*Molly using powers of spite, rage and treachery to make the world a brighter safer place*: What is this nature you speak of?
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
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- Crossover Fantasy
*Molly using powers of spite, rage and treachery to make the world a brighter safer place*: What is this nature you speak of?
To be fair, Ebon Dragon loves doomed things, and who can say that humans aren't doomed? It's perfectly in character to use his charms to save the world, I would say.*Molly using powers of spite, rage and treachery to make the world a brighter safer place*: What is this nature you speak of?
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
*Molly using powers of spite, rage and treachery to make the world a brighter safer place*: What is this nature you speak of?
We are doing Evil things in the name of good and the path to hell is made with good intentions. If we were directly healing people maybe but killing is killing and Magic does not care of the context
Iku Turso is a chtonic entity out of a Finnish mythological pantheon that got bound and banished by either a god, demigod or human herp. It fits the description of an Old One, or close enough that the Wardens wont make a distinction.
And specifically the mutations and mental alterations described sound pretty similar to the ones you see in the Alaskan cultists in Cold Case trying to raise an Old One.
I cant keep typing out the books on a touchscreen. Not today anyway.My hand begins to hurt.
My apologies.
If you want a page number I can give it to you.
The Laws are political instruments with a basis in magical fact.
They make no pretence to covering every possible loophole or contingency. And the White Council does not rule solely on their basis; those are just the things guaranteed to get you chopped.
There are things that arent banned by the Laws that have corruptive effects on you, like Dresden channelling hellfire and not noticing how it was having an effect on his impulsiveness until he spent so much time beating a fetch to death he let an injured girl bleed to death.
In the previous book he made a love potion despite it's use being a breach of the Law against enthrallment and that discovery would give Morgan probable cause to cut off his head. If Dresden was known for making wise decisions, there wouldnt be that much of a story, would there?
Dresden demons are not Fae. Fae might deceive you, but they will not lie to you.
Demons? They are creatures of malice and power who WILL kill their summoner if control breaks. Victor Sells was killed by his own demon when Dresden broke his control of it. And even when they are in containment circles, you dont drop your guard, because the most urbane and friendly is still measuring you for a noose. See Chauncy.
The only times we have seen demons outside of containment circles has invariably been when they were loosed on a mission of destruction, by Victor Sells, and by the Red Court.
There's a reason Dresden was freaked out by cyberdevils until we demomstrated Our Devils Are Different.
Storm Front literally establishes that Victor Sells sending demons after Dresden was black magic my dude.
I mean, you could argue early instalment weirdness.
But that isnt something that has changed.
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It's not so much the demons being different as the summoner being different, When your soul is a world and your dreams span ages lost to time the local nameless data demons are less of an issue, but also if Chauncey got loose in a room with Molly in it... odds are good he would remain polite or try to book it.
Not sure that's the case. For one, life on earth is brutal on a fundamental level. If the rules are set by anything accurate to some life force nonsense for the planet as a whole then eating people alive would be a valid play.
For another, wizards use a variety of energy sources ranging from emotions to lightning storms. Being able to function in the nevernever implies being able to play with the unearthly energies of that realm. If the bulk of the corruption wasn't coming from inside the wizard law evasion would be as simple as casting your magic while standing in the far side of a nevernever portal.
What evil things? We decapitated a necromancer and summoned a few cyber devils that haven't actually done anything yet.
Your own quote from the rpg contradicts this. It seems pretty clear that summoning is like fire evocation. Calling fire is fine, calling fire to immolate someone is not.
Doing so unintentionally will probably get you killed, but might just get you probation.
Morgan just hates Dresden, and assumed that if he's calling demon bruisers it's to kill things.
We can also see indirect implications that's this is the case from Harry's 101 on wards from the early books. It's canon that wizards will bind things from the nevernever to their wards as guard dogs.
The interesting thing is how they are classified in the RPG.It's not so much the demons being different as the summoner being different, When your soul is a world and your dreams span ages lost to time the local nameless data demons are less of an issue, but also if Chauncey got loose in a room with Molly in it... odds are good he would remain polite or try to book it.
In summary, the (very) broad guidelines for NeverNever inhabitants are:
Demons: mean, hostile, violent, can change and grow, interested in mortal souls, cannot cross over into the mortal world unless summoned.
Fae: Embodied beings, interested in mortals, can crossover at will
Ghosts: Metaphysical footprint of strong or powerful personality. Cannot change or grow, limited ability to manifest in mortal world
Concept spirits: Never mortal, can change and grow, interested in mortals, can crossover at will
Page 29, Volume 2 Our World, Dresden Files RPG.
Not with Dresden Files demons.
You can summon a Fae entity as powerful as the Erlking, put him in a containment circle, and he'll let you live when he breaks out. You summon Mab, or Lea, without circles, and while you're polite and observe the forms, they wont just murder you.
If you dare summon a new demon without a circle it will generally do its best to kill you before going on a rampage, unless you are too scary to fuck with. Even with demons you have already previously summoned and bound, that you have dealt with, each summoning is a battle of wills where a slipup is potentially fatal.
Citations:
I heard motion in the room, someone moving out the doors onto the elevated deck at the back of the house. The fire continued to spread. Smoke rode the air in a thick haze.
"I've got to go, Dresden," Victor told me. His voice was gentle, almost a purr, "but there's someone I want you to meet, first."
I got a sick, twisty little feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered.
Power thrummed. The air shimmered and shone, began to twist and spiral.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered again, louder, more demanding. I heard something, a warbling hiss that seemed to come from a great distance, rushing closer. The black wizard called the name for the third and final time, his voice rising to a screech, "Kalshazzak!"
There was a thundercrack in the house, a dull and sulfurous stench, and I craned my neck to see over the counter, risking a glance.
Victor stood by the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wooden deck. Red-orange flames wreathed the ceiling on that side of the house, and smoke was filling the room below, casting the whole place in a hellish glow.
Crouched down on the floor in front of Victor was the toad-demon I had banished the night before. I had known that I hadn't killed it. You can't kill demons, as such, only destroy the physical vessels they create for themselves when they come to the mortal world. If called again, they can create a new vessel without difficulty.
I watched in fascination, stunned. I had seen only one person call a demon before—and I had killed my old master shortly after. The thing crouched in front of Victor, its lightning blue eyes whirling with shades of scarlet hate, staring up at the black-clad wizard, trembling with the need to tear into him, to rend and destroy the mortal being who had dared summon it forth.
Victor's eyes grew wider and more mad, glittering with fevered intensity. Sweat ran down his face, and he tilted his head slowly to one side, as though his vision were skewing along the horizontal and by the motion he would compensate for it. I gave silent thanks that I had closed my Third Eye when I did. I did not want to see what that thing really looked like—and I didn't want to get a good look at the real Victor Sells, either.
The demon finally gave a hiss of frustration and turned toward me with a croaking growl. Victor dropped his head back and laughed, his will triumphant over that of the being he had called from beyond. "There, Dresden. Do you see? The strong survive, and the weak are torn to little pieces." He flapped his hand at me and said, to the demon, "Kill him."
I struggled to my feet, supporting my weight on the counter, to face the demon as it rose and began its slow stalk toward me.
"My God, Victor," I said. "I can't get over how clumsy you are."
Victor's smile immediately became a snarling sneer once again. I saw fear touch the corners of his eyes, uncertainty even though he was on top, and I felt a little smile quirk my lips. I moved my gaze to the demon's.
"You really shouldn't just hand someone else a demon's name," I told him. Then I drew in a breath, and shouted out in a voice of command, "Kalshazzak!"
The demon stopped in its tracks and gave a whistling howl of agony and rage as I called its name and drew my will up to hurl against it.
"Kalshazzak," I snarled again. The demon's presence was suddenly there, in my head, raging slippery and slimy and wriggling like a venomous tadpole. It was a pressure, a horrible pressure on my temples that made me see stars and threatened to steal enough of my balance to send me falling to the floor.
I tried to speak again and the words stuck in my throat. The demon hissed in anticipation, and the pressure on my head redoubled, trying to force me down, to make me give up the struggle, at which point the demon would be free to act. The lightning blue of its eyes became glaringly bright, painful to look upon.
I thought of little Jenny Sells, oddly enough, and of Murphy, lying pale and unconscious on a stretcher in the rain, of Susan, crouched next to me, sick and unable to run.
I had beaten this frog once. I could do it again.
I cried out the demon's name for the third and final time, my throat burning and raw. The word came out garbled and imperfect, and for a sinking moment I feared the worst, but Kalshazzak howled again, and hurled itself furiously to the floor, thrashing its limbs about like a poisoned bug, raging and tearing great swaths out of the carpet. I sagged, the weariness that came over me threatening to make me black out.
"What are you doing?" Victor said, his voice rising to a high-pitched shriek. "What are you doing?" He was staring at the demon in horror. "Kill him! I am your master! Kill him, kill him!" The demon howled in rage, turned its burning glare to me and then Victor, as though trying to decide who to devour first. Its eyes settled on Victor, who went pale and ran for the doors.
