Dead Beat df-7

by Jim Butcher

  Grevane's zombie piled onto my back and started biting me. I felt hot, horrible pain on my trapezius muscles left of my neck, even through my cloak and spellworked duster. The zombie let out a vicious cry and let go, then went for the unprotected nape of my neck. I struggled to throw it off of me, to get away, but my battered body was weakened and it was incredibly strong.

  "Die!" Grevane screamed, wild laughter in his unsteady voice. "Die, die, die-"

  His howls broke off into a single quiet, choking noise, and the zombie on my back abruptly froze.

  I struggled out from under it in time to see Grevane standing a few feet away, the chain discarded upon the ground, his hand held to his neck. Blood, black in the night, sprayed from between his fingers. His expression became enraged and he turned toward me, extending a hand to the zombie near me. The zombie turned, once more with purpose.

  But then Grevane's expression became puzzled. His eyes rolled back in his head, and I saw the long, straight, smooth cut that had opened his neck from one side to the other, cutting all the way to his spine.

  Ramirez stepped into my line of vision, his silver sword in hand and coated with blood. In his other hand he held his pistol. Without hesitation or hurry, he raised the gun and aimed at Grevane's head from five feet away.

  Then he executed the stunned necromancer.

  The body went loose, fell, and lay there in the grass and rain, one leg twitching.

  Around us, the zombies had suddenly lost their vibrant animation, and most of them simply stood passively still, staring at nothing. Tyrannosaur Sue couldn't have cared less, and carried on with her killing spree.

  Ramirez came to me and helped me to my feet. "Sorry it took me so long. I had to dodge some bad guys."

  "You got here," I said, panting.

  He nodded once, grimacing. "Couldn't shoot with you that close, in this light. Had to do it the old-fashioned way. You were one hell of a good distraction, though."

  "You did fine," I said. I could feel hot wetness trickling down my back. "Thank God he was insane."

  "How's that?" Ramirez asked.

  "At the end there. You'd opened his throat but he still thought he could keep going. He tried to hang on to his control of the zombies. It was like he didn't think death counted when it came to him."

  "And that's lucky why?"

  "He refused to believe he was dying," I said. "No death curse."

  Ramirez nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Lucky us."

  Then a man's voice said, "I don't know if I'd say that, gentlemen."

  I whirled as one of the passive zombies still standing nearby turned, lifting its spear-and then shimmered into the form of Cowl. He lifted one hand from the folds of his dark cloak, and there was no warning surge of gathering power when a wave of vicious force flickered out from his palm and took Ramirez full in the chest.

  The young Warden hadn't been ready for it. The magical blow lifted him from his feet and threw him backward like a rag doll. He hit the ground twenty feet later, limbs already flopping limply, and lay there without moving.

  "No!" I shouted, and I whirled on Cowl, Hellfire erupting from the runes of my staff. I lifted the staff, snarled, "Forzare!" and sent a lance of vicious energy at the dark figure.

  Cowl swiftly crossed his hands at the wrists, forming an X shape with his arms, aligning defensive energy before him-but he hadn't been quite swift enough, or else he hadn't reckoned on how much energy he had to deal with. The lash of raw, scarlet force hammered him hard on the right side of his body, spinning him around and stealing his balance. He stumbled in a corkscrewing motion, and went to the ground.

  I drew back the staff for another blow-but then someone pressed against my back, fingers tightened in my hair, and I felt the cold, deadly edge of a knife at my throat.

  "Don't move," Kumori's quiet voice said. She was stretched out quite a bit to be pulling my hair and holding the knife, but she'd done it right. There was no way I could try to escape her without her opening an artery. I ground my teeth, my power still ready to lash out again, and debated doing exactly that. Kumori would probably kill me, but it might be worth it to finish Cowl.

  I looked up at the writhing vortex. Its tip was now barely above the height of my own head.

  Cowl recovered his feet by slow degrees, shaken more than hurt, and anger radiated from him in nearly palpable waves. "Idiot," he said, voice harsh. "You have lost. Can you not see? This game is over."

