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Chapter Twenty-nine

Kumori stood about four feet from me-easily within reach of my staff, if I wanted to strike at her But since I was sitting down and had only one strong hand to swing the staff, I wouldn&039;t be able to hit hard enough to disable her, even if I soed to hit her before she unleashed the power she was holding in her hand

And besides She was a girl

Unless she proved herself to be soirl, I wasn&039;t going to hit her On soical, but that didn&039;t change anything I don&039;t hit girls

I had the feeling she was quick enough to beat ical equivalent of a cocked and readied gun sparkling through thewith a low, steady note of power, and her stance was both confident and wary

One thing I was pretty sure of-she was here to talk If she&039;d wanted to kill , set my staff aside, very slowly, and irl," I said "You got hts"

I couldn&039;t see her face within the depths of the hood, but I heard a dry note of amusement in her voice "Take off the bracelet, please And the ring on your right hand"

I arched a brow The ring was spent, and probably didn&039;t have enough juice left in it to push her back a step, but I&039;d never run into anyone who had noticed it before Whoever she was, Kumori kneizards operated, and ither face because she was sonize-someone on the White Council

I slipped the bracelet off my left hand and lowered it slowly to the stair besideto be proble off," I said

"Why not?" Kuers on my left hand don&039;t work anymore," I said

"What happened?"

I blinked at her for a second The question had been polite In fact, if I didn&039;t know any better, I&039;d have taken her tone for actual interest

"What happened to your left hand?" she asked, her tone patient

I answered her as politely as I could while staring at her, trying to figure her out "I was fighting vampires There was a fire Burned my hand so bad the doctors wanted to take it off There&039;s no way I can get the ring off unless you want to come over here and take it yourself"

She was still for a ree to a truce for the duration of this conversation Are you willing to give your word on it?"

She wanted a truce, which meant that she had indeed come to talk, rather than to executeto a truce, and it ered by raw nerves "In exchange for yours," I said "This conversation and half an hour after its conclusion"

"Done," Kumori said "You have my word"

"And you have mine," I said

She lowered her hand at once, taking the odd ies into the deep sleeves of her robe I didn&039;t take my eyes off her as I reclaimed ht," I said "What did you want to talk about?"

"The book," she said "We still want your copy"

"You&039;ll have to talk to the Corpsetaker," I said "He and his ghoul took it froirl in her early twenties Great dih Kumori had tilted her head to one side "You know of the source of the Corpsetaker&039;s naure he&039;s a body switcher," I said "I&039;ve heard necro Move their consciousness froe with some poor sucker who can&039;t protect themselves Corpsetaker was in that old professor&039;s body I figure he swapped with his assistant, and then killed the old irl&039;syour story Had the Corpsetaker taken the book from you, he would have killed you as well"

"Wasn&039;t for lack of trying," I said, and gestured at"He was overconfident, and I was a little bit lucky He got the book, but I got away"

She was silent for a htful, "You&039;re telling et all confusing Can&039;t keep theht"

Kumori nodded "Then let uessed

She exhaled softly through her nose "Hardly Cowl has a certain amount of respect for you, but he believes you too raw to make some sort of alliance feasible"

"Ah," I said "Then you&039;ll probably go to the second offer I always get Go away and you won&039;t killlike that," Ku on here Your ignorance is erous than you know, and your continued involvement in this matter could cause disastrous consequences"

"What do you want me to do?" I asked

"Withdraw from the field," she said

"Or what?"

"Or you will regret it," she said "That isn&039;t a threat Simply a fact As I said, Cowl has a certain respect for you, but he will not be able to protect you or treat you gently should you continue to involve yourself If you stand in his way, he will kill you He would prefer it if you stood clear"

"Gosh That&039;s so altruistic of him" I shook my head "If he kills me, he&039;ll have my death curse to contend with"

"He has already contended with such curses," Kumori said "Many times I advise you to retire from the field"

"I can&039;t do that," I said "I knohat you people are doing I know about the Darkhallow I knohy you&039;re doing it"

"And?"

"And I can&039;t let that happen," I said "Insurance in Chicago is expensive enough without adding in a petulant new deity tearing up the real estate"

"Our goals are not so different," Kumori said "Grevane and the Corpsetaker are madmen They must be stopped"

"From what I&039;ve seen of old Cowl, he&039;s a couple of french fries short of a Happy Meal too"

"And you would do what?" Ku the bounty of the Darkhallow? Take the power for yourself?"

