Jim Butcher - Ghost Story

“Karrin,” I tried to say. It came out a whisper.

Murphy’s brow furrowed and she stood still in the doorway, despite the cold wind and falling snow, her eyes scanning left and right.

Her eyes moved over me, past me, through me, without stopping. She didn’t see me. She couldn’t hear me. We weren’t a part of the same world anymore.

It was a surprisingly painful moment of realization.

Before I could get my thoughts clear of it, Murphy, still frowning, closed the door. I heard her close several locks.

“Easy, lad,” said Sir Stuart in a gentle, quiet voice. He hunkered down to put a hand on my shoulder. “There is no need to rush regaining your feet. It hurts. I know.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. I swallowed and blinked away tears that couldn’t really be real. “Why?”

“As I told you, lad. Memories are life here. Life and power. Seeing the people you care for most again is going to trigger memories much more strongly than they would in a mere mortal. It can take time to grow accustomed to it.”

I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin on my kneecap. “How long?”

“Generally,” Sir Stuart said very softly, “until those loved ones pass on themselves.”

I shuddered. “Yeah,” I said. “Well. I don’t have time for that.”

“You have nothing but time, Dresden.”

“But three of my people don’t,” I said, my voice harsh. “They’re going to get hurt if I don’t make things right. If I don’t find my killer.” I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I wasn’t actually breathing air. I didn’t need to breathe. Habit. “Where’s Mort?”

“Waiting around the corner,” Sir Stuart said. “He’ll come in once we’ve given him the all clear.”

“What? I’m the little chicken’s personal Secret Service now?” I grumbled. I pushed myself up to my feet and eyed Murphy’s house. “Do you see anything threatening around here?”

“Not at the moment,” Sir Stuart said, “other than the allegedly suspicious auto coach.”

“Well, the house is warded. I’m not sure if the defenses are purely against insubstantial intruders or if they might also attack a living intruder. Tell him not to touch the house with anything he wants to keep.”

Sir Stuart nodded and said, “I’m going to circle the place. I’ll return with Mortimer.”

I grunted absently, reaching out a hand to feel the wards around the place again. They were powerful, but . . . flawed, somehow. My wards were all built into the same, solid barrier of energy. These wards had solidity, but it was a piecemeal thing. I felt like I was looking at a twelvefoot wall built from LEGO blocks. If someone with enough mystic muscle hit it right, the ward would shatter at its weakest seams.

Of course, that would probably punch a hole in the barrier, but not a catastrophic one. If one portion of my wards lost integrity, the whole thing would come down and whatever remained of the energy that had broken it would come through. If someone knocked out a bit of these wards, it would send a bunch of LEGOs flying—probably soaking up all of the energy by dividing it among lots of little pieces—but the rest of the barrier would stand.

That might offer several advantages on the minor-league end of the power scale. The modular wards would be easy to repair, compared to classic integral wards, so that even if something smashed through, the wards could be closed again in a brief time. God knows, the ingredients for the spell were probably a lot cheaper—and you wouldn’t need a big-time White Council wizard to put them up.

But they had a downside, too. There were a lot of things that could smash through—and if you got killed after they came inside, the ease of repair wouldn’t matter much to your cooling corpse.

Still. It was a hell of a lot better than nothing. The basic profile was my design, just implemented differently. Who the hell would have done this to Murphy’s place? And why ?

I turned and stepped off the porch to peer in a window, feeling vaguely voyeuristic as I did so. But I wasn’t sure what else I was going to do until Mort got here to do some speaking for me.

“Are you quite all right?” asked a man’s voice, from inside the house.

I blinked, scowled in concentration, and managed to stand up on some of the wispy shrubbery under the window, until I could see over the chair back that blocked my view from where I was standing.

There was a man sitting on the couch of Murphy’s living room. He was wearing a black suit with a crisp white shirt and a black tie with a single stripe of maroon. His skin was dark—more Mediterranean than African—but his short, neat sweep of hair was dyed peroxide blond. His eyes were an unsettling color, somewhere between dark honey and poison ivy, and the sharp angularity of his nose made me think of a bird of prey.

“Fine,” said Murphy. She was on her feet, her gun tucked into the waist of her jeans in front. SIG made a fine, compact 9mm, but it looked big, dangerous, and clumsy on Murphy’s scale. She folded her arms and stared at the man as if he’d been found at the side of the highway, gobbling up raw roadkill. “I told you not to show up early anymore, Childs.”

“A lifetime of habit,” Childs said in reply. “Honestly, it isn’t something to which I give any thought.”

“You know how things are out there,” Murphy said, jerking her chin toward the front of the house. “Start thinking about it. You catch me on a nervous evening, and maybe I shoot you through the door.”

Childs folded his fingers on one knee. He didn’t look like a big guy. He wasn’t heavy with muscle. Neither are cobras. There was plenty of room for a gun under that expensive suit jacket. “My relationship with my employer is relatively new. But I have a sense that, should such a tragedy occur, the personal repercussions to you would be quite severe.”

Murphy shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. On the other hand, maybe we start killing his people until the price of doing business with us is too high and he breaks it off.” She smiled. It was almost gleefully wintry. “I don’t have a badge anymore, Childs. But I do have friends. Special, special friends.”

Between them there was a low charge of tension in the room, the silent promise of violence. Murphy’s fingers were dangling casually less than two inches from her gun. Childs’s hands were still folded on his knee. He abruptly smiled and dropped back into a more relaxed pose on the sofa. “We’ve coexisted well enough for the past six months. I see no sense in letting frayed tempers put an end to that now.”

Murphy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Marcone’s top murderer—”

Childs lifted a hand. “Please. Troubleshooter.”

Murphy continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “—doesn’t back down that quickly, regardless of how survival oriented he is. That’s why you’re here early, despite my request. You want something.”

“So nice to know you eventually take note of the obvious,” Childs replied. “Yes. My employer sent me with a question.”

Murphy frowned. “He didn’t want the others to hear it being asked.”

Childs nodded. “He feared it might generate unintended negative consequences.”

Murphy stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Well?”

Childs showed his teeth in a smile for the first time. It made me think of skulls. “He wishes to know if you trust the Ragged Lady.”

Murphy straightened at the question, her back going rigid. She waited to take a deep breath and exhale before responding. “What do you mean?”

“Odd things have begun happening near some of the locations she haunts. Things that no one can quite explain.” Childs shrugged, leaving his hands in plain sight, resting comfortably on the sofa. “Which part of the question is too difficult for you?”