Skin Game
Page 135
It went like that for a subjective century and a half, and maybe thirty objective seconds. Several suits of armor were crushed and scattered when a flashing, enormous paw shattered the marble column holding up the roof of their display area. Half a dozen pieces of art that might have been Faberg eggs in delicate golden cages were smashed flat when a sledgehammer blow missed me by an inch. At one point, I picked up a cut diamond the size of my fist, screamed, Get rocked! and flung it at Ursiels nose before darting behind another exhibit, this one of rare sacred texts, featuring half a dozen Gutenberg Bibles as the centerpiece.
And then something scary happened.
The roaring stopped.
I froze in place, instantly. Everything got quiet, except for the rushing sound of the flames in the hands of the giant statues, and a rising tide of moaning, terrifying wails coming steadily and unnervingly closer from the rear of the vault.
Something made a metallic clinking sound. Like, maybe the sound a great big foot would make as its blind owner accidentally kicked a fallen gem into something made of precious metal.
Oh, crap.
I looked around, and realized that there was rubble scattered over every inch of floor around me for fifty feet in every direction. I had forgotten that Ursiels bestial nature was not the only one I had to deal with. The Genoskwas intellect had been at work behind it, too, and Id been had.
The Genoskwa had been trying to catch and kill me, surebut he had also been intentionally covering the floor around us with detritus so that there would be no way in hell I could move without making noise.
Then he wouldnt need eyes to catch me and kill me.
Little wizard, rumbled the Genoskwas voice. It had a weirdly modulated quality to it. It was coming from behind a veil, maybe, and I couldnt isolate the direction of its origin. Going to twist your head off your skinny neck. Going to enjoy it.
I had some material I could have thrown back at him, but I didnt dare speak. I would have sounded terrified, anyway. The howls and the eerie presence of the shades continued to grow closer and more intense, and my heart was pounding hard enough to shake my chest. I held my feet perfectly still and tried to turn my head without rustling my clothing at all, scanning for the Genoskwa. I couldnt see him, but his voice was close.
I knew I would only get one chance to move. If I didnt do it right, he would run me down and do exactly what he said hed do, and a weird little fluttery sensation went slithering through my neck at the thought of it. I had to know where he was.
Take off your head like a cap, little wizard, the Genoskwa rumbled, pausing to listen between each sentence. Drink your blood. Like a bottle of pop.
That image was so vivid that I nearly let out a nervous giggle. I caught it just in time and closed my eyes, Listening as hard as I could. I could hear small, faint sounds. Crunching rubble. Weight shifting atop a pile of spilled gems. But it all had the samedistorted tone as the Genoskwas voice, impossible to localize.
Stop behaving like a prey animal, Harry, and use your brain.
Right.
The Genoskwa couldnt hear me and couldnt know exactly where I wasbut sooner or later, if I held still, hed find me. If I muttered the word to a spell to veil my own movement, hed hear that, too. My pounding head was already under enough pressure that I didnt dare try to use magic without a verbal utterance. I could do it, but the psychic feedback was devastating and the last thing I needed was to slip up and take myself out for him. Even using my magical senses might give me awaythe Genoskwa was something of a practitioner himself, and might well be able to feel me extending my aura to detect energy around me.
The shades came closer, and the air in the vault had grown uncomfortably warm with the heat from the melted rock. The heated air around it was rising, and that updraft was what was fanning the fires in the hands of the statues, making them growl quietly.
Draft.
Air brushed across the fine hairs on the back of my hand, flowing gently past me from the exterior of the vault and in toward the hot stone more or less in the center of the huge chamber.
Dont think like a human, Harry. Think like a predator. Ignore sight. Forget hearing. Where would a predator go when stalking his prey?
Downwind.
The Genoskwa would be moving downwind of me, locating me through my scent. It wasnt the same as knowing where he was, but for my purposes it was close enough.
Assuming, of course, that my reasoning was correct. If it wasnt, I was about to trap myself with him and become Harry Dresden, human beverage.
I didnt have much energy left in me for spells, but I had to chance it.
So I called upon Winter, focused my will through my staff and shouted, Glacivallare!
Icy cold rolled out of the staff and solidified into a wall of ice maybe twenty feet long and a foot thick, curved slightly toward me. I prayed that the Genoskwa was on the other side of it, turned, and sprinted, my life depending upon it.
I hadnt gone twenty feet when something hit the wall and shattered it with a crash. I flashed a quick look back over my shoulder to see the Genoskwa as a large, humanoid blur behind a veil that had faltered as tiny flecks of ice landed on the Genoskwa and melted to water. The veil shimmered and fell, and he didnt bother trying to restore it. He recovered his balance after almost a whole half second, and came after me, coming along the ground in a rush, using his huge arms as well as his legs to run.
