Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

of the cold water.

I spat, regained my balance, and got my bearings. I was maybe ten yards away from a pebble beach. The light was grey and somehow oppressive. The beach rose a couple of feet from the water across maybe two or three hundred yards, then ran right up onto the feet of a granite cliff.

There were . . . things, littering the beach. Imagine a jack from the children’s game. Now imagine it had babies with a porcupine the size of a dump truck. That was what lurked there: some kind of massive, lethargic-looking beasts, their bodies mostly dug into the ground. Each projected several enormous, bladelike spines seven or eight feet long in several directions from its hump of a body—along with hundreds of other spines about a quarter that size. They were scattered in a vaguely ordered pattern all across the beach between us and the cliffs, their sides heaving gently as they breathed.

My eyes tracked on the cliffs, to squat, ugly, blocky-looking structures at their summit. There were narrow slits carved in their fronts. In a couple of spots along the cliff face, the stone had collapsed into a very steep gradient. A particularly agile monkey might be able to make his way up to the top. All of those spots were covered in razor wire and surrounded by fortified positions that would make an ascension a particularly nerve-racking form of suicide.

A cool wind that smelled of rotten meat fluttered across the pebbles and sand, and it carried a bloodred banner mounted above the structures out to the side, displaying a black swastika within a white circle. I stared at it blankly for half a second while another wave hit me in the back and threatened my balance. Then it struck me where I’d seen this before: the first act of Saving Private Ryan.

“Oh, crap,” I breathed.

This was the Nevernever, the spirit world, and beings of powerful mind and will could reshape the world to their liking. Evil Bob had been the part of Bob the Skull, which had been in the service of this jerk named Kemmler, who had apparently been killed for good sometime during World War II. Evil Bob had been working with a theme when he designed defenses to his patron’s base of operations.

There were flashes of light from the firing slits in the bunkers at the top of the cliffs. Bullets that shone faintly scarlet hammered into the beach at the water’s edge and then tracked toward us. The hiss-splat of impact got to us a second before the chattering thump of the guns.

“Get behind me!” I shouted to the spook squad. I heard them splashing through the water in immediate obedience.

Right. As long as I was a spirit in the spirit world, I might as well take advantage of it. Since I didn’t really have my old duster, even though I’d been wearing it ever since Carmichael pulled me up off the tracks, I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t have my shield bracelet, either. I focused on my left wrist without actually looking at it, exerted my will, and then shook my arm in the old, familiar gesture that would make sure the bracelet was clear of the sleeve of my duster. When I did, I felt its slight, familiar weight as it dropped down—a chain, its links made of several braided metals and festooned with dangling charms in the shape of medieval shields.

“Hah!” I muttered, and began to run my will into it to bring up a shield.

A heavy weight hit me and sent me to one side. I hit the cold water and went under.

Glowing red energy masquerading as bullets smashed through the water where I’d just been standing. I came up out of the water, sputtering, and saw one of the projectiles slam into a protector ghost who had been behind me. The round impacted as if upon a living body, apart from one detail: There was no blood. Instead, it tore away a section of the spirit’s arm and sent a spray of clear ectoplasm splattering out of him. He barely reacted, pausing to glance at his arm as if puzzled.

The next round tore away the largest part of his head, and the spirit simply dissolved into more transparent ectoplasmic jelly that was swallowed by the sea.

Sir Stuart’s shade helped me get back on my feet as a second stream of projectiles strafed through the spook squad, sending ghosts diving and scrambling for