Dead Beat

by Jim Butcher

Chapter 39

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  By the time we got outside, the storm had turned into something with its own vicious will. Rain lashed down in blinding, cold sheets. Wind howled like a starving beast, lightning burned almost continually across the sky, and the accompanying thunder was a constant, rumbling snarl. This was the kind of storm that came only once or twice in a century, and I had never seen its equal.

  That said, the entire thing was nothing but a side effect of the magical forces now at work over the city. The apprehension, tension, fear, and anger of its people had coalesced into dark power that rode over Chicago in the storm. The Erlking's presence-I could still hear the occasional shrieking howl amidst the storm's angry roaring-stirred that energy even more.

  I shielded my eyes from the rain as best I could with one hand, staring up at the lightning-threaded skies. There, a few miles to the north, I found what I had expected-a slow and massive rotation in the storm clouds, a spiral of fire and air and water that rolled with ponderous grace through its cycle.

  "There!" I called back to Butters, and pointed. "You see it?"

  "My God," he said. He clutched at my shoulders with both hands to hold himself steady, and his bass drum pulsed steadily behind me. "Is that it?"

  "That's it," I growled. I shook the water from my eyes and clutched at the saddlehorn to keep my balance. "It's starting. "

  "What a mess," Butters said. He glanced behind us, at the broken brick and debris and wreckage of the museum's front doors. "Is she all right?"

  "One way to find out," I growled. "Hah, mule!"

  I laid my left hand on the rough, pebbled skin of my steed and willed it forward. The saddle lurched, and I clutched hard with my other hand to stay on.

  The first few steps were the worst. The saddle sat at a sharp incline not too unlike that on a rearing horse. But as my mount gathered speed, the length of her body tilted forward, until her spine was almost parallel with the ground.

  I didn't know this before, but as it turns out, Tyrannosaurs can really haul ass.

  She might have been as long as a city bus, but Sue, despite her weight, moved with power and grace. As I'd called forth energy-charged ectoplasm to clothe the ancient bones, they had become covered in sheets of muscle and a hide of heavy, surprisingly supple quasi-flesh. She was dark grey, and there was a ripple pattern of black along her head, back, and flanks, almost like that of a jaguar. And once I had shaped the vessel, I had reached out and found the ancient spirit of the predator that had animated it in life.

  Animals might not have the potential power of human remains. But the older the remains, the more magic can be drawn to fill them-and Sue was sixty-five million years old.

  She had power. She had power in spades.

  I had rigged the saddles to straddle her spine, just at the bend where neck joined body. I'd had to improvise to get them around her, using the long extension cords to tie them into place, and it had been ticklish as hell to get Butters on board without him losing the beat and destroying my control of the dinozombie. But Butters had pulled through.

  Sue bellowed out a basso shriek that rattled nearby buildings and broke a few windows as she hurtled forward down the streets of the city. The blinding rain and savage storm had left the streets all but deserted, but even so, there were earthquakes less noticeable than a freaking Tyrannosaur. The streets literally shook under her feet. In fact, we left acres of strained, cracked asphalt behind us.

  Here's something else I bet you didn't know about Tyrannosaurs: they don't corner well. The first time I tried to take a left, Sue swung wide, the enormous momentum of her body simply too much for even her muscles to lightly command. She swung up onto the sidewalk, crushed three parked cars under her feet, knocked over two light poles, kicked a compact car end over end to land on its roof, and broke every window on the first two floors of the building beside us as her tail lashed back and forth in an effort to counterbalance her body.

  "Oh, my God!" Butters screamed. He kept hanging on to me with his arms, stabbing his legs out alternately to either side in order to operate the bass drum strapped on his back.

  "They're probably insured!" I shouted. Thank God the streets weren't crowded that night. I made a note to be sure to have Sue slow down a little before we turned again, and kept the focus of my will on her, her attention on the task at hand.

  Just before we turned onto Lake Shore Drive we hit a National Guard checkpoint. There were a couple of army Hummers there, their headlights casting useless cones of light into the night and storm, wooden roadblocks, and two luckless GIs in rain ponchos. As Sue bore down on them, the two men stared, their faces white. One of them simply dropped his assault rifle from numb hands.

  "Get out of the way, fools!" I screamed.

  The two men dove for cover. Sue's foot crashed down onto the hood of one Hummer, crushing it to the asphalt, and then we were past the checkpoint and pounding our way down the street toward Evanston.

