Night Light [Dresden Files/Ward]

[Ellf]

Night Light

Chapter One

As nice as peace and quiet was, peace and quiet alone didn't pay the bills. Nor did, on the other hand, working for Mab, as the Winter Knight. I suspected that if I were to ask her for payment, she would say something about a true Winter Knight needing to be self-sufficient. So, I did what was familiar. I took out my familiar Yellow Pages ad, but I also got some help from some friends to get a form of an online presence as well. The standard advertisement was obvious. Admittedly, there was a nice new addition to it, thanks to my current status.

HARRY DRESDEN — WIZARD OF CHICAGO
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment

​

Then my number and the location of my office was listed. The web advertisements, in theory, did much the same. I got to take a look over Will's shoulder from far enough away that I had to squint to look at them. I trusted my friends though, and I doubted they'd steer me wrong. The advertisement also spit in the face of the White Council. They could kick me out, but they couldn't stop me from doing what was right.

Of course, most of the time, I primarily focused on the lost items. Lost items, lost people, lost whatever, usually led me on more adventures than I could count. Which, of course led to that cold February morning.

I'd just dropped Maggie off at her school for the day, returning to my new office's location in the beautiful heart of downtown Chicago. I hadn't had any calls about clients that day, so I'd taken my time and had stopped by one of the local coffee shops for a pick me up. It was one of those types of shops that had all those fancy names for coffees that were more milkshake than actual coffee, but I had ordered a plain black light roast. Piping hot.

Imagine my surprise when there were two people waiting right outside my office door. The smaller of which looked to be about the age of my daughter. She was a little dark-skinned girl, maybe an inch or two taller than Maggie, dressed in a thick winter coat overtop a black jumper. Her hair was done up in a pair of buns, and the determined curious look on her face as she looked at the door to my office was frankly, adorable. She held something in her hands that emitted light, which on closer look was some sort of technological device with a screen. It was too large and too round to be a phone, and I got a slight sense of cubism looking at it. Maybe it was some sort of newfangled tablet or something.

Whatever it was, there was clearly some sort of glitching even with me just down the hall. I did my best to pull my magic in, to keep it from extruding out and interfering with whatever her device was. See, magic and technology don't mix. I'd say they were like oil and water, but that wouldn't be an apt comparison. They're much more like sodium and water, in that magic causes strange effects to happen with technology.

Next the girl was a tall young woman, maybe slightly above average height. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung over her right shoulder. I held in the slight wince at the memory of another shorter woman with that same hair color. She was attractive enough, I supposed, with her high cheekbones and red lips. The black leather jacket and jeans she wore weren't intended to draw attention to that fact, however. They were far more utilitarian, which… again, reminded me of another blonde. As I approached, she took me in, eyes scanning over my form. This was a woman who had experience, and as she stepped ever so slightly between me and the younger girl, I smiled.

I held up both hands in a placating manner, showing that they were empty. "Hi there."

"Wow, you're tall," said the young girl as she looked up at me. I couldn't quite place the accent.

A bit of recognition showed on the woman's face. "Myr—no." She frowned for a brief second before locking eyes with me. I quickly looked away, looking to her nose and lips. "Are you Harry Dresden?"

"That's what the name on the door says," I said with a wry grin. "Gosh, it would be terrible if I weren't and this key didn't work."

I pulled my key ring out of my duster's pocket, letting the rest of the keys dangle.

"Wait, so are you really a wizard?" the little girl asked. She started fiddling a bit more with the device in her hands. "Like, you can do magic spells and have powers and stuff? I know that you say you don't do parties, and there's information about you online and such, but there's stuff they say about assumptions."

"Something about asses and mumptions, I'm sure," I said, and the sharp glare I received from the woman meant that I was on the right track. "I'd demonstrate, but we're in the middle of a hallway and my office is much more comfortable. For all of us."

"You're right," said the woman. "Come on, Kenz, let's let him by."

She moved the smaller girl out of the way so I could unlock my office door. I opened it up and stepped inside.

My new office wasn't all that different from my old office. Sure, there was a newer desk, newer chairs, and the floor lacked the scuff marks and grooves that my old office had worn in, but I still had the table with pamphlets informing people about various supernatural threats and what to pay attention to in your kids for Talent development. With Maggie growing up, I made sure to pay attention to that one. My fiancée had insisted on a brand new coffee maker, made by the Svartalves, so that I could provide my clients something that was "better than the swill" my old maker used to make. She even had special grounds prepared for me. Hanging on the wall above it was the banner I'd made to lead people during the battle eight months ago at the Bean. It hung there to remind me of what had happened and who I'd done it with.

I started the coffee maker and made my way over to my desk, turning to face my two new potential clients. I gestured for them to take the suede seats that were across from me. "I didn't get any calls about new clients, but I've got a pretty free morning. Yes, I'm Harry Dresden, Wizard of Chicago."

"Like on your website," said the girl. Kenz, I assumed. Probably a nickname.

"Exactly. And if you've read the website, you know that—"

"You don't do parties or love spells, entertainment or endless purses," said the woman. "Yes, we read your ad. We're not here for any of that. Your ad says that you can find things."

"Yes," I said. "Finding things is a specialty of mine."

It used to be my bread and butter, honestly. Lost objects often were easy enough to locate with thaumaturgy.

"What about people?" asked Kenz. "Can you find people?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"A few friends of ours," said the woman. "We're fairly certain that they made it here to Chicago, but we haven't had much luck locating them. Kenzie and I, we were hoping that you might be able to help point us in the right direction."

I tapped my chin. "Have you notified the police of this?"

She shook her head. "I'm not confident that CPD would be all that useful in this situation."

"Is there a particular reason for that, miss…"

"Victoria," she said, intensely looking at the table for a second. "And I don't know if they would believe me."

"So, you come to the person who openly calls themselves a wizard in the phone book," I said. "And claims to be good at finding things in the hopes that he might find your friends."

"Pretty much," Kenzie said. "Only I told Victoria that we should look into you. I probably could find them all, Victoria, you know."

"This isn't our city, Kenzie," Victoria said softly. That was when I noticed the New Englander accent in her voice. It was almost a mix of a Bostonian and Rhode Island accent. "Well, Mr. Dresden… are you good at finding people?"

"I can find people," I said. "But I'm going to need a lot more information before I start. The first of which is how many people I'm looking for."

"Four," Victoria said. "Sveta, Rain, Tristan, and Ashley."

Kenzie glanced up at Victoria after that last name. "You're sure?"

Victoria nodded.

Well. This implied some things. The two of them were obviously hiding something about either themselves, their friends, or both of them. The whole idea of being uncertain whether the friends made it here could have meant that they were supposed to come on a different plane or something, but this felt different than that. The two of them felt different than that.

"I think I can try to find your friends," I said. "My rates are reasonable. Sixty an hour, plus expenses. Once I find your friends or at least can point you in the right direction."

Victoria nodded. "What do you need from us?"

"Descriptions of who I'm looking for, along with any personal items that you might have of theirs," I said. "Biological samples would work better, but—"

"Would hair work?" Kenzie asked.

"What?" Victoria asked.

"Hair's a biological sample, and he said they work better than personal items," Kenzie said. "I have some of each of them's hair."

"I mean, yes, it would work," I said. Who carried around bits of their friends' hair? It was useful in this case, but that certainly wasn't normal. "Do you have the samples here?"

"Yes," Kenzie said, and she reached into her jacket, pulling out a small metal cube, maybe six inches in length, width, and height. She opened the cube, and she pulled a small bag out. Inside the bag was a variety of smaller bags, each one containing some hair. One bag had white hair, another had dirty blond hair, the third had magenta hair, a fourth had blue hair, and the fifth had something that looked slightly metallic. "Each sample here is labeled. Sveta's the only one I wasn't able to get hair from."

"She doesn't really have any," Victoria said. She offered a small smile to the girl. "I'm sure she's doing okay. They all are. Mr. Dresden, if that will work, I think we can have a deal."

"You're able to pay?" I asked.

She nodded. "It… might be with some notraditional currency, but we can pay."

I offered my ungloved right hand to her, and she took it with her own to shake. I hadn't quite been expecting the shock when I touched her. This woman had Power, but it didn't feel like the normal sort of magical power. She didn't feel like a sorcerer or a wizard, but at the level of power she had, she would definitely fall into those categories. We shook hands, and I smiled.

When Kenzie offered her hand, I shook it too, and I almost reeled back at what I felt. Similar to Victoria, Kenzie had Power. It felt different from Victoria's but she also felt different than how either my Grasshopper had felt prior to her current situation or to Ascher, with her skill. My magic actually almost rose to meet the girl's power, but instead, the screen she held in her hand just sparked, and we both yelped.

"What was that?" Victoria asked.

"What?" I asked, glancing to the rounded tablet. It seemed mostly okay. "Oh, that? Magic and technology don't like each other."

"I still haven't seen you perform any magic," Victoria said.

I glanced around the room. It was darker than I would have liked it, and the candles I'd had set up around the room were all still out. With a simple effort of will, and a twist of my hand, I intoned my spell imperiously, "FLICKUM. BICUS."

As each candle lit up, Victoria simply gave me an incredulous look. "Seriously? That kind of incantation? You have to just have the fire on voice command to prove that."

"But he didn't," Kenzie said. "There's no mechanisms in this room. I'd have detected it. Also, the whole making the tablet go kerblooey thing was pretty cool too. I'm going to need some tools, Victoria. So, Mister Dresden, how'd you do that?"

"Magic."

"Yeah, I mean, but how?" Kenzie asked.

"It's a little bit early for me to go into any lectures, but the basics are that magic is an application of energy and will upon the universe," I said. "I have another question of my own before I get started."

"Okay," Victoria said, apprehensive at my words.

"What are you two?" I asked. "Because if you're vanilla mortals, I'll eat a hat."

Sometimes it was best to be blunt.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Two

The first impression that Harry Dresden gave me was, mostly, a reminder of a cape that I'd met a couple of times back on Earth Bet before he was killed. The similarities didn't end at the simply calling themselves wizards, but both were of a similar height and build. Both even had a similar voice. It was entirely possible that Harry Dresden was Myrddin's alternate here on this Earth, and he certainly had displayed a sort of power. Whether I'd call it magic or not was something else entirely, but I knew of a few pyrokinetics back on Gimel, and there certainly were those that had been back on Earth Bet. The biggest difference between the two of them, other than costume, was that Dresden lacked the bombastic presence of Myrddin. Even when he approached us in the hall, sure he had been a little snarky, but he was clearly very aware of how much space he took up. His eyes had been going almost everywhere, taking everything in. It reminded me of how some thinkers looked at the world, or a little of Rain. Dresden might have had a few inches on Myrddin too, standing at what probably was 6'9".

When Kenzie'd found his site and suggested that we use him to help find our misplaced teammates, I will admit that I had been skeptical. But we were on a new Earth, without an easy way of returning to the City, and for some reason, we had ended up in Chicago. If we were right, the rest of our team had ended up here too. Contessa's power would have ensured that, even if we were separated. Still, this didn't seem like it was the result of the path I chose for her to use.

I certainly hadn't expected to end up in a city like this one, one that clearly had gone through a recent disaster, even if none of the mainstream papers I found identified it. The closest thing I saw was in a tabloid known as The Midwestern Arcane, where a headline claiming invasion by fishmen of all things was on the front page. There were even blurry images of something there, but that didn't make them true.

When the so-called wizard's question came, I raised an eyebrow. "Vanilla mortals is a term that I haven't actually heard."

"Should we tell him?" Kenzie asked. The two of us had our costumes in our bags, which were slung on our backs. I knew that she would be eager to show off a bit, but the loss of her tablet probably wouldn't help. "I mean, he did show us his powers. I really do wonder if they're actually magic."

"I'm not sure I'm convinced," I said, glancing the tall scruffy man in the eye. He shrank away slightly, not meeting my gaze. "But… you might have to go into a bit more detail as to what you mean by 'vanilla mortal.'"

"Well, I'm reasonably certain that neither of you is a monster that wants to eat my face," Dresden said. "Not that you'd have an easy time of it if you were."

I felt my aura stirring somewhat, but I clamped it down. Something about this situation was setting both me and my power on edge. Still, I had control. "I hope that's not meant to be a challenge, Mister Dresden."

"No, not at all." Dresden held up his hands, fingers splayed in some sort of placating manner. "But you still haven't given an answer. Though, let me take a bit of a guess, and you tell me how close I am."



I shrugged. It was possible that the man had a thinker power, but Kenzie was right about the flames that came from that so-called "spell." There didn't seem to be anything that could have been voice activated in the room to trigger it.

"So, firstly, the two of you have no issues using technology," Dresden said. "As evidenced by Kenzie's tablet that went…"

"Kerblooey," Kenzie helpfully provided, a smile on her face. I knew that she was eager to try and figure out how Dresden had pulled that off, and frankly, so was I.

"Kerblooey, thank you, Miss Kenzie," Dresden said with a smile as he nodded to her. "Then the mention of powers like it's a familiar thing to the both of you. Magic's not something you tend to associate with them though. So, both of you have something… an ability, perhaps, that is outside the norm of humanity. You look human enough, but—"

"You're implying that there's things out there that look human but aren't," I said, leveling my gaze at him.

"And things out there that might not look quite so human but are," Dresden said. "I'm not quite sure where the two of you are from, but you definitely have something to you. So." Dresden waggled his eyebrows. "I showed you mine…"

I rolled my eyes, but between the look he gave me, and the look Kenzie had on her face, I figured I might as well. Especially if it meant we'd be able to get better help from him. I raised myself from the ground six inches.

Dresden glanced me over and raised his left hand, closing his eyes. "Huh. Well, that's different." He opened his eyes again, nodding. "There's certainly some sort of energy around you, similar to what I felt when I shook your hand."

"When you shook my hand?" I asked.

"You and Kenzie both," Harry said. "Though the power in her is a little different than yours, but now that I'm sensing it during active use, I can see how they're similar, even if they're different. Neither one is like any sort of magic I've felt before."

