Skin Game
Page 75
As the rest of the pack passed the spot, the suits dodged around the cloud of grey mist, and the two who had stopped gave their packmates a startled, confused look and then took off in belated pursuit again, obviously straining to catch up. That was when I realized what Id just seen, and I went by the cloud of mist cackling madly.
Mind fog. Better than ten years ago, a foe had used the enchanted mist to blanket an entire Wal-Mart store, rendering the memory of everyone inside it temporarily nonfunctional and effectively blurring the previous hour or so of experience beyond recall. Bob and I had worked out the specifics of how the spell must have operated in the aftermath of the case. Obviously, Butters and Bob had, between them, figured out how to can the stuff.
Butters rocketed on down the street, dodging around a couple of slow-moving cars, used his lightpole-lariat again twice in quick succession, and careened onto Michigan Avenue, heading into the heart of downtown, where the towers and lights of Chicago burned brightest in the freezing haze.
That gave even the demonic suits pause. Cities arent just streets and buildingsthey are collectives of sheer will, of the determination of every person who helped build them and every soul whose work and life maintains them. To something from the Nevernever, a place like downtown Chicago is an alien citadel, a source of power and terror. Mordor, basically. (One does not simply walk into Mordorexcept that was exactly what everyone in the story did anyway.)
Similarly, Binders goons were not sufficiently impressed with the Loop to let it stop them from pursuing Butters. They put on a surge of speed and gained on him, and for a moment, it looked like they might nab him againbut he hurled a second glass globe of forget-me mist to the street and disrupted the pursuit at exactly the right moment. Butters let out a shriek of terrified defiance and shook his fist at his pursuers as several staggered in confusion, stumbling into their packmates.
Then the Genoskwa appeared out of nowhere on the sidewalk in front of a caf and kicked a stone planter the size of a hot tub directly into Butterss path.
Butters had maybe a whole second to react and nowhere near enough time to steer around the planter. The Genoskwa had acted with calm, precise timing. Butters did the only thing he could do: He let go of the skateboard strap and leapt into the air.
He wasnt wearing padding and he didnt have a helmet. That dopey little skateboard had been moving at thirty miles an hour, and all that waited to receive him was cold asphalt. If hed been in a car with an airbag, Im sure hed have been finebut he wasnt.
I ground my teeth and prepared a spherical shield to catch him withbut while that would protect him from the fall, it would also mean that he could be briefly held inside it until his momentum was spent. Without the skateboard, the suits or the Genoskwa would catch him in a few heartbeats, and Iwould be forced to fight to defend him, bringing my mission to an unfortunate conclusion.
So be it. You dont leave friends, even friends twisted up with mistrust, to the monsters.
But instead of falling onto the street and splattering, or into my shield and getting us both subsequently killed, Butterss too-billowy overcoat flared with orange sparks and spread out into a giant, cupped wing shape. He windmilled his arms and legs with a high-pitched, creaking shout, and then tucked himself into a ball while the orange light seemed to gather the coat into a resilient sphere around himone that bounced once when it hit the street, and then rolled several times, dumping him onto the street more or less on his feet.
The little guy darted straight away from the Genoskwa, for which I did not blame him, up the steps of the nearest buildingas it happened, the Art Institute of Chicago. The nearest of the suits leapt at his unprotected back.
I flung my staff forward with a howl of Forzare! and smashed the suit with invisible power in midair, flinging him just over Butterss shoulder as he leapt. Dammit! I howled, with as much sincerity as I could musterwhich wasnt much. Clear my line of fire!
Butters shot an aghast look over his shoulder at me, and stumbled away, fetching up against the northernmost of the two lion statues outside the Art Institute. He darted a look at the statue, licked his lips, and hissed something beneath his breath.
Orange light flooded out of the inner folds of his coat and promptly seeped into the bronze of the statue, confirming how he was managing all of these tricks.
Bob.
Bob the Skull was running around loose, like some kind of bloody superhero sidekick.
Bob had been the one powering the skateboard. Bob had guided the ropes that had flown from Butterss wrist. Bob had manipulated Butterss coat to bring him in to a safe landing.
Damn. Bob was kind of awesome.
It only stood to reason. Though Bob was a spirit, he had always been able to manipulate physical objectsand if he had mostly only done so with fairly small, fairly light things in the past, like romance novels or his own skull, there was no reason that I knew that he might not have tried something larger. Id always assumed he simply lacked the motivation.
But Id rarely removed Bob from my lab for a reason. To be exercising that kind of control over the spirit, Butters had to be in possession of Bobs skull, like, right now. He was actually carrying the skull around, probably in that backpack, and that meant that Bobs allegiance was as fragile as Butterss ability to remain in physical possession of the skull itself. If someone like Nicodemus got hold of the skull, with Bobs centuries of experience and knowledge, I shuddered to think what my old friend might be used to accomplish.
