“Got it,” I said. “Oh. Nice work on that spell, grasshopper.”

Molly’s cheeks turned pink, but she said, casually, “Yeah. I know.”

“Atta girl,” I said. “Never let them think you’re out of your depth.”

I vanished and appeared in the main chamber below. I was unprepared for the sight that waited for me.

Corpsetaker was standing about twenty feet from where Mort hung suspended. Her jaw was… was unhinged, like a snake’s, open much wider than it should have been able. As I watched, she made a couple of convulsive motions with her entire body and swallowed down a recognizable object—a child’s shoe, circa nineteenth century. She tilted her head back, as if it helped her slide whichever one of the two child ghosts she’d eaten last down her gullet, and then lowered her chin and smiled widely at Mort Lindquist.

Sir Stuart’s faded form was the only one still visible in the room. The wispy, camera-lit mists of several other spirits were still dissolving, all around the room.

Mort spotted me and slurred, “Dresden. You moron. What have you done?”

Corpsetaker tilted her head back and laughed.

“I wasn’t keeping them shut away because they might hurt this bitch,” Morty said. He sounded hurt and exhausted and furious. “I was protecting them because she was going to eat them.”

I stared for a second.

The Corpsetaker had been going to eat the Lecters. The most vicious, dangerous, powerful spirits in all of Chicago.

Just like she had planned to do to Chicago’s ghosts when Kemmler’s disciples had attempted a ritual called a Darkhallow several years before, I realized—a ritual that, if successful, would have turned the necromancer who pulled it off into a being of godlike power.

“Ahhhh,” the Corpsetaker said, the sound deep and rich and full of satisfaction.

I got a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m almost full,” she continued. She smiled at me with very wide, very white, very sharp-looking teeth. “Almost.”

Chapter Forty-seven

One thing you never do in a fight, no matter how emotionally satisfying it might seem, is pause to gloat with an enemy standing right in front of you. Savvy foes aren’t going to just hang around letting you yak at them. They’re going to take advantage of the opening you’re giving them.

The same goes for desperate foes who aren’t interested in trying to win a fair fight.

Before the Corpsetaker finished speaking, I snapped my staff forward and snarled, “Fuego!”

Fire lashed toward her. She deflected the strike with a motion of her hand, like you’d use to ward off a fly. The memory-fire went flying on by her, through the wall and gone.

“Such a pity,” she said. “I was just going to—”

She wanted to keep up the gloating, I was game.

I hit her again, only harder.

This time I sent it flying a lot faster and it stung, though she slapped the fire aside before it could do much more than singe her. She let out a furious sound. “Fool! I will—”