Dresden Files 03 - Grave Peril

by Jim Butcher

  I crouched down beside several fallen branches, picking them up one at a time, squinting at them in the dawn dimness.

  “What are you looking for?” Michael asked me.

  “Blood on the thorns,” I said. “Rose thorns can poke little holes in just about anything—and something that tore them up this hard would have been scratching itself on them.”

  “Any blood?”

  “No. No footprints in the earth, either.”

  Michael nodded. “A ghost, then.”

  I squinted up at Michael. “I hope not.”

  He tilted his head and frowned at me.

  I dropped a branch and spread my hands. “A ghost can usually only manage to move things, physically, in bursts. Throwing pots and pans. Maybe really stretch things and stack up a bunch of books or something.” I gestured at the torn plants, and then back toward the wrecked cars. “Not only that, but it’s limited to a certain place, time, or event. The ghost, if it is one, followed Lydia here and rampaged around on blessed ground tearing things apart. I mean, wow. This thing is way stronger than any ghost I’ve ever heard about.”

  Michael’s frown deepened. “What are you saying, Harry?”

  “I’m saying we might be getting out of our depth, here. Look, Michael, I know a lot about spooks and nasties. But they aren’t my specialty or anything.”

  He frowned at me. “We might need to know more.”

  I stood up, brushing myself off. “That,” I said, “is my specialty. Let’s talk to Father Forthill.”

  Michael knocked on the door. It opened at once. Father Forthill, a greying man of slight build and only medium stature, blinked anxiously up at us through a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. His eyes were normally a shade of blue so bright as to rival robin’s eggs, but today they were heavily underlined, shadowed. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, Michael. Thank the Lord.” He opened the door wider, and Michael stepped over the threshold. The two embraced. Forthill kissed Michael on either cheek and stepped back to peer at me. “And Harry Dresden, professional wizard. I’ve never had anyone ask me to bless a five-gallon drum into holy water before, Mr. Dresden.”

  Michael peered at me, evidently surprised that the priest and I knew each other. I shrugged, a little embarrassed, and said, “You told me I could count on him in a pinch.”

  “And so you can,” Forthill said, his blue eyes sparkling for a moment behind the spectacles. “I trust you have no complaints about the blessed water?”

  “None at all,” I said. “Talk about your surprised ghouls.”

  “Harry,” Michael chided. “You’ve been keeping secrets again.”

  “Contrary to what Charity thinks, Michael, I don’t go running to the phone to call you every time I have a little problem.” I clapped Michael on the shoulder in passing and offered my hand to Father Forthill, who shook it gravely. No hug and kiss on each cheek for me.

  Forthill smiled up at me. “I look forward to the day when you give your life to God, Mr. Dresden. He can use men with your courage.”

  I tried to smile, but it probably looked a little sickly. “Look, Father. I’d love to talk about it with you sometime, but we’re here for a reason.”

  “Indeed,” Forthill said. The sparkle in his eyes faded, and his manner became absolutely serious. He began to walk down a clean hallway with dark, heavy beams of old wood overhanging it and paintings of the Saints on the walls. We kept pace with him. “The young woman arrived yesterday, just before sunset.”

  “Was she all right?” I asked.

  He lifted both eyebrows. “All right? I should say not. All the signs of an abused personality. Borderline malnutrition. She had a low-grade fever as well, and hadn’t bathed recently. She looked as though she might be going through withdrawal from something.”

  I frowned. “Yeah. She looked like she was in pretty bad shape.” I briefly recounted my conversation with Lydia and my decision to help her.

  Father Forthill shook his head. “I provided fresh clothes and a meal for her and was getting set to put her to bed on a spare cot at the back of the rectory. That’s when it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “She began to shake,” Forthill said. “Her eyes rolled back into her head. She was still sitting at the dinner table, and spilled her soup onto the floor. I thought she was having a seizure of some sort, and tried to hold her down and to get something into her mouth to keep her from biting her tongue.” He sighed, clasping his hands behind his back as he walked. “I’m afraid that I was of little help to the poor child. The fit seemed to pass in a few moments, but she still trembled and had gone absolutely pale.”

