Laurel Lance (i_crylikeabird) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2011-04-03 11:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | dinah lance, harry dresden |
Case Closed Part 1 (Harry/Dinah, log)
Takes place immediately after this and this and at least a few days before this Part two to be posted soon.
“…only need two more for the ritual. The White Court won’t know what hit them,” an unfamiliar voice grated against Dinah’s ears. She winced, suddenly very aware of a cold, hard surface pressing against her cheek.
Her entire body ached, as though she’d spent the night on the floor somewhere.
Dinah bit back a groan that threatened to spring forth as a door opened loudly somewhere across the room and another voice chimed in.
“Well, that damn Dresden wizard almost mucked things up. Luckily, he handed us more fuel. Oh how I’ll enjoy making him watch…” The voice made her skin crawl. There was something… not quite human about it.
Dinah kept her eyes closed as someone entered the room, each footstep vibrating through her skull. There was a clang as something was set down in front of her, and a few more clangs. Six more, to be exact.
Her mind raced to make sense of the situation. She tried to remember where she’d been just before she fell asleep. A vague swirl of memories floated almost out of her reach, accompanying that nagging sense that she was forgetting something.
The footsteps retreated, each one still rattling through her brain as she waited for the sense of relief that would only come once the door closed, muffling the footsteps. Dinah grimaced as the door finally did close, her head pounding in time with the echo.
She chanced opening her eyes and instantly regretted it. What little light that was in the room seared her eyeballs. All the same, she needed to know where she was. She slowly looked around, taking stock of her surroundings. It was a room with no windows and very little on the walls, which seemed to have some sort of steel siding. There were six other women in the room, and as she met the wide-open eyes of one of them, she realized that at least some were awake. The woman who met her gaze had sunken-in cheeks and a dull fear in her eyes.
Dinah sat up then, taking note of the manacles that anchored her hands to the ground.
“They only come in to check on us every couple of hours. It’s not… pleasant, but at least it’s not more often,” the woman who had met her eyes offered.
“Oh,” Dinah responded, processing the information. “Thank you.”
That was good news. She glanced down at her wrists and confirmed that her bracelets were still there. The bangle that concealed the bracelet from Harry had shifted slightly, but thankfully they hadn’t taken either. She set to work retrieving the lock pick.
“I’m April,” the woman offered. “And that’s Olivia, Janice, Stacy, Yvonne, and Mary.”
Dinah began to pick away at the lock on the manacles and smiled at each woman, noticing that they had all slowly started to wake up. She looked around the room, searching for any sign of a hidden camera or other sort of listening device. When she couldn’t see anything or anywhere that they might hide one, she looked back to Janice.
“I’m Dinah. Janice, your fiancé, Mort, hired a private investigator to find you. I was working with him, and I’m going to get you out of here.” She glanced around at everyone. “I’m going to get all of you out of here,” she promised.
“Dinah, they haven’t killed us,” April said, her voice fearful. “There’s got to be a reason for that. If we try to escape, they might change their minds. We just have to hold out until the police find us, or until they get what they want and let us go.”
The manacles fell off and Dinah moved over to Janice, lock pick in hand. She took a moment to respond to April, thinking about the best way to word it. Probably better not to mention the fact that she and Harry suspected some sort of dark ritual, potentially one that ended in human sacrifice.
“April, the police aren’t coming,” she said, her voice strained. “The people who took you set it up so it looked like you-all of you-left of your own free will. Harry-the investigator I’m working with-talked to a lot of your boyfriends, fiancés, husbands, and those that went to the police didn’t get anywhere.”
“James would never believe that. He would do whatever it took to find me,” April said vehemently.
Dinah closed her eyes for a moment, thinking about exactly what each of the men had woken up to. It only took another moment to realize that Harry was most likely waking up to the same thing, perhaps even as they spoke.
It wasn’t his choice, but all the same, the thought of her… of Harry, for lack of a better word to describe what he was to her, waking up in bed with a beautiful woman… She took a deep breath. It brought up all sorts of bad memories. Particularly of Shado and the way she’d drugged and raped Oliver.
“They made it look… like they’d cheated,” she said, her voice strained.
Janice’s eyes widened.
“But Mort would never!” she said.
“I know,” Dinah responded, looking up at Janice. “I know, Janice. And he knew too. That’s why he came to Harry.”
“So you getting kidnapped was what? Part of your brilliant plan to get us out of here?” April asked.
Dinah took a long moment before answering.
“Not exactly, but I can work with it,” she answered. By this time, she’d freed Janice, Olivia, and Stacy. She headed over to Mary. “Listen, all of you need to slip those manacles back on. It might be better if you keep your eyes closed and pretend like you’re sleeping. When the guard comes in to check on us again, I’ll take care of him.”