"That's because as far as we're concerned, it's not magic," I said. "I'm what's known as a parahuman."

"Interesting choice for the word," Dresden said. "So, where exactly are you from and how did you get to my city? Are the friends you're looking for like you?"

"They can't fly, if that's what you mean," I said. "And we're from the Northeast."

"But not this Northeast, I take it," Dresden said. "We don't use the term parahuman here to represent people with powers. Admittedly, you're the first… two… I've met that have that specific type of energy to your power. I wouldn't outright say that it isn't magic, but it's definitely not any type that I've encountered."

"Wow, you're really smart Mr. Dresden," Kenzie said. "And what kind of energy are you detecting? How are you doing it? Is that a part of your power?"

"Well, I am a detective," Dresden said. "And I told you before, kid. Magic. I'm a trained wizard, been learning magic since I was maybe a little older than you probably are."

And he'd clearly been through a lot. "You were involved with… whatever happened to the city recently."

"A lot of people were involved," Dresden said, his voice lowering slightly. He looked to the ground, letting out a small sigh. "But yes. You could say that."

And given how recent it was, it certainly had nothing to do with Gold Morning. Assuming the Arcane wasn't lying, which given it was a tabloid rag was a fifty-fifty shot, there were fishmen involved in whatever sort of attack had happened. "How accurate are the statements in the Midwestern Arcane?"

Dresden laughed. "Occasionally they get some things right. But not always. Their reporting has gotten a little better in recent years, but they can't always print things as true as they should be."

"Can't?" Kenzie asked. "Not won't? Why would they want to lie?"

"People don't want to believe in the supernatural," Dresden said. "Even you two, who have powers of your own, still probably doubt that what I can do is magic. Still, whether you believe me or not, the hairs you gave me should help me find your friends."

It still surprised me that Kenzie had the hairs in the first place, but I knew of several thinkers who had worked with similar materials. I also knew of a parahuman that had somewhat of a reverse point of view, where he would spread out his own biological material. In all honesty, tracking someone by their hair was a much less disturbing alternative to that.

"What other sorts of supernatural things do you say exists, Mr. Dresden?" Kenzie asked. She'd pulled out a small notepad and drawing pencil. "If people don't believe in what you say."

"I could tell you all sorts of things that would fill that little notebook of yours," Dresden said. "But none of that would get me closer to helping you with your friends. What are your plans while I investigate your case?"

I frowned. If he was a PI by trade, odds were that he wouldn't want us with him as he looked for our friends. That said, given the situation we came from, I had no clue if they were together, apart, or how keyed up they were. I hadn't heard anything that sounded like Ashley's power, which meant she was reining herself in, but Chicago wasn't our city. It was Dresden's.

"Would it be possible for us to come with you?" I asked. "Our friends don't know you and having a friendly face might help with locating them."

Dresden frowned as he looked to Kenzie. "I don't usually bring clients with me when doing an investigation. Some of it's for liability reasons, and others…"

"Oh, but…" Kenzie frowned. "We won't get in the way. Maybe we could be helpful."

"Not if he keeps breaking your tech, Kenz," I said. "He'll probably still be using his… magic… while doing the search. Maybe we can set you up at the hotel room, and set you up with a computer and internet connection."

I knew she could probably set something up that would help her be with us remotely, but I wasn't confident how long that would last around Dresden.

"If I could study it a bit, I think I might be able to find a way around it, with my boxes, at least," Kenzie said. "Might even be able to find a way to have normal electronics work. I need to take a look at the tablet, and I think I might be able to rig up something for measuring it. Maybe it's a resonance of the energy, and I can block it with…"

As much as I liked Kenzie focusing on something new and interesting, having her go into a fugue state at a PI's office was not something that we wanted to happen. Luckily, she was interrupted by the door opening again. A brown-haired bearded man with broad shoulders and a heavily muscled build dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt that showed off his muscles a bit held a box in the doorway. He flushed a little when he looked into the room.

"Ah, sorry, Harry," said the man. His voice was a rich baritone that reminded me of what Dean's voice had been like. The way he held himself, however, reminded me more of Clockblocker when Dennis was being serious. "I didn't realize you had clients here."

"New ones," Dresden said. "Thanks for bringing the stuff, Will."

"I don't get why you couldn't just have your office back at the BFS building," Will said. "You worked out of it before."

"Because I'm supposed to be a professional," Dresden said. "And you helped me pick this place out. Ladies, this is Will Borden, an associate of mine. Will, meet Kenzie and Victoria. They're looking for their friends."

"And they're coming to you?" Will Borden asked. He shook his head. "He'll find them, don't worry. But I have to ask. Did you go to the police?"

Dresden had already asked us that, and he let his friend know. Honestly, it wasn't a bad question. But given what I'd seen in the papers, including the Midwestern Arcane, I wasn't sure if CPD was even capable of helping. I knew that my team could handle themselves, but Chicago wasn't like the City. We were outsiders here, and we didn't know what was here. Dresden was the closest thing this city had to an active hero, as far as I could tell.

"We're staying at the Warwick," I said as I stood, offering Dresden my hand. He took it, also standing, albeit slightly hunched so he didn't tower over me too much. I didn't feel whatever he felt with his ungloved hand, but we shook our hands again. "We can get you the descriptions of what they look like along with what they were wearing when we last saw them. I'm not sure that they'll be wearing those outfits though."

"Ashley might," Kenzie said.

I nodded in agreement. "But… if they are, they might stand out a little."

"Your friends are like you," Dresden said. It wasn't a question. "And if the outfits they're in would stand out…"

"What do you mean like them, Harry?" Will asked.

"Nonmagical powered humans," Dresden said. "Victoria here's a bit like Supergirl."

"Wait. Your new clients are superheroes? Honest to God superheroes?" Will asked, incredulously looking at Kenzie and me.

Dresden nodded after we let go. "Pretty much. At least that's what I hope. I don't like working with the bad guy when I can avoid it."

I met his gaze for a second as I considered my response. I needed to reassure him that we were, in fact the heroes. That Breakthrough's entire existence was to do the right thing as a hero team.

Apparently, I wouldn't need to say anything at all, as the world faded around me. I barely got the letters "MS" out my mouth before it started.

I saw things. Harry Dresden did too.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Three

Many people believe the old adage "the eyes are the windows to the soul." It's why many cultures don't like getting their picture taken or have the need to look someone in the eye to know if they're telling the truth. People believed that the camera would steal their soul, out through the eyes. It's why the eyes turned red in the photographs, they'd say. Of course, for most people, the windows have drapes. They can't see much in the eyes beyond glimpses. For wizards, however, the windows are wide open. When a wizard looks someone in the eyes for long enough, if he hasn't before, he can look upon that person's soul, gain their measure. The thing about windows, however, is that they operate both ways. When a wizard looks upon a person's soul, that person looks upon the wizard.

And Heaven help them if the wizard is found wanting. Many different people had soulgazed with me in the past. Each of them reacted differently. Some fainted. Some ran away scared. Some stood strong, and only a few managed to look at me the same way before and afterward. I've long since decided that I don't want to know what they saw.

In the case of Miss Victoria of No-Last-Name, I had fully intended on looking away from her when she met my eyes. I hadn't wanted to force any sort of issue, given she and the kid were my clients. However, for some reason, the soulgaze initiated much faster than I expected. I wasn't sure exactly what could have caused that, but I'd had no choice. Her eyes drew me in, her irises like crystal blue oceans that my vision swam in, overtaking all that I could see. The walls of my office faded around me, leaving only the blue of her irises.

It found its place above me in the sky, darkening some to a kind of navy penumbra only found at night. I clung to the side of a broken skyscraper, its golden glass windows midway through shattering. Through each shard of glass, I caught a glimpse of Victoria. Like in my office, she hovered there, and through the first shard, I saw her, dressed in a brilliant white dress that had a skirt ending midthigh with shorts peeking out underneath. A short cape was slung over her shoulder, and she had high boots and a crown. Instantly I knew the name Glory Girl. Reckless. Strong-willed. Opinionated. Powerful. High expectations. High pressure. Trauma relating to power gain. The shard of glass shattered.

The next shard fell, showing Victoria dressed in a more fantasy-style outfit. She wore a gold and black dress and cloak combination with a pair of glasses nestled on her nose. Her hair was pulled into a bun, and a book floated in front of her, along with some golden runes floating around her. The Scholar. Studious. Curious. Resourceful. Thinking. The shard of glass continued to fall.

Another shard passed my vision, and the new Victoria was dressed in a robe and pants. A sunburst belt adorned her waist, and her blonde hair was pulled back into a long braid. Her boots were brown leather, and the leather bracers on her forearms fit with her whole monk-like motif. That was what this Victoria was. The Warrior Monk. Peaceful. Contemplative. Restrained. Willing to listen. To judge. To strategize. This Victoria stood in meditative contemplation, resting on air. The shard of glass splintered as it fell further.

Another shard of glass revealed another Victoria. At least… I think it was supposed to be Victoria. What I saw barely looked human. Unlike the others, there were no clothes, just a mass of flesh, of way too many arms, legs, torsos, heads. Too many mouths, eyes. It was like someone had taken multiple women and merged them into one, warping their flesh together to make a single being that floated, grasped with many arms, bits of legs. It was sickening. Disturbing to see, yet this too was Victoria. The Wretch. Warped beyond recognition. Victim. Monster. Horror incarnate. Victim. This form had been forced upon her, by someone she'd trusted. She loathed it, loathed what she had been, but she had loathed what had happened to her to that point even more. This left its stain upon her. This shard of glass was thicker than others, and it continued to fall.

Another shard of glass revealed Victoria in another costume. This one was more form-fitting and armored, showing less skin. The cloth of the costume was black with white trim, in between the armored pieces, and there were bits of metal sticking on the edge, in a decorative manner. A white-gold flat breastplate sat on her chest, with decorative rays creating a starburst at the middle. Similar rays, in the form of spikes, were on her shoulder pads, and her armored legs were decorated much the same. With her hood up, she looked every bit the superhero she clearly was. Antares. Leader. Strategist. This was a woman who fought for what she felt was right. She did the right thing, even at a cost to herself. She did not make sacrifices lightly. This was a woman who felt guilt for what she had done, for what she would need to do.

But she would not let it stop her.

The glass shards all fell, revealing the Victoria from my office, dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans along with a T-shirt. She floated in the air, hands in her pockets. Each shard of glass showed an aspect of the woman before me. Glory Girl. Antares. Scholar. Warrior Monk. Wretch. All of them were Victoria. None of them were Victoria. Lightning flashed overhead, revealing the skyscrapers as something else. It wasn't glass that I saw.

It was crystal. A presence was with me here in Victoria's soul, and it wasn't malevolent, not the way the Fallen were in the souls of Denarians.

Whatever it was, it coveted Victoria. It protected her. And it noticed me. A massive hand emanated from the Victoria floating in front of me, barely visible unless you knew what to look for. The fingers wrapped around my chest, squeezing the air from me, nearly cracking a rib or two. I couldn't wriggle free even if I'd been capable of moving on my own.

Then as quickly as it had grabbed me, it shoved me away.

I slammed into the wall of my office, two halves of my desk on either side of me, and papers scattered. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and it may have bruised a bone or two, possibly knocking a disc loose. The Winter in me roared at the challenge, quickly numbing my pain, and I had to tamp it down even as Will stepped in front of me, getting ready to shed his clothes and human form if need be.

It wouldn't have helped. Stars and stones, with what I knew about the girl in front of me, I knew it wouldn't have helped.

"Just what the hell was that?" Victoria asked, her face ashen. She'd certainly been affected by what she'd seen, and she'd subconsciously moved into a defensive stance. I couldn't blame her really. My soul apparently could be scary.

"What do you mean? What the fuck did you do?" Will asked, glaring at Victoria. Kenzie had stepped next to Victoria, smiling greatly, hand clenching another weird device defensively. It almost looked like a sort of gun or taser.

"Easy," I said, climbing to my feet. I placed a calming hand on my friend's shoulder. "There's a kid here, Will. I don't think Victoria did that on purpose."

"You flew through your desk into the wall," Will said in shock. "She did it, didn't she?"

"Yes and no," I said.

"That's still not answering my question, Dresden," Victoria said, dropping the Mister. "Just what was that? What did you make me see?"

"I didn't make you see anything," I said. "But I didn't warn you or make an effort to prevent it. Sorry. I'm a wizard. Which means things. What you got when we locked eyes was a look at my soul. And I got the same for yours. When you look a wizard in the eyes, that happens. The only way it doesn't is if the being I'm looking at doesn't have a soul."

"That sounds…" Kenzie's smile seemed almost plastered on as she looked at Victoria. "Are you okay, Victoria?"

Victoria looked funnily at me, and really, I couldn't blame her. She looked back at her young charge, and she gave a slight shake of her head. "I don't know, Kenz. It wasn't… It's not like other things."

Kenzie still kept herself between Victoria and me, clutching that device. I wasn't sure what it did, but there was no guarantee that it would do what she wanted it to do around me. I also wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to have it pointed at me. Something rang wrong about a kid her age with any sort of weapon. A kid my daughter's age.

"It's magic," I said, keeping my voice level. I didn't want to spook them. "It's not actively harmful, nor is it something that I can stop once it's started. Your soul… or rather, whatever's attached to it… objected to it."

Victoria closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth. "So, Dresden, you say you saw my so-called soul while I saw yours." After she saw me nod, she continued, "that's extremely invasive. I'm inclined to believe that it wasn't on purpose, but you should have warned me."

"Maybe," I said, nodding in agreement. "But would you have believed me?"

Victoria gave me a flat look, meeting my eyes once more. "I might not have believed it's magic, but if you had said you had a power that activated when our eyes met for too long, that's a different story."

"Are you still going to try and find our friends?" Kenzie asked, looking at me. "Because I bet I could do it. I just need access to the Internet."

"I took you on as clients, assuming that the two of you still want to hire me," I said. Though I wasn't exactly sure what they'd pay me in. Still, how often did you get the chance to work with genuine superheroes? No matter what my daughter called me, these two… well, what kind of father would I be if I couldn't have her meet people like them?

