Instead, I filled the space at the mouth of the cave with flexible, resilient energy, and packed layer upon layer of it behind the shield, and more of it all around us. I wasn't trying to stop the energy of the explosion.
I was trying to catch it.
There was an instant of crushing compression, and I felt the pressure on my shield like a vast and liquid weight. It flung me from my feet, and I held hard to Lara, whose arms gripped me in return. I began to tumble, blinded by the flame, and fought to hold the shield, now hardening it all around us, into a sphere, constricting it around us until we were pressed body-to-body. We hurtled up the tunnel, flung out ahead of the explosion like a ship ahead of a hurricane—or, more accurately, like a ball being fired down the barrel of a long, stony musket. The shield banged against the smooth walls, dragging more effort out of me. A single outcropping might have stopped our progress for a disastrous instant, shattering stone, shield, succubus, and shamus into one big mess. Thank God the vanity of Lara's family had made sure the walls of the tunnel were polished smooth and gleaming.
I didn't see the ghouls guarding the upper reaches of the tunnel, so much as I felt them hit the shield and be smashed aside and splattered like bugs, only to be consumed by the flood of fire washing up the tunnel after us. I don't know how fast we were going, beyond "very." The explosion flung us up the long tunnel, and out into the night air and up through the branches of a couple of trees—which shattered under the force. Then we were arcing through the night, spinning, with stars above us whipping by and a long tongue of angry flame emerging from the entrance to the Deeps below.
And all the while, I was locked in the heated ecstasy of Lara's kiss.
I lost track of what was happening somewhere near the top of the arc, right about when Lara's legs twined with mine and she ripped aside my shirt and hers to press her naked chest against me. I had just begun wondering what it was I'd forgotten about how kissing Lara was not the best idea when there was a horrible crashing sound that went on for several seconds.
We weren't moving. The shield wasn't under pressure, and I was so dizzy and tired that I couldn't string two thoughts together. I lowered the shield with a groan of relief that was lost in an answering moan of need from the succubus in my arms.
"St-stopped," I said. "Lara… st-stop."
She pressed closer, parted my lips with her tongue, and I thought that I was going to explode, when she suddenly let out a hiss and recoiled from me, a hand flying to her mouth—but not before I saw the blisters rising from the burned flesh around her lips.
I fell slowly to my back and lay there gasping in the near-dark. There were several small fires nearby. We were in a building of some kind. There were a lot of broken things.
I was sure to get blamed for this one.
Lara turned away from me, huddling in upon herself. "Bloody hell," she said after a moment. "I can't believe you're still protected. But it's old… My intelligence said Ms. Rodriguez hadn't left South America."
"She hasn't," I croaked.
"You mean…" She turned and blinked at me, astonishment on her face. "Dresden… do you mean to say that the last time you had relations with a woman was nearly four years ago?"
"Depressing," I said. "Isn't it."
Lara shook her head slowly. "I had just always assumed that you and Ms. Murphy…"
I grunted. "No. She… she doesn't want to get serious with me."
"And you don't want to be casual with her," Lara said.
"There's an outside chance that I have abandonment issues," I said.
"Still… a man like you and it's been four years …" She shook her head. "I have enormous personal respect for you, wizard. But that's just… sad."
I grunted again, too tired to lip off. "Saved my life just now, I suppose."
Lara looked back at me for a moment and then she… turned pink. "Yes. It probably did. And I owe you an apology."
"For trying to eat me?" I said.
She shivered, and the tips of her breasts suddenly stood out against the white silk. She'd rearranged her clothes to cover them. I was too tired to feel more than a little disappointed about it. "Yes," she said. "For losing control of myself. I confess, I thought that we were facing our last moment. I'm afraid I didn't restrain myself very well. For that, you have my apologies."
I looked around and realized, dimly, that we were in some part of the Raith chateau itself. "Hngh. I'm, uh. Sorry about the damage to your home here."
"Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to be gracious; You saved my life."
"You could have saved yourself," I said quietly. "When the gate was closing. You could have left me to die. You didn't. Thank you."
She blinked at me as if I had just started speaking in alien tongues. "Wizard," she said after a moment. "I gave you my word of safe passage. A member of my Court betrayed you. Betrayed us all. I could not leave you to die without forsaking my word—and I take my promises seriously, Mister Dresden."
I stared quietly at her for a moment and then nodded. Then I said, "I notice that you didn't go terribly far out of your way to save Cesarina Malvora."
Her lips twitched up at the corners. "It was a difficult time. I did all that I could to protect my House and then the other members of Court in attendance. More's the pity that I could not save that usurping, traitorous bitch."
"You couldn't save that usurping, traitorous Lord Skavis, either," I noted.
"Life is change," Lara replied quietly.
"You know what I think, Lara?" I asked.
Her eyes narrowed and fastened on me.
"I think someone got together with Skavis to plan his little hunt for the low-powered-magic folks. I think someone encouraged him to do it. I think someone pointed it out as a great plan to usurp mean old Lord Raith's power base. And then I think that same someone probably nudged Lady Malvora to move, to give her a chance to steal Lord Skavis's thunder."
Lara's eyelids lowered, and her lips spread in a slow smile. "Why would someone do such a thing?"
"Because she knew that Skavis and Malvora were going to make a move soon in any case. I think she did it to divide her enemies and focus their efforts into a plan she could predict, rather than waiting upon their ingenuity. I think someone wanted to turn Skavis and Malvora against one another, keeping them too busy to undermine Raith." I sat up, faced her, and said, "It was you. Pulling their strings. It was you who came up with the plan to kill those women."
"Perhaps not," Lara replied smoothly. "Lord Skavis is—was—a well-known misogynist. And he proposed a plan much like this one only a century ago." She tapped a finger to her lips thoughtfully and then said, "And you have no way of proving otherwise."
I stared at her for a long moment. Then I said, "I don't need proof to act on my own."
"Is that a threat, dear wizard?"
I looked slowly around the ruined room. There was a hole in the house, almost perfectly round, right through the floors above us and the roof four stories above. Bits and pieces were still falling. "What threat could I possibly be to you, Lara?" I drawled.
She took in a slow breath and said, "What makes you think I won't kill you right here, right now, while you are weary and weakened? It would likely be intelligent and profitable." She lifted her sword and ran a fingertip languidly down the flat of the blade. "Why not finish you right here?"
I showed her my teeth. "You gave me your word of safe passage."
Lara threw back her head in a rich laugh. "So I did." She faced me more directly, set the sword aside, and rose. "What do you want?"