Ghost Story (The Dresden Files #13) - Jim Butcher Page 0,87

veil, was standing precisely where she had been at the beginning of the altercation. She hadn’t moved a muscle. Her hands were extended at her sides, fingers twitching, and her face was still and expressionless, her eyes shifted out of focus. She was running a puppet show, and the illusions were her marionettes, dancing on strings of thought and will.

The illusionary versions of Molly were very slightly transparent and grainy, like I remembered movies being when I was a kid. The motorcycle had never moved from where it was parked—an illusion had flown through the air, and a short-term veil was now hiding the bike.

The turtlenecks, though, weren’t going to be shut down by half a dozen young women, even if they had just appeared out of nowhere and apparently were possessed of weapons and superhuman strength. At barked orders from their leader, they came bounding over parked cars and mounds of snow in teams of five, moving with the light, lithe grace rarely seen outside of the Olympics and martial arts movies. They advanced with the kind of frighteningly focused purpose you see only in veterans. These men knew how to survive a battle: Kill before you are killed.

If even one of them closed in on Molly, it was over.

I thought of what it might be like to watch my apprentice die with my Sight open, and almost started gibbering. If that happened, if I saw that horror with eyes that would make sure I could never, ever forget it or distance myself from it, there wouldn’t be anything left of me. Except guilt. And rage.

I shut away my Sight.

“It must be difficult,” said my godmother, standing suddenly beside me, “to watch something like this without being able to affect the outcome.”

“Glah!” I said, or something close to it, jumping a few inches to one side out of sheer nerves. “Stars and stones, Lea,” I said between my gritted teeth a moment later. “You can see me?”

“But of course, Sir Knight,” she replied, green eyes sparkling. “My duty to oversee my godson’s spiritual growth and development would be entirely futile could I not perceive and speak to a spirit such as thee.”

“You knew I was there a moment ago. Didn’t you?”

Her laugh was a bright, wicked sound. “Your grasp of the obvious remains substantial—even though you do not.”

A curtain of green-blue fire about seven feet high sprang up and swept rapidly across the width of the parking lot, between the position of the various Mollys and the turtlenecks. The flames emitted eerie shrieking sounds, and the faces of hideous beings danced about inside them.

I just blinked. Holy crap.

I hadn’t taught the kid that.

“Tsk,” Lea said, watching the scene. “She has an able mind, but she is filled with the passions of youth. She rushes to her finale without building anything like the tension required for something so . . . overt . . . to prove effective.”

I wasn’t sure what my godmother was talking about, but I didn’t have time to try to pry an explanation out of her. . . .

Except that I did.

I mean, what else was I going to do, right?

“Whatever do you mean?” I replied in a polite tone. I almost managed not to grit my teeth.

“Such an”—her mouth twisted in distaste—“overt and vulgar display as that wall of fire is worthy only of frightening children or appearing in something produced by Hollywood. It might yield a short-lived panic reaction, if built up and timed properly, but it is otherwise useless. And, of course, in very bad taste.” She shook her head in disapproval. “True terror is much more subtle.”

I gave my godmother a sharp look. “What?”

“Veils are of limited utility with snow upon the ground,” she explained. “The footprints, you see. It’s quite difficult to hide so many individual disruptions of the environment. Thus, she must work in another medium to survive.”

“Stop this. You’re going to get her killed,” I said.

“Oh, child,” the Leanansidhe said, smiling. “I’ve been doing this for a very long time. All teaching involves an element of risk.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and look at what happened to your last student.”

Her eyes glinted. “Yes. From nothing more than a terrified child, in a mere score of years he grew into a weapon that all but utterly destroyed a world power. The Red Court lies in ruins because of my student. And it was, in part, my hand that shaped him.”

I clenched my teeth harder. “And you want to do the same thing