Ghost Story

Chapter Forty-six

I let go of my Sight and went up the final flight of stairs, the ones that led from the junction room up to the street entrance—and found them stacked with Big Hoods. I blinked for a fraction of a second when I saw them. I’d practically forgotten the real-world thugs under the Corpsetaker’s control. All the power we’d been throwing around in the duel had been ghostly stuff. The Big Hoods had no practical way to be aware of it.

How odd must the past couple of minutes have been from their point of view? They’d have felt the wave of cold, seen candles burning suddenly low, and then heard lots of boards and candles and paints being smashed and clawed down, while the concrete and stone walls were raked by invisible talons and the candles were smacked up and down the halls and stairways.

There were at least a dozen of them on the stairs, and they had guns, and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. For a second, I entertained notions of setting the Lecters on them, but I rejected the idea in a spasm of nausea. I’d seen what the killer spooks had done to the wolfwaffen. If I turned them loose, they’d deal with the Big Hoods the same way—and the Big Hoods, at the end of the day, were as much the Corpsetaker’s victims as her physical muscle—and once you turned loose a force that elemental, you almost had to expect collateral damage. I didn’t want any of it to splash onto Murphy and company.

“Okay,” I told the Lecters. “Go back downstairs and help Sir Stuart and his boys out against those lemurs. After that, defend Mort.” The Lecters’ only response was to vanish, presumably to the main chamber. Good. Mort had still been conscious the last time I’d seen him. He could tell them what to do if they needed any further direction.

Meanwhile, I’d do the only thing I could to take on the Big Hoods. I’d play superscout for Karrin’s team.

I vanished to outside the door to the stronghold and found several forms crouched there. Evening traffic was rumbling by on the bridge overhead, though the street running below it was deserted, and the space beneath the bridge was entirely shadowed. I ignored the darkness and saw Murphy next to the door, rummaging in a black nylon backpack. She was wearing her tactical outfit—black clothing and boots, and one of Charity Carpenter’s vests made of Kevlar and titanium. Over that was a tactical harness, and she had two handguns and her teeny assault rifle, a little Belgian gun called a P-90. It packed one hell of a punch for such a compact package—much like Murphy herself.

Next to her, against the wall, were three great, gaunt wolves—Will, Andi, and Marci, from the color of their fur. Next came Molly, in her rags and armor, sitting calmly against the wall with her legs crossed. Butters brought up the rear, dressed in dark colors, carrying his gym bag, and looking extremely nervous.

I went over to him and said, “Boo.”

The word emerged from the little radio in his pocket, and Butters jumped and said, “Meep.”

“Meep?” I said. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Butters muttered. “Keep your voice down. We’re sneaking up on someone here.”

“They already know you’re here,” I said. “There are about a dozen gunmen on the other side of that door.”

“Quiet!” Murphy hissed. “Dammit, Butters!”

Butters held up the radio. “Dresden says they’re right on the other side of the door.”

“Now he shows up,” Murphy muttered. “Not when we’re planning the entry. Give me the radio.”

Butters leaned across Molly and tossed the radio underhand. Molly just sat, smiling quietly. Murphy caught the radio. “So, what can you tell us—?” She hesitated, grimaced, and said, “I keep wanting to add the word over to the end of sentences. But this isn’t exactly radio protocol, is it?”

“Not really,” I said. “But we can do whatever makes you happy. Over.”

“No one likes a wiseass, Harry,” Murphy said.

“I always enjoy seeing you in gunmetal, Ms. Murphy,” I continued. “It brings out the blue in your eyes. Really makes them pop. Over.”

The wolves were all wagging their tails.

“Don’t make me bitch-slap you, Dresden,” Murphy growled. But her blue eyes were twinkling. “Tell me what you know.”

I gave her the brief on the interior of the hideout and what was waiting there.

“So you didn’t get this necromancer bitch,” she said.

“That’s one hell of a negative way to put it,” I replied, grinning. “Who’s a grumpy pants tonight? Over.”

Murphy rolled her eyes at Butters and said, in exactly the same tone, “So you didn’t get this necromancer bitch.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Pretty sure her ghost troops are done for, but I need to get back downstairs and see. Just wanted to give you the rundown. You remember how to get to the basement?”

