Death Masks

"You can't," I said. I shot a glance toward home plate, but the Archive apparently hadn't noticed anything amiss. My will wavered, and the mordite sphere bobbed back and forth. "They'll hear the shot. They'll kill you."



"Quite possibly," he agreed. "As I said, I am prepared to accept that."



His words chilled me, and the mordite sphere darted at my head. I caught it a couple of feet from me and held it, but just barely.



"I told you, Dresden. There's only one way this can end. I would have preferred an honorable demise for you, but any death will do."



I stared at the hidden gun.



A dot of bright scarlet light appeared on Ortega's chest, and tracked slowly up.



My expression must have changed, because Ortega glanced down too. The bright pinpoint of the laser sight settled over his heart and became still.



Ortega's eyes widened and his expression twisted into fury.



A lot of things happened at once.



There was a hissing sound, a thump, and a big section of Ortega's chest dented in. Scarlet sprayed out behind him. An instant later, a booming sound much deeper than the crack of a rifle echoed around the stadium.



Ortega let out a screech that went off the high end of the scale. Fire erupted from the hidden gun, burning through Ortega's flesh mask and shirt to reveal the muzzle of a small-caliber revolver clenched in an inhuman black hand. The bullet Ortega had taken had half twisted him, and he missed. I thought hanging around to let him try again was a bad idea, so I threw myself to one side and gave the mordite sphere another shove.



Ortega dodged the mordite, and even wounded, he was fast. A bright red dot appeared on his thigh for half a second, and with another hiss-thump-boom, the unseen gunman hit him again. I heard the bones of Ortega's leg break.



Susan threw my staff and rod to me and leapt for Ortega, grabbing his free arm and twisting as if to throw him. Instead, the vampire writhed weirdly, and she wound up tearing the flesh mask from him, peeling it away like a banana skin to reveal the slime-slick, flabby-bodied creature beneath it-the true Ortega. He still held the gun though, and he turned to shoot at me again.



I screamed, "Ventas servitas!" at the top of my lungs, throwing my will at dirt of the pitcher's mound. It whirled up into a miniature cyclone of fine brown soil, forcing the vampire to turn its head and shield its eyes. The second shot went wild as well, and I scrambled to get my blasting rod.



The flying dirt slowed her down, but Susan still went for Ortega's gun hand. It was a mistake. Even with only one leg to support him, Ortega screeched again, twisted, and flung Susan from the pitcher's mound into the third row of seats behind first base. She hit with bone-breaking force and dropped out of sight.



Sudden screeches filled the air, and I looked up to see as many as a dozen of the Red Court, revealed in their true forms, coming into the stadium. Some climbed over the walls, some jumped in from the upper levels, and some came bursting out of private boxes in showers of exploding glass.



I spun toward Ortega, lifting my blasting rod, rammed my will through it, and shouted, "Fuego!" A jet of flame as thick as my arm roared at him, but one of the incoming vampires hit him at the shoulder, dragging him out of the line of fire. The newcomer was set alight though, greasy skin going up like a bonfire, and it screamed hideously as it burned.



I sensed movement behind me, and turned to find Kincaid dashing across the ground. He scooped up the Archive and raced for one of the dugouts. One of the Red Court vamps got in his way. Kincaid's arm blurred, a semiautomatic appearing in it, and without missing a step he put two shots neatly between the vampire's eyes. The vampire started to fall, and as he went by it, Kincaid pumped another half dozen shots into its belly, which erupted in a messy shower of scarlet, and left the vampire screaming and thrashing weakly on the ground.



"Harry, look out!" Thomas screamed.



I didn't look out. I figured on the worst and leapt forward. I heard a vampire hiss as it missed me, and it came rushing up behind me. I turned and unleashed another gout of fire from my blasting rod, but missed. The vampire closed on me, spraying venomous saliva into my face.



I'd been hit with vampire venom before, and the stuff worked fast, particularly in large amounts. But I'd taken the potion to block it, and all this did was make me itch. I used the time while the vampire sprayed me to prepare another blast, and unleashed the strike with the rod pressed against the vamp's flabby body. It scorched a wound in the vampire's belly the size of my fist and blew a two-foot hole in the creature's back. The vampire went into weak spasms, and I kicked it off me, rising.



