The Grey Ghost finished her count, and the Big Hoods hauled a sobbing Morty out of the pit again. He hung there, twitching, suffering, making involuntary sounds as he gasped for breath. The Grey Ghost stood in front of him, motionless and, I felt certain, gloating.

Ten feet. I knew my veil was shoddy and my aim only middling, but if I could close to ten feet, I figured I had a fairly good chance of hitting the target. That would put me on the near edge of the wraith pit, shooting across it to hit the Grey Ghost. Of course, if I missed, the Grey Ghost wouldn’t need to kill me. All she’d have to do was freaking trip me. The wraiths, once they sensed my presence, would be all over me.

Then I’d get what Morty was getting. Except that as a ghost myself, they’d be tearing me into tiny, ectoplasm-soaked shreds. And eating them.

What fun, I thought.

I tried to move steadily, to keep myself calm. I didn’t have any adrenaline anymore to make my hands shake, but they shook anyway. Dammit. I guess even a ghost is still, on some level, fundamentally human. Nothing for it but to keep moving.

Thirty feet.

I passed within a few yards of a lemur who was apparently staring into nothingness—though his eyes were lined up directly with me. Perhaps he was lost in a ghostly memory. He never blinked as I went by.

Twenty-five.

The wraiths wheezed out their starving, strangled howls in the pit a few feet ahead of me.

Twenty.

Why do I keep winding up in these situations? Even after I’m dead?

For the fun, I thought to myself. For the fun, fun, fun-fun, fun.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Then the floor near the Grey Ghost’s feet rippled, and a human skull floated up out of it, its eye sockets burning with a cold blue flame.

The Grey Ghost turned to look at the skull, and something about her body language soured. “What?”

“A Fomor messenger is at the outer perimeter,” the skull said. It sounded creepily like Bob, but there was a complete absence of anything but a vague contempt in its voice. “He bears word from his lord.”

I got the impression that the Grey Ghost tilted her head beneath its hood. “A servitor? Arriving from the Nevernever?”

“The outer perimeter is the Nevernever side, of which I am custodian,” the skull replied. “The inner perimeter is the mortal world. You established that more than a year ago.”

The Grey Ghost made a disgusted sound. “Have a care, spirit. You are not indispensible.” She looked at the suspended Morty and sighed. “Of course the Fomor disturb me with sunrise near. Why must my most important work continually be interrupted?”

The skull inclined itself in a nod of acknowledgment. “Shall I kill him and send back the body, along with a note suggesting that next time they call ahead?”

“No,” snapped the Grey Ghost. “Of course not. Curb your tongue, spirit, lest I tear it out for you.”