Small Favor(37)

"Don't be ridiculous, Harry," Michael said. "I'm just a-" He broke off and ducked. Something solid whizzed past him and slammed a hole the size of my head into the drywall above us. Bits of dust rained down, and frightened people cried out.
Michael slammed the door shut, but without, you know, all those pesky metal security fittings, it swung open again. He slammed it closed and leaned one shoulder against it, panting. Something struck the door with a heavy thump. Then there was silence.
I ripped open the wounded man's pant leg along the seam. The knife had hit him in the calf and he was a bloody mess, but it could have been worse. "Leave it in," I told Carol, "and make sure he stays still. That's close to some big veins, and I don't want to open them trying to take it out. Stay close to him and keep him from trying to take it out. Okay?"
"I … Yes, all right," Carol said. She blinked her eyes at me several times. "I don't understand what's happening."
"Me either," I responded. I rose and went to stand beside Michael.
"Those things are quite a bit stronger than I am," he said in a low rumble that the people behind us couldn't hear. "If they rush this door I won't be able to hold it shut."
"I'm not sure they will," I said.
"But you're here."
"I don't think they're after me," I said. "If they were, they wouldn't be going after everyone else, too."
Michael frowned at me. "But you said they were faeries."
"They are," I said. "But I don't think this was supposed to be a hit. There are too many of them for that. This is a full-blown assault."
Michael grimaced. "Then there are people in danger. They need our help."
"And they're going to get it," I said. "Listen, hobs can't stand light. Any kind of light. It burns them and it can kill them. That's why they called up this myrk before they came in."
"Myrk?"
"It's matter from the Nevernever. Think of it as a cellophane filter, only instead of being around a light, it is spread all through the air. That's why we couldn't see the light from my amulet, and why the muzzle flash of my gun was so muted. And that's how we're going to take them out."
"We get rid of the myrk," Michael said, nodding.
"Exactly," I said. I raked my fingers back through my hair and started fumbling through my pockets to see what I had on me. Not much. I keep a small collection of handy wizarding gear in the voluminous pockets of my duster, but the pockets of my winter coat contained nothing but a stick of chalk, two ketchup packages from Burger King, and a furry, lint-coated Tic Tac. "Okay," I said. "Let me think a minute."
Something slammed into the other side of the door and shoved Michael's work boots a good eighteen inches across the floor. A claw flashed through the opening at me. I got out of the way, but the sleeve of my coat didn't. The hob's claws ripped three neat slits in the fabric.
Michael lifted Amoracchius in one hand and drove its blazing length through the sturdy door. The hob screamed and pulled away. Michael slammed the door shut again and jerked the weapon clear. Dark blood sizzled on the holy blade. "I don't mean to rush you," he said calmly, "but I don't think we have a minute."

     
 

