Dead Beat(74)

After all, that was the first step. And she had patience. She could afford to wait.
Dangerous indeed. Lasciel represented nothing less than the intrinsic allure of power itself. I had never sought to become a wizard. Hell, a lot of the time I thought about how nice things might be if I hadn't been one. The power had been a birthright, and if it had grown since then, it had done so by the necessity of survival. But I'd tasted a darker side to the possession of power-the searing satisfaction of seeing an enemy fall to my strength. The lust to test myself against another, to challenge them and see who was the strongest. The mindless hunger for more that, if once indulged, might never be slaked.
One of the coldest, most evil souls I have ever encountered once told me that the reason I fought so hard to do what seemed right was that I was terrified to look within me and see the desire to cease the fight and do as I would, free of conscience or remorse.
And now I could see that he had been right.
I looked at the fallen angel, patiently waiting, and was terrified.
But there were innocent lives at stake: men and women and children who needed protection.
If I didn't give it to them, who would?
I took a deep breath, reached into my pocket, and found a silver key there. I threw it to my double.
He caught it and rose. Then he unlocked Lasciel's shackles.
Lasciel inclined her head to him respectfully. Then she walked over to me, gorgeous and warm in the harsh light, her eyes lowered. Without a trace of self-consciousness, she sank down to her knees, bowed her head, and said, "How may I serve you, my host?"
I opened my eyes and found myself on my back. There was a candle burning nearby. Mouse had curled himself protectively around my head, and his tongue was nicking over my face, rough and wet and warm.
I hurt absolutely everywhere. I'd learned to block out pain under the harsh lessons of Justin DuMorne, but it went only so far.
Lasciel had shown me a different technique.
I couldn't have explained to anyone what I did. I wasn't sure that I understood it myself, at least on a conscious level. I simply knew. I gathered the pain together and fed it into a burning fire of determination in my thoughts, and it began to steadily recede.
I exhaled slowly and began to sit up. My brain registered the screaming torture of the muscles in my stomach-it just wasn't horribly important, and took up little of my attention.
"My God, Harry," Butters said. His voice was thick and slurred, as if he were holding his nose. His hand pushed on my shoulder. "Don't sit up."
I let him push me back down. I needed a couple of minutes to let the pain continue to fade. "How bad is it?"
He exhaled. "It's pretty hideous, but I don't think he actually perforated the abdominal wall. Skin and tissue damage, but you did some bleeding." He swallowed and looked a little green around the gills. "That's my best guess, anyway."
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, fine. It's just …  I work with corpses because I just couldn't handle …  you know …  actual living people."
"Heh. You can eat lunch while looking at a three-month-old corpse, but first aid on my stomach is too much to handle?"
"Yeah. I mean, you're still alive. That's just weird."
I shook my head. "How long was I out?" I was surprised at how calm and steady my voice sounded.
"It's been about fifteen minutes," Butters said. "I found some bandages and alcohol in the old man's duffel bag. I've got your belly cleaned and covered, but I don't have much of an idea of how much trouble you're in. You need a hospital."
"Maybe later," I said. I lay on my back, poring over what Lasciel had given me about the writings in the book. Hell, the thing had been written in German. I didn't know German, but Lasciel had translated the text about the Darkhallow. It felt like we had talked about it for an hour or more, but dream time and real time aren't always lockstepped.
Butters's nose had swollen up. There was still some blood on his face, and he already had a matched set of gorgeously colorful black eyes. He leaned over and fussed with the bandages on my stomach.
"Hey," I said quietly. "I told you to run. I was doing that heroic rearguard thing. You screwed it all up."
"Sorry," he answered, his voice serious. "But …  I got outside and I couldn't run. I mean, I wanted to. I really wanted to. But after all you've done for me … " He shook his head. "I just couldn't do that."
"What did you do?"
"I ran around the outside of the museum. I tried to find help, but with all the rain and the dark there wasn't anyone around. So I ran to the car and got Mouse. I thought that maybe he could help you."
"He could," I agreed. "He did."