Seven or eight vampires were within fifty feet of me, and coming fast. Thomas sprinted toward me, a knife gleaming in his hand, and hit one of the vamps from behind. He cut open the vampire's belly with a single slice, and the creature collapsed to the ground. "Harry, get out!"



"No!" I shouted. "Get Susan out of here!"



Thomas gritted his teeth, but changed course. He leapt up onto the first-base dugout and hopped neatly over the rail into the stands.



No help there, and there wasn't time to look for options. I crouched and concentrated, chanting, "Defendre, defendre," in a steady litany. It was difficult to do without my shield bracelet to focus it, but I brought up all the defensive energy I could manage in a dome around me.



The vampires hit it, slamming against it in mindless, shrieking rage. Any one of them could have flipped my car over lengthwise with only a little effort. Their blows against the shield could have crushed concrete within seconds, and I knew I was not going to be able to hold the defense in place for long. Once it went down, they were going to literally tear me limb from limb. I gave the shield my all, and felt them slowly breaking it down.



Then there was a roar, and a flash of brilliant light. A jet of fire streaked over me and took one of the vampires full-on in the head. It burst into flame, screaming and waving its too-thin arms, and went down onto the field, thrashing like a half-crushed bug. My shield collapsed, overloaded, and the bracelet began burning my wrist. I crouched lower.



Another jet of fire went by, incinerating the head of another vampire. All of them stopped, crouching, shrieking in confusion.



Kincaid stood outside the dugout and dropped a smoking shotgun to the ground. He reached into a golf bag next to him, smooth and professional, and drew out another double-barreled shotgun. One of the vampires leapt at him, but Kincaid was too fast. He pulled the trigger, and the shotgun roared. A jet of flame streaked out and went through the vampire, taking this one in the neck, and continuing to the right-field fence, where it blew a hole the size of my face in the wall. There was a sound behind him, and Kincaid spun to shoot the other barrel at a vampire bounding down through the stands above the third-base dugout. He put the shot right down the vampire's throat, literally, and the creature went up in flames. Kincaid discarded that shotgun as well, and reached for the stock of another in his golf bag.



The other vampires leapt at Kincaid when he turned his back.



They got to deal with the Archive instead.



The child stepped out from behind the golf bag, the tenebrous mordite sphere floating between her hands. She released the sphere and made a single gesture.



The little cloud of darkness blurred toward the vampires and streaked into each in turn at the pace of a busy workman's hammer, bang-bang-bang. When the mordite sphere struck them, there was a flash of cold purple light, a swell of darkness, and then the sphere passed on through. It left ash and black bones raining down behind it. I could barely follow the mordite sphere's path, it moved so fast. One second the vampires were all there, and then they were simply gone. Black bones and grey ash littered the ground around me.



Silence fell, and the only thing I could hear was my own ragged breathing and the roaring of my own pulse in my ears. I looked around wildly, but I didn't see Ortega anywhere. The two vampires who had been gutted writhed feebly on the ground. Kincaid drew the last shotgun from the golf bag, and with two more flaming blasts executed them both.



The mordite sphere glided gently back to rest between the Archive's tiny hands, and she stood regarding me for a long and silent moment. There was nothing in her expression. Nothing in her eyes. Nothing. I felt the beginnings of a soulgaze and pulled my face away, fast.



"Who broke the sanctity of the duel first, Kincaid?" asked the Archive.



"Couldn't tell," Kincaid answered. He wasn't so much as breathing hard. "But Dresden was winning."



The Archive stood there a moment more, and then said, "Thank you for letting me pet your kitty, Mister Dresden. And thank you for my name."



That sounded frighteningly like a good-bye, but it was only polite to answer, "You're welcome, Ivy."



The Archive nodded and said, "Kincaid. The box, please."



I looked up to watch Kincaid set the wooden box down on the ground. The Archive sent the mordite sphere gliding slowly down into it, and then closed the lid on the box. "These proceedings are concluded."



I looked around at the bones, dust, and smoldering vampire corpses. "You think?"



