Death Masks

Back at my apartment, I called Murphy on her personal cell phone. I used simple sentences and told her everything.

"Dear God," Murphy said. Can I summarize or what? "They can infect the city with this curse thing?"

"Looks like," I said.

"How can I help?"

"We've got to keep them from getting it into the air. They won't be on public transportation. Find out if any chartered planes are taking off between seven and eight-thirty. Helicopters too."

"Hang on," Murphy said. I heard computer keys clicking, Murphy saying something to someone, a police radio. A moment later she said, voice tense, "There's trouble."

"Yeah?"

"There are a pair of detectives heading out to arrest you. Looks like Homicide wants you for questioning. There's no warrant listed."

"Crap." I took a deep breath. "Rudolph?"

"Brownnosing rat," Murphy muttered. "Harry, they're almost to your place. You've only got a few minutes."

"Can you decoy them? Get some manpower to the airport?"

"I don't know," Murphy said. "I'm supposed to be a mile from this case. And it isn't as though I can announce that terrorists are about to use a biological weapon on the city."

"Use Rudolph," I said. "Tell him off the record that I said the Shroud is leaving town on a chartered flight from the airport. Let him take the heat for it if they don't find anything."

Murphy let out a harsh little laugh. "There are times when you can be a clever man, Harry. It takes me by surprise."

"Why, thank you."

"What else can I do?"

I told her.

"You're kidding."

"No. We may need the manpower, and SI is out of this one."

"Just when I had hope for your intelligence, too."

"You'll do it?"

"Yeah. Can't promise anything, but I'll do it. Get moving. They're less than five minutes away."

"Gone. Thank you, Murph."

I hung up the phone, opened my closet, and dug into a couple of old cardboard boxes I kept at the back until I found my old canvas duster. It was battered and torn in a couple of places, but it was clean. It didn't have the same reassuring weight as the leather duster, but it did more to hide my gun than my jacket. And it made me look cool. Well, maybe cooler, anyway.

I grabbed my things, locked up my place behind me, and got into Martin's rental car. Martin wasn't in it. Susan sat behind the wheel. "Hurry," I said. She nodded and pulled out.

A few minutes later, no one had pulled us over. "I take it Martin isn't helping."

Susan shook her head. "No. He said he had other duties that took precedence. He said that I did, too."

"What did you say?"

"That he was a narrow-minded, hidebound, anachronistic, egotistical bastard."

"No wonder he likes you."

Susan smiled a little and said, "The Fellowship is his life. He serves a cause."

"What is it to you?" I asked.

Susan remained silent for a long time as we drove across town. "How did it go?"

"We caught the impostor. He told us where the bad guys would be later tonight."

"What did you do with him?"

I told her.

She looked at me for a while and then said, "Are you all right?"

"Fine."

"You don't look fine."

"It's done."

"But are you all right?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm glad you didn't see it."

Susan asked, "Oh? Why?"

"You're a girl. Beating up bad guys is a boy thing."

"Chauvinist pig," Susan said.

"Yeah. I get it from Murphy. She's a bad influence."

We hit the first traffic sign directing us toward the stadium, and Susan asked, "Do you really think you can win?"

"Yeah. Hell, Ortega is only the third or fourth most disturbing thing I've tangled with today."

"But even if you do win, what does it change?"

"Me getting killed now. That way, I get to be killed later tonight instead."

Susan laughed. There was nothing happy in it. "You don't deserve a life like this."

I squinted my eyes and made my voice gravelly. "Deserve's got nothin'-"

"So help me God, if you quote Clint Eastwood at me, I'm wrapping this car around a telephone pole."

"Do you feel lucky, punk?" I smiled and turned my left hand palm up.

I felt her hand settle lightly on mine a moment later, and she said, "A girl's got to draw the line somewhere."

We rode the rest of the way to the stadium in silence, holding hands.

I hadn't ever been to Wrigley when it was empty. That wasn't really the point of a stadium. You went there to be among about a bajillion people and see something happen. This time, with acres and acres of unoccupied asphalt, the stadium at its center looked huge and somehow more skeletal than when it was filled with vehicles and cheering thousands. The wind sighed through the stadium, gusting, whistling, and moaning. Twilight had fallen, and the unlit street lamps cast spidery shadows over the lots. Darkness gaped in the arches and doorways of the stadium, empty as the eyes of a skull.

