He frowned. "I'm not very clued in on this magic stuff, but that sounds kind of dangerous."
"Hell, yeah," I said, and crossed the room to a rack of riding equipment. "It's like trying to inhale a tornado."
"Holy crap," Butters said. "But how does that help us?"
"First of all, I found out that the vortex itself is deadly. It's going to draw off the life of every living thing around it."
Butters gulped. "It will kill everything?"
"Not at first. But when the wizard at the vortex draws down the power, it's going to create a kind of vacuum where all that power used to be. The vacuum will rip away the life energy of everything within a mile."
"Dear God. That will kill thousands of people."
"Only if they finish the spell," I said. "Until then, the farther back you are from it, the less it will do," I said. "But to get near the vortex, the only way to survive it is to surround yourself with necromantic energy of your own."
"Only those with ghosts or zombies need apply?" he asked.
"Exactly." I lifted a saddle from the rack. Then I got a second one. I hung both over opposite ends of my staff, and picked it up like a plowman's yoke, the saddles hanging. I started walking down the stairs.
"But wait," Butters said. "What are you going to do?"
"Get to the center of the vortex," I said. "The effort it will take to work this spell is incredible. I don't care how good Cowl is. If I hit him as he tries to draw down the vortex, it's going to shake his concentration. The spell will be ruined. The backlash will kill him."
"And everyone will be all right?" he asked.
"That's the plan."
He nodded and then stopped abruptly in his tracks. I felt his stare burning into my back.
"But, Harry. To get there you'll have to call up the dead yourself."
I stopped and looked over my shoulder at him.
Comprehension dawned in his eyes. "And you need a drummer."
"Yeah."
He swallowed. "Could … could you get in trouble with your people for doing this?"
"It's possible," I said. "But there's a technicality I can exploit."
"What do you mean?"
"The Laws of Magic specifically refer to the abuse of magic when used against our fellow human beings. Technically it only counts if you call up human corpses."
"But you told me that everyone only calls humans."
"Right. So while the Laws of Magic only address necromancy as used on human corpses, there usually isn't any need for a distinction. Nutty necromancers only call up humans. Sane wizards don't touch necromancy at all. I don't think anyone has tried something like this."
We reached the main level of the museum.
"It's going to be dangerous," I told him. "I think we can do it, but I can't make you any promises. I don't know if I can protect you."
Butters walked beside me for several steps, his expression serious. "You can't try it without someone's help. And if you don't stop it, the spell will kill thousands of people."
"Yes," I said. "But I can't order you to help me. I can only ask."
He licked his lips. "I can keep a beat," he said.
I nodded and reached my destination. I slipped my improvised yoke off my shoulders and dropped both saddles to the floor. My breathing was a little harsh from the effort, even though I barely noticed the pain and strain. "You'll need a drum."
Butters nodded. "There were some tom-toms upstairs. I'll go get one."
I shook my head. "Too high-pitched. Your polka suit is still in the Beetle's trunk, right?"
"Yes."
I nodded. Then I looked up. And up. And up. Another flash of lightning illuminated the pale, towering terror of Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus skeleton mankind has ever discovered.
"Okay, Butters." I told him. "Go get it."
Chapter Thirty-nine
By the time we got outside, the storm had turned into something with its own vicious will. Rain lashed down in blinding, cold sheets. Wind howled like a starving beast, lightning burned almost continually across the sky, and the accompanying thunder was a constant, rumbling snarl. This was the kind of storm that came only once or twice in a century, and I had never seen its equal.
That said, the entire thing was nothing but a side effect of the magical forces now at work over the city. The apprehension, tension, fear, and anger of its people had coalesced into dark power that rode over Chicago in the storm. The Erlking's presence-I could still hear the occasional shrieking howl amidst the storm's angry roaring-stirred that energy even more.
I shielded my eyes from the rain as best I could with one hand, staring up at the lightning-threaded skies. There, a few miles to the north, I found what I had expected-a slow and massive rotation in the storm clouds, a spiral of fire and air and water that rolled with ponderous grace through its cycle.
