Grave Peril (The Dresden Files #3) - Jim Butcher Page 0,56

Dimly, I was aware of Mister coming along behind me. It was dark down here, dark and cold. I stumbled across the room, knocking things down left and right, to the summoning circle built into the floor. I threw myself into it, sobbing, fumbled with tingling fingers at the floor until I located the ring. Then I willed the circle closed. It struggled, resisted, and I pushed harder, forced myself on it harder, until finally I felt it snap shut around me in an invisible wall.

I curled on my side, keeping every part of myself within that circle, and wept.

Mister prowled around the circle, a rumbling, reassuring purr in his throat. Then I heard the big grey cat hop up onto the work table, and over to one of the shelves. His dim shadow curled up by the pale bone of the skull. Orange light began to glide out of his mouth, into the skull's eye sockets, until Bob's candleflame eyes blinked, and the skull turned to focus on me.

"Harry," Bob said, his voice quiet, solemn. "Harry, can you hear me?"

Shaking, I looked up, desperately grateful to hear a familiar voice.

"Harry," Bob said gently. "I saw it, Harry. I think I know what went after Malone and the others. I think I know how it did it. I tried to help you, but you wouldn't wake up."

My mind whirled, confused. "What?" I asked. My voice came out a whimper. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry, Harry." The skull paused, and though its expression couldn't really change, it somehow looked troubled. "I think I know what just tried to eat you."

Chapter Eighteen

"Eat me," I whispered. "I don't I don't understand."

"This thing you've been chasing, I think. The Nightmare. I think it was here."

"Nightmare," I said. I lowered my head and closed my eyes. "Bob, I can't I can't think straight. What's going on?"

"Well. You came in about five hours ago drugged to the gills on vampire spit, and muttering like a madman. I think you didn't realize that I was inside Mister. Do you remember that part?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

"What happened?"

I relayed my experience with Kyle and Kelly Hamilton to Bob. Speaking seemed to help things stop spinning, my guts to settle. My heartbeat slowly eased down to something less than that of a terrified rabbit.

"Sounds weird," Bob said. "Got to be something important to make them risk going out in daylight like that. Even in a specially equipped van."

"I realize that, Bob," I said, and mopped at my face with one hand.

"You any steadier?"

"I I guess."

"I think you got torn up pretty good, spirit-wise. It's lucky you started screaming. I came as quick as I could, but you didn't want to wake up. The poison, I think."

I sat up, cross-legged, staying inside the circle. "I remember that I had a dream. God, it was a terrible dream." I felt my guts turn to water, and I started shaking again. "I tried to change it, but I wasn't ready. I couldn't."

"A dream," Bob said. "Yeah, that figures."

"Figures?" I asked.

"Sure," Bob said.

I shook my head, rested my elbows on my knees, and put my face in my hands. I did not want to be doing this. Someone else could do it. I should go, leave town. "It was a spirit that jumped me?"

"Yeah."

I shook my head. "That doesn't make any sense. How did it get past the threshold?"

"Your threshold isn't so hot to begin with, Bachelor Man."

I worked up enough courage to scowl at Bob. "The wards, then. I've got all the doors and windows warded. And I don't have any mirrors it could have used."

If Bob had any hands, he would have been rubbing them together. "Exactly," he said. "Yes, exactly."

My stomach quailed again, and a fresh burst of shuddering made me put my hands in my lap. I felt like sprawling somewhere, crying my eyes out, puking up whatever shreds of dignity remained in my stomach, and then crawling into a hole and pulling it in after me. I swallowed. "It it never came in to me, then, is what you're saying. It never had to cross those boundaries."

Bob nodded, eyes burning brightly. "Exactly. You went out to it."

"When I was dreaming?"

"Yes, yes, yes," Bob bubbled. "It makes sense nowdon't you see?"

"Not really."

"Dreams," the skull said. "When a mortal dreams, all kinds of strange things can happen. When a wizard dreams, it can be even weirder. Sometimes, dreams can be intense enough to create a little, temporary world of their own.