Tricks Raith

Then Raith's flesh began to glow. His shirt was in shreds, and he tore it from him with a negligent gesture. His skin became suffused with a pale light once more, and I saw his body rippling weirdly around an ungainly hole left of his navel. He was healing.
I stared at him tiredly for a minute, then bent over and picked up my sword.
He laughed at me. "Dresden. Wait there for a moment. I'll deal with you as I did Thomas."
"He was my blood," I said quietly. "He was my only family."
"Family," Raith spat. "Nothing but an accident of birth. Random consequence of desire and response. Family is meaningless. It is nothing but the drive of blood to further its own. Random combination of genes. It is utterly insignificant."
"Your children don't think that," I said. "They think family is important."
He laughed. "Of course they think that. I have trained them to do so. It is a simple and convenient way to control them."
"And nothing more?"
Raith rose, regarding me with casual confidence. "Nothing more. Put the sword down, Dresden. There's no reason this has to hurt you."
"I'll pass. You can't have much left in you," I said. "I've given you enough of a beating to kill three or four people. You'll stay down sooner or later."
"I have enough left in me to deal with you," he said, smiling. "And after that, things will change."
"Must have been hard," I said. "All those years. Playing it careful. Never pushing yourself or using your reserves. Not able to risk getting your hands dirty, for fear everyone would see that you couldn't do what your kind do. Couldn't feed."
"It was an annoyance," Raith said after a wary pause. He took a step toward me, testing my response. "And perhaps taught me a measure of humility, and of patience. But I never told anyone what Margaret's curse did to me, Dresden. How did you know?"
I kept the point of the sword pointed at his chest and said, "My mother told me about it."
"Your mother is dead, boy."
"You're immune to magic, too. Guess she just doesn't have a lot of respect for the rules."
His face darkened into an ugly, murderous mask. "She's dead."
I smirked at him, waving the tip of my sword in little circles.
The glow on his skin began to fade, and the darkness closed in with deadly deliberation. "It has been a pleasure speaking with you, but I am healed, wizard," Raith snarled. "I'm going to make you beg me for death. And my first meal in decades is going to be the little police girl."
At which point all the lights in the cavern came up at the same time, restoring the place to its slightly melodramatic but perfectly adequate lighting.
Lara stepped from behind the screen, her scarlet skirt swaying, sword on her hip, and murmured, "I think I'd like to see that, Father."
He stopped, staring at her, his face hardening. "Lara. What do you think you're doing?"
"Writhing in disillusionment," she said. "You don't love me, dearest Papa. Me, your little Lara, most dutiful daughter."
He let out a harsh laugh. "You know better. And have for a century."
Her beautiful face became remote. Then she said, "My head knew, Father. But my heart had hoped otherwise."
"Your heart," he said, scorn in his voice. "What is that? Take the wizard at once. Kill him."
"Yes, Papa," she said. "In a moment. What happened to Thomas?"
"The spell," he said. "Madge lost control of it when she unleashed it at Dresden. Your brother died trying to protect him. Subdue him, dearest. And kill him."
Lara smiled, and it was the coldest, most wintry expression I had ever seen. And I had seen some of the champs. She let out a mocking, scornful little laugh. "Did you stage that for my benefit, wizard?"
"It was a little rough," I said. "But I think I got my point across."
"How did you know I was watching?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Someone had to have told Raith that bullshit about the accident with the gun," I said. "You were the only one who could have done that. And since this confrontation was going to be pivotal to your future, regardless of how it turned out, you'd be an idiot not to watch."
"Clever," she said again. "Not only is my father drained of his reserves, he is unable to recover more." She lowered her eyelids, her eyes glittering like silver ice as she did. "Quite helpless, really."
"And now you know it," I said.
I gave Raith a very small smile.
Raith's expression twisted into something somewhere between rage and horror. He took a step back from Lara, looking from her to me and back.
Lara traced her fingers in light caresses over the sword at her hip. "You've made me the cat's-paw for you, Dresden. While making me think I had the advantage of you. You've played me at my own game, and ably. I thought you capable of nothing but overt action. Clearly I underestimated you."
"Don't feel bad," I said. "I mean, I look so stupid."
Lara smiled. "I have one question more," she said. "How did you know the curse left him unable to feed?"
"I didn't," I said. "Not for certain. I just thought of the worst thing I could possibly do to him. And it wasn't killing. It was stealing. It was taking all of his power away. Leaving him to face all the enemies he'd made-with nothing. And I figured my mother might have had similar thoughts."


Blood Rites Chapter 41, Page 350-353