  "Don't do this," I growled. "It isn't worth it. You're going to kill thousands of innocent people."

  Cowl's hood tilted up toward the descending vortex, and he marched over the grass until he stood directly beneath it. "Keep him still," he snapped to Kumori.

  "Yes, lord," Kumori replied. The steel at my throat never wavered.

  Cowl's hand dipped into a pouch at his side, and came out holding Bob the skull. The lights in the skull's eye sockets burned a cold shade of blue and violet.

  "There, spirit," Cowl said, holding the skull up to see the vortex. "Do you see it?"

  "Of course," said the skull, his voice just as cold and empty. "It is precisely as the master described. Proceed." The eye lights swiveled and came to rest on me. "Ah. The White Council's black sheep. I recommend that you kill him immediately."

  "No," Kumori said firmly. "His death curse could destroy the working."

  "I know that," the skull replied, his voice contemptuous. "But if he lives when Cowl draws down the power he might disrupt it. Kill him now."

  "Silence, spirit," Cowl said in a harsh voice. "You are not the master here. Challenge me again at your own peril."

  The skull's eye sockets burned colder yet, but he said nothing.

  I swallowed. Bob… wasn't Bob anymore. I'd known that he was bound and beholden to whoever possessed the skull he resided within, and that their personality would strongly influence his own-but I'd never really imagined what that might be like. Bob wasn't precisely a friend to me but… I was used to him. In a way he was family, the mouthy, annoying, irritable cousin who was always insulting you but who was definitely at Thanksgiving dinner. I had never considered the possibility that one day he might be something else.

  Something murderous.

  The worst part was that Bob had given Cowl good advice. My death curse might well mess up this spell, but on the other hand, Cowl did not seem one to be afraid of death curses. If he gave me the chance to wait until he was actually at the delicate moment of drawing down the power, I wouldn't need anything as strong as a death curse to upset his balance.

  Of course, it would kill me. Kumori's blade would see to that. But I could stop him if I was alive when it went down.

  Cowl set the skull aside on the grass, then raised his hands above his head and let the sleeves fall back from his long, weathered arms covered in old scars. He began a chant in a low voice, steady and strong.

  The vortex quivered. And then, almost delicately, it began to descend to Cowl, drifting toward him as lightly and slowly as a drifting feather of down.

  Power rolled through the heavens, the clouds, the whirling vortex. Spirits and swirling apparitions screamed and wailed their tormented replies. Kumori's hands never weakened or wavered, but I could sense that almost every fiber of her attention was directed toward Cowl.

  I might have one chance.

  "Bob," I said. "Bob."

  The blue eye lights turned toward me.

  "Think," I said quietly. "Think, Bob. You know me. You've worked with me for years."

  The blue eye lights narrowed.

  "Bob," I said quietly. "You've got to remember me. I gave you a name."

  The skull quivered a little, as if a shudder had run through it, but the eyes continued to burn cold and blue.

  And then one of them flickered into a shade of its usual orange, then immediately back to cold blue.

  My heart thudded in sudden excitement. Bob the skull, my Bob, had just winked at me.

  Cowl continued his chant, and the clouds spun more and mor
e rapidly. The rain abruptly stopped, as swiftly as if someone had turned off a faucet, and the air filled with spirits, ghosts, apparitions and specters, caught in some vast and unseen whirlpool that dragged them in accelerating circles. The power in the air made it hard to breathe, and the roar of wailing spirits, vast wind, and an earth-deep rumble grew steadily louder.

  "Bob," I shouted into the cacophony, "you have my permission!"

  Orange light streaked from the eye sockets of the skull and blazed away from the circle of overturned picnic tables-but even so, I saw Bob's glowing body of energy pulled by the whirling currents of magic. He fought against that horrible vortex, and I suddenly realized that without the shelter of the skull or some other kind of physical body, Bob was no different from any of the other spirit beings trapped in that vast maelstrom. If the Darkhallow was completed, he too would be trapped and devoured.