"Oh no you don't," I muttered, and I uttered the last spell I could manage. One final time, on the last gasps of my power, the winds rose and lifted me from the earth. I hurtled into Victor like an ungainly cannonball, driving him away from the doors, past the demon as it made an awkward lunge at us, and toward the railing of the balcony.
We fell in a confused heap at the edge of the balcony that overlooked the room beneath, full of dark smoke and the red glow of flame. The air had grown almost too hot to breathe. Pain jolted through my hip, more bright and blinding than anything I had ever imagined, and I sucked in a breath. The smoky air burned, made me choke and gasp.
I looked up. Fire was spreading everywhere. The demon was crouched between us and the only way out. Over the edge of the balcony was only chaos and flame and smoke—strange, dark smoke that should have been rising, but instead was mostly settled along the floor like London fog. The pain was too great. I simply couldn't move. I couldn't even take in enough breath to scream.
"Damn you," Victor screamed. He regained his feet and hauled me up toward his face with berserk strength. "Damn you," he repeated. "What happened? What did you do?"
"The Fourth Law of Magic forbids the binding of any being against its will," I grated out. Pain was tight around my throat, making me fight to speak the words. "So I stepped in and cut your control over it. And didn't establish any of my own."
Victor's eyes widened, "You mean …"
"It's free," I confirmed. I glanced at the demon. "Looks hungry."
"What do we do," Victor said. His voice was shaking, and he started shaking me, too. "What do we do?"
"We die," I said. "Hell, I was going to do that anyway. But at least this way, I take you out with me."
I saw him glance at the demon, then back to me, eyes terrified and calculating. "Work with me," he said. "You stopped it before. You can stop it again. We can beat it, together, and leave."
I studied him for a moment. I couldn't kill him with magic. I didn't want to. And it would only have brought a death sentence on my head in any case. But I could stand by and do nothing. And that's exactly what I did. I smiled at him, closed my eyes, and did nothing.
"Fuck you, then, Dresden," Victor snarled. "It can only eat one of us at a time. And I'm not going to be the one to get eaten today." And he picked me up to hurl me toward the demon.
I objected with fragile tenacity. We grappled. Fire raged. Smoke billowed. The demon came closer, lightning eyes gleaming through the hell-lit gloom. Victor was shorter than me, stockier, better at wrestling, and he hadn't been shot in the hip. He levered me up and almost threw me, but I moved quicker, whipping my right arm at his head and catching him with the flailing free end of Murphy's handcuffs, breaking his motion. He tried to break away, but I held on to him, dragged him in a circle to slam against the guardrail of the balcony, and we both toppled over.
Desperation gives a man extraordinary resources. I flailed at the balcony railing and caught it at the base, keeping myself from going over into the roiling smoke below. I shot a glance below, and saw the glistening brown hide of one of the scorpions, its stinging tail held up like the mast of a ship cutting through smoke at least four feet deep. The room was filled with angry clicking, scuttling sounds. Even in a single desperate glance, I saw a couch torn to pieces by a pair of scorpions in less time than it took to take a breath. They loomed over it, their tails waving in the air like flags from the back of golf carts. Hell's bells.
Victor had grabbed on to the railing a little above me and to the left, and he stared at the oncoming demon with a face twisted with hatred. I saw him draw in a breath, and try to plant a foot firmly enough to free one hand to point at the oncoming demon in some sort of magical attack or defense.
I couldn't allow Victor to get out of this. He was still whole. If he could knock the demon down, he might still slip out. So I had to tell him something that would make him mad enough to try to take my head off. "Hey, Vic," I shouted. "It was your wife. It was Monica that ratted on you."
The words hit him like a physical blow, and his head whipped around toward me, his face contorting in fury. He started to say something to me, the words of a spell meant to blow me to bits, maybe, but the toad-demon interrupted him by rearing up with an angry hiss and snapping its jaws down over Victor's collarbone and throat. Bone broke with audible snaps, and Victor squealed in pain, his arms and legs shuddering. He tried to push his way down, away from the demon, and the creature's balance wobbled.
I gritted my teeth and tried to hold on. A scorpion leapt at me, brown and gleaming, and I drew my legs up out of reach of its pincers, just barely.
"Bastard," Victor cried, struggling uselessly in the demon's jaws. There was blood running down his body, fast and hot. The demon had hit an artery, and it was simply holding on, wavering at the edge of the balcony as Victor struggled and started kicking at my near hand. He hit me once, twice, and my balance wavered, my grip slipping. A quick glance below me showed me another scorpion, getting ready to jump at me, this one closer.
Murphy, I thought. I should have listened to you. If the scorpions didn't kill me, the demon would, and if the demon didn't, the fire was going to kill me. I was going to die.
There was a certain peace in thinking that, in knowing that it was all about to be over. I was going to die. It was as simple as that. I had fought as hard as I could, done everything I could think of, and it was over. I found myself, in my final seconds, idly wishing that I could have had time to apologize to Murphy, that I could apologize to Jenny Sells for killing her daddy, that I could apologize to Linda Randall for not figuring things out fast enough and saving her life. Murphy's handcuffs lay tight and cold against my forearm as monsters and demons and black wizards and smoke closed in all around me. I closed my eyes.
Murphy's handcuffs.
My eyes snapped open.
Murphy's handcuffs.
Victor swung his foot at my left hand again. I kicked with my legs and hauled with my shoulders to give me a second of lift, and grabbed Victor Sells's pant leg in my left hand. With my right, I flicked the free end of the handcuffs around one of the bars of the guardrail. The ring of metal cycled around on its hinge and locked into place.
Then, as I started to fall back down, I hauled hard on Victor's leg. He screamed, a horrible, high-pitched squeal, as he started to fall. Kalshazzak, finally overbalanced by the additional weight and leverage I had added to Victor's struggles, pitched over the balcony guardrail and into the smoke below, crashing down to the floor, carrying Victor with him.
There was a rush of scuttling, clicking sounds, a piercing whistle-hiss from the demon. Victor's screams rose to something high-pitched and horrible, until he sounded more like an animal, a pig squealing at slaughter, than a man.
I swung from the balcony, my feet several feet above the fray, held suspended in an acutely painful fashion by Murphy's handcuffs, one loop around my wrist, the other locked around the balcony railing. I looked down as my vision started to fade. I saw a sea of brown, gleaming plates of segmented, chitinous armor. I saw the scorpions' stinging tails flashing down, over and over again. I saw the lightning eyes of Kalshazzak's physical vessel, and I saw one of them pierced and put out by the flashing sting of one of the scorpions.
And I saw Victor Sells, struck over and over again by stingers the size of ice picks, the wounds foaming with poison. The demon ignored the pincers and the stingers of the scorpions to begin tearing him apart. His face contorted in the final agony of rage and fear.
The strong survive, and the weak get eaten. I guess Victor had invested in the wrong kind of strength.
"I've got to go, Dresden," Victor told me. His voice was gentle, almost a purr, "but there's someone I want you to meet, first."
I got a sick, twisty little feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered.
Power thrummed. The air shimmered and shone, began to twist and spiral.
"Kalshazzak," Victor whispered again, louder, more demanding. I heard something, a warbling hiss that seemed to come from a great distance, rushing closer. The black wizard called the name for the third and final time, his voice rising to a screech, "Kalshazzak!"
There was a thundercrack in the house, a dull and sulfurous stench, and I craned my neck to see over the counter, risking a glance.
Victor stood by the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wooden deck. Red-orange flames wreathed the ceiling on that side of the house, and smoke was filling the room below, casting the whole place in a hellish glow.
Crouched down on the floor in front of Victor was the toad-demon I had banished the night before. I had known that I hadn't killed it. You can't kill demons, as such, only destroy the physical vessels they create for themselves when they come to the mortal world. If called again, they can create a new vessel without difficulty.
I watched in fascination, stunned. I had seen only one person call a demon before—and I had killed my old master shortly after. The thing crouched in front of Victor, its lightning blue eyes whirling with shades of scarlet hate, staring up at the black-clad wizard, trembling with the need to tear into him, to rend and destroy the mortal being who had dared summon it forth.
Victor's eyes grew wider and more mad, glittering with fevered intensity. Sweat ran down his face, and he tilted his head slowly to one side, as though his vision were skewing along the horizontal and by the motion he would compensate for it. I gave silent thanks that I had closed my Third Eye when I did. I did not want to see what that thing really looked like—and I didn't want to get a good look at the real Victor Sells, either.
The demon finally gave a hiss of frustration and turned toward me with a croaking growl. Victor dropped his head back and laughed, his will triumphant over that of the being he had called from beyond. "There, Dresden. Do you see? The strong survive, and the weak are torn to little pieces." He flapped his hand at me and said, to the demon, "Kill him."
I struggled to my feet, supporting my weight on the counter, to face the demon as it rose and began its slow stalk toward me.
"My God, Victor," I said. "I can't get over how clumsy you are."
