Dead Beat (34 page)

"Yes," she said calmly. "Some of appearance only. Some of seeming."

"Why?"

"To
help
you," she said. "I told you that I could not make open contact with your conscious mind. That is why I created Shiela." She gestured down at herself. "I wanted to help you, but I couldn't do it directly. So I tried to do it this way."

"So you lied to me," I said.

She arched a brow. "I had little choice in the matter."

"What about after you made contact with me?" I said, and my voice was bitter too. "I used the Hellfire and you came to me in a dream."

"That was after you met Shiela, if you will recall," she said.

"But you didn't
need
Shiela anymore."

"No," she said. "I didn't. But I found that I…" She rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "That I enjoyed being Shiela. That I enjoyed interacting with you as one person to another. Without being regarded with fear and suspicion. I know that you understand what it is like. You've felt it often enough in your own life."

"But oddly enough," I said, "I haven't gone off and pretended to be someone else to gain another's trust."

"You've felt that isolation for less than two score years, my host. I've lived with it for millennia."

"Yeah? How long were you planning on stringing me along?"

Her soft mouth turned into a firm line. "I was going to tell you once the night's business was done—assuming you lived through it."

"Sure you were," I said.

"I told you," she said. "I didn't want it to become a distraction for you."

I barked out a harsh little laugh. "And why should I believe that?"

"Because your death would mean the death of this part of me," she said, gesturing down at herself again. "The thought shadow of Lasciel would not survive your death—and the true Lasciel, my true self, would remain trapped for who knows how long. You have no idea of what it is to be trapped without sound, sight, or senses, waiting for someone to bring you forth from oblivion."

I stared hard at her. "I don't believe you."

"You need not, my host," she said, and gave me a little bow. "But that makes it no less true."

"You
kissed
me," I said.

Shiela-Lasciel's eyebrows lifted and she gave me an almost whimsical smile. "When I said that it has been a long time since I was close to anyone, I meant it. I enjoyed that contact, my host. As, I think, did you."

"Oh, let me guess," I said. "You did that for me, too. Because you wanted to help me."

"I kissed you because I desired it and because it was pleasurable. If you will recall, my host, I
did
help you. I gave you the summons to call the Erlking, did I not?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, struggling to find something to say.

"I have never wished you ill, my host," she said. "In fact, I have done all that I can to assist you."

I suddenly felt very tired and rubbed at my forehead. I reminded myself that Lasciel was a fallen angel. That she was one of the thirty demons of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. That she was known as the Temptress and the Webweaver, and that she was ancient, powerful, and deadly dangerous at the art of manipulation. She could not be trusted; nor could her little carbon copy that had taken up residence in my head.

But she had helped me. And she had kissed me. Sure, a kiss was just a kiss, but her desire for it, her hesitation, the sense of yearning to her had been genuine. She had wanted to do it. She had enjoyed it. She was one hell of a good kisser.

Hell
being the operative word
, I reminded myself.

"I can still help you, my host," she said. "You are a powerful mortal, but your foes are more formidable still. They will kill you." Her face took on an expression of frustrated protest. "Let me help you survive. Give me the chance to preserve myself. Please."

I stared at her for a moment. She looked lovely and sincere and afraid.

She looked exactly like the kind of woman in trouble whom I could never turn away.

"I have no intention of dying," I said quietly. "But you aren't going to be part of the equation."

"If you don't—"

"Save it," I told her quietly. "I know how this works. First I allow you to help with this problem. Then with the next one. Then with the one after that. And at some point I'll need more power for what will probably look like a very good reason and dig up the coin. And then you'll be able to do pretty much anything you want with me." I shook my head. "That's one big, long, slippery slope. No."

She clenched her jaw, her expression frustrated. "But I do not wish you any harm."

"Maybe," I said. "But there's no way for me to know that."

She arched one dark eyebrow at me.

Then, as quickly as blinking, the building was on fire. It rose up in a sudden explosion of heat and flame that engulfed the bare studs on the walls and chewed at the floor. Vicious heat assaulted my back, a searing pain that left me with
no
choice but to move forward. Behind me the fire roared up higher, and I looked around frantically, suddenly panicked. The only portion of the building that wasn't being swallowed by rising, hungry flame led to the broken window. I sprinted to it, spotted the old iron of a fire escape lattice beneath it, and ducked down to go through onto the fire escape before I was burned to charcoal.

