Blood Rites (33 page)

"Which is one reason you haven't seen me," Kincaid answered. "There's no point to this. If we start shooting, the kid's going to get hit. Neither of us has an interest in that."

"I'm supposed to believe you give a damn about him?" Ebenezar snarled.

"Half a damn, maybe," Kincaid said. "I sort of like him. But what I meant was there's no profit for either of us in killing him."

"Put the damned guns down!" I choked. "And stop talking about me like I'm a kid who isn't here."

"Why are you here?" Ebenezar demanded, ignoring me.

"I'm a hired gun," Kincaid said. "Dresden hired me. Do the math, Blackstaff. Of all people you should know how it goes." The tone of Kincaid's voice changed to something thoughtful. "But the kid doesn't know what we do. Does he?"

"Harry, get
down
," Ebenezar said, speaking to me again.

"You want me down?" I said. I met Ebenezar's eyes and said, "Then I want your word you aren't going to open up on Kincaid until we've talked."

"Dammit, boy. I'm not giving my word to that—"

Anger made my voice lash out, hard and sharp. "Not him. Give me your word, sir. Now."

The old man's gaze wavered and he lifted his forward hand from the shotgun, fingers spread in a conciliatory gesture. He let the barrel ease down. "All right. My word to you, Hoss."

Kincaid exhaled slowly through his teeth. I felt his weight shift behind me.

I glanced back. His gun was half lowered. "Yours too, Kincaid."

"I'm working for you right now, Dresden," he said. "You already have it."

"Then put the gun away."

To my surprise, he did, though his empty eyes remained fastened on Ebenezar.

"What the hell was that about?" I demanded.

"Defending myself," Kincaid said.

"Don't give me that crap," I said.

Anger touched Kincaid's voice. It was a cold thing that lined his words with frost. "Self-defense. If I'd known your fucking wheelman was Blackstaff McCoy, I'd have been in another state by now, Dresden. I want nothing to do with him."

"It's a little late for that now," I told him. I glared at Ebenezar. "What are you doing?"

"Taking care of a problem," the old man said. He kept his eyes on Kincaid while he drew the gun back into the truck. "Harry, you don't know this"—his mouth twisted with bitter revulsion—"this thing. You don't know what it's done."

"You're one to talk," Kincaid replied. "Gorgeous work at Casaverde, by the way; Russian satellite for a measured response to Archangel. Very nice."

I whirled on Kincaid. "Stop it."

Kincaid met my eyes, calm and defiant. "Permission to engage in philosophical debate with the hypocrite, sir?"

Anger hit me in a red wave, and before I realized what I was doing I was up in Kincaid's face, shoving my nose at his. "Shut your mouth. Now. This man took me in when no one else would, and it probably saved my life. He taught me that magic, that
life
was more than killing and power. You might be a badass, Kincaid, but you aren't worth the mud that falls off his goddamned boots. If it came to it, I'd trade your life for his without a second thought. And if I see you trying to provoke him again I'll kill you myself. Do you understand me?"

There was a second where I felt the beginnings of the almost violent psychic pressure that accompanies a soulgaze. Kincaid must have felt it coming on, too. He let his eyes slip out of focus, turned away from me, and started unpacking a box in the van. "I understand you," he said.

I clenched my hands as hard as I could and closed my eyes. I tried not to move my lips while I counted to ten and got the blaze of my temper under control. After a few seconds I took a couple of steps back from Kincaid and shook my head. I leaned against the fender of Ebenezar's old Ford and got myself under control.

Blazing anger had gotten me into way too many bad situations, historically speaking. I knew better than to indulge it like that—but at the same time it felt good to let off a little steam. And dammit, I'd had a good reason to slap Kincaid down. I couldn't believe that he would have the temerity to compare himself to my old teacher. In any sense.

Hell, from what Ebenezar had said, Kincaid wasn't even human.

"I'm sorry," I said a minute later. "That he was trying to push your buttons, sir."

There was a significant beat before Ebenezar answered. "It's nothing, Hoss," he said. His voice was rough. "No need to apologize."