  "Heh," I said, looking back over my shoulder. "I'd love to hear how they explain that to their CO. "

  "You crushed that truck!" Butters shouted. "You're like a human wrecking ball!" There was a thoughtful pause, and then he said, "Hey, are we going anywhere near my boss's place? Because he just won't shut up about his new Jaguar. "

  "Maybe later. For now, look sharp," I told him. "She's a lot faster than I thought. We'll be there in just a minute. " I ducked under the corner of a billboard as Sue went by it. "Whatever you do, keep that drumbeat going. Do you understand?"

  "Right," Butters said. "If I stop, no more dinosaur. "

  "No," I called back. "If you stop, the dinosaur does whatever the hell it wants to. "

  Shouts rose up from a side street where a couple more guardsmen saw us go by. Sue turned her head toward them and let out another challenging bellow that broke more windows and startled the guardsmen so much that they fell down. I felt a surge of simple, enormous hunger run through the beast I'd called up, as though the ancient animus I'd summoned from the spirit world was beginning to remember the finer things in life. I touched Sue's neck again, sending a surge of my will down into her, jerking her head back around with a rumbling cough of protest.

  My ears rang in the wake of that vast sound, and I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Butters was okay. His face was pale.

  "If this thing gets loose," he said. "That would be bad. "

  "Which is why you shouldn't stop the drum," I told him. If Sue went wild, I could scarcely imagine the potential carnage she could inflict. I mean, good grief. Look at all the senseless victims of Jurassic Park II.

  We hit Evanston, the first suburb of Chicago proper, which is mainly separated from Chicago by the presence of trees on the streets and a few more homes than high-rises. But given that it's only a block or two away from the heart of Second City, the addition of trees and homes made it feel more like a park nestled down at the feet of the city.

  I guided Sue into a gentler left turn onto Sheridan, slowing down enough to be sure that we wouldn't swerve off the street. As Sue headed in, I was suddenly struck with the realization of how fragile those homes seemed. Good Lord, another driving accident like the one back in town would result in a home being crushed, and not just some dents and broken windows. We would be moving among precisely the people I was trying to protect-families, homes with children and parents and pets and grandparents. Decent folks, for the most part, who just wanted to make their homes peaceful and secure and go about their lives.

  Of course, if I didn't hurry up and stop the Darkhallow, every house I was now passing would be filled with its dead.

  I checked the sky during the next long flicker of lightning and didn't like what I saw. The clouds were spinning faster, more broadly, and unnatural colors and striations had appeared in their formation. And we were almost under its center.

  I guided Sue down another side street, and that's when I felt the cloud of power gathering b
efore me. It swirled and writhed against my wizard's senses, sending tingling shafts of heat and cold and other, less recognizable sensations running through me. I shuddered at the disorienting strength of it.

  There was magic being wrought ahead. A lot of it.

  "There!" Butters shouted, pointing. "Down that way, that whole block is the campus!"

  Lightning flashed again as I turned Sue down the street, and it was over the dinosaur's broad head that I saw Wardens battling for their lives in the street ahead.

  They were in trouble. Luccio had them moving in a tight group around a cluster of. . . Hell's bells, around a group of children in colorful Halloween costumes. Morgan was at the head of the group, Luccio brought up the rear, and Yoshimo, Kowalski, and Ramirez were on the flanks.

  Even as I watched, I saw dozens of rotting forms lurch out of the shadows ahead of them and charge. More came running in behind them, letting out wails of mad anger.

  Luccio whirled to deal with them. And dear God, I suddenly saw the difference between a strong but somewhat clumsy young wizard and a master of the magic of battle.

  Fire lashed from her left hand-not a gout of flame like I could call up, but a slender needle of fire so bright that it hurt the eyes to see. She swept it in an arc at thigh level, and every one of the zombies coming behind went tumbling to the ground amidst crackling sounds of shattering muscle and singeing meat. Another wave surged up behind the first. Luccio caught one of them in a grip of invisible power and hurled the un-dead into the ones behind, sending more of them to the ground, but a pair of the zombies got through.

  Luccio ducked the grasping arms of the first, caught the thing by a wrist, and sent it stumbling aside with a twist of her body that reminded me of one of Murphy's moves. The second zombie drove a hammer-heavy blow at her head, but that slender blade she wore at her side swept up out of its scabbard and took off its arm at the elbow. Another move brought a chiming surge of some power I could feel even from half a block away singing through the silver steel of her sword, and she flicked it lightly at the zombie's head. The blade touched, there was a flash of light, and the zombie abruptly fell limp to the ground, the magic that had animated it disrupted and gone.