"Thank God that isn't too creepy or anything," I muttered.

"What now?" Susan asked.

Another car pulled in behind us. I recognized it from McAnnally's the night before. The car pulled up maybe fifty feet away and rolled to a stop. Ortega got out, and leaned down to say something to the driver, a man with a dark complexion and amber-tone glasses. There were two more men in the backseat, though I couldn't see much of them. I was betting they were all Red Court.

"Let's not look scared," I said, and got out of the car.

I didn't look at Ortega, but drew out my staff with me, planted it on the ground, and stared at the stadium. The wind caught my coat, and blew it back enough to show the gun on my hip now and again. I'd traded in my sweats for dark jeans and a black silk shirt. The Mongols or somebody wore silk shirts because they would catch arrows as they entered wounds, and enable them to pull barbed arrowheads out without ripping their innards apart. I wasn't planning on getting shot with barbed arrows, but weirder things have happened.

Susan got out and walked up to stand beside me. She stared at the stadium too, and the wind blew her hair back the same way it did my coat. "Very nice," she murmured, hardly moving her mouth. "That's a good look on you. Ortega's driver is about to wet his pants."

"You say the nicest things to me."

We just stood there for a couple of minutes, until I heard a deep, rhythmic rumbling-one of those annoyingly loud bass stereos in some moron's car. The rumbling got louder; then there was a squealing of tires taking a tight turn, and Thomas pulled into the lot in a different white sports car than I'd seen him in the night before. The music got louder as he sped across the lot and parked his car diagonally across the lines I'd unconsciously respected when I'd parked. He killed the stereo and got out, a small cloud of smoke emerging with him. It wasn't cigarette smoke.

"Paolo!" Thomas caroled. He wore tight blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer logo. The laces to one of his combat boots were untied, and he carried a bottle of scotch in his hand. He pulled from it cheerfully and wove a drunken line to Ortega. Thomas offered out the bottle, his balance wobbling. "Have a swig?"

Ortega slapped the bottle from Thomas's hand. It shattered on the ground.

"Shpoilshport," Thomas slurred, wavering. "Hola, Harry! Hola, Susan!" He waved at us, and all but fell down. "I was going to offer you some too, but that plan's been blown all to hell now."

"Maybe another time," Susan said.

A blue light appeared in one of the tunnels from the stadium. A moment later, a vehicle somewhere between a compact car and a golf cart rolled into the parking lot, a whirling blue bubble light flashing on its roof. With the quiet hum of electric motors, it zipped over to us and stopped. Kincaid sat behind the steering wheel and nodded to the rear of the vehicle. "In. We're set up inside."

We walked over to the security cart. Ortega started to get on, but I held up my hand to him. "Ladies first," I said quietly, and gave Susan my hand as she got on. I followed her. Ortega and Thomas followed. Thomas had put on a pair of headphones and was bobbing his chin in a vague fashion that was probably supposed to be in rhythm.

Kincaid started up the cart and called over his shoulder, "Where is the old man?"

"Gone," I said. I jerked a thumb at Susan. "Had to go to the bench."

Kincaid looked from me to Susan and shrugged. "Nice bench."

He drove us through several passages in the stadium, somehow finding his way despite the fact that no lights were on, and I could barely see. Eventually we rolled out onto the field from one of the bullpens. The stadium was dark but for where three spotlights basted the pitcher's mound and first and third base in pools of light. Kincaid drove to the pitcher's mound, stopped, and said, "Everyone out."

We did. Kincaid parked the cart over home plate, then padded through the shadows to the visiting team's dugout. "They're here," he said quietly.

The Archive emerged from the dugout, carrying a small, carved wooden box before her. She wore a dark dress with no frills or ruffles, and a grey cape held closed with a silver brooch. She was still little, still adorable, but something in her bearing left no illusions about the difference in her apparent age and her knowledge and capability.

She walked to the pitcher's mound, not looking at anyone, her focus on the box she carried. She set it down, very carefully, and then lifted the lid from the top of the box and stepped back.

A wave of nauseating cold flooded out when she opened the box. It went past me, through me. I was the only one there to react to it. Susan put her hand on my arm, kept her eyes on Ortega and Thomas, and asked, "Harry?"