If Michael hadnt lamed him, the Genoskwa could have claimed his five-cent deposit for my corpse. But though he was on the mend, he still wasnt moving at full speed, and I was able to stay a couple of steps ahead of him. His stench filled my nose, and his huge breathing was terrifying as he came along behind me, tracking me by the frantic sound of my running feet and labored breath.
And then something scary happened.
The roaring stopped.
I froze in place, instantly. Everything got quiet, except for the rushing sound of the flames in the hands of the giant statues, and a rising tide of moaning, terrifying wails coming steadily and unnervingly closer from the rear of the vault.
Something made a metallic clinking sound. Like, maybe the sound a great big foot would make as its blind owner accidentally kicked a fallen gem into something made of precious metal.
Oh, crap.
I looked around, and realized that there was rubble scattered over every inch of floor around me for fifty feet in every direction. I had forgotten that Ursiels bestial nature was not the only one I had to deal with. The Genoskwas intellect had been at work behind it, too, and Id been had.
The Genoskwa had been trying to catch and kill me, surebut he had also been intentionally covering the floor around us with detritus so that there would be no way in hell I could move without making noise.
Then he wouldnt need eyes to catch me and kill me.
Little wizard, rumbled the Genoskwas voice. It had a weirdly modulated quality to it. It was coming from behind a veil, maybe, and I couldnt isolate the direction of its origin. Going to twist your head off your skinny neck. Going to enjoy it.
I had some material I could have thrown back at him, but I didnt dare speak. I would have sounded terrified, anyway. The howls and the eerie presence of the shades continued to grow closer and more intense, and my heart was pounding hard enough to shake my chest. I held my feet perfectly still and tried to turn my head without rustling my clothing at all, scanning for the Genoskwa. I couldnt see him, but his voice was close.
I knew I would only get one chance to move. If I didnt do it right, he would run me down and do exactly what he said hed do, and a weird little fluttery sensation went slithering through my neck at the thought of it. I had to know where he was.
Take off your head like a cap, little wizard, the Genoskwa rumbled, pausing to listen between each sentence. Drink your blood. Like a bottle of pop.
That image was so vivid that I nearly let out a nervous giggle. I caught it just in time and closed my eyes, Listening as hard as I could. I could hear small, faint sounds. Crunching rubble. Weight shifting atop a pile of spilled gems. But it all had the samedistorted tone as the Genoskwas voice, impossible to localize.
Stop behaving like a prey animal, Harry, and use your brain.
Right.
The Genoskwa couldnt hear me and couldnt know exactly where I wasbut sooner or later, if I held still, hed find me. If I muttered the word to a spell to veil my own movement, hed hear that, too. My pounding head was already under enough pressure that I didnt dare try to use magic without a verbal utterance. I could do it, but the psychic feedback was devastating and the last thing I needed was to slip up and take myself out for him. Even using my magical senses might give me awaythe Genoskwa was something of a practitioner himself, and might well be able to feel me extending my aura to detect energy around me.
The shades came closer, and the air in the vault had grown uncomfortably warm with the heat from the melted rock. The heated air around it was rising, and that updraft was what was fanning the fires in the hands of the statues, making them growl quietly.
Draft.
Air brushed across the fine hairs on the back of my hand, flowing gently past me from the exterior of the vault and in toward the hot stone more or less in the center of the huge chamber.
Dont think like a human, Harry. Think like a predator. Ignore sight. Forget hearing. Where would a predator go when stalking his prey?
Downwind.
The Genoskwa would be moving downwind of me, locating me through my scent. It wasnt the same as knowing where he was, but for my purposes it was close enough.
Assuming, of course, that my reasoning was correct. If it wasnt, I was about to trap myself with him and become Harry Dresden, human beverage.
I didnt have much energy left in me for spells, but I had to chance it.
So I called upon Winter, focused my will through my staff and shouted, Glacivallare!
Icy cold rolled out of the staff and solidified into a wall of ice maybe twenty feet long and a foot thick, curved slightly toward me. I prayed that the Genoskwa was on the other side of it, turned, and sprinted, my life depending upon it.
I hadnt gone twenty feet when something hit the wall and shattered it with a crash. I flashed a quick look back over my shoulder to see the Genoskwa as a large, humanoid blur behind a veil that had faltered as tiny flecks of ice landed on the Genoskwa and melted to water. The veil shimmered and fell, and he didnt bother trying to restore it. He recovered his balance after almost a whole half second, and came after me, coming along the ground in a rush, using his huge arms as well as his legs to run.
If Michael hadnt lamed him, the Genoskwa could have claimed his five-cent deposit for my corpse. But though he was on the mend, he still wasnt moving at full speed, and I was able to stay a couple of steps ahead of him. His stench filled my nose, and his huge breathing was terrifying as he came along behind me, tracking me by the frantic sound of my running feet and labored breath.