  “Cassandra’s Tears,” I said.

  “Or narcotic withdrawal,” Forthill said. “Either way, she needed help. I moved her to the cot. She begged me not to leave her, so I sat down and began to read part of St. Matthew’s gospel to her. She seemed to calm somewhat, but she had such a look in her eyes . . .” The old priest sighed. “That resolved look that they get when they’re sure that they’re lost. Despair, and in one so young.”

  “When did the attack begin?” I asked.

  “About ten minutes later,” the priest said. “It started with the most terrible howling of wind. Lord preserve me, but I was sure the windows would rattle out of their frames. Then we started to hear sounds, outside.” He swallowed. “Terrible sounds. Something walking back and forth. Heavy footsteps. And then it started calling her name.” The priest folded his arms and rubbed his palms against either arm.

  “I rose and addressed the being, and asked its name, but it only laughed at me. I began to compel it by the Holy Word, and it went quite mad. We could hear it crushing things outside. I don’t mind telling you that it was quite the most terrifying experience I have ever had in my life.

  “The girl tried to leave. To go out to it. She said that she didn’t want me harming myself, that it would only find her in any case. Well, I forbade her, of course, and refused to let her past me. It kept on, outside, and I kept on reading the Word aloud to the girl. It waited outside. I could . . . feel it, but could see nothing outside the windows. Such a darkness. And every so often it would destroy something else, and we’d hear the sound of it.

  “After several hours, it seemed to grow quiet. The girl went to sleep. I walked the halls to make sure all the doors and windows were still closed, and when I came back she was gone.”

  “Gone?” I asked. “Gone as in left or as in just gone?”

  Forthill gave me a smile that looked a bit shaky. “The back door was unlocked, though she’d shut it after herself.” The older man shook his head. “I called Michael at once, of course.”

  “We’ve got to find that girl,” I said.

  Forthill shook his head, his expression grave. “Mr. Dresden, I am certain that only the power of the Almighty kept us safe within these walls last night.”

  “I won’t argue with you, Father.”

  “But if you could have sensed this creature’s anger, its . . . rage. Mr. Dresden, I would not wish to encounter this being outside of a church without seeking God’s help in the matter.”

  I jerked a thumb at Michael. “I did seek God’s help. Heck, is one Knight of the Cross not enough? I could always put out the Bat-signal for the other two.”

  Forthill smiled. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. But as you wish. You must come to your own decision.” He turned to Michael and me both and said, “I hope, gentlemen, that I can trust your discretion on this matter? The police report will doubtless reflect that persons unknown perpetuated the vandalism.”

  I snorted. “A little white lie, Father?” I felt bad the minute I’d said it, but heck. I get tired of the conversion efforts every time I show up.

  “Evil gains power from fear, Mr. Dresden,” Forthill replied. “Within the Church, we have agencies for dealing with these matters.” He put a hand on Michael’s shoulder, briefly. “But spreading word of it to everyone, even to all of the brethren would accomplish nothing but to frig
hten many people and to make the enemy that much more able to do harm.”

  I nodded at the priest. “I like that attitude, Father. You almost sound like a wizard.”

  His eyebrows shot up, but then he broke into a quiet, weary laugh. “Be careful, both of you, and may God go with you.” He made the sign of the cross over both of us, and I felt the quiet stirring of power, just as I sometimes did around Michael. Faith. Michael and Forthill exchanged a few quiet words about Michael’s family while I lurked in the background. Forthill arranged to christen the new baby, whenever Charity delivered. They exchanged hugs again; Forthill shook my hand, businesslike and friendly, and we left.

  Outside, Michael watched me as we walked back to his truck. “Well?” he asked. “What’s next?”

  I frowned, and stuffed my hands into my pockets. The sun was higher now, painting the sky blue, the clouds white. “I know someone who’s pretty close to the spooks around here. That psychic in Oldtown.”

