Megan the Insane (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} terioncalling) wrote,@ 2007-09-25 13:55:00 |
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| Current mood: |  awake |
| Current music: | Snakes on a Plane |
FIC: Ware the Edge (Series: 22/25)
Title: Ware the Edge
Author: Terion
Disclaimer: Not. Mine.
Rating: Caution for...a cursing and bad, bad plans.
POV: Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden
Book or TV verse: Book verse, AU after Proven Guilty...
Summary: Loved one's being taken can make anyone a little crazy.
Series: All stories previous here.
Behind me, I heard Nick come in, his voice trembling as he said, “Dad…they’re gone.”
“Everything’s been burnt,” Virg called from somewhere else in the house. “Anything that could’ve been used for a tracking spell…and everything else. Why?”
I growled and shifted aside the remains of a couch after spying something underneath it. “This would be why,” I commented softly as Nick came up behind me.
Vicious, commented Lasciel. Faerie fire.
“Liz’s spell,” I said, crouching down next to the faerie corpse. There were burn scars all up one side of her body that sparked still even with her death, glowing and shifting between colors. It had been one of the first spells had created on her own and she had, as Lasciel said, called it ‘faerie fire’.
I was also darkly amused that this was the same faerie that had tried to kidnap her so many years ago.
“Ouch,” hissed Nick, peering over my shoulder at the wounds. Then he glanced around and called, “Uncle? Carlos?”
“Back here!” shouted Thomas. I rose and turned towards the back door as they came in, hefting a limp body between them. “We found him in the backyard.”
“Liz? James?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Carlos shook his head and my brother hissed, “They jumped over to the NeverNever, Harry.”
Shit.
“They’d be going to Faerie then, wouldn’t they?” asked Nick. He then shifted the couch back around and helped to lower Paul’s barely breathing body down onto it. The man wheezed and choked on blood as he came back to consciousness, trying to lash out at them.
I strode forward and grabbed his shoulder, already knowing by Thomas’ frown that he was a goner. Besides…I could smell the death around him. In my anger, I was tapping into the coin and bringing a few of the wolfish traits forward, which I quickly ceased. That was far too much reliance on it than I wanted to have.
“What happened?” I snarled.
Paul twitched and stared at me, the one eye he still had wide. The other one had been ripped out of the socket after something savaged the side of his face.
“M-monsters. They…they took them.”
“What did they look like?”
“Harry,” started Carlos but Nick cut him off with a snarl.
“Plants. Liz…Liz said they were f-faeries. Told James to run.” Paul grunted and his eye rolled back in his head for a moment as he arched his back in pain. “One…one caught him before he c-could. I tried – I tried to stop them but…”
I frowned at that then asked, “Did they say where they were going?”
“N-no. But…I…”
He twitched his right hand and it fell to the side, fingers drifting limply open. I looked down and tears involuntarily came to my eyes as I reached down and picked up Liz’s bracelet from within his bloodied grasp. Then I met my son-in-law’s dying gaze again and he smiled.
“I never…believed…till now,” he gasped. “She said – she said you’d come, that…that y-you’d save her and James. That…that you’d need this.”
“Thank you,” I breathed, clutching the faerie bracelet to my chest. “I will bring them back, Paul.”
“G-good.” He then twitched and blood streamed from the corner of his mouth as his head fell to the side.
Dead, hissed Lasciel. Faerie magic. The Fae have them then, we know that for certain now.
They won’t keep them for long, I spat.
Spinning around, I stared at the other for a moment before hissing, “I’ll need an hour to put the spell together. After that…I’ll go alone.”
“The hell you will!” exploded Nick. He slammed me against a wall with a snarl and hissed, “We are coming with you.”
“There’s no reason for all of us to risk our lives!”
My son snarled at that and tightened his grip on my coat.
“There was no reason for you and Mom to risk your lives for so many years either,” he spat in a cold, viciously calm voice. “But you did. So don’t you fucking tell me what I can and can’t do, Dad!”
I frowned and growled out, “Nick…”
“Plus,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “I knew about this. I knew before we came after you!” As my face and those of Thomas and Carlos went to shock, his voice dropped, turning from anger to sorrow. “I knew. And I chose you over James.”
The anger came back as he slammed me against the wall again and roared, “So don’t you fucking tell me I can’t go rescue my nephew when I’m the damn reason he’s in this mess!”
He is most definitely your son, commented Lasciel with an amused smile. And we cannot do this alone.
I scowled at that. I don’t want to watch him die too, Lash.
Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’m sorry, grasshopper.”
Nick scowled and let me go, taking a few steps back where he glared at me. Then he snorted and spat, “Good. Let’s go then.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, feeling as though something had gone terribly wrong. Lash?
He is as distraught as you, Harry, she assured me as we left the house, Virg stayed behind with Carlos to handle the police. As Thomas drove the Beetle towards home, she continued, After this, things will get better.
Depending on if we survive this.
That, dear host, is negativity. And we can afford none of that.
Sighing, I nodded absently, not noticing my brother looking at me worriedly. True, I admitted before starting to put together what I would need for the spell to try and see where Liz was as well as anything that could be put together as a weapon.
