Broken ribs

"Little Raith bitch," Vittorio snarled. "What I do to you will make your father's blood run cold."
There was the sound of a heavy blow. I twitched my head a tiny bit to one side to get a look at what was around me.
A lot of really huge ghouls, that was what, apparently no less fierce for being battered and torn by the battle. Vittorio stood over Lara, his face pale, his leg horribly burned. He had his right hand held out, the hand that projects energy, fingers spread, and I could still feel the terrible power radiating from them. He was maintaining the pressure of the spell that held everyone down, then - and I could see, from the reaction of the ghouls around him, that they were feeling the bite of the spell, too. It seemed only to make them flinch and cower a little, rather than incapacitating them entirely. Maybe they were more used to feeling such things.
He kicked Lara in the ribs, twice more, heavy and ugly kicks that cracked bones. Lara let out little sounds of pain, and I think it was that, more than anything, that let me push the paralyzing awl of hostile magic completely away from my mind. I moved one hand, and that slowly. From the lack of outcry, I took it that no one noticed.

White Night Chapter 41, Page 445-446


"Thomas!" I shouted. "Wakey, wakey! Now is not the time to lie down and die."
I heard my brother groan. "Harry?"
"Lara, can you hear me?"
"Quite," she said. Thomas's older sister was already on her feet, from the sound, and her voice was coming from close behind me.
"Thomas, get Marcone and get him through the gate." I gave Vittorio a fierce glare. "Don't move. Don't even twitch."
Vittorio, his face in agony, held up his left hand, fingers spread. He was bleeding, a lot, and started shivering. There wasn't any fight left in his face. He'd hit me with his best shot, and I'd apparently shrugged it off. I think it had scared the hell out of him. Losing his hand hadn't helped his morale any, either. "Don't shoot," he said. "Just... d-don't shoot." He shot a glance around at the ghouls and said, "L-let them go."
I heard Marcone let out a groan, and Thomas grunted with effort. "Okay," Thomas said from behind me. "I'm through."
I kept the gun on Vittorio and stood up, trying not to let the barrel waver. How many seconds did I have left? Thirty? Twenty? I've heard about people who can keep track of wild situations like this while keeping a steady count, but apparently I wasn't one of them. I took a step back, and felt Lara's back pressing against mine. From the corner of my eye, I could see that the ghouls had spread out all around us. If she hadn't been there, one of them could have blind-sided me without any trouble the second I was a couple of feet away from Vittorio. Gulp.
I took a step back, forcing myself to move smoothly, steadily, when my instincts were screaming at me to run.
"Three more steps," Lara told me in a whisper. "A little more to your left."
I corrected the direction of my next step, trusting her word. One step more, and I could hear winter wind sighing behind me. Silver moonlight shone on the barrel of the shotgun.
And then I found out whether or not Cowl was actually there.
There was a surge of power, an abrasive scream against my arcane senses, and the offspring of a comet and a pterodactyl came hurtling out of the darkness at the far end of the cavern. My eyes had adjusted enough to see a dim oval of reddish light that outlined a heavily cloaked figure - Cowl, standing in his own gate.
"Master!" Vittorio cried, his voice slurred.
"Look out!" I screamed, and thrashed behind me with my arm as I ducked and lurched to one side, trying to sweep Lara out of the flying thing's path as I did. It missed us by inches, but we got out of the way.
Cowl's leathery, rasping voice hissed something in a slithering tongue, and a second surge of power lashed invisibly across the cavern - not at us, but at my gate.
And as quickly as that, my gate began to close, the opening sewing itself shut like a Ziploc bag - starting with the end closest to me.
Tickticktickticktick.
The gate was closing far more quickly than I could have gotten up and moved. I wasn't getting out. But Lara might.
"Lara!" I shouted. "Go!"
Something with the strength of a freight train and the speed of an Indy car seized my duster and hauled on it so hard that it wrenched my neck and nearly dislocated my arms.
"Dresden!" called Marcone's voice from the closing gate. "Nineteen!"
I hurtled through the air. Looking wildly around showed me that Lara had seized me and leaped for the far end of the collapsing gate.
"Eighteen!" came Marcone's shout.
Lara and I flew through empty and unremarkable air.
The gate had closed.
We missed it.

White Night Chapter 41, Page 48-51