Ghost Story

Chapter Thirty-six

I didn’t actually will myself out of the skull, the way I had gone in. Bob’s passage just sort of swept me along in his wake, like a leaf being tugged after a passing tractor-trailer. It was a forcible reminder that, the way things stood now, Bob was the heavyweight. I was just the skinny newbie.

I hated that feeling. That feeling sucked.

I reintegrated standing in a dusty room. Afternoon sunlight slanted through it, its danger abated by the thick coating of grime over the windows. The place looked like an industrial building’s entryway. There was what had been a heavy-duty desk, maybe for a receptionist or security guard. An alcove housed rows of small personal lockers. Several rectangles of less-faded, commercial-grade taupe paint on the walls had probably been where a time clock and time-card holders had gone. Butters stood nearby, holding Bob’s flashlight, and the eyes of the skull were glowing brightly with Bob’s presence in the physical world, now that he had left his “apartment.” The little ME looked tense, focused, but not afraid.

It wasn’t much of a mystery how they’d gotten into the room: Fitz stood there with a set of bolt cutters with three-feet-long handles held over his shoulder. Fitz looked scared enough for everyone there. The kid was back in the lair of his erstwhile mentor and terrified of his wrath.

Yeah.

I knew that feeling.

Butters fumbled his little spirit radio out of his pocket and asked, in a hushed voice, “Dresden, you here?”

“To your left,” I said quietly.

He shone Bob’s eyelights my way and evidently saw me illuminated by them. “Oh,” he said, looking relieved. “Right. Good.”

I had no clue why he looked relieved. It wasn’t like I could do anything, unless some random ghost came by, in which case my memorybased magic could cook another being incapable of affecting the material world.

But I guess he looked up to me, or at least to my memory, and I owed it to him to help however I could. So I gave him a calm nod and an encouraging clench of my fist. Solid.

“I take it we’ve come in through a blind spot?” I asked Fitz quietly.

Fitz nodded. “The chains on the doors were enough. And he couldn’t extend his guard spells any farther than the main room.”

I grunted. “That’s good.”

“Why?” Butters asked.

“Means Aristedes doesn’t have enough power to just burn you to cinders on the spot.”

Butters swallowed. “Oh. Good.”

“Doesn’t mean he can’t kill you,” I said. “Just that he won’t have a high FX budget when he does.”

“He’s fast,” Fitz said. His voice shook. “He’s really, really fast.”

“Like, how fast?” Butters asked. “Fast like Jackie Chan or fast like the Flash?”

“Little of both,” I said. “He can cover ground fast. And he can hit like a truck.”

Fitz nodded tightly.

“Oh,” Butters said. “Super. We probably shouldn’t fight him, then.” He set the flashlight aside and rummaged in the duffel bag. “Give me just a second.”

A shadow flickered by one of the grime-filmed windows. Fitz let out a hiss and clutched the bolt cutters with both hands, ready to use them like a club. Butters let out an odd little chirping sound and pulled a big, old, cop-issue flashlight–slash-club from his bag.

The shadow passed over another window. Someone outside was moving toward the door, coming in behind us.

I took a quick look at the flashlight and made sure I was standing in the light of Bob’s eyes and out of the path of any direct sunlight that might come through the door. I couldn’t do anything, but if I was visibly standing there when the door opened, maybe I could distract Aristedes, if it was him coming through. Maybe he’d speed-rush right through me and into a wall and knock himself out like a cartoon villain. That would make me look cool upon cool.

More likely, I wouldn’t accomplish anything. But when your friends are in danger, you try anyway.

The door opened and I raised my arms into a dramatic stagemagician’s pose. It felt ridiculous, but body postures draw reactions from human beings on an almost atavistic level. We aren’t that terribly far removed from our primal roots, where body language was more important than anything we said. My stance declared me the ruler of the local space, a man who was in control of everything happening around him, one who others would follow, a mix of maestro and madman that would identify me, to instinct, as the most dangerous thing in the room.

Butters and Fitz hit the wall on either side of the door and raised their improvised weapons as it swung open. The door squealed dramatically on its hinges, and a large, menacing figure entered the building. It hesitated, lifting a hand to shield its eyes, apparently staring at me.

Butters let out a shout and swung his flashlight at the figure. Fitz, by contrast, swept the heavy set of bolt cutters down in silence. Even in that flash of time, I had to admire Butters. The little guy couldn’t fight and he knew it, but he was smart enough to shout and draw the attention of the intruder toward the smaller, weaker, and lighter-armed of the two of them. He had intentionally thrown himself at a larger opponent to force the man to turn so that Fitz could swing at his back.

No fighter, maybe, but the little guy had guts enough for any three bruisers.

It didn’t do either of them any good.