      Chapter Twenty-four
"D ammit!" I swore. "This is my only winter coat!" I closed my eyes for a second and tried to focus my mind to the task. A myrk wasn't like other forms of faerie glamour. Those could create appearance, and could simulate emotional states related to that appearance. The myrk was a conjuration, something physical, tangible, that actually did exist and would continue to do so as long as the hobs gave it enough juice, metaphorically speaking.
Wind might do it. A big enough wind could push the myrk away-but it would have to be an awful lot of wind. The little gale I'd called up to handle Torelli's hitters would barely make a dent in it. I could probably do something more violent and widespread, but when it comes to moving matter around, you don't get something for nothing. There was no way I'd be able to maintain that kind of blast long enough to get the job done.
I might be able to cut the myrk off from the hobs. If I could sever that connection it would prevent them from pouring constant energy into it, and poof, the myrk would resume its natural state as ectoplasm. Of course, cutting them off wouldn't be a cakewalk. I would need some means of creating a channel to each and every hob in order to be sure I got the job done. I didn't have anything I could use as a focus, and I had no idea how many of them were out there, anyway.
An empowered circle could cut the power to the spell from the other side of the equation, isolating the hobs from the flow of energy outside the circle. But the circle would need to encompass the entire freaking building. I doubted the hobs would be considerate enough to let me run outside and sprint around an entire Chicago city block to fire up a circle. Besides, I didn't have that much chalk. Running water can ground out a spell if there's enough of it, but given that we were inside a building, that wasn't in the cards. So how the hell was I supposed to cut off this stupid spell, given the pathetic resources I had? It isn't like there are a whole lot of ways to rob a widespread working of its power.
My nose throbbed harder, and I leaned my head back, turning my face upward. Sometimes doing that seemed to reduce the pressure and ease the pain a little. I stared up at the office ceiling, which had been installed at a height of ten or eleven feet, rather than leaving the place open to the cavernous reaches of the old station, and beat my head against the proverbial wall. The ceiling was one of those drop-down setups, a metal framework supporting dreary yet cost-effective rectangles of acoustic material, interrupted every few yards by the ugly little cowboy spur of an automatic firefighting sprinkler.
My eyes widened.
"Ha!" I said, and threw my arms up in the air. "Ha-ha! Ah-hahahaha! I am wizard; hear me roar!"
Mouse gave me an oblique look and sidled a step farther away from me.
"And well you should!" I bellowed, pointing at the dog. "For I am a fearsome bringer of fire!" I held up my right hand and with a murmur called up the tiny sphere of flame. The spell stuttered and coughed before it coalesced, and even then the light was barely brighter than a candle.
"Harry?" Michael asked in that tone of voice people use when they talk to crazy people. "What are you doing?"
The drywall to one side of the door suddenly buckled as a hob's claws began ripping through it. Michael bobbed to one side, temporarily leaving the door, held his thumb up to the wall, as if judging where the stud would be, and then ran Amoracchius at an angle through the drywall. The Sword came back hissing and spitting, while another hob howled with pain.
"Without the myrk, these things are in trouble," I said. "Carol, be a dear and roll that chair over here."
Carol, her eyes very wide, her face very pale, did so. She gave the chair a little push, so that it came the last six feet on its own.
Michael's shoulder hit the door as another hob tried to push in. The creature wasn't stupid. It didn't keep trying to force the door when Amoracchius plunged through the wood as if it had been a rice-paper screen, and Michael's Sword came back unstained. "Whatever you're going to do, sooner would be better than later."
"Two minutes," I said. I rolled the chair to the right spot and stood up on it. I wobbled for a second, then stabilized myself and quickly unscrewed the sprinkler from its housing. Foul-smelling water rushed out in its wake, which I had expected and mostly avoided. Granted, I hadn't expected it to smell quite so overwhelmingly stagnant, though I should have. Many sprinkler systems have closed holding tanks, and God only knew how many years that water had been in there, waiting to be used.
I hopped down out of the chair and moved out from under the falling water. I pulled one of the pieces of chalk out of my pocket, knelt, and began to draw a large circle all around me on the low-nap carpet. It didn't have to be a perfect circle, as long as it was closed, but I've drawn a lot of them, and by now they're usually pretty close.
"E-excuse me," Carol said. "Wh-what are you doing?"
"Our charming visitors are known as hobs," I told her, drawing carefully, infusing the chalk with some of my will as I did so. "Light hurts them."
A hob burst through the already broken drywall, this time getting its head and one shoulder through. It howled and raked at Michael, who was still leaning on the door. Michael's hip got ripped by a claw, but then Amoracchius swept down and took the hob's head from its shoulders in reply. Dark, blazing blood spattered the room, and some of it nearly hit my circle.
"Hey!" I complained. "I'm working here!"
"Sorry," Michael said without a trace of sarcasm. A hob slammed into the door before he could return to it, and drove him several paces back. He recovered in time to duck under the swing of a heavy club, then swept Amoracchius across the creature's belly and followed it up with a heavy, thrusting kick that shoved the wicked faerie out of the room and back into its fellows. Michael slammed the door shut again.
"B-but it's dark," Carol stammered, staring at Michael and me alternately.
"They've put something in the air called myrk. Think of it as a smoke screen. The myrk is keeping the lights from hurting the hobs," I said. I finished the circle and felt it spring to life around me, an intangible curtain of power that walled away outside magic-including the myrk that had been caught inside the circle as it formed. It congealed into a thin coating of slimy ectoplasm over everything in the circle-which is to say, me. "Super," I mumbled, and swiped it out of my eyes as best I could.