My last meal had been a drive-through taco on the way back from the meeting with Cassius, but it was trying to leave. I kept it down and forced the sickening cold away from me with an effort of will. The sensation lessened. "Fine," I said. "I'm fine."

The Archive looked up at me, child features solemn. "You know what is inside the box?"

"I think so. I've never actually seen it."

"Seen what?" Thomas asked.

Instead of answering, the Archive drew a small box out of her pocket. She opened the box and delicately plucked out an insect as long as her own fingers-a brown scorpion-by its tail. She looked around to make sure she had everyone's attention. She did. Then she dropped the scorpion into the box.

There was an instant, immediate sound, somewhere between a wildcat's scream and the sizzle of bacon hitting a hot skillet. Something that looked vaguely like a cloud of ink in clear water floated up out of the box. It was about the size of a baby's head. Dozens of shadowy tendrils held the scorpion, drawing it up into the air along with the inky cloud. Dark violet flickers of flame played over the insect's shell for all of two or three seconds-and then it simply crumbled, carapace falling away in flakes and dust.

The cloudy mass rose up to a height of about five feet, before the Archive murmured a word. It stopped in place, bobbing gently, holding there.

"Damn," Thomas said, he took the earphones out. Music with many electric guitars sounded tinnily from them. "And this is what?"

"Mordite," I said quietly. "Deathstone."

"Yes," the Archive said.

Ortega drew in a slow breath, and nodded in understanding.

"Deathstone, huh?" Thomas said. "It sort of looks like someone spray-painted a soap bubble. And gave it tentacles."

"It isn't a soap bubble," I said. "There's a solid piece inside. The energies it carries in it are what create that shroud effect around it."

Thomas poked a finger at it. "What does it do?"

I caught his wrist before he could touch it, and pushed his hand away. "It kills. Hence the name deathstone, you half-wit."

"Oh," Thomas said, nodding with drunken sagacity. "It looked cool when it gacked that little thing, but so what? It's a bug zapper."

"If you disrespect this thing it's going to get you killed," I said. "It would kill anything living exactly the same way. Anything. It's not from our world."

"It's extraterrestrial?" asked Susan.

"You do not understand, Miss Rodriguez," Ortega said quietly. "Mordite is not from this galaxy or this universe. It is not of our reality."

I had reservations about Ortega's presence on the home-team roster, but I nodded. "It's from Outside. It's - congealed antilife. A chip of this stuff makes nuclear waste look like secondhand smoke. Being near it draws the life off you bit by bit. If you touch it, it kills you. Period."

"Precisely," said the Archive. She stepped forward to look at both Ortega and me. "An enchantment binds the particle in place. It is also sensitive to applied will. The duelists will face each other, the mordite between them. Will it toward your opponent. He with the greatest force of will controls the mordite. The duel will end when it has devoured one of you."

Gulp.

The Archive continued. "Seconds will observe from first and third bases, facing their duelist's opponent. Mister Kincaid will ensure that no undue interference is perpetrated by either second. I have instructed him to do so with extreme prejudice."

Thomas wobbled a little and eyed the Archive. "Eh?"

The girl faced him and said, "He'll kill you if you interfere."

"Oh," Thomas said cheerfully. "Gotcha, punkin."

Ortega glared at Thomas and made a disgusted sound. Thomas found something else to look at and backed a prudent step away.

"I will monitor both duelists to ensure that no energies are employed on their behalf. I, too, will resolve any infractions with extreme prejudice. Do you understand?"

Ortega nodded. I said, "Yeah."

"Are there any questions, gentlemen?" the Archive asked.

I shook my head. Ortega did too.

"Each of you may make a brief statement," said the Archive.

Ortega drew a band of black and silver beads from his pocket. Without making an effort, I could feel the defensive energies bound up within them. He regarded me with casual mistrust as he bound the bracelet to his left side and said, "This can end in only one way."

In answer, I fished one of the antivenom potions from my pocket, popped the top, and slugged it down. I burped and said, "Excuse me."

"You've really got class, Dresden," Susan said.

"Class oozes out my every orifice," I agreed. I passed her my staff and rod. "Hold these for me."

"Seconds, please retire to your positions," said the Archive.

Susan put her hand on my arm, fingers clenching tight for a second. I reached up and touched her hand. She let go and backed away to third base.

Thomas offered to high-five Ortega. Ortega glared. Thomas smiled a Colgate smile and swaggered over to first base. He drew a silver flask of something from his hip pocket on the way, and took a sip.

