Ghost Story (10 page)

I just lay there on the snow for a moment. I tried the whole “there is no spoon” thing again, but apparently there was perception of reality and then there was hard-core, undeniable, real reality. It took me several seconds to recover and sit up again, and several more seconds to realize that I had been hit by something specifically engineered to stop intruding spirits.

Murphy's house had been warded, its natural defensive threshold used as a foundation for further, more aggressive defenses. And while I was only a shade of my former self, I was still wizard enough to recognize my own damned wards—or at least wards that were virtually identical to my own.

The door opened and Murphy appeared in it. She was a woman of well below average height, but built of spring steel. Her golden hair had been cut into a short brush over her scalp, and the stark style showed off the lines of muscles and tendons in her neck, and the pugnacious, stubborn set of her jawline. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt over a blue tee, and held her SIG in her right hand.

Something stabbed me in the guts and twisted upon seeing her.

A rush of memories flooded over me, starting with our first meeting, on a missing-persons case years ago, when I'd still been doing my time as an apprentice PI and Murphy had been a uniform cop working a beat. Every argument, every bit of banter and repartee, every moment of revelation and trust that had been built up between us, came hammering into me like a thousand major-league fastballs. The last memory, and the sharpest, was of facing each other in the hold of my brother's boat, trembling on the edge of a line we hadn't ever allowed ourselves to cross before.

“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?”

Murphy's shoulder twitched, as if her hand had been thinking about grabbing the gun from her waistband. But she took another breath before she spoke. “What's he offering for the answer?”

“Northerly Island. And before you ask, yes, including the beach.”

I blinked at that. The island over by Burnham Park Harbor wasn't exactly prime criminal territory, being mostly parks, fields, and a beach a lot of families visited—but “Gentleman” John Marcone, kingpin of Chicago's rackets and the only plain-vanilla mortal to become a signatory of the Unseelie Accords, simply did not surrender territory. Not for anything.

Murphy's eyes widened, too, and I watched her going through the same line of thought I had. Though, to be perfectly fair, I think she got to the end of that line before I did.

“If I do agree to this,” she said, her tone cautious, “it will have to pass our standard verification by Monday.”

Childs's face was a bland mask. “Done.”

Murphy nodded and looked down at the floor for a moment, evidently marshaling her thoughts. Then she said, “There isn't a simple answer.”

“There rarely is,” Childs noted.

Murphy passed a hand back over her brush cut and studied Childs. Then she said, “When she was working with Dresden, I'd have said yes, in a heartbeat, without reservation.”

Childs nodded. “And now?”

“Now . . . Dresden's gone. And she came back from Chichén Itzá changed,” Murphy said. “Maybe post-traumatic stress. Maybe something more than that. She's different.”

Childs tilted his head. “Do you
dis
trust her?”

“I don't drop my guard around her,” Murphy said. “And that's my answer.”

The bleach-blond man considered her words for a few seconds and then nodded. “I will carry it to my employer. The island will be clear of his interests by Monday.”

“Will you give me your word on that?”

“I already have.” Childs stood up, the motion a portrait of grace. If he was a mortal, he was deadly fast. Or a ballet dancer. And somehow I didn't think he had some Danskins stuffed in his suit's pockets. “I will go. Please inform me if anything of relevance comes out of the meeting.”

Murphy nodded, her hand near her gun, and watched Childs walk to the front door. Childs opened it and began to leave.

“You should know,” Murphy said quietly, “that my trust issues don't change the fact that she's one of mine. If I think for a second that the outfit has done any harm to Molly Carpenter, the arrangement is over and we segue directly to the OK Corral. Starting with you.”

Childs turned smoothly on a heel, smiling, and lifted an empty hand to mime shooting Murphy with his thumb and forefinger. He completed the turn and left the house.

Murphy came over to the window where I was standing and watched Childs walk to the black town car and get in. She didn't relax her vigilance until the car had pulled out into the snow and cruised slowly away.

Then she bowed her head, one hand against the window, and rubbed at her face with her other hand.

I stretched my arm to put my hand out to mirror hers, being careful not to touch the wards humming quietly around the house's threshold. You could have fit two or three of Murphy's hand spans into one of mine. I saw her shoulders shake once.

Then she shook her head and straightened, blinked her eyes rapidly a few times, and schooled her expression into its usual cop mask of neutrality. She turned away from me, went to the room's love seat, and curled up on one side of it. She looked tiny, with her legs bunched up against her upper body, barely more than a child—if not for the care lines on her face.

There was a quiet motion, and then a tiny grey mountain lion with a notched ear and a stump of a tail appeared and leapt smoothly up onto the love seat with Murphy. She reached out a hand and gathered the cat's furry body against hers, her fingers stroking.

Tears blurred my eyes as I saw Mister. My cat. When the vampire couple, the Eebs, had burned my old apartment down, I knew Mister had escaped the flames—but I didn't know what had happened to him after that. I'd been killed before I could go round him up. I remembered meeting the cat as a kitten, scrambling in a trash bin, skinny and near starvation. He'd been my roommate, or possibly landlord, ever since I'd come to Chicago. He was thirty pounds of feline arrogance. He was always good about showing up when I was upset, giving me the chance to lower my blood pressure by paying attention to him. I'm sure he thought it a saintly gesture of generosity.