"One problem at a time," I told him. "We'll handle Mab later. Somehow."
I walked back to the Beetle more slowly than ever, and Mouse stayed within a step or two the entire time. The adrenaline faded and left me wearier than ever. I had to fight to stay awake all the way back to my place. A thin, cold, drizzling rain began to fall.
I had just gotten home and out of the car when Mouse let out a warning snarl. I spun and wavered, then planted my staff hard on the ground to keep from falling over.
Out of the darkness and rain, a dozen or more people suddenly loomed into view. All of them walked toward me, steady and unhurried.
And all of them marched in step with one another.
In the distance I heard the low, rumbling thunder of a drum played on a big bass stereo.
Behind the first group came another. And behind them another. By then I could see the eyes of the nearest-empty, staring eyes in sunken, deathly faces.
My heart lurched in sudden terror as the zombies closed in on me.
I shambled down my stairs and tripped, stumbling against my door. I fumbled at my keys, frantically taking down my wards so that my own security spells didn't kill me on my way in. Mouse stayed at my back, continuous snarls bubbling from between his bared teeth.
"Thomas!" I screamed. "Thomas, open the door!"
I heard a noise, close, and spun around.
Mindless faces appeared at the top of the stairs leading down to my apartment door, and Grevane's killing machines leapt down them, straight at me.
Chapter Twenty-two
Mouse leapt into the air as the lead zombie flung itself at me, and met it with an ugly sound of impact. The dog and the animate corpse dropped onto the stairs. The zombie swung an arm at Mouse, but the dog rolled, taking the blow on one slab of a shoulder, his snarl sharpening at the impact. The dog surged against the zombie's legs and got his teeth into the corpse's face. He shook his head violently, while the zombie stumbled and reeled under the ferocity of the attack.
The second zombie bypassed the struggling pair, reaching out for me. I barely had time to brandish my staff at the creature and snarl, "Forzare!"
Unseen force struck the zombie like an ocean wave, flinging it back up the stairs and out of sight.
Mouse let out a shrieking sound of pain, ripped his fangs once more at the zombie's face, and pushed away from it. The zombie's face had been crushed and torn until it was unrecognizable. Both eyes had been torn out, and the undead thing flailed around wildly, striking blindly with heavy sweeps of its arms. Mouse leaned heavily against me, one paw held lifted from the ground, snarling.
Three more zombies were already most of the way down the stairs, and there was no time to do anything but try my staff again. I raised it, but the nearest zombie was faster than I had guessed, and he batted the wood out of my hand. It smacked against the concrete wall of the stairwell and rebounded onto the blinded zombie, out of my reach. The zombie snatched at my arm and I barely avoided it.
The door opened at my back and Thomas called, "Down!"
I dropped to the ground and did my best to haul Mouse down with me. There was a roar of thunder, and the leading zombie's head vanished into a spray of ugly, rotten gore. The remainder of the being thrashed for a second and then fell drunkenly to one side, collapsing into immobility.
Thomas stood in the doorway, dressed in only a pair of blue jeans. He held the sawed-off shotgun against his shoulder, and his eyes blazed with a cold silver fury. He worked the pump on the gun and fired it three times more, destroying or driving back my nearest attackers for a moment. Then he seized the collar of my duster and dragged me forcibly into the apartment. Mouse came with us, and Thomas slammed the door shut.
"Get the locks," I told him. He started shoving the door's two heavy security bolts shut, while I crawled to the door, laid my hands against it, and with a whisper of will rearmed the wards that protected the apartment. The air hummed with a low buzz as the wards snapped back up into place.
Silence fell over the apartment.
"Okay," I said, panting. "That's it. Safe at home." I looked around the apartment and spotted Butters hovering near the fireplace, poker in hand. "You okay, man?"
"I guess so," Butters said. He looked a little wild around the eyes. "Are they gone?"
"If they aren't yet, they will be. We're safe."
"Are you sure?"
"Definitely," I said. "There's no way they're going to get in here."
The words were hardly off my lips when there was a thunder crack of sound and a heavy thump that knocked scores of books off my bookshelves and sent us all staggering around like the cast of the original Star Trek.
"What was that?" Butters screamed.
"The wards," Thomas snapped.
"No," I said. "I mean, come on. Walking right into those wards is suicide."
There was another clap of thunder, and the apartment shook again. A flash of bright blue light bathed the outside of the boardinghouse, and even reflected through the sunken windows near my apartment's ceiling, it was painfully bright.
"Can't commit suicide if you're already dead," Thomas said. "How many of those things were out there?"
"Uh, I'm not sure," I said. "A lot?"
Thomas swallowed, got the box of shells off the mantel, and started loading them into the shotgun. "What happens if he just keeps throwing zombies at the wards?"
"I didn't build them to keep up a continuous discharge," I said. There was another roaring sound and another flash of light, but this time there was barely a tremor on the floor. "They're going to fade and collapse."
"How long?" Thomas asked.
There was a crackling buzz from outside, too slow, this time, to be heard only as a roar of noise. Blue-white light flickered dimly. "Not long. Dammit."
"Oh, God," Butters said. "Oh, God, oh, God. What happens when the wards are gone?"
I grunted. "The door is made of steel. It will take them some time to get through it. And after that, there's the threshold. That should stop them, or at least slow them down." I raked my fingers over my hair. "We've got to come up with something, fast."
"What about the extra defenses?" Thomas asked.
"They're standing right outside," I said.
"Hence the need for extra defenses," Thomas snapped. He pumped a round into the shotgun's chamber and slipped another into the extra slot in its clip.
"Those defenses are meant to stop a magical assault," I said. "Not physical entry."
"Will they keep the zombies out?" Butters asked.
"Yes. But they'll also keep us in."
"What's so bad about that?" Butters asked.
"Nothing," I said, "until Grevane sets the building on fire. Once they go up, I can't take them down again. We'll be trapped." I ground my teeth. "We've got to get out of here."
"But the zombies are out there!" Butters said.
"I'm not the only one who lives here," I said. "If he burns down the house to get to me, people will die. Thomas, get dressed and get your shoes on. Butters, there's a ladder under that Navajo rug there. I want you to take a candle and go down it. There's a black nylon backpack on a table, and a white skull on a wooden shelf. Put the skull in the backpack and bring it to me."
"What?" Butters said.
"Do it!" I snapped.
Butters scurried over to the Navajo rug, found the trapdoor down to my lab, and grabbed a candle. He disappeared down the ladder.
Thomas put the shotgun down and opened his trunk. It didn't take him long to get dressed in socks, black combat boots, a white T-shirt, a black leather jacket. Maybe it was part of his supernatural sex-vampire powers-dressing quickly for a hasty getaway.