“Down the stairs, through the hole in the wall, fifty feet down a hall that turns left, down more stairs.”

“Yeah, you got it,” I said.

“Uh,” Butters said. “Point of order? There’s a locked door and a bunch of guys with guns between here and there.”

Molly stood up. “They won’t have guns,” she said calmly.

Butters frowned. “Uh. Dresden just said . . .”

“I heard him,” Molly replied. “They’re going to empty their weapons at you the moment they see you in the doorway.”

“Okay. As plans go, I can’t be the only one who has a problem with that,” Butters said.

“Illusion?” I asked Molly.

She nodded.

Murphy frowned. “I don’t get it. Why that? Why not push them back with fire or make them all go to sleep or something?”

“Because this is the bad guys’ home,” I said. “They have a threshold.”

Molly nodded. “Any spell that goes through gets degraded down to nothing. I can’t push anything past the door. If I go in without being invited, I won’t have any magic to speak of. Without an invitation, Harry can’t cross the threshold at all.”

Murphy nodded. “So you’re going to give them a target at the door. Makes sense.” She frowned. “How were you going to get back in, Harry?”

I stood there for a second with my mouth open.

“Well, crap,” I muttered. “Over.”

Murphy snorted. “God, it really is you, isn’t it.” She turned back to her bag and took out a small black plastic hemisphere of what had to be explosives of some kind. She pressed it onto the door’s surface right next to its lock. “No problem. I’ll invite you in once the door’s down.”

“Doesn’t work like that,” I said. “Got to be an invitation from someone who lives there.”

Murphy scowled. “Nothing’s ever simple with you, Dresden.”

“Me? Since when have you been Polly Plastique?”

“Kincaid showed me how,” Murphy said without any emphasis. “And you know me, Dresden. I’ve always been a practical girl.” She pressed a little device with a couple of tines on it through a pair of matching holes in the bowl, turned a dial, and said, “Get clear. Setting for ten seconds. Whatever you’re going to do, Molly, have it ready.”

My apprentice nodded, and everyone but me and Murphy backed down the wall from the door.

I waited until they were done moving away before I said, “Murph, these gangers . . . They’re victims, too.”

She took a breath. Then she said, “Are they standing right by the door?”

“No. Five or six steps down.”

She nodded. “Then they won’t be in the direct line of the blast. This is a fairly small, shaped charge. With a little luck, no one will get hurt.”

“Luck,” I said.

She closed her eyes for a second. Then she said, “You can’t save everyone, Dresden. Right now, I’m concerned with the man these victims are torturing and holding prisoner. They’re still people. But they come right after him and everyone here on my worry list.”

I felt a little guilty for making an insinuation about Murphy’s priorities. Maybe it was too easy for me to talk. I was the one the Big Hoods couldn’t hurt, after all. I wasn’t sure how to say something like that, though, so I just sort of grunted and mumbled.

“It’s okay,” Murphy said very quietly. “I get it. Your perspective has changed.”

I stared down at her for a moment. Then I said, “Not about some things.”

“Relationship ambivalence from beyond the grave,” she said, her mouth turning up at the corners. “Perfect.”

“Karrin,” I began.

“Don’t,” she said, cutting me off. “Just . . . don’t. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Of course it matters.”

“No,” she said. “You are not Patrick Swayze. I am not Demi Moore.” She touched a switch on the little box and it started ticking. “And this sure as hell isn’t pottery class.” She moved a couple of yards down the wall, pressed her hands up over her ears, and opened her mouth. Molly, Butters, and the wolves all did more or less the same thing. It looked . . . Well, they’d have been insulted if I said anything, but it looked darned cute on the wolves, them all crouched down with their chins on the ground, folding their ears forward with their paws. I’m sure any real wolf would have been shocked at the indignity.

I stayed where I was standing, right in front of the door. I mean, what the hell, right? When was I going to get a chance to see an explosion from this angle again?

I was a little disappointed. There was just a huge bang, a flash of light, and then a cloud of dust, which was pretty much descriptive of most of the explosions I’d seen. Though I was glad no one had actually been watching me. I flinched and hopped back about a foot when it went off.

