Ghost Story (The Dresden Files 13)

gentle kiss on them. “You’re one hell of a woman, Molly,” I said. “Thank you.”

She shivered. Then she said, “How do you want to do it?”

“Bring me a phone,” I said. “Need to make a call. You stay out of it. It’ll be better if you don’t know.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then?”

“Then you come back in here. You put me to sleep. You take the memory of this conversation and the phone call out of my head.”

“How?” she asked. “If I leave any obvious holes, it could hurt you—and it might be visible to something as powerful as Mab.”

I thought about it for a moment and said, “I nodded off in the van on the way here. Set it up so that I was never awake once I was here, until I wake up after.”

She thought about it and said, “It could work. If I do it slowly enough, it might not leave a ripple.”

“Do it like that, then.”

She stood up. She walked over to a battered old wooden cabinet on the wall and opened it. Among other things, there was an old, freestanding rotary phone inside it, attached to a long extension cord, a makeshift line that Forthill had run through the drywall from the next room. She brought the phone to me and set it carefully on my chest. Then she walked to the similarly battered old wooden door.

“You realize,” she said, “that I could change this, Harry. Could find out who you were using to kill yourself. I could take it right out of your head and call them off. You’d never know.”

“You could do that,” I said, quietly. “And I feel like an utter bastard for asking this of you, grasshopper. But I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

“You should call Thomas,” she said. “He deserves the truth.”

Thomas. My brother. My family. He’d be one of little Maggie’s only blood relations once I was gone. And Molly was right. He did deserve the truth.

“No,” I said, barely louder than a whisper. “Tell him later, if you want. After. If you tell him before that, he won’t stand for it. He’ll try to stop it.”

“And maybe he’d be right to do it.”

“No,” I said quietly. “He wouldn’t. But he’d do it anyway. This is my choice, Molls.”

She turned to go and paused. “You’ve never called me Molls before today.”

“Was saving it,” I said. “For when you weren’t my apprentice anymore. Wanted to try it out.”

She smiled at me. She shed one more tear.

Then she left.

It took me a moment to gather myself. Then I dialed an international number on the rotary phone.

“Kincaid,” answered a flat voice.

“It’s Dresden,” I said.

The voice warmed very slightly. “Harry. What’s up?”

I took a deep breath. “You owe me a favor,” I said quietly. “For that thing with Ivy on the island.”

“Damn right,” he said.

“I’m calling it in.”

“Okay,” he said. “You want some backup on something?”

“I have a target for you.”

There was a silence from the other end of the phone. Then he said, “Tell me.”

“The new Winter Knight,” I said.

“There’s a new one?”

“There’s going to be,” I said.

“How do you . . .” More silence. Then he said, “It’s like that.”

“There’s a good reason,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“There’s a little girl.”

More silence. “You’ll know it’s coming.”

“No,” I said. “I won’t. I’ll see to it.”

“Okay,” he said. “When?”

They were going to kill my daughter sometime before the next sunrise. I figured it might take me some time to get her home, assuming I didn’t die trying.

“Anytime after noon tomorrow,” I said. “The sooner, the better.”

“Okay.”

“You can find me?”

“Yeah.”

“Be sure,” I said.

“I pay my debts.”

I sighed again. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He let out a soft chuckle. “Thanking me,” he said. “That’s new.”

He hung up. I did the same. Then I called for Molly.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

Molly took the phone and put it back in the cabinet. Then she picked up a slender, new white candle in a holder and a small box of matches. She came over and set the candle on a folding table nearby, where I could see it without moving my head. She struck a match and lit it.

“All right,” she said. “Harry, this has to be a smooth, gentle job. So focus on the candle. I need you to still your mind so that I can work.”

It felt odd, letting the grasshopper take the lead—but I guess that was what I’d been training her to do. I focused on the candle and began to quiet my thoughts.

“Good,” Molly said quietly after a moment,