The cold started spreading, and it wasn't purely physical. There was an empty, heartless void to it, a starless, frozen quality that raked at me- not just my body, but me-with a mindless hunger. And I could feel it sending tendrils out through me, slowing my heartbeat, making it impossible to breathe.
"Do you know how long I've been waiting for that?" the spirit purred, drifting back and forth over me. "Sitting there locked behind my own thoughts? Waiting for the chance to fight free? Finally, you thick-witted ogre, I get to leave your stupidity behind."
"Bob," I choked out. "This conversation is over."
The spirit's scarlet lights flared to sudden, incandescent rage and it screamed, a wailing sound that rattled my shelves and felt like it was splitting my head. Then the cloud was ripped backward across the room, sucked into the eyeholes of the skull as though down a hellish drain.
Once of the last of the motes went flickering back into the skull, the horrible cold faltered a little, and I curled up, focusing my will and trying to push it away. It took me a while, and that hideous void-presence lingered against my fingernails, even after I could feel my fingers again, but after a little while I was able to sit up.
After that I just curled up my knees against my chest, shocked and scared half out of my mind. I had always known that Bob was an incredibly valuable asset, and that no spirit with as much knowledge as he had could be weak. But I had not been at all prepared for the sheer power he had wielded, or for the malice with which he did it. Bob wasn't supposed to be a sleeping nightmare waiting to wake up. Bob was supposed to be my wisecracking porta-geek.
Good Lord, I couldn't remember the last time I'd confronted a demon with that much raw psychic power. If I'd been a second slower, or- stars and stones-if I hadn't remembered the condition that would banish Bob back to the skull and once again remove the dark memories, I'd be dead now. Or maybe dead and then some.
And it would have been my own stupid fault, too.
"Harry?" Bob said.
I flinched and let out a small squeaking sound. Then I got hold of myself and blinked up at the skull. It rested on its shelf, and its orange-gold eye lights were back to their usual color. "Oh. Hey."
Bob's voice was very quiet. "Your lips are blue."
"Yeah."
"What happened?" Bob asked.
"It got kind of cold in here."
"Me."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry, Harry," Bob said. "I tried to tell you."
"I know," I said. "I had no idea."
"Kemmler was bad, Harry," Bob said. "He … he took what I was. And he twisted it. I destroyed most of my memories of my time with him, and I locked away everything I couldn't. Because I didn't want to be like that."
"You won't," I told him quietly. "Now hear this, Bob. I command you never to recover those memories again. Never to let them out again. Never to obey any command to unleash them again. From here on out they sleep with the fishes. Understand me?"
"If I do," Bob said carefully, "I won't be able to do much to help you, Harry. You'll be on your own."
"Let me worry about that," I said. "It's a command, Bob."
The skull let out a slow sigh of relief. "Thank you, Harry."
"Don't mention it," I said. "Literally."
"Right," he said.
"Okay. Let's see," I said. "Can you still remember general information about Kemmler?"
"Nothing you couldn't find in other places. But general knowledge I learned when Justin was with the Wardens, yes."
"All right, then. You-that is, that other you-said that Kemmler had written down his teachings, when I asked him what The Word of Kemmler was. So I figure it's a book."
"Maybe," Bob said. "Council records stated that Kemmler had written three books; The Blood of Kemmler, The Mind of Kemmler, and The Heart of Kemmler."
"He published them?"
"Self- published," Bob said. "He started spreading them around Europe."
"Resulting in what?"
"Way too many penny-ante sorcerers getting their hands on some real necromancy."
I nodded. "What happened?"
"The Wardens put on their own epic production of Fahrenheit 451," Bob said. "They spent about twenty years finding and destroying copies. They think they accounted for all of them."
I whistled. "So if The Word of Kemmler is a fourth manuscript?"
"That could be bad," Bob said.
"Why?"
"Because some of Kemmler's disciples escaped the White Council's dragnet," Bob said. "They're still running around. If they get a new round of necro-at-home lessons to expand their talents, they could use it to do fairly horrible things."