And then the flames vanished, the air became cool once more, and the beat of rain replaced the roar of flame. I stood at the window, one leg raised onto the sill, the rain soaking my chest and my jeans.

And there was no fire escape outside the window.

There was only a long, long drop to the sidewalk beneath.

I swallowed and drew back from the window, shaking. The whole thing had happened so
fast
. My reaction to the fire had been sheer and naked terror, and even now my hand throbbed with the pain of illusory burns. Ever since that fire I'd had nightmares of more. The illusion of fire had cut straight through to my pain and terror and utterly bypassed my brain.

Which was exactly what Lasciel meant it to do.

"Harry?" Butters called, his voice high and thready. I couldn't see him. He stood back in the darkness of the empty building, and in my mindless panic I had allowed the light of my mother's pentacle to go out.

"I'm okay," I told him. "Just stay where you are. I'm coming."

I lit the pentacle again, and found Lasciel standing next to me, one eyebrow still raised. "That is how you know," she said. "If I wished to kill you, my host, your blood would be seeping from your broken corpse and mixing with the rain on the sidewalk."

There wasn't much I could say to that.

"Let me help you," she urged me. "I can help you defend yourself against the disciples of Kemmler. I can teach you magics you have never considered. I can show you how to make yourself stronger, swifter. I can show you how you might heal the damage to your hand, if you have enough discipline. There wouldn't even be a scar."

I turned my back on her. My heart pounded against my chest as I walked back to Butters.

She was lying to me. She had to be. That's what the Denarians did. They lied and manipulated their way into a mortal's good graces, gradually giving them more power while they fell more deeply under their demonic influence.

But she was telling the truth about one thing, for sure: She could make me stronger. Even the weakest Denarian I had seen, Quintus "Snakeboy" Cassius, had been a certifiable nightmare. With Hellfire to supplement my magic and an enormously powerful being to serve as a tutor and consultant, my abilities could grow to epic proportions.

If I had power like that, I could protect my friends—Murphy, Billy, and the others. I could turn my power against the Red Court and help save the lives of the Wardens and the Council. I could do a lot of things.

And her kiss… The illusion had all been in my head, but it had been so utterly
real
. Every detail. Shiela herself had been so thoroughly genuine that I would never have guessed she was an illusion. Indeed, there was little difference, from my own perspective, between that complex an illusion and reality. The feel of her, the scent, everything had been there.

And she had been just as convincingly real in her blond-goddess form beside the hot tub in my dream. Her appearance had to be malleable. She could appear to me as anything.

As anyone.

Some darker, baser part of my nature toyed with
that
notion for a moment. But only for a moment. I didn't dare let that thought flow through my head for long. Her touch had been too soft, too gentle, too warm. Too good. I'd been without female company for years, and more of that warmth, that pleasing contact, was a temptation too great to allow myself to dwell upon.

I turned slowly and faced Lasciel.

She lifted her eyebrows, leaning a little forward in anticipation of my answer.

I knew how to manipulate and control my dreams—and this manifestation of Lasciel's shadow was nothing more than a waking dream.

"This is my mind," I told her quietly. "Get thee behind me."

I focused my thoughts and my power and brought forth my own illusion of imagination and thought. Silver manacles appeared from nowhere, manifested from my focus and desire, and locked themselves around Lasciel's wrists and ankles. I gestured sharply and visualized her being lifted through the air. Then I opened my hand, my spread fingers out, palm to the floor, and she fell into an iron cage that appeared from my concentrated effort. The door slammed and locked behind her.

"Fool," she said in a quiet voice. "We will die."

I closed my eyes and with a last effort of imagination and will summoned a heavy tarp that fell over the cage, covering it and blocking Lasciel from sight and sound.

"Maybe we will," I muttered to myself. "But I'll do it on my own."

I turned around to find Butters staring at me, his expression almost sick with fear. Mouse sat beside him, also staring at me, somehow managing to look worried.

"Harry?" he asked.

"I'm okay," I told him quietly.

"Um. What happened?"

"A demon," I told him. "It got into my head a while back. It was causing me to experience… hallucinations, I guess you could call them. I thought I was talking to people. But it was the demon, pretending to be them."

He nodded slowly. "And… and it's gone now? You did, like, some kind of autoexorcism?"

"Not gone," I said quietly. "But it's under control. Once I knew what it was doing, I was able to lock it away."

He peered at me. "Are you crying?"

I turned my face away, trying to make it look like I was staring at the window while I wiped a hand over my eyes. "No."