Kenzie looked at Victoria, clearly still tense, but her smile had abated somewhat. "Victoria? You called for…"

"I know," Victoria said, taking another breath. "And it's still right to treat it that way, but it was more like a shared Thinker power than a Master."

"Master? Thinker?" Will asked. "What, you think Harry'd use some sort of mind control? Even I know that's against the Laws of Magic."

"The what?" Kenzie asked. She pulled out a notepad. "Laws of Magic? Are they like the laws of physics? Or motion? Do they describe how magic works?"

"They're more like what not to do with magic," I said. "Controlling someone's mind, forcing them to think a certain way, is against the fourth law."

"Are there wizard cops or something?" Victoria asked. "Why aren't they public?"

"Because they're a bunch of stodgy old blowhards," Will said. "Who believe more in keeping things secret than protecting people. Fuck the White Council and fuck the Wardens."

"Will. Language. There's a kid present."

"I've heard worse," Kenzie said, waving a hand. "So, there really are wizard police and laws that you have to follow. Is there some sort of wizard prison? And wait, they're really called the Wardens?"

"That… could be a little confusing," Victoria said.

"There's not really a wizard prison, no," I said. "Other than some holding cells in Edinburgh. The White Council doesn't have the resources to maintain a prison."

"So, what happens to those who break the laws?" asked Kenzie. She was writing something down in that notebook of hers.

"You don't want to know," Will said, exercising a little discretion. He knew. I'd made sure he did. He and the Alphas focused on nonhumans.

Victoria met my eyes, and I glanced to the young girl. Kenzie wasn't my daughter. Victoria knew her far better than I did. When she nodded, I had to accept it. "Kenz, I think they give lawbreakers Kill Orders."

"Something like that," I said. Kill Order was evocative and even more evidence that put them into the "refugee from another world" state. Which then begged the question of how I'd get paid, but I didn't need the money from this job. I had some stored up. I'd prod Victoria for more information about that later. "Anyway. Are you satisfied that I didn't mind control you, Victoria?"

"Not entirely, Dresden," Victoria said, glancing again to Kenzie. The young girl nodded, lowering her device. Maybe the young girl was satisfied. "But I think we're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."

"He's not a bad guy, right?" Kenzie asked. "You saw… what you saw…"

"Based on what I saw? No," Victoria said. "He's… complicated, but he's not bad."

"I am sorry that it happened," I said. "And you don't have to worry about it from me, Kenzie."

"I just have to not look you in the eyes, right?" Kenzie asked.

"Not looking people in the eyes is probably not a bad thing in general," Will said. "The eyes are how the monsters can get you, if your eyes meet. There's a lot of things out there that can mess with you if you meet their eyes."

"Now you're asking us to believe in monsters," Victoria said.

I shook my head as Kenzie was noting things down. She looked like she wanted to ask something more, but she seemed to think better of it after a second.

"I'm not asking you to do anything but let me try and find your friends," I said. "With the hair that Kenzie gave me, I should be able to locate your friends if they're nearby. If you would like to accompany me, Victoria, you're welcome."

Victoria looked at Kenzie again. It was as if she was second guessing herself some, but it was odd that she was deferring to a child. It really would be useful to have her along. Sure, she was no Thomas. My brother and I had worked together long enough to know how the other would handle things, but he wasn't available right now. Neither was my old partner in supernatural crime-fighting. Still, she had two major advantages over both of them. The first was that most people would underestimate her because they'd assume she was a vanilla mortal at first. Secondly, she was a freaking superhero. Hell's bells, she was a real life Supergirl. She had strength, flight and invulnerability. Sure she didn't have the various visions or breaths, but she had some sort of telekinetic ability too. Additionally, having her with me meant that I'd be able to study her power a bit. The energy of it was fascinating.

"What about me?" Kenzie asked. "If Victoria's going…"

"Couple options, as I see it," I said. "Sure, the Warwick's nice and all, but it's a hotel room. There's not any real threshold to speak of when it comes to hotel rooms, and the two of you came to me. I don't know the situation the two of you came from before you got to Chicago, but I really wouldn't feel comfortable leaving someone your age in a place that's only protections were mundane and whatever your own power lets you do. Speaking of, how old are you, exactly?

"Eleven," Kenzie said, her voice contemplative. Was it possible that she didn't actually know how old she was? "I think. Maybe ten? No, eleven sounds right, and it matches with the paperwork my parents have."

Victoria winced at that. Which meant there was more to the story. I could sympathize. However, this wasn't something I felt I should pry into, however. Kenzie and Victoria were clients, not charges. Victoria knew better than me when it came to her charge. If Kenzie hadn't referenced parents, and Victoria hadn't winced, I'd have said younger sister from the way the two acted, even if they didn't look alike. Victoria looked at me. "You said you have a kid her age. Is her mother watching her while you work?"

I shook my head. "Maggie's mother is… no longer with us." Because I killed her. And Murph was gone too. And my so-called fiancée was a monster that fed on the life energy of those she had relations with. Is it any small wonder that I wanted to keep her as far from my daughter as possible? Even if Lara could be trusted with children, it still worried me. "My daughter's also eleven, actually. Usually I hire a babysitter, the daughter of a close friend of mine. Hope's good with Maggie, and she knows how to handle things. I might be able to convince her to keep an eye on Kenzie too, if only to keep her from being alone in a hotel room."

"Do you have Internet at home?" Kenzie asked.

"I don't," I said. "But there are parts of the building that have Internet access."

"Yeah," Will said. "The rooms with Internet are the ones furthest from Harry's apartment, but Maggie and Mouse have free rein to most rooms in the BFS."

"I have a couple ideas," Kenzie said. "I might be able to help the search from there… If I can get you a well-shielded phone… But I need to take some more measurements of Mr. Dresden's magic. Who's Mouse? Maggie's your daughter, right?"

I nodded. "Mouse was my dog, and he's now my daughter's support dog. He's licensed and everything."

I was lucky that Michael and Charity had managed to get that worked out for her. Maggie still had some severe PTSD issues relating to what happened at Chichén Itza. Mouse kept her calm and collected, and I knew that he'd protect her should any supernatural issues pop up.

"What kind of dog is he?" Victoria asked, clearly calmer now than she had been after the soulgaze. Perhaps she was channeling the Warrior Monk part of her. Each facet of herself had its place. I suspected later she would channel the Scholar.

"I don't know his exact breed," I said. Well, beyond Temple Dog, but that wasn't a breed certified by the American Kennel Club. "But I'm reasonably certain he's a Dogasaurus Rex."

Will gave me an exasperated look, Victoria gave me a curious one, and Kenzie's laughter sounded genuine. Which meant I did something right. Her smile was smaller now.

"I guess having Kenzie at this… BFS… that you live at? Could work," Victoria said.

"Then it's settled. Do the two of you have a car?" I asked. "Because, no offense, I don't think flying around here would be a good idea. Especially after what happened in July."

Victoria shook her head. "We were walking, mostly."

"I'll give you a ride. Will, you coming?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I'll keep an eye on your office and be by later. Make sure the answering service is working right."

I nodded. "Thanks, Will. Ladies, allow me to lead you to the Munstermobile, and then we'll get home."

"And then you'll start looking for our friends?" Kenzie asked.

"I'll even let you watch the start of it," I said. "Show you some more magic."

As the three of us left my office, I grabbed a few of my pamphlets off the counter. They'd be good for the pair of them to read.

"Wait, the Munstermobile is your car, right?" Victoria asked as the three of us made it into the elevator. "Why'd you name it that?"

I smiled a proper wizardly smile. "You'll see."

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Four

It turned out that Dresden's so-called "Munstermobile" was an old Cadillac Hearse, painted dark blue with an electric purple flame on it. I think Kenzie's questions about "The Munsters" must have made him feel old because after giving a quick explanation, he tried to switch to other topics as we drove through the city. Dresden had handed each of us some pamphlets, each clearly well made, and each likely made by the so-called wizard himself, for our perusal. The pamphlets went over much of how magic asserted itself, what to expect as a new practitioner, and how to get some help. It also had a blurb on the Laws of Magic. Each law was explained in detail, save for the final one.

While I still wasn't so sure about myself, after the soulgaze anyway, Kenzie seemed willing to take my lead, so long as I doublechecked with her first. Protocol was important, and she was the highest ranked team member around.

"So, how does magic work, exactly?" Kenzie asked as we turned down another street, ready to continue on our way. "I mean, do you just wave your hands and say some words or something?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that, while also being a bit simpler," Dresden said.

"That's informative," I said, somewhat managing to keep the sarcasm out of my response. I knew people had all sorts of tricks they did to get their power to work. Different things worked for different people. Vista used hand movements to help her control her powers.

Dresden laughed as he turned onto another street. We were somewhere in downtown Chicago now. "I said something like that to my first teacher when he told me something similar. The pamphlets I gave you speak about some of it, but here's a brief summary: magic is the manipulation of energy by the application of will."

"What sort of energy?" Kenzie asked. "Kinetic? Thermal? Potential? Electrical? Chemical? Radiant? Nuclear?"

"You really are an inquisitive kid, aren't you?" Dresden asked. His eyes had widened slightly at the mention of nuclear energy. Maybe he hadn't thought of that sort of thing in relation to his so-called magic before. "I'm a wizard, not a physicist, so I can't really tell you the scientific names for the energy beyond the most basic that comes from a high school education. But, fundamentally, it's all the same in some way or another. Energy can be converted from one form to another. With an application of will, I can create fire, move the wind, send a burst of force. A wizard doesn't create energy from nothing. Well, mostly."

"Mostly?" I asked. Oddly, this explanation was fairly similar to some of the explanations about how powers worked in the classes I took when I was younger. My professors in Parahuman Studies had recommended papers to read on those topics, and I was certain that some of the colleges probably had even more information now that we knew more about the origin of powers. Even still, there were probably even more things to find out.

"There are nonscientific sources that can be used to power spells under the right conditions," Dresden said. "Sometimes willpower can substitute for external energy or vice-versa. But magic also has a heavy belief aspect to it as well. The energy and your willpower respond to your beliefs about it."

"I'm not sure that makes sense," Kenzie said.

"Think about it, Kenz," I said. "When you get inspired, you tend to stick to what you know. You know how your power wants to work, and you work with it. This sounds a little like the reverse of that. The energy and willpower follow the wizard or practitioner's beliefs about it."

"It can reinforce itself," Dresden said.

"But what about the spells and things?" Kenzie asked.

"Manipulating the energies and exercising your will intentionally to get a specific result requires knowledge of exactly what you want done and how to manipulate the energy to obtain that result," Dresden said. "We what we do to get a specific result a spell. How to shape the energy and our will to get that result. Incantations are used to help focus and remember the spellform, and implements can be used to offset some of the willpower needed by pre-shaping some of how the energy needs to flow."

"So, simple concept, complicated explanation," I said as we started up again at a stoplight. I had to do a double take at what I saw on the corner. The building on the corner took up maybe half the block with a parking area on the far side of it. It was maybe four stories tall, made of stone, with narrow windows with bars across them. There was a blocky crenellation along the roof's edge, and starting at the second floor, I could spot gargoyles perched along each row, starting at the second floor and leading up to the top. I couldn't decide whether the place was a castle or a fortress. It really seemed almost to be both.

"I didn't know Chicago had castles," Kenzie said. Happily, she seemed a little more subdued. She didn't have a people pleasing smile on, just her curious look. "Did you know that Victoria?"

I shrugged. "Never got the chance to come before."

Dresden snorted. "It didn't used to. At least not this part of Chicago, anyway." He initiated his turn signal as we approached the parking lot on the other side of the castle. I noted a sign posted at the edge of the parking lot that read in large block letters: "BRIGHTER FUTURE SOCIETY." Posted atop the sign, affixed to the top-left corner, was a reflective steel rectangle with what looked like a dried lima bean at its center. "Well, kiddos, this is the place. Maggie's still got another couple hours for school, but I can get started with looking for your friends here. Ideally, they'll be together, but…"

"There's a chance they won't be," I said. A good chance, to be honest. I stepped out of the car, and I pulled my coat a little tighter. Chicago was chilly in November, colder than Brockton Bay had been and colder than most of the City. Sure, if I'd had my force field up, I wouldn't care as much about the weather, but I didn't want to use it unless necessary. It wasn't, at the moment. "That's a risk we'll have to take."

"It'd be easier if they were, but I'm not going to count on it," Dresden said after locking the car's doors. He led the way toward the castle. "Normally, I'd have just done the initial spell in my office, but I promised my fiancée that I'd do my best not to break anything in there for at least six months. If you meet her, please don't mention the tablet. She'd be insufferably smug."

I gave him a look of sympathy. I knew what it was like to deal with people too smug for their own good, but at least I wasn't romantically entangled with one. No matter any subtle jokes people made when they thought I wasn't listening.

"Do you think you'll be able to find our friends today?" Kenzie asked.

"At least one of the, sure," Dresden said as he opened the front door of the castle, gesturing for us to follow him inside. As we passed through the front door, Dresden turned to watch us. He got a curious look on his face once we were inside. "Huh. That's interesting."

"What is?" Kenzie asked.

"Don't worry about it, kiddo," Dresden said. "Welcome to Castle Monroe. I live in the basement here with my daughter, but the rest of the place is…"

He gestured around when we were inside. The entry hall was massive, with fluorescent lighting that ran along the top of the room. The floor was a fancy tile pattern that alternated between black and red, and there was a subtle hint of silver that I could see there. Something was masked under the tiles, but I couldn't quite make out what. In the far corner, there were some curtains on metal stands, like you would find in a clinic, and I assumed there were cots there. There were some couches set up in the corner with a few people eating on it: two men and a woman. I didn't really get a close look as Harry continued onward, leading us through a side door to a hallway that led to another door.

When he moved to open it, the door opened, revealing a blonde girl maybe in her late twenties with her hair tied back in a long braid. She was around my height, and she carried herself with an almost regal level of confidence. She wore a jean skirt and a blue blouse with a leather jacket overtop of it. Her boots went up to her shins with straps around them. When she looked at Dresden, her lips quirked somewhat into a smile, and she slipped into the hallway with us. "Harry. I thought you were supposed to be in your office today."

