Ghost Story

Chapter Six

The gunman had a big lead on me, but I had an advantage he didn’t. I’d already been inside the house. I knew the layout, and I knew where Mort was holed up.

Oh. Plus I could run through freaking walls.

Granted, I think it would have been more fun to be Colossus than Shadowcat. But you take what you can get, and any day you’ve merely got the powers of an X-Man can’t be all that bad. Right?

I gritted my teeth and plunged through the wall into Mort’s kitchen and ran for the study, several steps ahead of the gunman.

“Mort!” I shouted. “Mort, they brought a hitter with them this time! There’s a gunman running around your house!”

“What?” demanded Mort’s voice from the far side of the ghost-dusted door. “Where’s Stuart?”

“Dammit, Mort, he’s hurt!” I called.

There was a brief pause, and then Mort said, as if baffled, “How did that happen?”

I was getting impatient. “Focus, Mort! Did you hear me? There’s a frigging gunman loose in your house!”

Real alarm entered his voice for the first time. “A what?”

The gunman had heard Mort shouting at me. He came toward the door to the study, moving lightly for a big man. I got a better look at him, and noted that his clothing was ragged and unwashed, and so was he. He stank, enough that it carried through to me even given my condition, and his eyes were wide and wild, rolling around like those of a junkie who is hopped up on something that makes him pay too much attention to his surroundings. That didn’t seem to have affected his gun hand, though. The semiautomatic he clutched in one big fist seemed steady enough to get the job done.

“Mort!” I called. “He’s coming toward your study door right now! Look, just get your weapon and aim at the door and I’ll tell you when to shoot!”

“I don’t have one!” Mort screamed.

I blinked. “You don’t what?”

“I am an ectomancer, not an action hero!” I heard him moving around in the office for a moment, and then he said, “Um. They cut the phone.”

The gunman let out a low, rumbling chuckle. “You are wanted, little man.” His voice sounded rotted, clotted, like something that hadn’t been alive in a long time. “It is commanded. You can come with me and it won’t hurt. Or you can stay in there and it will.”

“Dresden!” Mort called. “What do I do?”

“Oh, now you want to talk to me!” I said.

“You’re the one who knows about this mayhem bullshit!” Mort shrieked.

“Gonna count, little man,” said the gunman. “Five.”

“Surviving mayhem is about being prepared!” I shouted back. “Little things like having a gun!”

“I’ll get one in the morning!”

“Four!”

“Mort, there’s gotta be something you can do,” I said. “Hell’s bells, every time I’ve run into a ghost it’s tried to rip my lungs out! You’re telling me none of your spooks can do something?”

“They’re sane,” Mort shouted back. “It’s crazy for a ghost to interact with the physical world. Sane ghosts don’t go around acting crazy!”

“Three!” chanted the gunman.

“Go away,” Mort shouted at him.

“There’s gotta be something I can do!” I yelled.

“I don’t make the rules, okay?” Mort said. “The only way a ghost can manifest is if it’s insane!”

“Two!” the gunman screamed, his voice rising to an excited pitch.

I jumped in front of the lunatic and shrieked, “Boo!” I flapped my hands in his face, as if trying to slap him left and right on the cheeks.

Nothing happened.

“Guess that was too much to hope for, huh?” Mort called lamely.

“One,” the gunman purred. Then he leaned back and drove a heavy boot at the door. It took him three kicks to crack the frame and send the door flying inward.

Mort was waiting on the other side of the door, a golf club in hand. He swung it at the gunman’s head without any preamble, a grimly practical motion. The gunman put an arm up, but the wooden head of the club got at least partly around it, and he reeled back a pace.

“This is your fault, Dresden,” Mort snarled, swinging the club again as he spoke.

He hit the gunman full-on in the chest, and then again in one big arm. The gunman caught the next blow on his forearm, and swung wildly at Mort. He connected, and Mort got knocked on his can.

The gunman pressed one hand to a bleeding wound on his head and screamed, a howl of agony that was somehow completely out of proportion with the actual injury. His wild eyes rolled again and he lifted the gun to aim at the little man.

I moved on instinct, throwing myself uselessly between the weapon and the ectomancer. I tripped on a fragment of the ghost-dust-painted door and wound up falling in a heap on top of Mort and . . .

. . . sunk into him.

The world suddenly hit me in full Technicolor. It was so dark in here, the gunman an enormous, threatening shadow standing over me. His voice was hideous and so loud that my ears ached. The stench—unwashed body and worse things—was enough to turn my stomach, filling my nose like hideous packing peanuts. I saw the gunman’s hand tighten on the trigger and I threw my arm up. . . .