She stopped in front of April and held the other woman’s gaze.
“April, I promise I’m going to get you out of here. Think about it-you’ve seen their faces, haven’t you? Do you really think they’re just planning to let you walk out of here?” Dinah gave that fact a moment to sink in before she continued. “Can you trust me and follow the plan?”
April hesitated, but then slowly nodded. Dinah filled the women in on what they would need to do, though there were still a lot of blanks to fill in, as none of them had seen anything outside the room. Hopefully, the guard could help with that. Dinah was sure she could find a way to persuade him.
Time seemed to move very slowly while Dinah waited for the guard to return. She went over the plan in her mind, along with several contingencies that hopefully covered most of the possibilities they were facing on their way out.
Finally, the sound of a key fitting into a lock echoed through the room. Dinah looked around at all the women, but they had all taken their position in feigning sleep. She rested her head against the concrete floor and closed her eyes, doing the same.
Dinah waited until the guard came close enough to set down the plate of food and glass of water. She sprang into action, slipping her hands out of the manacles and reaching up to grab his shoulders. She yanked him down and used the momentum to pin him to the ground, kneeling beside him, her hand at his throat.
The guard looked up at her, eyes wide in terror. He had barely had time to let out a startled yelp before Dinah took him down.
“I’m going to ask a few questions. Answer and I won’t have to hurt you,” Dinah said, her voice hard. “But I’ll warn you-I woke up with the hangover from hell and I’d be happy to take out my frustrations on you.”
“They’ll kill me,” he whimpered.
Dinah tightened her grip on his neck.
“Not getting any less cranky,” she snarled. “Look, if you talk now, I’ll make sure it looks like you didn’t help us. But the longer you take to talk, the more likely it is that someone will walk in on you and realize you’ve lost control of us. Now, where is the exit?”
The guard whimpered again, but he answered all the same.
“Out the door and to the left, but you won’t be able to get out. There’s a locked steel door. And… I don’t have a key.”
Dinah’s eyes narrowed, though it was pretty clear that he was too scared to do anything but tell the truth.
“The door won’t be a problem,” she said confidently. “Is anyone out in the hall? If not, how many are in the building and where are they?”
He shook his head slightly.
“There wasn’t anyone out in the hall, and I don’t know quite how many there are. I think ten, and they should be in the ritual room, getting ready.”
“Okay,” Dinah said and eased her grip slightly. Out of the corners of her eyes, she caught sight of some of the other captives covering their ears. With a satisfied nod, she focused on the guard again. “Thank you. I’m almost sorry about this, but trust me when I say there’s not much other choice.”
She opened her mouth and released a brief cry. The guard’s eyes widened in shock, and then closed quickly, his body slumping over. Dinah stood up and waited for the rest of the women to get to their feet.
“Do your best to keep up. Hang onto each other if you can, and try not to make a sound,” she instructed as she pushed open the door.
One brief check of the hallway confirmed that it was empty at the time. Dinah took off at the quietest run she could manage, hoping that their luck held out. The steel door wasn’t that far away. She stopped in front of it and waited for the others to catch up.
“Okay, stand back and cover your ears again,” she said. While she could target her cries without needing people to cover their ears, there was always the risk that she might be off in her calculations and that the cry would be louder than intended or not as well-aimed as she had planned for. It wasn’t worth the risk, if she could help it.
Dinah took a deep breath and opened her mouth, directing a wall of sound towards the door. It took a moment before the door began to break apart and then a moment longer before steel shattered and splintered under the force of the scream.
----
The charms on Harry’s bracelet were shifting faster now, which meant that either Dinah was moving ridiculously fast, or that he was close. He heard one sharp cry that had burned at his ears, and ran -- well, limped -- faster. The door he spotted was heavy steel, but the right amount of force would--
There was another cry, and Harry nearly fell back when the steel door shattered. He threw up a shield before any of the metal shards could hit him, and extended his blasting rod. The tip was glowing red in an instant, and Harry edged around to look in the doorway. "Dinah?" he called, shield still up. With the cry, he doubted it would be anyone else, but he didn't know why she'd just burst out of the door. And he wasn't going to chance someone else shooting at him. As it was, even with the makeshift bandage wrapped tightly around his calf, he was leaving a trail of bloody footprints wherever he walked.
----
As the dust settled, Dinah blinked as the sunlight streaming through the hallway on the other side of the door burned at her eyes, which had grown used to the semi-dark of the factory. But she definitely recognized that voice.
“Harry?” she called back.