"There!" I called back to Butters, and pointed. "You see it?"
"My God," he said. He clutched at my shoulders with both hands to hold himself steady, and his bass drum pulsed steadily behind me. "Is that it?"
"That's it," I growled. I shook the water from my eyes and clutched at the saddlehorn to keep my balance. "It's starting."
"What a mess," Butters said. He glanced behind us, at the broken brick and debris and wreckage of the museum's front doors. "Is she all right?"
"One way to find out," I growled. "Hah, mule!"
I laid my left hand on the rough, pebbled skin of my steed and willed it forward. The saddle lurched, and I clutched hard with my other hand to stay on.
The first few steps were the worst. The saddle sat at a sharp incline not too unlike that on a rearing horse. But as my mount gathered speed, the length of her body tilted forward, until her spine was almost parallel with the ground.
I didn't know this before, but as it turns out, Tyrannosaurs can really haul ass.
She might have been as long as a city bus, but Sue, despite her weight, moved with power and grace. As I'd called forth energy-charged ectoplasm to clothe the ancient bones, they had become covered in sheets of muscle and a hide of heavy, surprisingly supple quasi-flesh. She was dark grey, and there was a ripple pattern of black along her head, back, and flanks, almost like that of a jaguar. And once I had shaped the vessel, I had reached out and found the ancient spirit of the predator that had animated it in life.
Animals might not have the potential power of human remains. But the older the remains, the more magic can be drawn to fill them-and Sue was sixty-five million years old.
She had power. She had power in spades.
I had rigged the saddles to straddle her spine, just at the bend where neck joined body. I'd had to improvise to get them around her, using the long extension cords to tie them into place, and it had been ticklish as hell to get Butters on board without him losing the beat and destroying my control of the dinozombie. But Butters had pulled through.
Sue bellowed out a basso shriek that rattled nearby buildings and broke a few windows as she hurtled forward down the streets of the city. The blinding rain and savage storm had left the streets all but deserted, but even so, there were earthquakes less noticeable than a freaking Tyrannosaur. The streets literally shook under her feet. In fact, we left acres of strained, cracked asphalt behind us.
Here's something else I bet you didn't know about Tyrannosaurs: they don't corner well. The first time I tried to take a left, Sue swung wide, the enormous momentum of her body simply too much for even her muscles to lightly command. She swung up onto the sidewalk, crushed three parked cars under her feet, knocked over two light poles, kicked a compact car end over end to land on its roof, and broke every window on the first two floors of the building beside us as her tail lashed back and forth in an effort to counterbalance her body.
"Oh, my God!" Butters screamed. He kept hanging on to me with his arms, stabbing his legs out alternately to either side in order to operate the bass drum strapped on his back.
"They're probably insured!" I shouted. Thank God the streets weren't crowded that night. I made a note to be sure to have Sue slow down a little before we turned again, and kept the focus of my will on her, her attention on the task at hand.
Just before we turned onto Lake Shore Drive we hit a National Guard checkpoint. There were a couple of army Hummers there, their headlights casting useless cones of light into the night and storm, wooden roadblocks, and two luckless GIs in rain ponchos. As Sue bore down on them, the two men stared, their faces white. One of them simply dropped his assault rifle from numb hands.
"Get out of the way, fools!" I screamed.
The two men dove for cover. Sue's foot crashed down onto the hood of one Hummer, crushing it to the asphalt, and then we were past the checkpoint and pounding our way down the street toward Evanston.
"Heh," I said, looking back over my shoulder. "I'd love to hear how they explain that to their CO."
"You crushed that truck!" Butters shouted. "You're like a human wrecking ball!" There was a thoughtful pause, and then he said, "Hey, are we going anywhere near my boss's place? Because he just won't shut up about his new Jaguar."
"Maybe later. For now, look sharp," I told him. "She's a lot faster than I thought. We'll be there in just a minute." I ducked under the corner of a billboard as Sue went by it. "Whatever you do, keep that drumbeat going. Do you understand?"