"I had been, Grasshopper," Dresden said. "But I've got a couple new clients and Lara made me promise to not do any big magic in the office until we could get some good dampeners in the walls."

"And one must always keep promises to one's fiancée," said the woman, sympathy in her voice. "Big magic though?" Her gaze left Dresden's eyes and finally she shifted to look at Kenzie and me. When our eyes met, her pupils didn't quite look right. They almost looked feline in shape, and there was some green that had taken root in the blue of her eyes. I almost expected something similar to what had happened when I looked Dresden in the eyes, so I quickly looked away. The look in her eyes was unsettling, like being in the presence of a big cat while being a juicy steak. "Ah. Two lost lambs, looking for their flock."

"Molly," Dresden said in a warning tone.

She shook her head, and her eyes shifted back to the blue. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me. I'm Molly Carpenter. And you two are?"

"Victoria, and this is Kenzie," I said. I carefully reached out and offered her a handshake. She took my hand and squeezed down. I felt the brute strength in her grip, and I returned it equally. She was a parahuman.

"Victoria," Molly said. "Lovely name. What made you seek out Harry here?"

"You just said the reason before," I said. "Well, in a little more flowery language, but you said it."

"We're not someone's flock though," Kenzie said. "Or lambs. Why would you say that?"

Molly shook her head. "Sorry. Things with me are… well, complicated to say the least. I meant more why did you specifically choose Harry out of all the options to look for your friends? Usually, a wizard isn't someone's first choice."

"Complicated," I said, echoing her. Even if Dresden knew her well, something about her felt off, and I wasn't sure how to best handle her. I did make sure to keep myself between her and Kenzie without being obvious about me doing it. I was sure she noticed, but Dresden didn't seem to.

"They're my clients, Grasshopper, and unless you are able to help with the search without there being too much a burden on anyone, you should probably tell me what's going on."

"I didn't come here to see you, Harry," Molly said. She looked at me again, and then she looked at Kenzie. It was almost like her eyes were penetrating through us. Something in those eyes just didn't seem human. It was strange. I'd met plenty of Case 53s, but none of them made me feel like this. This was almost… almost what it felt like when facing down Leviathan. It wasn't as bad, but something about this woman rattled my nerves. "I left something for your daughter to read, and a chew toy for Chewbacca. Mom insisted."

"So, you aren't here on Winter business?" Dresden asked. Why was he asking about Winter, and why did it sound like a proper noun?

"I'm here on my business," Molly said. "I have some tasks that I need to get done, people to see. You do still owe me a favor, Harry. I'll try not to make it too onerous, but it has to…"

"I know, Grasshopper," Dresden said. "Whenever it needs to get done, I'll do it. I know what I owe you."

Molly looked at me once more. "Victoria Dallon, right?"

I blinked. I hadn't given my last name.

"You may find that one of your friends is closer than you think," Molly said. She pursed her lips as she looked at me.

"You've met one of them," Harry said. "Not in Winter though. Given you left something on your mom's insistence…"

Molly smiled. "I'll be seeing you around. Keep on the lookout for the rest of them. Harry, check the cover of the book."

She walked off, practically sauntering. I assumed she went for the entrance.

"Just who is she, exactly, Dresden?" I asked.

"She's my old apprentice," he said. "Bit more than that now. Come on into the apartment, and I'll doublecheck something."

He led the way downstairs, but I wasn't going to let it go. As I followed him, I floated a little off the ground to keep my balance. "What do you mean by bit more than that? What's going on with her?"

"You don't even really believe in magic," Dresden said. "If I explain what's going on with her, I'm not sure you'll believe that."

"I think I believe in the possibility of magic," Kenzie said. "I don't know if I'm convinced it's not just powers, but… I don't know."

Dresden continued his way down the stairs into a basement apartment. The door entered into a sizable living room with multiple couches and five different bookshelves, lined with a mix of fantasy novels and books for kids around Kenzie's age group. He did say that he had a daughter around her age. The couches looked brand new, and there were a couple rugs on the ground. A counter separated the living room from the kitchen area, where I could see a chest freezer, a gas stove, and a dining room table. Several candles were lit in the room already, along with a gas lantern. Sitting on a table in the middle of the living room was an intricately carved wooden skull.

I wasn't going to question that bit. An overly large grey cat with a bobtail, maybe around thirty pounds or so, made its way into the room and shoulder-checked Dresden's leg. The cat then made his way over to Kenzie and started rubbing against her legs until she started to pet him.

"My cat, Mister," Dresden said in explanation.

"And Molly?" I asked. "What's this Winter business sort of thing?"

"Winter is a court of the fae," Dresden said. "One of two Sidhe courts. And Molly is one of the queens of Winter, its Lady."

"So, she's a fairy princess," I said. "But you said she had been your apprentice. She wasn't always this Winter Lady thing?"

Dresden shook his head. "Long story. I'll go into a bit more detail on the fae in general, but first I need to make a phone call. And then I can start up with the spells."

As he made his way into the kitchen, I chose to sit down on his brown cloth couch. Kenzie joined me. Magic. Fairies. What was next? Vampires? Werewolves? Demons? Unicorns would be kind of cool, especially when I had been Kenzie's age.

"Are you okay, Victoria?" Kenzie asked me softly. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you're not mastered at this point, but…"

"It's a lot," I said, glancing toward the kitchen. What I'd seen… what Dresden had… I could at least see why he believed it was magic. He was a good man with a lot of darkness to him. I didn't want Kenzie to see the same. "Fairies now too?"

"I wonder if that means there's ghosts or other things. Didn't someone call powers fairies once? Valkyrie?"

I nodded. "Back when she was Glastig Uaine, yes. But what I saw with Molly Carpenter…"

"She was different," Kenzie said. "She seemed nice enough, but most fairy stories aren't like either version of Disney."

"Who read those to you?" I asked.

"My parents," Kenzie said. "When they were trying. I think they wanted to make it seem like they were the only ones I could trust. No matter how nice the strangers were, they couldn't be trusted. Because fairies always want something in return."

I offered her a hug nonverbally, and she took me up on it. I swore I heard a light scraping on the table. When I glanced over to the table, however, I couldn't see anything that could have caused the move. The cat, Mister, had taken up residence on the back of the couch opposite the table. The wooden skull, however, seemed almost to have its empty gaze staring at the two of us.

Dresden finished up his conversation on the phone, and he came back into the living room. As he did so, Kenzie and I released our hug. "Well, ladies, I've got some news. Good, kind of weird, and bad news, and it's probably better if I give it to you in that order."

"Okay…" I gave him a gesture to go on.

"So, thanks to our talk with Molly, I gave her parents a call. It seems that her dad found one of your friends at a construction site. Michael said his name was Tristan. Apparently, he'd mentioned both of you to Michael and Molly may have overheard the names when she was visiting earlier, or at another time."

"And she couldn't outright say that to us," I said.

"Not without incurring some debt," Dresden said. "And you don't want to be in debt to the fae, not even my Grasshopper."

"Okay, so that's the good news," Kenzie said. "What's the weird news?"

"Michael mentioned that Tristan had a full body change, clothing and all, with someone that appeared to be an identical twin," Dresden said. "And when he swapped back, Tristan mentioned his twin brother, Byron. I've never seen something like that before. Michael hadn't either."

"Wait, they were able to swap still?" I asked. I knew Byron had gotten hurt back in Teacher's base, but I hadn't been sure about how badly. Why had Tristan swapped to him at all if Byron was still hurt? "Was Byron okay?"

Dresden's face said everything there. "Not exactly. Michael and Charity managed to keep him conscious somewhat long enough for him to swap back to the uninjured brother. You knew about the injury?"

"I saw him get hurt," I said. It… might have been partially my fault, given what I'd told Contessa to do. I certainly blamed myself.

"What exactly is going on with them? Are they really two different people?"

"Twin brothers," I said with a small nod. "Identical, save for a few things in personality. When they got their powers, they were touching, and it merged them into one spot. We call it a Case 70."

"Ah. We're going to have to have a talk about where you came from eventually, as we find the rest of your friends," Dresden said. I nodded. "And there's a bit more bad news. Well, potentially bad. Molly and Tristan spoke before Tristan swapped back with Byron under Charity's care. They believe it's possible that Tristan made a deal with her. I agree."

"That's…" I frowned. "Is that bad news?"

"Depends on the deal," Dresden said. "Even if Molly doesn't want to enforce the terms, she'll be forced to by Winter Law. Remember what I said about fairies and debt. It applies here as well."

"But you said she was your apprentice, and you're a good person," Kenzie said. "Shouldn't she be a good person too? What's the worst that can happen?"

Immediately, I winced. It felt like someone walked over my grave.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Five

While neither Victoria nor Kenzie had been affected by the threshold that Castle Monroe had, all that meant was that their powers were different than the standard suppliers from the deep reaches of the Nevernever. My Grasshopper had known something about them, but she either wasn't willing or wasn't able to tell me it directly. The book she'd left prominently next to the wooden skull on my living room table was a copy of The Chronicles of Narnia's full collection of novels in a single book. Yes, she'd left it for my daughter, but she hadn't specified which one. Her placement of the book was suspect though.

Her hint about their friend had been spot-on. That it had actually been two friends in one was weird, but the powers aspect both did and didn't explain things well. Between Bonea and Bob, I was certain that I might be able to puzzle some things out, but I didn't want to do that until I got back after the initial look that evening.

However, I knew Victoria and Kenzie still had three more friends that Michael hadn't found. Those three were out in the city somewhere, and as far as I knew, they didn't have an easy way to communicate with these two. Whatever had gotten them to Chicago, it clearly had scattered them in the city. I didn't even know if it was only them.

"What sort of deal could Tristan have made with Molly, Dresden?" Victoria asked.

"We'll have to ask him," I said. "But he's got an injured twin brother who he shares a body with, and he's in an unfamiliar city without his friends for support. And I'm guessing it's more than just friends. You guys are a literal superhero team, aren't you?"

Kenzie nodded. It bugged me some that they had a girl my daughter's age performing any sort of actions like that. I didn't know what kind of power she had, but I was going to do my best to make sure that she didn't need to use it here in my city.

"Yeah, we're a team called Breakthrough," Kenzie said. When Victoria looked at her, she shrugged. "He already knows we're heroes, and he knows about Tristan and Byron thanks to his friend."

"And you're not from this Earth," I said, laying out some of my theory. I needed some more information from them before we went further, finding the rest of their group. "Some sort of parallel reality or something. You either don't have magic there, or given that there are literal superheroes, it's passed off as powers. Powers are common enough that cases like Tristan and Byron are given a number and that number is high enough to imply that there are even more power-related oddities. At least sixty-nine more. Am I getting warm?"

"Yeah," Victoria said. "We're from another Earth. Is that what was meant by that last Law of Magic? That people shouldn't be trying for things from another world?"

I shook my head. "Not quite, no. You don't need to worry about that Law. You aren't from beyond the Outer Gates, just another part of reality than this one. Sure, some Wardens might get it in their head that something like that might happen, but most aren't stupid enough to just attack a human who isn't doing anything wrong. What were you doing that had you end up here?"

"Attacking a supervillain's base of operations," Victoria said. "And… I'm not sure what happened exactly, but we ended up here. Whatever he was working on, ended with us getting transported here."

"And given you don't know exactly where here is, you don't know how to get home," I said. But because her friends ended up here too, it did make sense that she wanted to locate them. "Okay. Next question. Do you want to go see Byron and Tristan first, or do you want me to try and look for other friends of yours?"

"Byron and Tristan are safe?" Victoria asked. "You trust the people they're with?"

I nodded. "Nobody in the world I'd trust more. We could drop Kenzie off there so she's with your friend while you and I go look for the next one."

"I want to help," Kenzie said. "I'm sure this Earth has all sorts of cameras that I can look at to try and find them. I could set up something that lets me look through each of them and alert me when one of them is spotted. Dragon showed me how to create some rudimentary AI for it."

"Do you know how well that would work around Dresden?" Victoria asked. "Until you figure out a workaround, he might end up frying your tech."

"So, do you build all the tech yourself then, Kenzie?" I asked.

She nodded. "I'm a tinker, and I make everything. All my boxes and cubes and cameras, and boxes and cubes. I don't have a lot on me, but I have a couple small things in my pocket and the things that made it through the portal with us are back in the hotel room."

"That thing you pulled out in my office, you made it then?" I asked, and she nodded. "That's impressive. When I was your age, I had issues putting together Legos, let alone anything like that."

"Tinker powers are like that," Victoria said. "Do we need to be here when you start looking for the others?"

I shook my head. "I can technically do it anywhere, but it might be a good idea to do it here and at the Carpenters' when we drop Kenzie off."

"Why?" Victoria asked. "Is there something special about doing it here and there both times?"

I shook my head. "Honestly, it'll help us narrow down where they're at. Can any of your friends fly like you?"

"No, but that doesn't mean they can't move quickly. Besides, doesn't Chicago have a decent public transportation system?" Victoria asked.

"How long have you been here?" I asked. I figured her friends and teammates were likely to have been here roughly the same amount of time. Given what Michael had said about Tristan and Byron, it couldn't have been longer than a couple days at most. Michael had found Tristan at one of his construction sites, clearly a little confused.

"Yesterday," Kenzie said. "Victoria wouldn't let me do major looking from the hotel's Wi-Fi."

Victoria lightly placed a hand on her little friend's shoulder. "While I know you probably could pull it off, Kenz, we don't know exactly what this world has available tech-wise."

Doing that would certainly have gotten her noticed by someone. But I really didn't understand computers enough to know just who would be there. I suspected that Monoc had some sort of cyber presence, but I didn't have the proof. Not my department. I supposed Bob might know. He'd really taken to the Internet thanks to his time with Butters. I'd have to talk with him about the whole situation tonight, and Bonea as well.