  In less than five seconds, Luccio had simply wiped out thirty undead, and it hadn't even been a contest.

  I guess you don't get to be commander of the Wardens by collecting bottle caps, either.

  My eyes flicked back to the front of the group, where Morgan met the shock of another wave. His style was rougher and more brutal than Luccio's, but he got similar results. A heavy stomp of his foot sent a ripple through the earth that knocked undead to the ground like bowling pins. A gesture of his hand and wrist and a cry of effort drew grasping waves of concrete and earth up to clamp down on the fallen zombies. He closed his fist, and the earth tightened, drawing back down into the ground, cutting and tearing its way through undead flesh and ripping the zombies to shreds. One of the creatures was still mobile, and with a look of contemptuous impatience on his face, Morgan drew the broadsword at his hip-the one used for executions of wizards guilty of breaking one of the Laws of Magic-paused a beat to get the timing right, and then swung, once, twice, snicker-snack, and the zombie fell apart into a number of wriggling bits.

  Several others got through here and there. Kowalski hammered one to the ground with unseen force, while beside him Yoshimo twisted a hand and the branches of a nearby tree reached down of their own accord, wrapped around the undead's throat, and hauled it up off of the ground. Ramirez, a fighter's grin on his face, lashed out with some kind of bright green energy I had never seen before, and the zombie nearest him simply fell apart into what looked like grains of sand. As an afterthought, he drew his sidearm as a second creature charged him, and calmly put two rounds into its head from less than ten feet away. He must have been loaded up with hollow points or something, because the creature's head exploded like rotten fruit and the rest fell twitching to the ground.

  None of the zombies got within ten feet of the terrified children.

  More of them materialized out of the rain and the night, but Luccio and the Wardens kept moving steadily forward, burning and crushing and slicing and dicing their way across the street, furiously determined to get the children clear.

  Which is probably why they didn't see the sucker punch coming.

  Out of nowhere there was the roar of an engine, and an old Chrysler shot forward along the street. The driver pulled it into a sharp left turn as it got close to the Wardens and their charges, and the wet rain turned it into a broadside slide. The car swept forward like an enormous broom of iron and steel, and none of the Wardens were looking that way.

  I cried out to Sue and hung on to the saddlehorn.

  The car slid, sending out a bow wave of sheeting water from the wet street.

  Ramirez's head snapped around toward the car and he shrieked a warning. But it was too late to get out of the way. The group was still under attack, and the mindless creations that assaulted them cared nothing for self-preservation. They would continue the fight, and even if the Wardens could have run from the car, they would never survive being mobbed by the undead in the chaos. In a flash of insight, I realized that these were the same tactics Grevane had used at my apartment- ruthlessly sacrificing minions in order to defeat the enemy.

  Everyone else's head turned toward the oncoming car.

  The muscles of Sue's legs tensed, and the saddle lurched.

  One of the little girls screamed.

  And then the Tyrannosaur came down from the leap that had carried her over the besieged Wardens. Sue landed with one clawed foot on the street, and the other came down squarely on the Caddy's hood, like a falcon descending upon a rabbit. There was an enormous sound of shrieking metal and breaking glass, and the saddle lurched wildly again.

  I leaned over to see what had happened. The car's hood and engine block had been compacted into a two-foot-thick section of twisted metal. Even as I looked, Sue leaned over the car in a curiously birdlike movement, opened her enormous jaws, and ripped the roof off.

  Inside was Li Xian, dressed in a black shirt and trousers. The ghoul's forehead had a nasty gash in it, and green-black blood had sheeted over one side of his face. His eyes were blank and a little vague, and I figured he'd clipped his head on the steering wheel or window when Sue brought his sliding car to an abrupt halt.

  Li Xian shook his head and then started to scramble out of the car. Sue roared again, and the sound must have terrified Li Xian, because all of his limbs jerked in spasm and he fell on his face to the street. Sue leaned down again, her jaws gaping, but the ghoul rolled under the car to get away from them. So Sue kicked the car, and sent it tumbling end over end three or four times down the street.

  The ghoul let out a scream and stared up at Sue in naked terror, covering his head with his arms.

  Sue ate him. Snap. Gulp. No more ghoul.