Victor's smile immediately became a snarling sneer once again. I saw fear touch the corners of his eyes, uncertainty even though he was on top, and I felt a little smile quirk my lips. I moved my gaze to the demon's.
"You really shouldn't just hand someone else a demon's name," I told him. Then I drew in a breath, and shouted out in a voice of command, "Kalshazzak!"
The demon stopped in its tracks and gave a whistling howl of agony and rage as I called its name and drew my will up to hurl against it.
"Kalshazzak," I snarled again. The demon's presence was suddenly there, in my head, raging slippery and slimy and wriggling like a venomous tadpole. It was a pressure, a horrible pressure on my temples that made me see stars and threatened to steal enough of my balance to send me falling to the floor.
I tried to speak again and the words stuck in my throat. The demon hissed in anticipation, and the pressure on my head redoubled, trying to force me down, to make me give up the struggle, at which point the demon would be free to act. The lightning blue of its eyes became glaringly bright, painful to look upon.
I thought of little Jenny Sells, oddly enough, and of Murphy, lying pale and unconscious on a stretcher in the rain, of Susan, crouched next to me, sick and unable to run.
I had beaten this frog once. I could do it again.
I cried out the demon's name for the third and final time, my throat burning and raw. The word came out garbled and imperfect, and for a sinking moment I feared the worst, but Kalshazzak howled again, and hurled itself furiously to the floor, thrashing its limbs about like a poisoned bug, raging and tearing great swaths out of the carpet. I sagged, the weariness that came over me threatening to make me black out.
"What are you doing?" Victor said, his voice rising to a high-pitched shriek. "What are you doing?" He was staring at the demon in horror. "Kill him! I am your master! Kill him, kill him!" The demon howled in rage, turned its burning glare to me and then Victor, as though trying to decide who to devour first. Its eyes settled on Victor, who went pale and ran for the doors.
"Oh no you don't," I muttered, and I uttered the last spell I could manage. One final time, on the last gasps of my power, the winds rose and lifted me from the earth. I hurtled into Victor like an ungainly cannonball, driving him away from the doors, past the demon as it made an awkward lunge at us, and toward the railing of the balcony.
We fell in a confused heap at the edge of the balcony that overlooked the room beneath, full of dark smoke and the red glow of flame. The air had grown almost too hot to breathe. Pain jolted through my hip, more bright and blinding than anything I had ever imagined, and I sucked in a breath. The smoky air burned, made me choke and gasp.
I looked up. Fire was spreading everywhere. The demon was crouched between us and the only way out. Over the edge of the balcony was only chaos and flame and smoke—strange, dark smoke that should have been rising, but instead was mostly settled along the floor like London fog. The pain was too great. I simply couldn't move. I couldn't even take in enough breath to scream.
"Damn you," Victor screamed. He regained his feet and hauled me up toward his face with berserk strength. "Damn you," he repeated. "What happened? What did you do?"
"The Fourth Law of Magic forbids the binding of any being against its will," I grated out. Pain was tight around my throat, making me fight to speak the words. "So I stepped in and cut your control over it. And didn't establish any of my own."
Victor's eyes widened, "You mean …"
"It's free," I confirmed. I glanced at the demon. "Looks hungry."
"What do we do," Victor said. His voice was shaking, and he started shaking me, too. "What do we do?"
"We die," I said. "Hell, I was going to do that anyway. But at least this way, I take you out with me."
I saw him glance at the demon, then back to me, eyes terrified and calculating. "Work with me," he said. "You stopped it before. You can stop it again. We can beat it, together, and leave."
I studied him for a moment. I couldn't kill him with magic. I didn't want to. And it would only have brought a death sentence on my head in any case. But I could stand by and do nothing. And that's exactly what I did. I smiled at him, closed my eyes, and did nothing.
"Fuck you, then, Dresden," Victor snarled. "It can only eat one of us at a time. And I'm not going to be the one to get eaten today." And he picked me up to hurl me toward the demon.
I objected with fragile tenacity. We grappled. Fire raged. Smoke billowed. The demon came closer, lightning eyes gleaming through the hell-lit gloom. Victor was shorter than me, stockier, better at wrestling, and he hadn't been shot in the hip. He levered me up and almost threw me, but I moved quicker, whipping my right arm at his head and catching him with the flailing free end of Murphy's handcuffs, breaking his motion. He tried to break away, but I held on to him, dragged him in a circle to slam against the guardrail of the balcony, and we both toppled over.
Desperation gives a man extraordinary resources. I flailed at the balcony railing and caught it at the base, keeping myself from going over into the roiling smoke below. I shot a glance below, and saw the glistening brown hide of one of the scorpions, its stinging tail held up like the mast of a ship cutting through smoke at least four feet deep. The room was filled with angry clicking, scuttling sounds. Even in a single desperate glance, I saw a couch torn to pieces by a pair of scorpions in less time than it took to take a breath. They loomed over it, their tails waving in the air like flags from the back of golf carts. Hell's bells.
Victor had grabbed on to the railing a little above me and to the left, and he stared at the oncoming demon with a face twisted with hatred. I saw him draw in a breath, and try to plant a foot firmly enough to free one hand to point at the oncoming demon in some sort of magical attack or defense.
I couldn't allow Victor to get out of this. He was still whole. If he could knock the demon down, he might still slip out. So I had to tell him something that would make him mad enough to try to take my head off. "Hey, Vic," I shouted. "It was your wife. It was Monica that ratted on you."
The words hit him like a physical blow, and his head whipped around toward me, his face contorting in fury. He started to say something to me, the words of a spell meant to blow me to bits, maybe, but the toad-demon interrupted him by rearing up with an angry hiss and snapping its jaws down over Victor's collarbone and throat. Bone broke with audible snaps, and Victor squealed in pain, his arms and legs shuddering. He tried to push his way down, away from the demon, and the creature's balance wobbled.
I gritted my teeth and tried to hold on. A scorpion leapt at me, brown and gleaming, and I drew my legs up out of reach of its pincers, just barely.
"Bastard," Victor cried, struggling uselessly in the demon's jaws. There was blood running down his body, fast and hot. The demon had hit an artery, and it was simply holding on, wavering at the edge of the balcony as Victor struggled and started kicking at my near hand. He hit me once, twice, and my balance wavered, my grip slipping. A quick glance below me showed me another scorpion, getting ready to jump at me, this one closer.
Murphy, I thought. I should have listened to you. If the scorpions didn't kill me, the demon would, and if the demon didn't, the fire was going to kill me. I was going to die.
There was a certain peace in thinking that, in knowing that it was all about to be over. I was going to die. It was as simple as that. I had fought as hard as I could, done everything I could think of, and it was over. I found myself, in my final seconds, idly wishing that I could have had time to apologize to Murphy, that I could apologize to Jenny Sells for killing her daddy, that I could apologize to Linda Randall for not figuring things out fast enough and saving her life. Murphy's handcuffs lay tight and cold against my forearm as monsters and demons and black wizards and smoke closed in all around me. I closed my eyes.
Murphy's handcuffs.
My eyes snapped open.
Murphy's handcuffs.
Victor swung his foot at my left hand again. I kicked with my legs and hauled with my shoulders to give me a second of lift, and grabbed Victor Sells's pant leg in my left hand. With my right, I flicked the free end of the handcuffs around one of the bars of the guardrail. The ring of metal cycled around on its hinge and locked into place.
Then, as I started to fall back down, I hauled hard on Victor's leg. He screamed, a horrible, high-pitched squeal, as he started to fall. Kalshazzak, finally overbalanced by the additional weight and leverage I had added to Victor's struggles, pitched over the balcony guardrail and into the smoke below, crashing down to the floor, carrying Victor with him.
There was a rush of scuttling, clicking sounds, a piercing whistle-hiss from the demon. Victor's screams rose to something high-pitched and horrible, until he sounded more like an animal, a pig squealing at slaughter, than a man.
I swung from the balcony, my feet several feet above the fray, held suspended in an acutely painful fashion by Murphy's handcuffs, one loop around my wrist, the other locked around the balcony railing. I looked down as my vision started to fade. I saw a sea of brown, gleaming plates of segmented, chitinous armor. I saw the scorpions' stinging tails flashing down, over and over again. I saw the lightning eyes of Kalshazzak's physical vessel, and I saw one of them pierced and put out by the flashing sting of one of the scorpions.
And I saw Victor Sells, struck over and over again by stingers the size of ice picks, the wounds foaming with poison. The demon ignored the pincers and the stingers of the scorpions to begin tearing him apart. His face contorted in the final agony of rage and fear.
The strong survive, and the weak get eaten. I guess Victor had invested in the wrong kind of strength.
The demon trapped in the summoning circle screamed, slamming its crablike pincers against the unseen barrier, hurling its chitinous shoulders from side to side in an effort to escape the confinement. It couldn't. I kept my will on the circle, kept the demon from bursting free.
"Satisfied, Chauncy?" I asked it.
