I had a lightbulb moment.

The gates of the cemetery were being left open.

And hordes of wraiths haunted the streets of Chicago by night lately.

“Aha, Morty,” I said. “And now we know where they’re coming from.”

Someone, someone alive, was opening those gates at night. That meant that we had a place to begin, a trail we could attempt to follow to find out who was stirring up the city’s spooks to use against Morty—and why.

I had information. I had something to trade Mort for his ongoing help.

I suddenly felt like an investigator again.

“Hot diggity dog,” I said, grinning. “The game’s a-freaking-foot!”

Chapter Fifteen

I revved up the memory and started jumping. It was a quick way to travel in the city—the ability to go over buildings and ignore traffic signals, one-way streets, and cars was a real plus. It didn’t take me long to get to Mortimer’s house.

It was on fire.

There were fire trucks there, lights blazing. The firemen were moving quickly, professionally, but though the house was well ablaze, they had only one hose up and running. As I stood there, staring, two more started up, but I knew it was a lost cause. Morty’s place was burning even more swiftly and brightly than mine had. Or maybe the dark was just making it look that way.

A cop or two showed up as the firemen kept the blaze from spreading to the houses around it—not hard, given the snow on the ground. Blue lights from the bubbles on the cop cars joined the red and yellow of the CFD. People stood around watching the fire—in my experience, they often do.

Of course… they didn’t usually do it out in the cold. And they didn’t usually do it in six inches of snow. And they tended to wander off when the fire began to subside. And talk. And blink. And their clothing is generally from the current century.

The crowd of onlooking Chicago civilians were ghosts.

I walked among them, looking at faces. They were much like any other group of folks, apart from the period outfits. I recognized a few from Sir Stuart’s home-defense brigade—but only a few, and they were the more recent shades. The rest were just… people. Men, women, and children.

A boy maybe ten years old was the only shade who seemed to notice me. Beside him stood a girl, who must have been about seven when she died. They were holding hands. He looked up at me as I passed by, and I stopped to stare down at him.

“Where do we go now?” he asked. “I don’t know another place to go.”

“Um,” I said. “I don’t know, either. Hey, did you see what happened?”

“It came back again tonight. Then men came with fire. They burned the house. They took the little man away.”

I stiffened. “The Grey Ghost took Mort?”

“No, men took him,” the boy said.

The girl said, in a soft little voice, “We used to play with other children by the river. But he brought us here. He was always nice to us.” Her facial expression never changed. It was flat, empty.