  "What's with that?" Butters screamed, his voice high and frightened. "Just covering his head with his arms? Didn't he see the lawyer in the movie?"

  "Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them," I replied, turning Sue around. "Hang on!"

  I rode the dinosaur into the stream of zombies following in the Wardens' wake and let her go to town. Sue chomped and stomped and smacked zombies fifty feet through the air with swinging blows of her snout. Her tail batted one particularly vile-looking zombie into the brick wall of the nearest building, and the zombie hit so hard and so squishily that it just stuck to the wall like a refrigerator magnet, arms and legs spread in a sprawl.

  In a couple of minutes there wasn't much in the way of zombies to keep on demolishing, so I swung Sue around to pace after the Wardens. They had gotten clear of the street while I covered their retreat, and I saw Warden Luccio at the door of the nearest building, waving the last two children and Ramirez through the door while she watched out behind.

  I guided S
ue up to the building, and had her settle down to the ground. "Come on. But keep the drum going," I told him.

  We slid out of our saddles and ran a couple of steps through the heavy rain to where Luccio stood at the door.

  "Hey, there," I said. "Sorry I'm late. "

  Luccio stared at me for a moment and then at the dinosaur. Her eyes held a mixture of wonder, anger, gratitude, and revulsion. "I. . . Dio, Dresden. What have you done?"

  "It isn't a mortal," I said. "It's an animal. You know the laws are there to protect our fellow wizards and mortals. "

  "It's. . . " She looked like she might throw up. "It's necromancy" she said.

  "It's necessary," I said, and my voice sounded harsh. I hooked a thumb up. "You've seen the vortex forming?"

  "Yes. What is it?"

  "Dark power. Kemmler's people are going to call it down and devour it along with all the shades they could get to show up, and if they go through with it and turn one of themselves into a god. . . "

  Luccio's eyes widened as she figured it out and caught on. "There will be a vacuum," she said. "It will draw in magic to replace it. It will draw in life. "

  "Right," I said. "And they're going to be over there, directly under the vortex," I said. "But if anyone tries to go in without a field of necromantic energy around them, the vortex will suck them dry before they get there. We need to get in there to stop them. That's why I borrowed Tiny, here. So don't give me any crap about the Laws of Magic, or at least wait for later, because there are too many lives at stake. "

  Anger flickered over her face and she opened her mouth. Then she frowned and closed it again. "Where did you get this information?"

  "Kemmler's book," I said.

  "You found it?"

  I grimaced. "Briefly. Grevane jumped me and took it. "

  Butters looked back and forth between us, marching in place to make the polka suit's drumbeat.

  Luccio blinked at him, took a deep breath, then said, "And who is this?"

  "The drummer I needed to pull this off," I told her. "And a good friend. He saved my life tonight. Butters, this is Ms. Luccio. Captain, this is Butters. "

  Luccio gave Butters a courtly little bow, and he ducked his head sheepishly in reply.

  "Where did you find those kids?" I asked.

  She grimaced. "This building is an apartment complex. We got here just as the first of the undead arose. One of the parents was screaming about the children being at some sort of Halloween party in a building on campus. We were too late to save the women taking care of them, but at least we got the children out. "

  I chewed on my lip, studying the Warden. "You had evil wizards to gun down. And you stopped to get some kids out of the line of fire? I figured Wardens would have melted the bad guys first, tried to get the civilians clear later. "

  She lifted her chin and regarded me with an arched brow. "Is that how you think of us?"

  "Yes," I said.

  She frowned, and looked down at the hilt of her sword. "Dresden. . . the Wardens are not, as a rule, concerned with compassion or empathy. But they were children. I am not proud of my every act as a Warden. But I would sooner hurl myself to the demons than leave a child to die. "

  I frowned at her. "You would," I said thoughtfully. "Wouldn't you?"

  She smiled a little, her iron-grey hair plastered to her head with the rain, and it made many wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. "Not all of us share Morgan's attitudes. But even he would never have turned aside from children in danger. He is an enormous ass at times. But a brilliant soldier. And beneath all his flaws, a decent man. "

  The door to the building slammed open and Morgan came through, sword gripped in both hands. "I told you," he said viciously to Luccio. "I told you he would turn on us. This latest violation of the laws only proves what I've said all along. . . " His voice trailed off slowly as he caught me from the corner of his eye and turned to see me standing there, and Sue crouched a couple of yards behind me.

