White Night (The Dresden Files #9) - Jim Butcher Page 0,152

dim oval of reddish light that outlined a heavily cloaked figure—Cowl, standing in his own gate.

"Master!" Vittorio cried, his voice slurred.

"Look out!" I screamed, and thrashed behind me with my arm as I ducked and lurched to one side, trying to sweep Lara out of the flying thing's path as I did. It missed us by inches, but we got out of the way.

Cowl's leathery, rasping voice hissed something in a slithering tongue, and a second surge of power lashed invisibly across the cavern—not at us, but at my gate.

And as quickly as that, my gate began to close, the opening sewing itself shut like a Ziploc bag—starting with the end closest to me.

Tickticktickticktick.

The gate was closing far more quickly than I could have gotten up and moved. I wasn't getting out. But Lara might.

"Lara!" I shouted. "Go!"

Something with the strength of a freight train and the speed of an Indy car seized my duster and hauled on it so hard that it wrenched my neck and nearly dislocated my arms.

"Dresden!" called Marcone's voice from the closing gate. "Nineteen!"

I hurtled through the air. Looking wildly around showed me that Lara had seized me and leaped for the far end of the collapsing gate.

"Eighteen!" came Marcone's shout.

Lara and I flew through empty and unremarkable air.

The gate had closed.

We missed it.

* * *

CHAPTER

Forty-Two

T he only light was the dim scarlet glow from Cowl's gate, and everything had become blood and shadows. The eyes of dozens of ghouls burned like nearly dead coals as they turned toward us, reflecting that lurid luminescence.

"Lara," I hissed. "This cavern goes up in seventeen seconds, and there are ghouls in the tunnel out."

"Empty night," Lara swore. Her voice was thready with pain and fear. "What can I do?"

Good question. There had to be… Wait. There might be a way to survive this. I was too tired to work any magic, but…

"You can trust me," I said. "That's what you can do."

She turned her pale, beautiful, gore-smattered face to me. "Done."

"Get us to the tunnel's mouth."

"But if there are ghouls there already—"

"Hey!" I said. "Tick, tick!"

Before I'd gotten to the end of the first tick, Lara had seized me again and hauled us across the floor to the mouth of the tunnel. Behind me, Cowl was shouting something, and so was Vittorio, and the ghouls set up a howl and were running after us. Only one of the ghouls was close enough to get in the way, but Lara's wicked little wavy-bladed sword ripped straight across its eyes and left the monster momentarily stunned with pain.

Lara dumped me at the mouth of the tunnel, and I took a couple of steps back in, checking the smooth tunnel walls as I shook out my shield bracelet. That demonic flying thing of Cowl's banked around for another pass.

"What now?" Lara demanded. The ghouls were coming. They were nowhere near as fast as Lara had been, but they weren't far away.

I took a deep breath. "Now," I said. "Kiss me. I know it seems weir—"

Lara let out a single, ravenous snarl and was abruptly pressed up against me, arms sliding around my waist with sinuous, serpentine power. Her mouth met mine and . . .

. . . ohmygod.

Lara had once boasted that she could do more to me in an hour than a mortal woman could in a week. But it ain't boasting if it's true. The first, searing second of that kiss was indescribably intense. It wasn't simply the texture of her lips. It was how she moved them, and the simple, naked hunger beneath every quiver of her mouth. I knew she was a monster, and I knew she would enslave and kill me if she could, but she wanted me with a passion so pure and focused that it was intoxicating. That succubus kiss was a lie, but it made me feel, within that single moment, strong and masculine and powerful. It made me feel that I was attractive enough, strong enough, worthy enough to deserve that kind of desire.

And it made me feel lust, a primal need for sex so raw, so scorching, that I felt sure that if I didn't find expression for that need—here and now —that I would surely go insane. The fires that surged up in me weren't limited to my loins. It was simply too hot, too intense for that, and my whole body felt suddenly aflame with need. Every inch of me was suddenly supernaturally aware of Lara, in all her