Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

best serve his patients, and Butters just . . . didn’t have it. The little guy couldn’t bring himself not to feel something for the people he worked with. So he had sought a career where he practiced medicine without trying to heal anyone—without involving himself with actual patients.

Aristedes had seen it, too. He probably didn’t understand it, but he saw the soft spot, and he went for it ruthlessly.

“Don’t,” I breathed. “Butters, don’t.”

“Dammit,” Butters said finally, gritting his teeth. He bent to help the man. “Hold still. You’re just making it worse. Here.” He tried to keep a wary distance as he lent the man a hand, but it just wasn’t possible to help him and stay out of reach. I saw it on his face as he realized it and began to withdraw. Then, as the man continued his low moans of pain, Butters gave his head a little shake and moved to help Aristedes straighten his leg.

I saw the sorcerer’s eyes narrow to slits, an almost sensual pleasure contained in them.

“Dammit!” I said. “Butters, move!” I vanished and appeared beside Butters, shoving my hands into his chest, willing myself to push him away.

I didn’t move him—my hands just passed into him, insubstantial—but a sudden frisson seemed to run through him, and he began to pull away.

Too late.

Aristedes’ left arm blurred and struck Butters squarely on the chin. If he hadn’t been drawing back, the blow would have caught him just under the ear, and the sorcerer’s hand was moving fast enough that it might have broken Butters’s neck. Even so, the sharp thump of impact snapped Butters’s head to one side, hard enough to rebound when it had reached maximum torsion. He did a brief bobblehead impersonation on the way to the floor and landed in a boneless heap.

I wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, I poked at my brain, demanding it to come up with something.

To my considerable surprise, it did.

I vanished straight up to the ceiling and spun in a quick circle. There. I spotted Fitz, moving in a low crawl toward one of the exits from the factory floor, keeping a modest pile of junk between himself and Aristedes.

“Fitz!” I bellowed. I vanished and reappeared right over him. “Fitz, you’ve got to turn around!”

“Quiet,” he hissed in a frantic whisper. His eyes were white around the edges. “Quiet. No, I can’t! Leave me alone!”

“You’ve got to do it,” I said. “Forthill’s here in the camp, hurt bad. There’s a freaking angel of death standing over him. He needs help.”

Fitz didn’t answer me. He kept on crawling off the factory floor and into one of the hallways outside it. He was making desperate, small sounds as he reached the door and got out of any possible line of sight to Aristedes.

“Fitz,” I said. “Fitz, you have got to do something. You’re the only one who can.”

“Cops,” he panted. “I’ll call the cops. They can handle it.” He got up and started padding down the hall, toward what I presumed was the nearest exit from the building.

“Butters and Daniel don’t have that kind of time,” I answered. “The cops get tipped off by a runaway, we’ll be lucky if a prowl car cruises by half an hour from now. All three of them could be dead by then. Your boss can’t allow witnesses.”

“You’re the wizard,” Fitz said. “Why can’t you do it? I mean, ghosts can possess people and stuff, right? Just zap into Aristedes and make him jump off the roof.”

I was quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Look, I’m new at this ghost thing. But it doesn’t work like that. Even the badass ghost of a centuries-old wizard I know of can only possess a subject who is willing. So far, I’ve only been able to move into people who were sensitive to spirits—and they could have booted me out anytime they wanted. Aristedes is neither sensitive nor willing. I’d be like a bug splattering on a windshield if I tried to take him over.”

“Christ.”

“If you want to volunteer, I could take you over, I suppose. I don’t think you’ve got the right wiring for me to use my power, and you’d still be in danger, of course, but you wouldn’t have to make the decisions.”

Fitz shuddered. “No.”

“Good. It’s weird as hell.” I paused and took a breath. “And besides. It would be . . . wrong.”

“Wrong?” Fitz asked.

“Take away someone’s will, you take away everything they are. Their whole identity. Doing that