Ghost Story

Chapter Twenty-six

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Fitz.

We were standing outside Saint Mary of the Angels. Calling the place a church is like calling Lake Michigan a swimming hole. It’s huge, literally taking up an entire city block, and an architectural landmark of Chicago. Gorgeously built, a true piece of gothic art, both inside and out, St. Mary’s had often served as a refuge for people with the kind of trouble Fitz was facing.

The kid was not in good shape. We’d done a considerable bit of hiking that evening, and despite what might have been the beginnings of a thaw, it was still below freezing, and the slight lack of bitter cold in the wind wasn’t stopping it from cutting through Fitz’s layers of mismatched clothing and his old jacket. Those lean, gangly kids have the worst of it when winter sets in. They lose their body heat fast. He’d been making up for it in exercise, but he was getting tired, and I remembered that he probably hadn’t eaten since I’d seen him before the previous day’s sunrise.

He stood clutching his arms around his body, shivering and trying to look like nothing was wrong. His teeth were chattering.

“I know a guy here,” I said. “Go around to the back door and knock until someone answers. Ask for Father Forthill.”

Fitz looked skeptical. “What’s he gonna do for me?”

“Give you a blanket and some hot food, for starters,” I said. “Look, kid, I’m giving you my A game here. Forthill’s a decent guy. This is what he does.”

Fitz clenched his jaws. “This isn’t getting me the guns back. I can’t go back without them. If I can’t go back, I can’t get my crew out.”

“Go inside,” I told him. “Talk to Forthill. Get some food in you. If you decide you want to go back and try to sneak the guns out of that drift on your own, you’ll have plenty of time before dawn.”

Fitz set his jaw stubbornly.

“Your choice, man,” I said. “But going hungry in cold like this is hard on the body. You had, what—seven weapons? Most of them submachine guns? Comes out to maybe forty pounds. Call it fifty if you bring back all the clips and ammo. Think you can burrow into a half-frozen snowbank, get all those guns out, load them up, and walk for most of an hour in the coldest part of the night? On an empty stomach? Without a cop spotting you and wondering what a guy your age is doing on the dark streets so late, carrying a really heavy bag?”

He grunted.

“At least have a damned sandwich.”

Fitz’s stomach gurgled audibly, and he sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”

It took Fitz five minutes to get anyone to answer the door, and when it finally opened, a dour, sour-looking elderly man in a heavy brown bathrobe vaguely reminiscent of a monk’s habit opened the door. His name was Father Paolo, and he took himself very seriously.

Fitz told him that he needed to see Father Forthill, that it was a matter of life and death. Only after several minutes of emphasizing his original statement did Father Paolo sigh and invite Fitz in.

“Stay there,” Paolo said, pointing a stern finger at Fitz.

Fitz pointed at the ground, questioningly, and then nodded. “Got it.” Then he deliberately took a small shuffle-step to one side as the priest began to turn away, drawing a scowl worthy of at least a cardinal.

I probably shouldn’t have undermined Paolo’s authority by chuckling like that, but come on. That’s comedy.

Forthill came down the hall from his chambers a few moments later, dressed in flannel pajamas and a heavy, black terry-cloth robe. He had thick, fuzzy house shoes on his feet, and his fringe of hair was standing up every which way. His bright blue eyes were a little watery and squinty without the aid of his glasses. He blinked at Fitz for a moment and then said, “Can I help you, my son?”

“Harry Dresden said you could,” Fitz said.

Forthill raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Perhaps you should come with me.”

Fitz looked around and then nodded. “I guess.”

Forthill beckoned and led Fitz back down some hallways to the neat, modest chamber where he slept and lived. It was maybe ten feet square and contained a bed, a desk, a chair, and a couple of lamps. Forthill let Fitz in, then closed the door behind the young man. “Please have a seat, my son.”

Fitz looked around for a moment, then sat down on the chair. Forthill nodded and sat on the edge of his bed. “First things first,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Should I give you a good set-up line for you to make a pithy comment about Catholic priests and sexual abuse of young men, or would you prefer to find your own opening during the conversation?”

Fitz blinked a couple of times and said, “What?”

“Such remarks are apparently quite popular. I wouldn’t want to deny you the enjoyment.”

“Oh, uh. No, that’s all right, Father.”

Forthill nodded gravely. “As you wish. Shall we talk about your problems now?”

“All right.”

“Well, then,” the priest said, “perhaps you should start by telling me when Dresden told you to come to me for help.”

“Uh . . .” Fitz said. He glanced around, as if looking for me.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “Just tell him the truth. It’s all right.”

Fitz took a deep breath and said, “About thirty minutes ago, Father.”