  "Yeah," I told Luccio, and my voice was the only dry thing about me. "I see what you mean. "

  "Morgan, he found the book. " She looked at me. "Tell him. "

  I relayed everything I had learned to Morgan. He glowered at me with enormous suspicion, but by the time I got to the part where thousands of people would die if we failed to stop the spell, his face became drawn with anxiety and then hardened with determination. He listened without interrupting.

  "We need to get to the center of the spell," I finished. "Attack them just as they try to draw it down. "

  "It's impossible," Morgan said. "I got close enough to see them when we went in for the children. They're in a little patch of grass and picnic tables between the buildings. There are several hundred animated corpses in our way. "

  "As it happens," I said, jerking my head at Sue, "I brought an animated corpse countermeasure along with me tonight. I'll get us through. "

  Morgan stared at me for a second and then nodded, the idea clearly gathering momentum in his thoughts. "Yes, then. We try to hit them as they complete the spell. That gives them the most time to backstab one another, and if we disrupt a working that powerful, the backlash will probably kill them. "

  "Agreed," Luccio said. "How's Yoshimo?"

  "Ramirez says her thigh is broken," Morgan growled. "She's not in danger but she won't be doing any more fighting tonight. "

  "Dammit," Luccio said. "I should have caught that one before it went through. "

  "No, Captain," Morgan said implacably. "She should never have tried her sword on it. She was an unremarkable fencer, at best. "

  "Gosh you're a sweetheart, Morgan," I said.

  He glared at me, and the sword quivered in his hands.

  Luccio brought her hand down between us in a gesture of absolute authority. "Gentlemen," she said quietly. "Later. We've no time. "

  Morgan took a deep breath in and then nodded.

  I folded my arms and kept up my glower, but I hadn't been the one near violence. Point, Dresden.

  "I've done for Grevane's drummer, and Sue just ate Corpsetaker's sidekick," I said. "That leaves us with those two and Cowl, plus Cowl's assistant. "

  "Four of them and five of us," Morgan said.

  Luccio grimaced. "It could be worse," she admitted. "But only you and I have any experience with this kind of fight. " She glanced at me. "No offense, Dresden, but you're young, and you haven't seen this kind of duel very often-but even you have more experience than Ramirez or Kowalski. "

  "None taken," I said, beginning to shiver in the rain. "I'd rather be home in bed. "

  "Morgan, please get the other Wardens and fill them in. Then put Yoshimo where she can see the front door and defend the building. If things don't go well, we may need somewhere to fall back. "

  "If things don't go well," I said, "we really won't have to worry about that. "

  Morgan shook his head at me. "I'll be right back. "

  I stood there for a moment. A mangled zombie wandered up the sidewalk. I walked back to Sue and touched her flank and her thoughts, and she flicked her tail, batting the thing away into the darkness. Then I walked back over to Luccio.

  "Incredible," she said quietly, looking at Sue. "Dresden, this. . . this kind of magic is an abomination. Perhaps a necessary one this night, but hideous all the same. And yet look at it. It's amazing. "

  "Pretty good for zombie crushing too," I said.

  "Indeed. " She looked up at the sky again. "How will we know when they begin drawing down the power?"

  I started to say, "Your guess is as good as mine," but I didn't get any of it out of my mouth before the clouds rolled and stirred and suddenly began to spin in a single enormous spiral. More lightning showed me the dim form of what looked like a thin, almost spidery tornado that dropped from the cloud and began to descend to the ground.

  I stiffened and nodded at it. "There you go," I said. "They're starting now. "

  "Very well,"
Luccio said. "Then we must move at once. I want you to-"

  Luccio didn't get to tell me what she wanted me to do, because the earth suddenly boiled with writhing masses of pale green light that came surging up out of the ground. They took on form as they came, first vaguely human, then over the next instants resolving into clearer images of what looked like Amerind tribesmen. As they came, their mouths opened in shrieks and wails of excitement and rage, and ghostly weapons appeared in their hands-spears and hatchets, clubs and bows.

  One of them turned and threw a translucent, shimmering spear at my chest. I barely had time to think, but my left arm swept up, my charred shield bracelet exploded into a cloud of blue and white sparks, and the hurled spear shattered into angry green flames against my shield. I heard a short cry beside me and ducked, narrowly avoiding a swing from a spectral hatchet whose wielder floated over me. I threw myself forward and rolled, coming up with my shield ready and my will gathering in my staff, making the sigils carved along its length glow with sullen fire.

