His image shimmered, and he yelled his frustration. I couldn’t make out the words, but the epithets that formed on his lips were easy enough to figure.
“It’s rude to insult someone in their own House,” I said, and moved in for a punch. He blocked my arm with his, putting enough momentum into it to send me flying.
I soared backward, hit a wine rack with bone-shaking force. Bottles fell around me as I bounced onto the concrete. I pushed back tears triggered automatically by the sharp pain in my ribs and the slivers of glass that peppered my skin.
I started to climb to my feet, then yelped as sparks suddenly fired inches from my face.
I looked up fast. The ghost, arms outstretched, had nearly reached me, but a fireball from Catcher had sent him skittering across the room. The fireball hit the brick wall before bouncing and shattering into sparks. Those sparks in turn hit the spilled wine, sending small blue flames into the air.
“Wine!” I said, stomping out sparks to extinguish them. “Flammable!”
“Ghost!” Catcher countered, hurrying to join me so we could face the ghost side by side. “Preparing to strangle you.”
“High creep factor.”
“Inarguable.”
The ghost came back fast, ignoring Catcher and aiming directly for me. I waited for the right moment, trying to time the attack perfectly. When he reached out, I dodged to the side, used a back kick to push him hard against the brick wall. But he was faster than I’d anticipated.
He grabbed my leg—fingers like icicles, the chill so strong they burned like fire—and pulled. Cold snaked up my leg, leaving numbness behind. He yanked me off balance, putting both of us on the floor in a tumble, and still didn’t let go. Now he was too close for Catcher to get a shot.
I ignored the tingling pain and kicked out with my free foot, nailing him in the knee and sending a shock of cold up my other leg. He roared another round of cursing, and this time I caught snippets of his insults, which were as old-fashioned as his clothes. This was a man from another era, and time had done nothing to abate his fury.
Maybe I could use that. “You’re a buffoon in an awkward suit! We don’t need your jiggery-pokery here!”
The ghost’s image jerked, as did his expression. And that hiccup was enough to allow me to escape his grip. I kicked free, climbed to my heavy and numb feet, and scrambled away.
“That your attempt at period-appropriate insults?” Catcher asked when I reached him.
“Yep. Did I pull it off?”
“You did not,” Catcher said good-naturedly, the buzz around him increasing as he gathered magic for another throw. “So let’s meet magic with magic.”
Enraged again, the ghost moved forward. But Catcher bided his time.
“Wait for it,” he said quietly as I clenched my fists beside him, preparing for a strike.
Catcher waited until the ghost was only a foot from us, and we could all but see the fury boiling in his eyes. Catcher drew the magic into his hand, fashioning a glowing blue orb. But instead of throwing it, he shoved it at the ghost, the muscles in his arms taut and shaking as he pushed the power into the apparition’s chest.
The ghost screamed and staggered back into the middle of the room. Blue and white light—Catcher’s magic mixed with his—burst from his body. The lines and shadows that made up his form splintered like jagged glass, and he shattered into the air like fireworks, the sparks fading to yellow as they floated to the floor, then disappeared.
The buzz of magic dissipated, as did the unnatural chill. But we waited a solid minute in the warming silence, just in case.
“I think he’s gone,” Catcher said.
Breath heaving, my skin slicked with sweat despite the cold, I looked at Catcher, checking visually for bumps, bruises, lacerations. He was streaked with magical char and brick dust, but he looked otherwise whole.
“I’m all right,” he confirmed. “You?”
“Leg is freezing. But I’ll hold.” We were the only ones left in the tunnel. “Everyone else made it out. Is he gone gone?” I asked. “Or just gone?”
“I doubt he’s gone gone, to use your technical phrasing. My magic would have dispersed his energy, but that’s probably just temporary.” He glanced over my shoulder. “And you might have another, more immediate problem.”
I followed the line of his gaze.
Half of Ethan’s wine racks were on the ground, bottles smashed. Wine dripped from the shelves, poured across the floor in mulberry rivulets, was splattered across the walls. The air was heavy with the scent of very expensive and wasted alcohol.
“On the upside,” Catcher said, putting a hand on my shoulder, “I think you got your money’s worth from the investigators. They definitely found a ghost.”