The Library at Mount Char (26 page)

Dresden looked at the keys, still confused.

Steve holstered the gun. He turned to look Dresden in the face. He took a handful of the big lion's mane in his right hand and patted Naga's side with his left. “I. Am. Going. To. Get. Her”—here he patted Naga again—“Out. Of. Here.” He pointed at the front door.

Dresden's brow unfurrowed. He roared a little bit, scaring the shit out of Steve. Then he stretched out and licked Steve's cheek.

Good enough
, Steve thought. He got his arms under Naga. She seemed confused, only semiconscious.
I hope she doesn't forget that we're buddies
, he thought, and lifted her. She squirmed a bit, then half stood, lifting her forequarters off the living-room floor. Steve ducked under her, lifting at the same time, and managed to get her over his left shoulder in a half-assed, crouched version of a fireman's carry.
Lift with your legs, not your back
, he thought, and tittered hysterically. He strained against her weight, pushing with his good leg and his bad. The pain was exquisite, blinding. He flashed on Carolyn's face and thought,
I fucking
hate
that bitch!
The adrenaline burst from this was just enough to get the lion up.

Once he was standing, it was easier. He took a single cautious step. He held his balance, but only just. He took a second, smaller step, almost hopping with his good leg, dragging the bad one behind him. That was better, if not exactly graceful. Naga, dangling over his back, made some cranky-sounding lion noises. Steve told her to shut the fuck up.

He inched his way to the door, Dresden following at his flank. The lion's eyes were fixed on the door, and what lay beyond.
Yeah, he knows
, Steve thought.
He understands what we're going to do
.

Still weighted down by Naga, he turned and squinted out the peephole. They were now down to six dogs on the lawn, including Thane.
Even so. Six is a lot of dogs. This is
so
going to suck
, Steve thought. He looked down at Dresden. “You ready?”

The big lion swished his tail. He did not look at Steve. His face was
like something cast in stone. Balancing Naga on his shoulder with his left hand, Steve slipped the pistol out of the holster and held it with his teeth. He tasted gun oil, metallic and alien. He put his hand on the doorknob, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. “Showtime,” he grunted, throwing the door open.

Thane stood first, barked. Steve took the gun out of his mouth, aimed carefully, and shot him right between the blue and brown eye.

Dresden charged out, roaring. Seeing him, one of the dogs turned and ran the other way. Steve limped across the porch. Dresden launched himself at a big Doberman and landed on it. A second later Steve heard the dog scream. The other three dogs, all big, tore into Dresden wherever they could find a spot—his shoulder, his front leg, his back.

Steve, clutching the iron railing, limped down first one step, then two. Now he was on the sidewalk. On his shoulder, Naga stirred. “Easy girl,” he said. The cab was perhaps thirty feet away.

When the Doberman was dead, Dresden turned his attention to the dog biting his right foreleg, a big German shepherd. He lifted his paw, exposing the dog's flank, and tried biting her. He missed the first time, but with his second bite he clamped down on the dog's hind leg. Steve heard a crack. The shepherd screamed.

Three down!
Steve thought.
We're doing this!
He inched his way down the front walk, past one rose bush, then a second. He was twenty feet away from the cab.

Dresden was having trouble reaching the dog on his back. Steve considered shooting it, then decided that, based on his record, he was just as likely to hit the lion as the dog. After a moment, Dresden retargeted. He bent to his right and snapped at the dog on his hindquarters. The dog let go and backed off, circling. It noticed Steve and gave its “Alert!” bark.

The sound of it—
rowrowrowrowrowrowrow
—echoed down the street. A second later Steve heard toenails clicking on asphalt, first one set, then two, then a stampede.
Oh, shit
. He was fifteen feet away from the cab.

Dresden pounced on the dog who had given the alert. Steve was past them now, so he couldn't see what was happening, but two steps later he heard another scream. Dresden's answering roar burbled through something wet.

Ten feet left.

Steve risked a glance over his shoulder. There was one dog still on Dresden, hanging from his back…but behind him, on the hill, dozens—
hundreds
—more of them streamed in to take his place.
Where could they all be coming from?
Steve wondered. There were far too many. Even Dresden could not stand long against such a horde.

“Come on, big guy! Time to get out of here!” Only two feet remained between him and the cab. The cab's door was blessedly, wonderfully unlocked. Steve turned.

Dresden only looked at him. He was surrounded by corpses. The final dog, a Doberman, hung from his mane, scrabbling and growling. The lion made no move.

“Come on!” Steve screamed again. He took another step and bumped into the cab, almost losing his balance. Muscles trembling against Naga's weight, he slid the minivan's door back. “Come
on
!”