"I want to make sure nobody takes it," I said "I don&039;t particularly care how I get it done"

"Truly?" she asked

I nodded "Now here&039;s where I make you an offer"

She hesitated, clearly taken off guard "Very well"

"Bail," I told her "Leave Cowl and the Sociopath Squad to their squabbling Give me what information I need to stop them"

"He&039;d kill me in a day," she said

"No," I told her "I&039;d take you to the White Council I&039;d get you protection"

She stared at me from within her hood, utterly silent

"See, Kumori, you&039;re sort of a puzzle," I said "Because you&039;re working with these necro to bet you aren&039;t bad at necromancy yourself But you went out of your way to save soht, and that just doesn&039;t jive with that crowd"

"Doesn&039;t it?" she said

"No They&039;re killers Good at it, but they&039;re just killers They wouldn&039;t take a step out of their way to help someone else But you ay the hell out of your way to help a stranger It says that you aren&039;t like them"

She was silent for a moment more Then she said, "Do you knohy Cowl has made a study of necromancy? And why I have joined him?"

"No"

"Because necroic eic can be twisted and perverted to cruel and destructive ends, necromancy can be turned upon its nature as well Death can be warded off, as I did for the wounded ht Life can be served by that dark power, if one&039;s will and purpose are strong"

"Uh- huh," I said "You got involved with the darkest andforces in the universe so that you could jump-start wounded bodies to life"

Shemotion "No No, you idiot Don&039;t you see the potential here? The possibility to end death"

"Uh End death?"

"You will die," she said "I will die Coill die Everyone noalking this tired old world knows but one solid, immutable fact Their life will end Yours Mine Everyone&039;s"

"Yeah," I said "That&039;s why they call us &039;mortals&039; Because of the mortality"

"Why?" she asked

"What?"

"Why?" she repeated "Why must we die?"

"Because that&039;s the way it is," I said

"Why must that be the way it is?" she said "Why rief? With rage and loss and sorrow and vengeance ruling the lives of every soul beneath the sky? What if we could change it?"

"Change it," I said, e death"

"Yes," she said

"Just poof Make it go away"

"What if we could?" she said "Can you ie would not lay mankind low after his threescore and ten, how ine if da Vinci had continued to live, to study, to paint, to invent? That the remarkable accoh the centuries rather than dying in the di to see Beethoven in concert? Taking a theology class taught by Martin Luther? Attending a syles the ht about it

And she was right

Supposing for half a second that what she said e everything There would be so much more time, and for everyone Wizards lived for three or even four centuries, and to the about, the end of death itself, would give everyone else the same chance to better thele stroke, create more parity betizards and the rest of le event in history

But that was insane Setting out to conquer death? People died That was a fact of life

But what if they didn&039;t have to?

What if my mother hadn&039;t died? Or my father? How different would my life be today?

Impossible You couldn&039;t just drive death away

Could you?

Maybe that wasn&039;t the point Maybe this was one of those things in which the effort meant more than the outcome I mean, if there was a chance, even a tiny, teeny chance that Kued, wouldn&039;t I be obliged to try? Even if I never reached the goal, never finished the quest, wouldn&039;t the attempt to vanquish death itself be a worthy pursuit?

Wow

This question was a big one Way bigger than me

I shook my head and told Kumori, "I don&039;t know about that What I know is that I&039;ve seen the fruits of that kind of path I sal try to ot in his way I&039;ve seen what Grevane and the Corpsetaker have done I&039;ve heard about the suffering andtoday, thanks to his stupid book

"I don&039;t know about so to murder death But I know that you can tell a tree from what kind of fruit falls off it And the necro that isn&039;t rotten"

"Ours is a calling," Kuht be willing to believe you if so much of that road wasn&039;t paved in the corpses of innocents"

I saw her head shake slowly beneath the hood "You sound like them The Council You do not understand"

"Or h to start rearranging the universe on the assu life should last And there&039;s a downside to what you&039;re saying, too How about trying to topple the regime of an immortal Napoleon, or Attila, or Chairman Mao? You could as easily preserve the monsters as the intellectual all-stars It can be horribly abused, and thatand silent second Then she let out a sigh and said, "I think we have exhausted the possibilities of this conversation"

"You sure?" I asked her "The offer is still open If you want to get out, I&039;ll get the Council to protect you"

"Our offer is open as well Stand aside, and no rancor will follow you"

"I can&039;t," I said

"Nor can I," she said "Understand that I do not wish you any particular harm But I will not hesitate to strike you down should you place yourself in our path"

I stared at her for a second Then I said, "I&039; to stop you and Cowl and Grevane and Corpsetaker, and your little druod-hood No one is"

"I think you will die," she said, her tone even, without inflection

"Maybe," I said "But I&039;et out of the way now, and I won&039;t hunt him down after all of this is over He can walk You too"