shut on a broken man.
As for me, I couldn’t emerge from the old factory into the light. I had to stay in shadowed doorways to watch the proceedings. The afternoon must have been a warm one. The snow had visibly begun to lessen, and water ran and dripped everywhere.
When everyone with immediate medical needs had been taken care of, I went back to where I knew Butters would be. Sure enough, he came into the business entryway to recover his duffel bag and the flashlight containing Bob’s skull.
Butters slung the bag’s strap over his shoulder and pulled the little spirit radio out of it. He dropped that in his pocket and took out the flashlight housing. Then he held it up and said, “Okay, job’s done.”
Orange campfire lights shot in a stream over my right shoulder and past me into the eye sockets of the skull, where they took up their familiar glow. “See? I told you so.”
“Duly noted,” Butters said seriously.
I blinked at him and looked behind me, then back at the skull. “Bob. You were behind me that whole time?”
“Yeah,” Bob said. “The nerd had me shadow you. Sorry, Harry.”
Butters could see me, and I folded my arms and scowled at him. “You didn’t trust me.”
Butters pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Trust, but verify,” he said seriously. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Harry, but the testimony of a cat and a maybe-insane girl—wizard or not—didn’t exactly thrill all of us with its undeniable veracity.”
“Murphy told you to do it,” I said.
“Actually, Murphy didn’t want any of us to take any chances dealing with you,” he replied. “Things have used your appearance to get to her before.”
I wanted to say something heated and ferocious, but all I could have rationally responded with was something like, You’re right. And that wouldn’t have sounded very rational. So I just grunted.
Butters nodded. “And you’ve got to understand how bad the streets have been. The Fomor have no limits, Harry. They’ll use women, children, pets—anything—to get an emotional lever on you, if they can. To fight that, you’ve got to have buckets and buckets of sangfroid.”
I grunted and scowled some more. “But you bucked her orders.”
Butters scratched his nose with one finger. “Well. You know. It sounds cooler if I say I acted on my own initiative. I had a hunch.”
“Listen to Quincy here,” the skull burbled, giggling. “You had me, you dope.”
“I had you,” Butters admitted. “And I trust you.”
“And Murphy doesn’t, much,” Bob said with cheery pride, “which is probably smart. Someone else gets hold of my skull and who knows what they’d do with me? I am a loose cannon! The Wardens would waste me in a hot second!”
“Present company excluded,” I said.
“You don’t count,” the skull said stoutly. “You were drafted.”
“Granted.”
“The point being that I am an outlaw! And chicks love that!”
“Oy,” Butters said, rolling his eyes. “Enough, Bob.”
“You got it, hombre,” Bob said.
I couldn’t help laughing a little.
“You see what I’ve got to live with,” Butters said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You, uh,” he said. He rubbed at the back of his head. “You’re missed, here, Harry. A lot. After a while, most of us . . . you know. We figured you were gone. We kind of had a wake at your grave. Pizza and beer. Called it a funeral. But Murphy wouldn’t go.”
“Illegal gathering,” I said.
Butters snorted out a breath through his nose. “That was her excuse, yeah.”
“Well,” I said. “We’ll see.”
Butters paused, body motionless for a moment. “We’ll see what?”
“Whether or not this is permanent,” I said, gesturing at myself.
Butters snapped up straight. “What?”
“Bob thinks that there is hinkiness afoot with regard to my, ah, disposition.”
“You . . . you could come back?” Butters whispered.
“Or maybe I haven’t left,” I said. “I don’t know, man. I got suckered into this whole encore-appearance thing. I’m as in the dark as everyone else.”
“Wow,” Butters breathed.
I waved a hand. “Look. That will fall out where it may,” I said. “We’ve got a real problem to deal with, like, right now.”
He nodded, one sharp gesture. “Tell me.”
I told him about the Corpsetaker and her plan for Mort, and her deal with the point guy of the Fomor’s servitors. “So we’ve got to break that up right the hell now,” I concluded. “I want you to get Murphy and her Vikings and tell them to go stomp the Corpsetaker’s hideout.”
Butters sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Ugh. I know there hasn’t been time for a lot of chitchat since