Mind fog. Better than ten years ago, a foe had used the enchanted mist to blanket an entire Wal-Mart store, rendering the memory of everyone inside it temporarily nonfunctional and effectively blurring the previous hour or so of experience beyond recall. Bob and I had worked out the specifics of how the spell must have operated in the aftermath of the case. Obviously, Butters and Bob had, between them, figured out how to can the stuff.
Butters rocketed on down the street, dodging around a couple of slow-moving cars, used his lightpole-lariat again twice in quick succession, and careened onto Michigan Avenue, heading into the heart of downtown, where the towers and lights of Chicago burned brightest in the freezing haze.
That gave even the demonic suits pause. Cities arent just streets and buildingsthey are collectives of sheer will, of the determination of every person who helped build them and every soul whose work and life maintains them. To something from the Nevernever, a place like downtown Chicago is an alien citadel, a source of power and terror. Mordor, basically. (One does not simply walk into Mordorexcept that was exactly what everyone in the story did anyway.)
Similarly, Binders goons were not sufficiently impressed with the Loop to let it stop them from pursuing Butters. They put on a surge of speed and gained on him, and for a moment, it looked like they might nab him againbut he hurled a second glass globe of forget-me mist to the street and disrupted the pursuit at exactly the right moment. Butters let out a shriek of terrified defiance and shook his fist at his pursuers as several staggered in confusion, stumbling into their packmates.
Then the Genoskwa appeared out of nowhere on the sidewalk in front of a caf and kicked a stone planter the size of a hot tub directly into Butterss path.
Butters had maybe a whole second to react and nowhere near enough time to steer around the planter. The Genoskwa had acted with calm, precise timing. Butters did the only thing he could do: He let go of the skateboard strap and leapt into the air.
He wasnt wearing padding and he didnt have a helmet. That dopey little skateboard had been moving at thirty miles an hour, and all that waited to receive him was cold asphalt. If hed been in a car with an airbag, Im sure hed have been finebut he wasnt.
I ground my teeth and prepared a spherical shield to catch him withbut while that would protect him from the fall, it would also mean that he could be briefly held inside it until his momentum was spent. Without the skateboard, the suits or the Genoskwa would catch him in a few heartbeats, and Iwould be forced to fight to defend him, bringing my mission to an unfortunate conclusion.
So be it. You dont leave friends, even friends twisted up with mistrust, to the monsters.
But instead of falling onto the street and splattering, or into my shield and getting us both subsequently killed, Butterss too-billowy overcoat flared with orange sparks and spread out into a giant, cupped wing shape. He windmilled his arms and legs with a high-pitched, creaking shout, and then tucked himself into a ball while the orange light seemed to gather the coat into a resilient sphere around himone that bounced once when it hit the street, and then rolled several times, dumping him onto the street more or less on his feet.
The little guy darted straight away from the Genoskwa, for which I did not blame him, up the steps of the nearest buildingas it happened, the Art Institute of Chicago. The nearest of the suits leapt at his unprotected back.
I flung my staff forward with a howl of Forzare! and smashed the suit with invisible power in midair, flinging him just over Butterss shoulder as he leapt. Dammit! I howled, with as much sincerity as I could musterwhich wasnt much. Clear my line of fire!
Butters shot an aghast look over his shoulder at me, and stumbled away, fetching up against the northernmost of the two lion statues outside the Art Institute. He darted a look at the statue, licked his lips, and hissed something beneath his breath.
Orange light flooded out of the inner folds of his coat and promptly seeped into the bronze of the statue, confirming how he was managing all of these tricks.
Bob.
Bob the Skull was running around loose, like some kind of bloody superhero sidekick.
Bob had been the one powering the skateboard. Bob had guided the ropes that had flown from Butterss wrist. Bob had manipulated Butterss coat to bring him in to a safe landing.
Damn. Bob was kind of awesome.
It only stood to reason. Though Bob was a spirit, he had always been able to manipulate physical objectsand if he had mostly only done so with fairly small, fairly light things in the past, like romance novels or his own skull, there was no reason that I knew that he might not have tried something larger. Id always assumed he simply lacked the motivation.
But Id rarely removed Bob from my lab for a reason. To be exercising that kind of control over the spirit, Butters had to be in possession of Bobs skull, like, right now. He was actually carrying the skull around, probably in that backpack, and that meant that Bobs allegiance was as fragile as Butterss ability to remain in physical possession of the skull itself. If someone like Nicodemus got hold of the skull, with Bobs centuries of experience and knowledge, I shuddered to think what my old friend might be used to accomplish.
