Overcome (6/6)
Title: Overcome (6/6)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Violence (lots of it), cursing and nonconsensual possession just kind of happened in this chapter. Wholesale slaughter happens as well. I don’t know what got in to me.
Relationships: Harry Dresden/John Marcone
Characters: Harry Dresden, Karen Murphy, John Marcone, Morgan, Bob the Skull, various nameless OC’s, Anastasia Luccio (kinda sorta).
Summary: When enemies from Harry’s past attack John, it pushes him over the edge. Harry’s had enough of pretending to be anything other than what he is and, Court or Council, someone is going to pay.
Part of my Dresden AU Series. This story comes after Monsters.
A/N
Uh okay so this chapter is kind of actiony and I’m not sure how well I pulled it off but here’s hoping you guys like it. I think after this I’m going to stick to one-shots for a while. Seriously, this multi-chapter thing is stressful.
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Marcone strode easily towards the shell-shocked group that stood in the threshold of the small hospital room. Their attention completely fixed on the miraculous awakening of the comatose man the only reason that Dresden was able to shove both The Grimoire and Bob back into the small bag that he had carried them into the room with.
The salt would be hard enough to explain he seriously didn’t want to have to get either his oldest friend or his newest treasure out of city lock up.
Turning his attention back towards the doorway, Harry saw Marcone’s usually graceful stride falter. Even a spell as powerful as the one that he had used couldn’t heal everything all at once. They would have to wait and see what the ultimate effects of the spell were.
It was bound to be interesting.
Dresden barely had enough time to shove the tote into Marcone’s arms before he was dragged away from the salt circle by the surprisingly strong grip that Murphy had on his arm.
“It might not be murder, but I am damn sure that for this stunt you’ll get your just desserts.” Murphy hissed as she tightened a pair of handcuffs too tightly around Harry’s slender wrists.
“Harry Dresden. You are under arrest for the deliberate tampering of medical equipment. Attempted murder…”
One of Marcone’s eyebrows rose abruptly as the laundry list of broken laws spewed from the gleeful Lieutenant’s lips.
“I haven’t ‘attempted’ to kill anyone.” Harry protested.
“Oh yeah? So then the red that’s rimming your lips is a new shade of lipstick? I don’t know what sick shit you were up to in here but I can guarantee that it was illegal and probably disgusting.”
Marcone was kept from interrupting the scene in front of him because of the overly solicitous care that the hospital staff was giving him now that he had finally woken up. He had been gently lead to the bed that Harry had dragged him from only minutes before and was being tucked in solicitously. A pair of nurses’ tutted over the ripped stitches in his side and eyed the sliced wrist with horror.
“John!” Harry managed to rush out before he was dragged forcefully from the room. “Tell Bob that he has my permission to protect us by whatever means necessary.”
Marcone managed a regal nod before a babbling doctor with a penlight and a death wish grabbed his jaw.
“The only person that Marcone needs protection from is you asshole.”
Murphy’s low snarl was almost drowned out by a sudden buzz of power as they exited the small hospital’s back doors. Waiting patrol cars’ lights were flashing silently and the only other person present was a trucker who had been napping in his rig when the police car showed up.
All of it faded into the background as Dresden struggled to gather his magical senses, which were still a little sluggish because of the power he had exerted during the ritual. Everywhere he looked the only thing he could see were the slowly lengthening shadows of a Chicago evening.
Nothing out of place.
Nothing strange.
Something flickered into existence in an alley across the street. Harry’s eyes widened.
“Uncuff me!”
“Yeah right. Get your ass in the car.”
“Hells bells woman, uncuff me! Right now! Immediately! At once! ASAP!”
Dresden rooted his feet into the concrete jerking the much smaller woman to an unwilling halt.
Murphy jerked Dresden around by wrenching him by the elbow so that he faced her, putting his back towards the now writhing shadows in the alley.
“What is your problem?”
Harry craned his head over his shoulder trying to keep the alley within his line of sight. A sudden flash of grey lit up his vision as a dozen wardens stepped out of the alley. Led by a grim faced Morgan, who clutched his sword in a white knuckled two-handed grip.
Every single one of them looked murderous.
Harry could feel the blood draining from his face. Whatever his expression must have been, it was suitably alarming because Murphy quit shouting at him and peeped around his chest, straining to see what had his attention.
She never got the chance, because the moment her grip loosened on Dresden’s arm he ripped free from her and with a popping sizzle wrenched his arms free of the cuffs.
Murphy’s mouth opened in an enraged yell that would never emerge because Harry shoved her into the back of the patrol car and shut the door behind her before she had a chance to pull her wits back around her.