Steve looked over his shoulder to see what was keeping the lion. “What the hell are you
doing
? Come
on
!”

Dresden shrugged off the Doberman. Victorious now, he watched as Steve lay his daughter down in the backseat with a whoosh of deflating vinyl upholstery, watched as Steve slid the door shut.
She is safe now
. His yellow eyes met Steve's. Dresden, who was a king as of the old age, swished his tail—just once. Then, deliberately, he turned to face the coming dogs. Every muscle stood out in stark relief. He roared. The sound echoed down the street, bouncing off the neat suburban houses and well-manicured hedges with the force of dynamite. The dogs flowed at him like a tide, bottomless and unstoppable.

Dresden charged them.

Steve froze for a moment, feeling small, unable to look away from the forces at work before him. Carolyn's words came to him.
They will protect you as if you were their own cub
. Dresden smashed into the wave of dogs, a cannon shot of fury and blood.
He's stalling them. He's delaying them for Naga…and for me
. Then, channeling Celia's voice:
Don't waste it, asshole
.

Steve shook his head, forced himself to look away, opened the door, took his place in the driver's seat.

The dogs were on Dresden now. First one, then three, then a dozen, then two dozen with a hundred more on the way. Together they formed a living wall of muscle and fur.
The cab couldn't push through that
, Steve thought.
A
tank
couldn't push through that
. He slammed the cab door. Now Dresden was buried under them, invisible under a roiling mountain of fur and teeth—Labs, poodles, Dobermans, Rottweilers, black, yellow, brown. The cabdriver's pale face watched all this from the bathroom window. Steve rolled down the van's window, frantic, then drew the pistol and steadied himself. He took careful aim, fired. A dog fell, screaming, and was replaced by three more. He fired again, fired until the pin clicked down on an empty chamber. “Fuck you!” he screamed. “Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU!”

One or two of the dogs looked up at this. A chocolate Lab barked, then ran for the van. Steve rolled the window back up, but he wasn't quick enough. The dog hung on to the window by furry brown paws, barking and snapping, hind legs scrabbling at the door. There were only about three inches of room between the top of the glass and the door frame, not enough to get at Steve, but the dog's weight was such that he couldn't roll the window up. He flipped the dog the bird, put the key in the ignition.

The cab started immediately. He backed out of the driveway. The brown dog still clung to the window, blocking his view. Steve leaned back in the seat to check if, by some miracle, Dresden had emerged from the pile.

He had not.

Steve pointed the cab at the exit and floored it. A few seconds later he squealed to a stop at the gate, tires smoking. He put on his blinker, turned right onto Highway 78, floored it again.

The Garrison Oaks sign dwindled in his rearview mirror.

T
he cabdriver's name was Harshen Patel. Two hours later, cowering behind a shower curtain in a dusty green bathtub, he heard a woman's voice.

“Steve?”

“Be careful!” Patel said. “I think that they are crazy!” He cradled his left hand, bandaged in a roll of bloody toilet paper and what was left of his shirt.

“Steve?” Her tone was doubtful now.

“I do not know who that is. If you're looking for the lying asshole with the two lions, he left.”

“He
left
?” She sounded incredulous.

“Yes. A couple hours ago.”

“How?”

“He stole my taxi.”

She chuckled. “He's resourceful. I'll give him that.”

“You should be very careful,” Harshen said. “There are two of them, an old man and a woman. She came to me and said, ‘Supper is ready!' and then they both started…started…
biting
me.” He heard the edge of a scream in his voice and clamped down on it. “They have eaten my left pinkie finger. And part of my thumb. They might still be out there. You should—”

“It's OK,” the woman said. She rattled the doorknob. “Can you open this, please?”

Harshen considered this for several seconds, then reached out with a shaking hand and opened the door.

The woman in the hall was on the small side, frizzy-haired, barefoot. She carried a blue duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She looked him up and down, surveying the wounds in his shoulder, his neck, his crotch. Her brown eyes were dark and intense, difficult to meet. “You'll live.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yeah. You were lucky. Not a lot of people get to visit in this neighborhood.”

Harshen nodded, miserable. “I believe you. I wonder…may we please leave now?”

She thought about it. “Sure.” She shrugged. “I'll walk you out. What's your name?”

He told her. They stepped out into the light together.

“Nice to meet you. I'm Carolyn.”

“Do you…do you live here?”

“Not in this one.” She jerked her thumb down the street. “I'm a couple blocks deeper.”

“Oh.” He looked at her, horrified.

“Relax. I won't hurt you. You helped Steve.” She shook her head, smiling. “He really is ever so good at slipping out of these
petonsha
, don't you think?”

