Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)(97)

The external valets and staff stood around confused by this turn of events, except for one security guard who was fumbling for both his weapon and his radio, shouting into it in a high-pitched, terrified voice.

He got a couple of words out before the doors to the truck rolled up and something that sounded like a broken piece of pneumatic machinery tore his torso to ribbons and sent a scarlet fan of blood onto the wall behind him. What hit the ground wasn’t a person for much longer.

A dozen men in black tactical uniforms came pouring out of the back of the truck, holding suppressed semiautomatic carbines. They opened fire, the sound mostly a fuzzy cloud of clacks, hisses, and whumps.

It was over in maybe three seconds. None of the valets or staff survived. The ones still moving after they fell got bullets to the head.

“Holy shit,” Murphy breathed. Her gun had appeared in her hand.

“Don’t move,” I warned. “Don’t fire. Lara?”

The vampire’s voice was tense. “They aren’t mine.”

“Clear!” snapped one of the soldiers, and I recognized him with a surge of rage. His name was Listen. He was medium-sized, of innocuous build, his head was as smooth as a cue ball, and he had led the tactical aspect of the Fomor’s efforts here in Chicago—which was the polite way to say that he and his turtlenecks had spent years kidnapping minor magical talents and dragging them off to God knew what fate for his masters. He’d also killed or escaped from everyone who had tried to interfere with his mission.

I hate when the bad guys have good help.

Listen walked briskly back to the truck, bowed his head, and said, “Majesty, your will is done.”

“Excellent,” rasped a heavy, burbling voice. There was the sound of footsteps and a being descended from the truck. It stood nearly eight feet in height and reminded me of nothing so much as an enormous toad with an excellent tailor. He wore silk robes that were somehow reminiscent of Edo-style kimonos, but with the smooth lines subtly twisted. Between the design and the bizarre, disturbing imagery of the embroidery upon the sea-colored fabrics of each layer of robes, I was feeling a little queasy.

The guy wearing the robes was no looker, either. His face was too large and lumpy to be human. His mouth was so wide he could have eaten a banana sideways, and his lips were like rubbery, black, rotten fruits of the same variety. His skin was pocked and warty and a sickly blue-green where it wasn’t ghostly pale, and his eyes were huge, watery, protruding, and disturbing. He had hair like withered black seaweed, draping over his head and shoulders in uneven clumps. He moved with a kind of frantic, jerky energy, and my instincts sized him up as someone dangerous and not particularly sane.

King Corb of the Fomor, I presumed.

The Fomor monarch leered down at the corpses for a moment before raising his gaze to Listen again. “Bring us within, Captain.”

Listen snapped to attention and began barking orders to his “men.” The turtlenecks were human, technically, but the Fomor had messed with them, sculpting flesh to their liking. The members of this crew would be quicker, tougher, and stronger than any normal bunch of mortals, and they could be damnably tough to kill, like ghouls. They responded at once, lining up on either side of the doorway.

Corb descended from the truck, spun on his heel, and, with a surprising amount of poise and grace, fell to one knee at the foot of the ramp, his head bowed.

I felt my eyebrows go up.

Footsteps sounded on the ramp once more, heavier this time. A generally humanoid, generally feminine figure in a heavy, hooded cloak of some oddly metallic fabric descended the ramp a deliberate step at a time. Whoever she was, she was taller than Corb and had to unfold herself carefully from the truck. Her bare feet were visible, their proportions perfect, simply huge. They looked like she’d had them bronzed a long time ago, and the bronze had been covered with verdigris and then polished irregularly. It formed lumps and nodes over her skin like molten wax, but flexed and moved as if alive. Flickers of metallic and colored crystals were embedded in that bronze exoflesh.

She reached out a hand to touch Corb on the shoulder as she glided past him, showing more of the same metallic flesh. She was graceful despite her stature, her strides long and purposeful. Corb fell in at her side, a pace behind her. Without looking at him, she extended a hand. Corb reached into his robes and withdrew a length of chain maybe ten feet long from them. One end was attached to a steel band around the base of his throat, mostly concealed by his robes. He handed the other end to the Titanic woman.

She took it without breaking stride and strode into the castle, the soldiers falling in behind their leaders as they went in, weapons up.

“Stars and stones,” I breathed.

A hit was going down.

Wars had begun that way.

I was arrested by a hideous, nauseating apprehension that went deep enough for my toes to have a bad feeling about this.

“Harry,” Murphy hissed. “Get in.”

“I can’t,” I decided. “I’ve got to see what’s happening here.” I leaned down to look at Murphy. “Get them to the island.”

“Why?” Murphy demanded. “There’s no point to it if you aren’t there, too.”

“I’ll be along,” I said. “Cross my heart.”

Murphy’s eyes widened. “You’re scared.”

“I need you to trust me on this,” I said. “There’s no time.”