Jim Butcher - Ghost Story

With the exception of Forthill, I’d seen them all react to direct danger.

They were all scared of Molly.

Murphy faced them. She was the smallest person in the room. Her expression was as smooth and expressive as a sheet of ice, her body posture steady. She looked as though she felt she was ready for just about anything.

But I’ve been in more than one fur ball with Murph, and I saw through her outer shell to the fear that was driving her. She didn’t know if I was real. For all she knew, I might be some kind of boogeyman from the nightmare side of the street, and that was unacceptable. She had to know.

The problem was that no matter what answer she got, it was going to hurt. If Molly pegged me as a bad guy, the knowledge that the real Harry Dresden was still missing and presumed dead, after the flash of contact Mort had provided, would be like a frozen blade in the guts. And if she learned that it really was my shade . . . it would be even worse.

“Molly will be fine,” Murphy said. “We need her. She’ll come through.” She passed her hand over her brush of hair. Her voice turned into something much smaller, weighed down by pain. “No offense to Mr. Lindquist. No offense to Mister. But I . . . We have to know.”

Paranoid? Probably.

But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t a wizard’s ghost standing beside you with tears in his eyes.

Not long after, something scratched at the front door, and Will opened it to admit a grey-brown-furred wolf. The wolf trotted over to where Marci’s dress lay folded on the sofa, took it in her teeth, and vanished into the kitchen. Marci appeared a few seconds later, settling the dress around her slender form, and said, “She’ll be here any moment. I already told Andi and Eyes.”

“Thank you, Marci.” Murph looked at everyone and said, “Settle down, people. You look like you’re expecting Hannibal Lecter to come through the door.”

“I could handle Hannibal,” Will said. “This is different.”

Murphy put a fist on her hip and said, “Will. Molly is one of us. And you aren’t going to help her by looking nervous. If you can’t settle down and relax, get out of here. I don’t want you upsetting her.”

Will grimaced. Then he went into the kitchen, and a moment later a large wolf with fur the same color as Will’s hair padded back into the room. He went to a corner, turned around three times, and settled down on the floor. Toto let out a sharp little bark of greeting and hopped down to hurry over to Will. The little dog sniffed Will, then turned around three times and settled down next to him, their backs touching. The big wolf took a deep breath and exhaled it into a very human-sounding sigh of resignation.

“Thank you,” Murphy said. She glanced at Mort. “There’s a circle made out of copper wire in the kitchen. If it gets hot in here, you can run for it. You know how to empower a circle?”

“Yes, of course.” He licked his lips and said, “Though I can’t imagine running for my life and stopping in the kitchen. Meaning no offense to your protective ability, but I’ll stop when I’m home , thank you.”

“God,” Murphy said. “If only more people had as much sense as you.”

Murphy’s radio chirped, and Eyes started to say something. His voice drowned an instant later in a burst of static.

That ratcheted more tension in everyone. Wizards and their major magical talent are tough on hardware. The more complex a machine is, the more disruptive a wizard’s presence becomes, and electronics are nearly always the first to malfunction when a wizard is nearby. The wonky radio warned us of Molly’s approach every bit as clearly as a sentry shouting, “Who goes there?”

“Huh,” I said.

Mort glanced at me. “What?”

“The technology disruption a practitioner causes is relative to his—or her—strength.”

“I knew that, actually,” Mort said. “It’s why I have to keep replacing my cell phone. So?”

“So Molly was not a heavyweight in terms of raw power. She had to be practically close enough to touch something to hex it down that fast.” I narrowed my eyes. “She’s gotten stronger. Either that or . . .”

“She’s already in the room,” Mort said.

Murphy looked up sharply at that. “What?”

The house lights flickered for a second and then went out.

They weren’t gone long—the space of a heartbeat or two. But when they came back up, Murphy had her gun in hand, Marci had become a wolf with a sundress hanging around her neck, and a young woman wrapped in layers and layers of cast-off clothing sat on the sofa between Abby and Mort, not six inches away from either of them.

Molly was tall and built like a pinup model, with long, long legs and curves that not even the layers of clothing could hide. Her face was lovely and devoid of makeup, and her cheekbones pressed out harshly against her skin. Her hair was dirty, stringy, tangled, and colored a shade of purple so dark as to be nearly indistinguishable from black. A wooden cane stained the same color of deep purple leaned against her knees, and an old military-issue canvas knapsack covered with buttons and drawings in Magic Marker rested between her hiking boots. From Abby’s and Mort’s reactions, it must have smelled like it had been at least several days since her last shower.

But it was her eyes that were the worst.

My apprentice’s blue eyes were sunken, surrounded by shadows of stress and fatigue, and an odd light glittered there in the glassy shine I’d seen mostly in people recovering from anesthesia.

“It’s interesting that you would notice me,” Molly said to Mort, as if she’d been politely participating in the conversation all along.

The ectomancer twitched, and I saw him fight off the desire to get up and sprint for his car.

Molly nodded and looked around the rest of the room, person by person, until she got to Murphy. “I hope we’re planning a civil discussion this time, Karrin.”

Murph put her gun away, giving Molly a mild glance by way of reprimand. “We were being civil last time. We’re your friends, Molly, and we’re worried about you.”

My apprentice shrugged. “I don’t want anyone like friends anywhere near me. If you include yourself among them, you should leave me the hell alone.” Her voice had turned into a snarl by the end of the sentence, and she paused to take a slow, deliberate breath and calm down. “I don’t have the patience or the time for a group-therapy session. What do you want?”

Murphy seemed to consider her answer for a moment. She wound up going for brevity. “We need you to verify something for us.”

“Do I look like a fact-checker to you, Karrin?”

“You look like a homeless scarecrow,” Murphy said, her tone matter-of-fact. “You smell like a gutter.”

“I thought you used to be a detective,” Molly said, rolling her eyes. “See above, regarding not wanting anyone around me. It’s not all that hard to understand.”

“Miss Carpenter,” said Father Forthill in a sudden tone of gentle authority. “You are a guest in this woman’s home. A woman who has put her own life in danger to save others—including you.”

Molly turned an absolutely arctic look onto Father Forthill. Then she said, in a quiet, flat monotone, “I don’t particularly care to be spoken to as if I am still a child, Father.”

“If you wish to be respected as an adult, you should comport yourself as one,” Forthill replied, “which includes behaving with civility toward your peers and respect toward your elders.”

Molly glowered for a moment more, but then turned back to Murphy. “All things considered, it’s stupid for me to be here. And I’m a busy woman, Ms. Murphy—nothing but customers, customers, customers. So I’m out the door in five seconds unless you give me a good reason to stay.”