A few seconds later, her eyes grew used to the sudden burst of light and alit on the bloodied figure before her.
“What have they done to you?” she asked, about to rush forward to him when she heard the sound of a doorway open behind them.
“Run!” Dinah shouted at the women, turning and hurrying to put herself between them and the people who were now coming down the hallway. Luckily, they didn’t need to be told twice. Three people-if she could call them that, with half-formed human features that were feral with hunger-spilled out and reached her side in seconds.
One of the creatures lifted Dinah and tossed her violently away from the doorway. She rolled as she hit the ground and got to her feet quickly. Her brain sped up, only now registering that this was more than just an ordinary kidnapping, or even an ordinary kidnapping involving human practitioners of black magic.
----
"Fuego!" Harry roared, and a stream of pure flame rushed from his blasting rod, into the doorway. Inside, the vampire he'd struck let out an inhuman cry of agony, but it hadn't been a direct hit, and Harry was sure it had survived. He ran towards Dinah, placing his shield between her and the doorway.
"You heard her!" he yelled at the women. "Run! Now!" There was still sunlight, but it was rapidly growing dim. Evening had begun, and if they didn't move soon, the nest of vampires would be out again, looking for their stolen prizes.
Once he was close enough to Dinah, he shoved a weapon in her hand, a knife with a curved, thick blade. Thomas' kukri. "Red Court vampires," he said. "Decapitate, or slice them in the belly to burst the blood bag. These are monsters, Dinah. Help me kill them, or run away so I can get to work." There was no room for error; the vampires had to be destroyed. And Harry would have to face the Red King again.
----
Dinah took the weapon and weighted it in her hand. She nodded. If Harry said they were vampires, she trusted him. And vampires were monsters, so she had no qualms about killing them.
Not to mention that she wasn’t just going to leave him to fight them on his own.
“I’m with you. I’ll kill them,” she reassured him. “I’m not sure how many are in there-the guard couldn’t tell me-but I have a feeling we’re in for a party.”
More vampires filled the doorway, and Dinah readied herself for the coming battle, blade in hand. It wasn’t her first weapon of choice, but she’d trained with various types of swords and knives in her training and she had no doubt about her ability to wield it.
“I’ll go right, you go left,” she said and began to fan out to the right.
The vampires were inhumanly fast and strong, but Dinah had fought metahuman opponents that could best her physically before. She moved with a deadly grace and managed to behead the nearest vampire before two more rushed forward to battle with her. Dinah twirled and slashed and held her ground against the vampires, though they didn’t fall quite as easily as the first one.
----
Harry didn't have Dinah's physical skill, so he approached a bit more cautiously. Blasting rod pointed forward, the tip still alight, he looked at the three moving in formation to surround him. They were wary as well, watching every move he made with beady black eyes.
"Wizard," one said, his voice a hiss. "You thought you had killed the Red Court, but here we stand. Soon, neither Black nor White shall stand against us. Your mortals shall be our feasts."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Try dieting." Then he unleashed the force in half of his remaining rings at the vampire's belly. The blood sack there erupted, and the vampire fell to it's knees, quickly losing strength as it's lifeblood gushed to the pavement. "I hear salads are much healthier for you."
Another snarled at him, the first one Harry had burned in the doorway, and Harry could see the form of it pulsing beneath the flesh mask it wore. "Will you defy the Red King, wizard? All the Lords of Outer Night?"
Harry shrugged. "Killed them once. I can do it again. Arctis!" This time the beam (ice not, instead of fire), found it's mark. At the vampire began to howl from the shards of ice impaling it's chest, Harry made a gesture with his hand, and barked out, "Fuego!" Fire coated the vampire, silver soulfire dancing in the flames. As the third vampire sprang at Harry, the ice erupted, sending thin spears into the bodies of the remaining vampires. The ice simply skirted around the shields on Harry and Dinah, but buried themselves into the flesh of the Red Court.
Sometimes magic was so friggin cool.
----
Dinah slashed at the blood sac of the next vampire, who fell to his knees as the crimson liquid spilled forth. She slashed out as yet another closed in on her, aiming for the neck. The vampire leapt out of the way, and struck out at Dinah. She ducked the blow and swept his feet out from under him with her legs.
Once the vampire slammed into the ground, Dinah made quick work of cutting off his head.
The hallway was now littered with dead vampires. Dinah made her way over to Harry when she heard a scream from the inner room.
“Harry, there must be someone else in there!” she shouted.