"Strong mortal practitioners can't use computers, but there are others who can. A few I'd suspect might have some sort of tracking on the Internet, keeping an eye out, but there's also the authorities. I don't know what they have available to them on their end," I said. For all I knew, this eleven-year-old could get around what the authorities had. She seemed confident enough.

"Maybe I can help away from the magic stuff," Kenzie said. "Do the Carpenters have the Internet?"

I shrugged. "Just don't get the cops coming to their place."

I walked over to a smaller place in the living room, and I reached into one of the bags that Kenzie had given me.

"What are you doing, Dresden?" Victoria asked.

"Planning on doing a tracker spell, just to get a general idea. I'll repeat it at the Carpenters before you and I go looking," I said. Given that Tristan (and Byron) had been found, I made sure the hair that I was using wasn't one of theirs. I took off my pentacle, and I strung the white hair that I pulled from the bag around it. As both girls were looking on with some curiosity, I decided to go into a little more detail. "A tracker spell operates on the theory of thaumaturgy. As above, so below, and the reverse is often true. Basically, this hair came from your friend, Ashley, I believe, and depending on how recent it was taken, it should still hold a thaumaturgical connection to her."

Victoria looked at Kenzie.

"Just before we went to Teacher," Kenzie said. "I wanted a recent genetic sample in case something happened."

"You're not planning on trying to clone her yourself," Victoria said.

"I don't think I can do that even with my best boxes," Kenzie said. "I don't even think I could eventually do it. Teleporters, maybe, but not cloners."

I nearly dropped my amulet at that. It was weird to hear a little girl talk about possibly making teleporters or cloning devices. Even knowing what I knew about Victoria, that she could just take it in stride was even more a testament to where they came from. Teacher sounded like a proper noun there and given what they'd told me…I did want to know more, but I'd been hired for a specific job. Getting them home afterward could be considered a follow-on.

I stepped into the circle I'd embedded into the ground of this room for this very purpose and willed it shut. The ambient hum of energy from outside was completely cut off. Yes, I didn't necessarily need the circle for casting this spell, but given the energy given off by the two resident superheroes, I didn't want to leave this to chance.

"So, what are you doing now?" Kenzie asked. She pulled out a small device, and she was pointing it at me. "I mean, you did something, there was a bit of a static burst then nothing…"

"I closed the circle," I said. I held up my left hand before she could continue. "Circles are a way to block out ambient energy. The circle on the ground here represents a barrier that's both mental and spiritual that will allow me to focus my own energy on the spell without interference from outside."

"Okay…" Kenzie said, a little confusion tinging her voice. "But it's just a circle on the ground."

"Mnemonics," Victoria said. "Many capes have motions or things they do that they associate with their powers. Some even need some tools to help. I know some tinkers need additional tools that only make sense to them sometimes. Vista has to move her hands to help her control her power easier."

I nodded, even though I had no clue who Vista was. Another hero, I assumed. Hoped, even. "Yeah. It's not necessarily the circle itself, so much as what it represents symbolically. You'd be surprised how well it works." I didn't want to go into the whole theory behind binding circles at the moment, and then there was the ability of circles to protect those inside. Neither was relevant. I'd tell them more about that later. Instead, I focused my will and my energy, chanting under my breath. "Locatum, Locatus. Locatum. Locatus. Locatum. LOCATUS!"

I broke the circle, completing the spell, and the white hair around my pentacle lit up. That was not a normal reaction to the locator spell, but the pulling on my amulet was. The spell was pointing roughly at thirty-five degrees off of north, and a little up, which made sense given that we were in a basement apartment.

"Okay, that's… a little more magical," Victoria said. "That's Ashley's hair, right?"

"If she's the one with white hair, yes," I said.

"So, she's somewhere in that direction? Do you know how far?"

I shook my head. "That's why I'll repeat the spell when we get to the Carpenters' place. I know the distance between our two houses, and I should be able to do a rough triangulation that way, assuming she hasn't moved too much. Otherwise, we can just track her down the old-fashioned way."

"Can you give me the amulet and I'll just follow it?" Victoria asked, floating a little off the ground. "I can fly fairly fast."

I shook my head. "I'd have to rework the spell completely to pull something like that off, and that's not something I've done before. But Ashley is that way. Roughly thirty-five degrees off north… maybe thirty-four point eight or nine."

Kenzie nodded, jotting that down onto… some sort of unfolded box. "And how far is it to the Carpenter place?"

"About eight miles," I said.

She nodded, a bit of her hair coming loose from its clip, and I caught a glimpse of a scar that flickered into appearing on the girl's cheek before she quickly covered it. Given how she'd kept it hidden before, I pretended not to notice. Probably for the best.

"If you two are ready, we can head on over," I said. "You two can check on Byron and Tristan before we head on toward Ashley."

Both nodded.

"Yeah, I think we're ready to go," said Victoria. She glanced at my amulet again, pursing her lips.

"Why don't you two meet me at the car?" I asked. "I need to grab a few things before I go."

"Sure," Victoria said, meeting my eyes for a second. She didn't seem sure what she wanted to believe yet. Again, I couldn't blame her. Given the world she was from, encountering magic in this fashion might not have shaken her worldview that much, but considering it as magic seemed to be a step further than she was normally willing to consider. I suspected that there were superhumans in her world that had magic or at least acted like their powers were magic, but I didn't know for certain.

Bob had said that Spider-Man was likely real somewhere out there.

"Come on, Kenz," Victoria said, ushering the young girl up the stairs and out of my apartment.

I waited for the door to close all the way before I turned to the skull on the coffee table. "So, Bonea, what do you make of them?"

The wooden skull's eyes lit up with little green motes of light that got even brighter. "For humans infected with pieces of the Sidereal Worms, they seem to be handling things quite well."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Bonea was a newly formed Spirit of Intellect that at one point had started to coalesce inside my mind. She had grown until she was far too big for my puny skull to hold, so we managed to get her out and into a specially crafted wooden vessel for her. Ever since, we'd been working on teaching her and answering endless questions. See, she was full of points of information that didn't connect to anything at all. She knew all the particulars of all sorts of secrets of the universe without the context to show her exactly what consequences that secret knowledge would have on the world. It seemed like I had stumbled upon one of those. "Sidereal Worms? What exactly are those?"

"The Sidereal Worms are a race of multireality beings that seed planets with pieces of themselves in an attempt to gain new knowledge," Bonea said. "They were supposed to be sealed off into their own quarantined segment of the multiverse, a smaller infinite within the grander one, allowing some versions of the planets to survive their cycle in some manner."

"I'm sorry, survive?" I shook my head. "The planets they seed are destroyed? What does that mean about Earth?"

"This Earth would be fine, Father," said Bonea. "But had the cycle succeeded, their Earth would be forfeit. However, something happened to one of the Worms upon their attempt to take those Earths. Mother's progenitor knew more about it, but…"

"So, it's not something we need to worry about, then," I said.

"I am not sure," Bonea said, and her eyes dimmed somewhat. "That is a strange feeling. New too. Father, I feel uncertainty."

"Correct," I said. "And that's fine. It happens to everyone, even Bob feels unsure sometimes. Would he know more about these Sidereal Worms?"

"Maybe," Bonea said. "But I doubt it is something that any of the previous owners of his skull would have researched."

"Molly left a book for you to read, to help you get some context to your memories," I said.

"I saw! Chronicles of Narnia! It was written by CS Lewis in 1950, after he had an experience that briefly brought him to Faerie," Bonea said.

"Huh, didn't know that," I said. "Well, you go ahead and read. I'll see what information I can get about the world they're in, and what, if anything happened regarding this cycle there."

"Thank you, Father," Bonea said, her skull turning toward the book. The book opened, and I caught a glimpse at the inside cover.

The note Molly wrote there was interesting. It was a cryptic way to introduce the book, but within it was a reassurance that the Outer Gates were intact. But she also suggested that I should make sure that all of those from Victoria's world were identified. It wasn't quite a task for the Winter Knight, but it was a strong suggestion from the Winter Lady.

If Mab wanted me to do something about it, she'd order it. And as her Knight, I'd handle what I needed to, Sidereal Worms or no. In my own fashion, of course.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Six

Dresden brought us to a house located in the middle of an obviously old suburban neighborhood lined with ancient trees and old Victorian houses, some of which seemed to be either in the process of being restored or having already been restored. It reminded me a little of the neighborhood we'd lived in back in Brockton Bay, back before Leviathan ruined everything. The house we stopped at was a colonial that had a white picket fence in front, somehow appearing even more elegant than the houses surrounding it. The front yard had a few trees, that were it not the middle of fall, looked like they would be shady, and there were some well-kept shrubs. The lawn was clear of leaves, save for a pile meticulously raked into the corner. The grass was a bright green that stood out when compared to the other lawns in the area.

Located in the driveway were two sedans, one green and the other blue, and there was an empty space clearly on the right side of both. As Dresden started to turn off the car, a brown minivan pulled onto the street, driven by a dark blonde-haired girl that was maybe in her late teens. Dresden got out of the car, a wide grin on his face that seemed to be a bit more genuine than Kenzie's typically would be. Kenzie and I slipped out after him. If Tristan and Byron were here, I wanted to see them before we went after Ashley.

The back door of the minivan opened once it came to a complete stop, and a young girl around Kenzie's age along with what had to be the largest non-parahuman-enhanced dog I'd ever seen hopped down out of the back together. The girl was a bit lighter skinned than Kenzie, with straight dark hair, and dark eyes that lit up when she looked at Dresden. She wore what had to be a school uniform, given the jumper and blouse, and the large furry dog had a vest on him indicating that he was a support animal.

"Dad!" said the girl as she ran and gave him a hug. "I thought you were working today!"

"I am," Dresden said, and he nodded at Kenzie and me. "Got a pair of clients that I'm helping find their friends, and it seems like Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter already found two of them for me."

Kenzie looked at me and then the girl for a second. Then she looked at the dog. He was a very, very large dog. His gray fur was clearly well-brushed, and he offered a doggy grin at the both of us.

The blonde that had been driving stepped out of the van, and she walked up behind the dog and girl. She was about as tall as me, and she wore a pair of skinny jeans and a white blouse with a jacket. She clearly resembled Molly Carpenter in facial structure, probably a younger sister. "In case the wizard forgets to introduce everyone, I'm Hope. The little girl is Maggie, and the jumbo Yorkie is Mouse."

Mouse looked over at Hope and made a chuffing sound.

"What, you'd prefer I call you a dogasaurus like Harry?" Hope asked.

"I'm Victoria," I said. "And this is Kenzie."

"Victoria Dallon?" Hope asked, and at my nod, she smiled. "So, you're two are friends of Tristan and Byron then?"

"Yuh," Kenzie said, looking some more at Mouse. She looked over to Hope. "You met them both?"

"I helped bandage Byron up," Hope said. "And then… actually, it's probably better to show you."

"Show them what?" Dresden asked, stepping closer with his daughter. I could see it in her facial shape now. She had her father's chin.

"You can come too, Harry, but it's probably best to do only a few at a time," Hope said, as she led us inside. The interior of the house was fairly well decorated, with comfortable-looking furniture in the rooms we passed through. It was obvious that we were in the home of a faithful family, which made me a little nervous for Tristan's sake. Even after Legend came out, there were those that still had issues with people of alternative preferences, and most of them were highly religious. "Doctor Butters came by this morning to take a look at Byron, and he understood why we couldn't just take him to a hospital. It's not quite the same reason we can't take this Harry to one if he gets hurt, but given the circumstances, both Dad and Mom said that it probably wouldn't be a good idea."

"You mean with the swapping," Dresden said. "I still don't really get that. What's meant by it?"

"Well, one body, Tristan, is not really hurt so badly," Hope said. "The other one, Byron, is in and out of consciousness as he heals. I'm not sure what happened to him."

"Head injury," I said. "It happened before we ended up here."

"And they're twin brothers," Kenzie said. "Just because they share the same space and have to swap out doesn't make them less twins."

Hope gave a slight nod as she continued to lead us through the house.

"This Harry, what do you mean by this Harry?" I asked. "I mean, obviously you're referring to Dresden with that, but…"

"Hank's name is Harry too," Maggie said, her voice a little soft and yet somehow there was a strength to it. She was walking next to her father and holding onto the dog, Mouse. "He's her younger brother."

"Ah, that makes some more sense," I said.

Maggie nodded.

"Maggie, do you have homework you need to do?" Dresden asked.

"Not today!" Maggie grinned. "Mr. Pounder and Ms. Barrowill helped me get it done during lunch so that I could do other stuff at home."

I shook my head as Hope led us back into another room on the ground floor of the home. Knowing that Byron was hurt was enough that I needed to focus on that. I needed to see him and if he could pay attention, I'd let him know that I was here. I didn't even know if he could be awake enough to swap with his brother.

When we entered the room, it was strange. Byron was lying down in what had to be one of the guest beds that they had here at the house, clearly unconscious, and he was hooked up to an IV drip that hung on a hook attached to one of the bed's posts. His hair was a little messed up, and there were fresh bandages on his head, covering some of his wounds. I almost expected some sort of monitoring device, given how elaborate this setup was.

"Harry, you should stick outside for the moment," Hope said. "Don't want to risk the equipment Doctor Butters brought."

"Yeah, I'll go find Michael," Dresden said from the door, and as I looked back, he was leaving, daughter and dog in tow.

"So, if he was like this, how did Tristan tell you all his name?" I asked, once Dresden was a little further off.

"My sister helped," Hope said.

"Yeah, she did," said a familiar voice, coming from the chair next to the bed. The lights flickered in the room, and a translucent version of Tristan appeared next to the bed, staring down at his brother. "I'm not sure how she did it, but Byron's there and I'm here."

Kenzie blinked. "I was so close to getting that working right myself. I don't have the stuff with me because it's back home, but…"

The translucent Tristan smiled at Kenzie. "No big deal, Kenz. There's a couple better things you should probably focus on. Like how to get us home, once we're all together."

This certainly seemed like Tristan, but it could have been an incredibly convincing fake. Which, of course, didn't explain how Molly knew my last name, nor did it explain how Hope did. If it was Tristan, that did explain a lot. That said, given how translucent he was, despite wearing clothes that looked like they belonged on him… I needed to be sure.

