by Jim Butcher
“He goes by Grevane, but I doubt that’s his real name. He’s a necromancer.”
“What’s a necromancer?”
I rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “Necromancy is the practice of using magic to muck around with dead things. Necromancers can animate and control corpses, manipulate ghosts, access the knowledge stored in dead brains—”
Butters blurted out, “That’s impos—” Then he stopped himself and coughed. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“They can also do a lot of really freaky things involving the soul,” I said. “Even in the weird circles, it isn’t the kind of thing you talk about casually. But I’ve heard stories that they can inhabit corpses with their consciousness, possess others. I’ve even heard that they can bring people back from the dead.”
“Jesus,” Butters swore.
“I kinda doubt they had anything to do with that one.”
“No, no, I meant—”
“I know what you meant. It was a joke, Butters.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He swigged more coffee, and started looking around at the streets again. “But bringing the dead to life? That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You’re assuming that what the necromancer brings them back to is better than death. From what I’ve heard, they don’t generally do it for humanitarian reasons. But that might be a load of crap. Like I said, no one talks about it.”
“Why not?” Butters asked.
“Because it’s forbidden,” I told him. “The practice of necromancy violates one of the Laws of Magic laid down by the White Council. Capital punishment is the only sentence, and no one wants to even come close to being suspected by the Council.”
“Why? Who are they?”
“They’re me,” I said. “Sort of. The White Council is a…well, most people would call it a governing body for wizards all over the world, but it’s really more like a Masonic lodge. Or maybe a frat.”
“I’ve never heard of a fraternity handing out a death sentence.”
“Yeah. Well the Council has only seven laws, but if you break them…” I drew my thumb across my neck. “By the way, they aren’t fond of regular folks knowing about them. So don’t talk about them to anyone else.”
Butters swallowed and touched the fingers of one hand to his throat. “Oh. So this guy, Grevane. He was like you?”
“He’s not like me,” I said, and it came out in a snarl that surprised even me. Butters twitched violently. I sighed and made an effort to lower my voice again. “But he’s probably a wizard, yeah.”
“Who is he? What does he want?”
I blew out a breath. “He’s most likely a student of this badass black magic messiah named Kemmler. The Council burned Kemmler down a while back, but several of his disciples may have escaped. I think Grevane is looking for a book his teacher hid before he died.”
“A magic book?”
I snorted. “Nah. Trinkets aren’t too hard to come by. If my guess is correct, this book contains more of the knowledge and theory Kemmler used in his most powerful magics.”
Butters nodded. “So…if Grevane gets hold of the book and learns, he gets to be the next Kemmler?”
“Yeah. And he mentioned that there were others involved in this business too. I think word of the presence of Kemmler’s book came up, and his surviving students are showing up to grab it before their fellow necromancers do. For that matter, just about anyone involved in black magic might want to get their hands on it.”
“So why doesn’t the Council just grab them and…?” He drew his thumb across his throat.
“They’ve tried,” I said. “They thought the disciples had all been accounted for.”
Butters frowned. Then he said, “I guess wizards can go into denial about uncomfortable things too, huh?”
I barked out a laugh. “People are people, man.”
“But now you can tell this Council about Grevane and this book, right?”
My stomach quivered a little. “No.”
“Why not?”
Because if I did, Mavra would destroy my friend. The thought screamed across my brain in a blaze of frustration that I tried to keep concealed. “Long story. The short version is that I’m not real popular with the Council, and they’re pretty busy right now.”
“With what?” he asked.
“A war.”
He scrunched up his nose and tilted his head, studying me. “That’s not the only reason you aren’t calling them, is it?” Butters said.
“Egad, Holmes,” I told him. “No, it isn’t. Don’t push.”
“Sorry.” He finished the coffee, then made a visible effort to cast around for a new conversational thread. “So. Those were actual zombies?”
“Never seen one before,” I said. “But that seems like a pretty good guess.”
“Poor Phil,” Butters said. “Not a saint or anything, but not a bad guy.”
“He have a family?” I asked.
“No,” Butters said. “Single. That’s a mercy.” He was silent for a second, then said, “No. I guess it isn’t.”
“Yeah.”
“If those guys were zombies, how come they didn’t want brains?” Butters said. He held both arms stiff out in front of him, rolled his eyes back in his head, and moaned, “Braaaaaaaaaaaains.”
I snorted. He gave me a weak smile.
“Seriously,” Butters said. “These guys were more like the Terminator.”
“What’s the use of a foot soldier who can’t do anything but hobble along and moan about brains?”
“Good point,” Butters said. He scrunched up his nose in thought. “Don’t I remember something about sewing a zombie’s lips shut with thread to kill them? Does that work?”
“No clue,” I said. “But you saw those things. If you want to get close enough to find out, be my guest, but I’ll be observing it through a freaking telescope.”
“No, thank you,” Butters said. “But how do we stop them?”
I sighed. “They’re tough, but they’re still flesh and bone. Massive trauma will do it sooner or later.”
“How massive?”
I shrugged. “Run them over with a truck. Chop them to bits with an ax. Burn them to ashes. A gun or a baseball bat won’t do it.”
