Dead Beat

Chapter Thirty-four

I looked at the cavernous barrel and thought to myself that a.44 really was a ridiculously big gun. Then I looked past it to Cowl and said, "But you aren't planning on doing it yourself, are you? Otherwise you'd have just shot me in the back of the head and had done with it. With me groggy like that, you might not even have had a death curse to worry about."

"Very good," Cowl said approvingly. "Your reason, at least, seems sound. Provided you remain very still and give me no reason to think you a threat, I'll be glad to let you live until the Erlking returns for you."

I held still, partly because I didn't want to get shot, and partly because I thought I might throw up if I moved my head too much. "How'd you find me?" I asked.

"Kumori and I have been taking turns tailing you most of the day," he said.

"When do you people sleep?" I asked.

"No rest for the wicked," Cowl said. His tone was amused from within his heavy hood, but the gun never wavered.

"Someone had to keep an eye on me," I said. "You and Grevane and Corpsetaker all wanted the Erlking to be in town. It didn't matter to you who called him as long as someone did."

"And you were the only one with an interest in keeping him away," Cowl said. "All I needed to do was watch you and ensure that you did not actually trap the Erlking."

"And that's why you followed me," I said.

"It's one reason," he replied. "I think you might actually have done it, you know, had I not interrupted you. I was the only one of the three of us who thought you might succeed."

"I don't get it," I said. "I thought that you guys hated one another's guts."

"Oh, yes."

"Then are you working together or trying to kill each other?" I asked.

"Why, yes," Cowl said, and what sounded like a genuine laugh bubbled in his voice. "We smile at one another and play nicely all in the name of Kemmler's greater glory, of course. But we are all planning on killing one another as soon as it's convenient. I take it that Corpsetaker tried to remove Grevane last night?"

"Yeah. It was a real party."

"Pity. I would have enjoyed watching them in action again. But I was busy with the actual work. That's how it usually works out."

"Taking out the city's power grid."

"And phone lines, radio communications, and quite a few other, subtler things," Cowl said. "It was difficult, but someone had to do it. Naturally it fell to me. But we'll see how things settle out before morning."

"Heh," I said. "They think they're using you to get the serious technical magic done, while they save up their juice for the fight. And you think you're lulling them off guard, so that when the Darkhallow goes down, you get the power."

"There's no real reason to practice my swordplay and summoning of the dead when I have no intention of entering a tactical contest with them."

"You really intend to make yourself into a god?" I asked.

"I intend to take power," Cowl said. "I regard myself as the least of the possible evils."

"Uh- huh," I said. "Someone is going to get the power. Might as well be you. Something like that?"

"Something like that," Cowl said.

"What if no one got it?" I said.

"I don't really see that happening," he said. "Grevane and the Corpsetaker are determined. I intend to beat them to the prize and use it to destroy them. It's the only way to be sure one of those madmen does not become something more terrible than the earth has ever seen."

"Right," I said. "You're the correct madman for the job."

Cowl was silent for a long moment in the rain. Drops fell off the end of my pistol in his gloved hand. Then he said, his voice pensive, "I do not perceive myself to be mad. But if I were truly mad, would I be able to tell?"

I shivered. Probably from the rain and the cold.

Cowl took a step back from me and said, voice firm and confident again, "Did you find him?"

I looked behind me and saw Kumori glide out the back door of Murphy's house. "Yes."

I stared hard at Kumori, and my heart lurched in my chest.

She left the door open behind her. There was no candlelight in the kitchen. There was no movement inside the house.

"Excellent," Cowl said. He took a step back from me. "I have already warned you to stay clear of my path, Dresden. I now suspect that you are too proud to back down. I know of the Wardens now in the city. They pose no serious obstacle to my plans."

"You think you can take them in a fight?" I said.

"I have no intention of fighting them, Dresden," Cowl replied. "I'm simply going to kill them. Join them if it suits you to do so instead of waiting for the Erlking. It makes no difference to me how you die."

His voice was steady and absolutely confident. It scared me. My heart lurched in my chest, fear for Butters and a dawning understanding of Cowl's quiet madness competing to see which could make it race faster.

"There's one problem, Cowl," I said.

Cowl began to turn away, but then paused. "Oh?"

"You still don't have the Word. How are you going to manage the Darkhallow without it?"

For an answer, Cowl carefully lowered the hammer on my revolver and turned away. And he laughed, quietly, under his breath. He started walking, and Kumori hurried to his side. Then Cowl tossed my gun into the grass, raised his hand, and nicked it at the air before him. I felt a surge of power as he parted the veil between the material world and the Nevernever and they both stepped through it, vanishing from Murphy's backyard. The rift sealed behind Cowl, so quietly and smoothly that I would never have been able to tell it had opened at all.

I was left alone in the wind and the darkness and the cold rain. Somewhere in the distance there was an echoing howl that came from above me and very far away.

It should have frightened me, but I was so woozy that I mostly wanted to lie down and close my eyes for a minute. I knew that if I did I might not open them for a while. Maybe not ever.

