And, as if on cue, Mortimer Lindquist, ectomancer, limped out of the lower hallway and into the electrical-junction room, with Sir Stuart’s shade at his right hand.

Mort took a look around, his dark eyes intent, and then his gaze locked onto Molly.

“Hey,” he croaked. “You. Arrogant bitch ghost.”

Molly’s eyes snapped fully open and flicked to Mort. They were filled with more bitter, venomous hate than my apprentice could ever have put into them.

“I’m not really into this whole hero thing,” Mort said. “Don’t have the temperament for it. Don’t know a lot about the villain side of the equation, either.” He planted his feet, facing the Corpsetaker squarely, his hands clenched into fists at his side. “But it seems to me, you half-wit, that you probably shouldn’t have left a freaking ectomancer a pit full of wraiths to play with.”

And with a howl, more than a thousand wraiths came boiling around the corner in a cloud of clawing hands, gnashing teeth, and screaming hunger. They rode on a wave of Mort’s power and no longer drifted with lazy, disconnected grace. Now they came forth like rushing storm clouds, like racing wolves, like hungry sharks, a tide of mindless destruction.

I saw Molly’s eyes widen and the pulsing spiritual mass that was the Corpsetaker began to pull away from the young woman.

My apprentice didn’t let her.

Molly let out a wheezing cackle and both hands formed into claws that clutched at the air. I saw the energy of her own magic surround her fingers so that she grasped onto the Corpsetaker’s essence as if it had been a nearly physical thing. The necromancer’s spirit began to ooze through Molly’s grip. The exhausted girl could only slow the Corpsetaker down.

But it was enough.

The tide of wraiths slammed into the Corpsetaker like a freight train, their wails blending into a sound that I had heard before, in the train tunnel where Carmichael saved me. The Corpsetaker had begun to resume her usual form the instant she disengaged from Molly, and I could see the sudden shock and horror in her beautiful eyes as that spiritual tide overwhelmed her. I saw her struggle uselessly as the wraith train carried her up the stairs and out into the night. The train swept her straight up into the air—and then reversed itself and slammed her down, into the earth.

I saw her try to scream.

But all I heard was the blaring howl of the horn of a southbound train.

And then she was gone.

“You’re right,” Uriel said, his tone filled with a chill satisfaction. “Someone needed to do something.” He glanced aside at me, gave me a slight bow of his head, and said, “Well-done.”

Mort limped up the stairs to check on Molly. “You’re the one who called to me, eh?”

Molly looked up at him, obviously too exhausted to move more than her head. “Harry… Well, it’s sort of complicated to explain what was going on. But he told me you could help.”