Ghost Story by Jim Butcher Read Free Book Online Page A

are they?”
    â€œLemurs,” he said, with the Latin pronunciation: Lay- moors . “Shades who have set themselves against Providence and have given themselves over to malice and rage. They do not know pity, nor restraint, nor . . .”
    â€œFear?” I guessed. “They always never know fear.”
    Sir Stuart glanced over his shoulder and bounced his long-handled ax against his palm, his mouth turned up into an edged, wolfish grin. “Nay, lad. Perhaps they were innocent of it once. But they proved quick learners when they raised their hands against this house.” He turned back to face the street and called out, “Positions!”
    The spirits who had come along behind us flowed around and over us and—though I twitched when I saw it—beneath us. Within seconds, they were spread into a defensive line in the shape of a half dome between the house and the gathered wraiths and lemurs. Then those silent forms stood steady, whether their feet were planted on the ground or in thin air or somewhere just below the ground, and faced the small horde with their weapons in hand.
    The tension continued to build, and the seething, agonized gasps of the wraiths grew louder.
    â€œUm,” I said, as my heart started picking up the pace. “What do I do?”
    â€œNothing,” Sir Stuart replied, his attention now focused forward. “Just stay near me and out of my way.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI can see you were a fighter, boy,” Stuart said, his voice harsh. “But now you’re a child. You’ve neither the knowledge nor the tools you need to survive.” He turned and gave me a ferocious glare, and an unseen force literally pushed my feet back across five or six inches of porch. Holy crap. Stuart might not be a wizard, but obviously I had a thing or two to learn about how a formidable will translated to power on the spooky side of the street.
    â€œStay close to me,” the marine said. “And shut it.”
    I swallowed, and Sir Stuart turned back to the front.
    â€œYou don’t have to be a dick about it,” I muttered. Very quietly.
    It bothered me that he was right. Without Sir Stuart’s intervention, I’d have been dead again already.
    That’s right—you heard me: dead again already.
    I mean, come on . How screwed up is your life (after- or otherwise) when you find yourself needing phrases like that ?
    I indulged myself in half a second of disgust that once again the universe seemed to be making an extraspecial effort to align itself against me, but it was my pride that was in critical condition. I was accustomed to being the guy who did the fighting and protecting. Fear had been fuel for the fire, meat and potatoes, when I was the one calling the shots. But now . . .
    This was terror of an alien vintage: I was helpless.
    Without warning, the air filled with whistling and ear-slashing shrieks, and the horde of wraiths washed toward us in a flash flood of strangled moans.
    â€œGive it to them, lads!” Sir Stuart bellowed, his voice rising above the cacophony of screams with the silvery clarity of a trumpet.
    Spectral gunfire roared out at once from the weapons of the hovering defenders. Again, clouds of powder smoke were replaced with bursts of colored mist. Bullets had been switched out for streaking spheres of violent radiance. Instead of the explosions of propellant and projectiles breaking the sound barrier, hammering bass-note thrums filled the air and echoed on long after a gunshot would have faded.
    A tide of destruction swept over the assaulting wraiths, distorted light and sound tearing great, ragged holes in them, filling the air with faded, warped shadow-images as their feeble memories bled into wisps of cloud that were swallowed by the night. They fell by the dozens—and there were still plenty more wraiths left to go around. Wraiths closed in with the Lindquist Historical Home Defense Society—and it