The Archive looked back and forth between me and Ortega. She was standing on the pitcher's mound, next to the floating glob of chilling energy, so she was a shade taller than Ortega and a shade shorter than me. Her face was solemn, even grim. It didn't sit well on a child who should have been getting up for school in the morning.

"Are you both resolved to this duel?"

"I am," Ortega said.

"Uh- huh." I nodded.

The Archive nodded. "Gentlemen. Present your right hands, please."

Ortega lifted his right arm, palm faced toward me. I mirrored him. The Archive gestured, and the mordite sphere floated up until it hovered precisely halfway between Ortega and me. Tension gathered against my palm, an invisible and silent pressure. It felt vaguely like holding my hand against a recirculating outlet in a swimming pool-it was a tenuous thing, that felt like it might easily slide to one side.

If it did, I'd get to see the mordite up close and personal. My heart skittered over a couple of beats, and I took a deep breath, trying to focus and ready myself. If I was Ortega, I'd want to open up with everything I had in the first heartbeat of the contest and end it almost before it began. I took a couple of deep breaths and narrowed my focus, my thoughts, until the pressure against my hand and the deadly darkness a few feet away from it were all that existed.

"Begin," said the Archive. She backed quickly toward home plate.

Ortega let out a shout, a battle cry, his body dipping slightly, hips twisting, shoving his hand forward like a man trying to close a vault door with one arm. His will flooded toward me, wild and strong, and the pressure of it drove me back onto my heels. The mordite sphere zipped across three of the four feet between it and me.

Ortega's will was strong. Really, really strong. I tried to divert it, to overcome it and stop the sphere. For a panicked second I had nothing. The sphere kept drifting closer to me. A foot. Ten inches. Six inches. Small tendrils of inky darkness drifted out from the cloud around the mordite, reaching out blindly toward my fingers.

I gritted my teeth, hardened my will, and stopped the thing five inches from my hand. I tried to mount up some momentum of my own, but Ortega held strong against me.

"Don't draw this out, boy," Ortega said through clenched teeth. "Your death will save lives. Even if you kill me, my vassals at Casaverde are sworn to hunt you down. You and everyone you know and love."

The sphere came a bit closer. "You said you wouldn't harm them if I agreed to the duel," I growled.

"I lied," Ortega said. "I came here to kill you and end this war. Anything else is immaterial."

"You bastard."

"Stop fighting it, Dresden. Make it painless for yourself. If you kill me, they will be executed. By surrendering, you preserve them. Your Miss Rodriguez. The policewoman. The investigator you apprenticed under. The owner of that bar. The Knight and his family. The old man in the Ozarks. The wolf-children at the university. All of them."

I snarled, "Buddy, you just said the wrong thing."

I let the anger Ortega's words had ignited flood down through my arm. A cloud of scarlet sparks erupted against the mordite sphere, and it started creeping the other way.

Ortega's face became strained, his breathing heavier. He didn't waste any effort on words now. His eyes darkened until they were entirely black and inhuman. There were ripples, here and there, under the surface of his skin-the flesh mask that contained the vaguely batlike monster those of the Red Court really were. The monstrous Ortega, the true Ortega, stirred underneath the false human shell. And he was afraid.

The sphere crept closer. Ortega renewed his efforts with another war cry. But the sphere made it to the midway point, and got closer to him.

"Fool," Ortega said in a gasp.

"Murderer," I said, and shoved the sphere another foot closer to him.

His jaw clenched harder, the muscles in his face bulging. "You'll destroy us all."

"Starting with you." The sphere darted a little nearer.

"You are a selfish, self-righteous madman."

"You murder and enslave children," I said. I shoved the mordite sphere to within a foot of him. "You threaten the people I love." I shoved it closer still. "How does it feel, Ortega. Being too weak to protect yourself. How does it feel to know you are about to die?"

In answer, a slow smile crept over his face. His shoulders moved a little, and I saw that one of his arms hung limply at his side, like an empty sleeve. A small bulge appeared just to one side of his stomach, like a gun being held in an overcoat pocket.

I stared at it in shock. He'd pulled his real arm out of the flesh mask. He was holding a gun on me.

"How does it feel?" Ortega asked, voice very quiet. "Why don't you tell me?"