1)Because Chicago is the third largest city in the US, in addition to being an acknowledged magical crossroad?
Large population of supernaturals to hide in, lots of NeverNever locales connect here, right in top of a nexus of Ways.
The grendelkin was eating people and animals here for months in the short story Heorot before Dresden and Gard noticed.
From a personal safety perspective, a transportation crossroads gives you multiple options for evading pursuit and leaving town. There apparently arent many places like this in the Dresdenverse. Edinburgh is another, but held by the White Council.
Not sure if Chitchen Itza is as well.
Its the same reason why experienced fugitives try to stay close to multiple transport options.
And why they seek out large cities; easier to blend into large populations.
2)Spirit of knowledge, not necromancer. He doesnt appear to grow in power from eating mortals, let alone spirits.
Fucking off to Columbus puts him in a less obvious locale, but also one with a much smaller population, so he stands out more, and with fewer egress routes should a hunting party come to town. Much higher risk of getting cornered and clobbered.
3) In canon he took six or seven years before getting involved in another major scheme.
Here its only been ten months.
Something's different.
4) No, it isnt fear mongering.
Mortimer's death would unleash a murder of ghosts on the city. His incapacitation however? We dont know.
If he's being pressed, whether by Kattrin's remnants, Daedalus or even the Library? We dont know.
We have no way of knowing without walking in and knocking on his door.
5) I dont think thats a valid argument.
We already made contact with the Senior Council via Ebenezar McCoy the Blackstaff way back in the first arc.
And Dresden probably has given at least some updates on the matter after the Red Room Murders.
Thats handled.
Lara Raith knows who we are, and she or someone acting on her instructions called Michael after the Black Rider auction.
Frankly I would be surprised if she doesnt already know about her brother's new business associate; its been around three weeks, and she's the sister who raised him, effective White Court head and his handler in the True Venatori.
Marcone knows because Gard, as does Odin.
Summer Court knows because Lily and Fix were there when we got back from Arctis Tor.
Winter knows because of our escape from Arctis Tor.
The Red Court know about us because we let a Rampire covert action team go after Cleveland; it was the right thing to do, but they know. The Archive knows everything we've committed to paper or electronic communication.
And she isnt in Chicago anyway.
The only reason Im not stressing about the Denarians is because they have no publicly known points of contact in the Chicago area. Neither do the Yama Kings for that matter.
They generally get initiative, so we wait.
1) Again, hide how? He isn't a minor talent, a fey, a sorcerer, or some sort of vampire. He's a blatantly obvious necro-spirit. There isn't a group he can work his stuff around that won't recognize what it is, or that will give him cover unless he joins up first.
More supernatural eyes means more people around to notice him and the signs of his passage. If he wanted to keep his head down going somewhere without supernatural entities would be vastly more effective.
Staying right on top of an exit is good in general, but you don't need to stay on a nexus to make effective use of the nevernever. That's overkill for his needs if it's just about running away. It's also probably a bad idea for him to use most effective ways after trying to steal from Winter anyway.
As to his ability to murder freely; he's a known factor now, which changes the equation. There are plenty of places to find victims where someone capable of stopping him is highly unlikely to pop up.
This is sort of straying from the point though.
2) Not naturally, but he clearly has the knowledge to do stuff like this if he wants. Plus he's made of evil Bob's nastiest knowledge, most of it Kemmler's.
He's really damn dangerous, and he cannot blend into a crowd of supernaturals. He can't use his magic where they can see it without being caught out. Living near people who would even think that someone like him could exist is just making him more likely to get caught.
Escape routes into the nevernever aren't exclusive to Chicago, and considering how bad an idea it's be for him to walk some of them Bob can't exactly arbitrarily pop through any way available to him in the city anyway.
3) I think the difference was that he saw a shot at a rare opportunity and took it. Not every day a death god with the exact weaknesses for a ritual you know pops up, and it's even rarer for competent coconspirators who also already know the basics to just appear with him.
4) It's exactly fear mongering, because we have no reason whatsoever to believe anything about his status and you're using fear of that as a driving argument to take action.
We have the same level of proof that the neo-nazis from earlier are going to snipe Molly on the steps of her school to either kill her or put her supernatural status in an attempt to screw up her life as a form of petty revenge.
It'd really suck, the timing would be terrible, and clean up would absorb our attention for a considerable period of time IC. But those are just risks that make it sound scary, they aren't reasons to believe it's likely.
To my eye this is functionally the same argument you're making.
Being security conscious is good, but it's only conscious if it's measured. Otherwise it's just paranoid impulse that occasionally gets lucky.
5) Those were just intended as examples of other things that are threats on the horizon that are similarly difficult to quantify in terms of specific threat in the context of the threat.
I'd argue some of the individual pieces, but it'd be missing the point. Any of those situations could spiral as easily and rapidly as Mort's, but we can't reasonably spend all our AP obsessively going after each of them or we'll never get anything done.
I'm interested in meeting Mort and I buy the argument that he's probably a useful person to know in various ways, which is why I'm approval voting your plan.
The claim that we
have to see him immediately because there's an obvious risk seems ridiculous to me though, and a poor argument for an otherwise reasonable action.