When the dust cleared enough to see through, the door swung freely on its hinges. Murphy stuck her foot around the corner and kicked it all the way open, then gestured to Molly.

Molly murmured and closed her eyes, then lifted her hand. Abruptly, there were two Murphys crouched by the door. The one nearest it was chewing gum. Noisily. She stood up with her P-90, flicked on the little flashlight under the barrel, and stepped around the corner, the gun pointing down the stairs.

Gunfire erupted. The gum-chewing Murphy dropped to one knee and started shooting, the assault rifle chattering in two- and three-round bursts. It was noisy as hell for about five seconds, and then there was silence. Gum-chewing Murphy withdrew back around the corner. Once she was out of sight of whoever was inside, she vanished.

The real Murphy stood up then and pitched an object down the stairs. A moment later, there was an eye-searing flash of light and thunder.

“Go, go, go!” Murphy called, and swung to point her gun down the stairs with just a portion of her upper body and face exposed to possible fire, while the rest of her body was hidden behind the wall. The three wolves rose and plunged through the dusty doorway in a single blur of motion.

Wolves in general get underestimated in the modern world—after all, humans have guns. And helicopters. But back in the day, when things were more muscle powered, wolves were a real threat to humans, possibly the number-two predator on the planet. People don’t remember that wolves are far stronger, far faster, and far more dangerous than human beings. That humanity taught wolves to fear and avoid them—and that without that fear and advanced weaponry, a human being was nothing more than a possible threat and a potential meal. A wolf with no fear could tear several human beings apart. A wolf with no fear and an intelligent mind directing it to work in close concert with teammates was a force of freaking nature, more or less literally.

The point being that three wolves against a dozen Big Hoods, in those tiny confines, was not a fair fight—it wasn’t even close.

People started screaming, and Murphy moved in, dropping her assault rifle to let it hang from her harness, and holding a little personal stunner in her hand.

I watched from the doorway, unable to proceed farther. Will, Marci, and Andi plowed into the first guy, half a dozen steps down, in a single bound. I don’t care how big and strong you are; getting hit by a stun grenade and about five hundred pounds of wolf in the wake of a closequarters explosion is going to make you want to call it a day. He went down, taking the next several Big Hoods with him. There was a huge tangle of frantic bodies and flashing teeth. The wolves had the advantage. Hands holding weapons got targeted first, and blood-spattered guns tumbled down the stairs.

One of the Big Hoods produced a knife about the size of a cafeteria tray and drew back to hack awkwardly at Will’s back with it. Murphy stomped the weapon down flat against the stairs and jabbed the arm holding it with a stunner. A cry of pain rose sharply, and the weapon fell.

Then it was about momentum and snarling wolves. The Big Hoods were driven down the stairs, stunned, bruised, and bleeding. Once at the bottom, the wolves started attacking with even more savage growls—herding the Big Hoods like so many dazed and overmuscled sheep. They drove the guards down the length of the electrical-junction room and out of my direct line of sight. I had to imagine them all piled up in a corner. I heard growls rolling up out of the wolves’ throats in a low, continual thunder.

Murphy went down the rest of the stairs, hands on her gun again, but not actually pointing it at anyone. “You,” she said, nodding toward the presumed position of the Big Hoods. “Knife Boy. What’s your name?”

“I . . .” stammered a voice. “I can’t . . . I don’t . . .”

“Murph,” I called. “Corpsetaker’s been messing with these guys’ heads for a while now, ever since that thing with Sue. They are not operating at one hundred percent.”

Murphy glanced at the radio in her pocket and then back at whoever she was talking to. Her expression had changed, from potential executioner to something more like a schoolteacher you don’t want to cross. Murphy had been damaged in the same way before. “That’s a wallet in your pocket, son?”

“Yes, ma’am,” mumbled the voice.

She nodded. “Take it out with just two fingers. Toss it over here to me. Nice and easy.”

“I don’t want you to hurt me,” said the voice.

Murphy tilted her head and I saw pain in her eyes. She lowered the gun and her voice became gentler yet. “Just toss me the wallet. I’m going to set things right.”