Forthill’s eyebrows tried to turn themselves into a toupee. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Fitz said, his eyes restless. “I, uh. I hear dead people.”

“That must be disconcerting.”

“I’m not crazy,” Fitz said quickly.

“I never thought you were, my son,” Forthill said.

Fitz gave him a suspicious scowl. “You believe me?”

The old man gave him an imp’s grin. “I’m well aware of the supernatural facets of our city—and that the streets have been particularly dangerous for the past six months or so.”

“That’s . . . putting it sort of lightly, Father,” Fitz said.

He nodded. “I’m sure your experience has not been a gentle one,” he said. “I won’t add to it with my own disbelief.”

Fitz bit his lower lip for a moment. “Okay.”

“I am also aware,” Forthill continued, “that Dresden’s shade is apparently taking a hand in things. I assume that’s who you’ve spoken to?”

“Yeah.”

Forthill nodded and looked around the room. “He’s . . . he’s here with you, isn’t he?”

“Wow,” I said. “Points for Forthill.”

“Yeah,” Fitz sighed. “He . . . kinda doesn’t shut up.”

Forthill chuckled. “He is—he was—a very determined young man.”

“Hasn’t changed,” Fitz said.

“I see,” the priest said. “My son, I am sure you understand that these are perilous times. I am afraid that I must ask for some kind of confirmation that this entity is who he says he is.”

Fitz looked at the priest blankly. Then around the room. “You hear that?”

“Yeah,” I said. I walked over to the far wall of the room and stuck my head through it. On the other side was a dark space, a hidden storage compartment just large enough to contain a couple of small file cabinets. The concealed compartment had been unknown to anyone but Forthill until I worked a case for an archangel a while back. Michael Carpenter and I had seen him open the hidden cabinet.

“Come over here,” I said. “Knock on the wall, right here. Forthill will know what it means.”

“Uh, dude,” Fitz said. “I can’t see where you are.”

I sighed. “Can you hear my voice?”

“Yeah,” he said, “but it’s just . . . like, this disembodied thing. There’s not much direction to it.”

Which made sense. He was not actually, physically, hearing me speak. Fitz’s gift to sense spirits simply expressed itself as something his mind could interpret—in this case, auditory stimulus.

“Uh, okay,” I said. “Walk over to the back wall of the room, the one you were facing when you came through the door.”

Fitz said to Forthill, “He’s trying to tell me how to prove he isn’t full of crap.” Then he stood up and walked across the room.

“Okay,” I said. “Put your hand out on the wall. Now move to your right. Little more. Little more. Too far. Okay, now about nine inches down, and rap on it with your knuckles.”

Fitz did all of that and finally knocked on the wall. Then he turned to Forthill and said, “Mean anything to you?”

The old priest pursed his lips and nodded. “Indeed. Indeed it does.”

“Man,” Fitz said, shaking his head. “Old people.”

Forthill smiled at that. “Well, my son. Are you as cold and hungry as you look?”

Fitz tried to look nonchalant. “I could eat, I guess.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had a hot shower?”

Fitz rolled his eyes and said, “Now, if that isn’t a straight line, I don’t know what is.”

Forthill chuckled and spoke to the air. “Dresden, I’m sure that you’re in a hurry and that there is some kind of dire deadline, but I’m not talking business with you until the young man is seen to.” He said to Fitz, “That door leads to my bathroom. There’s a shower. There’s a cardboard box under the sink with several items of clothing in it. I keep them on hand for events such as this. Feel free to take any of them.”

Fitz just stared, frowning. “Uh. Okay.”

“Get cleaned up,” Forthill replied, his tone firm. “I’ll go round up something to eat while you do. Do you prefer tea or cocoa?”

“Um,” Fitz said. “I guess cocoa.”

“Excellent taste,” Forthill said. “If you will excuse me.” He left the room quietly.

Fitz started looking around the room immediately.

“I doubt there’s much to steal,” I said. “Forthill isn’t really into material things.”

“You kidding? Look at this place. Pillows, blankets.” He looked under the bed. “Three pairs of shoes. It’s a hell of a lot more than my crew has. Zero rolls in four pairs of socks and some old moccasin house slippers.”

“Guy’s offering you clothes and food,” I said. “You’re not seriously going to steal his stuff, are you?”

Fitz shrugged. “You do what you have to do to live, man. I do. Everyone does. Nothing personal.” He looked in Forthill’s closet, at maybe half a dozen outfits’ worth of clothing, and shook his head. “Ah. He’ll notice if I try to take any of this stuff.” He looked toward the bathroom.

“Go ahead,” I said. “You can lock the door behind you. I’m telling you, kid, Forthill is one of the good guys.”

