Chapter 18

Back Lash

I woke up in what looked like an old police station. This would have been more alarming if Murph had been here, but the two people facing me from the other side of the interrogation table were only my subconscious and Lasciel.

My subconscious smiled at me. 'Glad you could finally join us.'

I don't know if it is normal for people to have conversations with their subconscious, but I don't think so. Most doctors are pretty eager to shove all kinds of pills down your throat if you tell them you're hearing voices.

My case was probably a little worse: the voices in my head were ganging up on me.

'I don't have time for this,' I announced.

Lasciel looked at me. She had apparently given up on the sexy librarian look in favour of a skimpy Roman looking tunic that fell several inches short of her knees. Her hands were folded demurely into her lap, although it didn't fool me. The word temptress had probably been invented for the sole purpose of describing her.

'You are dying, my host,' she said.

I didn't point out that this had always been an option. I was out of my league, had been since Mavra approached me with her blackmail scheme. Everyone I encountered was stronger, more powerful and less principled than I was. In a fight like this, that is not an advantage.

I should probably count myself lucky that my allies and I had been able to take most of the necromancers out of general circulation.

'I'm certainly dying if you don't let me get back to the fight right now.' I'd be the first to admit that my mind was a little blurry, but I was sure that there were zombies everywhere. I couldn't have missed them, and they weren't picky about who they killed.

My subconscious was not amused. 'You need to listen,' he said, as if I had any choice.

Since I was only knocked on the head and not actually stupid, I had a fairly good idea of the suggestion he was going to give. There was a reason Lasciel was still sitting here, smiling serenely, as if she had never tempted anyone anywhere into selling their souls to the dark side.

'No,' I said.

'If you die, then I die,' she said.

Just in case I had made the mistake to think she cared about my survival. Then again, it was hardly a surprise that one of the Fallen only cared for her own self-preservation. If I died, this version of her died too. The coin might stay in the concrete in my subbasement for years, decades even, if it saw the light of day again at all. Of course, I liked it that way.

'Do you want me to compose your eulogy now?' I asked.

She did not like that. 'You need what I have to offer.'

Unless she could piece my head back together there wasn't anything she had that I wanted. Call me stubborn, but I'd really rather die than throw my lot in with Nicodemus's minion. As I then told her.

Her smile slipped. 'You called on me when you had need of me before.'

I had, and it was not my proudest moment. All the more reason not to dangle the temptation right in front of me. 'I bet you did this to all the others too,' I said. 'Wait until they were desperate enough and then hook them on your power.'

She shrugged. 'It always works.'

And as much as I would like to be the first one this didn't work on, I wasn't exactly swimming in options. It was her casual confidence that I too would eventually cave that made my blood run cold. She spoke from experience. She had done this dozens of times to people who might have been just as reluctant as I was.

I did the only thing I could that wouldn't end with me screaming incoherently: I turned my back on her and focused on my far-too-smug alter id. 'How long have you been talking to her?'

'Oh, for months.' He shrugged in a very polished evil villain kind of way. The all black clothing wasn't helping to diffuse that impression. 'After all, you wanted nothing to do with her.'

I wondered what a therapist would say if I explained that the voices in my head had been talking to each other, whilst leaving me out of the loop entirely. Nothing good, probably.

'Because she is dangerous.' No part of me could be stupid enough to miss that.

'But we need her power,' my subconscious said. 'At the moment, you have been knocked on the head so many times you have entire galaxy spinning around your head.'

I told him that I was not in fact a cartoon character. I did not say that I had in fact seen a number of stars. Besides, he was me – or a part of me at least – and lying to myself wouldn't be a lot of use.

He ignored it. 'You will die if you don't use her.' And my subconscious really cared about that, my survival, the things that kept me alive.

That was very likely. 'Unless she can heal a severe head injury, there's nothing she can give that I want,' I pointed out.

'Well…' Lasciel said.

'Shut up,' my subconscious me and I said in unison.

She promptly did.

I studied the other me. Much as I didn't like it, I wasn't in much of a position to turn down help at the moment. Far from actually being a help, I was being a hindrance. I hadn't missed the fact that Kai had taken a hit for me that I should have been easily able to dodge myself.

'Her influence is dangerous,' I said.

'Agreed.'

