Dead Beat (The Dresden Files 7)

The Wild Hunt was loose in Chicago.

And I had been the one to call them here.

I struggled until I began to move. I wasn't able to get enough balance to rise, but I managed to roll over onto my back. Cold raindrops slapped against my face.

Cowl put the barrel of my own.44 to the end of my nose and said, "An impressive display, Dresden. It's always such a pity when someone with such talent dies so young."

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.