Grave Peril (The Dresden Files 3)

"Would it protect her?" Michael asked.

I shrugged. "From something as mean as this thing sounded ... I don't know. We've got to find out who this ghost was when it was alive and shut it down."

"Which still will not tell us who or what is stirring up the spirits of the city." Michael unlocked his truck, and we got inside.

"That's what I like about you, Michael. You're always thinking so positively."

He grinned at me. "Faith, Harry. God has a way of seeing to it that things fall into place."

He started driving, and I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. First off to see the psychic. Then to send Bob out to find out more about what looked to be the most dangerous ghost I'd seen in a long time. And then to keep on looking for whoever it was behind all the spooky goings-on and to rap them politely on the head until they stopped. Easy as one, two, three. Sure.

I whimpered, sunk down in my seat a little more, and wished that I had kept my aching, sore self in bed.

Chapter Ten

Mortimer Lindquist had tried to give his house that gothic feel. Greyish gargoyles stood at the corners of his roof. Black iron gates glowered at the front of his house and statuary lined the walk to his front door. Long grass had overgrown his yard. If his house hadn't been a red-roofed, white-walled stucco transplant from somewhere in southern California, it might have worked.

The results looked more like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland than an ominous abode of a speaker to the dead. The black iron gates stood surrounded by plain chain-link fence. The gargoyles, on closer inspection, proved to be plastic reproductions. The statuary, too, had the rough outlines of plaster, rather than the clean, sweeping profile of marble. You could have plopped a pink flamingo down right in the middle of the unmowed weeds, and it would have somehow matched the decor. But, I supposed, at night, with the right lighting and the right attitude, some people might have believed it.

I shook my head and lifted my hand to rap on the door.

It opened before my knuckles touched it, and a well-rounded set of shoulders below a shining, balding head backed through the doorway, grunting. I stepped to one side. The little man tugged an enormous suitcase out onto the porch, never taking notice of me, his florid face streaked with perspiration.

I sidled into the doorway as he turned to lug the bag out to the gate, muttering to himself under his breath. I shook my head and went on into the house. The door was a business entrance - there was no tingling sensation of crossing the threshold of a dwelling uninvited. The front room reminded me of the house's exterior. Lots of black curtains draped down over the walls and doorways. Red and black candles squatted all over the place. A grinning human skull leered from a bookshelf straining to contain copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica with the lettering scraped off their spines. The skull was plastic, too.

Morty had a table set up in the room, several chairs around it with a high-backed chair at the rear, wood that had actually been carved with a number of monstrous beings. I took a seat in the chair, folded my hands on the table in front of me, and waited.

The little man came back in, wiping at his face with a bandana handkerchief, sweating and panting.

"Shut the door," I said. "We need to talk, Morty."

He squealed and whirled around.

"Y-you," he stammered. "Dresden. What are you doing here?"

I stared at him. "Come in, Morty."

He came closer, but left the door open. In spite of his pudginess, he moved with the nervous energy of a spooked cat. His white business shirt showed stains beneath his arms reaching halfway to his belt. "Look, Dresden. I told you guys before - I get the rules, right? I haven been doing anything you guys talked about."

Aha. The White Council had sent someone to see him. Morty was a professional con. I hadn't planned on getting any honest answers out of him without a lot of effort. Maybe I could play this angle and save myself a lot of work.

"Let me tell you something, Morty. When I come into a place and don't say a thing except, 'Let's talk, and the first thing I hear is 'I didn't do it, it makes me think that the person I'm talking to must have done something. You know what I'm saying?"

His florid face lost several shades of red. "No way, man. Look, I've got nothing to do with what's been going on. Not my fault, none of my business, man."

"With what's been going on," I said. I looked down at my folded hands for a moment, and then back up at him. "What's the suitcase for, Morty? You do something that means you need to leave town for a while?"

He swallowed, thick neck working. "Look, Dresden. Mister Dresden. My sister got sick, see. I'm just going to help her out."

"Sure you are," I said. "That's what you're doing. Going out of town to help your sick sister."

"I swear to God," Morty said, lifting a hand, his face earnest.

I pointed at the chair across from me. "Sit down, Morty."

"I'd like to, but I got a cab coming." He turned toward the door.

"Ventas servitas," I hissed, nice and dramatic, and threw some will at the door. Sudden wind slammed it shut right in front of his eyes. He squeaked, and backed up several paces, staring at the door, then whirling to face me.

I used the remnants of the same spell to push out a chair opposite me. "Sit down, Morty. I've got a few questions. Now, if you cut the crap, you'll make your cab. And, if not ..." I left the words hanging. One thing about intimidation is that people can always think up something worse that you could do to them than you can, if you leave their imagination some room to play.

He stared at me, and swallowed again, his jowls jiggling. Then he moved to the chair as though he expected chains to fly out of it and tie him down the moment he sat. He balanced his weight on the very edge of the chair, licked his lips, and watched me, probably trying to figure out the best lies for the questions he expected.

"You know," I said. "I've read your books, Morty. Ghosts of Chicago. The Spook Factor. Two or three others. You did good work, there."

His expression changed, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Thank you."

"I mean, twenty years ago, you were a pretty damn good investigator. Sensitivity to spiritual energies and apparitions - ghosts. What we call an ectomancer in the business."

"Yeah," he said. His eyes softened a little, if not his voice. He avoided looking directly in my face. Most people do. "That was a long time ago."

I kept my voice in the same tone, the same expression. "And now what? You run seances for people. How many times do you actually get to contact a spirit? One time in ten? One in twenty? Must be a real letdown from the actual stuff. Playacting, I mean."