  Michael scowled and spat. “The necromancer.”

  I snorted. “He’s no necromancer. He can barely call up a ghost and talk to it. He’s got to fake it most of the time.” Besides. Had he been a real necromancer, the White Council would already have hounded him down and beheaded him. Doubtless, the man I was thinking of had already been visited by at least one Warden and warned of the consequences of dabbling too much into the dark arts.

  “If he’s so inept, why speak to him at all?”

  “He’s probably closer to the spirit world than anyone else in town. Other than me, I mean. I’ll send out Bob, too, and see what kind of information he can run down. We’re bound to have different contacts.”

  Michael frowned at me. “I don’t trust this business of communing with spirits, Harry. If Father Forthill and the others knew about this familiar of yours—”

  “Bob isn’t a familiar,” I shot back.

  “He performs the same function, doesn’t he?”

  I snorted. “Familiars work for free. I’ve got to pay Bob.”

  “Pay him?” he asked, his tone suspicious. “Pay what?”

  “Mostly romance novels. Sometimes I splurge on a—”

  Michael looked pained. “Harry, I really don’t want to know. Isn’t there some way that you could work some kind of spell here, instead of relying upon these unholy beings?”

  I sighed, and shook my head. “Sorry, Michael. If it was a demon, it would have left footprints, and maybe some kind of psychic trail I could follow. But I’m pretty sure this was pure spirit. And a god-damned strong one.”

  “Harry,” Michael said, voice stern.

  “Sorry, I forgot. Ghosts don’t usually inhabit a construct—a magical body. They’re just energy. They don’t leave any physical traces behind—at least none that last for hours at a time. If it was here, I could tell you all kinds of things about it, probably, and work magic on it directly. But it’s not here, so—”

  Michael sighed. “Very well. I will put out the word to those I know to be on the lookout for the girl. Lydia, you said her name was?”

  “Yeah.” I described her to Michael. “And she had a charm on her wrist. The one I’d been wearing the past few nights.”

  “Would it protect her?” Michael asked.

  I shrugged. “From something as mean as this thing sounded . . . I don’t know. We’ve got to find out who this ghost was when it was alive and shut it down.”

  “Which still will not tell us who or what is stirring up the spirits of the city.” Michael unlocked his truck, and we got inside.

  “That’s what I like about you, Michael. You’re always thinking so positively.”

  He grinned at me. “Faith, Harry. God has a way of seeing to it that things fall into place.”

  He started driving, and I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. First off to see the psychic. Then to send Bob out to find out more about what looked to be the most dangerous ghost I’d seen in a long time. And then to keep on looking for whoever it was behind all the spooky goings-on and to rap them politely on the head until they stopped. Easy as one, two, three. Sure.

  I whimpered, sunk down in my seat a little more, and wished that I had kept my aching, sore self in bed.

  Chapter Ten

  Mortimer Lindquist had tried to give his house that gothic feel. Greyish gargoyles stood at the corners of his roof. Black iron gates glowered at the front of his house and statuary lined the walk to his front door. Long grass had overgrown his yard. If his house hadn’t been a red-roofed, white-walled stucco transplant from somewhere in southern California, it might have worked.

  The results looked more like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland than an ominous abode of a speaker to the dead. The black iron gates stood surrounded by plain chain-link fence. The gargoyles, on closer inspection, proved to be plastic reproductions. The statuary, too, had the rough outlines of plaster, rather than the clean, sweeping profile of marble. You could have plopped a pink flamingo down right in the middle of the unmowed weeds, and it would have somehow matched the decor. But, I supposed, at night, with the right lighting and the right attitude, some people might have believed it.

  I shook my head and lifted my hand to rap on the door.

  It opened before my knuckles touched it, and a well-rounded set of shoulders below a shining, balding head backed through the doorway, grunting. I stepped to one side. The little man tugged an enormous suitcase out onto the porch, never taking notice of me, his florid face streaked with perspiration.

