I gave Sir Stuart the eye and then Mort. “That’s what you do? Lay spirits to rest?”

Mort shrugged. “If someone didn’t, this town would run out of cemetery space pretty fast.”

I thought about that for a moment. Then I said, “So how come you haven’t laid Sir Stuart to rest?”

Mort said nothing. His silence was a barbed, stony thing.

Sir Stuart leaned forward to put a hand on Mort’s shoulder, seemed to squeeze it a little, and let go. Then he said to me, “Some things can’t be mended, lad. Not by all the king’s horses or all the king’s men.”

“You’re trapped here,” I said quietly.

“Were I trapped, it would indicate that I am the original Sir Stuart. I am not. I am but his shade. One could think of it that way nonetheless, I suppose,” he said. “But I prefer to consider it differently: I regard myself as someone who was truly created with a specific purpose for his existence. I have a reason to be who and what and where I am. How many flesh-and-blood folk can say as much?”

I scowled as I watched the snowy road ahead of us. “And what’s your purpose? Looking out after this loser?”

“Hey, I’m sitting right here,” Mort complained.

“I help other lost spirits,” Sir Stuart said. “Help them find some sort of resolution. Help teach them how to stay sane, if it is their destiny to become a mane. And if they become a lemur, I help introduce them to oblivion.”

I turned to frown at Sir Stuart. “That’s… kinda cut-and-dried.”

“Some things assuredly are,” he replied placidly.

“So you’re a mane, eh? Like the old Roman ancestral ghost?”

“It isn’t such a simple matter, Dresden. Your own White Council is a famous bunch of namers,” he said. “Their history is, I have heard, rooted in old Rome.”

“Yeah,” I said.

He nodded. “And, like the Romans, they love to name and classify and outline facts to the smallest, permanently inflexible, set-in-stone detail. The truth, however, is that the world of remnant spirits is not easily cataloged or defined.” He shrugged. “I dwell in Chicago. I defend Mortimer’s home. I am what I am.”

I grunted. After a few moments, I asked, “You teach new spirits?”

“Of course.”

“Then can I ask you some questions?”

“By all means.”

Mort muttered, “Here we go.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m a ghost and all now. And I can go through just about anything—like I went through this car door to get inside.”

“Yes,” Sir Stuart said, a faint smile outlining his mouth.

“So how come my ass doesn’t go through the seat when I sit down on—”

I was rudely interrupted by the tingling sensation of passing through solid matter, beginning at my butt and moving rapidly up my spine. Cold snow started slamming into my rear end, and I let out a yelp of pure surprise.

Sir Stuart had evidently known what was coming. He reached over, grabbed me by the front of my leather duster, and unceremoniously dragged me back up into the car and sat me on the seat beside him, back in the passenger compartment. I clutched at the door handle and the seat in front of me for stability, only to have my hands go right through them. I pitched forward, spinning as if I were floating in water, and this time it was my face plunging toward the icy street.