  A specter swung a club at Luccio, and she rolled with the blow, but even so took a hit to her jaw and mouth that staggered her. She recovered her balance, ducked to avoid a second swing, and once more drew the silver sword of a Warden from her hip. Again the blade sang with that buzzing power I'd sensed before, and Luccio made a clean lunge at the specter that thrust the blade though its heart. The specter arched as if in agony and then simply exploded into flashes of sickly light and falling globs of ectoplasm. Luccio swept her sword back and spun on a heel to face two more of the quasi-solid spirits.

  I blocked a second blow of the hatchet on my shield, looking wildly around for Butters. I spotted the little guy five yards away, on his hands and knees on the crosswalk, his legs still kicking wildly to keep the drum going. Three of the deadly specters were closing in on him with wails of madness and rage.

  "Butters!" I shouted, and rose to go to him, but two more specters dove at me and forced me to crouch behind my shield. I could only watch what happened as the three undead swarmed Butters and attacked him.

  Butters spun around wildly, his eyes down, evidently not even aware that they were coming. One of them swung a great two-handed club back, as Butters put one hand to his mouth and then slammed it back down on the ground again. The specter's weapon swept down with a clean and lethal grace, heading directly for the back of Butters's head.

  And suddenly shattered against the curving curtain of an empowered circle.

  Butters looked up at the specters as they flailed uselessly against the circle. He had the piece of chalk I'd given him in one hand, and he'd torn the little cut he'd used before open once more with his teeth. He stood up, the drum still thumping, and gave me a shaky thumbs-up.

  "Good, Butters!" I shouted at him. "Stay in there!"

  He nodded, his face pale, and marched in place to keep the drum going.

  I swung my staff at a specter and hit it, and the ghostly warrior reacted as if struck by a heavy brick. It was a curious kind of impact-not the thudding thump of hitting something solid, but some kind of impact nonetheless. I knew from the way that the specters had come up through the earth that they were only partially material. A material impact would have little enough effect on them, and the strength of my arm behind the swing meant nothing to them. But the power of my will that I had called up and held ready in my staff-that was something else. That energy was what the specter reacted to, and I pressed my advantage, whipping my staff through the specter's head and belly on two separate swings, driving the apparition away with howls of pain.

  In the time it took me to do that, Luccio had simply dispatched three more of the specters with the humming power of her Warden's blade. She looked at me, her eyes wide, and lifted a pointing finger. She snarled a word, and another searing thread of flame shot over my shoulder about eight inches from my right ear. There was a howl, and I turned my head to see another specter that had been charging my back fall, consumed in scarlet flame.

  I felt a fierce grin on my face and I turned around to nod my thanks to Luccio-and saw the Corpsetaker come out from under a veil of magic and swing her drawn tulwar at Luccio's back.

  "Captain!" I shouted.

  Luccio's sword arm swept up and around, blade parallel to her spine as she drew it around her shoulders in a circle, and caught Corpsetaker's attack without even turning to face it. Luccio sprang forward like a cat and spun in place, only to have Corpsetaker press her attack and drive the captain of the Wardens back on her heels.

  Corpsetaker's young face was set in a wide and manic smile, cheeks dimpled, her curly hair flying wildly around her head as she charged. She wore a small skin drum of some kind on a rig at her hip, and she beat a swift tattoo on it with one hand while fighting with the other. A fresh cloud of specters swirled up in support of her, and a flying arrow drew a line of scarlet on Luccio's cheek.

  I roared out a challenge, brandished my staff, and bellowed, "Forzare!" A lance of unseen force lashed out at Corpsetaker, but the necromancer leapt back and away from it. She cried out words in an unknown tongue, and half a dozen specters darted toward me.

  I brought up my shield, but was soon hard-pressed to even hold it up against repeated attacks from the specters, and they kept trying to circle around me. If I'd stood my ground they would have killed me, and as much as I wanted to help Luccio, I had no choice but to take one step back after another, until I found my shoulders pressed against Sue's enormous flank.

  But my attack on the Corpsetaker had bought Luccio what she needed to make a fight of things-time to recover from the surprise attack. She cut down two more specters with needles of flame, contemptuously slapped aside another cut from Corpsetaker's tulwar, and then took the battle to the necromancer, grey cloak flying in the storm's wind, pressing her hard with the silver rapier and driving Corpsetaker back one step after another.