  I sidled into the doorway as he turned to lug the bag out to the gate, muttering to himself under his breath. I shook my head and went on into the house. The door was a business entrance—there was no tingling sensation of crossing the threshold of a dwelling uninvited. The front room reminded me of the house’s exterior. Lots of black curtains draped down over the walls and doorways. Red and black candles squatted all over the place. A grinning human skull leered from a bookshelf straining to contain copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica with the lettering scraped off their spines. The skull was plastic, too.

  Morty had a table set up in the room, several chairs around it with a high-backed chair at the rear, wood that had actually been carved with a number of monstrous beings. I took a seat in the chair, folded my hands on the table in front of me, and waited.

  The little man came back in, wiping at his face with a bandanna handkerchief, sweating and panting.

  “Shut the door,” I said. “We need to talk, Morty.”

  He squealed and whirled around.

  “Y-you,” he stammered. “Dresden. What are you doing here?”

  I stared at him. “Come in, Morty.”

  He came closer, but left the door open. In spite of his pudginess, he moved with the nervous energy of a spooked cat. His white business shirt showed stains beneath his arms reaching halfway to his belt. “Look, Dresden. I told you guys before—I get the rules, right? I haven’t been doing anything you guys talked about.”

  Aha. The White Council had sent someone to see him. Morty was a professional con. I hadn’t planned on getting any honest answers out of him without a lot of effort. Maybe I could play this angle and save myself a lot of work.

  “Let me tell you something, Morty. When I come into a place and don’t say a thing except, ‘Let’s talk,’ and the first thing I hear is ‘I didn’t do it,’ it makes me think that the person I’m talking to must have done something. You know what I’m saying?”

  His florid face lost several shades of red. “No way, man. Look, I’ve got nothing to do with what’s been going on. Not my fault, none of my business, man.”

  “With what’s been going on,” I said. I looked down at my folded hands for a moment, and then back up at him. “What’s the suitcase for, Morty? You do something that means you need to leave town for a while?”

  He swallowed, thick neck working. “Look, Dresden. Mister Dresden. My sister got sick, see. I’m just going to help her out.”

  “Sure you are,” I said. “That’s what y
ou’re doing. Going out of town to help your sick sister.”

  “I swear to God,” Morty said, lifting a hand, his face earnest.

  I pointed at the chair across from me. “Sit down, Morty.”

  “I’d like to, but I got a cab coming.” He turned toward the door.

  “Ventas servitas,” I hissed, nice and dramatic, and threw some will at the door. Sudden wind slammed it shut right in front of his eyes. He squeaked, and backed up several paces, staring at the door, then whirling to face me.

  I used the remnants of the same spell to push out a chair opposite me. “Sit down, Morty. I’ve got a few questions. Now, if you cut the crap, you’ll make your cab. And, if not . . .” I left the words hanging. One thing about intimidation is that people can always think up something worse that you could do to them than you can, if you leave their imagination some room to play.

  He stared at me, and swallowed again, his jowls jiggling. Then he moved to the chair as though he expected chains to fly out of it and tie him down the moment he sat. He balanced his weight on the very edge of the chair, licked his lips, and watched me, probably trying to figure out the best lies for the questions he expected.

  “You know,” I said. “I’ve read your books, Morty. Ghosts of Chicago. The Spook Factor. Two or three others. You did good work, there.”

  His expression changed, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Thank you.”

  “I mean, twenty years ago, you were a pretty damn good investigator. Sensitivity to spiritual energies and apparitions—ghosts. What we call an ectomancer in the business.”

  “Yeah,” he said. His eyes softened a little, if not his voice. He avoided looking directly in my face. Most people do. “That was a long time ago.”

  I kept my voice in the same tone, the same expression. “And now what? You run séances for people. How many times do you actually get to contact a spirit? One time in ten? One in twenty? Must be a real letdown from the actual stuff. Playacting, I mean.”