My black-clad, thick, rather short arm.

“Defendarius!” I barked, faux Latin, the old defense spell I’d first learned from Justin DuMorne, my first teacher. I felt the magic surge into me, down through my arm, out into the air, just as the gun went off, over and over, as some kind of restraint in the gunman’s head snapped.

Sparks flew up from a shimmering blue plane that formed in front of my outspread fingers, bullets and fragments of bullets shattering and bouncing around the room. One of them stayed more or less in one piece and smacked into the gunman’s calf, and he pitched abruptly to one side, still jerking the trigger until the weapon was clicking on empty.

I felt my mouth move as Mort’s voice—a voice that rang with a resonance and authority I had seldom encountered before, said, “Get off of me!”

If I’d been hurtled from a catapult, I don’t think I’d have been thrown away any faster. I flew off at an upward angle—and slammed painfully into the ghost-dust-painted ceiling of the study. I bounced off it and fell to the equally hard floor. I lay there, stunned, for a second.

The gunman got to his feet, breathing hard and fast, slobber shooting out from slack lips as he did. He picked up the golf club that had fallen from Mort’s fingers and took a step toward him.

Mort fixed hard eyes on the intruder and spoke, his voice ringing with that same unalterable authority. “To me!”

I felt the tug of some sudden force, as subtle and inarguable as gravity, and I had to lean against it to stop myself from sliding across the floor toward him.

Other spirits appeared, drawn in through the shattered door as if sucked into a tornado. Half a dozen Native American shades flew into Mort, and as the gunman swung the golf club, he let out a little yipping shout, ducked the swing more nimbly than any man his age and condition should have been able to, caught the gunman’s wrist, and rolled backward, dragging the man with him. He planted his heels in the gunman’s midsection and heaved, a classic fighting technique of the American tribes, and sent the man crashing into a wall.

The gunman rose, seething, eyes entirely wild, but not before Mort had crossed the room and taken an ancient, worn-looking ax down from a rack attached to one wall. It took my stunned brain a second to register that the weapon looked exactly like the one Sir Stuart had wielded, give or take a couple of centuries.

“Stuart,” Mort called, and his voice rang in my chest as if it had come from a bass-amplified megaphone. There was a flicker of motion, and then Sir Stuart’s form flew in through the doorway as if propelled by a vast wind, overlaying itself briefly onto Mort’s far smaller body.

The gunman swung the club, but Mort caught it with a deft, twisting move of the ax’s haft. The gunman leaned into it, using his far greater weight and strength in an attempt to simply overbear the smaller man and push him to the floor.

But he couldn’t.

Mort held him off as if he’d had the strength of a much larger, much younger, much healthier man. Or maybe men. He held the startled intruder stone-still for the space of five or six seconds, then heaved, twisting with the full power of his shoulders, hips, and legs, and used the ax’s head to rip the club from the intruder’s paws. The gunman threw an enraged punch at his face, but Mort blocked it with the flat of the ax’s head, and then snapped the blunt upper edge of the ax into the gunman’s face with an almost contemptuous precision.

The intruder reeled back, stunned, and Mort followed up with the instincts and will of a dangerous, trained fighting man. He struck the intruder’s knee with the weapon’s haft, sending a sharp, crackling pop into the air, and swung the flat of the blade into the intruder’s jaw as the bigger man began to fall. The blow struck home with a meaty thunk and another crackling noise of impact, and the gunman dropped like a proverbial stone.

Mortimer Lindquist, ectomancer, stood over the fallen madman in a wary crouch, his eyes focusing on nothing as he turned his head left and right, scanning the room around him.

Then he sighed and exhaled. The steel head of the weapon came down to thump gently against the floor. Shapes departed him, the guardian spirits easing free of him, most of them fading from view. Within a few seconds, the only shades present were me and an exhausted-looking Sir Stuart.

Mort sat down on the floor heavily, his head bowed, his chest heaving for breath. The veins on his bald pate stuck out.

“Hell’s bells,” I breathed.

He looked up at me, his expression weary, and gave me an exhausted shrug. “Don’t have a gun,” he panted. “Never really felt like I needed one.”

“Been a while since you did that, Mortimer,” Sir Stuart said from where he sat beside the wall, his body supported by the ghost-dusted paint. “Thought you’d forgotten how.”

Mort gave the wounded spirit a faint smile. “I thought I had, too.”

I frowned and shook my head. “Was that . . . was that a possession, just now? When the ghosts took over?”

Sir Stuart snorted. “Nay, lad. If anything, the opposite.”