“That’s make-believe. There ain’t no good guys,” Fitz said. “Or bad guys. There’s just guys.”

“You’re wrong about that,” I said.

“Heard that one before. People who want to use you always say they’re the good guys,” Fitz said. “You’re one of them, right?”

“Heh,” I said. “No. I’m an arrogant ass. But I know what a good guy looks like, and Forthill is one of them.”

“Whatever, man,” Fitz said. “I haven’t had a shower in two weeks. If I tell you to buzz off, will you do it? Or do I have to keep hearing you yammer?”

“Sorry, Fitz. You aren’t my type.”

He snorted, went into the bathroom, and locked the door behind him. I heard the water start up a moment later.

I stood in the priest’s empty chamber for a moment, looking around it. Everything there was plain, modest, functional, and cheap. The quilt covering the bed looked like it might have been made for Forthill by his mother when he went to seminary. There was a King James Bible next to the bed. It, too, looked worn and old.

I shook my head. Granted, my life hadn’t exactly been featured on an MTV series covering the excesses of the rich and famous, but even I’d had more than Forthill did. How could a man go through life with so little? Nothing of permanence, nothing built up to leave behind him. Nothing to testify to his existence at all.

The kind of man who isn’t focused on his own existence, I guess. The kind of man who cares more about others than he does himself—to the point of spending the whole of his life, a life as fleeting and precious as anyone else’s, in service to his faith and to humanity. There was no glamour in it, no fame.

Forthill and men like him lived within their communities, where they could never escape reminders of exactly what they had missed out on. Yet he never called attention to himself over it, never sought sympathy or pity. How hard must it be for him to visit the expansive, loving Carpenter family, knowing the whole time that he could have had a family of his own? Did he ever spend time dreaming of what his wife would have been like? His children? He would never know.

I guess that’s why they call it sacrifice.

I found Forthill in the church’s kitchen, assembling a meal from leftovers. When I’d been the one taking shelter in the church, it had been sandwiches. Fitz was rating a larger meal. Hot soup; a couple of sandwiches, turkey and tuna, respectively; a baked potato; an ear of corn on the cob; and a small salad.

A few seconds after I walked into the kitchen, Forthill paused, aimed a vague smile at the room, and said, “Hello, Harry. Assuming that’s you, of course.”

“It’s me, Father,” I replied. I mean, he couldn’t hear me and I knew it, but . . . it just seemed sort of rude not to say anything.

“I had a difficult conversation with Karrin this evening,” Forthill said. “She told me that you had found the persons who shot at her home last night. And that you want us to help them.”

“I know,” I sighed. “It sounds insane, but . . .”

“I think that to Karrin, you must have sounded quite insane,” he continued. “But I consider your reaction to be remarkable for its compassion. I can only presume that the boy is one of these gang members.”

He finished off the food preparations and turned to face me, more or less. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of bringing Ms. Murphy into this situation—at least not for the time being. Her judgment has been clouded since your death, and grows more so as the fighting goes on.”

I felt myself relax a little. “I hoped you wouldn’t.”

“I will grant the boy sanctuary here for now. I’ll talk with him. I’m sure he will tell me the particulars of his situation. After that, I will have to act in accordance with my conscience.”

“Can’t ask a man for more than that, Father,” I said. “Thank you.”

He picked up the simple wooden tray laden with Fitz’s meal and stood there for a moment. “It’s a shame we can’t converse. I would love to hear about your experience. I should think it would be fascinating, a chronicle of one of the most enigmatic functions of Creation—Death itself.”

“Nah,” I said. “The mystery doesn’t stop even after you get to the other side. There’s just a lot more paperwork.”

“Also, I find it interesting that you are here on holy ground,” Forthill said. “If I remember correctly, the last ghost who attempted to enter this church couldn’t even touch the building, much less wander freely around it. What does it mean?” He shook his head, bemused. “I suppose you’d be the one to ask, eh?” He tipped his head in a polite, if badly aimed, nod, and left the room.

It was an excellent question, the thing about ghosts and holy ground. When Leonid Kravos, aka the Nightmare, had come to kill one of my clients I’d stashed at the church, he hadn’t been able to get in. He’d torn up several thousand dollars’ worth of landscaping and flower beds in sheer frustration.

The Nightmare had been a more powerful shade than I was at the moment. So why could I make myself at home, when he’d been stopped as cold as the Big Bad Wolf at the third Little Pig’s house?

“Note to self,” I said. “Look into apparent mystic anomaly later. Help your friends now.”

I sometimes give myself excellent advice. Occasionally, I even listen to it.

It was time to pay a visit to the Grey Ghost and the Big Hoods.