Jim Butcher - Dead Beat

None of the zombies got within ten feet of the terrified children.

More of them materialized out of the rain and the night, but Luccio and the Wardens kept moving steadily forward, burning and crushing and slicing and dicing their way across the street, furiously determined to get the children clear.

Which is probably why they didn't see the sucker punch coming.

Out of nowhere there was the roar of an engine, 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 broom of iron and steel, and none of the Wardens were looking that way.

I cried out to Sue and hung on to the saddlehorn.

The car slid, sending out a bow wave of sheeting water from the wet street.

Ramirez'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 the mindless creations that assaulted them cared nothing for self-preservation. They would continue the fight, and even if the Wardens could have run from the car, they would never survive being mobbed by the undead in the chaos. In a flash of insight, I realized that these were the same tactics Grevane had used at my apartment- ruthlessly sacrificing minions in order to defeat the enemy.

Everyone else's head turned toward the oncoming car.

The muscles of Sue's legs tensed, and the saddle lurched.

One of the little girls screamed.

And then the Tyrannosaur came down from the leap that had carried her over the besieged Wardens. Sue landed with one clawed foot on the street, and the other came down squarely on the Caddy's hood, like a falcon descending upon a rabbit. There was an enormous sound of shrieking metal and breaking glass, and the saddle lurched wildly again.

I leaned over to see what had happened. The car'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'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'd clipped his head on the steering wheel or window when Sue brought his sliding car to an abrupt halt.

Li Xian shook his head and then started to scramble out of the car. Sue roared again, and the sound must have terrified Li Xian, because all of his limbs jerked in spasm and he fell on his face to the street. Sue leaned down again, her jaws gaping, but the ghoul rolled under the car to get away from them. So Sue kicked the car, and sent it tumbling end over end three or four times down the street.

The ghoul let out a scream and stared up at Sue in naked terror, covering his head with his arms.

Sue ate him. Snap. Gulp. No more ghoul.

"What's with that?" Butters screamed, his voice high and frightened. "Just covering his head with his arms? Didn't he see the lawyer in the movie?"

"Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them," I replied, turning Sue around. "Hang on!"

I rode the dinosaur into the stream of zombies following in the Wardens' wake and let her go to town. Sue chomped and stomped and smacked zombies fifty feet through the air with swinging blows of her snout. Her tail batted one particularly vile-looking zombie into the brick wall of the nearest building, and the zombie hit so hard and so squishily that it just stuck to the wall like a refrigerator magnet, arms and legs spread in a sprawl.

In a couple of minutes there wasn't much in the way of zombies to keep on demolishing, so I swung Sue 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 Ramirez through the door while she watched out behind.

I guided Sue up to the building, and had her settle down to the ground. "Come on. But keep the drum going," 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'm late."

Luccio stared at me for a moment and then at the dinosaur. Her eyes held a mixture of wonder, anger, gratitude, and revulsion. "I… Dio , Dresden. What have you done?"

"It isn't a mortal," I said. "It's an animal. You know the laws are there to protect our fellow wizards and mortals."

"It's…" She looked like she might throw up. "It's necromancy" she said.

"It's necessary," I said, and my voice sounded harsh. I hooked a thumb up. "You've seen the vortex forming?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"Dark power. Kemmler's people are going 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 themselves into a god…"

Luccio's eyes widened as she figured it out and caught on. "There will be a vacuum," she said. "It will draw in magic to replace it. It will draw in life ."

"Right," I said. "And they're going to be over there, directly under the vortex," I said. "But if anyone tries to go in without a field of necromantic energy around them, the vortex will suck them dry before they get there. We need to get in there to stop them. That's why I borrowed Tiny, here. So don't give me any crap about the Laws of Magic, or at least wait for later, because there are too many lives at stake."

Anger flickered over her face and she opened her mouth. Then she frowned and closed it again. "Where did you get this information?"

"Kemmler's book," I said.

"You found it?"

I grimaced. "Briefly. Grevane jumped me and took it."

Butters looked back and forth between us, marching in place to make the polka suit's drumbeat.

Luccio blinked at him, took a deep breath, then said, "And who is this?"

"The drummer I needed to pull this off," I told her. "And a good friend. He saved my life tonight. Butters, this is Ms. Luccio. Captain, this is Butters."

Luccio gave Butters a courtly little bow, and he ducked his head sheepishly in reply.

"Where did you find those kids?" I asked.

She grimaced. "This building is an apartment complex. We got here just as the first of the undead arose. One of the parents was screaming about the children being at some sort of Halloween party in a building on campus. We were too late to save the women taking care of them, but at least we got the children out."

I chewed on my lip, studying the Warden. "You had evil wizards to gun down. And you stopped to get some kids out of the line of fire? I figured Wardens would have melted the bad guys first, tried to get the civilians clear later."

She lifted her chin and regarded me with an arched brow. "Is that how you think of us?"

"Yes," I said.

She frowned, and looked down at the hilt of her sword. "Dresden… the Wardens are not, as a rule, concerned with compassion or empathy. But they were children . I am not proud of my every act as a Warden. But I would sooner hurl myself to the demons than leave a child to die."

I frowned at her. "You would," I said thoughtfully. "Wouldn't you?"

She smiled a little, her iron-grey hair plastered to her head with the rain, and it made many wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. "Not all of us share Morgan's attitudes. But even he would never have turned aside from children in danger. He is an enormous ass at times. But a brilliant soldier. And beneath all his flaws, a decent man."

The door to the building slammed open and Morgan came through, sword gripped in both hands. "I told you," he said viciously to Luccio. "I told you he would turn on us. This latest violation of the laws only proves what I've said all along…" His voice trailed off slowly as he caught me from the corner of his eye and turned to see me standing there, and Sue crouched a couple of yards behind me.