When we arrived at the apartment, Molly gave me the answer to the first.
“I can scry,” she said. I blinked then handed her the bracelet, only slightly remembering what she was referring to.
The seeing bowl she created with help from your spirit using ideas of your Little Chicago, said Lash. I felt her smile as she added, You’re getting old on me, Harry.
I’m only seventy-six, I growled in defense. Then I sank down onto the couch and – surprisingly – fell asleep. An hour later I woke up to Mouse licking my face and blinked as Thomas leaned into my vision. “Did she find them?” I mumbled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
“Yes,” he replied. “But…”
“Its bad, isn’t it?”
“All she found was James, Harry. Liz apparently gave him the bracelet and he’s been wearing it long enough for it to only trace back to him.”
I sat dumbly for a moment at that news then slowly said, “So…so, she could be…dead?”
Thomas frowned and replied, “We don’t know, little brother.” His dark eyes turned a shade lighter then and his mouth twitched into a feral snarl. “If she is though, we’ll both make sure they don’t live to celebrate killing a Dresden.”
I found myself smiling as well and held out my hand so he could help me up. As he dragged me upright, I growled, “They won’t live to celebrate getting away with taking them if I have anything to say about it. Now where are we going?”
“Faerie,” he said. “Nick and Carlos handled putting everything they thought we’d need together whilst Molly scryed then dealt with Bob over where we should try going in through. He said to wish you luck. They’re outside now in the cars waiting for us.”
“Perfect.”
Together we walked towards the door and I stopped him as I closed it behind us. “Thomas.”
“Harry?” he queried, one eyebrow arched.
“Do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Keep an eye on Nick. If things get bad, all of you get the hell out of there.”
Thomas frowned and asked softly, “What about you, little brother?”
I frowned at that and ducked my head so I didn’t have to look at him. “If Liz is dead, we’ll both go insane. You have to keep him focused on getting James and keeping him safe.”
“What about you?” he pressed.
I growled and slammed my gaze up to meet his, the wolf’s eyes in place and Lasciel’s sigil blazing on my forehead. He took a step back as I spat, “The second we find them, I’m going to start tearing each and every one of them limb from limb until I find their damn ringleader. And he will not like the ways I have planned to rip the information out of him.”
“Harry…you shouldn’t rely on her that much.”
“I’m not really intending on surviving this, Thomas.”
“Harry! ”
“What?” I snapped. “Hasn’t it been enough? Nine years – nine fucking years – without Murph. Do you know how many times I’ve consider suicide?! Or how many times I wished I’d walked into the jail where they had that bastard and killed him?”
All anger faded abruptly and I slumped against the wall, the only reason I even still stood the fact that Lasciel forced me to stay up.
“I’m tired, Thomas.”
“Harry…your family needs you.”
“My family doesn’t need an old man slowly going out of his mind,” I snapped, shoving away from the wall. “Which is what I am, don’t doubt that, Thomas. What do you think the Red’s did while they had me, hmm?”
He blanched at that, obviously not wanting to. Then he sighed and asked, “Why did you have to tell me this?”
I smiled grimly and replied, “Because you’re the only one of them that’d do it.”
My brother frowned then nodded. “She’s holding you together, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll do it. I don’t like it but I’ll do it.”
As he started up the steps, I mumbled, “Thanks, Thomas.”
You lied straight to his face, observed Lasciel. And here I thought you were a horrible liar.
Guess I’ve learned a thing or two from you, I snipped as I followed up the steps and climbed into the Beetle’s passenger seat.
So…you’re planning to find these fae and immerse yourself in the power of the coin, thereby losing all sanity and guaranteeing you die. You’ll be dancing on a razor’s edge, you know.
I smiled a bit. Pretty much. And that was the point.
And if your children don’t get away?
Thomas will make sure they do. He promised.
Lasciel frowned then sighed, saying, You truly are insane.
You thought I wasn’t being serious?
You’re not so insane I have to hold your mind together as you told him.
I scowled and said, Lash, I wish I really was that insane.
Why? she asked.
So I wouldn’t feel so damn guilty.
“You okay, Dad?” asked Nick from the driver’s seat.
“I’ll be fine once we find James and Liz,” I replied. “And, Nicolas, promise me something.”
He twitched at the use of his full name then nodded. “Anything, Dad.”
You’ll regret saying that, I thought. Staring at him, I said stonily, “If something happens, grab James and get the hell away.”
“I…”
“He will,” swore Virg, leaning out of the backseat. “You have my word on that, Mister Dresden.”
“Thank you, Virginia,” I muttered. Then I closed my eyes and asked, Lash?
Yes? She queried.
Tell me anything I can do. I want to make sure that no one damn well starts thinking about going after my family in the future.
Lasciel laughed madly at that and said, If there is anything we can do, Harry, it will be that.
Good, I muttered. As she started going over things slowly, I idly ran my thumb across the band I still more on my left ring finger.
I’d make sure my family stayed safe with my dying breath. And put the fear of Heaven and Hell into everything in the world that dared make a move against them.
(( ...I'm not quite sure how it came to this ending or why but I'm going to run with it and see just where it takes me. ))