"Harry. Are you sure you're all right? Not, you know… insane?"

I looked back up at Butters and suddenly laughed. "Look who's talking, polka boy."

He blinked for a moment and then smiled a little. "I just have better taste than most."

I walked to him and rested my hand on his shoulder. "I'm all right. Or at least no crazier than I usually am."

He looked at me for a moment and then nodded. "Okay."

"Good thing you came along when you did," I said. "You tipped the demon's hand when you came up here. There was no way it could fit you into the illusion."

"I helped?" he said.

"Big-time," I said. "I think I'm just too used to knowing more than most people about magic. The demon was using some of my expectations against me. It knew exactly how to hide things from a wizard."

An idle thought flicked through my brain at the words. And suddenly I froze with my mouth open.

"Hell's bells," I swore. "That's it."

"It is?" Butters asked. "Er,
what
is?"

Mouse tilted his head to one side, ears perked inquisitively.

"How to hide things from a wizard," I said, and I felt my mouth stretching into a wide, half-crazy grin. I dug in my memory until I found the string of mystery numbers and recited them. "Ha!" I said, and threw my hand up in the air in triumph. "Hah! Ha-ha! Eureka."

Butters looked distressed.

"Let's go," I told him, rising excitement making tingles of nervous energy shoot through my limbs. I started walking to give some of it an outlet. "Come on, let's hurry."

"Why?" Butters asked, bewildered.

"Because I know what those numbers mean," I said. "I know how to find
The Word of Kemmler
. And to do it, I need your help."

Chapter Thirty-six

The lights of Chicago were still out and the night was growing even darker. The storm had driven most people from the streets, and now headlights appeared only intermittently. The National Guard had set up around Cook County Hospital, bringing in generators and laboring to keep them running while providing a shelter of some sort and a presence of authority on some of the streets—but they were as badly hampered by the lack of reliable telephone and radio communications as anyone else, and rain and darkness had cast them into the same morass of confusion as the rest of the city.

The net result of it was that some streets were bright with the headlights of military trucks and patrolled by National Guardsmen, and some of them were as black and empty as a crooked politician's heart. One section of State Street was sunken in blackness, and I pulled the Beetle up onto the sidewalk in front of a darkened Radio Shack.

"Stay, Mouse," I told the dog, and got out of the car. I walked to the glass door and considered it and the bars on it. Then I leaned my staff against it, drew in my will, and muttered, "
Forzare
."

There was no flash of light with the release of energy—I'd kept the spell tidy enough to avoid that. Instead it all went into kinetic force, snapping the plate glass as cleanly as if I'd used a cutter, and bending the center bars out into a neat bow shape, large enough to slip through.

"Holy crap," Butters said, his voice a hushed shout. "You're breaking in?"

"No one's minding the store," I said. I nudged a few pieces of door that hadn't fallen out of the frame, then carefully slid into the building. "Come on."

"Now you're entering," Butters informed me. "You're breaking.
And
entering. We're going to jail."

I stuck my head out between the bars and said, "It's in a good cause, Butters. We're the secret champions of the city. Justice and truth are on our side."

He looked at the front of the store uncertainly. "They are?"

"They are if you
hurry
up before someone in a uniform spots us," I said. "Move it."

I went back into the store, lifting up my amulet and willing it to light. I stared around me at all the technological things, only a very few of which I could readily identify. I turned in a circle, looking for one particular gadget, but I had no idea where in the store it would be.

Butters came in and looked around. The blue light of my pentacle gleamed on his glasses. Then he nodded decisively at a section of counter and walked over to it.

"Is this it?" I asked him.

"Something wrong with your eyes?" he asked me.

I grimaced at him. "I don't get in here a lot, Butters. Remember?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah, right. The Murphyonic technology thing."

"Murphyonic?"

"Sure," Butters said. "You exude a Murphyonic field. Anything that can go wrong does."

"Don't let Murph hear you say that."

"Heh," Butters said. "Bring the light." I lifted it higher and stepped up behind him. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "They're right here under the glass." He peered around behind the counter. "There must be a key here somewhere."

I lifted up my staff and drove it bodily down through the glass, shattering it.

Butters looked a little wild around the eyes, but he said, "Oh, right, I forgot. Burglary." One hand darted in and plucked up an orange box. Then he looked around and picked up a couple of packs of batteries from a rack on the wall. He hadn't touched a thing but what he had taken with him, and neither had I. Without security systems, the only way we would get caught would be by fingerprints or direct apprehension, and I was glad we didn't have to take the time to wipe anything for prints before commencing the getaway.