“Give me at least a little credit, Dresden,” Mort said, his tone sour. “I’m an ectomancer. Sometimes I need to borrow from what a spirit knows or what it can do. But I control spirits—they don’t control me.”

“How’d you handle the gun?” Stuart asked, a certain, craftsmanlike professionalism entering his tone.

“I . . .” Mort shook his head and looked at me.

“Magic,” I said quietly. My bell was still ringing a little, but I was able to form complete sentences. “I . . . sort of bumped into him and called up a shield.”

Sir Stuart lifted his eyebrows and said, “Huh.”

“I needed to borrow your skills for a moment,” Mort said, somewhat stiffly. “Appreciate it.”

“Think nothing of it,” I said. “Just give me a few hours of your time. We’ll be square.”

Mort stared at me for a while. Then he said, “You’re here twenty minutes and I nearly get killed, Dresden. Jesus, don’t you get it?” He leaned forward. “I am not a crusader. I am not the sheriff of Chicago. I am not a goddamned death wish–embracing Don Quixote.” He shook his head. “I’m a coward. And I’m very comfortable with that. It’s served me well.”

“I just saved your life, man,” I said.

He sighed. “Yeah. But . . . like I said. Coward. I can’t help you. Go find someone else to be your Panza.”

I sat there for a moment, feeling very, very tired.

When I looked up, Sir Stuart was staring intently at me. Then he cleared his throat and said, in a diffident tone, “Far be it from me to bring up the past, but I can’t help but note that your lot in life has improved significantly since Dresden first came to you.”

Mort’s bald head started turning red. “What?”

Sir Stuart spread his hands, his expression mild. “I only mean to say that you have grown in strength and character in that time. When you first interacted with Dresden, you were bilking people out of their money with—poorly—falsified séances, and you had lost your power to contact any spirit other than me.”

Mort glowered ferociously at Sir Stuart. “Hey, Gramps. When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

Sir Stuart’s smile widened. “Of course.”

“I help spirits find peace,” Mort said. “I don’t do things that are going to get me taken to pieces. I’m a ghost whisperer. And that’s all.”

“Look, Mort,” I said. “If you want to get technical, I’m not actually a ghost, per se. . . .”

He rolled his eyes again. “Oh, God. If I had a nickel for every ghost who had ever come to me, explaining to me how he wasn’t really a ghost. How his case was special . . .”

“Well, sure,” I said. “But—”

He rolled his eyes. “But if you aren’t just a ghost, how come I could channel you like that? How come I could force you out of me? Huh?”

That hit me. My stomach may have been insubstantial, but it could still writhe uneasily.

Ghosts were not the people they resembled, any more than a footprint left in the ground was the being that made it. They had similar features, but ultimately a ghost was simply a remainder, a reminder, an impression of the person who died. They might share similar personalities, emotions, memories, but they weren’t the same being. When a person died and left a ghost behind, it was as if some portion of his dying life energy was spun out, creating a new being entirely—though in the creator’s exact mental and often physical image.

Of course, that also meant that they were subject to many of the same frailties as mortals. Obsession. Hatred. Madness. If what Mort said about ghosts interacting with the material world was true, then it was when some poor spirit snapped, or was simply created insane, that you got your really good ghost stories. By a vast majority, most ghosts were simply insubstantial and a bit sad, never really interacting with the material world.

But I couldn’t be one of those self-deluded shades.

Could I?

I glanced at Sir Stuart.

He shrugged. “Most shades aren’t willing to admit that they aren’t actually the same being whose memories they possess,” he said gently. “And that’s assuming they can face the fact that they are ghosts at all. Self-deluded shades are, by an order of magnitude, more common than those that are not.”

“So what you’re saying is . . .” I pushed my fingers back through my hair. “You’re saying that I only think I did the whole tunnel-of-light, sent-back-on-a-mission thing? That I’m in denial about being a ghost?”

The ghost marine waggled one hand in an ambivalent gesture, and his British accent rolled out mellow vowels and crisp consonants as he answered. “I’m simply saying that it is very much poss—Mission? What mission? What are you talking about?”

I eyed him for a moment, while he looked at me blankly. Then I said, “I’m gonna guess you’ve never seen Star Wars.”

Sir Stuart shrugged. “I find motion pictures to be grossly exaggerated and intrusive, leaving the audience little to consider or ponder for themselves.”

“That’s what I thought.” I sighed. “You were about two words away from being called Threepio from here on out.”

He blinked. “What?”

