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Chapter Thirty-nine

By the ti with its own vicious will Rain lashed down in blinding, cold sheets Wind howled like a starving beast, lightning burned al thunder was a constant, ru 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 ical forces noork over the city The apprehension, tension, fear, and anger of its people had coalesced into dark power that rode over Chicago in the stor&039;s presence-I could still hear the occasional shrieking howl ay even more

I shieldedup 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 rowled I shook the water from my eyes and clutched at the saddlehorn to keep "

"What a lanced behind us, at the broken brick and debris and wreckage of the ht?"

"One way to find out," I growled "Hah, h, 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 th of her body tilted forward, until her spine was alround

I didn&039;t know this before, but as it turns out, Tyrannosaurs can really haul ass

Sheas a city bus, but Sue, despite her weight, y-charged ectoplasm to clothe the ancient bones, they had becoly supple quasi-flesh She was dark grey, and there was a ripple pattern of black along her head, back, and flanks, aluar And once I had shaped the vessel, I had reached out and found the ancient spirit of the predator that had aniht not have the potential power of huic 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&039;d had to i extension cords to tie theet Butters on board without hi h

Sue bellowed out a basso shriek that rattled nearby buildings and broke a fes 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&039;s so else I bet you didn&039;t know about Tyrannosaurs: they don&039;t corner well The first ti wide, the enormous mohtly co 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 everyon the first two floors of the building beside us as her tail lashed back and forth in an effort to counterbalance her body

"Oh,on to s out alternately to either side in order to operate the bass drum strapped on his back

"They&039;re probably insured!" I shouted Thank God the streets weren&039;t crowded that night I made a note to be sure to have Sue slon 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 ar 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&039;s foot crashed down onto the hood of one Hu it to the asphalt, and then ere past the checkpoint and pounding our way down the street toward Evanston

"Heh," I said, looking back over my shoulder "I&039;d love to hear how they explain that to their CO"

"You crushed that truck!" Butters shouted "You&039;re like a huhtful pause, and then he said, "Hey, are we going anywhere near my boss&039;s place? Because he just won&039;t shut up about his new Jaguar"

"Maybe later For now, look sharp," I told hiht We&039;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 druht," Butters said "If I stop, no more dinosaur"

"No," I called back "If you stop, the dinosaur does whatever the hell it wants to"

Shouts rose up froo by Sue turned her head toward the bellow that broke uardse of sih the beast I&039;d called up, as though the ancient ani to reain, sending a surge ofher head back around with a ru in the wake of that vast sound, and I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Butters was okay His face was pale

"If this thing gets loose," he said "That would be bad"

"Which is why you shouldn&039;t stop the druine the potential carnage she could inflict I rief Look at all the senseless victims of Jurassic Park II

We hit Evanston, the first suburb of Chicago proper, which is o by the presence of trees on the streets and a few iven that it&039;s only a block or tay from the heart of Second City, the addition of trees and homes made it feel more like a park nestled down at the feet of the city

I guided Sue into a gentler left turn onto Sheridan, slowing down enough to be sure that ouldn&039;t swerve off the street As Sue headed in, I was suddenly struck with the realization of how fragile those ho accident like the one back in toould result in a ho crushed, and not just so precisely the people I was trying to protect-farandparents Decent folks, for the most part, who just wanted to o about their lives

Of course, if I didn&039;t hurry up and stop the Darkhallow, every house I was now passing would be filled with its dead

I checked the sky during the next long flicker of lightning and didn&039;t like what I saw The clouds were spinning faster, more broadly, and unnatural colors and striations had appeared in their foruided Sue down another side street, and that&039;s when I felt the cloud of power gathering before ainstshafts of heat and cold and other, less recognizable sensations running through th of it

There was ht ahead A lot of it

"There!" Butters shouted, pointing "Down that way, that whole block is the caain as I turned Sue down the street, and it was over the dinosaur&039;s broad head that I saw Wardens battling for their lives in the street ahead

They were in trouble Luccio had theroup around a cluster of Hell&039;s bells, around a group of children in colorful Halloween costuht up the rear, and Yoshimo, Kowalski, and Ramirez were on the flanks

Even as I watched, I saw dozens of rotting fore More caer

Luccio whirled to deal with them And dear God, I suddenly saw the difference between a strong but soic of battle

Fire lashed froout of flaht that it hurt the eyes to see She swept it in an arc at thigh level, and every one of the zoround a ht one of therip of invisible power and hurled the un-dead into the ones behind, sending ot through

Luccio ducked the grasping ar by a wrist, and sent it stu aside with a twist of her body that reminded me of one of Murphy&039;s moves The second zombie drove a hammer-heavy blow at her head, but that slender blade she wore at her side swept up out of its scabbard and took off its are of so through the silver steel of her sword, and she flicked it lightly at the zoht, and the zoic that had anione

