The leader of the cobbs regarded me steadily for a moment. Nobody likes being strong-armed, not even the little folk, who are used to getting walked on, but I didn’t have time for diplomacy.
Keef’s gaze kept getting distracted by the shoes, dangling over the trash can, and he made no answer. The other cobbs all waited, clearly taking their cue from Keef.
“Show of good faith, Keef,” I said quietly. I took the broken shoes and set them gently on the ground in front of the shop. “I’ll trust you and your people to repair them and return them. And I’ll pay in pizza.”
The cobbs gasped, staring at me as if I’d just offered them a map to El Dorado. I heard one of the younger cobbs exclaim, “True, it is!”
“Fleeting, pizza is,” Keef said sternly. “Eternal are shoes and leather goods.”
“Shoes and leather goods,” the rest of the cobbs intoned, tiny voices solemn.
“Few mortals to the little folk show respect, these days,” Keef said quietly. “Or trust. True it is that beneath this roof we are crowded. And unto the wizard, debt is owed.” He gave the shoes a professional glance and nodded once. “Under your terms, and within our means, our aid is given. Your need unto us speak.”
“Scouts,” I said at once. “I know there are Black Court vampires in the mall. I need to know exactly how many and exactly where they are.”
“Done it will be,” Keef barked. “Cobbs!”
There was a little gust of wind, and I was suddenly alone. Oh, and both Sarah’s expensive heels and Molly’s clunky sandals were gone, the latter right out of my hands and so smoothly that I hadn’t even noticed them being taken. I checked, just to be careful, but my own shoes remained safely on my feet, which was a relief. You can’t ever be certain with cobbs. The little faeries, at times, could get awfully fixated upon whatever their particular area of concern might be, and messing around with it was more dangerous than most realized. Despite the metal screen between the cobbs and me, I’d been playing with fire when I held those Pradas over the trash can.
Another thing that most folks don’t realize is just how much the little folk can learn, and how fast they can do it—especially when things are happening on their own turf. It took Keef and his people about thirty seconds to go and return.
“Four, there are,” Keef reported. “Three lesser, who of late this place did guard. One greater, who gave them not-life.”
“Four,” I breathed. “Where?”
“One outside near the group of cars waits and watches,” Keef said. “One outside the bistro where the mortals hide stands watch. One beside his mistress stands within.”
I got a sick little feeling in my stomach. “Has anyone been hurt?”
Keef shook his head. “Taunt them, she does. Frighten them.” He shrugged. “It is not as their kind often is.”
“No. She’s there for vengeance, not food.” I frowned. “I need you to get me something. Can you?”
I told him what I needed, and Keef gave me a mildly offended look. “Of course.”
“Good. Now, the one outside,” I said. “Can you show me a way I could get close to him without being seen?”
Keef’s eyes glittered with a sudden ferocity that was wholly at odds with his size and appearance. “This way, wizard.”
I went at what was practically a run, but the tiny cobb had no trouble staying ahead of me. He led me through a service access door that required a key to open—until it suddenly swung open from the other side, a dozen young male cobbs dangling from the security bar and cheering. My amulet cast the only light as Keef led me down a flight of stairs and through a long, low tunnel.
“Access to the drains and watering system, this passage is,” Keef called to me. We stopped at a ladder leading up. A small paper sack sat on the floor by the ladder. “Your weapons,” he said, nodding at the bag. He pointed at the ladder. “Behind the vampire, this opens.”
I opened the bag and found two plastic cylinders. I didn’t want the crinkling paper, so I put one of them in my jacket pocket, kept the other in hand, and crept up the ladder. At the top was a hatch made out of some kind of heavy synthetic, rather than wood or steel, and it opened without a sound. I poked my head up and looked cautiously around the parking lot.
The lights were out, but there was enough snow on the ground to bounce around plenty of light, giving the outdoors an oddly close, quiet quality, almost as if someone had put a roof overhead, just barely out of sight. Over by the last group of cars in the mall parking lot, next to the Blue Beetle in fact, stood the vampire.
It was little more than a black form, and though it was human in shape, it was inhumanly still, every bit as motionless as the other inanimate objects in the parking lot. Snow had begun to gather on its head and shoulders, just as it had on the roofs and hoods of the parked cars. It stood facing the darkened mall, where snow blew into the hole left by the thrown car. It was watching, I supposed, for anyone who might come running out, screaming.
A newborn vampire might not be anywhere near as dangerous as an older one, but that was like saying a Mack truck was nowhere near as dangerous as a main battle tank. If you happened to be the guy standing in the road in front of one, it wouldn’t much matter to you which of them crushed you to pulp. If I’d had my staff and rod with me, I might have chanced a stand-up fight. But I didn’t have my gear, and even if I had, my usual magic would have made plenty of noise and warned the vampire’s companions.
Vampires are tough. They take a lot of killing. I had to take this one out suddenly and with tremendous violence without making any noise. If I had to face it openly, I’d have no chance.
Which is why I had used the cobbs’ intelligence to get sneaky.
I drew in my will, the magic I had been born with and that I had spent a lifetime exercising, practicing, and focusing. As the power came into me, it made the skin of my arms ripple with goose bumps, and I could feel a strange pressure at the back of my head and pressing against the inside of my forehead. Once I had the power ready, I started shaping it with my thoughts, focusing my will and intent on the desired outcome.
The spell I worked up wasn’t one of my better evocations. It took me more than twenty seconds to get it together. For fast and dirty combat magic, that’s the next best thing to forever.
For treacherous, backstabbing, sucker-punch magic, though, it’s just fine.
At the very last second, the vampire seemed to sense something. It turned its head toward me.
I clenched my fist as I released my will and snarled, “Gravitus!”
The magic lashed out into the ground beneath the vampire’s feet, and the steady, slow, immovable power of the earth suddenly stirred, concentrating, reaching up for the vampire standing upon it. In technical terms, I didn’t actually increase the gravity of the earth beneath it. I only concentrated it a little. In a circle fifty yards across, for just a fraction of a second, gravity vanished. The cars all surged up against their shock absorbers and settled again. The thin coat of snow leapt several inches off the parking lot and fell back.
In that same fraction of a second, all of that gravity from all of that area concentrated itself into a circle, maybe eighteen inches across, directly at the vampire’s feet.
There was no explosion, no flash of light—and no scream. The vampire just went down, slammed to the earth as suddenly and violently as if I’d dropped an anvil on him. There was a rippling, crackling sound as hundreds of bones shattered all together, and a splatter of sludgy liquid that splashed all over the cars around the vampire—mostly upon the Beetle, really.
The effort of gathering and releasing so much energy left me gasping. I was out of shape when it came to earth magic. It had never been my strongest suit—too slow, most of the time, to seem like it would have been worth the bother. As I hauled myself out of the ground, though, I had to admit that when there was enough time to actually use it, it sure as hell was impressive.