by Jim Butcher
And all of them marched in step with one another.
In the distance I heard the low, rumbling thunder of a drum played on a big bass stereo.
Behind the first group came another. And behind them another. By then I could see the eyes of the nearest-empty, staring eyes in sunken, deathly faces.
My heart lurched in sudden terror as the zombies closed in on me.
I shambled down my stairs and tripped, stumbling against my door. I fumbled at my keys, frantically taking down my wards so that my own security spells didn't kill me on my way in. Mouse stayed at my back, continuous snarls bubbling from between his bared teeth.
"Thomas!" I screamed. "Thomas, open the door!"
I heard a noise, close, and spun around.
Mindless faces appeared at the top of the stairs leading down to my apartment door, and Grevane's killing machines leapt down them, straight at me.
Chapter Twenty-two
Mouse leapt into the air as the lead zombie flung itself at me, and met it with an ugly sound of impact. The dog and the animate corpse dropped onto the stairs. The zombie swung an arm at Mouse, but the dog rolled, taking the blow on one slab of a shoulder, his snarl sharpening at the impact. The dog surged against the zombie's legs and got his teeth into the corpse's face. He shook his head violently, while the zombie stumbled and reeled under the ferocity of the attack.
The second zombie bypassed the struggling pair, reaching out for me. I barely had time to brandish my staff at the creature and snarl, "Forzare!"
Unseen force struck the zombie like an ocean wave, flinging it back up the stairs and out of sight.
Mouse let out a shrieking sound of pain, ripped his fangs once more at the zombie's face, and pushed away from it. The zombie's face had been crushed and torn until it was unrecognizable. Both eyes had been torn out, and the undead thing flailed around wildly, striking blindly with heavy sweeps of its arms. Mouse leaned heavily against me, one paw held lifted from the ground, snarling.
Three more zombies were already most of the way down the stairs, and there was no time to do anything but try my staff again. I raised it, but the nearest zombie was faster than I had guessed, and he batted the wood out of my hand. It smacked against the concrete wall of the stairwell and rebounded onto the blinded zombie, out of my reach. The zombie snatched at my arm and I barely avoided it.
The door opened at my back and Thomas called, "Down!"
I dropped to the ground and did my best to haul Mouse down with me. There was a roar of thunder, and the leading zombie's head vanished into a spray of ugly, rotten gore. The remainder of the being thrashed for a second and then fell drunkenly to one side, collapsing into immobility.
Thomas stood in the doorway, dressed in only a pair of blue jeans. He held the sawed-off shotgun against his shoulder, and his eyes blazed with a cold silver fury. He worked the pump on the gun and fired it three times more, destroying or driving back my nearest attackers for a moment. Then he seized the collar of my duster and dragged me forcibly into the apartment. Mouse came with us, and Thomas slammed the door shut.
"Get the locks," I told him. He started shoving the door's two heavy security bolts shut, while I crawled to the door, laid my hands against it, and with a whisper of will rearmed the wards that protected the apartment. The air hummed with a low buzz as the wards snapped back up into place.
Silence fell over the apartment.
"Okay," I said, panting. "That's it. Safe at home." I looked around the apartment and spotted Butters hovering near the fireplace, poker in hand. "You okay, man?"
"I guess so," Butters said. He looked a little wild around the eyes. "Are they gone?"
"If they aren't yet, they will be. We're safe."
"Are you sure?"
"Definitely," I said. "There's no way they're going to get in here."
The words were hardly off my lips when there was a thunder crack of sound and a heavy thump that knocked scores of books off my bookshelves and sent us all staggering around like the cast of the original Star Trek.
"What was that?" Butters screamed.
"The wards," Thomas snapped.
"No," I said. "I mean, come on. Walking right into those wards is suicide."
There was another clap of thunder, and the apartment shook again. A flash of bright blue light bathed the outside of the boardinghouse, and even reflected through the sunken windows near my apartment's ceiling, it was painfully bright.
