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?"