It probably said even more about her trust in me.

It was no coincidence that the ghosts had found her so quickly, either. She’d already been on the way; Molly was dressed for battle.

There were still bloodstains on the front of her long coat, where she’d taken a bullet through the muscle of her thigh. It was based on the design of a fireman’s coat and, like Daniel’s vest, Molly’s coat contained an armored lining of titanium rings sandwiched between layers of ballistic fabric. She still wore her ragged clothing beneath the coat, but she’d added a nylon-web tactical belt to her ensemble. It bore several potions, which she’d always been good at making, and a pair of wands covered in rows of runes and sigils like those on my own staff. One was tipped in a crystal of white quartz, the other with an amethyst.

Once the twins had led her to me, they vanished, reappearing in their previous spaces in the ranks. Molly blinked and looked around for a moment. She took her cane from under one arm and leaned on it, taking some of the weight off her wounded leg. Then she took out the little tuning fork, rapped it once against the cane, and held it up in front of one of her eyes, so that she was looking through the tines.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” she breathed, her eyes widening as she took in the spook squad. “Harry, is that you in there?”

“Two ghosts enter; one ghost leaves,” I replied. Then I vanished from the Spookydome and reappeared in front of her. “Hi.”

Molly shook her head a little. She looked tired still, but some of the strain I’d seen in her the night before seemed to have drained out of her. “Who are they?”

“Morty’s friends,” I said. I gestured at her. “You wore your party dress, I see.”

She smiled for a second, enough to show her dimples. Then it was gone. “Butters got in touch with me. He told me what was going on.”

I nodded. “Murphy?”

Molly looked away. “She’s on the way with whoever she can get.”

“Marcone’s guys?”

She shook her head. “Marcone is in Italy or something. Childs is in charge.”

“Let me guess. He’s just supposed to mind the store until the boss gets back, and he didn’t get chosen for his daring and ambition.”

Molly nodded. “Pretty much.”

I grimaced. “How’s your brother?”

“More stitches. More scars,” Molly said, looking away—but not in time to hide the flash of pure, murderous rage I saw in her eyes. “He’ll live.”

“The padre?”

“Stable. Unconscious. He was beaten badly.”

“What about Fitz and his gang?” I asked.

“With my father for now,” she said. “Mom makes battalion-sized meals already. Eight or ten more mouths isn’t bad. Just until there’s enough time to figure out what to do with them.”

I snorted quietly. “And Murph would just call in the kids’ location and tell the cops to round them up for that hit if they’d gone anywhere else. She wouldn’t do that to Michael.”