Mouse's tail thumped on the floor, and he kept on licking at my head. I realized, dully, that he was cleaning the dozens of tiny snakebites.
"But he couldn't have done it without you, Butters," I said. "You saved my life. Another five minutes and I'd have been history."
He blinked down at me for a moment and then said, "I did, didn't I?"
"Damned brave of you," I said.
His spine straightened a little. "You think?"
"Yeah."
"And check it out," he said, gesturing at his face, his mouth opening into a toothy smile. "I have a broken nose, don't I?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"Like I'm a boxer. Or maybe a tough-as-nails gumshoe."
"You earned it," I said. "Hurt?"
"Like hell," he said, but he was still smiling. He blinked a few times, the gears almost visibly spinning in his head, and said, "I didn't run away. And I fought him. I jumped on him."
I kept quiet and let him process it.
"My God," he said. "That was …  that was so stupid."
"Actually, when you survive it gets reclassified as 'courageous.'" I reached out my right hand. Butters shook it, gripping hard.
He looked at Cassius's body, and his smile faded. "What about him?" he asked.
"He's done," I said.
"That's not what I mean."
"Oh," I said. "We'll leave the body here. No time to move it. He'll be a John Doe on the public records, and there probably won't be a heavy investigation. If we get out quick it shouldn't be an issue."
"No. I mean …  I mean, my God, he's dead. We killed him."
"Don't kid yourself," I told him. "I'm the one who killed him. All you did was try to help me."
His brow furrowed and he shook his head. "That's not what I mean either. I feel sorry for him."
"Don't," I said. "He was a monster."
Butters frowned and nodded. "But he was also a man. Or was once. He was so bitter. So much hate. He had a horrible life."
"Note the past tense," I said. "Had."
Butters looked away from the corpse. "What happened there at the very end? There was a light, and his voice sounded …  weird. I thought he'd killed you."
"He hit me with his death curse," I said.
Butters swallowed. "I guess it didn't work? I mean, because you're breathing."
"It worked," I told him. I'd felt that vicious magic grab hold of me and sink in. "I don't think he was strong enough to kill me outright. So he went for something else."
" 'Die alone'?" Butters asked quietly. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know," I said. "Not sure I want to." I took a deep breath and then exhaled. I didn't have enough time to lie there waiting to recover. "Butters, I don't have any right to ask this of you. I'm already in your debt. But I need your help."
"You have it," he said.
"I haven't even told you what it is," I said.
Butters smiled a little and nodded. "I know. But you have it."
I felt my lips peel back from my teeth in a fierce grin. "One little assault and you've gone habitual. Next thing I know you'll be forming a fight club. Help me up."
"You shouldn't," he said seriously.
"No choice," I said.
He nodded and then stood up and offered me his hand. I took it and rose, waiting to sway or pass out or throw up from the pain. I did none of those things. The pain was there, but it didn't stop me from moving or thinking. Butters just stared at me and then shook his head.
I found my staff, picked it up, and walked to the Buffalo Bill exhibit. Butters got the candle, and then he and Mouse kept pace. I looked around for a second, then picked up a long, heavy-duty extension cord running from an outlet on the wall to power some lights on an exhibit in the center of the room. I jerked it clear at both ends and gathered it into a neat loop. Once I had it, I passed it to Butters.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Preparing," I said. "I found out about the Darkhallow."
Butters blinked. "You did? How?"
I grunted. "Magic."
"Okay," he said. "What did you learn?"
"That this isn't a rite. It's a big spell," I said. "It all depends on drawing together a ton of dark spiritual energy."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Like a lot of things. The necromantic energy around animated corpses and manifested shades. The predatory spirits of ancient hunters. All the fear that's been growing since last night. Plus, the past several years have seen some serious magical turbulence around Chicago. Kemmler's disciples can put that turbulence to work for them, too."
"Then what?"
"They gather it together and get it going in a big circle. It creates a kind of vortex, which then funnels down into whoever is trying to consume the energy. Poof. Insta-god."