  I thought I saw Bob's form sucked up into the clouds of trapped spirits, but there was too much light and noise for me to be sure of anything.

  Cowl kept on chanting, and I saw his body arch with tension. Over the next minute or so, he actually, physically rose above the ground, until his boots were three or four inches in the air. His voice had become part of the wild storm, part of the dark energy, and it rolled and boomed and echoed all around us. I began to understand the kind of power we were dealing with. It was power as deep as an ocean, and as broad as the sky. It was dark and lethal and horrible and beautiful, and Cowl was about to take it all in. The strength it would give him would not make him a match for the entire White Council. It would put him in a league so far beyond them that their strength would mean virtually nothing.

  It was power enough to change the world. To reshape it after one's own liking.

  The tip of the vortex spun down, danced lightly upon Cowl's lips, and then slipped gently between them. Cowl howled out the last repetition of his chant, his mouth opening wide.

  I ground my teeth. Bob hadn't been able to help me, and I couldn't let Cowl complete the spell. Even if it killed me.

  I drew in my magic for the last spell I would ever throw, a blast to slam into Cowl, disrupt the spell, let that vast energy tear him to bits.

  Kumori sensed it and I heard her let out a short cry. The knife burned hot on my throat.

  And then the dinosaur I'd summoned plunged through the clouds of wild spirits and headed directly for Kumori, her eyes blazing with brilliant orange flames. Tyrannosaur Bob let out a bellow and swiped one enormous talon at Kumori.

  Cowl's apprentice was tough and competent, but no amount of training or forethought can prepare you for the sight of an angry dinosaur coming to eat your ass. She froze for the briefest second, and I turned, shoving away from her. The knife whipped against my throat, and I felt a hot sting. I wondered if that was what Grevane had felt.

  There was no more time. I flung myself across the grass, gripped my staff in both hands, and swung it like a baseball bat at Cowl's head.

  The blow connected, right on what felt like the tip of his upturned jaw, snapping his mouth shut and knocking him to the ground. The vortex abruptly screamed and filled with a furious red light. I choked out a cry and fell down on my right side to the ground, bringing up my shield bracelet and holding it over me in an effort to protect myself from the vast forces now flying free from the botched spell.

  There was more sound, so loud that no word could accurately describe it, incandescent lightning, screaming faces, and forms of spirits and ghosts, and trembling earth beneath me.

  And blackness fell.

  Chapter Forty-three

  When I came to my senses there was darkness and steady, cold rain, and I had sunk up to my neck in a deep well of aching pain. Neither lightning nor thunder played through the skies. I lay there for a moment, gathering my wits, and as I did the lights of the city began to come on, bit by bit, as the power grids went back online.

  A booted foot pressed into the ground beside my face, and I followed it up, up and up, until I saw the horned helmet of the Erlking outlined against the brightening Chicago skyline.

  "Wizard. Called you forth a mighty hunter tonight. One that has not walked this earth since time gone and forgotten."

  "Yeah," I said. "Pretty nifty, huh?"

  There was a low, wild laugh from that helmet. "Daring. Arrogant. It pleases me." He tilted his head. "And you are poor game at the moment. Because of that, and because you pleased me with your calling of the old hunter, this night you may go free. But beware, mortal. The next time our paths cross, it shall be my very great pleasure to run you down."

  There was a gust of cold autumn wind, and the Erlking was gone.

  I looked around blearily. Every tree in the area was gone, torn off about a foot from the earth. The picnic tables had been torn to splinters. The buildings of the college, especially the museum, looked as if they had been ravaged by a tornado that had torn out great chunks and sections of them.

  My ribs hurt. I looked down and saw that I had fallen around Bob the skull and curled my body around him as I had shielded myself. Orange flame flickered to life in the eye sockets.

  "Some show, huh?" Bob said. He sounded exhausted.

  "You had to go get the dinosaur, eh?" I said. "I figured you'd just grab a handy zombie."