"Yeah, that was something I'd hope she'd be able to work on here," I said. "But I'd need to meet the ones taking care of Byron first."

"Yeah, you definitely should meet Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter," Tristan said. "Mr. Carpenter found me nearly red-handed at his construction site. I was a little dazed after getting here, and he helped me out."

"I'm not even sure how we all managed to get separated," I said, crossing my arms.

Tristan scratched his chin as he looked me over. "I'd say that probably had something to do with whatever portal thing Teacher was working with where we were at."

"Yeah, it probably wasn't working right after whatever happened happened," Kenzie said, and she shifted her stance a little. "Byron looks a little better than he did in the hospital, but still not great."

"Yeah," Tristan, or rather the projection that looked like him said. I still wasn't convinced fully. Not yet. He pulled lightly at his earlobe as he looked over his brother. "I think it helped him some, but… he still needs some more healing. I'm not sure he'd like being here, wearing what he's wearing rather than a hoodie and jeans though. Still, the Carpenters have been helpful for him."

I nodded. "Got that impression. How are you doing in all this, Tristan?"

He shrugged. "I can speak while Byron's out, and he's not even conscious enough to hear me. How do you think I'm doing? It's the first time I can see him directly in years without him looking in a mirror, other than what Kenz did in the hospital. I'm worried about him. Worried about us."

"Why'd you swap over to him, then?" I asked. "You knew how hurt he was, still."

"I wasn't sure how hurt he was, and the Carpenters seemed like knowledgeable people," Tristan said. "They helped with the wounds I had, and I knew that they'd help Byron too. I'm fully awake and aware right now, and my brother isn't. He was awake for a little while this morning when Doctor Butters was here, but he went back to sleep afterward. Molly sat with him for a little while, and then… well, this."

"How did she pull that off?" Kenzie asked, curiously passing a hand through Tristan's body. Her hand passed completely through, unimpeded. "Huh. Tingly. I need to figure this out. I want to. It could be helpful." She pulled out a device that I assumed was a scanner of some sort from her bag, and she started waving it over Tristan and Byron both.

"Sorry Kenz, I don't really know," Tristan said. "I just got told that this will only last till noon tomorrow."

"Which means I have till 12:01 PM to figure out how to keep it going," Kenzie said. "I can do that! There might be some tweaking that we need to do though."

"It's magic," Hope said. "Molly was always good with mind stuff and illusions, and that was even before she was a fairy princess. Magic's usually one of the simplest explanations for things out there. Of course, you could go into detail on the type and how it was performed, but magic is magic. The noon thing is probably fairy related."

"Magic's weird," Kenzie said, and she glanced at her scanner. She then waved it between Byron and Tristan once more. "And that's… huh. You're still connected to him. That's interesting. I can work with that."

"Kenzie," I said, warningly.

"I know, I know," Kenzie said. "I'll make sure to ask, but it's so cool!"

"It is," Tristan agreed.

I walked up to the bedside, and I lightly placed a hand on Byron's shoulder. I gave him a gentle shake. "Byron, can you wake up?"

I felt the blue half of Capricorn shift slightly under my grip, and I noticed an eye open. He made a slight groaning sound, but then his eye closed again, and he started breathing slower.

"He's been like that most of the past two days," Tristan said.

"In and out of consciousness," Hope said, confirming. "I helped Mom change his bandages once. He's got some nice muscles."

"Thank you," Tristan said. "From both of us. I'm sure he'd be happy that you were helping him. Victoria, you got found pretty quickly."

"That wasn't your deal with Molly, was it?" I asked.

"The deal I made with her…" Tristan shook his head. "I can't talk about it right now. But it should be helpful in the long run, for all of us."

"Can't or won't?" Kenzie asked.

"Can't," Tristan said. "I've tried letting others know what it is that I asked for, but something keeps stopping me. But it should be helpful."

"I thought fairytale stuff ended at the stroke of midnight," Kenzie said.

"That might be true for Summer Fae, but not those of Winter," Dresden said from the doorway. He looked at Tristan. "So, two of the five missing found. Hi, I'm Harry Dresden. Your friend Victoria hired me."

"Tristan," said my teammate. "And that unconscious lump is my brother, Byron."

Byron's arm tensed some for a second before relaxing back to what it had been. It was almost as if he had wanted to respond to his brother but just didn't have the energy. Maybe traveling here had sapped some of the energy he'd had.

"Victoria, I got permission from Michael and Charity for Kenzie to stay here too," Dresden said. "We can get going toward your other friends soon."

"I'll have to meet them," I said.

"No problem," Dresden said, and he leaned back out of the doorway. "Michael, Victoria wants to meet you first before leaving the kid."

"Of course," said another male voice from a bit further away. This one was a little deeper than Dresden's voice. I heard footsteps accompanied by what sounded like a wooden cane approaching the doorway, and soon I could see, standing next to Dresden, a solidly built man, dressed in red flannel and jeans. He was tall, albeit still a bit shorter than Dresden, but he had much broader shoulders and thicker arms. He held a cane in his left hand, leaning on it a little for support, likely from some injury or another that he had gotten some time back that never healed fully. He had kind eyes and a graying beard, and salt and pepper hair trimmed short. He smiled at everyone in the room, and he gave me a nod. "Miss Dallon, it's good to meet you. I'm Michael. You've met my daughter Hope, and Harry said that you met my eldest this afternoon."

"Molly, yes," I said. "Thank you for looking after Tristan and Byron. I'm not sure how the hospital system here would have handled them."

"They are an unusual case, for sure," Michael said. "Thankfully, we do have some friends who know of the more than natural and were able to come help."

"Yes, thank you, sir," Tristan said.

"So, these are two of the friends you spoke of, then, Tristan?" Michael asked.

"Yeah, it's definitely them," Tristan said. "And I'm pretty sure they're confident I'm me."

"Good. And Miss Dallon, you were thinking of leaving Kenzie here while you helped Harry search for the rest of your friends?"

I nodded. "You can call me Victoria, sir."

"Then I must insist you call me Michael," he said, smiling warmly. He reminded me a little of Chevalier, at least in attitude, but something about him seemed almost better in some ways. I'd never met Chevalier out of costume though, so who knew? He could have been the Bet alternate of this man. I knew that given infinite worlds, there were likely alternate versions of each of us in many different places. "And my wife will probably insist that you call her Charity. And I assume Kenzie Martin is the young girl with the… scanner of some sort out?"

Kenzie nodded. "Hello." Michael made her less nervous than Dresden had. She only gave him a small smile before looking back at her scanner. "It's nice to meet you." She then looked over to Dresden. "Wait, Mister Dresden, can I try scanning you?"

"I'm not sure if it'll do anything, kiddo," Dresden said. "Other than maybe break your device."

"I'm not worried about that," Kenzie said. "I just want to get some energy scans as a baseline so that I can adjust for those in my calculations and then maybe I can make something that you won't break right away so we can stay in communication."

"So, you like to make things," Michael said with a smile. "Maybe you might be interested in using my workshop while you're here."

"Under supervision, of course," Tristan said. "I don't think I can get far enough from Byron to watch her though."

"Maggie, Mouse, and I will be in there with her," Michael said.

Dresden shrugged. "Go ahead and try scanning me, if you're not worried about that thing."

Kenzie nodded quickly, and she practically bounded across the room with her scanner. The moment it got within a few feet of Dresden, some sparks shot off of it. "No, no… no you don't," she muttered and she slapped the scanner on the side a couple times. It beeped twice, and then she waved it over Dresden's body. She looked at the output on the screen and nodded. "Okay, Mr. Dresden, could you do something with your magic? Something small."

Dresden nodded, and he lifted up the pentacle amulet out of his pocket. Ashley's hair was still wound around it, and he furrowed his brow. Slowly, the amulet itself began to light up, a small greenish light.

I was starting to come around on him having magic at this point. He was far too versatile for this to be entirely parahuman powers. Rain was a grab bag too, but this seemed different than a cluster trigger. I would definitely need a notebook to try and figure some things out with this. Perhaps Dresden would be willing to trade some information for information. We were as new to him as he was to us, and this was his world.

Kenzie gave Dresden an earnest look. "Thank you, Mr. Dresden."

"Did hitting that thing seriously get it working again?" Dresden asked.

"She made it," I said. "And well, sometimes that works for her."

Dresden nodded. "I guess that makes sense, given what you told me. I did the spell again to try and locate your friend, and based on my calculations, she's roughly eight miles or so away, in the middle of downtown."

"Triangulation, Harry?" Michael asked, and Dresden nodded. "Where downtown?"

"Few places she could be in that area," Dresden said. "I'd like to have Victoria with me when I check them out."

He glanced out the window. The sky had started to darken with the sun fading beyond the horizon. It was autumn in Chicago, after all. The sun set early. "Michael, can Maggie stay over tonight?"

"Of course, Harry," Michael said. "She's always welcome. Is there a particular reason for it?"

"Funny feeling, that's all. Tonight might be a longer one than usual."

"Before you go," a woman's voice said, coming from further in the living room. "Why don't you stay for dinner?"

"How's Byron going to get some food in him, Mrs. Carpenter?" Tristan asked from within the room.

"We have some nutrient IVs that Doctor Butters provided, Tristan," she said as she stepped into the room. Mrs. Charity Carpenter was an older blonde woman a bit taller than me. Her hair was pulled back into a braid, and she wore a pair of jeans and a light jacket over top of a conservative black blouse. Her smile was warm. "Harry, Maggie's borrowing some of Hank's comic books at the moment."

Dresden nodded, and the conversation went from there. Until dinner was ready, Kenzie and I sat with Tristan, watching over Byron while Kenzie worked with her scanner and a notepad. She might not have been tinkering for the moment, but she would start the moment that Michael allowed her into his workshop. Michael, for his part, sat with us, talking a little about his work, and explaining what he had available in his workshop to Kenzie. Despite this being the home of someone obviously religious, Michael didn't seem to feel the need to push his religion upon us.

When I brought it up, he answered that he was Catholic, and if we were curious, he'd expound upon it. However, given that we were from a different Earth entirely, he would understand if we didn't want to talk about religion. It was honestly a breath of fresh air, when compared to people like Haven, who as heroic as they were, had been a little pushy with their beliefs. Tristan asked on his opinions of gay people, and Michael simply answered that a person's sexual attraction is a personal thing between them and God. It's no mortal's business other than the one involved with.

It was an answer born of… love, I suppose.

Dinner came, and we got to meet the rest of the family that lived there. Alicia, the eldest daughter there, was a sophomore in the local community college, and she played soccer. She was also the only dark-haired girl in the family. Amanda, the next daughter was a senior in high school, and she apparently was an artist. For some reason, she called Dresden "Bill." When Kenzie asked, she shrugged and gestured at her younger brother.

"We already have a Harry," Amanda said.

Apparently, they had two sons, but one was off studying at a university, and the other was deployed in the Middle East. There was more than enough food for everyone there, and everyone had some stories to tell about Dresden and things they'd seen. This was a family that knew about magic, grew up around it, and they somehow managed to make everyone feel welcome at the table.

To be honest, it made me a little jealous. This was how a family should have been, how New Wave had pretended to be, but behind closed doors, it wasn't this. Dad had his mental health issues, and Mom… always treated Amy coldly. And really, until I got powers of my own, there was a lot of pressure. Though the pressure didn't really abate when I got the powers. It just changed forms, and Amy had her own pressure. Which… well, it didn't turn out well for her or me. Especially me.

"Victoria, are you okay?" Charity asked, meeting my eyes. No soulgaze began, which meant that she wasn't like Dresden.

"I'm…" I glanced at the fork I'd been holding, and I flushed. I didn't control my strength the way I should have. It was a little mangled. "I'm sorry. I've just been thinking a lot. You have a lovely family."

"Thank you for the compliment," Charity said. "And… do you need a new fork? I'll admit it's the first time we've had someone with your strength at the table, but…"

I shook my head, and I carefully straightened the handle of the fork. The tines hadn't been bent because of where my hand was. "I think I should be fine, but you might need to throw the fork away at the end of the meal. Stress can weaken the metal."

"Or maybe I can use it," Kenzie said idly. "Rather than it just going in the trash, I mean."

"We'll see," Charity said. "So, you'll be looking for the rest of your friends then?"

"Ashley, Sveta, and Rain, yes," I said. "Looks like we're starting with Ashley. I assume Dresden will need to do the spell again after dinner…"

He nodded. "Just to make sure she hasn't moved too much."

"Victoria," Kenzie said. "Do you know which Ashley it is?"

I nodded. Despite everything, I was certain that the one I'd seen in the portal before we went through it had been ours. But there was a chance her sister was here too, and… "… Dresden, there may be a few more people we need to find, but I don't have anything for you to use for them."

Lisa, Candy, Aiden, and Darlene might have been caught up in whatever happened with that portal as well. I had no idea how long it had lasted after taking us in initially. Additionally, I also didn't know why we were here physically, given how we'd been in where we were. Clearly something else had happened, given we'd shown up with civilian clothes on. I did have my costume with me too, though, in my hotel room. Kenzie's was there as well.

I didn't have an explanation for that, but that was something I could worry about after everyone was found.

"You'll have to explain a bit more while we look," Dresden said. "But we'll do our best."

He stood, and I did as well. Dresden walked over to his daughter and gave her a hug, kissing her cheek. "Be good for Michael and Charity, Punkin. See if you can help Kenzie feel at home."

"I will," Maggie said. "And Mouse will too, of course. We'll make sure to show her how to be safe from monsters."

"She's a superhero like Victoria," Dresden said. "She might already know some tricks. But you can show her some more."

"That'd be cool," Kenzie said. "And maybe I can show you some stuff in Mr. Carpenter's workshop. Some of my friends like to watch it."

I smiled. "Just make sure you get some sleep tonight, Kenz." I looked at the adults in the room. "She'll work all night if you let her. Nothing she's doing needs to be a rush job. Got it, Kenzie?"