“These what?”

“Sorry. That isn't English. They all start to blur after a while. I said
‘petonsha.'
It means ‘little traps.' ”

“Oh.”

They walked in silence for a block or so.

She spoke next. “Still…you did help Steve. I should repay the favor.” She considered. “Do you have a family? Do you live in the city?”

“My wife. Esperanza. We have two boys. But no, we're out in—”

She waved her hand, cutting him off. “I don't care at all. When we get to the end of the street, I'm going to disappear. When that happens, put your family in your car and—”

“I can't.”

“What?”

“I can't put my family in my car. He stole it. I don't know where it is.”

“Who stole it? Steve?”

“Is he the lion man?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Him. He is the motherfucker who stole my cab.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Carolyn thought about it for a second, then handed him the blue duffel bag. “Here. Take this. Buy another one.”

He unzipped the bag, looked inside.
Money
. “Oh!”

“Yeah. Spend it fast. It won't be worth much in a week or two—Barry O'Shea is out of hiding. Once he's established, there will be a sort of, umm, plague.”

“What? What plague? Who is—”

“It doesn't matter. Pack up your wife and kids. Buy food, water, weapons. A generator, maybe. Go into the city—someplace with a lot of electric lights, and a good power supply. Get indoors, on the top floor of a
tall building, if you can. Stay away from windows. And if you see people with tentacles, stay away. Don't let them touch you.”

Harshen gaped at her. She spoke of insanities, but her voice was calm and certain. Her expression reminded him of a painting that frightened him as a child—Kali the annihilator, smiling as small things died.

“It's about to get very dark, you see.”

T
wo miles west, Highway 78 merged into a four-lane that led into town, such as it was—basically a couple of strip malls between Steve and more empty road. The speed-limit sign said 45. He glanced down and saw he was doing 80, the rattletrap taxi shaking like the magic fingers at a cheap motel. He rolled to a stop at the first red light, a little jerkily.

There's blood on the windshield
, he thought.
How did that get there?
He squirted wiper fluid on it, hoping it would clean off some of the dog blood. It didn't, just smeared it around a little. He felt dazed.

In the back, Naga lifted her head and looked around, blinking.

“Feeling better?” He thought the second suppository might be doing its thing. “Don't try to move. We're out. No more dogs!”

She twitched her tail a little, then bent around to her hindquarters and sniffed the bandages.

“Well, yeah,” Steve sighed. “There is that.”
Where the hell do you take a wounded lion? The zoo?

A black Toyota truck inched to a stop beside him. Steve glanced over at it and found himself at eye level with the mud flaps. It was jacked up so high you'd almost need a ladder to get in and out.
Do you call that a monster truck? What's the dividing line?
Steve wondered.
How big does it have to get before it becomes a monster? Is it just x number of inches higher than factory, or do the tires have to
—

The truck honked. Steve looked up. Three or four feet up, some guy
in the passenger seat was gesturing for Steve to roll down his window. Steve did. “Yes?”

The passenger was a kid, about eighteen or twenty. His baseball cap was on backward. “Yo, man,” he said. “You got, like, half a dog hanging off your back bumper.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah. Did you drive over it? On purpose, like?”

“No. The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” Then, under his breath. “I guess I did shoot a couple though.”

“There's blood all over your fuckin' door too, man. You get in a assident or something?”

“Nope. Dog fight.” Something occurred to him. “Hey, is there a vet around here?”

The kid looked at him like he was crazy. “Man, ain't no vet gonna help
that
dog. He's cut in
half
, yo!”

“It's not for him,” Steve said. “It's for her.”

“What?”

Steve jerked his thumb at the backseat. The kid leaned out and down, peeping. “Whoa!” Then, to the driver, “Hey, Frank, that guy got a fucking lion in his cab!”

The driver leaned forward. “Say whaaaaat? Lean back, I can't—”

Maybe you should work harder on keeping a low profile, fugitive boy
.

“Holy shit!” the driver said. “I know you! You that guy from Fox News!”

“Nope!” Steve said. “Not me! I get that a lot, though! Ha-ha!”
This goddamn light is taking forever
. He considered running it, just to get away from the kids in the truck.
Nah. Bad idea
. Instead he rolled up the window—this actually helped; it was crusty with dog slobber—and pretended to study the strip-mall sign a quarter mile up. He squinted. There was a Bi-Lo, a Walmart, some restaurant called Monsieur Taco
—What the fuck?
—and the Black Path Animal Hospital.

Steve considered. He figured it was about 50/50 that the guys in the truck would call 911. He needed to get off the road, fast.
On the other hand, there's Naga
. She was nibbling at her bandages. They were saturated, dripping. The suppository had helped, but it wouldn't last.

