Dead Beat (The Dresden Files 7)

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 more 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."