“This may come as a shock to you, Harry, but I don’t have an ax with me. Is there something else? Maybe something that isn’t so Bunyan-esque?”
“Plenty,” I said. “If you can cut off the flow of energy into them, they’ll drop.”
“How do you do that?”
“You’d have to ground them out. Running water is the best way, but there needs to be a lot of it. A small stream, at least. I could also probably trap one in a magic circle and cut off any energy from getting to it. Either way, they’d just fall over, plop.”
“Magic circles,” Butters shook his head. “And nothing else?”
“Keep in mind that they aren’t intelligent,” I said. “Zombies follow orders, but they don’t have much more intellect than your average animal. You have to outthink them—or the necromancer who is giving them orders. You could also cut off the necromancer’s control of them.”
“How?”
“Kill their drum.”
“Uh, what?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. A zombie…well, it isn’t really a person with thoughts and feelings and such, but the corpse is used to being a person. To eating, breathing—and to a beating heart. That’s how the necromancer controls them. He plays a beat or some kind of rhythmic music, and uses magic to substitute his beat for the zombie’s heartbeat. He links himself to the beat, the beat to the zombie’s heart, and when the necromancer gives a command, as far as the zombie is concerned it’s coming from inside him and he wants to do it. That’s how they can control them so completely.”
“That book,” Butters said. “Grevane kept drumming it against his leg. And then outside, that huge bass woofer in that Cadillac.”
“Exactly. Make the beat stop or get the zombies out of earshot, and he los
es control of them. But that’s really dicey.”
“Why?”
“Because it won’t destroy the zombie. It just frees it from the necromancer’s control. Anything could happen. It could just shut down, or it could start killing everyone it sees. Totally unpredictable. If I’d stopped him from drumming in the exam room, they might have killed us all. Or run off in different directions to hurt other people. We couldn’t afford to take the chance.”
Butters nodded, absorbing this for a minute. Then he piped up with, “Grevane said you weren’t a Warden. What is a Warden?”
“Wardens are the White Council’s version of cops,” I said. “They enforce the Laws of Magic, bring criminals in for a trial, and then they chop off their heads. Sometimes they get enthusiastic and just skip to the chopping.”
“Well. That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“In theory,” I said. “But they’re so paranoid that next to them, Joe McCarthy looks like a friendly puppy. They don’t ask many questions, and they don’t hesitate to make up their minds. If they think you’ve broken a law, you might as well have.”
“That’s not fair,” Butters said.
“No. It isn’t. I’m not real popular with the Wardens. I’m not sure they’d come out to help me if I asked them.”
“What about other wizards on the Council?”
I sighed. “The White Council is already at the limits of its resources. Even if they weren’t, the Council really, really likes to not get involved.”
He frowned. “Could the cops stop Grevane?”
“No way,” I said, “Not a chance in hell are any of them prepared to handle him. And if they tried, a whole lot of good people would die.”
Butters sputtered. “They’ll just sit there and let people like Phil get killed?” he demanded, his voice outraged. “If regular people can’t do it, and the Council won’t get involved, who the hell is going to stop him?”
“I am,” I said.
Chapter
Seven
We went back to my apartment, and I wasted no time getting Butters inside and behind the protection of my wards. Mouse loomed up from little kitchen alcove and padded over to me, tail wagging.
“Holy crap,” Butters said. “You have a pony.”
“Heh,” I said. Mouse sniffed at my hand and then walked over to snuffle around Butters’s legs with a certain solemn ceremony. Then he sneezed and looked up at Butters, wagging his tail.
“Can I pet him?” Butters said.
“If you do, he won’t leave you alone.” I went into my room to pick up a few things from my closet, and when I came back out Butters was sitting on the hearth, poking the fire to life and feeding it fresh wood. Mouse sat nearby, watching with patient interest.
“What breed is he?” Butters asked.
“Half chow and half wooly mammoth. A wooly chammoth.”
Mouse’s jaws opened in a doggy grin.
“Wow. Some serious teeth there,” Butters said. “He doesn’t bite, does he?”
“Only bad guys,” I told him. I grabbed Mouse’s lead and clipped it to his collar. “I’m going to take him outside for a bit. I’ll bring him back in; then I want you to lock up and stay put.”
He hesitated in midpoke. “You’re leaving?”
“It’s safe,” I said. “I’ve got measures in place here that will prevent Grevane from finding you by magical means.”
“You mean with a spell or something?”
“Yeah,” I said. “My spells should counter Grevane’s and keep him from locating you while I get some things done.”
“You won’t be here?” Butters said. He didn’t sound too steady.
“Grevane won’t find you,” I said.
“But what if he does it anyway?”
“He won’t.”
“Sure, sure, he won’t. I believe you.” Butters swallowed. “But what if he does?”
I tried to give him a reassuring smile. “There are more wards in place to stop someone from coming in. Mouse will keep an eye on you, and I’ll leave a note for Thomas and ask him to stay home tonight, just in case.”
“Who’s Thomas?”
“Roommate,” I said. I dragged a piece of paper and a pen out of a cabinet in the base of the coffee table and started writing the note.