Well, there was that at least.

'We cannot allow her to dictate our actions.' The minute I let go of that control was the minute I was well on my way to becoming like Nicodemus. And that was never going to happen.

Lasciel, head bowed, smiled pleasantly. Patiently. I almost rethought this entire thing on the spot. I was contemplating giving her a finger, and she was already planning to take the whole hand, arm and whatever other parts of me she could get her hands on.

The other me followed that line of thought. 'We are in control.'

For now. 'That's what she wants us to think.'

You shouldn't give that kind of power to me for the same reason you shouldn't offer the One Ring to Gandalf. I was too powerful. Through me she could do so much evil. And I did not fancy becoming the Earth version of a Ringwraith.

Subconscious me frowned at me. 'You can't afford to not use her. We will die.'

But at least I'd die without having been corrupted by Lasciel. I happened to like my soul as it was.

But it wasn't just my life on the line. I had taken Carlos, Kai and Irene into battle with me. Thomas was coming as well. And true, I didn't particularly care for either Morgan or Bradamant, but I didn't want them killed by Cowl's minions either. And maybe they could do it without me. But I wasn't sure.

And that decided me.

'I know.' I looked at the temptress. I had to give it to her, she did her very best not to look triumphant. Only the twinkling in her eyes gave her away. She thought she had her hooks into me.

It might be my new life's work to prove her wrong.

She knelt down at my feet. 'How may I serve you, my host?'

Usefully, was the answer to that one. When I woke up in the middle of the storm and the zombies, the pain in my head had reduced to a mild nuisance rather than the pounding pain it started off with. I didn't see any stars in my vision either.

Progress.

I wasn't healed. It turned out that Lasciel couldn't actually do that. She had not appreciated my commentary to that announcement. All she could do was teach me a method to keep the pain at bay, hopefully just long enough to defeat Cowl, take the Word to Mavra and then find a convenient bed to crash on. A tall order, but don't let it be said I back away from a challenge.

Carlos pulled me up. 'You all right?'

If it hadn't been for Lasciel, I would have had a pounding head and a collection of bruises that would probably stop me from moving very fast. Or at all. There was a really impressive one in the centre of my torso that was really going to hurt once I stopped blocking the pain.

'Functioning,' I said – all right, yelled; there wasn't any other way to make myself heard over the storm.

Irene nodded. We three were taking shelter behind Kai. I couldn't see what he was doing – and I wasn't well versed enough in Dragon magic to hazard a useful guess – but there was a lot of noise and a lot of flashing lights. And it wasn't all the storm.

'I have an idea!' Irene yelled back. Ordinarily we would have had to worry about being overheard. There was no chance of that now. 'I need you to amplify my voice.'

'How loud?' I asked.

'The storm needs to hear me.'

In conclusion: very loud. It was not a difficult working, so I could do that, no problem.

'Can you make it stop?' Carlos asked. Yes, he yelled too, but that gets repetitive in text, so for your reading ease, assume we were all yelling at the top of our lungs.

Irene shook her head. She looked like nothing so much as a drowned rat, although she was in good company; we were all sporting the drowned rat look in all its glory. 'Better idea,' she said, and then explained.

It was spectacular and flashy, so naturally I liked it a lot.

Failing any better ideas, Carlos and I agreed to be the distraction. Kai was already dealing with Kumori – and visibly keen to finish the job. One of her spells had gauged a hole in one of his flanks and he was not happy about it.

I looked for our reinforcements, but couldn't see them. I could see a cluster of zombies converging on something I couldn't see, but what I was reasonably sure were the reinforcements. They were too far away to be of any use to us.

They could distract the zombies instead.

I sent Sue to them to help. It took some considerable effort to send her in the right direction. She was strong, and she had gobbled up lots and lots of undead soldiers, enough to thoroughly awaken her hunter instincts. She really didn't want to take directions from me – or from anyone else for that matter – and I only barely got her to do as I wanted, and mostly she relented because there was more prey there for her to hunt.

Our first order of business was to get closer to Cowl. I thought we might enjoy the full benefits of Kumori's attention the moment that we stepped out from behind Kai, but she didn't even see us. Kai was giving her a run for her money, proving what I already suspected, that no human could ever really be a real challenge for a Dragon. She tried to fend off his attacks whilst trying to hurl more of her own at him even as she kept up the beat, but she was playing defence more than offence. Step by step, Kai drove her back, away from Cowl.

