Disclaimer: The Dresden Files belong to Jim Butcher and The Scifi Channel.
Guilt:
The trouble with black magick is that it's too easy to distance yourself from it. You can convince yourself that you are guilt-free. You can kill someone with black magick and it's far too easy to convince yourself that it was not your doing. It just happened that Uncle Justin's heart stopped and he fell to the ground as you pressed hard into the white, cloth voodoo doll using that old ring with the blue gem. It's not your fault. It just happened by chance. Sure you wanted it to happen. Sure you felt a terrific high, a buzz of power as it happened but that does not mean you did it. It's far too easy to go into a self-denial, to pretend it's not your fault. It's far too easy to lay in bed and convince yourself that it all happened by chance, that you did not use Thaumaturgy. You can lay there at night and tell yourself that it was not your fault, that it really was a heart attack.
-----------------
Self-denial is a lovely thing. The deception is not on a stranger but on yourself and once you can convince yourself of your innocence it's easier to persuade others of it. The first step is to silent that nagging voice in the far back of your soul that continues to poke at you with doubt. Was it wrong to want her back? 'She was not meant to die.' you tell yourself. She was NOT meant to die. Destiny made a mistake. Everything in the world went wrong with her death. This was not how things were supposed to be. The chain of events after Winifred's death... This was wrong. The whole world was wrong without her. Every event felt like part of a chain reaction of something set wrong in the order of the universe. It was simply restoring the order to bring her back. There was no telling where she was anyway. Her soul could have been suffering somewhere horrible in some pit of utter pain and despair. You have no real way of knowing if there's a Heaven anyway so you bring her back from the darkness.
-------------------
There's that nagging voice again...
It's your fault he's dead.
You disrupted the natural order.
He didn't just die of a heart attack. It just looks that way. It's a relief to let yourself feel that is what happened but that is not what happened.
She did not want to come back. Did you see that stricken look on her face? She was happy. She was at peace. She did not want to come back!
Justin's rotting in the Earth right now and he would not have died if not for you. If you had not done that The High Council would still trust you. You might even be one of them right now.
Winifred was gone and each step into the black had been darker and darker, each sin more profound. And every second that you dared dance across the line brought you a step closer and closer to your own damnation.
It's your fault.
It's your fault!
IT'S YOUR FAULT!
Dresden realized the strange awkward silence that was passing as he blearily looked at the ghost across the room from him. They had been staring at each other, each wondering what the other was thinking.
The sleepy-eyed wizard muttered. 'Morning Bob.'
'Good morning, Harry.'
The wizard continued on to the kitchen to retrieve his morning cup of tea and the ghost went back to his alchemic equations drawn in the air with orange-yellow lettering of glowing ectoplasmic light. And the daily routine continued...
The End.