The demon straightened its hideous form and said, in a perfect Oxford accent, "Quite. You understand, I must observe the formalities." Then it took a pair of wholly incongruous wire-frame spectacles from beneath a scale and perched them upon the beaklike extremity of its nose. "You have questions?"
I let out a sigh of relief, and sat down on the edge of the worktable in my lab. I had cleared away all the clutter from around the summoning ring in the floor, and I'd have to move it before I could clamber up out of my lab, but I didn't like to take chances. No matter how comfortable Chaunzaggoroth and I were with our working relationship, there was always a chance that I could have messed up the summoning. There were rules of protocol that demonic beings were obliged to follow—one of them was offering resistance to any mortal wizard who called them. Another was doing their best to end the life of the same wizard, should they be able to escape the confines of the circle.
All in all, squeezing information from faeries and spirits of the elements was a lot easier and safer—but Bob had turned up nothing in his search among the local spirits. They weren't always up on information to be had in the city, and Bob now resided in his skull again, exhausted and unable to help any further.
So I'd gone to the underworld for assistance. They know when you've been bad or good, and they make Santa Claus look like an amateur.
"I need information about a man named Harley MacFinn, Chauncy. And about something he was working on called the Northwest Passage Project."
Chauncy clacked his pincers pensively. "I see. Presuming I have this information, what is it worth to you?"
"Not my soul," I snorted. "So don't even start with that. Look, I could dig this up myself in a few days."
Chauncy tilted his head, birdlike. "Ah. But time is of the essence, yes? Come now, Harry Dresden. You do not call upon me lightly. The possible dangers, both from myself and from your own White Council, are far too great."
I scowled at him. "Technically," I said, "I'm not breaking any of the Laws of Magic. I'm not robbing you of your will, so I'm clear of the Fourth Law. And you didn't get loose, so I'm clear of the Seventh Law. The Council can bite me."
The bone ridges above Chauncy's eyes twitched. "Surely, that is merely a colorful euphemism, rather than a statement of desire."
"It is."
Chauncy pushed the glasses a bit higher up on his nose. "The moral and ethical ramifications of your attitudes are quite fascinating, Harry Dresden. I am continually amazed that you remain in the Council's good graces. Knowing full well that most of the Council would look the other way while their enforcers killed you, should they learn that you have willfully brought a demon into this world, you still summon me not once, but a half-dozen times. Your attitudes are much more contiguous with those of many of my brethren in the World Below—"
"And I should throw in with your side, accept the dark powers, et cetera, et cetera," I finished for him, with a sigh. "Hell's bells, Chauncy. Why do you keep on trying to sucker me into signing on with Down-below, eh?"
Chauncy shrugged his bulky shoulders. "I admit that it would give me no small amount of status to gather a soul of your caliber into our legions," he said. "Additionally, it would free me from the onerous duties which make even these excruciating visits to your world seem pleasant by comparison."
"Well, you aren't getting my soul today," I told him. "So make me a counteroffer, or we can call a close to the negotiations and I can send you back."
The demon shuddered. "Yes, very well. Let us not be hasty, Harry Dresden. I have the information you need. Additionally, I have more information of which you are not aware, and which would be of great interest to you, and which I judge, additionally, may help to preserve your life and the lives of others. Given the situation, I do not think the price I will ask inappropriate: I wish another of your names."
I frowned. The demon had two of my names already. If he gained my whole name, from my own lips, he could use it in any number of magical applications against me. That didn't particularly disturb me—demons and their ilk had great difficulty in reaching out from the Nevernever, the spirit world beyond the physical one we inhabited, with sorcery.
But Chaunzaggoroth was a popular source of information among wizards who went to the underworld in need of it. What bothered me was the possibility that one of them would get it. Chauncy was correct—there were a lot of people on the White Council who would be happy to see me dead. If one of them got my name, there was the chance that they would use it against me, either to kill me or to magically force me to do something that would openly violate one of the Seven Laws and have me brought to trial and killed.
On the other hand, Chauncy never lied to me. If he said he had information that could save people's lives, he had it, and that's all there was to it. Hell, he might even know who the killer was, though a demon's grasp of individual human identity was somewhat shaky.
I decided to gamble.
"Done," I said. "All pertinent information on the subject of my inquiry in exchange for another of my names."
Chauncy nodded once. "Agreed."
"All right," I said. "Let's have the information on MacFinn and the Northwest Passage Project."
"Very well," Chauncy said. "Harley MacFinn is an heir to a considerable fortune made in coal mining and railroads at the turn of the twentieth century. He is one of the ten richest men in the country known as the United States. He served during the police action in Vietnam, and when he returned to this country he began divesting himself of business interests, merely accruing capital. His favorite color is red, his shoe size is—"
"We can skip the little details unless you think they will be really relevant," I said. "I could hear about his favorite food and his problems in middle school all day and it wouldn't help anything." I got out my notebook and started taking notes.
"As you wish," Chauncy assented. "The object of his endeavors for the past several years has been the Northwest Passage Project. The project is an effort to buy enormous tracts of land, beginning in the central Rocky Mountains of the American Southwest, and moving northwest into Canada, to provide for an enormous, migratory-sized preserve for North American wildlife."
"He wants to make his own private playground out of the Rocky Mountains?" I blurted.
"No, Harry Dresden. He wishes to acquire the lands that are not already owned by the government, then donate them, provided the government guarantees that they will be used as a part of the Northwest Passage Project. He has considerable backing from environmentalist groups throughout the country, and support in your capital, as well, provided he can get the land."
"Wow," I said, impressed. "You said he has a lot of support. Who wants to stop him?"
"Industrial interests still looking to expand into the Northwest," Chauncy said.
"Let me guess. James Harding III was one of them," I said, already writing it down.
"How did you know?" Chauncy asked.
"He was killed by a werewolf last month, along with his bodyguard. Several other people died as well."
Chauncy beamed. "You are a clever man, Harry Dresden. Yes. James Douglas Harding III was exceptionally interested in blocking MacFinn's efforts to acquire property. He came to Chicago to have negotiations with MacFinn, but died before they were complete."
I closed my eyes for a minute, thinking. "Okay. Harding comes to town to talk to MacFinn. Harding's in cahoots with Marcone, so maybe Marcone is hosting the talks. Harding and his bodyguard get et-all-up by a werewolf. So … MacFinn is the werewolf in question?"
Chauncy smiled, a rather intimidating expression. "MacFinn is a member of an ancient family line from an island known as Ireland. His family has a notable history. Sometime in the murky past, legend would have it, the man known as Saint Patrick cursed his ancestor to become a ravening beast at every full moon. The curse came with two addenda. First, that it would be hereditary, passing down to someone new each and every generation. And second, that the cursed line of the family would never, ever die out, lasting until the end of days."
I wrote that down as well. "A Catholic saint did that?"
Chauncy made a sound of distaste. "I am not responsible for the sorts of people the Other Side employs, wizard. Or the tactics they use."
"Considering the source, I think I'll note it as a biased opinion. Your folk have done a thousand times worse," I said.
"Well. True," Chauncy admitted. "But we tend to be quite honest about the sort of beings we are and the sorts of things we stand for, at least."
I snorted. "All right. This is making a lot more sense now. MacFinn is a loup-garou, one of the legendary monsters. He's trying to do some good in his spare time, make the big park for all the furry critters, but Harding puts himself in the way. MacFinn goes on a killing spree and wipes him out." I frowned. "Except that Harding was the last person to be murdered last month. You would have thought that if MacFinn was going to lose it, Harding would be the first to go." I peered at Chauncy. "Is MacFinn the murderer?"
"MacFinn is a murderer," Chauncy said. "But among humankind, he is one of many, and not the most monstrous."
"Is he the one who killed Marcone's bodyguard? The other people last month?"
"My information on that point is inconclusive, Harry Dresden," Chauncy said. His black eyes gleamed. "Perhaps for the price of another name, I could inquire of my brethren and give you a more precise answer."
I scowled. "Not a chance. Do you know who murdered the other people, last month?"
"I do," Chauncy said. "Murder is one of the foremost sins, and we keep close track of sins."
I leaned forward intently. "Who was it?"
Chauncy laughed, a grating sound. "Really, Harry Dresden. In the first place, our bargain was for information regarding MacFinn and the Northwest Passage Project. In the second, I could not tell you the answer to such a direct question, and you know it. There is a limit to how much I may involve myself in mortal affairs."
I let out a breath of frustration and rubbed at my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. All right, Chauncy. What else can you tell me?"
"Only that Harley MacFinn was planning to meet with John Marcone tomorrow night, to continue the talks."
"Wait a minute. Is Marcone the major opponent to the project now?"
"Correct," Chauncy said. "He assumed control of a majority of the business interests shared with Harding upon Harding's death."
"So … Marcone had a fantastic motive to have Harding killed. It broadened his financial empire, and put him in a position to gouge MacFinn for as much money as he possibly could."
Chauncy adjusted his wire-frame spectacles. "Your reasoning would seem to be sound."
