I was quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Look, I’m new at this ghost thing. But it doesn’t work like that. Even the badass ghost of a centuries-old wizard I know of can only possess a subject who is willing. So far, I’ve only been able to move into people who were sensitive to spirits—and they could have booted me out anytime they wanted. Aristedes is neither sensitive nor willing. I’d be like a bug splattering on a windshield if I tried to take him over.”
“Christ.”
“If you want to volunteer, I could take you over, I suppose. I don’t think you’ve got the right wiring for me to use my power, and you’d still be in danger, of course, but you wouldn’t have to make the decisions.”
Fitz shuddered. “No.”
“Good. It’s weird as hell.” I paused and took a breath. “And besides. It would be . . . wrong.”
“Wrong?” Fitz asked.
“Take away someone’s will, you take away everything they are. Their whole identity. Doing that to someone is worse than murder; if you kill them, they don’t keep on suffering.”
“Who cares?” Fitz said. “This guy is an animal. Who cares if he gets something bad? He’s earned it.”
“Wrong is wrong, even when you really, really want it not to be,” I said quietly. “I learned that one the hard way. It’s easy to do the right thing when it doesn’t cost you. Not as easy to do the right thing when your back is to the wall.”
Fitz shook his head the whole time I spoke that last, and his pace quickened. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m running for my life.”
I fought down a snarl to keep my voice level. Time to change tactics. “Kid, you aren’t thinking it through,” I said. “You know Aristedes. You know him.”
“Which part of
I grunted. “The part where you leave your friends to die.”
“What?”
“He’s busted up pretty bad right now. Weak. How long do you think it will take him to replace all your crew?”
Fitz’s steps dragged to a stop.
“They’ve seen him weak now. Hell, he’s hurt bad enough that he might be crippled for life. What do you think he’ll do with the kids who saw him beaten? Who saw him get bloodied and smashed to the floor?”
Fitz bowed his head.
“Stars and stones, kid. You started showing signs of independent thought, and he was so threatened by it that he set you up to get killed. What do you think he’ll do to Zero?”
Fitz didn’t answer.
“You run now,” I said quietly, “and you’re going to spend your whole life running. This is a crossroads. This is where your life takes form. Here. Now. This moment.”
His face twisted up as if he was in physical pain. Still, he didn’t respond.
I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, to give him the reassurance of a human touch. The best I could do was to soften my voice as much as I could.
“I know what I’m talking about, kid. Every time you’re alone in the dark, every time you go by a mirror, you’re going to remember this moment. You’re going to see who you’ve become. And you’ll either be the man who ran away while his own crew and three good men died, or you’ll be the man who stood tall and did something about it.”
Fitz swallowed and whispered, “He’s too strong.”
“Not right now, he isn’t,” I said. “He’s on the ground. He can’t walk. He’s got one arm. If I didn’t think you had a chance, I’d be telling you to run.”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t. This isn’t fair.”
“Life hardly ever is,” I said.
“I don’t want to die.”
“Heh. No one does. But everyone does it anyway.”
“That supposed to be funny?”
“Maybe a little ironic, given the source. Look, kid. All that matters is the answer to the question: Which of those men do you want to be?”
Slowly he lifted his head. I realized that he could see his own reflection in the glass of an office door.
I stood behind him, looking down at him and remembering, with a faint sense of irrational disbelief, that I had once been no taller than the boy.
“Which man, Fitz?” I asked quietly.
Chapter Thirty-nine
When I faced my old master, I did it with newly made staff and blasting rod in hand, with the ancient forces of the universe at my call, and with words of power upon my tongue.
Fitz had more courage than I had as a child.
He went to face his demons with no weapon at all.
As his footsteps rapped steadily on the concrete floor, I worried about the kid. He was doing this on my say- so. What if Aristedes wasn’t hurt as badly as I thought? What if he knew some kind of restorative magic? Fitz wouldn’t have a chance—and I would never forgive myself.
I gritted my teeth and told myself not to borrow trouble. Things were bad enough without adding in a bunch of my own worries. That wouldn’t help anybody.
Fitz stepped into sight of Aristedes and stopped in his tracks.
“Easy,” I said quietly. “Calm. Don’t show him any weakness. You can do it.”
Fitz took a deep breath and walked forward.
“Fitz,” Aristedes spat. He was sitting up now, his leg straight out in front of him. Butters’s unconscious body had been dumped next to Daniel, who sat on the ground in a small puddle of his own blood, grimacing in pain and obviously disoriented. He’d bound the wounds closed, more or less, but it was clear that he still needed real medical attention. Zero and the other kids, several obviously detailed to watch Daniel and Butters, were standing around with pipes and old knives. “What do you think you’re doing here, traitor?”
Fitz faced him in silence.
“You led those men to us. You’ve endangered the lives of everyone here.”
Fitz almost seemed to dwindle, as if a cloud had passed between him and the wan light spilling in the windows. Dark, hostile eyes glared at Fitz from all around.
A quick check with my senses confirmed that the sorcerer was using power. “He’s pushing them,” I said quietly, “making them feel hostility toward you. It isn’t real. You’ve got to shake him, break his focus.”
Fitz gave a barely perceptible nod of his head. “I didn’t lead them here. They caught me while I was trying to recover the weapons. They forced me to come with them.”
“That’s not what the priest said,” Aristedes shot back.
“The father thought he was helping me,” Fitz replied. “There was no reason to hurt him.”
“No reason?” Aristedes asked. His voice was dangerous, deadly, and smooth. “That he should trespass here is reason enough. But he wanted to destroy this family. That is something I will not permit.”
“Family, right,” Fitz said. “We’re like the Simpsons around here.”
Personally, I would have gone with the Waltons, but I liked the cut of the kid’s jib.
Aristedes stared at Fitz with reptilian eyes and said, “Give me one reason why I should not kill you, here and now.”
“Because you can’t,” Fitz said in a bored tone. “You aren’t going anywhere under your own power. You’re fucked. You need help.”
The sorcerer’s voice dropped to a bare whisper. “Do I?”
“Yep,” Fitz said. “Wasn’t like it wasn’t going to happen eventually anyway, right? Sooner or later, you were gonna wind up eating applesauce with a rubber spoon somewhere. You think a bunch of kids you terrified into