  I dropped the staff and slapped my bare hand on Sue's hide. Though the dinosaur looked like a living beast, that was only appearance. Her own flesh was made of the same ectoplasm that the specters were-I had just poured enough energy into it to make it seem more solid. She was of the same stuff as the specters-and that meant that she could hurt them.

  The Tyrannosaur stirred and then snapped her jaws to one side, closing on a specter and tearing it into fading light and globs of goo. She heaved herself to her feet, eyes sweeping around the ground in front of her for the next specter. It lifted a bow and loosed a glowing green arrow that sank into the muscle of her neck, and she bellowed in pain, but the arrow was no more than a bee's sting. One clawed foot came up and down and destroyed a second specter. The others let out wails and shouts of fear and anger and spread out to attack Sue, while the dinosaur lashed her tail around and looked for the next victim.

  I saw Luccio drive Corpsetaker forward and around the corner of the building out of sight. I'd given the specters a bigger problem to worry about, and I went after Luccio.

  "Harry!" Butters shouted, pointing.

  I looked up at the building. I heard children screaming inside. Someone-Ramirez, I thought-screamed, "Get down, get down!" There were flashes of luminous green light swirling here and there in the windows. I heard Morgan shout a challenge, and I heard a raucous booming sound from within. The Wardens there were under attack as well.

  "Stay put!" I told him, and ran after Luccio.

  It was too thick with shadow to see easily around the side of the building, but in a flash of lightning I saw Luccio make another lunge- her technique gorgeous, back leg stretched forward, spine straight, the sword extended and taking the full weight of her body behind its vicious tip. Luccio knew what she was doing. She dipped the tip of her blade under Corpsetaker's tulwar, and the point sank into the necromancer just under the floating ribs. Corpsetaker's mad smile never faltered.

  The lightning died away and I heard a short, gasping cry.

  I took my mother's pentacle in hand and lifted it, willing light from
it. Silver-blue light filled the little space between buildings. I saw Luccio plant her feet, twist the blade viciously, and whip it back out again.

  Corpsetaker fell to her knees. She stared down at her chest and then pressed her hands tightly to the wound. She looked up again, staring at Luccio and then at me. Her eyes clouded over with confusion, and she slowly toppled to her side on the grass.

  "Excellent," said Luccio, turning around. She flicked blood from the silver blade and regarded it for a moment, then strode with purposeful steps for the front of the building again. "Come, wizard. We have no time to waste. "

  "You're going to leave her there?"

  "She's finished," Luccio said harshly. "Come. "

  "Are you all right?" I said.

  She shot a hard look at me. "Perfectly. Grevane and Cowl remain. We must find them and kill them. " Her eyes flicked to the spiraling clouds overhead. "And quickly. We have only moments. Hurry, fool. "

  I stood there for a second, staring at Luccio's back. I lifted the pentacle and looked at Corpsetaker's body, lying on its side in the rain. She twitched a little, her dark eyes wide and staring blindly, her face pale.

  And my stomach twisted in sudden fear.

  I stepped around the corner of the building with my. 44 in my hand, aimed it at the back of Luccio's head, drew back the hammer, and shouted, my voice harsh and hard, "Corpsetaker!"

  Luccio's steps faltered. Her head snapped around to look at me, and in her eyes I saw a brutal cruelty that could never have belonged to the captain of the Wardens.

  I felt the first tug of a soulgaze, but I made my decision in the moment that my voice caused her steps to falter. She opened her mouth, and I saw the Corpsetaker's madness twist Luccio's eyes, felt the sudden, dark tension as she began to gather power.

  She never got it. In that single second of uncertainty, Corpsetaker had been relying upon her disguise to defend her, and had her mind bent upon planning her next step-not preparing her death curse. The bullet from my. 44 hit her just over her right cheekbone.

  Her head snapped back and then forward. It might have been Luccio's body, but it was the Corpsetaker's expression of shock and surprise as the stolen body fell to the ground in a loose tangle of dead limbs.

  I heard a low, strangled sound.

  I looked up to see Morgan standing in the building's doorway, sword in hand. He stared at Luccio's corpse and rasped, "Captain. "

  I stared at him for a second, and then fumbled for words. "Morgan. This isn't what it looks like. "

  Morgan's dark eyes rose to focus on me, and his face twisted with rage. "You. " His voice was deadly quiet. The sword rose to a guard and he stalked out into the rain, and his voice rose to a wrathful roar as the ground-the freaking ground-began to literally shake. "Murderer! Traitor!"

  Oh, shit.