Thomas,
Bad guys from my end of the block are trying to kill the little guy in the living room. His name is Butters. I brought him here to get him off the radar while I negotiate with them. Do me a favor and keep an eye on him until I get back.
Harry
I folded the note and stuck it up on the mantel. “He’s smart, and fairly tough. I’m not sure when he’ll get back. When he does, tell him I brought you here and give him the note. You should be okay.”
Butters exhaled slowly. “All right. Where are you going?”
“To the bookstore,” I said.
“Why there?”
“Grevane was reading a copy of a book called Die Lied der Erlking. I want to know why.”
Butters stared at me for a second and then said, “In all of that, with threats and guns and zombies and everything, you noticed the title of the book he was holding?”
“Yeah. Damn, I’m good.”
“What do I do?” he asked.
“Get some sleep.” I waved a hand at my bookshelves. “Read. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Oh, one more thing: Do not open the door for any reason.”
“Why not?”
“Because the spells on it might kill you.”
“Oh,” he said. “Of course. The spells.”
“No joking, Butters. They’re meant to keep things out, but if you open the door you could get caught in the backwash. Thomas has a talisman that will let him in safely. So do I. Anyone else will be in for a world of hurt, so stand clear.”
He swallowed. “Right. Okay. What if the dog has to go?”
I sighed. “He can’t mess the place up any worse than Thomas. Come on, Mouse. Let’s make sure you’ll be settled.”
Mouse seemed to have a sixth sense about when not to take his time making use of the boardinghouse’s yard, and we went to our little designated area and back with no delays. I got him back inside with Butters, revved up the Beetle, and headed for Bock Ordered Books.
Artemis Bock, proprietor of Chicago’s oldest occult shop, had been a fixture near Lincoln Park for years before I had ever moved to town. The neighborhood was a bizarre blend of the worst a large city had to offer marching side by side with the erudite academia of the University of Chicago. It wasn’t the kind of place I wanted to walk around after dark, wizard or no, but there wasn’t much choice.
I parked the Beetle a block down from the shop, across the street from cheap apartments that were flying gang colors on the windows nearest the doors. I wasn’t too worried that someone was going to steal the Blue Beetle while I was in the shop. The car just wasn’t sexy enough to warrant stealing. But to be on the safe side, I made no pretense whatsoever of hiding my gun as I left the car and slipped it into a shoulder holster under my duster. I had my staff with me, too, and I took it firmly into my right hand as I shut the car door and started down the street with a purpose, my expression set and cold. I didn’t have a concealed-carry permit for the gun, so I could wind up in jail for toting it along with me. On the other hand, this part of town was a favorite spot for some of the nastier denizens of the supernatural community. Between them and the very real prospect of your everyday urban criminal, I could wind up in my grave for not toting it. I’d err on the side of survival, thank you very much.
On the short walk to the store, I stepped over a pair of winos and tried to ignore a pale and too-thin woman with empty eyes who staggered by in leopard-print tights, a leather coat, and a bra. Her pupils had dilated until her blue eyes looked black, and she was nearly too stoned to walk. She probably wasn’t old, but life had used her hard. She saw me and for a second looked like she was going to display her wares. But she got a closer look at my face and skittere
d to one side and tried to become invisible. I went by her without comment.
The night was very cold. In a few more weeks it would get cold enough that people like the two drunks and the stoned girl would start freezing to death. Someone would see a body, and eventually someone would call the police. The cops would show up and fill out on the police report that the body had been found and presumed accidentally frozen to death. Sometimes it wasn’t an accident. The weather was a convenient way for a dealer or for the outfit to kill someone who had gotten on their nerves. Something to knock them out, a removal of a bit of clothing, and leave them for the night to devour. Most of those bodies were found within a few blocks of where I was walking.
Maybe thirty yards short of the shop, I crossed some kind of invisible line where the oppressive, dangerous atmosphere of the bad part of town lessened by several degrees. A few steps later I caught my first glance of a U of C campus building, far down the block. I felt myself relax a little in response, but that unspoken promise of safety and the rule of law was only an illusion. The closer you got to campus, the less crime occurred, but there was nothing other than convention and slightly more frequent police patrols to keep the darker elements of the city from pushing the boundaries.
Well, there was one more thing. But I couldn’t afford to get involved with it. Mavra’s prohibition against involving anyone else meant that even if I wanted extra help, I didn’t dare ask for it. I was on my own. And if trouble came looking, I’d have to handle it alone.
Predators respond to body language. I walked like I was on my way to rip someone’s face off, until I made it to the shop and entered the store.
Artemis Bock, proprietor, sat behind a counter facing the door. He was a bear of a man in his late fifties, broad-shouldered, unshaven, and heavyset with weathered muscle under a layer of comfortable living. He had knuckles the size and texture of golf balls, marked with old scars from whatever career he’d pursued before he’d become a storekeeper. He wasn’t anything so strong as a wizard, but he knew his way around Chicago, around basic magical theory, and his shop was protected with half a dozen subtle wards that did a lot to encourage people looking for trouble to look elsewhere.