The large man seemed to sense the ploy. He ducked the swinging bolt cutters without so much as turning around and simultaneously snapped out his left arm, the heel of his hand thrusting forward. He hit Butters squarely in the belly and sent the little man sprawling. Then he whirled as Fitz recovered his balance and swung the bolt cutters again. He caught them with one hand, matching Fitz’s strength with a single arm. Then with a sinuous motion of his upper body that reminded me of Murphy at work, he both took the bolt cutters from Fitz’s hands and sent the young man sprawling into Butters, who had just begun to climb to his feet again. They both went down in a heap as the door clanged shut.

Daniel Carpenter, Michael Carpenter’s eldest son, stood in place for a moment, holding the bolt cutters lightly, as tall and as strong as his father, his grey eyes distant and cold. Then he glanced at me, opened his mouth, and closed it again.

I waved at him and said, “Hi, Daniel.”

The sound of my voice came to him only through the radio in Butters’s pocket.

He blinked. “What the hell?” Daniel asked, staring at me. Then he looked at Butters, then at Fitz, and then at the bolt cutters. “I mean, seriously. What the hell, Butters? What the hell are you doing?”

Butters pushed Fitz off him and eyed Daniel with annoyance. “Quietly, please,” he said in a lower, intent voice. “We’re sneaking up on a bad guy, here, and you aren’t helping.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Daniel asked—but at least he lowered his voice. “Because Ms. Murphy thinks you’re losing your mind.”

Butters blinked. “What? Why would Karrin think that?”

“Because of that thing,” Daniel said, nodding toward me.

“Ouch,” I said. “That stings, Daniel.”

“Dude,” Butters said. “Don’t be a dick. That’s Dresden. Or at least it’s his spirit, which is mostly the same thing.”

“We don’t know that,” Daniel shot back. “Things from the spirit world can look like whatever they want to look like. You know that.”

“Didn’t we already go through this proper-identification thing?” I complained.

“I know. Right?” Butters said to me. “See what she’s gotten to be like?”

“Who?” Daniel demanded.

“Karrin, obviously,” Butters shot back. “Since you vanished, Harry, she’s been fighting a war, and using whatever weapons she can find. Hell, she’s even taken help from Marcone.”

Daniel’s face flushed darker. “Do not talk about Ms. Murphy that way. She’s the only reason the Fomor haven’t terrorized Chicago like they have everywhere else.”

“The two don’t preclude one another,” Butters said with a sigh. He looked at me and spread his hands. “You see what I’m dealing with?”

I grimaced and nodded. “It’s about her job, I think. She’s insecure about her place in the world. She was like this when I first opened up shop, about the time she got put in charge of SI—suspicious, closeminded, negative outlook about everything. It was impossible to talk to her.”

“You’re sneaking around against her orders,” Daniel said to Butters.

Butters got to his feet and offered Fitz a hand up. “Orders? This isn’t the army, man, and Murphy isn’t the King of Chicago. She can’t order me to do anything.”

“I notice you say that when she is not in the room,” I said.

“I’m an independent thinker, not a martyr,” Butters replied. He squinted at Daniel. “Wait a minute. She had you tailing me?”

“Damn,” I said. “That is paranoid.”

Daniel shook his head, scowling briefly at me. “You’re going to have to come with me, Mr. Butters.”

“No,” Butters said. “I’m not.”

Daniel set his jaw. “Ms. Murphy said that for your own good, I was to get you out of whatever that creature got you into. So let’s go.”

“No,” Butters said, glaring up at the much larger young man. “I’m not leaving Forthill to the mercy of a punk sorcerer.”

Daniel blinked his eyes several times, and the determined belligerence went out of his stance. “The father? He’s here? He’s in danger?”

“It gets less likely we’re going to be able to help him the longer we stand around gabbing,” Butters said. He recovered his bag, rummaged in it, and added, “This will work better with you here anyway.” He straightened up and tossed a folded square of grey cloth at Daniel. “Put that on. Stay next to me. Don’t talk.”

Daniel stared at the cloth dubiously, then looked at Butters.

“For Forthill,” Butters said quietly, softening his voice. “We’ll leave as soon as he’s safe, and you can take me straight to Karrin. You have my word. Okay?”

Daniel agonized over it for a couple of seconds. Then he nodded at Butters and unfolded the grey cloth.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly understanding the little guy’s plan. “Good call. The fabric isn’t exactly right, but it’s close. This could work.”

Butters nodded. “I thought it might. How should we approach it?”

“Small-timer like Aristedes is insecure about the size of his magical penis,” I said. “Give his ego a few crumbs and he’ll eat out of your hand.”

“We’ll have to go to radio silence,” Butters said. “There wasn’t time to make the headphones work with it.”

“If I think of anything imperative, I can tell Fitz. He’ll pass it on.”

Fitz looked nervously between Butters, Daniel, and me. “Oh. Uh. Sure. Because I can hear Dresden even without a radio.”

Butters drew a second square of grey cloth from the bag and then tossed the bag over to one side. Calmly, he unfolded the cloth and threw the hooded cloak it proved to be over his shoulders, fastening a clasp at his throat.

“So, Harry,” Butters said. “How do the Wardens like to make an entrance?”