"They're wizards?"
"Black wizards, yes," Bob said.
"How many?"
"Four or five at the most, but the Wardens' information was very sketchy."
"Doesn't sound like anything the Wardens can't handle," I said.
"Unless what's in the fourth book contains the rest of what Kemmler had to teach them," Bob said. "In which case, we might end up with four or five Kemmlers running around."
"Holy crap," I said. I plunked my tired ass down on my stool and rubbed at my head. "And it's no coincidence that it's almost Halloween."
"The season when the barriers between the mortal realm and the spirit world will be weakest," Bob said.
"Like when that asshole the Nightmare was hunting down my friends," I said. I peered at Bob. "But for him to do that, he had to weaken the barriers even more. He and Bianca had tormented all those ghosts to start making the barriers more unstable. Would it have to be ghosts to stir up the kind of turbulence you'd need for big magic?"
"No," Bob said. "But that's one way. Otherwise you'd have to use some rituals or sacrifices of one kind or another."
"You mean deaths," I said.
"Exactly."
I frowned, nodding. "They'd have to invest some energy early to get things moving for a big necromantic working. Like bouncing on a diving board a couple of times before you jump."
"An accurate, if crude aphorism," Bob said. "You'd have to do a little prework if you wanted to start working Kemmler-level necromancy, even on Halloween." He sighed. "Though that doesn't really help you much."
I got up and headed for the stepladder. "It helps more than you know, man. I'm getting you new romances."
The skull's eye lights brightened. "You are? I mean, of course you are. But why?"
"Because if someone's setting up for big bad juju, they'll have left bodies. If they've done that, then I have a place to start tracking them and finding out what's going on."
"Harry?" Bob called up as I left the lab. "Where are you going?"
I stuck my head back down the trapdoor and said, "The morgue."
Chapter Four
Chicago has a bitchin' morgue. You can't call it a "morgue" anymore because it's the Forensic Institute now. It isn't run by a "coroner" either, because now it's a medical examiner. It's on West Harrison Street, which is located in a fairly swanky industrial park, mostly specializing in various biotech industries. It's pretty. There are wide green lawns, carefully kept and trimmed, complete with sculpted trees and bushes, a fantastic view of the city's skyline, and quick access to the freeway.
It's upscale, sure. But it's also very quiet. Despite the gorgeous landscaping and a more antiseptic naming scheme, it's where they bring the dead to be poked and prodded.
I parked the Blue Beetle in the visitor's parking lot-of the complex next door. The morgue had more than average security, and I didn't want to advertise my presence. I grabbed my bribe from the backseat and headed for the front door of the Office of the Medical Examiner. I knocked, flashing my little laminated card I got from the police that makes me look like an official policelike person. The door buzzed, and I went in, nodding to a comfortably heavyset security guard reading a magazine behind a nondescript desk to one side of the entry area.
"Phil," I said.
"Evening, Dresden," he said. "Official?"
I held up the wooden box packed with McAnally's microbrew. "Unofficial."
"Hosannah," drawled Phil. "I like unofficial better." He put his feet back up on the desk and opened up his magazine again. I left the beer on the floor next to the desk, where it would be out of sight from the door. "How come I never heard of this bar?"
"Just a little local tavern," I said. I didn't add, that caters to the supernatural community and doesn't exactly try to attract the attention of locals.
"I'll have to get you to take me by sometime."
"Sure," I said. "Is he here?"
"Back in the slabs," he said, reaching down for one of the ales. Phil opened the lid with a thumb and took a swig, eyes on his magazine again. "Ahhhhh," he said, his tone philosophical. "You know, if anyone had come through that door, I'd tell him to get his ass going before someone drives up or something."
"Gone," I said, and hurried back into the hallways behind the entry area.
There were several slabs-I mean, examination rooms-in the morgue-that is, in the Forensic Institute. But I knew that the guy I was looking for would be in the smallest, crummiest room, the one farthest away from the entrance.