I looked up and stared at the old man. He wouldn't meet my eyes. Not because he was afraid of a soulgaze beginning, either. He'd insisted on it within an hour of meeting me. I still remembered it as sharply as every other time I'd looked on someone's soul. I still remembered the old man's oak-tree strength, his calm, his dedication to doing what he felt was right. And more than simply looking like a decent person, Ebenezar had lived an example for an angry and confused young wizard.

Justin DuMorne had taught me
how
to do magic. But it was Ebenezar who had taught me
why
. That magic came from the heart, from the essence of what the wizard believed—from who and what he chose to be. That the power born into any wizard carried with it the responsibility to use it to help his fellow man. That there were things worth protecting, defending, and that the world could be more than a jungle where the strong thrived and the weak were devoured.

Ebenezar was the only man on the planet to whom I regularly applied an honorific. As far as I was concerned, he was the only one who truly deserved it.

But a soulgaze wasn't a lie-detector test. It shows you the core of another person, but it doesn't shine lights into every shadowy corner of the human soul. It doesn't mean that they can't lie to you.

Ebenezar avoided my eyes. And he looked ashamed.

"There's work to be done, Ebenezar," I said in a measured tone. "I don't know what you know about Kincaid, but he knows his business. I asked him here. I need his help."

"Yes," Ebenezar agreed.

"I need yours too," I said. "Are you in?"

"Yes," he said. I thought I heard something like pain in his voice. "Of course."

"Then we move now. We talk later."

"Fine."

I nodded. Murphy had appeared at some point, now dressed in jeans, a dark shirt, and the Red Cross hat and jacket Kincaid had given her. She had her gun belt on, and she held herself a little differently, so I figured she had strapped on her Kevlar vest.

"All right," I said, stepping over to the van. "Ebenezar is going to shut down Mavra, or at least throw a wet blanket over anything she can do. You got everything you need, sir?"

Ebenezar grunted in the affirmative and patted a pair of old leather saddlebags he had tossed over his shoulder.

"Right," I said. "That means that our main problems should be the Renfields and their darkhounds. Guns and teeth. We'll want to get inside and down to the basement if we can. Then if bullets start flying, it should keep them from killing people upstairs and next door."

"What's the rest of the plan?" Kincaid asked.

"Kill the vampires, save the hostages," I said.

"For the record," Kincaid said, "I was hoping for an answer that vaguely hinted at a specific tactical doctrine rather than spouting off general campaign objectives."

I started to snap at him but reined in my temper. This wasn't the time for it. "You've done this the most," I said. "What do you suggest?"

Kincaid looked at me for a moment and then nodded. He glanced at Murphy and said, "Something in a Mossberg. Can you handle a shotgun?"

"Yeah," Murphy said. "These are close quarters, though. We'd need something heavy like that to stop a charge, but the barrel would need to be cut short."

Kincaid gave her a look, and said, "That would be an illegal weapon." Then he reached into the van and handed her a shotgun with a barrel that had been cut down to end just above the forward grip. Murphy snorted and checked out the shotgun while Kincaid rattled around in the white minivan again.

Instead of a second shotgun, though, he drew a weapon made of plain, nonreflective steel from the van. It was modeled after a boar spear of the Middle Ages, a shaft about five feet long with a cross-brace thrusting out on two sides at the base of the spear tip—a foot and a half of deadly, matte-black blade as wide as my hand at the base, and tapering down to a fine point at the tip. There was enough mass to the spear to make me think that he could as easily chop and slash with the edges of the spearhead as thrust with the tip. The butt end of the spear ended at some kind of bulbous-looking cap of metal, maybe just a counterweight. A similar double protrusion bulged out from the spear shaft at the base of the blade.

"Spear and magic helmet," I said in my best Elmer Fudd voice. "Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting vampires."

Kincaid gave me the kind of smile that would make dogs break into nervous howls. "You got your stick ready there, Dresden?"

"You should go with a shotgun," Murphy told Kincaid.

Kincaid shook his head. "Can't shove the shotgun into a charging vampire or hellhound and hold them off with the cross-brace," he said. He settled the spear into his grip and did something to the handle. The beam of a flashlight clicked on from one side of the bulge at the base of the spearhead. He tapped the other one with a finger. "Besides, got incendiary rounds loaded zip-gun style in either end. If I need them, bang."

