"I don't blame you," I said.
Butters nodded. "Why zombies?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"Sorry. Changing topics. New question. Why do all these necromancer types use zombies?"
"Not all of them do," I pointed out. "Corpsetaker had called up a bunch of semicorporeal ghosts. Specters."
"But human," Butters said. "Zombies look human. Specters look human. Why not whistle up a pack of decayed rats? Or maybe semicorporeal mosquitos? Why use people?"
"Oh," I said. "It's got to do with a kind of metaphysical impression that any given creature leaves upon its death. Sort of like a footprint. Human beings leave larger footprints than most animals, which means that you can pour more energy into reanimating them."
"They make stronger goons," Butters clarified.
"Yes."
"How come Grevane had fresh corpses when he came to get me, but he attacked your house with old ones? I mean, I saw those things up close." He shivered. "Some of them must have dated back to the beginning of the twentieth century."
"Same reason they animate humans instead of animals," I said. "Older corpses leave a deeper metaphysical imprint. They're harder to call up, but once you get them here they're easier to control, stronger, more difficult to damage."
"Old corpses get you stronger undead flunkies," he said.
"Right," I said. I could see the wheels turning in Butters's head as he processed the information. He looked like he was busy lining up dozens more questions spawned by the answers to the first few, and I had a feeling he would pursue them with relentless curiosity.
"Okay. But what if-"
"Butters," I said as gently as I could. "Not now. All I want to do is have a quiet cup of tea." An inspiration hit me. "Ask Bob," I told him. "Bob knows a hell of a lot more than I do, anyway."
"Oh," Butters said. He looked from me to the skull. "Um. Yeah, I guess Thomas was talking to it."
"He!" Bob said indignantly. "I am very much a he! I'm not some kind of freaking animatronic Tinkertoy!"
"Right," Butters said. "Um. Sorry. Bob. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"
"It's a waste of my vast intellect and talent," Bob sneered.
"Do it, Bob," I told him.
"Oh, man." The orange lights in the skull's eye sockets rolled. "Fine. I haven't got anything better to do than to teach kindergarten."
"Great!" Butters bubbled, and sat down at the table. He grabbed some more paper and a pencil. "Well, how about we start with..."
I fixed myself a cup of tea and one for Butters. I put the cup down near him, but he took little notice of it. He was deeply involved in a conversation with Bob.
I slipped out into the living room and put my aching leg up on the table, then settled back onto the couch with my tea. I sat in the gloom, sipping hot, sweet mint something-or-other and tried to order my thoughts. I was tired enough that it didn't take too long.
I was about to call up a peer of Queen Mab and try to trap it for an entire night. A garden spider had about as much chance of trapping a Bengal tiger. Except that the Bengal tiger probably wouldn't bother to squash the spider for daring to make the attempt. The Erlking would.
That made the whole notion more stupid than most of my plans, but I didn't have too much choice in the matter. The presence of the Erlking in the area would drastically increase the number and the potency of the undead that the Kemmlerites were planning to summon tonight. If I could block the Erlking's presence from Chicago, it would take a big chunk out of the powers the necromancers would summon. Grevane and company were formidable enough without calling up an army of super-zombies and uber-ghosts. If I could stop that from happening, it might give Luccio and her Wardens a real chance to defeat them.
If I wasn't fast enough to call the Erlking before one of the Kemmlerites, or if he escaped my hold and ran loose through Chicago, people would die. The Erlking would summon the Wild Hunt into a lightless Chicago Halloween night, and anyone they caught in the open would be torn to shreds.
Lightning flickered outside, somehow too dark and dull to be natural. A beat later, thunder ripped through the evening air, shaking the little house. The wind started to pick up, and the steady beat of rain on the windows surged and retreated with its restless gusting.
I didn't feel like a wizard. I didn't feel like a deadly and powerful Warden. I didn't feel like the supernatural champion of Chicago, or a fearless foe of evil, a daring summoner able to cast his defiance into the teeth of a supernatural titan, or an enlightened sage of the mystic arts. I felt like a scarred, battered, aching, one-handed man with few pleasant prospects for the future and a ridiculous pair of pants with one leg slashed off.
Mouse padded over to me through the dimness. He chuffed softly at me, and then laid his head down on my leg. My eyes were closed, but I could hear his tail thumping softly against the couch. I rested my bad hand on Mouse's head and petted him awkwardly. Mouse didn't mind. He just leaned against me, loaning me the warmth of his fur and the silent faithfulness of his presence.
It made me feel better. Mouse might not have been the smartest creature on earth, but he was steady, kind, loyal, and was possessed of the uncanny wisdom of beasts for knowing whom to trust. I might not have been a superhero, but Mouse thought that I was pretty darned cool. That meant something. It would have to be enough.
I set my teacup down, took my foot off Murphy's coffee table, and rose. I picked up my staff without looking at it, took a deep breath, and clenched my jaw.
Then I marched into the kitchen in a lopsided stalk. "Butters," I said.
"Stay here with Bob and Mouse. Watch my back. If you see anyone trying to sneak up on me, give a yell."
"Right," he said. "Will do."
I nodded to him and went out into the rain to test my will against the legendary lord of the Wild Hunt.
Chapter Thirty-three
The rain had plastered my hair to my head by the time I got all the material for the summoning out of the Beetle's trunk. I stuffed it all into a gym bag and then walked out to the middle of the backyard. It wasn't quite too dark to see-not yet. But I didn't want to make any mistakes, so I used the last of the chemical light sticks Kincaid had given me before our raid on Mavra's scourge the year before. I snapped it and shook it up, and green-yellow light spread out in a little pool around me. The rain limited how much it could spread, and it created the illusion that the entire world had shrunk to a ten-foot circle rain and grass and green-golden light.