Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

rifle from the wolfwaffen next to the first, then plunged forward into its mouth and throat, in through its nostrils, in through its ears. A second later, they came whipping out again—along with slime-covered chunks of whatever they’d happened to be able to grab while they were in there. They pulled the creature’s stomach out through its mouth, along with several feet of intestine—and then the tentacles whipped said loops of flesh around the wolfwaffen’s neck and strangled it.

It got considerably less cheerful and humane from there.

Snarls, then screams, filled the steep little opening in the cliff wall. Ghosts, twisted into monstrous forms by decades of hollow, mindless hunger, fell upon the wolfwaffen in our way, uttering howls and squeals and clicks and screams, filling the air with a nightmare cacophony that left me slamming my palms up over my ears and biting down on a scream of pain.

The enemy fought at first, and those who did died swiftly. As more and more hideous things dealt with the wolfwaffen, their morale faltered and they began to run. Those that did died horribly. And, toward the end, overwhelmed by terror, a handful of the enemy could only stand, staring in horror, and screaming high and piteously.

Those last few died indescribably.

Ghosts don’t get hungry, I reminded myself. Dead men don’t eat. So there was no reason whatsoever that I should throw up. The thought was hilarious for some reason, so I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. I laughed and laughed, even as I realized that I couldn’t just sit there—not having turned loose an elemental force of horror like the Lecters.

“Come on!” I said, giggling. “Come on, before they get out of earshot.” I staggered up and climbed the slope, Sir Stuart and the protector spirits following along behind me. It wasn’t an easy climb. The Lecter Specters had left a lot of the wolfwaffen partly alive, or at least had left some of their parts alive, and blood and worse fluids were everywhere. The fortunate few, the fighters who had gone down fast, had become nothing but buckets of slimy ectoplasm.

Any way you looked at it, the climb was a messy, nauseating, dangerous one. But it was a whole heck of a lot less dangerous than if we’d been getting shot at the whole way.

I reached the top of the slope and looked across the long network of trenches that ran outside the bunkers, along the top of the cliff. There was intermittent gunfire. There were intermittent screams. As I watched, I saw a frantic, panicked wolfwaffen clamber out of the trench. It got about three-quarters of the way out before what looked like a slimy yellow tongue shot out of the trench, from below my line of sight, and plunged into its back—and out its chest. The impaling tongue then wrapped around the howling wolfwaffen and pulled it back into the trench with so much force that a puff of dust and dirt billowed out from wherever he impacted.

“Hell’s bells,” I giggled. “Hell’s bells. That’s hideous.”

Sir Stuart nodded grimly. He made a gesture. Protector spirits began putting the nearby, hideously mangled wolfwaffen out of their misery.

I swatted myself firmly on the cheek and forced the laughter back. I felt myself trying to scream in horror once the laughter was damped down. The demonic servitors Evil Bob had put in position had probably been some very nasty customers. They had probably deserved a violent death.

But there are things you just don’t do, things you just can’t see, and still be both human and sane.

I forced the incipient screams away, too. It took me a minute or two to get it done. When I looked up, Sir Stuart was facing me, his eyes sad, concerned, and empathetic. He knew what I was feeling. He’d known it himself—which probably stood to reason, as the commander, more or less, of the criminal psych ward of Chicago’s ghosts.

“My fault,” I said. My voice sounded dull. My tongue felt like it had been coated in lead. “I told the Lecters not to stop until they were all down.”

The big shade nodded gravely.

“Follow them,” I said. “Make sure any of the enemy who is left is given a clean death. Then round them up and come back to me.”

Sir Stuart nodded. He looked at the protector spirits. Then they all moved out at the same time, going both directions up and down the cliff.

I leaned on my staff and rested. Holding that shield had taken a