In less than five seconds, Luccio had simply wiped out thirty undead, and it hadn&039;t even been a contest

I guess you don&039;t get to be co bottle caps, either

My eyes flicked back to the front of the group, where Morgan her and ot sih the earth that knocked undead to the ground like bowling pins A gesture of his hand and wrist and a cry of effort drew grasping waves of concrete and earth up to clamp down on the fallen zo back down into the ground, cutting and tearing its way through undead flesh and ripping the zombies to shreds One of the creatures was still mobile, and with a look of contean drew the broadsword at his hip-the one used for executions of wizards guilty of breaking one of the Laws of Magic-paused a beat to get the ti, once, twice, snicker-snack, and the zo bits

Several others got through here and there Kowalski haround with unseen force, while beside him Yoshimo twisted a hand and the branches of a nearby tree reached down of their own accord, wrapped around the undead&039;s throat, and hauled it up off of the ground Rarin on his face, lashed out with soy I had never seen before, and the zorains of sand As an afterthought, he drew his sideared him, and calmly put two rounds into its head from less than ten feet away He , because the creature&039;s head exploded like rotten fruit and the rest fell twitching to the ground

None of the zoot within ten feet of the terrified children

More of theht, but Luccio and the Wardens keptand dicing their way across the street, furiously deteret the children clear

Which is probably why they didn&039;t see the sucker punch coine, and an old Chrysler shot forward along the street The driver pulled it into a sharp left turn as it got close to the Wardens and their charges, and the wet rain turned it into a broadside slide The car swept forward like an enormous broo that way

I cried out to Sue and hung on to the saddlehorn

The car slid, sending out a boave of sheeting water from the wet street

Ramirez&039;s head snapped around toward the car and he shrieked a warning But it was too late to get out of the way The group was still under attack, and thefor self-preservation They would continue the fight, and even if the Wardens could have run fro ht, I realized that these were the same tactics Grevane had used atminions in order to defeat the enemy

Everyone else&039;s head turned toward the oncos tensed, and the saddle lurched

One of the little girls screamed

And then the Tyrannosaur caed Wardens Sue landed with one clawed foot on the street, and the other came down squarely on the Caddy&039;s hood, like a falcon descending upon a rabbit There was an enorlass, and the saddle lurched wildly again

I leaned over to see what had happened The car&039;s hood and engine block had been compacted into a two-foot-thick section of twisted metal Even as I looked, Sue leaned over the car in a curiously birdlike movement, opened her enormous jaws, and ripped the roof off

Inside was Li Xian, dressed in a black shirt and trousers The ghoul&039;s forehead had a nasty gash in it, and green-black blood had sheeted over one side of his face His eyes were blank and a little vague, and I figured he&039;d clipped his head on the steering wheel or hen Sue brought his sliding car to an abrupt halt

Li Xian shook his head and then started to scraain, and the sound must have terrified Li Xian, because all of his limbs jerked in spasain, her jaws gaping, but the ghoul rolled under the car to get away fro end over end three or four tihoul let out a screa his head with his arhoul

"What&039;s with that?" Butters screa his head with his arms? Didn&039;t he see the lawyer in the movie?"

"Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doo on!"

I rode the dinosaur into the streao to town Sue choh the air with swinging blows of her snout Her tail batted one particularly vile-looking zo, and the zombie hit so hard and so squishily that it just stuck to the wall like a refrigerator s spread in a sprawl

In a couple of minutes there wasn&039;tSue around to pace after the Wardens They had gotten clear of the street while I covered their retreat, and I saw Warden Luccio at the door of the nearest building, waving the last two children and Rah the door while she watched out behind

I guided Sue up to the building, and had her settle down to the ground "Co," I told him

We slid out of our saddles and ran a couple of steps through the heavy rain to where Luccio stood at the door

"Hey, there," I said "Sorry I&039;m late"

Luccio stared at me for a moment and then at the dinosaur Her eyes held a ratitude, and revulsion "I Dio, Dresden What have you done?"

"It isn&039;t a mortal," I said "It&039;s an animal You know the laws are there to protect our felloizards and ht throw up "It&039;s necromancy" she said

"It&039;s necessary," I said, and my voice sounded harsh I hooked a thu?"

"Yes What is it?"

"Dark power Ke to call it down and devour it along with all the shades they could get to show up, and if they go through with it and turn one of theod"

Luccio&039;s eyes widened as she figured it out and caught on "There will be a vacuuic to replace it It will draw in life"

"Right," I said "And they&039;re going to be over there, directly under the vortex," I said "But if anyone tries to go in without a field of necroy around theet there We need to get in there to stop theive ic, or at least wait for later, because there are too er flickered over her face and she opened her et this information?"

"Kemmler&039;s book," I said

"You found it?"

I grimaced "Briefly Grevane jumped me and took it"

Butters looked back and forth between us,in place to make the polka suit&039;s drumbeat