Who didn't seem to care.

See, that's the problem with flunkies. Flunkies can be bought, or be persuaded to agree that there was some sort of common aim. Kumori probably thought she was an ally of equal standing, but I thought she had been duped. When there was a prize only one could take, there was no equal standing, only winners and losers. Cowl knew that. He had seen that Kumori was in trouble, but the next moment he looked away and carried on with his own workings, leaving Kumori at Kai's distinct lack of mercy.

As if I had any more doubts about what an absolute piece of shit this guy was.

That's the difference between friends and flunkies. You can abandon your flunky when it is convenient. You can't do that with friends. Not that I would have done something as cold as what Cowl did to Kumori anyway, even if it only was an ally, but Cowl was a dark wizard. I very much hoped that I was not.

My involvement with Lasciel was not encouraging, though.

I don't have a lot of friends. There's Michael Carpenter, but I hadn't seen him for a while. My own choice – of sorts – but I didn't want to see his face when he realised I had a blackened denarius and a corresponding entity whispering in my ear. There was Murphy too, but she was on holiday on Hawaii.

With Kincaid.

Best not to remember that either.

I counted Billy and the Alphas as friends too, but I would not have wanted them here.

The conclusion of this bit of rambling was that I didn't have friends who were in the same league as I was when it came to this kind of a fight. Which was fine. Most of the time.

But you can bet that I was really grateful that I now had friends who were. Not the Wardens. I liked Carlos well enough, but he was very much an unknown quantity. The rest of them I either hardly knew – like Luccio – or knew entirely too well – like Morgan.

Irene and Kai were new friends, but they were good friends. I liked them, and not just because they represented a big Library with every book imaginable. All right, I would try to wrangle an invitation and I might find out if they had some kind of lending policy, but that was not why they were friends. They were friends because they had my back even when they no longer needed me. Kai had taken a few hits for me. I'm pretty sure I might actually owe Irene my life as well.

I'd probably remember exactly how many times when the concussion cleared up.

Carlos and I took the lead. Irene stayed behind us, limiting her contribution to very minor uses of the Language to keep most of the zombies off of us. Cowl had seen a little of what the Language could do, and Kumori might have reported what she had seen, but I didn't think either of them realised the full extent to which the Language could manipulate reality. It might not be magic as I understood it, but it was a lot more powerful than I first thought.

And I really hoped Cowl was making the same mistake.

Cowl didn't even look at us. He still stood in his evil villain pose, Bob in one hand, the other outstretched towards the still lowering funnel. Bob, for all that he was still in the same familiar skull, didn't look a bit like himself. His eyes glowed ice-cold blue instead of the familiar warm orange. This wasn't Bob, my assistant, my confidant, my friend. This was Bob as he was before he was Bob, coldly intellectual, cruel, uncaring.

This Bob would never make an inappropriate remark about how hot one of my friends was.

As much as that always annoyed me, I really, really missed that now.

And there was nothing I could do about it, which was the most frustrating thing. There was nothing Bob could do about it either. He was bound to serve the one who had his skull, and Cowl kept a firm grip on it.

I would enjoy making Cowl pay for that.

Carlos and Irene weren't looking at the skull. To be fair, there were a lot of zombies – if I never heard that word again after this was over, it would be too soon – to keep an eye on, as well as the fight between Kai and Kumori.

That was eye catching. The constant drumming the beat was a handicap, but Kumori held her own. The hood still hid her face, but I imagined she had that kind of determined face of the fanatic who just didn't know when she was beaten. Her posture screamed it too.

But she was still losing.

Kai advanced one step at a time, using paws and wings to bat zombies out of his way like it was an afterthought. All the magic at his disposal he threw at Kumori. Because he was in his Dragon form, he didn't have hands or staff or rod to do that with, but he didn't seem to think of that as a handicap. Must be the Dragon advantage.

Kumori fired off something that looked like an overgrown lightsabre that hit Kai at the top of his left wing. I bet that hurt. Even in the pouring rain the spot blackened and some smoke rose from it.

