I'm afraid the situation has changed." He didn't kick Susan, so much as he simply planted his sandaled foot against her and shoved her into the crowd of vampires. She let out a short, startled scream, and then they took her, and dragged her into the darkness.

Thomas lowered his sword and turned toward me, his back to the vampires. Leering, hissing, they crept closer to Michael and me, around Thomas, one of them rubbing up against his legs. His mouth twisted in distaste, and he sidestepped. "I'm sorry, Mister Dresden. Harry. I do like you quite a bit. But I'm afraid that I like myself a whole lot more."

Thomas faded back, while the vampires crowded around the bottom of the stairs. Somewhere,