The light turned green.

“Fuck it,” he said. “ ‘The true Buddhist will not be a moral and intellectual coward.' ” He waited for the guys in the truck to roll away, then pulled in behind them. Half a block later he turned left into the strip mall, badly. The cab was a Chrysler Voyager minivan, a four-cylinder. It had a lot less power than his plumbing truck. Steve misjudged the gap to an oncoming BMW, obliging its driver to screech to a halt. She and Steve exchanged one-finger salutes. Naga lifted her head up again and roared. That startled him enough that he hopped the curb, clipped a hedge, and nearly T-boned a truck full of landscapers pulling out of the McDonald's drive-thru. “Aaagh!”

Naga roared again.

“Shut up! I'm driving!”

In the rearview, Naga gave him a reproachful look. Steve slowed to a walking speed and crossed the rest of the parking lot carefully, looking both ways at junctions, finally coasting to a stop in front of a vet. A sign out front read
GET KITTY A FLEA DIP!

“Wait here,” Steve said to Naga. “I'll be right back.” He put the pistol in the back waistband of his sweatpants and pulled his concert shirt down over it. Walking around the back of the taxi, he saw that there was indeed half of a dog dangling from the tailpipe. It was too bloody to be sure, but he thought it might have been the chocolate Lab that had latched onto his window.
Maybe it got wedged under the muffler somehow?
He vaguely remembered bumps in the road as he pulled out of Garrison Oaks.

Thinking that the veterinarian might not approve, he spent a second trying to get the corpse a little more out of sight, but it was both deeply, deeply disgusting and wedged solidly in place. When gall rose in his throat he gave up, wiped his hand on the back of his sweats, and limped to the office.

The waiting room had a tile floor and smelled like cat food. A fussy-looking man in a bow tie held a Yorkshire terrier on a short leash. Opposite him a middle-aged hippie sat with a cat carrier on her lap.

Steve leaned against the receptionist's desk, his hands crusty with dried blood. “I need to see one of the doctors.” Panting. “It's urgent.”

The Yorkie, small and immaculate, barked at him.

“You'll need to fill this out,” the receptionist said, eyeing him cautiously. “And I'm afraid these two people are both ahead of you. Do you have an appointment?”

He laughed, not quite hysterical. “It's kind of an emergency. Have you got a stretcher? A big stretcher?”

“Emergency?”

“Ohhh, yeah.” He rocked his head up and down. “
Big
-time.”

“It's OK,” said the woman with the cat carrier. “I'm not in a hurry.” The guy with the Yorkie gave her a dour look.

“Gimme a sec,” the receptionist said. She picked up the phone. “Hey, Jer? We got a guy up here with an emergency. Can you grab Allie and bring the stretcher? Thanks.”

“No,” Steve said sincerely, “thank
you
. Really.” He almost added “And I'm sorry,” then thought better of it. He
was
sorry, though. He thought that the rest of the afternoon was liable to suck for everyone in the room.

A moment later two youngish women in green scrubs trotted up. One of them carried a good-sized stretcher. “Where is he? It's your dog, right?”

“Umm…she's in the car,” Steve said. “This way.”

They followed him out. In the parking lot he saw that the guys in the jacked-up black truck had circled back. They idled in the parking lot in front of Walmart, watching, the rumble of their monster truck faint but still audible. Steve groaned.

“What's wrong?” the taller vet tech asked.

“Nothing. My foot is sore.” His foot actually did hurt. “She's over here.” He opened the sliding door of the minivan and stepped back behind the women. Naga raised her head, groggy but interested.

“Holy cow!” the shorter one said.

“Is that a lion?”

“Ha-ha! We get that a lot. She's actually a Labradoodle. We just shaved her like a lion. Pretty funny, huh?”

The two of them peered at Naga. Steve held his breath. The tall tech said, “We”—she pointed at the shorter tech—“are veterinary students. You understand that, right?”

“Yeah,” said the shorter one, nodding. “Bullshit.” They both turned around to look at him. “What do you think we are, idi—Oh.”

Now Steve was holding the empty pistol, not pointing it at anyone. “Here's what we're going to do. You hold the stretcher,” he said. “I'll lift her out. She's not going to hurt anyone. Neither am I. She's lost a lot of blood. We're going to take her in there to the doctor, then you two can go.”

The techs absorbed this.

“I mean it,” Steve said. “Everything will be fine. I just need some help, is all. Will you guys help me? Please?”
C'mon, c'mon…

They considered.

“No fucking way,” said the short one. She looked at her partner for confirmation.