“God,” I said. “Now we’re transitioning into a Monty Python skit.” I turned back to Morty. “Mort, Jack Murphy met me on the other side and sent me back to find out who murdered me. There was a lot of talk, but it mostly amounted to ‘We aren’t gonna tell you diddly, so just do it already.’ ”

Mort watched me warily for a moment, staring hard at my insubstantial form. Then he said, “You think you’re telling the truth.”

“No,” I said, annoyed. “I am telling the truth.”

“I’m sure you think that,” Mort said.

I felt my temper flare. “If I didn’t go right through you, I would totally pop you in the nose right now.”

Mort bristled, his jaw muscles clenching. “Oh yeah? Bring it, Too-Tall. I’ll kick your bodiless ass.”

Sir Stuart coughed significantly, a long-suffering expression on his face. “Mortimer, Dresden just fought beside us to defend this home—and rushed in here to save your life.”

Then it hit me, and I eyed Sir Stuart. “You could have come inside,” I said. “You could have helped Mortimer against the shooter. But you wanted to see where I stood when I was under pressure. It was a test.”

Sir Stuart smiled. “Somewhat, aye. I wouldn’t have let you harm Mortimer, of course, and I was there to help him the instant he called. But it didn’t hurt to know a little more about you.” He turned to Mortimer. “I like this lad. And Jack Murphy sent him.”

Both Mortimer and I glared at Sir Stuart and then settled slowly back from the confrontation.

“Head detective of the Black Cats a generation ago,” Stuart continued. “Killed himself at his desk. Sometimes new shades show up claiming they’ve had a run-in with him, and that he brought them back from the hereafter. And you know that he is no deluded fool.”

Mort didn’t meet Sir Stuart’s eyes. He grunted, a sound that wasn’t exactly agreement.

“Or maybe Jack Murphy’s shade is simply more deluded than most, and has a talent for nurturing the delusions of other new shades.”

“Hell’s bells, Morty,” I said. “Next you’ll be telling me that I didn’t even meet his shade. That I deluded myself into deluding myself into deluding him into deluding me that I made the whole thing up.”

Sir Stuart snorted through his nose. “A fair point.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mort said. “There’s no real way to know.”

“Incorrect,” Sir Stuart interrupted. “Summon him. That shouldn’t be difficult—if he is just one more deluded shade.”

Mort didn’t look up. But he said, very quietly, “I won’t do that to Jack.” He looked up and seemed to recover some of his composure. “But even if Captain Murphy is genuine, that doesn’t mean Dresden’s shade is legit. Or sane.”

“Consider the possibility,” Sir Stuart said. “There is something unusual about this one.”

Mort perked up his metaphorical ears. “Unusual?”

“An energy. A vitality.” Sir Stuart shrugged. “It might be nothing. But even if it is . . .”

Mort let out a long sigh and eyed the shade. “You won’t let this rest, will you?”

“I have no plans for the next fifty or sixty years,” Sir Stuart said affably. “It would give me something to do. Every half an hour or so.”

Mort pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Oh, God.”

Sir Stuart grinned. “There’s another aspect to consider, too.”

“Oh?”

“The attack was larger tonight. It cost us more defenders. And the creature behind it revealed itself.” He gestured at his still-translucent midsection. “I can’t keep holding them off forever, Mortimer. And the presence of a mortal pawn tells us two things.”

I nodded. “One. The Grey Ghost is bad enough to have its way with mortals.”

“Two,” Sir Stuart said. “The creature is after you. Personally.”

Mort swallowed.

I rose and shuffled over to look down at the still-unconscious intruder. The man let out a low groan.

“It is a good time to make friends,” Stuart said, his expression serious. “Dresden’s one reason you’ll live the night. And he had allies in this city—people who could help you, if they had a reason to.”

“You’re fine,” Mort said, his tone uncertain. “You’ve survived worse.” Sir Stuart sighed. “Perhaps. But the enemy isn’t going to give me time to recover before he attacks again. You need Dresden’s help. He’s asking for yours.” His expression hardened. “And so am I.”

The intruder groaned again and stirred.

Mort’s forehead broke out in a sudden sweat. He looked at the fallen man and then, rather hurriedly, heaved himself to his feet. He bowed his head. Then he turned to me and said, “Fine, Dresden. I’ll help. And in return, I expect you to get your allies to look out for me.”

“Deal,” I said. I looked at Sir Stuart. “Thank you.”

“One hour,” Mort said. “You get one hour.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” Mort echoed, evidently speaking mostly to himself. “I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to join the Council or anything. It’s one hour. Just one little hour. What could happen in one hour?”

And that’s how I knew that Mort was telling the whole truth when he said he wasn’t a hero.

Heroes know better than to hand the universe lines like that.