Grave Peril by Jim Butcher Page B

his jowls jiggling. Then he moved to the chair as though he expected chains to fly out of it and tie him down the moment he sat. He balanced his weight on the very edge of the chair, licked his lips, and watched me, probably trying to figure out the best lies for the questions he expected.
    “You know,” I said. “I’ve read your books, Morty. Ghosts of Chicago . The Spook Factor . Two or three others. You did good work, there.”
    His expression changed, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Thank you.”
    “I mean, twenty years ago, you were a pretty damn good investigator. Sensitivity to spiritual energies and apparitions—ghosts. What we call an ectomancer in the business.”
    “Yeah,” he said. His eyes softened a little, if not his voice. He avoided looking directly in my face. Most people do. “That was a long time ago.”
    I kept my voice in the same tone, the same expression. “And now what? You run séances for people. How many times do you actually get to contact a spirit? One time in ten? One in twenty? Must be a real letdown from the actual stuff. Playacting, I mean.”
    He was good at covering his expressions—I’ll give him that. But I’m used to watching people. I saw anger in the way he held his neck and shoulders. “I provide a legitimate service to people in need.”
    “No. You play on their grief to take them for all you can. You don’t believe that you’re doing right, Morty, deep down. You can justify it any way you want, but you don’t like what you’re doing. If you did, your powers wouldn’t have faded like they have.”
    His jaw set in a hard line, and he didn’t try to hide the anger anymore—the first honest reaction I’d seen out of him since he’d cried out in surprise. “If you’ve got a point, Dresden, get to it. I’ve got a plane to catch.”
    I spread my fingers over the tabletop. “In the past two weeks,” I said, “the spooks have been going mad. You should see the trouble they’ve caused. That poltergeist in the Campbell house. The Basement Beast at U. of C. Agatha Hagglethorn, down at Cook County.”
    Morty grimaced and wiped at his face again. “Yeah. I hear things. You and the Knight of the Sword have been covering the worst of it.”
    “What else has been happening, Morty? I’m getting a little cranky losing sleep, so keep it short and simple.”
    “I don’t know,” he said, sullen. “I’ve lost my powers, remember.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “But you hear things, Morty. You’ve still got some sources in the Nevernever. Why are you leaving town?”
    He laughed, and it had a shaky edge to it. “You said you read all of my books? Did you read They Shall Rise ?”
    “I glanced over it. End-of-the-world-type stuff. I figured you had been talking to the wrong kind of spirits too much. They love trying to sell people on Armageddon. A lot of them are cons like you.”
    He ignored me. “Then you read my theory on the barrier between our world and the Nevernever. That it’s slowly being torn away.”
    “And you think it’s falling to pieces, now? Morty, that wall has been there since the dawn of time. I don’t think it’s going to collapse right now.”
    “Wall.” He said the word with a sneer. “More like Saran Wrap, wizard. Like Jell-O. It bends and wiggles and stirs.” He rubbed his palms on his thighs, shivering.
    “And it’s falling now?”
    “Look around you!” he shouted. “Good God, wizard. The past two weeks, the border’s been waggling back and forth like a hooker at a dockworker’s convention. Why the hell do you think all of these ghosts have been rising?”
    I didn’t let the sudden volume of his tone make me blink. “You’re saying that this instability has been making it easier for ghosts to cross over from the Nevernever?”
    “And easier to form bigger, stronger ghosts when people die,” he said. “You think you’ve got some pissed-off ghosts now? Wait until some honor student on her way out of the south side with a