“Yes, ma’am,” mumbled the voice again. A ratty old nylon wallet hit the floor near Murphy’s feet.

Murphy picked it up, never taking her eyes off the group. I saw her go through the wallet.

“I like dogs,” ventured the voice. There was a disconnected tone to it.

“They won’t hurt you if you stay there,” Murphy said. “Joshua? Is that your name?”

“I . . . Yes, ma’am. It was. I mean, it is. Josh.”

“Josh. Age nineteen,” Murphy said. A flicker of anger entered her blue eyes. “Jesus, these game-playing bastards.”

“Bitch, technically,” I said.

Murphy snorted. “Come here, Josh.”

Molly approached the top of the stairway and stood next to me, where she usually did, a little behind me and to my left. She must have gotten a look at my position through her little tuning fork.

A Big Hood appeared in front of Murphy. He was about five hundred times bigger than she was. He had hands like shovels. One of his hands was bleeding.

“Take the hood off, please,” Murphy said.

He hastened to do so. He was an ugly, blunt-featured kid. His hair was longish and matted. It had been months since it was cut, combed, or washed. He didn’t have enough beard to notice from the top of the staircase, and he didn’t look too bright. He blinked his eyes several times in the light coming from Murphy’s flashlight.

“Hello, Josh,” Murphy said, keeping her tone level and calm. “My name is Karrin.”

“ ’Lo, Karrin,” Josh said.

“Let me see your hand,” she said firmly.

“Establish the pattern,” Molly murmured under her breath. “Good.”

Josh hesitated a moment and then held out his hand. Murphy examined it. “Doesn’t look too deep. It’s already beginning to stop bleeding.”

“Had worse, ma’am,” Josh mumbled.

She nodded again. “Do you know why you were on those stairs?”

“Bad people,” Josh said. “Bad people who were going to hurt us.” He frowned. “You?”

“I could hurt you right now, but I’m not going to. Am I?” Murphy said.

“No.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I know this is hard, Josh, but I’m probably your friend.”

He frowned. “I don’t know you. You’re a stranger.”

“I’m going to help you,” she said. “Help all of you, if you’ll let me. Get you some food and some clean clothes.”

Josh shrugged a shoulder. “ ’Kay. I’m hungry.”

Murphy looked away from him, and I saw her control another expression of anger. “I’m looking for a little bald man. I know he’s here.”

Josh looked uncomfortable.

“Is he here? Downstairs?”

“You know he is,” I muttered.

It hadn’t carried to the radio, but Murphy glanced with an arched eyebrow up the stairway, then turned back to the kid.

Josh looked back and forth and shifted his weight.

“Tell me the truth, Josh,” Murphy said. “It’s all right.”

“Downstairs,” Josh said. “With Boz.”

“Boz?” Murphy asked.

“Boz is big,” Josh said.

Murphy eyed the kid up and down and squared her shoulders. “Um, right. Okay, Josh. There’s one more thing I want you to do for me, and then you can go sit down with your friends.”

“ ’Kay.”

“My friends are up at the top of the stairs. I want you to ask them in.”

Josh furrowed his brow. “Huh?”

“Invite them inside, please.”

“Oh no,” he said, shaking his head. “No one in the secret hideout. Orders.”

“It’s all right,” Murphy said. “I’m giving you new orders. Invite them in, please.”

Josh seemed to waver. “Umm.”

Murphy’s hand dipped into her pocket and he seemed to flinch. Then it emerged holding one of those high-activity protein bars wrapped in Mylar. “You can have this, if you do.”

The way to a dim minion’s heart was evidently through his stomach. Josh snapped up the bar with both hands and said, up toward the top of the stairs, “Won’t you please come inside?”

I took a tentative step forward and felt no resistance. The threshold had parted. Molly did the same and hurried down the stairs.

“Will, Andi, Marci,” Molly said in a calm voice. “Back a couple of steps, please.”

The wolves glanced at Murphy and then started backing up.

“What are you doing?” Murphy asked.

“I’m making sure we don’t need to hurt them, Ms. Murphy,” Molly said. “Trust me.”

“Grasshopper?” I asked.