Melting the handcuffs had burned deep furrows into his wrists and Harry had to restrain a gasp of pain as he turned to face a group of fully armed fully trained magic practitioners with the power of both the White Council and the Red Court behind them.
Harry threw a flick of power at the police car.
“Obfirmo”
There were audible cracks as all of the locks on the car went down at once and then the only sound left in the area was the dull thuds that Murphy and the uniformed driver fists made as they pounded on the bullet proof glass.
His moment of inattention cost him dearly. Dresden felt the cement tumble out from underneath him as Morgan’s magic ripped through the ground and the entire parking lot began to ripple.
Hitting the ground in a roll, Harry could feel sharp concrete and glass cutting into his bare chest. He didn’t even bother getting all the way to his feet before returning with his own salvo.
The gout of flame must have felt like a kiss from the devil as it licked at the flame resistant robes the magic sewn into them desperately fighting to protect vulnerable human flesh from the bite of the magical flame.
Harry had to fling himself sideways from his crouching position as a sharply featured woman slashed her sword in his direction, a gust of wind pushing his flames back towards him and making him scramble to regain even footing.
Batting at his still smoking hair, Harry had to keep moving as magical strike after strike erupted around him as the warden’s began to fling magical attacks at him without reprieve.
Concrete exploded wherever he tried to place his feet.
Air seemed to be in short supply as it pulled away from him only to come back baring sharp bits of rubble that bashed him in the face and torso.
Roots crawled out of the earth entangling his feet and making it impossible for him to escape from the pummeling that he was receiving.
Everywhere he looked the only thing that Harry could see were the ever-encroaching gray of the Warden’s cloaks.
When they were close enough that Dresden figured that had him close to surrounded in a loose circle he finally bared his magical teeth.
“Repello.”
Morgan’s eyes widened as he heard that whipsaw menace that he had heard the traces of when he had first met a teenager with dead eyes.
All that potential he had seen, and so much more, fully realized in a word that seemed to bend the world around it as the younger wizard sent everything back towards its’ casters.
Every scrap of debris that had been thrust at Dresden suddenly found itself flung back at its caster.
Morgan gritted his teeth and fought back a wince as a particularly large chunk of concrete swept past him and smashed into the face of one of their younger Wardens; sending her to the ground with a dull thud of dead meat.
This moment of breathing space gave Dresden all the advantage he needed.
Flinging powerful concussive blasts from the array of rings that adorned both of his fists; Dresden began to swing his lanky limbs in as wide an arc as he could manage.
Bright flares of magic appeared as the blasts hit the shields of the Warden’s, but Morgan could see the hairline fractures in several that foreshadowed their demise.
Evidently so could Dresden.
Fingers outspread and palm facing towards the ground, Dresden gritted out his next move.
“Percutio!”
For a moment nothing seemed to happen and then all of the Warden’s heard the unmistakable sound of metal scraping against concrete.
Like ill-formed spears long length’s of rebar erupted from the cement with a shattering clang and they broke through two of the weakest shields like they were so much paper.
One of the pieces with nothing to stop it erupted from the back of a gray-templed Warden in a spray of blood and bile before continuing on its journey with no noticeable decrease in its velocity.
The other struck a Warden full in the throat, the grooves of the metal catching on her spine and pinning her against the wall of the hospital. She gurgled breathlessly for several seconds before falling silent, her body kept upright by the length of metal.
Panting, Dresden pulled himself to his full height. Nine more. The power that the last spell had taken had nearly drained his already dangerously low magic levels. He had been hoping to take at least a few more of them out with that last trick but several of the shields had held steady against the assaulting force.
More magical blasts from the remainder of the group pummeled at Harry, he pulled up weak shields when he could but the overwhelming numbers soon brought him to his knees.
Snarling defiantly, Harry swayed as he tried to stay upright against his exhaustion. His eyes swept the remainder of the forces and Morgan smiled when he saw bleak resignation begin to envelope the too lean face.
Striding forward Morgan drew his sword back and forward as quickly as he could. Desperately trying to decapitate the man that the White Council wanted dead so badly. Morgan prepared for the brief hesitation that sharp metal meeting bone offered and felt instead a ringing clamoring up his arms as it met metal instead.
Eyes traveling up the length of the slender curve of the sword that had stopped him from fulfilling his mission, Morgan felt them widen against his will as they met the glimmering yellow of his opponents’.
“Luccio?”
The smile that split the somber face was wrenchingly not right and the small women leant her weight against Morgan’s sword and pushed him back far too easily.
