Grave Peril

No spirit could have that kind of knowledge without it translating into considerable power. So why was he acting so scared?

"Bob, I don’t know why you’re so upset, but we need to stop wasting time. Sundown’s coming in a few hours, and this thing is going to be able to cross over from the Nevernever and hurt someone else. I need to know what it is, and where it might be going, and how to kick its ass."

"You humans," Bob said. "You’re never satisfied. You always want to find out what’s behind the next hill, open the next box. Harry, you’ve got to learn when you know too much."

I stared up at him for a moment, then shook my head. "We’ll start with basics and work our way through this step by step."

"Dammit, Harry."

"Ghosts," I said. "Ghosts are beings that live in the spirit world. They’re impressions left by a personality at the moment of death. They aren’t like people, or sentient spirits like you. They don’t change, they don’t grow – they’re just there, experiencing whatever it is they were feeling when they died. Like poor Agatha Hagglethorn. She was loopy."

The skull turned its eye sockets away from me and said nothing.

"So, they’re spirit-beings. Usually, they aren’t visible, but they can make a body out of ectoplasm and manifest in the real world when they want to, if they’re strong enough. And sometimes, they can just barely have any physical existence at all – just kind of exist as a cold spot, or a breath of wind, or maybe a sound. Right?"

"Give it up, Harry," Bob said. "I’m not talking."

"They can do all kinds of things. They can throw things around and stack furniture. There have been documented incidents of ghosts blotting out the sun for a while, causing minor earthquakes, all sorts of stuff – but it isn’t ever random. There’s always some purpose to it, something related to their deaths."

Bob quivered, about to add something, but clacked his bony teeth shut again. I ginned at him. It was a puzzle. No spirit of intellect could resist a puzzle.

"So, if someone leaves a strong enough imprint when they go, you got yourself a strong ghost. I mean, badass. Maybe like this Nightmare."

"Maybe," Bob admitted, grudgingly, then spun his skull to face wholly away from me. "I’m still not talking to you, Harry."

I drummed my pencil on the blank piece of paper. "Okay. We know that this thing is stirring up the boundary between here and the Nevernever. It’s making it easier for spirits to come across, and that’s why things have been so busy, lately."

"Not necessarily," Bob chirped up. "Maybe you’re looking at it from the wrong angle."

"Eh?" I asked.

He spun to face me again, eyelights glowing, voice enthusiastic. "Someone else has been stirring these spirits, Harry. Maybe they started torturing them in order to make them jump around in the pool and start causing waves."

There was a thought. "You mean, prodding the big spirits into moving so that they create the turbulence."

"Exactly," Bob said, nodding. Then he caught himself, mouth still open. He turned the skull toward the wall and started banging the bony forehead against it. "I am such an idiot."

"Stirring up the Nevernever," I said thoughtfully. "But who would do that? And why?"

"You got me. Big mystery. We’ll never know. Time for a beer."

"Stirring up the Nevernever makes it easier for something to cross over," I said. "So … whoever laid out those torture spells must have wanted to pave the way for something." I thought of dead animals and smashed cars. "Something big." I thought of Micky Malone, quivering and mad. "And it’s getting stronger."

Bob looked at me again, and then sighed. "All right," he said. "Gods, do you ever give up, Harry?"

"Never."

"Then I might as well help you. You don’t know what you’re dealing with, here. And if you walk into this with your eyes closed, you’re going to be dead before the sun rises."

Chapter Fifteen

"Dead before the sun rises," I said. "Stars, Bob, why don’t you just go all the way over the melodramatic edge and tell me that I’m going to be sleeping with the fishes?"

"I’m not sure that much of you would be left," Bob said, seriously. "Harry, look at this thing. Look at what it’s done. It crossed a threshold."

"So what?" I asked. "Lots of things can. Remember that toad demon? It came over my threshold and trashed my whole place."

"In the first place, Harry," Bob said, "you’re a bachelor. You don’t have all that much of a threshold to begin with. This Malone, though – he was a family man."

"So?"

"So it means his home has a lot more significance. Besides which – the toad demon came in and everything after that was pure physical interaction. It smashed things, it spat out acid saliva, that kind of thing. It didn’t try to wrench your soul apart or enchant you into a magical sleep."

"This is getting to be a pretty fine distinction, Bob."

"It is. Did you ask for an invitation before you went into the Malone’s house?"

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I did. It’s polite, and – "

"And it’s harder for you to work magic in a home you haven’t been invited into. You cross the threshold without an invitation, and you leave a big chunk of your power at the door. It doesn’t affect you as much because you’re a mortal, Harry, but it still gets you in smaller ways."

"And if I was an all-spirit creature," I said.

Bob nodded. "It hits you harder. If this Nightmare is a ghost, like you say, then the threshold should have stopped it cold – and even if it had gone past it, then it shouldn’t have had the kind of power it takes to hurt a mortal that badly."

I frowned, drumming my pencil some more, and made some notes on the paper, trying to keep everything straight. "And certainly not enough to lay out a spell that powerful on Malone."

"Definitely."

"So what could do that, Bob? What are we dealing with, here?"

Bob’s eyes shifted restlessly around the room. "It could be a couple of things from the spirit world. Are you sure you want to know?" I glared at him. "All right, all right. It could be something big enough. Something so big that even a fraction of it was enough to attack Malone and lay that spell on him. Maybe a god someone’s dug up. Hecate, Kali, or one of the Old Ones."

"No," I said, flatly. "Bob, if this thing was so tough, it wouldn’t be tearing up people’s cars and ripping kitty cats apart. That’s not my idea of a godlike evil. That’s just pissed off."