I thumped my pencil on my notebook, staring at what I had written. "Yeah. But it doesn't explain why everyone else got killed. Or who did it. Unless Marcone's got a pack of werewolves in his pocket, that is." I chewed on my lip, and thought about my encounter at the Full Moon Garage. "Or Streetwolves."
"Is there anything else?" Chauncy asked, his manner solicitous.
"Yes," I said. "Where can I find MacFinn?"
"Eight eighty-eight Ralston Place."
I wrote it down. "But that's right here in Chicago. In the Gold Coast."
"Where did you expect a billionaire to live when he was in Chicago, Harry Dresden? Now, I seem to have lived up to all of my obligations. I expect my payment now." Chauncy took a few restless steps back and forth within the circle. His time on earth was beginning to wear on him.
I nodded. "My name," I said, "is Harry Blackstone Dresden." I carefully omitted «Copperfield» from the words, while leaving the tones and pronunciation the same.
"Harry. Blackstone. Dresden," Chauncy repeated carefully. "Harry as in Harry Houdini? Blackstone, the stage illusionist?"
I nodded. "My dad was a stage musician. When I was born, he gave me those names. They were always his heroes. I think if my mother had survived the birth, she would have slapped him for it." I made a few more notes on my page, getting ideas down on paper before they fled from memory.
"Indeed," Chauncy agreed. "Your mother was a most direct and willful woman. Her loss was a great sadness to all of us."
I blinked, startled, and the pencil fell from my fingers. I stared at the demon for a moment. "You … you knew my mother? You knew Margaret Gwendolyn Dresden?"
Chauncy regarded me without expression or emotion. "Many in the underworld were … familiar with her, Harry Blackstone Dresden, though under a different name. Her coming was awaited with great anticipation, but the Dark Prince lost her, in the end."
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
Chauncy's eyes gleamed with avarice. "Didn't you know about your mother's past, Mr. Dresden? A pity that we didn't have this conversation sooner. You might have added it into the bargain we made. Of course, if you would like to forfeit another name, to know all about your mother's past, her …" his voice twisted with distaste, "redemption, and the unnatural deaths of both mother and father, I am certain we can work something out."
I gritted my teeth in a sudden rush of childlike frustration. My heart pounded in my ears. My mother's dark past? I had expected that she was a wizardess, but I had never been able to prove anything, one way or another. Unnatural deaths? My father had perished in his sleep, of an aneurism, when I was young. My mother had died in childbirth.
Or had they?
A sudden, burning desire to know filled me, starting at my gut and rolling outward through my body—to know who my mother was, what she had known. She had left me her silver pentacle, but I knew nothing of the sort of person she was, other than what my gentle and too-generous father had told me before his death. What were my parents like? How had they perished and why? Had they been killed? Did they have enemies lurking out there, somewhere? If so, had I inherited them?
My mother's dark past. Did that explain my own fascination with the darker powers, my somewhat-less-than-sterling adherence to the rules of the White Council that I considered foolish or inconvenient?
I looked up at the demon, and felt like a sucker. I had been set up. He had intended, all along, to dangle this information in front of me as bait. He wanted to get my whole name, if he could, or more.
"I can show them to you, Harry Blackstone Dresden, as they really are," Chaunzaggoroth assured me, his voice dulcet. "You've never seen your mother's face. I can give that to you. You've never heard her voice. I can let you hear that as well. You know nothing of what sort of people your parents were—or if you have any other family out there. Family, Harry Blackstone Dresden. Blood. Every bit as tormented and alone as you are …"
I stared at the demon's hideous form and listened to his soothing, relaxing voice. Family. Was it possible that I had a family? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Others, like me, perhaps, moving through the secret societies of the wizards, hidden from the view of the mortal world?
"The price is comparatively low. What need have you for your immortal soul when your body is finished with it? What harm to pass on to me only one more name? This is not information easily gained, even by my kind. You may not have the chance to garner it again." The demon pressed his pincers against the barrier of the conjuring circle. His beaklike maw fairly trembled with eagerness.
"Forget it," I said quietly. "No deal."
Chaunzaggoroth's jaw dropped open. "But, Harry Blackstone Dresden—" he began.
I didn't realize that I was shouting until I saw him flinch. "I said forget it! You think I'm some kind of simp for you to sucker in, darkspawn? Take what you have gained and go, and feel lucky that I do not send you home with your bones torn from your body or your beak ground into dust."
Chaunzaggoroth's eyes flashed with rage and he hurled himself against the barrier again, howling with blood lust and fury. I extended my hand and snarled, "Oh no you don't, you slimy little shit head." The demon's will strained against mine, and though sweat burst out on my forehead, I came out ahead once more.
Chaunzaggoroth began to grow smaller and smaller, howling out his frustrated rage. "We are watching you, wizard!" he screamed. "You walk through shadows and one night you will slip and fall. And when you do, we will be there. We will be waiting to bring you down to us. You will be ours in the end."
He went on like that until he shrank to the size of a pinpoint and vanished with a little, imploding sound. I let my hand drop and lowered my head, breathing hard. I was shaking all over, and not only with the cold of my laboratory. I had badly misjudged Chaunzaggoroth, thought him a somewhat reliable, if dangerous, source of information, willing to do reasonable business. But the rage, the fury, the frustrated malice that had been in his final offer, those last words, had shown his true colors. He had lied to me, deceived me about his true nature, played me along like a sucker and then tried to set the hook, hard. I felt like such an idiot.
The phone began to ring upstairs. I stirred into sudden motion, shoving stacks of things out of my way, pushing past them and over them, to reach the step-ladder stairs that led up to my apartment. I hurried up them, my notebook in one hand, and caught the phone on its fifth ring. My apartment was dark. Night had fallen while I had interviewed the demon.
"Dresden," I said, puffing.
"Harry," Murphy said, her voice weak. "We've got another one."
"Son of a bitch," I said. "I'm coming. Give me the address." I set down the notebook and held my pencil ready to write.
Murphy's tone was numb. "Eight eighty-eight Ralston Place. Up in the Gold Coast."
I froze, staring at the address I had written down on the notebook. The address the demon had given me.
"Harry?" Murphy said. "Did you hear me?"
"I heard," I told her. "I'm coming, Murph." I hung up the phone and headed out into the light of the full moon overhead
"Satisfied, Chauncy?" I asked it.
The demon straightened its hideous form and said, in a perfect Oxford accent, "Quite. You understand, I must observe the formalities." Then it took a pair of wholly incongruous wire-frame spectacles from beneath a scale and perched them upon the beaklike extremity of its nose. "You have questions?"
I let out a sigh of relief, and sat down on the edge of the worktable in my lab. I had cleared away all the clutter from around the summoning ring in the floor, and I'd have to move it before I could clamber up out of my lab, but I didn't like to take chances. No matter how comfortable Chaunzaggoroth and I were with our working relationship, there was always a chance that I could have messed up the summoning. There were rules of protocol that demonic beings were obliged to follow—one of them was offering resistance to any mortal wizard who called them. Another was doing their best to end the life of the same wizard, should they be able to escape the confines of the circle.
All in all, squeezing information from faeries and spirits of the elements was a lot easier and safer—but Bob had turned up nothing in his search among the local spirits. They weren't always up on information to be had in the city, and Bob now resided in his skull again, exhausted and unable to help any further.
So I'd gone to the underworld for assistance. They know when you've been bad or good, and they make Santa Claus look like an amateur.
"I need information about a man named Harley MacFinn, Chauncy. And about something he was working on called the Northwest Passage Project."
Chauncy clacked his pincers pensively. "I see. Presuming I have this information, what is it worth to you?"
"Not my soul," I snorted. "So don't even start with that. Look, I could dig this up myself in a few days."
Chauncy tilted his head, birdlike. "Ah. But time is of the essence, yes? Come now, Harry Dresden. You do not call upon me lightly. The possible dangers, both from myself and from your own White Council, are far too great."
I scowled at him. "Technically," I said, "I'm not breaking any of the Laws of Magic. I'm not robbing you of your will, so I'm clear of the Fourth Law. And you didn't get loose, so I'm clear of the Seventh Law. The Council can bite me."
The bone ridges above Chauncy's eyes twitched. "Surely, that is merely a colorful euphemism, rather than a statement of desire."
"It is."
Chauncy pushed the glasses a bit higher up on his nose. "The moral and ethical ramifications of your attitudes are quite fascinating, Harry Dresden. I am continually amazed that you remain in the Council's good graces. Knowing full well that most of the Council would look the other way while their enforcers killed you, should they learn that you have willfully brought a demon into this world, you still summon me not once, but a half-dozen times. Your attitudes are much more contiguous with those of many of my brethren in the World Below—"
"And I should throw in with your side, accept the dark powers, et cetera, et cetera," I finished for him, with a sigh. "Hell's bells, Chauncy. Why do you keep on trying to sucker me into signing on with Down-below, eh?"
