Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

a slow breath. He Who Walks Behind.

It was only now, looking back at my crystalline memories and applying what I’d learned during my adult lifetime since they happened, that I could really appreciate what had gone on that night.

The Walker had never been trying to kill me. If it had wanted to do that, it didn’t need to play with me. It could simply have appeared and executed me, the way it had poor Stan at the gas station. It had been trying to push me, to shape me into something dangerous—like maybe a weapon.

Like maybe the same way Justin had.

I had always assumed that Justin had controlled He Who Walks Behind, that my old master had sent him after me when I fled. But what if I’d been a flipping idiot? What if their relationship had worked the other way around? What if Justin, who had betrayed me, had similarly been backstabbed by his own inhuman mentor, when the creature had, in essence, prepared me to destroy Justin?

“Lotta really scary symmetry there,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Bob said, still serious. “You are in a scary place, Harry.” He took a deep breath. “And . . . it gets worse.”

“Worse? How?”

“It’s just a theory,” he said, “because this isn’t my bag. But look. There’s flesh and there’s spirit, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Mortals have both, right there together, along with the soul.”

“I thought it was the same thing. Soul, spirit.”

“Um,” Bob said. “Complicated. Think of your spirit-self as a seed. Your soul is the earth it grows in. You need both when you die. The way I’ve heard it . . . they sort of blend together to become something new. It’s a caterpillar-butterfly thing.”

“Okay,” I said. “How does that make it worse?”

“You, here, now, aren’t a spirit,” Bob said. “You aren’t a real ghost. You . . . You’re just running around in your freaking soul, man. I mean, for practical purposes, it’s the same thing, but . . .”

“But what?”

“But if something happens to you here, now . . . it’s for keeps. I mean . . . forever. You could capital-E End, man. Spin right off the wheel altogether. Or worse.”

I swallowed. I mean, I realized that I’d been in a serious situation all the way down the line, but not one that could potentially be described using words like eternal. Joy.

Bob shook his head. “I didn’t think it was possible for them to do that to you. According to what I’ve heard, your soul’s your own. I’d have thought you would have to walk into something like this willingly, but . . .”

I held up the heel of my hand and butted my forehead against it in steady rhythm.

“Oh, Harry,” Bob said, his voice profoundly disappointed. “You didn’t.”

“They didn’t explain it exactly the way you did,” I said. “Not in so many words.”

“But they gave you a choice?”

Captain Murphy had done exactly that. It had been phrased in such a way that I hadn’t really had much of a choice, but I’d had a choice. “Yeah.”

“And you chose to hazard your eternal soul? Even though you get all worked up about that sort of thing.”

“It . . . wasn’t phrased quite like that . . .” I began. Only it really had been. Jack had warned me that I might be trapped forever, hadn’t he? “Or . . . well. Um. Yeah. I guess technically I did.”

“Well,” Bob said. He cleared his throat. “You idiot.”

“Argh,” I said. “My head hurts.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Bob said scornfully. “You just think it should.”

I paused and reflected and saw that Bob was right. And I decided that my head hurt anyway, dammit. Just because I was a spirit or a naked soul or whatever didn’t mean I needed to start ignoring who I had been.

“Bob,” I said, lifting my head suddenly. “What does this mean? I mean, why not just let me die and move along like normal?”

Bob pursed his lips. “Um. Yeah. No clue.”

“What if . . . ?” I felt short of breath. I hardly wanted to say it. “What if I’m not . . . ?”

Bob’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oooooohhhhhhhh. Uriel’s people—Murphy’s dad and so on—did they say anything about your body?”

“That it wasn’t available,” I said.

“But not that it was gone?” Bob pressed.

“No,” I said. “They . . . they didn’t say that.”

“Wow,” Bob said, eyes wide.

Mine probably were, too. “What do I do?”

“How the hell should I know, man?” Bob asked. “I’ve never had a soul or a body.