Kai roared, as much in pain as anger. The ground shook beneath our feet. I could feel the vibrations in the water. Even the air trembled at the wrath of a Dragon.

Kumori did another step back, but she was too late.

So far, Kai had been playing with her, like a cat with a mouse. I don't know if Kai maybe tried to give her a chance to back off and step away from this fight or if he was just trying to keep her busy long enough for us to deal with Cowl, so that we could decide what to do with her later. He had been holding back.

But now she had hurt him, so playtime was over. Kai roared again. Kumori tried to back away further, but the water surged around her legs, circling, tightening, pinning her in place. It rose, up past her knees, her hips, her waist, until it covered her all the way past her head. Kai had summoned up what looked like a violent tornado of water.

With Kumori right in the middle.

It grew, and then it grew some more. It pulled in a lot of the water on the ground. It had been almost up to my knees, but it went down until it only sloshed around my ankles. All that water went into the tornado, which now dwarfed the funnel Cowl was still calling down.

I couldn't even see Kumori anymore.

And if I thought that was impressive, Kai wasn't done. He roared again and hurled his watery tornado away from him, all the way until it hit the poor building in the distance. I could feel the impact. Hell, they could probably feel that impact all the way in Europe.

Cowl never even looked up.

He had scared me when I first felt his power outside Bock Ordered Books, but this indifference about the death of his own ally chilled me to the bone. Or it would have, had I not been freezing cold already.

Kai's tornado had sucked in most of the zombies that remained in our way – probably not a coincidence – which left us a nice free path to Cowl.

I could feel his power before I saw what he had done, a torrent of crackling malevolence that set my teeth on edge.

Now that the zombies were out of the way I saw that the reason Cowl was working so much magic without being slowed down by all the running water around, was that he had thrown up some sort of boundary around him. We could pass through it, but the water couldn't. It wasn't like any magical circle that I had ever seen before.

There was no rain in the circle, no wind and almost no sound. Only the lowering funnel whooshed above our heads, a very eerie sound.

Cowl had created his very own eye of the storm.

The zombies didn't follow us into the circle. I don't think they could have crossed the line if they wanted to. Which made a nice change, because if I never saw another ghost or zombie again, it would be too soon.

Cowl stopped chanting for a moment, but it was on his terms, not a distraction. His right hand reached up towards the funnel, almost as if he pressed the pause button on the spell. I didn't know any wizards who could do that.

I hadn't even known it was possible.

'I warned you to stay away,' he said to me, the tone almost pleasant. Conversational. He completely ignored Carlos and Irene. 'You meddle in things too great for you.'

I forced myself to smile. 'I like the heavyweight division,' I said, which was a blatant lie. 'Didn't you used to have minions? Where's the rest of your Necromancy United Club?'

The hood obscured his face from view, which was getting really old really fast. 'Yes, I suppose I should thank you for taking out the competition.'

He never said a word about Kumori. I almost felt angry on her behalf, and I hadn't even liked her. She had devoted so much of her life and her power to him and his cause. She could have been a wizard of the White Council in her own right, she was that powerful. And all her devotion to him and to the cause meant absolutely nothing to Cowl. She didn't even warrant a mention.

'Your Dragon can't come in, by the way,' he continued. 'Only humans can cross the line.'

'No problem,' said I. 'Three against one is unfair enough.'

I didn't mention that Kai coming in was never part of the plan anyway. His part was dealing with Kumori, and then dealing with the rest of Cowl's army. The last thing we wanted was to have them rush to his defence.

Cowl hadn't drawn that conclusion. He made that kind of buzzing sound that was supposed to pass for laughter again.

Not-Bob spoke up. 'You should kill him now,' he said. I'd already seen the eyes were different. And while the voice was still recognisably Bob, the tone wasn't. This was not my friend. This was just a spirit of intellect. 'Lest he disturbs the working at a critical moment.'

It was good advice. Or it would have been. If I had been here alone.

But Bob had never met Irene. I hadn't had the chance to properly consult with Bob since I met the Librarians. He didn't know her. He didn't know what she could do. And what he didn't know, he couldn't factor into his plans. Of course Cowl might have mentioned Librarians, but I didn't think so. With Cowl, the flow of information only went one way.

