Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

familiar smack-thump of impact that immediately flashed red pain through my wrist to the elbow. The Grey Ghost reeled, and I didn’t let up. I put a couple of left hooks into its midsection, gave it one hell of an uppercut with my right hand, and drove a hard reverse punch into its neck.

I am not a skilled martial artist. But I know a little, picked up in training with Murphy and some of the other SI cops over the years at Dough Joe’s Hurricane Gym. Real fighting is only slightly about form and technique. Mostly it’s about timing, and about being willing to hurt somebody. If you know more or less when to close the distance and throw the punch, you’re most of the way there. But having the right mind-set is even more important. All the technique in the world isn’t going to help you if you come to the fight without the will to wreak havoc on the other guy.

The Grey Ghost staggered back, and I kicked one leg out from under it as it went. It fell. I started kicking it as hard as I could, screaming, driving my toe into its ribs and back, then switching to move in and stomp at its head with the heel of my heavy hiking boot. I did not let up, not even for a second. If this thing could pull out more magic, it would deal with me as easily as it had Sir Stuart. So I focused on trying to crush the enemy’s skull and kept kicking.

“Help me!” snarled the Grey Ghost.

There was a flash of blue light, and what felt like a wrecking ball made from foam-rubber mattresses smashed into my chest. It threw me back completely through the car again (Hell’s bells, ow!) and I landed on my back with stars in front of my eyes, unable to remember how to inhale.

A nearby wraith turned its empty-eyed head toward me, and a surge of fear sent me scrambling to my feet. I got up in time to see the Grey Ghost rising as well, and those burning green-white eyes met mine.

In the air behind the ghost floated . . . a skull.

A skull with cold blue flames flickering in its empty eye sockets.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered. “Bob?”

“You!” the ghost hissed. Its hands formed into arching clawlike shapes, and it hissed in rage—and in fear.

Click-clack, went the hammer of Sir Stuart’s gun.

The Grey Ghost let out a scream of frustration and simply flew apart into thousands of tiny wisps of mist, taking the floating skull along with it. The wisps swarmed together into a vortex like a miniature tornado, and streaked down the road and out of sight, leaving a hundred voices screaming a hundred curses in its wake.

I looked around. The lasts of the wraiths were dying or had fled. The house’s defenders, most of them wounded and bleeding pale ectoplasm and flickering memory, were still in their positions. Sir Stuart was holding one hand to his side, and with the other held the pistol pointed at the empty air where the Grey Ghost had been.

“Ahhhh,” he said, sagging, once it became clear that the fight was over. “Bloody hell. That’s going to leave a mark.”

I moved to his side. “Are you okay, man?”

“Aye, lad. Aye. What the hell were you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”

I glowered at him and said, “You’re welcome. Glad I could help.”

“You nearly got yourself destroyed,” he replied. “Another second and that creature would have blasted you to bits.”

“Another second and you’d have put a bullet in its head,” I said.

Sir Stuart idly pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a flash of sparks as flint struck steel . . . and nothing happened.

“You were bluffing?” I asked.

“Aye,” Sir Stuart said. “’Tis a muzzle-loading pistol, boy. You have to reload them like a proper weapon.” Idly, he reached out a hand toward the last remnants of a deceased wraith, and flickers of light and memory flowed across the intervening space and into his fingertips. When he had it all back, Sir Stuart sighed and shook his head, seeming to recover a measure of strength. “Very well, then, lad. Help me up.”

I did so. Sir Stuart’s midsection on the right side was considerably more translucent than before, and he moved as if it pained him.

“When will they be back?” I asked him.

“Tomorrow night, by my reckoning,” he said. “With more.