"Okay, Victoria," Kenzie said, a little down. She looked at me for a second and frowned. "I need to test a couple of ideas tomorrow, but I might have something that can help more by then."

I nodded. "Just don't stay up too late working on it."

"I won't," Kenzie said. I believed her.

We said our goodbyes, and I followed Dresden out of the house. He performed the spell again, without the circle this time, and he got a bead on Ashley. I was certain that it was Swansong, not Damsel, but regardless of which it was, it was an Ashley, and if both were here, we'd need to get them both. As we walked out of the picket fenced yard toward the street some people were out walking at night in the dark.

I wouldn't have given them a second glance, but as another pair of people approached them, something screamed danger to me. They were too pale, gaunt, and they wore clothing that looked almost rotten. Their faces were practically skeletal, with long, dirty fingernails. The scent of dried blood and rotting meat hung in the air as they passed. One of them stopped, and I almost recognized him. He'd been at Teacher's base, one of his Students. He looked a lot different now, of course, but despite the skeletal look to his face, I recognized him. He pointed a long fingernail at us.

"Wizard! Antares!" snarled the Student. His voice sounded like someone trying to gargle sandpaper and rocks together. "My master bids you to come with us!"

One of the others with him, I didn't recognize. She was an Asian-looking woman dressed in a grey cloak with a sword at her side. Her lips peeled back some, revealing fangs. "You can come easily or hard, Dresden. But I bet I know which you'll pick."

Dresden's eyes narrowed. "Yoshimo, I'm sorry… We failed you. It was my fault."

"Don't be sorry, Dresden," she said, her voice dipping into almost a moan, but there was the raspy, dried tinge to it. "You'll love it yourself. I just know you will."

Dresden stood taller, his body language transforming more toward someone who had something to protect. He spoke quietly to me. "Victoria, these are vampires. Black Court, to be precise."

"You know her," I said, equally quiet.

"Knew. When she was human," Dresden said. "I don't recognize the others. But… they're vampires."

One was a Student of Teacher's that I'd seen before we got here. Was Teacher directing them?

"Well, Dresden, Antares?" asked the woman. "Are you going to come with us to our master, or are we going to make you? Let's not forget that we're in a lovely residential neighborhood. With oh, so many innocent people to snack on."

"They can't get inside homes without an invitation," Dresden said, pulling out a carved stick from his duster. "And I owe Yoshimo this. You can try, Yuki! FUEGO!"

His stick lit up, and a line of fire lanced out toward the woman, who grabbed one of her compatriots, throwing him in the way of the oncoming flames. The man's body lit up instantly, and she snarled something in another language. Wind arced from her, and Dresden threw up his left hand. A semi-translucent forcefield popped up in front of him, while my own force field flared into existence.

The wind downed my forcefield once it finished buffeting it, but I wasn't going to let them repeat that action. The burning man (vampire, according to Dresden) collapsed forward, the flames on him still smoldering. I flew forward, punching the Student in the shoulder. He didn't weigh much more than a desiccated body would, and my punch sent him flying backward about twenty feet.

Yoshimo snarled something else out as I did that, and a wave of force slammed into me, without my force field up to stop it. Because I was in the air, it sent me tumbling off to the side, and my forcefield reappeared, digging furrows in the ground to abate my momentum.

My lip hurt, and I wiped at it. Blood. Great.

"So. You aren't invincible, Antares," Yoshimo said, a grin coming to her skeletal face. "Good."

She started laughing. Something was wrong. I wasn't sure what.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Seven

Assuming we survived this, I needed to tell Victoria a little more about vampires. In my defense, I hadn't expected to run into the Black Court right outside Michael's house, nor did I expect them to recognize Victoria as Antares. She hadn't used that name at all near me. Four Black Court vampires were not an insignificant threat, even for an experienced wizard, and that one of them had been a Warden prior to being turned only made the threat greater. The monster that wore Yoshimo's corpse and puppeted the body had access to her memories and worse: her magic. She hadn't had the opportunity to let off her death curse when she was killed in that cemetery four months ago. I'd hoped that when they took her body, they wouldn't do this.

But they did.

Yoshimo laughed at Victoria's bleeding. It sounded wrong coming out of her mouth, like a longtime smoker wheezing. The decay hadn't fully set in on her yet, but even at four months of being dead, her voice sounded wrong. This wasn't the woman I'd helped train when I was still with the White Council. "There's no need to escalate this further, Antares. I know you can bleed, and I doubt either of you wish to risk the innocents in the homes nearby."

"There's only three of you, Yukie," I said.

Hell's bells, there were only two standing before us. The one that Victoria had hit was still climbing to his feet from twenty feet away, and I was pretty sure the blonde had been holding back. Judging from the divots dug in the ground near Victoria, it was a reasonable guess. That must have been the force field I'd seen in the soulgaze, the thing that had responded strongly to me seeing her. Victoria was staring at the one she'd hit. She probably hadn't expected him to go as far as he did.

"That's where you're wrong, Dresden," Yoshimo said, and she snapped her fingers. It was a sickening sound that more resembled bones cracking than any sort of actual snapping sound. Seven more vampires seemed to fade into view from nowhere. Each of them had a mixture of fresh and dried blood on their faces, and I really didn't pay much attention to the genders. They were monsters. They didn't deserve anything more than that. "I knew we were going after you and your new client. Did you think I wouldn't bring back up? We trained better than that."

"Warden Yoshimo did," I said, and I snapped my blasting rod up again. "You aren't her. FUEGO!"

This time, Yoshimo brought up her left hand, and a shield made of wind blasted the fire on either side of her. She sneered, and she brought her right hand up, wielding a wand. "Ventas cyclis!"

Wind spun out toward me, but I was already on the move. I dashed past a vampire that grabbed at my duster, but I shook him off, blasting out with some force, unannounced. I was the Winter Knight, and if I couldn't handle this, what good was I to Mab?

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Victoria in flight. As one of the vampires started to pull out a gun, it lifted out of his hand, getting crushed as she grabbed him, throwing him at one of the others.

"Make like Buffy!" I yelled to her. Even if she went for killing blows, Blampires were far more durable than they looked. I'd seen them walk off getting hit by a Mack truck. To take them down, you had to hit them with their weaknesses. Fire. Wood through the heart. Decapitation. Any of those would work, but they only would if Victoria knew it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to yell more to her as another vampire pulled out a handgun, shooting at me. The bullet struck my duster, pelting off it in a way that would leave me bruised in the morning, but I kept moving, trying to get to a better angle. We were in a nice residential neighborhood, and a gun just went off. The police response time was very short here. We needed to deal with this quickly or else we'd have far more to protect than just ourselves.

I spun around another vampire, and, after making sure no houses were behind her, I let out another guttural, "FUEGO!"

A gout of flame lit the vampire up like a torch, and I kicked the body away to let it smolder to bits. I hated vampires.

A sickening crunch came from another vampire as Victoria punched it at Yoshimo, who dodged the oncoming body, far faster than any human would have been able to.

"Shoot her!" Yoshimo sneered. "I'll handle Dresden!"

"You'll handle me, Yukie?" I asked. "I'm sorry, you're about four months too late to handle me. I'm an engaged man!" Yeah, I know it wasn't a great joke, but the sheer rage I felt rising in me had to get out somehow. Her becoming a vampire wasn't only my fault, but if Carlos had just trusted me, if the Wardens had trusted me, maybe she would have been alive.

Yoshimo let out a curse in Japanese, and then she flickered. I knew vampires could move fast, but I didn't think it was that fast. One second, she was thirty feet away, the next, she was less than five. I reached out to blast her with my rod, but she grabbed my arm, and she pulled at it. Vampires of the Black Court were inhumanly strong, and for any normal person, the force at which she was pulling my arm probably would have broken it.

Lucky for me, I'm the Winter Knight. Ice claws formed on my left hand, and I dug them into the vampire's neck. She gasped, but she kept squeezing, kept pulling. My duster managed to distribute most of the pressure from the squeezing, but the pulling certainly was starting to hurt. I couldn't get my hand to a good enough angle with the blasting rod, which meant I needed to have an alternative.

"Dresden!" Victoria cried before another gunshot rang out, clearly striking something. "Oh, fuck that."

Another crunching sound happened as a vampire flew across the street, slamming into a parked work van's door. The glass shattered, and I could hear Victoria let out a small sigh.

"Let me go, Yukie," I said, gathering my will.

"Make me, Dresden," Yoshimo said, baring her fangs. "I don't think the master will mind if I sample you. Your Starborn blood. I can smell it, you know. You'll be able to smell it too. And it's not like I will be taking you completely away from your queen. You'll just have a new point of view."

One of my more inconspicuous implements that I'd managed to craft again was a silver interlocking ring with braided silver. The ring was designed to capture ambient kinetic energy and store it within the ring, ready to unleash it upon command. It charged up by the normal movements of my hand each day, and when I worked out on a punching bag, it recharged faster. When completely full, the force stored up would be like getting hit by a large car going at a high speed. I knew this wasn't Yoshimo, and given the circumstances, I needed to act. I aimed my hand downward, and I unleashed half the force ring onto her arm.

The arm snapped, and her grip released. I readjusted my aim, and I unleashed the rest into her chest, sending her hurtling through the air, tumbling, but she straightened herself out and landed on her feet, sliding along the asphalt of the road. I saw her adjusting her arm, the bones already seeming to knit into place.

Victoria landed by me just as two more of the vampires pulled out guns and started to fire. I brought up my shield in a spherical state, holding it against the gun assault. It wouldn't be the first time I'd done this. I could feel her forcefield feeling out my shield from the inside, but it didn't cross the line.

"Thank you for this," Victoria said. "A good hit and my field goes down. I'm surprised how well we can hear in here."

"A spherical shield blocks some of outside's sound," I said. "There's so many of them, and Yoshimo…"

"We can get away. I can pick you up and we can fly away. You said they can't enter homes, right?"

"They need to be invited," I said. "But leaving them here unchecked could be a big problem. The cops are on their way, and attacking even one blampire would be a slaughter."

"Blampire?"

"Black Court vampire," I said. "What you're doing isn't working. You need to kill them. They have Dracula on your world?"

"Yeah," Victoria said.

"Kill them the same way," I said.

"But…"

"I know you're a superhero, but these are vampires," I said. "They aren't human. Hell's bells, they're already dead. The people they were died the moment they turned. All that's left are these husks."

"So, sunlight, fire, stakes, decapitation or all of the above?" Victoria asked.

I nodded. She didn't sound too convinced about killing them. But it's what needed to happen. We couldn't let the cops around this many vampires. Or really any vampires. Since it wasn't going to be SI that responded to this, they would be woefully unprepared for what they were about to face.

"I'm going to need you to channel your inner Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I said. "Just breaking them won't help. They need to be stopped."

"What if I can stop them without killing them?" Victoria asked. "Do they really need to die?"

"They wouldn't hesitate to kill you and me if they weren't being ordered otherwise by someone stronger. They will kill anyone else in the way." The vampires were reloading their guns, and the ones that had no guns had taken to physically attacking the shield. Four with guns, five with none, but one of those was Yoshimo.

"I need to drop the shield." It wasn't the worst amount of energy I'd needed to use, but with Yoshimo getting ready to use more magic at a moment's notice, I needed to be able to counter her. I had been the stronger of the two of us before she turned, and I certainly was more experienced. Now, however, she was far more willing to break the Laws of magic. The Council response to a vampiric warlock was the same as it was to a vampire. She had nothing to lose. "I need to take on Yoshimo without getting interrupted by the rest of the scourge."

"Scourge?" Victoria frowned.

"Vampire term. I'll explain more after we're done. Can you deal with them?"

Victoria balled her hands into fists, and I got even more of an impression of something pressing against the interior of the shield. "I'll do what I can."

Four of the vampires unloaded another full clip into the shield, even as I could hear Yoshimo yelling at them. Two more rushed the shield, one with an arm visibly dislocated that snapped back into place as it started to swing against my shield.

"Drop the shield, Dresden!" Victoria yelled, and I did. She burst forward, and the two nearest vampires lifted off the ground, mid-swing. She brought her arms upward, and the vampires were flung upward. Very far upward.

I couldn't help but try and follow them with my eyes, and apparently neither could the vampires left on the ground. When Victoria rushed another vampire, I snapped out of it, needing to contribute my own part to this fight.

This time, instead of letting her take the initiative, I ran toward Yoshimo and tackled her. We tumbled to the ground together, with me on top, and her wand popped free of her good hand. I punched her with my full, Winter Knight-enhanced strength in her cheek, and repeated the motion for good measure. This was a woman I'd failed, now a monster. This was everything I'd feared for Maggie's mother, only worse. This was a monster that had taken the form of a friend. The Knight's mantle screamed for her head, for justice. For Winter's justice, and I would give it to her.

I could hear the rasping screams of other vampires, along with several grunts and crunching sounds beyond me as I kept at Yukie.

The vampire below me snarled, swiping her claw-like fingernails across my face, catching my cheek. A drop of my blood dripped into her mouth and she swallowed. She struggled with renewed vigor at that point, knocking my blasting rod out of my right hand, sending it flying down the street, and I returned her snarl with one of my own. The mantle drove me forward, ice forming along the fingers of my left hand so I could return her claws with my own. If I could get them deep enough this time, I could just pop her head off.

But I forced the mantle down. Cooler heads. Yoshimo was a vampire. I might not have had a wooden stake or even my blasting rod available to me at this point, but I did have something else. I had an article of faith. Now, what most people associate with vampires and their weaknesses is the cross, or a crucifix. Both of which are signs of Christian faith. But when it comes to vampires, it's not the actual symbol that hurts them but the faith behind it. I pulled out the pentacle that had been left to me by my mother, still with Victoria's friend's hair wrapped around the chain, and I pressed it into Yukie Yoshimo's cheek. While I might not have had as much faith in God as Michael, I did have faith in magic, and nothing represented magic more to me than the pentacle.

Yoshimo's face sizzled under my pentacle, burning brightly. She screamed a raspy scream that started off human and shifted more demonic. It was working! I'd be able to avenge her!

