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pumping it, blood loss is mostly about leakage and then the mortally crippled
vampire fell, twitching and dying as the stake of wood through its heart put
an end to its unlife.
I felt Drulinda coming, more than I saw it happen, the cold presence of a
Black Court vampire in a fury rubbing abrasively against my wizard s senses.
"Thomas!"
My brother turned in time to duck a blow so swift I didn t even see it. He
returned it with one of his own, but Drulinda, though new to the trade, was a
master vampire, a creature with its own terrible will and power. Thomas had
fought other Black Court vamps before but not a master.
He was on the defensive from the outset. Though my brother was unthinkably
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strong and swift when drawing upon his vampiric nature, he wasn t strong or
swift enough. I lay sprawled on the ground, still half-paralyzed by the pain
in the left half of my body, and tried to think of what to do next.
"Get out!" I screamed at the bistro. "Get out of here, people! Get the hell
out now!"
While I screamed, Drulinda slammed my brother s back into a metal security
grate so hard that it left a broad smear of his pale red blood on its bars.
People started hurrying out of the bistro, running for the parking lot.
Drulinda looked over her shoulder and let out another hissing squall of rage.
At this opening, Thomas managed to get a grip on her arm, set his feet, and
swing her into the wall, sending cracks streaking through the concrete. On the
rebound, he swung her up and around and then down, smashing her down onto the
floor, then up from that and into a security mesh again, crushing tile and
bending metal with every impact.
I heard a scream and looked up to see Ennui fall from her impossibly high
black heels in her tiny, tight black dress, as she tried to flee the bistro.
A horribly disfigured hand had reached out from the rubble over the crushed
vampire, and now held her.
I ran for the girl as my brother laid into Drulinda. My left arm wasn t
talking to me, and I fumbled the second canister out of my left jacket pocket
with my right arm, then dumped garlic over the outstretched vampire s hand.
It began smoking and spasming. Ennui screamed as the crushing grip broke her
ankle. I stood up in frustration and started stomping down on the vampire s
arm. Supernaturally strong it might be, but its bones were made of bone, and
it couldn t maintain its grip on the girl without them.
It took a lot of stomping, but I was finally able to pull the girl free. I
tried to get her to her feet, but her weight came down on her broken ankle,
and from there it came down on my wounded shoulder. I went down to one knee,
and it was all I could do not to fall.
I almost didn t notice when my brother flew through the air just over my head,
smashed out what had to be the last remaining pane of glass at the mall
entrance, and landed limply in the parking lot.
I felt Drulinda s presence coming up behind me.
The vampire let out a dusty laugh. "I thought it was just some poor pretty boy
to play with. Silly me."
I fumbled with the canister for a second, and then whirled, flinging its
contents at Drulinda in a slewing arc.
The vampire blurred to one side, dodging the garlic with ease. She looked
battered and was covered with dust. Her undead flesh was approximately the
consistency of wood, and so it wasn t cut and damaged so much as chipped and
crushed. Her clothes were torn and ruined and none of that mattered. She was
just as functional, just as deadly as she had been before the fight.
I dropped the canister and drew forth my pentacle amulet, lifting it as a
talisman against her.
The old bit with the crucifix works on the Black Court but it isn t purely
about Christianity. They are repelled not by the holy symbol itself, but by
the faith of the one holding it up against them. I d seen vampires repulsed by
crosses, crucifixes, strips of paper written with holy symbols by a Shinto
priest once even a Star of David.
Me, I used the pentacle, because that s what I believed in. The five-pointed
star, to me, represented the five elements of earth, air, water, fire, and
spirit, bound within the solid circle of mortal will. I believed that magic
was a force intended to be used to create, to protect, and to preserve. I
believed that magic was a gift that had to be used responsibly and wisely and
that it especially had to be used against creatures like Drulinda, against
literal, personified evil, to protect those who couldn t protect themselves.
That s what I thought, and I d spent my life acting in accordance with it.
I believed.
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Pale blue light began to spill from the symbol and Drulinda stopped with a
hiss of sudden rage.
"You," she said after a few seconds. "I have heard of you. The wizard.
Dresden."
I nodded slowly. Behind her, the fire from my earlier spell was spreading. The
power was out, and I had no doubt that Drulinda and her former security-guard
lackeys had disabled the alarms. It wouldn t take long for a fire to go insane
in this place, once it got its teeth sunk in. We needed to get out.
"Go," I mumbled at Ennui.
She sobbed and started crawling for the exit, while I held Drulinda off with
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