Knowing he would be at her heels, Dinah charged into the room. Two beings leapt out from behind the door and grabbed her arms before she had the chance to react. Inhumanly strong arms slammed her against the wall and a female vampire stepped up to her, hands on her throat, blocking off her ability to speak or scream. The pressure that was exerted from all sides made her drop the knife, which clattered to the floor. The vampires leered down at Dinah.
“I may not have your lungs, dear, but my scream seems to do the trick too,” she said.
----
Harry's "Dinah, no!" came much too late. Once she was on the move, his shield slipped away from her since she was moving too quickly for him to keep up. Harry started to limp after her, but stopped short when he heard the sound of the kukri falling to the ground. No cries, no sounds of attack. Nothing else. Which meant that either Dinah had just been killed, or someone was preventing her from crying out.
In a moment, Harry had reinforced his shield, and thrown a veil over himself. Then he murmured a few phrases under his breath, drawing in his will and expelling it with a hint of soulfire until he was looking at himself.
That had to be the room for whatever ritual they were planning. Harry could all but feel magic in the walls, and the sense of it made him want to gag. It was a mockery of everything he believed magic to be.
He led the illusion to the doorway, and peeked in behind it. Soulfire gave the creation the very essence of life, and it was enough that the Red King began to speak to it.
"Dresden," the vampire lord said, his voice booming. "Surrender yourself now, or watch your woman suffer as the last did."
The voice was wrong. Harry bit his hand to keep from laughing. The doppelganger shook its head. "No, no. That's not the way it works. You have to give me a fighting chance. Otherwise, everyone here knows that you haven't got the balls to back your own play."
The Red King's jaw dropped open in shock. "You dare challenge me?"
"Challenge? No. The Lords of Outer Night were a challenge. Hell's bells, the real Red King was a challenge. You?" The illusion laughed. "Torres, is it? Some King. You're not even a peasant compared to them."
The vampire sprat something in a language Harry couldn't identify, and hurled a ball of fire at the illusion. Which made Harry glad he sidestepped, since the fireball went through the doppelganger, and out one of the stone walls.
"Ooh. A wizard's duel? You think you can keep up with me, Rookie?" Harry stepped out from behind the illusion, and walked through the doorway himself. "Just you and me. That's how it should be."
----
Dinah struggled against the three vampires holding her down, and finally landed a kick to one’s kneecaps as they were all distracted by the blaze of fire. She took advantage of the surprise from the other two and ducked out from under their grip, slicing at one’s belly and falling back away from the flashes of magic as Harry challenged the Red King to a duel.
She was able to parry off the attacks of the remaining two, sure to keep out of the line of fire between Harry and the Red King. She didn’t want to think about what Harry might have to face or the fact that she couldn’t exactly help in a wizard’s duel. It was well outside her area of expertise.
----
Torres snarled at the remaining pair. "Can't you two kill one woman?"
Harry lashed out with his blasting rod, directing a beam of silver fire towards one of the remaining vampires. It never had a chance to turn its head towards the false king before the soulfire consumed it. Harry figured Dinah would be fine handling the last one on her own. "Hey, Chico!" he called, waving a hand impatiently at Torres. "I'm right here, remember?"
Torres sneered. "You are not the only one who can command the elements, Dresden." He lifted his hand again, hurling a second fireball at Harry, who blocked the attack with his shield. But instead of dissipating, the fire spread out, covering the shield and engulfing Harry completely. What the hell was this, a napalm spell? The shield had been modified since the attack that had burned Harry's left hands nearly to the bone, but the effort of blocking this much power was starting to take it's toll. The bracelet on his wrist was growing steadily warmer, and while the heat couldn't reach him, nor could any fresh air.
It was a neat trap. If he dropped any part of the shield's defenses, it would kill him. The fire itself, the heat, or the lack of oxygen.
"Arctic," Harry murmured. "Arctis topor, arctis supor, arctis manifesto!"
Ice began to gather and form between Harry and his shield. He poured his will into it, letting it thicken until he was encased in it. He kept at it, until the rosy glow of the fire was hidden behind sheets of white ice, ignoring the now searing metal against his left wrist. Then, dropping the shield, Harry released his will with an explosive shout of "Forzare!"
Fire and ice flew around the room. Before anyone else could react, Harry threw out a hand. "Ventas servitas!" he shouted, tossing a gale of wind between himself and Dinah so that the results of his prior spell were deflected away from her.
In the instant his attention was on Dinah, the King lashed out with another spell. The impact threw Harry backwards, back through the doorway. His left hand went numb as it clipped the frame, and Harry landed on his back, his head spinning.
----
“Harry!” Dinah shouted as he was blasted backwards.