"Can't commit suicide if you're already dead," Thomas said. "How many of those things were out there?"
"Uh, I'm not sure," I said. "A lot?"
Thomas swallowed, got the box of shells off the mantel, and started loading them into the shotgun. "What happens if he just keeps throwing zombies at the wards?"
"I didn't build them to keep up a continuous discharge," I said. There was another roaring sound and another flash of light, but this time there was barely a tremor on the floor. "They're going to fade and collapse."
"How long?" Thomas asked.
There was a crackling buzz from outside, too slow, this time, to be heard only as a roar of noise. Blue-white light flickered dimly. "Not long. Dammit."
"Oh, God," Butters said. "Oh, God, oh, God. What happens when the wards are gone?"
I grunted. "The door is made of steel. It will take them some time to get through it. And after that, there's the threshold. That should stop them, or at least slow them down." I raked my fingers over my hair. "We've got to come up with something, fast."
"What about the extra defenses?" Thomas asked.
"They're standing right outside," I said.
"Hence the need for extra defenses," Thomas snapped. He pumped a round into the shotgun's chamber and slipped another into the extra slot in its clip.
"Those defenses are meant to stop a magical assault," I said. "Not physical entry."
"Will they keep the zombies out?" Butters asked.
"Yes. But they'll also keep us in."
"What's so bad about that?" Butters asked.
"Nothing," I said, "until Grevane sets the building on fire. Once they go up, I can't take them down again. We'll be trapped." I ground my teeth. "We've got to get out of here."
"But the zombies are out there!" Butters said.
"I'm not the only one who lives here," I said. "If he burns down the house to get to me, people will die. Thomas, get dressed and get your shoes on. Butters, there's a ladder under that Navajo rug there. I want you to take a candle and go down it. There's a black nylon backpack on a table, and a white skull on a wooden shelf. Put the skull in the backpack and bring it to me."
"What?" Butters said.
"Do it!" I snapped.
Butters scurried over to the Navajo rug, found the trapdoor down to my lab, and grabbed a candle. He disappeared down the ladder.
Thomas put the shotgun down and opened his trunk. It didn't take him long to get dressed in socks, black combat boots, a white T-shirt, a black leather jacket. Maybe it was part of his supernatural sex-vampire powers-dressing quickly for a hasty getaway.
"You see?" he said while he dressed. "About Butters."
"Shut up, Thomas," I said.
"What is the plan?" he said.
I limped over to the phone and put it to my ear. Nothing.
"They cut the phone."
"We can't call for help," Thomas said.
"Right. Only thing we can do is smash our way out to the car."
Thomas nodded his head with a jerk. "How you want to do it?"
"What do you think?"
"Big old wall of fire would do it. Cover our left flank and keep the bad guys off of us. I'll take the right flank and shoot anything that moves."
Fire magic. A sudden memory of my burned hand flashed through my head so intensely that I felt actual, physical pain in the nerve endings that had been destroyed. I thought about what I would need to do to manage the wall Thomas had suggested, and at the mere thought my stomach twisted in revulsion-and worse, with doubt.
&
nbsp; For magic to work, you have to believe in it. You have to believe that you can and should perform whatever action you had in mind, or you get zippo. As my hand burned with phantom agony, I realized something I had not admitted, not even to myself.
I wasn't sure I could use fire magic again.
Ever.
And if I tried it and failed, it would only make it more difficult to focus my will on it again in the future, each failure building a wall that would only grow more difficult to breach. My belief in my powers might never recover.
I looked down at my maimed hand, and for just a second I actually saw the blackened, cracked flesh, my fingers swollen, the whole of it seeping blood and fluid. The second passed, and there was only my hand in its leather glove again, and I knew that beneath the glove it was scarred in various shades of white and red and pink.