I led Butters back to the car, and away we got.

"I can't see anything," Butters said. "Can you make the light again?"

"Not this close to the gadget," I told him. "A minute or two wouldn't be a problem, but the longer I work forces near it, the more likely it is to give out."

"I need some light," he said.

"All right, hang on." I found a spot near an alley and parked with the Beetle's headlights pointing at the overhanging awning of a restaurant. I left the car running and got out with Butters. He opened the box and took out the batteries and did gadgety things with them while I kept an eye out for bad guys, or possibly the cops.

"Tell me why you think this is it again?" Butters said. He had drawn a little plastic device the size of a small walkie-talkie from the box and fumbled with it until he found the battery cover.

"The numbers in Bony Tony's code are just longitude and latitude," I said. "He hides the book, see. He records the coordinates with one of those global satellite thingies all those soldiers raved about during Desert Storm."

"Global positioning system," Butters corrected me.

"Whatever. The point is that you need a GPS to find those specific coordinates. They're accurate to what? Ten or twelve yards?"

"More like ten feet," Butters said.

"Wow. So Bony Tony figures that most wizards wouldn't have a clue about what a GPS device is—and the ones who do can't
use
one because they're high-tech, and running one even close to a wizard will short it out. It's his insurance, to make sure that Grevane can't screw him."

"But Grevane did," Butters said.

"Grevane did," I echoed. "The idiot. He never considered that Bony Tony might have been able to outfox him. So he knows that Bony Tony has got the key to finding
The Word of Kemmler
on him, but Grevane never even considers that it might be something he can't access. He just blunders along doing as he pleases, which he's used to."

"Whereas you," Butters said, "read books at the library."

"And magazines, 'cause they're free there," I said. "Though I have to give most of the credit to Georgia's SUV. I might not have thought of this if it hadn't had the same system."

"Note the past tense on that," Butters said. "Had." He glanced up at me pointedly. "I'm about to turn it on. Do you need to move off?"

I nodded at him and backed off all the way to the car and tried to think technologically friendly thoughts. Butters stood in the headlights for a minute, frowning down at the gadget and then peering up at the sky.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Signal isn't coming through very well. Maybe it's the storm."

"Storm isn't helping," I said back. "There's magic at work too." I chewed on my lip for a second. "Turn it off."

Butters did and then nodded at me. I hurried over to him and said, "Now hold still." Then I drew a piece of chalk from my duster pocket and marked out a quick circle around him on the concrete.

Butters frowned down at the chalk and said, "Is this… some kind of mime training? Do you want me to press my fingers against an invisible wall?"

"No," I said. "You're going to throw up a circle around you—an outwardly directed barrier. It should put a screen between you and any outside magical influence."

"I am, huh?" he said. "How do I do that?"

I completed the circle, reached for my penknife, and passed it to him. "You need to put a drop of your blood on the circle, and picture a wall going up in your head."

"Harry. I don't know magic."

"Anyone can do this," I said. "Butters, there isn't any time. The circle should hold out Cowl's working and give you a chance to get a signal normally."

"An anti-Murphyonic field, huh?"

"You've watched too many
Trek
reruns, Butters. But basically, yeah."

He pressed his lips together and then nodded at me. I backed away to the Beetle again. Butters grimaced and then touched the penknife to the base of his left thumbnail, where the skin is thin and fragile. Then he leaned over self-consciously and squeezed his thumb until a drop of blood fell on the chalk circle.

The circle barrier snapped up immediately, invisibly. Butters looked around for a second and then said, "It didn't work."

"It worked," I told him. "It's there. I can feel it. Try again."

Butters nodded and went back to his gizmo. Five seconds later, his face brightened. "Hey, whaddya know. It worked. So this circle keeps out magic?"

"And only magic," I said. "Anything physical can cross it and disrupt the barrier. Handy for hedging out demons and such, though."

"I'll remember that," Butters said. He peered down at the gadget. "Harry!" he exclaimed. "You were right! The numbers match up to coordinates right here in Chicago."

"Where?" I demanded.

"Hang on." The little guy punched buttons and frowned. "I have to get it to calculate distance and heading from here."

"It can do that?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Plus AM/FM radio, weather reports, fish and game reports, maps of major cities, locations of restaurants and hotels for travelers, all kinds of stuff."