She tried to make her way toward him to check if he was all right, but the remaining vampiress leapt on her. Dinah hit the ground with a thud and got the vague impression of teeth baring down on her. She reached up with her leg and kicked out at the vampire, not taking the time to aim the kick.
When the vampiress didn’t release her hold, Dinah opened her mouth and directed a cry at her face. The force knocked the female vampire backward enough that Dinah was able to kick up and get the vampire off of her. She found the knife again and slashed downward at the vampire’s neck.
Dinah got to her feet as the head separated from the body, trying not to focus on the sight. They still looked a little too human for her comfort level, but she knew it had to be done. She turned in an attempt to see what was happening with Harry and the Red King.
----
Harry felt a hand grip his throat just as he heard Dinah's cry. Torres' face swam into focus. The false king was pulling him back to his feet by the hand clenching his throat. "I have bested you, mortal," the vampire gloated. His hand tightened, and Harry struggled to breathe.
He wasn't going to be able to speak to throw a spell, but speaking only created a layer of protection between the spell, and the mind of the person casting it. It was possible to use a spell without the words... if the wizard in question didn't mind exposing his mind to the pure magic. And right now it was either risk it, or die. Which would leave Dinah alone with this monster.
Harry gripped the arm holding him with both hands, ignoring the sharp pain in the left one. He focused, gathered his will - which was damned hard when someone was trying to choke the life out of him - and slammed a wave of silver fire into the Red King. Torres released him, staggering back as the soulfire-imbued flames burst from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. The vampire burned, from the inside out.
Harry's head was definitely spinning now. He was on his knees, gasping for breath, and all he could really focus on was his left hand. And how oddly bent the middle two fingers were. Huh. That was strange.
----
It was over. Dinah watched the Red King burn to death and then hurried over to Harry. She knelt beside him and slipped his right arm around her shoulders as her left arm found its way around his back in a half-embrace. With her free hand, she gently brushed some of the blood off Harry’s cheek.
“And to think I was worried that you’d woken up and been distracted by one of their cocktail waitresses,” she said with a sad smile. “That would have been better.”
She didn’t touch his left hand, but stared at it for a few minutes, and then turned her attention back to Harry’s face.
“Now will you let me take you to a hospital?”
----
Harry made a soft grunting sound. "Why?" he said, his voice rasping. "So I can tell them I was attacked by vampires?" He tried to smile, but stopped when he saw her expression, and shook his head, slowly. "They knew who I am, D. This was the Red Court. If there's any left, they'll be watching the hospitals for me."
And the idea of even one Red Court vampire assaulting a hospital in order to find him hinted at a casualty rate he couldn't even imagine. "I'll make some calls. Find a doctor. One that can come to me instead.
He looked at his hand again. "Oh. I think they're broken."
----
“Broken, really? What was your first clue?” Dinah teased, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. The smile faded quickly as she briefly took stock of the rest of his injuries.
Dinah sighed, though she couldn’t dispute his concerns about the hospital. The idea of vampires attacking a hospital was chilling.
“Okay. I’ll take you back to your place and get you cleaned up, and then I’ll make the calls. I’m pretty sure you won’t be dialing any phones any time soon. Do you at least have medical supplies at home?”
She tucked her feet underneath herself and prepared to stand, still keeping his arm around her so she could lend her support.
“Just let me know when you’re ready to stand and we’ll go.”
----
"Hey, I've got two hands." Harry held up his right hand and wiggled the fingers. "I can still dial a phone." He pulled back the sleeve from his left wrist and winced. The shield bracelet had left a ring of burns there. He debated taking it off for a moment before deciding against it. His duster was good defense, but the bracelet was better.
"And yes, I have supplies at home. Tylenol, and even some Tylenol 3: Return of the Painkiller. Much better than it's lesser-known predecessor, Tylenol 2: The Pain Strikes Back. Plus bandages and things." Those painkillers sounded good right about now.
----
“Yes, well, Tylenol 3 is my favorite of the trilogy. And you pretty much have one and a half hands at the moment,” Dinah teased. “I can handle the phone calls just fine.” She slid her gaze to him as he removed his arm from her shoulders. “Unless of course you really had your heart set on handling that on your own.”
She stood up, remembering the guard that she’d left handcuffed in the cell.
“I’ll be right back. When I get back, you should probably be ready to stand up and move out of here. If there are more of them, I don’t want to be around when they get here.”
She slipped into the room off the hallway and picked at the locks on the manacles for the still-unconscious guard. The man started to stir after she slid the cuffs off, but didn’t wake up just yet. Dinah only hoped that he’d stay unconscious long enough for them to get out of the warehouse.
She returned to where she’d left Harry and looked at him.
“Ready to go?”