I wasn't ready. God, even to save lives that included my own, I wasn't sure that I would be able to call up fire again. I stood there feeling helpless and angry and afraid and stupid-and most of all, ashamed.
I shook my head at Thomas and avoided meeting his eyes while I gave him an excuse. "I'm all but done," I said quietly. "I've got to save whatever I have left to block Grevane if he throws power at us directly. I don't know how much I'm going to be able to do."
He searched my expression for a second, frowning. Then he shrugged into the jacket, his face grim. He seized the saber in its scabbard and buckled it on with a worn leather belt. He settled it at his hip and picked up the shotgun again. "Guess it's up to me, then."
I nodded.
"I'm not sure how hard I'll be able to push," he said quietly.
"You handled Black Court vampires pretty well last year," I said.
"I'd been feeding on Justine every day," he said. "I had a lot to draw on. Now…" He shook his head. "Now I'm not sure."
"We aren't exactly overstaffed here, Thomas."
He closed his eyes for a second, and then nodded. "Right."
"Here's the plan. We get to the Beetle. We drive away."
"And then what? Where do we go after that?" he asked.
"You don't see me nitpicking your plans, do you?"
There was a sudden, heavy thump against the steel security door. It rattled in its frame. Bits of dust descended from my ceiling. Then another. And another. Grevane had thrown enough zombies at the wards to wear them out.
Thomas grimaced and looked at my leg. "Can you get up the stairs on your own?"
"I'll make it," I said.
Butters came panting up the stepladder from the lab, his face pale. He wore my nylon pack, and I could see Bob the skull making one side of it bulge a little.
"Gun," I said to Thomas, and he handed me the shotgun. "Right. Here's how it works. We open the door." I gestured with the shotgun. "I sweep it clear enough to get Thomas clear of the doorway. Then Thomas goes in front. Butters, I'm going to hand you the shotgun."
"I don't like guns," Butters said.
"You don't have to like it," I said. "You just have to carry it. With my leg hurt, I can't get up the stairs without using my staff."
The steel door rattled again, the pace of the blows against it increasing.
"Butters," I snapped. "Butters, you've got to take the gun when I hand it to you and follow Thomas. All right?"
"Yeah," he said.
"Once we get up the stairs, Thomas runs interference while I start the car. Butters, you'll get in the backseat. Thomas gets in and then we leave."
"Um," Butters said, "Grevane trashed my car so I couldn't get away, remember? What if he's done the same thing to yours?"
I stared at Butters for a second and tried not to show him how much that worried me.
"Butters," Thomas said quietly, "if we stay here we're going to die."
"But if they've destroyed the car-" Butters began.
"We'll die," Thomas said. "But we don't have a choice. Whether or not they've destroyed it, our only chance of getting out of this alive is to get to the Beetle and hope it runs."
The little guy got even paler, and then abruptly doubled over and staggered over to the wall beneath one of my high windows. He threw up. He straightened after a minute and leaned back against the wall, shaking. "I hate this," he whispered, and wiped his mouth. "I hate this. I want to go home. I want to wake up."
"Get it together, Butters," I said, my voice tight. "This isn't helping."
He let out a wild laugh. "Nothing I can do would help, Harry."
"Butters, you've got to calm down."
"Calm down?" He waved a shaking hand at the door. "They're going to kill us. Just like Phil. They're going to kill us and we're going to die. You, me, Thomas. We're all going to die."
I forgot my bad leg for a second, crossed the room to Butters, and seized him by the front of his shirt. I hauled up until his heels lifted off of the floor. "Listen to me," I snarled. "We are not going to die."
Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. "We're not?"
"No. And do you know why?"
He shook his head.
"Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die." I hauled on the shirt even harder. "And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die."
He blinked.
"Polka will never die!" I shouted at him. "Say it!"
He swallowed. "Polka will never die?"
"Again!"
"P- p-polka will never die," he stammered.
I shook him a little. "Louder!"