I had to check on Butters and Mouse. I rolled over and picked up my staff, then crawled a couple of feet and got my mother's pentacle. Then I stood up. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing beat of pain, and I bowed my head forward for a moment, letting cold rain fall onto the lump forming on the back of my skull. The worst of it passed after a minute, and I got the pain under control. I'd taken harder shots to the head than that one had been, and I didn't have time to coddle myself. I blew out a harsh breath and shambled into the house.

I found it dark, all the candles that had been lit now extinguished. I lifted my mother's pentacle and ran my will through it, causing it to pulse and then glow with silver-blue light. I lifted the pentacle over my head and surveyed the kitchen.

It was empty. There was no sign of either Mouse or Butters-and no evidence of a struggle, either. My fear subsided a little. If Kumori had found them, there would be signs of violence-blood, scattered furnishings. Butters's papers were still stacked up neatly on the kitchen table.

Murphy's house wasn't a large one, and there were only so many places Butters could be. I limped into the living room and then down the short hall to the bedrooms and the bathroom.

"Butters?" I called softly. "It's Harry. Mouse?"

There was a sudden rough scratching at the door of the linen closet beside me, and I almost jumped through the ceiling. I swallowed in an effort to force my heart back down into my chest, then opened the closet door.

Butters and Mouse crouched on the floor of the closet. Butters was at the rear, and though Mouse looked cramped, he crouched solidly between Butters and the door. His tail began to thump against the inside of the closet when he saw me, and he wriggled his way clear to come to me.

"Oh, thank God," Butters said. He squirmed out of the closet after Mouse. "Harry. Are you all right?"

"Been worse," I told him. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Um," Butters said, "I saw you out there. And then… there was something inside that ring of barbed wire. And I was… I couldn't see it very well, but then the wind kicked up and I thought I saw something moving outside and… I yelled and sort of panicked." His face flushed. "Sorry. I was just… much shorter than that thing. I panicked."

He'd rabbited. All in all, probably not a stupid reaction to the presence of an angry lord of Faerie. "Don't worry about it," I said. "Mouse stayed with you?"

"Yeah," Butters said. "I guess so. He started to try to get outside when that thing in the circle screamed. I was holding him back. I didn't realize I still had his collar when I, uh…"

Butters's face turned greenish and he said, "Excuse me." Then he sprinted for the bathroom.

I heard him throwing up inside and frowned down at Mouse.

"You know what?" I told the dog. "I don't care if Butters had been chock-full of gamma radiation and had green skin and purple pants. There's no way he could haul you into a closet with him."

Mouse looked up at me and tilted his head to one side, doggy expression enigmatic.

"But that would mean that it was the other way around. That you were the one hauling Butters to a hiding place."

Mouse's jaw dropped open into a grin.

"But that would mean that you knew you couldn't handle Kumori, and that she was dangerous to Butters. And you knew that I wanted you to protect him. And that instead of fighting or running away, you formulated a plan to hide him." I frowned. "And dogs aren't supposed to be that smart."

Mouse snorted out a little sneeze, shook his fuzzy head, and then flopped over onto his back, eyes begging me to scratch his tummy.

"What the hell," I said, and started scratching. "Looks to me like you earned it."

Butters emerged from the bathroom a couple of minutes later. "Sorry," he said. "Nerves. I, uh… Harry, I'm sorry I ran away like that."

"Took cover," I provided. "In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover.' It's more heroic."

"Right," Butters said, flushing. "I took cover."

"It's fun, taking cover," I said. "I take cover all the time."

"What happened?" Butters asked.

"I called the Erlking, but someone kept me from keeping him penned up. They came in the house for a minute, and…" I felt my voice trail off. My relief that Butters and Mouse were all right began to fade, as I realized that they had never been what Kumori had been searching for.

"What?" Butters said quietly. "Harry, what is it?"

"Son of a bitch,'''' I swore, and my voice was a sulfurous snarl. "How could I be so stupid?"

I whirled and stalked back down the hall, through the living room, and into the kitchen, lifting my light.

On the kitchen table there were only empty cups of tea, empty cans, unlit candles, paper, and pens.

In the spot where Bob the skull had sat, there was nothing.

"Oh, man," Butters said quietly at my elbow. "Oh, man. They took him."

"They took him," I spat.

"Why?" Butters whispered. "Why would they do that?"

"Because Bob the skull hasn't always been mine," I growled. "He used to belong to my old teacher, Justin. And before that he belonged to the necromancer, Kemmler." I whirled in a fury and slammed my fist into Murphy's refrigerator so hard that it dented the side and split my middle knuckle open.

"I… I don't get it," Butters said, his voice very quiet.

"Bob did for Kemmler what he did for me. He was a consultant. A research assistant. A sounding board for magical theory," I said. "That's why Cowl took him."

"Cowl's doing research?" Butters asked.

"No," I spat. "Cowl knew that Bob used to be Kemmler's. Somewhere in there, Bob knows everything about the theory that Kemmler did."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Cowl doesn't need The Word of Kemmler now. He doesn't need the stupid book to enact the Darkhallow because he's got the spirit that helped Kemmler write it." I shook my head, bitter regret a metallic taste in my mouth. "And I practically gave it to him."