Chauncy shrugged his bulky shoulders. "I admit that it would give me no small amount of status to gather a soul of your caliber into our legions," he said. "Additionally, it would free me from the onerous duties which make even these excruciating visits to your world seem pleasant by comparison."
"Well, you aren't getting my soul today," I told him. "So make me a counteroffer, or we can call a close to the negotiations and I can send you back."
The demon shuddered. "Yes, very well. Let us not be hasty, Harry Dresden. I have the information you need. Additionally, I have more information of which you are not aware, and which would be of great interest to you, and which I judge, additionally, may help to preserve your life and the lives of others. Given the situation, I do not think the price I will ask inappropriate: I wish another of your names."
I frowned. The demon had two of my names already. If he gained my whole name, from my own lips, he could use it in any number of magical applications against me. That didn't particularly disturb me—demons and their ilk had great difficulty in reaching out from the Nevernever, the spirit world beyond the physical one we inhabited, with sorcery.
But Chaunzaggoroth was a popular source of information among wizards who went to the underworld in need of it. What bothered me was the possibility that one of them would get it. Chauncy was correct—there were a lot of people on the White Council who would be happy to see me dead. If one of them got my name, there was the chance that they would use it against me, either to kill me or to magically force me to do something that would openly violate one of the Seven Laws and have me brought to trial and killed.
On the other hand, Chauncy never lied to me. If he said he had information that could save people's lives, he had it, and that's all there was to it. Hell, he might even know who the killer was, though a demon's grasp of individual human identity was somewhat shaky.
I decided to gamble.
"Done," I said. "All pertinent information on the subject of my inquiry in exchange for another of my names."
Chauncy nodded once. "Agreed."
"All right," I said. "Let's have the information on MacFinn and the Northwest Passage Project."
"Very well," Chauncy said. "Harley MacFinn is an heir to a considerable fortune made in coal mining and railroads at the turn of the twentieth century. He is one of the ten richest men in the country known as the United States. He served during the police action in Vietnam, and when he returned to this country he began divesting himself of business interests, merely accruing capital. His favorite color is red, his shoe size is—"
"We can skip the little details unless you think they will be really relevant," I said. "I could hear about his favorite food and his problems in middle school all day and it wouldn't help anything." I got out my notebook and started taking notes.
"As you wish," Chauncy assented. "The object of his endeavors for the past several years has been the Northwest Passage Project. The project is an effort to buy enormous tracts of land, beginning in the central Rocky Mountains of the American Southwest, and moving northwest into Canada, to provide for an enormous, migratory-sized preserve for North American wildlife."
"He wants to make his own private playground out of the Rocky Mountains?" I blurted.
"No, Harry Dresden. He wishes to acquire the lands that are not already owned by the government, then donate them, provided the government guarantees that they will be used as a part of the Northwest Passage Project. He has considerable backing from environmentalist groups throughout the country, and support in your capital, as well, provided he can get the land."
"Wow," I said, impressed. "You said he has a lot of support. Who wants to stop him?"
"Industrial interests still looking to expand into the Northwest," Chauncy said.
"Let me guess. James Harding III was one of them," I said, already writing it down.
"How did you know?" Chauncy asked.
"He was killed by a werewolf last month, along with his bodyguard. Several other people died as well."
Chauncy beamed. "You are a clever man, Harry Dresden. Yes. James Douglas Harding III was exceptionally interested in blocking MacFinn's efforts to acquire property. He came to Chicago to have negotiations with MacFinn, but died before they were complete."
I closed my eyes for a minute, thinking. "Okay. Harding comes to town to talk to MacFinn. Harding's in cahoots with Marcone, so maybe Marcone is hosting the talks. Harding and his bodyguard get et-all-up by a werewolf. So … MacFinn is the werewolf in question?"
Chauncy smiled, a rather intimidating expression. "MacFinn is a member of an ancient family line from an island known as Ireland. His family has a notable history. Sometime in the murky past, legend would have it, the man known as Saint Patrick cursed his ancestor to become a ravening beast at every full moon. The curse came with two addenda. First, that it would be hereditary, passing down to someone new each and every generation. And second, that the cursed line of the family would never, ever die out, lasting until the end of days."
I wrote that down as well. "A Catholic saint did that?"
Chauncy made a sound of distaste. "I am not responsible for the sorts of people the Other Side employs, wizard. Or the tactics they use."
"Considering the source, I think I'll note it as a biased opinion. Your folk have done a thousand times worse," I said.
"Well. True," Chauncy admitted. "But we tend to be quite honest about the sort of beings we are and the sorts of things we stand for, at least."
I snorted. "All right. This is making a lot more sense now. MacFinn is a loup-garou, one of the legendary monsters. He's trying to do some good in his spare time, make the big park for all the furry critters, but Harding puts himself in the way. MacFinn goes on a killing spree and wipes him out." I frowned. "Except that Harding was the last person to be murdered last month. You would have thought that if MacFinn was going to lose it, Harding would be the first to go." I peered at Chauncy. "Is MacFinn the murderer?"
"MacFinn is a murderer," Chauncy said. "But among humankind, he is one of many, and not the most monstrous."
"Is he the one who killed Marcone's bodyguard? The other people last month?"
"My information on that point is inconclusive, Harry Dresden," Chauncy said. His black eyes gleamed. "Perhaps for the price of another name, I could inquire of my brethren and give you a more precise answer."
I scowled. "Not a chance. Do you know who murdered the other people, last month?"
"I do," Chauncy said. "Murder is one of the foremost sins, and we keep close track of sins."
I leaned forward intently. "Who was it?"
Chauncy laughed, a grating sound. "Really, Harry Dresden. In the first place, our bargain was for information regarding MacFinn and the Northwest Passage Project. In the second, I could not tell you the answer to such a direct question, and you know it. There is a limit to how much I may involve myself in mortal affairs."
I let out a breath of frustration and rubbed at my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. All right, Chauncy. What else can you tell me?"
"Only that Harley MacFinn was planning to meet with John Marcone tomorrow night, to continue the talks."
"Wait a minute. Is Marcone the major opponent to the project now?"
"Correct," Chauncy said. "He assumed control of a majority of the business interests shared with Harding upon Harding's death."
"So … Marcone had a fantastic motive to have Harding killed. It broadened his financial empire, and put him in a position to gouge MacFinn for as much money as he possibly could."
Chauncy adjusted his wire-frame spectacles. "Your reasoning would seem to be sound."
I thumped my pencil on my notebook, staring at what I had written. "Yeah. But it doesn't explain why everyone else got killed. Or who did it. Unless Marcone's got a pack of werewolves in his pocket, that is." I chewed on my lip, and thought about my encounter at the Full Moon Garage. "Or Streetwolves."
"Is there anything else?" Chauncy asked, his manner solicitous.
"Yes," I said. "Where can I find MacFinn?"
"Eight eighty-eight Ralston Place."
I wrote it down. "But that's right here in Chicago. In the Gold Coast."
"Where did you expect a billionaire to live when he was in Chicago, Harry Dresden? Now, I seem to have lived up to all of my obligations. I expect my payment now." Chauncy took a few restless steps back and forth within the circle. His time on earth was beginning to wear on him.
I nodded. "My name," I said, "is Harry Blackstone Dresden." I carefully omitted «Copperfield» from the words, while leaving the tones and pronunciation the same.
"Harry. Blackstone. Dresden," Chauncy repeated carefully. "Harry as in Harry Houdini? Blackstone, the stage illusionist?"
I nodded. "My dad was a stage musician. When I was born, he gave me those names. They were always his heroes. I think if my mother had survived the birth, she would have slapped him for it." I made a few more notes on my page, getting ideas down on paper before they fled from memory.
"Indeed," Chauncy agreed. "Your mother was a most direct and willful woman. Her loss was a great sadness to all of us."
I blinked, startled, and the pencil fell from my fingers. I stared at the demon for a moment. "You … you knew my mother? You knew Margaret Gwendolyn Dresden?"
Chauncy regarded me without expression or emotion. "Many in the underworld were … familiar with her, Harry Blackstone Dresden, though under a different name. Her coming was awaited with great anticipation, but the Dark Prince lost her, in the end."
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
Chauncy's eyes gleamed with avarice. "Didn't you know about your mother's past, Mr. Dresden? A pity that we didn't have this conversation sooner. You might have added it into the bargain we made. Of course, if you would like to forfeit another name, to know all about your mother's past, her …" his voice twisted with distaste, "redemption, and the unnatural deaths of both mother and father, I am certain we can work something out."
I gritted my teeth in a sudden rush of childlike frustration. My heart pounded in my ears. My mother's dark past? I had expected that she was a wizardess, but I had never been able to prove anything, one way or another. Unnatural deaths? My father had perished in his sleep, of an aneurism, when I was young. My mother had died in childbirth.
Or had they?
A sudden, burning desire to know filled me, starting at my gut and rolling outward through my body—to know who my mother was, what she had known. She had left me her silver pentacle, but I knew nothing of the sort of person she was, other than what my gentle and too-generous father had told me before his death. What were my parents like? How had they perished and why? Had they been killed? Did they have enemies lurking out there, somewhere? If so, had I inherited them?