The Archive regarded me with neutral eyes and said, "Let's go. It's after my bedtime."



"I'm hungry," Kincaid said, shouldering his golf bag. "We'll hit a drive-through. You can have the cookies."



"Cookies aren't good for me," the Archive said, but she smiled.



Kincaid said, "Dresden, hand me that, will you?"



I looked numbly at the ground where he pointed. One of the shotguns was there. Its barrels were still smoking hot. I picked it up gingerly by the stock and passed it to Kincaid, who wrapped it with the other gun he'd used in some kind of silver-lined blanket. "What the hell are those things?" I asked.



"Incendiary rounds," he said. He passed my dropped staff over to me. "Work real well on the Reds, but they're so hot they warp gun barrels. If you get unlucky, the second shot can blow back into your face, so you have to use throwaway guns."



I nodded thanks and took my staff. "Where can I get some?"



Kincaid grinned. "I know a guy. I'll have him call you. See you, Dresden."



Kincaid and the Archive started out of the stadium. A thought finally made its way through the combat adrenaline and I broke into a sprint toward the first-base dugout. Thomas had simply hopped up onto it. I managed to flop and clamber my way up, then into the stands.



Thomas was already there, on the ground with Susan. He'd taken off her jacket and used it to elevate her feet slightly. It looked as if he'd tilted her head back a little to clear the airway. He looked up and said, "She's unconscious, but she's alive."



I crouched down too, and touched her throat, just to be certain. "How bad is she hurt?"



He shook his head. "No real way to tell."



"We have to get her to a hospital, then," I said, rising.



Thomas caught my arm. "You don't want her waking up, injured and dazed, in a place packed to the roof with weakened prey."



"Then what the hell do we do?"



"Look, if she's not dead, odds are she'll recover." Thomas held up his hand and fished out a ballpoint pen from his pocket. He twisted it and said, "Clear." Then he twisted it again and put it back.



A moment later, Martin came rapidly down the aisle. He somehow made even that look boring, as if he were simply a man wanting to take his seat again before the opening pitch. It was especially impressive since he carried a huge rifle, a military sniper weapon with a telescopic sight and a laser attachment. He set the rifle aside and went over Susan for a moment, feeling here and there, before he said, "She'll be sore."



"You?" I asked. "You were the gunman?"



"Obviously," Martin said. "Why do you think we were in Chicago to begin with?"



"Susan said she was getting her things."



He looked up at me skeptically. "You believed that? I would have thought you knew Susan well enough to know that material things don't hold a lot of interest for her."



"I knew that," I said. "But she said -" I trailed off and shook my head.



Martin looked up and said, "We knew Ortega was coming to kill you. We knew that if he succeeded, he might be able to bring the war to a peaceful conclusion, only to begin it again twenty years from now, from a much stronger position. I was sent to make sure Ortega did not kill you, and to eliminate him if I could."



"Did you?"



Martin shook his head. "He had planned for the contingency. Two of his vassals got to him during the fight. They pulled him out. I don't know how badly he was hurt, but it's likely he'll make it back to Casaverde."



"You want the war to keep going. You're hoping the White Council will destroy the Red Court for you."



Martin nodded.



"How did you find out about the duel?"



Martin didn't answer.



I narrowed my eyes and looked at Thomas.



Thomas put on an innocent expression. "Don't look at me. I'm a drunken, chemical-besotted playboy who does nothing but cavort, sleep, and feed. And even if I had the mind to take a bit of vengeance on the Red Court, I wouldn't have the backbone to actually stand up to anyone." He flashed me a radiant smile. "I'm totally harmless."



"I see," I said. I took a deep breath, and regarded Susan's face quietly for a moment. Then I bent down, got into her pockets, and got the keys to the rental car. "Are you leaving now, Martin?"



"Yes. I don't think our presence will be noticed here, but there's no sense in taking chances."



"Take care of her for me," I said.



Martin looked up at me for a second and then said, in a quiet voice, "Everything in my power. You have my word."



I nodded. "Thank you." I stood up and started for the exits, drawing the coat to cover my gun.



"Where are you going?" Thomas called.



"The airport," I answered. "I've got to meet some people about an old man and a bedsheet."