Ghost Story by Jim Butcher Page A

out from under it as it went. It fell. I started kicking it as hard as I could, screaming, driving my toe into its ribs and back, then switching to move in and stomp at its head with the heel of my heavy hiking boot. I did not let up, not even for a second. If this thing could pull out more magic, it would deal with me as easily as it had Sir Stuart. So I focused on trying to crush the enemy’s skull and kept kicking.
    â€œHelp me!” snarled the Grey Ghost.
    There was a flash of blue light, and what felt like a wrecking ball made from foam-rubber mattresses smashed into my chest. It threw me back completely through the car again (Hell’s bells, ow !) and I landed on my back with stars in front of my eyes, unable to remember how to inhale.
    A nearby wraith turned its empty-eyed head toward me, and a surge of fear sent me scrambling to my feet. I got up in time to see the Grey Ghost rising as well, and those burning green-white eyes met mine.
    In the air behind the ghost floated . . . a skull.
    A skull with cold blue flames flickering in its empty eye sockets.
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered. “Bob?”
    â€œYou!” the ghost hissed. Its hands formed into arching clawlike shapes, and it hissed in rage—and in fear.
    Click-clack, went the hammer of Sir Stuart’s gun.
    The Grey Ghost let out a scream of frustration and simply flew apart into thousands of tiny wisps of mist, taking the floating skull along with it. The wisps swarmed together into a vortex like a miniature tornado, and streaked down the road and out of sight, leaving a hundred voices screaming a hundred curses in its wake.
    I looked around. The lasts of the wraiths were dying or had fled. The house’s defenders, most of them wounded and bleeding pale ectoplasm and flickering memory, were still in their positions. Sir Stuart was holding one hand to his side, and with the other held the pistol pointed at the empty air where the Grey Ghost had been.
    â€œAhhhh,” he said, sagging, once it became clear that the fight was over. “Bloody hell. That’s going to leave a mark.”
    I moved to his side. “Are you okay, man?”
    â€œAye, lad. Aye. What the hell were you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”
    I glowered at him and said, “You’re welcome. Glad I could help.”
    â€œYou nearly got yourself destroyed,” he replied. “Another second and that creature would have blasted you to bits.”
    â€œAnother second and you’d have put a bullet in its head,” I said.
    Sir Stuart idly pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a flash of sparks as flint struck steel . . . and nothing happened.
    â€œYou were bluffing ?” I asked.
    â€œAye,” Sir Stuart said. “’Tis a muzzle-loading pistol, boy. You have to reload them like a proper weapon.” Idly, he reached out a hand toward the last remnants of a deceased wraith, and flickers of light and memory flowed across the intervening space and into his fingertips. When he had it all back, Sir Stuart sighed and shook his head, seeming to recover a measure of strength. “Very well, then, lad. Help me up.”
    I did so. Sir Stuart’s midsection on the right side was considerably more translucent than before, and he moved as if it pained him.
    â€œWhen will they be back?” I asked him.
    â€œTomorrow night, by my reckoning,” he said. “With more. Last night they had four lemurs along. Tonight it was six. And that seventh . . .” He shook his head and started reloading the pistol from the powder horn he carried on a baldric at his side. “I knew something stronger had to be gathering all those shades together, but I never considered a sorcerer.” He finished reloading the weapon, put the ramrod back into its holder, and said, “Pass me my ax, boy.”
    I got it for him and handed it over. He slipped its handle through a ring