My mother's dark past. Did that explain my own fascination with the darker powers, my somewhat-less-than-sterling adherence to the rules of the White Council that I considered foolish or inconvenient?
I looked up at the demon, and felt like a sucker. I had been set up. He had intended, all along, to dangle this information in front of me as bait. He wanted to get my whole name, if he could, or more.
"I can show them to you, Harry Blackstone Dresden, as they really are," Chaunzaggoroth assured me, his voice dulcet. "You've never seen your mother's face. I can give that to you. You've never heard her voice. I can let you hear that as well. You know nothing of what sort of people your parents were—or if you have any other family out there. Family, Harry Blackstone Dresden. Blood. Every bit as tormented and alone as you are …"
I stared at the demon's hideous form and listened to his soothing, relaxing voice. Family. Was it possible that I had a family? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins? Others, like me, perhaps, moving through the secret societies of the wizards, hidden from the view of the mortal world?
"The price is comparatively low. What need have you for your immortal soul when your body is finished with it? What harm to pass on to me only one more name? This is not information easily gained, even by my kind. You may not have the chance to garner it again." The demon pressed his pincers against the barrier of the conjuring circle. His beaklike maw fairly trembled with eagerness.
"Forget it," I said quietly. "No deal."
Chaunzaggoroth's jaw dropped open. "But, Harry Blackstone Dresden—" he began.
I didn't realize that I was shouting until I saw him flinch. "I said forget it! You think I'm some kind of simp for you to sucker in, darkspawn? Take what you have gained and go, and feel lucky that I do not send you home with your bones torn from your body or your beak ground into dust."
Chaunzaggoroth's eyes flashed with rage and he hurled himself against the barrier again, howling with blood lust and fury. I extended my hand and snarled, "Oh no you don't, you slimy little shit head." The demon's will strained against mine, and though sweat burst out on my forehead, I came out ahead once more.
Chaunzaggoroth began to grow smaller and smaller, howling out his frustrated rage. "We are watching you, wizard!" he screamed. "You walk through shadows and one night you will slip and fall. And when you do, we will be there. We will be waiting to bring you down to us. You will be ours in the end."
He went on like that until he shrank to the size of a pinpoint and vanished with a little, imploding sound. I let my hand drop and lowered my head, breathing hard. I was shaking all over, and not only with the cold of my laboratory. I had badly misjudged Chaunzaggoroth, thought him a somewhat reliable, if dangerous, source of information, willing to do reasonable business. But the rage, the fury, the frustrated malice that had been in his final offer, those last words, had shown his true colors. He had lied to me, deceived me about his true nature, played me along like a sucker and then tried to set the hook, hard. I felt like such an idiot.
The phone began to ring upstairs. I stirred into sudden motion, shoving stacks of things out of my way, pushing past them and over them, to reach the step-ladder stairs that led up to my apartment. I hurried up them, my notebook in one hand, and caught the phone on its fifth ring. My apartment was dark. Night had fallen while I had interviewed the demon.
"Dresden," I said, puffing.
"Harry," Murphy said, her voice weak. "We've got another one."
"Son of a bitch," I said. "I'm coming. Give me the address." I set down the notebook and held my pencil ready to write.
Murphy's tone was numb. "Eight eighty-eight Ralston Place. Up in the Gold Coast."
I froze, staring at the address I had written down on the notebook. The address the demon had given me.
"Harry?" Murphy said. "Did you hear me?"
"I heard," I told her. "I'm coming, Murph." I hung up the phone and headed out into the light of the full moon overhead
Demons are never your friends. You can have fae and spirit friends. Can be cordial.
Not DF demons.
Nobody calls them up to wash their car, and anyone who does so knows precisely what they are risking.
And twenty five year old Dresden was a poster boy for the assertion that your brain doesnt finish developing until your late twenties.
Because he was a fucking idiot.
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My point wasn't that they aren't dangerous, just that intent is part of the point. A diabolic rampage would only ding you with first law violations if you did it specifically to kill people.
Screwing up might still get you axed by the council, but that isn't the same thing as the metaphysical impact of breaking the laws.
Demons is just what wizards call "things from the nevernever that are mean, but don't fall into a more specific category" which is why things from half a dozen underworlds get called that. The singular from that passage is early edition weirdness.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I imagine our long-term standing with the White Council, from an official standpoint, will be as the supernatural ruler of a realm in the NeverNever, with that realm being politely never called a "hell," and its inhabitants politely never called "demons," despite some in the White Council unofficially admitting that the distinction is somewhat more political than metaphysical.
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
I was referring to the nature of magic in the setting. Killing someone in order to make good is the same as killing someone in self defense or for self interest. As such we also know that necromancers in dresdenverse con use their magic to heal but in the procesos it produces a similar backlash as if a normal wizard tainted its soul. But it does not care of circunstances and as such even if we kill, enslave or sin in the name of what is good we wont surfer a backlash because that is what our magical nature tends to prefer, because lesser evils are still evils. If we try to create a healing charm out of our infernal exaltation that does not have dark side effects we might suffer some magical repercusions or extra difficulty, although a real soul taint might be imposible with our exalted soul
That's not accurate though. The entire point of the doom of Damocles is to account for the self defense case; the wizards a hardliners because getting it wrong has serious consequences, so they default to killing when they don't have conclusive evidence that the lawbreaker didn't fall into an exception. If Harry had killed a random muggle in a rage even having a grandfather on the senior council wouldn't have saved him.
In general I think it's worth drawing a distinction between how context sensitive the white council is and how the actual stuff they're policing works. The above clearly demonstrates that there's more to it than they like to acknowledge, and it at least partially comes down to a value judgment anyway.
Even setting that aside, Molly isn't a wizard and she doesn't use mortal magic. Her charms to date have had nothing like magical backlash because they're fundamentally different things. You can draw very general comparisons, but arguing on the basis of a shared baseline functional mechanism is sort of ridiculous.
That's mortal magic only. And we aren't using that at all.
1)I dont think I agree.
This is precisely the sort of thing you might be able to ruleslawyer with the right circumstances and sufficient clout, but which you'd be dinged for metaphysically.
It might not be premeditated murder, but it would count as reckless homicide, at a minimum.
For example, if you took a rabid pitbull out for a walk without a leash in a childrens park?
You might not plan to kill someone, but there is a very proximate link between your disregard for everything known about them, and a child losing its face. I would expect you to get dinged hard.
It would be a different matter if it was a spirit/denizen type with no known history of malevolence, you'd done your due dilligence and it suddenly going berserk with no warning and killed a bunch of people. You might still be in big trouble with the White Council and possibly any supernaturals affected, but I think that metaphysically you would be in the clear.
2)Dresdenverse Wizards seem to generally use the term demon mostly for denizens from a very specific area of the NeverNever, apparently. The World Below or Down Under, according to the RPG at least.
Its not a general standin term for hostile/violent NeverNever unknowns.
To the best of my knowledge/understanding at least.
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Alright then, vote closed.
We have a counter-example in this very quest. Dresden was supposed to call Mab with a full expectation that a) she will engage in combat, including in combat against possibly mortal necromancers who took Arawn, and b) that she would exert unnatural mental influence against those in her presence (as she did to us and others, we just blocked it). If you think that unprompted actions of the summon still affect the summoner of the meta-physical level when they aren't directly the intent of summoning, then Dresden was in violation of the Laws here, not on a legal, but on a metaphysical level.
So? Black magic and law breaking are not necessary synonymous. Black magic based on the darker part of the emotional spectrum like fear, lust and anger. When Dresden uses his fear to power a shield, that's black magic, but is not law breaking.
Black magic isn't what Necromancers use as fuel. They use something else, like the Red and Black Court's spellcasters.
Emotions and storms etc are just different ways of accessing the essence of life and creation.
And the local Nevernever has its own living things that produce energy that can be accessed. The essence of life and creation that is the magic wizards draw on can still be found there.
It's just that on Earth it's the energy from creatures living on Earth. That's why in Small Favour the Denarians isolated the aquarium to prevent drawing on external magic.
Winning Vote
Arc 3 Post 14: All that Glimmers
All that Glimmers
25st of July 2006 A.D.
Lying in bed and firing off call after call eyes looking through rather than at the dubiously artistic butterfly light-fixtures you cannot help but be disturbed at how easy it is to pretend to be a cop questioning the other semifinalists. Mom had drilled into your head for years that you do not trust someone just because they say they are a cop, even if they are in uniform until you see a badge, but here are half a dozen people who don''t even question a voice on the phone. Guess I can add phone scams to the list of awful things I would be really good at.
Alas it does not get you any closer to the answers, no one has seen anything other than the suspicious lack of lights in the windows so you pick up to go deal with the actual cops. They... are not any harder to fool with a smile and a story about holiday projects.
"Seriously, what kid does holiday projects in July and ones that need the floor plans to an retirement home?" Lydia asks in a barely hushed voice once you are out of the station. She turns to dad. "Do we look that uncool?"