The tall tech was studying Naga. “You drove here with a lion in the back of your cab?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“How do you know she's not going to bite?”

“I just do. Look, she's in a bad way. I hate doing this to you, but…”

The tall tech was studying him now. Steve held his breath.

After a moment, she said, “How about if we carry the lion and you hold her—her?—head.”

“That works!” Steve said. “I'm going to get in the taxi now.”

“OK, mister,” said the short tech, much too sincerely.

“You try to run and I'll kneecap you,” Steve said, waggling the empty pistol. “I mean it. I'm a marksman. I got a silver medal in the '92 Olympics. The shot won't kill you, but it'll hurt for the rest of your life.”

Thwarted, she flashed a fake smile. “Wouldn't dream of it.”

He stepped into the cab. “I'm going to put the gun away now.” He tucked it away. “There. You won't even see it again unless you try to run.”

“Good to know,” said the tall tech.

“OK, get the stretcher ready.”

The two techs looked at the lion, then at each other. “OK,” the tall one said. “Yeah.” She probed Steve with her eyes. “You hold her head, right?”

“I hold her head.”

She nodded at the other tech. They lifted the stretcher to a horizontal position.

Steve smiled at them. “Thanks,” he said. “Really.” He stepped around them into the cab. “Hey, Naga,” he said. “Hey, big girl. Almost there, sweetie.” He patted her fur, made a show of checking her bandage.

The techs watched this, wide-eyed. “Dude, I don't think you should—”

“Shh!” As gently as he was able, he slid his arms under Naga. Naga rumbled a little but did not resist. He muscled her off the seat. She was very heavy. What he managed was not so much a carry as one controlled fall onto the floor of the cab and another onto the stretcher.
I must have been jacked-up out of my mind to get her out of the house
.

On the stretcher, Naga raised her head and squinted at the two techs. They blinked back at her, smiling and clearly terrified.

“Get her head,” the tall tech said. She spoke with exaggerated gentleness. “Mmm-kay?”

“Step back a little,” Steve said. “I can't—”

They backed away from the cab a foot or so.

He hopped out, grunting at a lightning strike of pain from his bad ankle. He slid one arm under Naga's raised head and lay the other hand over her cheek, patted her muzzle.
I couldn't possibly hold her if she decided she wanted to do something, but it might give them a second to get away
. Together they waddled across the parking lot and into the waiting room.

“We need a room…
right…now
,” the tall tech said.

The receptionist gasped, jerked up out of her chair, dropped her pen. “Room, ah…Room Two.”

“Coming through.”

“Dude, that's a lion,” the hippie with the cat carrier said conversationally. Steve ignored her. The guy with the bow tie stood up and bolted out the front door. A moment later his Yorkie followed.

“What's going on—” came a woman's voice from the back of the office. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my.”

“Are you the doctor?”

She opened her mouth, shut it again.

Steve didn't really blame her. “It's OK,” he said. “Naga's not going to hurt anybody.”

She considered this. “Yeah, OK. I'm Dr. Alsace. Is she—what's wrong with her?”

“Dogs,” Steve said. “We got in a fight with some dogs. They tore up her leg pretty bad. I think they nicked an artery. She's had two, um, transfusions, but I can't get the bleeding stopped.”

“Is she restrained?”

“No,” Steve said, “but she won't hurt you.”

“You can't know that. I'm not doing anything until that animal is restrained.”

“OK. Fine. Get whatever. I'll put it on her.” He was thinking of a muzzle, or maybe some sort of straps.

“He's got a gun,” the short tech said.

“I'll be leaving now,” the woman with the cat carrier said.

“Sorry,” Steve said. “I can't let you do that. And I
do
have a gun. I'm not here to hurt anyone, I swear, but I need help.” In his mind's eye he saw Jack, trapped forever in darkness. His cheek stung with Celia's slap. He looked at the doctor, pleading.

Dr. Alsace pursed her lips, thinking it over. “OK,” she said finally. “Two conditions. First, you let everyone here go. Second
, you
jab the injured lion with the syringe.”

Such was Steve's gratitude that he was rendered mute. He said nothing. He nodded. The doctor made a shooing motion. The woman with the cat carrier ducked out. After a moment the receptionist followed. She turned to the techs. “You guys too.”

“I'll stay,” the tall one said.

“Jerri, you don't have to—”

“I'll stay. Wouldn't miss this for the world.”

Everyone looked at the other tech. “You guys have fun,” she said. Steve took her end of the stretcher. She bolted.

“OK.” The doctor turned her attention to her patient. “Let's get her into Room Two. She's not full-grown. Any idea how old?”