Grave Peril (the Dresden Files, #3)

The third installment in The Dresden Files series follows Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, as he battles a wave of supernatural disturbances threatening the people closest to him. Harry works as a private investigator and consultant for the Chicago Police Department's Special Investigations unit, which handles supernatural cases. The spirit world, called the Nevernever, lies adjacent to the mortal realm, and magic is governed by the White Council of Wizards.

Harry and his ally Michael Carpenter, a Knight of the Cross who wields the holy sword Amoracchius, race to Cook County Hospital as the novel opens. The ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn, a nineteenth-century woman whose child died accidentally, is singing the newborns toward a fatal sleep. Harry and Michael pursue her into the Nevernever and destroy her, but they discover barbed wire wound around her ghost-flesh, a torment spell that drove her mad. Someone deliberately weaponized this ghost. Harry's faerie godmother, Lea, a powerful fae noble who claims Harry owes her service from a bargain struck in his youth, appears with hellhounds to block their escape. Harry tricks her with ghost dust rich in cold iron, which is toxic to faeries, and they flee back through the closing rift.

Earlier that day, a young woman calling herself Lydia visits Harry's office seeking protection from a hostile spirit. She claims to have Cassandra's Tears, a prophetic condition that produces accurate visions no one believes. Harry gives her his Dead Man's Talisman, a powerful charm against spirits, and sends her to Father Forthill, a priest and close ally of Michael's, for sanctuary at his church. That night, something attacks the church grounds trying to reach Lydia, and she flees. Harry consults Mortimer Lindquist, a former ectomancer (a practitioner sensitive to ghosts) turned fraudulent psychic, who explains that the barrier between worlds has been destabilized, allowing stronger ghosts to cross over. A powerful entity Mort calls the "Nightmare" has emerged.

Harry investigates the home of retired detective Micky Malone at the request of Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, head of Special Investigations. Using his wizard's Sight, a form of permanent magical perception, Harry sees Malone's soul mauled and wrapped in the same barbed wire found on Agatha's ghost. Bob, a spirit of intellect inhabiting a skull in Harry's basement lab, explains the Nightmare's method: It enters people's dreams through temporary openings in the weakened border between worlds. That night, the Nightmare invades Harry's dream and feeds on his magical power, leaving him severely diminished.

The Nightmare then assumes Harry's appearance and attacks Murphy at the police station, leaving her catatonic. Next, it lures Michael's pregnant wife, Charity, to Graceland Cemetery. Desperate to save Charity, Harry accepts Lea's offer of help in exchange for reaffirming his bargain. Lea hints the answer is "all around him," and Harry realizes running water can dissolve the Nightmare's manifested body. Michael arrives and engages the creature but is forced to surrender Amoracchius when it takes Charity hostage. Charity drives it back with a blazing crucifix, and Harry tackles it into a stream, where it dissolves. Lea immediately claims Harry. He grabs Amoracchius to defend himself, but the sword rejects him because he is trying to break a freely given promise. Lea takes the blade and vanishes.

At the hospital, as Charity recovers from emergency labor, Harry reads the confiscated journal of Leonid Kravos, a sorcerer he helped capture months earlier. He finds the name of the demon Kravos summoned, Azorthragal, and performs a summoning ritual that binds the Nightmare so it can only target him, protecting everyone else but making himself the sole prey.

Harry decides to attend the masquerade ball hosted by Bianca St. Claire, a powerful vampire of the Red Court (one of the major vampire factions), who is celebrating her elevation to the noble title of Margravine. He reasons that whoever controls the Nightmare will be among the guests. At the party, Harry meets Thomas Raith, a White Court vampire who feeds on emotions rather than blood, and Thomas's companion Justine. He identifies Mavra, a centuries-old Black Court vampire (a near-extinct lineage of classical undead predators), as the one who cast the torment spells on the ghosts. Lea appears and exploits the self-inflicted weakness caused by Harry's broken promises. Susan Rodriguez, Harry's girlfriend and a reporter for the tabloid The Arcane, arrives uninvited after forging an invitation. To stop Harry's collapse, Susan bargains a year of her own memories involving Harry to Lea and loses all recollection of him.

Bianca's trap closes. She presents Amoracchius to Mavra, who prepares to corrupt the holy blade with innocent blood. In the ensuing battle, Thomas shoves Susan into the vampire crowd to save Justine. Harry unleashes a massive firestorm that ignites the courtyard and kills vampires, but his heart stops from the exertion. Michael resuscitates him and carries him out. Susan remains inside.

Harry wakes more than a day later. Thomas arrives with Amoracchius, which he rescued, and proposes they work together to free Susan and Justine from Bianca's damaged mansion. Harry realizes the Nightmare is not the ghost of the demon but the ghost of Kravos himself, who committed ritual suicide in his cell to become a vengeful spirit, with Mavra and Bianca arranging the transformation. This explains why Harry's earlier attempt to use the demon's name against the spirit failed. The Nightmare possesses the sleeping Lydia, who has been its unwitting host whenever she sleeps, and attacks. Thomas distracts the possessed girl with his White Court seduction abilities while Harry performs the exorcism using Kravos's true name.

Harry leads an expedition through the Nevernever to infiltrate Bianca's mansion. Lea catches him, but Harry has eaten a destroying angel mushroom, a deadly toadstool, gambling that Lea will not accept a dying prize. Michael offers the antidote, milk thistle extract, in exchange for Harry's release. Harry crosses into the mansion alone and is captured.

He wakes in a locked basement room with Justine and Susan, who has been partially turned into a Red Court vampire. The transformation will be complete only if Susan kills by feeding. Driven by thirst, Susan begins licking blood from Harry's wounds. Harry creates a sympathetic magical link between them using a strand of her hair and whispers "I love you." The words shatter Lea's memory spell, restoring Susan's awareness and sense of self.

Harry then deliberately allows Kravos's ghost to attack him in a dream, planning to die briefly so his wizard's power will generate a temporary ghost strong enough to fight. He instructs Susan to resuscitate him the moment he stops breathing. The plan works: Harry's ghost helps him tear Kravos apart and devour the sorcerer's spiritual essence, reclaiming his stolen magic. He wakes supercharged with power.

Harry battles through the mansion, destroying Kyle and Kelly Hamilton, Bianca's vampire sibling enforcers, with fire drawn from Kravos's consumed power. Upstairs, Bianca offers a deal: Take everything but leave Susan. Harry refuses. He draws a circle in the dust and reaches into the earth, finding hundreds of restless shades, the accumulated victims of decades of vampire predation. He channels his remaining energy into the dead, and they erupt through the floor as shapes of smoke and flame, falling upon the vampires. Rachel's ghost, the young woman whose death at Bianca's hands started the vendetta, shields Susan from a killing blow. Harry's final spell hurls Bianca into the inferno, and the mansion collapses. Susan and Justine help the collapsing Harry escape.

In the aftermath, Michael's baby recovers and is named Harry. Murphy wakes from the sleep spell. Susan, partially transformed, can control herself in daylight but not at night. When Harry proposes, she returns the ring, explaining she cannot trust herself around him. The vampires declare war on the White Council, and the Council summons Harry to answer for what happened. On Halloween, Harry's birthday, Susan sends a card implying three unspoken words.