"I..." He looks her up and down dramatically before answering. "I have raised enough children to know there is no right answer to that."
"Moooly why did you make the cops think we are uncool?" she pretends to whine, struggling not to laugh.
"I did not, I made them think we are adorably dorky, adorkable," you maintain.
"That is not a word," she fires back.
"It is according to the internet," you point out.
"The internet shouldn't get a vote. It's weird and... er makes demons," Lydia proclaims still smiling.
Though you roll your eyes you know there's some real disquiet behind the joke. For someone who had grown up more familiar with tutors and the library than school and the company of other kids the internet with its constant bombardment of information, its anonymity and in many places lack of accountability in how one talks to others is... kind of overwhelming. It does not help that a lot of the stuff she did learn belonged more in the sixteenth century than the twentieth.
Where is does help though is in looking over the plans you had 'liberated'. The fact that an entire wing of the property is 'in renovations' caught your eye from the start, hinting that there may be more people or... other strange things on the property. But Lydia noticed something else.
"Huh... this place looks weird... Six ways out of the room, but only one of them has a straight shot to the entrance" She lays a finger at an intersection of corridors in the center of the building, a round conference room or bingo room or whatever old people use big rooms for with an outer rim around it marked 'for storage'. "Can you pull up pictures of that?"
"Sure," you pull out your phone and show off the room from some of the promotional pics. Clippy is still humming in the background but she instantly allocates enough processing power to get the image you mean on screen.
"Big green arrow showing the door out and look there above that door into storage, what's that symbol. Looks like a T right? Dollars to donouts there are other letters at the rest of the doors spelling out TARO, TORA... or if you read them aligned to the spokes that you cannot see here but might be buried in the floor or something ROTA, wheel, Wheel of Fortune."
Absolutely nothing pings in your head for once, Usum is as confused as you are. "The game show?"
"The card of the Major Arcana in tarot," Lydia explains. "It signifies the fortunes of life, ascending and descending..."
"That is not occult Finnish or even Nordic symbology is it?" You muse.
She shakes her head. "More like Hermetic mystery connection, though it could also be one of dozens of revivals each with their own spin. The symbols are so common and so wide spread finding them is less like a fingerprint and more like a confirmation that the perpetrator has fingers."
You nod understanding. You had been to plenty of Tarot readings when you were looking into how magic worked in all the wrong places, but they mostly bored you to tears. "OK so we have a place of some kind of occult significance, a bunch of rooms that are supposed to be empty but probably aren't. Clippy did you find anything on the doctor?"
Most of the stuff is unremarkable, schooling, certification, he's fifty three, cutting a very distinguished figure in the company of smiling seniors, but with a bit more digging Clippy found something odd about the good doctor. He's wealthy... like really wealthy. His grandfather had made one of the first strikes of gold in Lapland and while the mine had since closed you can be sure Markus Niemi isn't running a retirement home in Cleveland for the salary.
"Look into the company please Clippy..."
She does and finds it entangled with the same shell companies that had let you to the newest incarnation of Pathways Pharmaceuticals. Following the trail a bit more you find that some of these people are getting into what is suspected to be African Conflict Diamonds. These people are raising all the 'we are evil bastard' flags.
"Something this large needs a lot of financing, " Dad points out. "And if one is willing to sell one's soul for power few other deeds arebeyond the pale."
"What are the odds the Reds try to jump us after we deal with the Pathfinders?" you ask after a moment as you lace up your Tims, black mailshirt reassuringly cool on the damp skin underneath your second least favorite flannel shirt. The sun is staring to fall in the sky but it's nowhere near sunset yet. You should have time to deal with Niemi and then get out of there before the vampires get frisky.
"It depends on what they think they can get away with," he answers after a moment. Looking to you and Lydia he adds. "How dangerous they think the two of you are."
"I hope they get it wrong," you smile
How do you go in?
[] Incognito, once you are in his office you can have that chat
[] Break in to the place 'under renovation'
[] Write in
OOC: I have to run. Rolls in a bit.
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So... We need to
[X] Incognito, once you are in his office you can have that chat
-[X] Use excellency (Subterfuge) to gain access to the doctor without alerting anyone
--[X] Stunt: You and Lydia enter the Soul's Rest reception area, Michael following you. As you move towards reception, it's easy to act nervous in a way you aren't. A shift in posture, a moment of hesitation where none really exists. By the time you "muster the courage" to ask the receptionist if you could see the director of the facility about admitting your old Nana, she should be firmly convinced there's no risk in it.
-[X] Use Excellency (Intimidation) when talking to the doctor
--[X] As you enter the office of your target, his secretary leaving you alone, and closing the door behind you, your presence shifts. It is not a child of a distraught family that stands before him. It is someone who even his master should avoid, if it has enough mind to do so, lest it becomes the sacrifice on the altar of your epic tale. He, either a mortal or something who was once mortal, cannot do so, trapped as he is in the same room with you. The only option left for him is to offer his unconditional assistance.
Well, right now they should be thinking that what the pathfinders are doing is dangerous and evil enough that one of the Knights of the Cross has teamed up with an archfiend from hell to stop it. If they are smart, a Lord of the Outer Night should be arriving promptly to assume control over the situation, or they should be evacuating right now and preparing to (literally) nuke the site from orbit. I mean, there are side-effects of rolling legendary intimidation successes.
[X] Incognito, once you are in his office you can have that chat
-[X] Use excellency (Subterfuge) to gain access to the doctor without alerting anyone
--[X] Stunt: You and Lydia enter the Soul's Rest reception area, Michael following you. As you move towards reception, it's easy to act nervous in a way you aren't. A shift in posture, a moment of hesitation where none really exists. By the time you "muster the courage" to ask the receptionist if you could see the director of the facility about admitting your old Nana, she should be firmly convinced there's no risk in it.
-[X] Use Excellency (Intimidation) when talking to the doctor
--[X] As you enter the office of your target, his secretary leaving you alone, and closing the door behind you, your presence shifts. It is not a child of a distraught family that stands before him. It is someone who even his master should avoid, if it has enough mind to do so, lest it becomes the sacrifice on the altar of your epic tale. He, either a mortal or something who was once mortal, cannot do so, trapped as he is in the same room with you. The only option left for him is to offer his unconditional assistance.
[X] Incognito, once you are in his office you can have that chat
-[X] Use excellency (Subterfuge) to gain access to the doctor without alerting anyone
--[X] Stunt: You and Lydia enter the Soul's Rest reception area, Michael following you. As you move towards reception, it's easy to act nervous in a way you aren't. A shift in posture, a moment of hesitation where none really exists. By the time you "muster the courage" to ask the receptionist if you could see the director of the facility about admitting your old Nana, she should be firmly convinced there's no risk in it.
-[X] Use Excellency (Intimidation) when talking to the doctor
--[X] As you enter the office of your target, his secretary leaving you alone, and closing the door behind you, your presence shifts. It is not a child of a distraught family that stands before him. It is someone who even his master should avoid, if it has enough mind to do so, lest it becomes the sacrifice on the altar of your epic tale. He, either a mortal or something who was once mortal, cannot do so, trapped as he is in the same room with you. The only option left for him is to offer his unconditional assistance.
-[X] Use excellency (Subterfuge) to gain access to the doctor without alerting anyone
--[X] Stunt: You and Lydia enter the Soul's Rest reception area, Michael following you. As you move towards reception, it's easy to act nervous in a way you aren't. A shift in posture, a moment of hesitation where none really exists. By the time you "muster the courage" to ask the receptionist if you could see the director of the facility about admitting your old Nana, she should be firmly convinced there's no risk in it.
-[X] Use Excellency (Intimidation) when talking to the doctor
--[X] As you enter the office of your target, his secretary leaving you alone, and closing the door behind you, your presence shifts. It is not a child of a distraught family that stands before him. It is someone who even his master should avoid, if it has enough mind to do so, lest it becomes the sacrifice on the altar of your epic tale. He, either a mortal or something who was once mortal, cannot do so, trapped as he is in the same room with you. The only option left for him is to offer his unconditional assistance.
This is dependent on them believing that the small fry's reaction directly maps to power level. Even if they do, they might just decide to let the white god handle it and stick to confirming that it works out afterwards.
The high nobility of the red court have shit to do, and can't afford to pick fights they might lose right now.
Xexilf
Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis
The red court reaction is unlikely to be middling. Either they bail out, though possibly with some scouting done to see how things fall out, or they get serious, possibly with some big strike team to drop on the situation, to deal with whoever wins. Dosent have to mean a night lord, but something like the force seen in Changes (30 ish vamps, led by someone strong and competent (like the eebs), and an Ick or other heavy hitter) is quite possible.
What is unlikely is just an ambush by three goons.
What is unlikely is just an ambush by three goons.
I mean, Outsiders. If there is anything that gets Good, Evil, and Winter all on the same page it is kicking the shit out of outsider plots that Evil isn't trying to exploit.