"In the butt end too?" I asked.

He reversed his grip on the spear and showed me the metal casing. "Pressure trigger on that one," he said. Kincaid dropped the spear's point down and held the haft close to his body, somehow managing to make the weapon look like a casual and appropriate accessory. "Shove it hard against the target and boom. Based it on the bang sticks those
National Geographic
guys made for diving with sharks."

I looked from the gadget-readied spear and body armor to my slender staff of plain old wood and leather duster.

"My dick is bigger than your dick," I said.

"Heh," Kincaid said. He draped a rope of garlic around his neck, then tossed another one to me, and a third to Murphy.

Murphy eyed the garlic. "I thought the vampires were going to be asleep. I mean, they staked Dracula in his coffin, right?"

"You're thinking of the movie," Kincaid said. He passed me a web belt with a canteen and a pouch on it. The pouch contained a medical kit, a roll of duct tape, a road flare, and a flashlight. The canteen had masking tape on the lid, and block letters in permanent marker identified it as holy water. "Read the book. Older or stronger members of the Black Court might not be totally incapacitated by sunlight."

"Might not even inconvenience Mavra," I said. "Stoker's Dracula ran around in broad daylight. But between daylight and Ebenezar, Mavra shouldn't have much in the way of powers. If there are any Black Court on their feet who want to come for us, they'll have to do it the dirty way."

"Which is why I got you a surprise, Dresden."

"Oh, good," I said. "A surprise. That's sure to be fun."

Kincaid reached into the van and presented me with a futuristic-looking weapon, a gun. It had a round tank the size of a gumball machine attached to its frame, and for a second I thought I'd been handed a pistol-sized flame thrower. Then I recognized it, cleared my throat, and said, "This is a paintball gun."

"It's a high-tech weapon," he said. "And it isn't loaded with paint. The ammunition is interspersed holy water and garlic loads. It'll hurt and frighten darkhounds and it will chew holes in any vamps that are moving around."

"While not putting any holes in us," Murphy chimed in. "Or in innocent bystanders."

"Okay," I said. "But this is a paintball gun."

"It's a weapon," Murphy said. "And a weapon that will do harm to the bad guys while not hurting your allies. That makes it a damned good one for you for such close quarters. You're good in a fight but you don't have close-quarters firearms or military training, Harry. Without ingrained fire discipline, you're as likely to kill one of us as the bad guys."

"She's right," Kincaid said. "Relax, Dresden. It's sound technology, and a good tool for teamwork. We do this simple. I'm on point. Then the shotgun. Then you, Dresden. I see a Renfield with a gun, and I'm going to drop flat. Murphy handles it from there. If we get a vampire or a darkhound, I'll crouch and hold it off with the spear. The two of you hit it with everything you can. Push it back until I can pin it on the spear. Then kill it."

"How?" Murphy asked. "Stakes?"

"Screw stakes," Kincaid said. He held out a heavy machete in an olive-drab sheath to Murphy. "Take off its head."

She clipped the machete onto her belt. "Gotcha."

"The three of us together should be able to take one vamp down the hard way if we're alert. But if one of them closes on us, we're probably going to die," Kincaid said. "The best way to stay alive is to hit them fast and stay on the offensive. Once we've put down any unfriendlies, you two can go save the hostages or take the Renfields to therapy or tap dance or whatever. If things go south, stay together and come straight back out. McCoy should have the truck out front and ready where he can see the door."

"I will," Ebenezar agreed.

"Okay," Kincaid said. "Anyone have any questions?"

"Why do they sell hot dogs in packages of ten but hot dog
buns
in packages of eight?" I said.

Everyone glared at me. I should probably leave off wizarding and chase my dream of becoming a stand-up comedian.

Instead, I put the toy gun in my right hand, my staff in my left, and said, "Let's go."

I drove the Red Cross van up to the shelter. I pulled in right in front, put it in park, and said, "You two go in first. I'm sure whoever the vamps have working for them will recognize me, at least by description. Outside chance they'll know Murph, too, but the uniform might make them play along until you can get any bystanders out of the building."

"How should I do that?" Kincaid asked.