"Polka will never die!" he shrieked.
"We're going to make it!" I shouted.
"Polka will never die!" Butters screamed.
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Thomas muttered.
I shot my half brother a warning look, released Butters, and said, "Get ready to open the door."
Then the window just over Butters's head exploded into shards of broken glass. I felt a hot, stinging sensation on my nose. I stumbled, my wounded leg gave out, and I fell.
Butters shrieked.
I looked up in time to see dead grey fingers clutching the little guy by the hair. They hauled him off of his feet, and two more zombie hands latched onto him and pulled him up through the broken window and out of the apartment. It happened so fast, before I could get my good leg under me, before Thomas could draw his saber.
There was a terrified scream from outside. It ended abruptly.
"Oh, God," I whispered. "Butters."
Chapter Twenty-three
I stood staring up at the broken window in stunned silence for a second. "Harry," Thomas said, quiet urgency in his voice, "we need to go."
"No," I said. "I'm not leaving him."
"He's probably dead already."
"If he is," I said. "It won't protect him from Grevane. I won't leave him there."
"Do we have a chance in a fight?"
I shook my head with a grimace. "Help me up."
He did. I limped over to the window and shouted, "Grevane!"
"Good evening," Grevane said, the rich, cultured tones of his voice a marked contrast to the dull, steady pounding at my front door. "My compliments to your contractor. That door is really quite sturdy."
"I like my privacy," I called back. "Is the mortician alive?"
"That's a somewhat fluid term in my experience," Grevane said. "But he is well enough for the time being."
My knees wobbled a little in relief. Good. If Butters was still all right, I had to keep Grevane talking. Barely five minutes had passed since the attack began. Even if the bad guys had cut the phone lines to the whole boardinghouse, the neighbors would have heard the racket and watched the light show from my wards. Someone was sure to call the authorities. If I could keep Grevane busy long enough, they would arrive, and I was willing to bet money that Grevane would rabbit rather than take chances this close to his goal. "You've got him. I want him."
"As do I," Grevane said. "I presume he found the information in the smuggler's corpse."
"Y
es," I said.
"And I take it you also know."
"Yes."
He made a thoughtful sound. He was very near the broken window, though I couldn't see him. "That presents a problem for me," Grevane said. "I have no intention of sharing the Word with anyone. I'm afraid it will be necessary for me to silence you."
"I'm the least of your worries," I called back. "Corpsetaker and Li Xian took the information from me this afternoon."
There was a silence, broken only by the slow, steady pounding on my door.
"If that had happened," Grevane said, "you would not be alive to speak of it."
"I got lucky and got away," I said. "Corpsetaker sounded all hot and bothered about this Darkhallow thing you guys have planned."
I heard the angry sound of someone spitting. "If you are telling the truth," Grevane said, "then it profits me nothing to allow you and the mortician to live."
"That's one way to look at it," I said. "But you could just as easily say that it costs you nothing to do it, either. Last night you wanted to make me a deal. You still willing to talk?"
"To what purpose?" he said.
There was the shrieking sound of steel beginning to bend under stress. One corner of the door, up at the top, bent in, letting in cold evening air.
"Hurry," Thomas urged me. "We have to do something fast."
"Give me Butters," I said to Grevane. "I'll give you the information I found."
"You offer me nothing. I have him already," Grevane said. "I can extract the information from him myself."
"You could," I said, "if he knew it. He doesn't."
Grevane snarled something in a language I didn't understand. I heard scuffing shoes, then the sound of a slap and a dazed exclamation from Butters. "Is that true?" Grevane asked him. "Do you have the information about the Word?"
"Dunno what it is," Butters mumbled. "There was a jump drive. Numbers. It was a whole bunch of numbers."
"What numbers?" Grevane snarled.
"Don't know. Whole bunch. Can't remember them all. Harry has them."
"Liar," Grevane said. There was the sound of another blow, and Butters cried out.