  "Why settle for wieners when you can have steak?" the skull said brightly. "Pretty good idea, Harry, talking to me once Cowl sat me on the ground. I didn't want to work for him anyway, but as long as he had the skull… well. You know how it is."

  I grunted. "Yeah. What happened?"

  "The spell backlashed when you slugged Cowl," Bob said. "Did just a bit of property damage."

  I coughed out a little laugh, looking around me. "Yeah. Cowl?"

  "Most likely there are little pieces of him still filtering down," Bob said brightly. "And his little dog, too."

  "You see them die?" I asked.

  "Well. No. Once that backlash came down, it tore apart every enchantment within a hundred miles. Your dinosaur sort of fell apart."

  I grunted uneasily.

  "Oh," Bob said. "I think that Warden over there is alive."

  I blinked. "Ramirez?"

  "Yeah," Bob said. "I figured that you were a Warden now and stuff, and that you would probably want me to help out some other Warden. So just before the big bang, I had the dinosaur stand over him, soak up the blast."

  I grunted. "Okay," I said. "We've got to help him. But one thing first."

  "What's that?" Bob asked.

  I squinted around until I found Grevane's battered corpse. Then I crawled over to it. I fumbled in the trench coat's pockets until I found Kemmler's slender little book. I squinted around me, but there was no one to look as I put it in my pocket.

  "Okay," I said. "Come on. Watch my back while I help Ramirez."

  "You betcha, boss," Bob said, and his voice was very smug. "Hey, you know what? Size really does matter."

  Ramirez made it out of that evening alive. He had four broken ribs and two dislocated shoulders, but he came through. With Butters's help, I was able to get him, Luccio, and Morgan back to my place. At some point in the evening, Butters had taken off his drum and let Morgan take over the drumming duties while he tried to help Luccio, and as a result her wound hadn't been quite as fatal as she had thought it would be.

  They were far too badly hurt to stay at my place, though, and Senior Council member "Injun Joe" Listens-to-Wind himself showed up with half a dozen more stay-at-home wizards who knew something about medicine and healing to move them to a more secure location.

  "Just don't get it," Morgan was telling Listens-to-Wind. "All of these things happening at once. It can't be a coincidence."

  "It wasn't," I heard myself say.

  Morgan looked at me. The resentment in his eyes hadn't changed, but there was something else there that hadn't been before-dare I hope it, some modicum of respect.

  "Think about it," I said. "All those heavy vampire attacks just when Cowl and his buddies most needed th
e White Council not to be involved."

  "Are you saying that you think Cowl was using the vampires as a tool?" Morgan asked.

  "I think they had a deal," I said. "The vampires throw their first major offensive at the right time to let Cowl pull off this Darkhallow."

  "But what do they get out of it?" Morgan asked.

  I glanced at Listens-to-Wind and said, "The Senior Council."

  "Impossible," Morgan said. "By that time, they had to know that the Senior Council was back at Edinburgh. The defenses there have been built over thousands of years. It would take…" Morgan paused, frowning.

  I finished the sentence for him. "It would take a god to break through them and kill the Senior Council."

  Morgan stared at me for a long time, but didn't say anything. It wasn't long before they left, pulling out the wounded Wardens and leaving.

  It left me with only about half an hour to meet Mavra's deadline, but since the phones were up again, I left a message at her number and headed for our rendezvous.

  I turned up at my grave again, standing over the open hole in the ground as Mavra approached me, this time openly and without melodrama. She faced me over my grave, and said nothing. I took the book out of my pocket and tossed it to her. She picked it up, regarded it, and then drew an envelope from her jacket and tossed it at my feet. I picked it up and found the negatives of the incriminating pictures of Murphy inside.

  Mavra turned to leave.

  I said, "Wait."

  She paused.

  "This never happens again," I said quietly. "You try to get to me through other mortals again and I'll kill you."

  Mavra's rotted lips turned up at one corner. "No, you won't," she said in her dusty voice. "You don't have that kind of power."

  "I can get it," I said.

  "But you won't," she responded, mockery in her tone. "It wouldn't be right."