skills for a moment,” Mort said, somewhat stiffly. “Appreciate it.”
“Think nothing of it,” I said. “Just give me a few hours of your time. We’ll be square.”
Mort stared at me for a while. Then he said, “You’re here twenty minutes and I nearly get killed, Dresden. Jesus, don’t you get it?” He leaned forward. “I am not a crusader. I am not the sheriff of Chicago. I am not a goddamned death wish–embracing Don Quixote.” He shook his head. “I’m a coward. And I’m very comfortable with that. It’s served me well.”
“I just saved your life, man,” I said.
He sighed. “Yeah. But . . . like I said. Coward. I can’t help you. Go find someone else to be your Panza.”
I sat there for a moment, feeling very, very tired.
When I looked up, Sir Stuart was staring intently at me. Then he cleared his throat and said, in a diffident tone, “Far be it from me to bring up the past, but I can’t help but note that your lot in life has improved significantly since Dresden first came to you.”
Mort’s bald head started turning red. “What?”
Sir Stuart spread his hands, his expression mild. “I only mean to say that you have grown in strength and character in that time. When you first interacted with Dresden, you were bilking people out of their money with—poorly—falsified séances, and you had lost your power to contact any spirit other than me.”
Mort glowered ferociously at Sir Stuart. “Hey, Gramps. When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
Sir Stuart’s smile widened. “Of course.”
“I help spirits find peace,” Mort said. “I don’t do things that are going to get me taken to pieces. I’m a ghost whisperer. And that’s all.”
“Look, Mort,” I said. “If you want to get technical, I’m not actually a ghost, per se. . . .”
He rolled his eyes again. “Oh, God. If I had a nickel for every ghost who had ever come to me, explaining to me how he wasn’t really a ghost. How his case was special . . .”
“Well, sure,” I said. “But—”
He rolled his eyes. “But if you aren’t just a ghost, how come I could channel you like that? How come I could force you out of me? Huh?”
That hit me. My stomach may have been insubstantial, but it could still writhe uneasily.
Ghosts were not the people they resembled, any more than a footprint left in the ground was the being that made it. They had similar features, but ultimately a ghost was simply a remainder, a reminder, an impression of the person who died. They might share similar personalities, emotions, memories, but they weren’t the same being. When a person died and left a ghost behind, it was as if some portion of his dying life energy was spun out, creating a new being entirely—though in the creator’s exact mental and often physical image.
Of course, that also meant that they were subject to many of the same frailties as mortals. Obsession. Hatred. Madness. If what Mort said about ghosts interacting with the material world was true, then it was when some poor spirit snapped, or was simply created insane, that you got your really good ghost stories. By a vast majority, most ghosts were simply insubstantial and a bit sad, never really interacting with the material world.
But I couldn’t be one of those self-deluded shades.
Could I?
I glanced at Sir Stuart.
He shrugged. “Most shades aren’t willing to admit that they aren’t actually the same being whose memories they possess,” he said gently. “And that’s assuming they can face the fact that they are ghosts at all. Self-deluded shades are, by an order of magnitude, more common than those that are not.”
“So what you’re saying is . . .” I pushed my fingers back through my hair. “You’re saying that I only think I did the whole tunnel-of-light, sent-back-on-a-mission thing? That I’m in denial about being a ghost?”
The ghost marine waggled one hand in an ambivalent gesture, and his British accent rolled out mellow vowels and crisp consonants as he answered. “I’m simply saying that it is very much poss—Mission? What mission? What are you talking about?”
I eyed him for a moment, while he looked at me blankly. Then I said, “I’m gonna guess you’ve never seen Star Wars.”
Sir Stuart shrugged. “I find motion pictures to be grossly exaggerated and intrusive, leaving the audience little to consider or ponder for themselves.”
“That’s what I thought.” I sighed. “You were about two words away from being called