"That," I said, "is really cool."

"Yeah. You really get a lot for the five hundred bucks on this model." The whole time his fingers flicked back and forth on the gadget. "Right," he said. "Uh, northwest of us and maybe a mile off."

I frowned at him. "Doesn't it tell you the address or something?"

"Yeah," Butters said, pushing more buttons. "Oh, wait. No, you have to buy the expansion card for that." He looked up thoughtfully. "Maybe we could go back and get it?"

"One little burglary and you've gone habitual," I said. "No, it's a bad idea. If a patrol car spotted the broken window there will be police there. I doubt anyone saw us, but there's no reason to take chances."

"Well, how do we find it then?" he asked.

"Turn it off. Then break the circle with your foot and get in the car. We'll head that way and stop in a bit and you can check again. Rinse and repeat."

"Right, good idea." He turned the gizmo off and smudged the chalk circle with his foot. "Like that?"

"Like that. Let's go."

Butters got in the Beetle and we started through the dark, dank streets. After several long blocks I stopped with my lights shining into the awning in front of an apartment building, and Butters got out to repeat the process. He took my chalk with him, dribbled a bit of his blood on the circle he drew, and tried the GPS gadget again. Then he hurried through the rain back into the car.

"More north," he said.

I peered at the darkness as I got moving, going through my mental map of Chicago. "Soldier's Field?"

"Maybe," he said. "I can't see anything."

We drove north and cruised past the home of da Bears. I stopped just on the other side and Butters checked again, facing the stadium. Then he blinked and turned around. His eyes widened and he came running back to the car. "We're really close. I think it's the Field Museum."

I got the car moving. "Makes sense," I said. "Bony Tony had plenty of contacts there. He did some trading in discretionary antiquities."

"You mean stolen artifacts?"

"What did I just say? He probably has some kind of arrangement with security there. Maybe he stashed it in a staff locker or something."

I parked in front of the Field Museum under a no parking sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code.

I put the Beetle's parking brake on and got out into the rain. "Stay, Mouse," I said. "Come on, Butters. Can that thing get us close to the book?"

"Within ten feet or so," he said. "But Harry, the museum is closed. How are we going to—"

I blew out the glass of the front door with my staff, just as I had at Radio Shack.

"Oh," he said. "Right."

I strode into the main hall, Butters walking on my heels. Lightning flashed, abruptly illuminating Sue the Tyrannosaurus in all her bony Jurassic glory. Butters hadn't been expecting it, and let out a strangled little cry.

Thunder rolled and I got out my amulet for light, lifting an eyebrow at Butters.

"Sorry," he said. "I, uh… I'm a little nervous."

"Don't worry about it," I told him, my own heart pounding wildly. The sudden reveal of that monstrous skeleton had shaken me, too.

Don't look at me like that. It was a tense sort of evening.

I looked slowly around the place, and Listened for a moment. I couldn't sense anyone's presence. I opened my Sight again, just for a quick glance around, but I didn't see anyone hiding behind a veil of magic. I backed off. "Check again."

He did so, though the shining floor of the museum didn't take the chalk as readily as concrete. A few minutes later he nodded toward Sue and said, "Over that way."

He broke the circle and we hurried across the enormous floor. "Try to keep quiet," I told him. "Security might still be around."

We stopped at Sue's feet and checked again. Butters frowned, peering around. "This can't be right," he said. "According to the GPS, these coordinates are inside that wall. Could Bony Tony have hidden it in the wall?"

"It's stone," I said. "And I think someone might have noticed if he'd torn out a wall in the entry hall and replaced it."

He shook the GPS a little. "I don't get it, then."

I chewed on my lip and looked up at Sue.

"Elevation," I said.

"What?"

"Come on." I pointed up. "There's a gallery overlooking the main hall. It must be either up there or on a floor below us."

"How do we know which?"

"We look. Starting with the upstairs. The levels below us are like some kind of gerbil maze from hell." I started for the stairs, and Butters came after me. Going up them was a pain, but my instincts were screaming that I was right, and my excitement made the discomfort unremarkable.

Once on the gallery, we went past a display of articles from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show—saddles, wooden rifles that had been carried by the show's cowboys and Indians alike, cavalry bugles, feathered war bonnets, beaded vests, moccasins, ancient old boots, several worn old tomtoms, and about a million old photographs. Beyond that was some kind of interactive ecology display, and just past that there was a table bearing the weight of an enormous, malformed-looking dinosaur skull.