“Anastasia Luccio isn’t home right now. But if you’d like to leave a message I’ll be sure to pass it along...After I’m done with her.”
The last sentence was purred lasciviously as s/he licked his/her lips. Morgan wrenched his blade free of the overwhelming pressure noticing that three more of his companions were down for the count. They either lay still and cooling or were desperately trying to keep their exposed intestines from spilling out into the street. Luccio’s sharp blade having made easy work of slicing open their delicate bellies.
“Bob,” Dresden rasped, “So very glad you could join the party.”
“How could I resist such a lovely invitation?”
Whatever had possessed Luccio was almost casually using her magic against the desperate attempts of the remaining Warden’s. No matter how they strained to break through the barrier that had been constructed mere moments after Morgan had pulled back Luccio nothing seemed to put so much as a dent in it.
“Luccio didn’t invite you anywhere monster!” Morgan swung his sword again only to be casually blocked by whatever had taken over his friends’ body.
Not Luccio scoffed. “Please. Swiss cheese has fewer holes than this woman’s mind. Honestly I’m doing her a service considering what the White Council was using her for.”
The respite that Bob’s intervention had given Harry let him regain his feet and he accepted his leather coat that Bob had had draped over one of his arms while he fended off Morgan’s attack.
Feeling the familiar drape of the protective cloth Dresden felt some of his power come back to him in a rush as his connection to Marcone blossomed into full existence for the full time. Physical and magical power rushed through him in a heady wave and he could feel Marcone’s support buoying him towards a feeling that he hadn’t felt since before his father’s death.
It was a happy Harry that launched himself at the remainder of the Warden’s and with Bob at his side and Marcone in his mind and soul he had never felt so cared for, had never felt so powerful.
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Dresden marched through the doors of the swinging doors of the police station, his hair singed and ragged and his leather coat slung firmly across bare shoulders and chest.
Agent Johnson’s eyes widened as he took in the cuts and abrasions that were sprinkled liberally across the much taller man’s face and torso before he managed to control his reaction.
“I believe you wanted to speak to me immediately.” The implied asshole was very thinly veiled as Dresden limped to a stop in front of the gob smacked agent.
“Wha..?” Johnson sputtered briefly before he looked around the crowded station at its completely silent occupants before returning to the younger man’s face.
“Where is Lieutenant Murphy?”
“As far as I know she’s still locked in the backseat of the patrol car.”
“PATROL CAR!?!” Johnson’s shriek was high pitched and made Dresden wince back.
“Could you maybe keep it down so that something other than dogs can hear you? I’ve got the headache from hell here and you’re not helping.”
“Why,” Johnson ground out, fists clenching and unclenching turning pink and white in turns, “Is Lieutenant Murphy locked in a patrol car and what the hell happened to you?”
“Oh,” The normally grim faced man in front of him positively beamed with bonhomie and good will as he brushed off what look suspiciously like a human tooth from a crease in his torn and dusty trousers. “That’s the good news! I found the asshole responsible for the assault on Marcone.”
Jerking his head back towards the door, as it swung open, Johnson felt his jaw flapping as a slender woman none to gently lead a man who looked as though he’d been in the same tornado that had so changed Dorothy’s perspective without the protection of a house.
“Agent Johnson, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Donald Morgan. The man who just assaulted me after Murphy took me in to custody. I’m quite sure that once she’s been released from her inadvertent prison, Murphy will corroborate this. I’d like to press charges.”
Johnson had to clench his eyes shut for several seconds as he struggled and finally managed to grasp a measure of preternatural calm.
“And your friends name is?”
The tiny woman released Morgan none to gently into the hands of a sputtering officer’s care before she turned to face Johnson. The smile on her face was predatory and the agent had to struggle to keep protective hands away from his crotch as she slunk towards the slightly taller man.
“Name’s Luccio. I work for Dresden.”
Unnatural yellow eyes looked up at him demurely and Johnson couldn’t restrain a shiver as he met them for several seconds before he wrenched free of the hypnotic gaze.
Johnson let himself escape Dresden and Luccio’s presence by sending several officers to get Murphy out of the car and taking possession of a very quiet Morgan.
He had a feeling that the only charges that would stick would be to the man that he was leading towards an empty interrogation room.
Whatever power game was happening among the high-powered criminals, in Chicago at least it seemed that Dresden and Marcone had overcome whatever opposition had tried to stage a resistance.
He had a feeling that the world would feel the reverberations of this power struggle for many years to come.
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A/N
So.
That chapter just kind of happened.
Bob snuck in through a back door and became a BAMF! A fem!BAMF at that.
I'll add the links to the other chapters when its not so late.