“It’s legal,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry. And we can’t just stand around. What’s the response time to this block?”

“Eight minutes,” Murphy said calmly. “Ish.”

“It’s been about four since the charge went off,” Molly said. “Ticktock.”

Murphy grimaced. “Do it.”

Molly turned to Josh and said, “Go stand with your friends. You guys look tired.”

Josh had a mouthful of whatever it was. He nodded. “Always tired.” And he shuffled over to the dazed-looking group in the corner.

“A lot of cults do that,” Molly said quietly. “It makes them easier to influence and control.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then took a slow, deep breath and opened them. She lifted her right hand and murmured, in a silken-soft tone, “Neru.”

And the dozen or so Big Hoods just sank down to the floor.

“Mother of God,” Murphy said softly, and turned to stare at Molly.

“Sleep spell,” I said quietly. “Like the one I had to use on you, Murph.”

I didn’t mention that the spell I’d used on Murphy had taken every bit of skill I’d had and ten times as long to put together. Molly had just done the same thing, only a dozen times bigger—touching each individual mind and crafting the spell to lull it to sleep. What she’d just done was hard.

In fact, it was what one could only have expected from a member of the White Council.

Maybe my godmother had a point.

Molly shuddered and rubbed at her arms. “Ugh. They aren’t . . . they aren’t right, Ms. Murphy. They weren’t stable, and they could have had their switches flipped to violence at any time. This will at least make sure they won’t hurt themselves or anyone else until morning.”

Murphy studied her for a moment and then nodded. “Thank you, Molly.”

My apprentice nodded back.

Murphy took up her gun again and then looked at her. She smiled and shook her head. “Rag Lady, huh?”

Molly looked down at her outfit and back up. “I didn’t pick the name.”

The diminutive woman shook her head, her expression firm with disapproval. “If you’re going to create a persona, you’ve got to think of these things. Do you know how many extra PMS jokes are flying out there now?”

Molly looked serious. “I think that just makes it even scarier?”

Murphy pursed her lips and shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah. I guess it might.”

“Scares me,” I said.

Murphy smiled a little more. “Because you’re a chauvinist pig, Dresden.”

“No,” I snorted. “Because I realize a lot better than you two do how dangerous you are.”

Both of them stopped at that, blinked, and looked at each other.

“Okay, ghosty-scout time,” I said. “Sit tight for a second. I’m going to check below.”

“Meet you at the top of the next stairway,” Murphy said.

“Got it,” I said. “Oh. Nice work on that spell, grasshopper.”

Molly’s cheeks turned pink, but she said, casually, “Yeah. I know.”

“Atta girl,” I said. “Never let them think you’re out of your depth.”

I vanished and appeared in the main chamber below. I was unprepared for the sight that waited for me.

Corpsetaker was standing about twenty feet from where Mort hung suspended. Her jaw was . . . was unhinged, like a snake’s, open much wider than it should have been able. As I watched, she made a couple of convulsive motions with her entire body and swallowed down a recognizable object—a child’s shoe, circa nineteenth century. She tilted her head back, as if it helped her slide whichever one of the two child ghosts she’d eaten last down her gullet, and then lowered her chin and smiled widely at Mort Lindquist.

Sir Stuart’s faded form was the only one still visible in the room. The wispy, camera-lit mists of several other spirits were still dissolving, all around the room.

Mort spotted me and slurred, “Dresden. You moron. What have you done?”

Corpsetaker tilted her head back and laughed.

“I wasn’t keeping them shut away because they might hurt this bitch,” Morty said. He sounded hurt and exhausted and furious. “I was protecting them because she was going to eat them.”

I stared for a second.

The Corpsetaker had been going to eat the Lecters. The most vicious, dangerous, powerful spirits in all of Chicago.

Just like she had planned to do to Chicago’s ghosts when Kemmler’s disciples had attempted a ritual called a Darkhallow several years before, I realized—a ritual that, if successful, would have turned the necromancer who pulled it off into a being of godlike power.

“Ahhhh,” the Corpsetaker said, the sound deep and rich and full of satisfaction.

I got a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m almost full,” she continued. She smiled at me with very wide, very white, very sharp-looking teeth. “Almost.”