Dead Beat

"I guess so," Butters said. He looked a little wild around the eyes. "Are they gone?"

"If they aren’t yet, they will be. We’re safe."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely," I said. "There’s no way they’re going to get in here."

The words were hardly off my lips when there was a thunder crack of sound and a heavy thump that knocked scores of books off my bookshelves and sent us all staggering around like the cast of the original Star Trek.

"What was that?" Butters screamed.

"The wards," Thomas snapped.

"No," I said. "I mean, come on. Walking right into those wards is suicide."

There was another clap of thunder, and the apartment shook again. A flash of bright blue light bathed the outside of the boardinghouse, and even reflected through the sunken windows near my apartment’s ceiling, it was painfully bright.

"Can’t commit suicide if you’re already dead," Thomas said. "How many of those things were out there?"

"Uh, I’m not sure," I said. "A lot?"

Thomas swallowed, got the box of shells off the mantel, and started loading them into the shotgun. "What happens if he just keeps throwing zombies at the wards?"

"I didn’t build them to keep up a continuous discharge," I said. There was another roaring sound and another flash of light, but this time there was barely a tremor on the floor. "They’re going to fade and collapse."

"How long?" Thomas asked.

There was a crackling buzz from outside, too slow, this time, to be heard only as a roar of noise. Blue-white light flickered dimly. "Not long. Dammit."

"Oh, God," Butters said. "Oh, God, oh, God. What happens when the wards are gone?"

I grunted. "The door is made of steel. It will take them some time to get through it. And after that, there’s the threshold. That should stop them, or at least slow them down." I raked my fingers over my hair. "We’ve got to come up with something, fast."

"What about the extra defenses?" Thomas asked.

"They’re standing right outside," I said.

"Hence the need for extra defenses," Thomas snapped. He pumped a round into the shotgun’s chamber and slipped another into the extra slot in its clip.

"Those defenses are meant to stop a magical assault," I said. "Not physical entry."

"Will they keep the zombies out?" Butters asked.

"Yes. But they’ll also keep us in."

"What’s so bad about that?" Butters asked.

"Nothing," I said, "until Grevane sets the building on fire. Once they go up, I can’t take them down again. We’ll be trapped." I ground my teeth. "We’ve got to get out of here."

"But the zombies are out there!" Butters said.

"I’m not the only one who lives here," I said. "If he burns down the house to get to me, people will die. Thomas, get dressed and get your shoes on. Butters, there’s a ladder under that Navajo rug there. I want you to take a candle and go down it. There’s a black nylon backpack on a table, and a white skull on a wooden shelf. Put the skull in the backpack and bring it to me."

"What?" Butters said.

"Do it!" I snapped.

Butters scurried over to the Navajo rug, found the trapdoor down to my lab, and grabbed a candle. He disappeared down the ladder.

Thomas put the shotgun down and opened his trunk. It didn’t take him long to get dressed in socks, black combat boots, a white T-shirt, a black leather jacket. Maybe it was part of his supernatural sex-vampire powers-dressing quickly for a hasty getaway.

"You see?" he said while he dressed. "About Butters."

"Shut up, Thomas," I said.

"What is the plan?" he said.

I limped over to the phone and put it to my ear. Nothing.

"They cut the phone."

"We can’t call for help," Thomas said.

"Right. Only thing we can do is smash our way out to the car."

Thomas nodded his head with a jerk. "How you want to do it?"

"What do you think?"

"Big old wall of fire would do it. Cover our left flank and keep the bad guys off of us. I’ll take the right flank and shoot anything that moves."

Fire magic. A sudden memory of my burned hand flashed through my head so intensely that I felt actual, physical pain in the nerve endings that had been destroyed. I thought about what I would need to do to manage the wall Thomas had suggested, and at the mere thought my stomach twisted in revulsion-and worse, with doubt.

For magic to work, you have to believe in it. You have to believe that you can and should perform whatever action you had in mind, or you get zippo. As my hand burned with phantom agony, I realized something I had not admitted, not even to myself.

I wasn’t sure I could use fire magic again.

Ever.

And if I tried it and failed, it would only make it more difficult to focus my will on it again in the future, each failure building a wall that would only grow more difficult to breach. My belief in my powers might never recover.

I looked down at my maimed hand, and for just a second I actually saw the blackened, cracked flesh, my fingers swollen, the whole of it seeping blood and fluid. The second passed, and there was only my hand in its leather glove again, and I knew that beneath the glove it was scarred in various shades of white and red and pink.

I wasn’t ready. God, even to save lives that included my own, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to call up fire again. I stood there feeling helpless and angry and afraid and stupid-and most of all, ashamed.

I shook my head at Thomas and avoided meeting his eyes while I gave him an excuse. "I’m all but done," I said quietly. "I’ve got to save whatever I have left to block Grevane if he throws power at us directly. I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to do."

He searched my expression for a second, frowning. Then he shrugged into the jacket, his face grim. He seized the saber in its scabbard and buckled it on with a worn leather belt. He settled it at his hip and picked up the shotgun again. "Guess it’s up to me, then."

I nodded.

"I’m not sure how hard I’ll be able to push," he said quietly.

"You handled Black Court vampires pretty well last year," I said.

"I’d been feeding on Justine every day," he said. "I had a lot to draw on. Now…" He shook his head. "Now I’m not sure."

"We aren’t exactly overstaffed here, Thomas."

He closed his eyes for a second, and then nodded. "Right."