Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

of cars.”

“Okay. Keep Mort in his car until I can identify them,” I said. “But I suspect he’s in no danger.”

“No?” the shade asked. “Know you these folk, then?”

“Dunno,” I said. “Let’s go see.”

Chapter Nine

Ten minutes later, I was humming under my breath and watching the gathering in Murphy’s living room. Sir Stuart stood beside me, his expression interested, curious.

“Beg pardon, wizard,” he said, “but what is that tune you’re trying to sing?”

I belted out the opening trumpet fanfare of the main theme and then said, in a deep and cheesy announcer’s voice, “In the great Hall of the Justice League, there are assembled the world’s four greatest heroes, created from the cosmic legends of the universe!”

Sir Stuart frowned at me. “Created from . . .”

“The cosmic legends of the universe,” I repeated, in the same voice.

Sir Stuart narrowed his eyes and turned slightly away from me, his shoulders tight. “That makes no sense. None. At all.”

“It did on Saturday mornings in the seventies, apparently,” I said. I nodded at the room beyond the window. “And we’ve got something similar going on here. Though for a Hall of the Justice League, it looks pretty small. Real estate wasn’t as expensive back then, I guess.”

“The guests assembled inside,” Sir Stuart asked. “Do you know them?”

“Most of them,” I said. Then I felt obliged to add, “Or, at least, I knew them six months ago.”

Things had changed. Murphy’s buzz cut was just a start. I started introducing Sir Stuart to the faces I knew.

Will Borden leaned against one wall, slightly behind Murphy, his muscular arms folded. He was a man of below-average height and wellabove-average build. All of it was muscle. I was used to seeing him mostly in after-work, business-casual clothing—whenever he wasn’t transformed into a huge, dark wolf, I mean. Today, he was wearing sweats and a loose top, the better for getting out of in a hurry if he wanted to change. Generally a quiet, reliable, intelligent man, Will was the leader of a local band of college kids, now all grown-up, who had learned to take on the shape of wolves. They’d called themselves the Alphas for so long that the name had stopped sounding silly in my own head when I thought it.

I wasn’t used to seeing Will playing the heavy, but he was clearly in that role. His expression was locked into something just shy of a scowl, and his dark eyes positively smoldered with pent-up aggression. He looked like a man who wanted a fight, and who would gladly jump on the first opportunity to get into one.

On the couch not far from Will, the other Alpha present was curled up into a ball in the corner, her legs up to her chest. She had straight hair the color of a mouse’s fur that hung to her chin in an even sheet all the way around, and she looked as if a strong breeze might knock her to the floor. She peered owlishly out through a pair of large eyeglasses and a curtain of hair, and I got the impression that she saw the whole room at the same time.

I hadn’t seen her in several years, but she’d been one of the original Alphas and had gotten her degree and toddled off into the vanilla world. Her name was . . . Margie? Mercy? Marci. Right. Her name was Marci.

Next to Marci sat a plump, cheerful-looking woman with blond, curly hair held sloppily in place with a couple of chopsticks, who looked a couple of years shy of qualifying to be a television grandmother. She wore a floral-print dress, and on her lap she held a dog the approximate size of a bratwurst—a Yorkshire terrier. The dog was clearly on alert, his bright, dark eyes moving from person to person around the room, but focused mostly on Marci. He was growling deep in his chest, and obviously ready to defend his owner at an instant’s notice.

“Abby,” I told Sir Stuart. “Her name’s Abby. The dog is Toto. She survived a White Court vampire who was hunting down her social circle. Small-time practitioners.”

The little dog abruptly sprang out of Abby’s arms to throw itself toward Will, but the woman moved in remarkably quick reaction and caught Toto. Except it hadn’t been remarkably quick—it had simply begun a half second before the little dog had jumped. Abby was a prescient. She couldn’t see far into the future—only a few seconds—but that was enough talent to make me