'No need, spirit,' Cowl said dismissively. He waved a hand and froze us with seemingly only as much effort as it took to wave away a fly. I couldn't move. Neither could Carlos and Irene. 'Let them bear witness. They won't live long after anyway.'

Except I would, because I had brought Sue. Not that I had any illusions about Cowl letting me outlive my friends for long.

'We return to the matter in hand,' Cowl said.

'As you wish, master,' Not-Bob said.

Bob had never once called me master – except sarcastically – once for as long as I'd had him. When I had him, he had been almost a real person. Now he was just a talking head with all the personality of a snail. I hated what Cowl had done to him.

Cowl needed to fry. Literally.

Carlos practically vibrated with anger, but he couldn't move either. The temptress in my head whispered that she had some ideas about what to do, but I ignored her. I couldn't move my arms, or my legs, but I could move my mouth. Cowl was apparently such an arrogant bastard that he didn't think I'd be a threat. And maybe I wasn't much of one, without my staff to focus a spell.

But as it happened, my mouth was all I needed.

Cowl consulted with the skull for another moment and then – the idiot – put it down on the picnic table next to him, so he could devote both hands to the overly dramatic gestures he made to power his spell. He started up the chanting again, bringing the funnel in lower with every spoken syllable.

I didn't have a moment to lose. 'Bob!' I called. The eyes still glowed blue, so I tried again. 'Bob! Remember me?' Not so long ago Bob told me that he could never forget something unless he deliberately chose to forget. Knowledge of what went on in my lab was far too valuable to lose for Cowl at the moment, so I was sure Bob remembered. 'You lived in my basement, I gave you romance novels. I gave you a name!'

It wasn't his memories I hoped to appeal to, it was the sentiment that went with them. If I could just re-establish a little of that bond…

One of the eyes flickered the familiar warm orange.

Bob winked at me.

Cowl really should not have put him down. Neither of us held the skull at the moment, so right now it came down to Bob's own inclination. And I had a pretty good idea of which way that ran.

The funnel was almost entirely down, just inches away from Cowl's face. He still had the hood up, but he was bellowing out the incantation so loud that I was pretty sure his mouth was wide open. For easy swallowing purposes.

Rather him than me. Give me one of Mac's steak sandwiches any day.

'Bob!' I shouted. 'You have my permission!'

I've said it before, I'll say it again: there's a difference between friends and flunkies. Cowl had flunkies – at least when he didn't stand by and watched them get killed – but they wouldn't go above and beyond for him, because he would not go above and beyond for them. To Cowl, Bob was nothing but a resource, a fount of knowledge. To me, Bob was my friend.

Guess how that worked out.

With a whoop of delight the orange light departed the skull, and then the circle, which was apparently more transparent to non-humans than Cowl thought. Bob would know what I wanted, and now Cowl was fresh out of back-up.

I had timed it right, because there was nothing he could do about it now; he had a mouthful of tornado. He might be the most powerful wizard I had ever met, but even he could not pause now.

That was where his plans all fell apart. Cowl was all alone, but I had brought my friends to the party.

From the corner of my eye I saw Kai taking off with the reinforcements. We had agreed that he would get as many people out as possible if it got to the point where the funnel was almost down.

My dinosaur came in the opposite direction, charging at full speed, roaring and scattering zombies before her as she went. Her eyes glowed orange.

I might have known; size always mattered to Bob.

I started casting my own enchantment, low and almost under my breath. With magic, it wasn't the volume that mattered. It was the will and the intent of the caster. And I was focusing my will very intently.

'Now, Irene,' I hissed.

I had supercharged my spell, perhaps a bit too much; when Irene spoke, she was heard all over the city. I later learned that there were even noise complaints from the other side of Lake Michigan.

'Lightning, strike Cowl!'

If this had been a thrilling high-budget film there would have been beautiful slow-motion shots of the lightning striking Cowl – from at least three different angles, of course – of what everyone was doing and how everyone was reacting, with a rousing, triumphant soundtrack behind it all. Unfortunately, my life is not a film. There was no soundtrack and everything happened faster than I can describe it.

The lightning struck Cowl.

His freezing spell vanished.

Carlos threw himself against Irene, away from Cowl.

I dove for the skull.

And everything exploded.

Next time: the aftermath.

Reviews would be very welcome.