She snarled, and she grabbed my arm with the pentacle with both of hers, including the one I'd broken earlier. She slid my sleeve up, and she pulled her face to it, biting into one of the veins. I felt her latch on, and I dropped my pentacle.

Hell's bells, I dropped my pentacle. The mantle within me rose and I drove an ice-tipped finger into her chest, but she didn't let go. I gathered as much of my will as I could and snarled out a spell, "Arctis!"

Mab had trained me under worse conditions, with no implements, and had Yoshimo not been a wizard herself, I'd have flash-frozen the vampire. Instead, she somehow managed to use some wind, even while latched on, to redirect the ice spell away from freezing entirely, only allowing ice to creep up her legs to her waist. I went to try again, but she moved one of her hands to my throat and squeezed. I reciprocated with my free arm.

A slim hand attached to a toned arm wrapped around my waist, and suddenly I found myself lifted off the ground into the air, with a vampire still hanging from my arm. I was shifted so that I was balancing on the hand, being held aloft, and Victoria punched Yoshimo across the jaw with a right hook far stronger than I could be capable of.

A sickening crunch rang out, and Yoshimo flew very far backward, bouncing off the street twice and not stopping. I got a sense of some sort of magic further down the street, and Yoshimo's body disappeared.

She wasn't dead, just gone, like what had happened with Chandler.

I took my chance, while still being held aloft by the girl who was the closest I'd ever get to meet to Supergirl, to look around the street. I couldn't see any more of the blampires. I wasn't sure if she'd actually killed all of them or just tossed them far into the air and let gravity take care of the rest. I'd have to ask Bob later what the likely result of that would have been, but it was possible that, at the least, the vampires were out of commission for a while.

"Are you okay, Dresden?" Victoria asked as she put me down, carefully using her telekinetic power to place me there. She seemed a little proud that she was able to do that. Maybe a new development?

"Yeah," I said. "I see you dealt with the vampires, and you didn't even make a snappy quote."

She leveled an even gaze at me, and in that moment, I was reminded of another, shorter blonde, who did the same. For a brief moment, I got a feeling of awe, followed by a raw primal need that I immediately beat down internally. The Winter Knight mantle was up at arms because of the fight, and if it couldn't be killing, it wanted to be doing something else. Victoria was a client, probably half my age, and frankly, based upon what I saw, could probably break me in half without breaking a sweat.

It was a cool thing to have that type of person on my side for once.

"We don't do that kind of thing," Victoria said, then after a second, she amended her point. "Most of us don't do that sort of thing. There are some heroes that lean into that sort of image, and some villains that do too."

"Wait, you have supervillains," I said. Well, of course they had supervillains there. If they had heroes, there probably had to be some people with powers that used them for nefarious purposes. If it were a comic book world, that would only make sense. It just wasn't any comic world that I'd heard of. Probably something to do with that quarantine that Bonea mentioned. "… of course, you have supervillains."

"And you have vampires, fairies, and God knows what else," Victoria said. "What the fuck, Dresden?"

"I'd quote Shakespeare here if I was sure it was completely accurate," I said. "Wait, you did have Shakespeare where you're from, right?"

Victoria just gave me another look that could easily have come from Murph, and then she ushered me further down the street. My car was still parked next to the picket fence outside the Carpenter household and waiting next to it was Charity Carpenter with a first aid kit.

"Victoria, Harry," Charity said. "I caught the tail end of the fight… and well, the results of a vampire landing on our front lawn."

She gestured to a smoldering pile of ash that the wind had yet to take away. It would seem that Michael's retirement package successfully protected his house this time, given it was a supernatural threat, not an entirely human one. The angelic guard couldn't do anything to mortals, but vampires clearly were fair game.

Victoria winced. "I didn't break anything… other than that van, did I?"

"You didn't break the van," I said. "The vampire broke the van."

"Harry, you two should get going before the police get here," Charity said. "Michael's on the phone with SI, trying to get Lieutenant Stallings to get here for the beat cops."

"Dresden got bitten," Victoria said, clearly avoiding looking at the pile of ash on the lawn. "Is he going to turn into one of them?"

"Doesn't work that way," I said. "But I could probably use a bandage…"

"Take off the duster, Harry," Charity said, and as I slipped it off, she frowned. She opened the first aid kit, and she used some sort of stinging antiseptic that felt like fire and hatred before putting gauze on the wound and wrapping it. "It's in better shape than I would have expected, but…"

"I'll keep an eye on him," Victoria said. "I'll just take some gauze for my lip and his cheek."

"Thank you, Charity," I said. "Maggie didn't see any of this, did she?"

Charity shook her head. "She and Kenzie spoke with Tristan some before they went into the workshop. I'm not sure what that girl is doing in there, but Maggie is helping her."

I nodded and opened the door to the Munstermobile. Victoria joined me in the car by getting in the passenger seat. "See you later, Charity."

She waved, and we drove off in the direction of Victoria's friend, Ashley. Teammate, really, according to what Tristan had said to Michael. As we drove, I glanced over to Victoria.

"I think we're going to need to share a little bit more information," I said.

"You mean like how vampires are apparently real? And what did you say about them? Black Court? What does that mean, exactly?" Victoria asked.

"Well, you saw them," I said. "Black Court vampires, I call them blampires, for short, are pretty much literally the vampires from Dracula. You uh, do have Dracula where you're from, right? You seemed to recognize the weaknesses."

"We do have Dracula, yes, and similar vampires appeared in a couple of the Maggie Holt books," Victoria said. I was going to pretend that I knew what she was talking about there. Alternate Earths meant that there probably was some sort of alternate entertainment available.

"Right. Well, here, the book was written by Stoker as a cautionary tale. Given how durable and frustratingly hard to deal with blampires are, the book put their weaknesses out there on display," I said. "And it was commissioned by a rival court of vampires, the White Court."

"Great, so vampires are racist now," Victoria said.

"To an extent, but… well, the White Court are a different kind. They're more human, and they feed upon psychic energy generated from emotions," I said. "They're the vampires that gave rise to the succubus or incubus myths. Of course, there's several monsters that fall under that umbrella."

"Wait, how many monsters are out there?" Victoria asked.

I shrugged. "I haven't encountered them all, but it's safe to say that if it appears in some sort of folklore or legend, those stories came from something. There're all sorts of supernatural creatures out there. Not every single one of them wants to eat your face, but there are many that do."

"Speaking from experience?"

I laughed bitterly. "Yeah. I've lost people. To monsters. But I've also lost them to… people. I've got a question for you."

"Hmm?"

"While Yoshimo was leading the group, the first vampire that spoke up called you Antares," I said. "I know that's your hero name, cape name, whatever you want to call it. I know why they knew me. Why did they know you?"

"I recognized two of them," Victoria said. "They had been working with a villain that we knew as Teacher back on Earth Gimel. Well, he was on another Earth connected to Gimel, but they were working with him."

"What were you doing before you got here, exactly?" I asked.

Victoria grimaced. "Stopping Teacher from what he was doing, how he was controlling people. We were… somewhere he had set himself up, controlling people through their powers. I don't fully understand it."

So, this Teacher guy had been doing the power-equivalent of violating the fourth law, and now his minions were in the hands of the Black Court. Finding Victoria's friends became an even bigger priority.

If I was going to be fighting supernaturally enhanced supervillains, a team of superheroes was something that would help.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Eight

Dresden and I spoke in the car as he drove. He had questions about Gimel, and in return for my answers, I got some of my own about this world. Given Teacher's involvement with these vampires, these Black Court vampires, we had to be prepared for anything. That certainly wasn't any sort of statement that I'd ever expected myself to say. Vampires were real. Fairies were real, though apparently they could just be humans with specific limitations placed upon them by a type of power that they had. However, there were a number of things that fell under the definition of fairy. Anything from unicorns to trolls to centaurs and giants could be considered fairies, and that wasn't the least of it.

I informed Dresden about Teacher, and what he had likely been trying to do. What we'd discovered when we had gone into that firmament, with Damsel, with the Chicken Tenders, and with Lisa. I still wasn't sure how we were here, given the way we'd pulled it off was going into Rain's dream, but that didn't change facts. We were here. Kenzie and I were and given the fact that the spell was taking us somewhere, at least an Ashley was. Still, I'd seen our Ashley alongside Damsel, and the one that had gone through the portal when we did was ours. I hoped, anyway. It was my decision that led to her death, my choice on which path that Contessa ended up using. Yes, she'd been fully informed as to what she was getting into, at least as best as possible during the time, but I still felt guilty about it. We all still felt her loss.

Maybe I had been seeing things in the portal. Maybe the Ashley we were about to find was Damsel, and maybe… she wouldn't want to be found. Was it wrong of me to hope that it was our Ashley rather than Damsel? Even knowing she was dead. Valkyrie had managed to bring back Aunt Sarah, right? Even if she wasn't quite Aunt Sarah at the moment.

"Deep thoughts?" Dresden asked, glancing over to me while we waited for a light to change.

"Just… hoping we find her," I said. "Ashley's a good friend."

Dresden nodded, with a small frown as the light changed. "So, I've been thinking a little, about what you said you were doing before you and Kenzie ended up here. I have some sources that I can check things out with, but I do have some ideas regarding that space you were in."

"Oh?" I asked. Of course, I had some ideas myself, given what we were seeing was obviously the powers themselves.

"That world, that firmament that you called it, truly resembles the Nevernever, especially given its connection to your dreams," Dresden said. "If it truly is the Nevernever, it could be that when you did… whatever it is that you did at the end of the night, that would be the reason you ended up here. Somehow, you tore a hole between your Earth… Gimel, you called it, right?" I gave an affirmative sound. "Earth Gimel and here. It might not have entirely been you. In reality, it could have been any number of things, but regardless, the result is the same. You're here now. So are your friends who happened to be with you, and if you're right, one of your enemies as well."

"At least one," I said.

Dresden nodded. "And they're working with vampires. Well, Black Court vampires, anyway. I doubt any of them would work with the White Court."

"What exactly is the White Court?" I asked. "I mean, judging from context, I'd say it's another set of vampires, but what makes them different from the Black Court?"

"The White Court are the most human-like of all the vampire courts," Dresden said. "They don't feed on blood the way the Black Court does, but instead, they feed on life energy, filtered through the emotion that they focus on. One major family focuses on lust, another fear, and another despair. Theoretically they can use other emotions as well, but those three are the primary ones used."

"Wait, so when you say they focus on lust…"

"Pretty much what it sounds like," Dresden said. "They're one of the origins of the succubus or incubus myth here. Of course, there's other things that feed similarly. Erophages aren't common, but others do exist."

I shook my head. There was a lot to learn here, and as much as I'd like to focus on it, to learn more, there was the whole time and place issue. We still needed to find Ashely, Sveta and Rain. It was possible that we needed to find the Chicken Tenders and Lisa as well, and then we could work on a way to get us all back home. In the meantime, once we found the others, I wanted to help Dresden out with his problems relating to Teacher. If he was working with the vampires for real, we needed to have every advantage we could.

Dresden snorted as he held up his floating amulet. "Well, I have one question for you. How does your friend feel about beer?"

I gave him a confused look. "She's more a fan of wine, actually. I am too, for that matter. Why?"

He gestured with the amulet, as it pointed directly at a building, angled slightly downward. "Because this says she's either in there, or she has been recently."

"In the basement?" I asked.

He parked the car in a nearby parking lot, and I followed him out. He led the way around the corner of the building to a stairway downward along the side. There was a sign on the building's side, "McAnally's Pub" with an arrow pointing down. Dresden got the amulet pointing again, and it seemed to point inside, which meant that Ashley was inside. At least, assuming that Dresden's spell was working and that it was Swansong… m—our Ashley that it was pointing to.

"If she's here, she's safe," Dresden said. "Mac's place is neutral ground, and anyone who violates that neutrality is subject to problems."

"Neutral ground," I said, giving him a look as we started down the stairs. "That really doesn't explain a lot, Dresden."

"There's a lot to explain. But think of something like the Supernatural United Nations. This is a place where people can come and relax without all the normal bickering and posturing that comes from being members of rival factions," Dresden said. "Don't you have some sort of bar or something like that back home?"

"Not one where the heroes and villains gather, not really," I said, following him to the door. "But I had heard of a place back in my hometown where rival gangs liked to gather. The heroes weren't really there."

Dresden shrugged and pushed open the door, leading further down the stairs inside, leading into a main room decorated with earthy browns and sea greens. Something about the pub felt a little strange yet homey to me. I counted thirteen tables, arranged in what seemed like a haphazard method throughout the main floor of the room, along with thirteen fans, lazily spinning above the room. Thirteen wooden pillars connected the floor to the ceiling, each intricately carved with images that I would have expected out of a storybook. Thirteen stools ran alongside the bar, where a bald man dressed in an apron and a green shirt manned a grill behind it. There was no jukebox, nor was there any sort of video game machine. Instead, there was a player piano running through a lively ditty in the corner, but after one scan of the room, my eyes locked onto the two most important things.

Sitting at the far end of the bar, holding a glass of red wine, with a neatly made sandwich in front of her, was my Ashley. She wasn't Damsel. Her hair was shoulder-length, and her hands were normal, not sharpened at all. She was wearing a long black dress with a coat over herself, and she was talking to the girl in the seat next to her.

Compared to Ashley, the girl next to her was a bastion of color. She had a tie-die sweatshirt on along with a long skirt and pants. Sveta's smile seemed genuine, and she was the first of the two of them to notice me and Dresden when we came down the stairs. She caught my eye and waved.

There were others in the pub as well, of course. A pair of twins sat at one of the tables, playing chess, a man wearing what looked like a tin foil bracelet sat at another one of the tables. He had rather disheveled clothes.

"Victoria!" Sveta called. "Come here!"

"Looks like we found at least one of your friends," Dresden said, looking at Sveta and Ashley. "Two, if I'm right."

"How'd you guess?" I asked sardonically as I started walking toward the bar, Dresden in tow.

"It's like I'm a detective or something. Go ahead and talk with your friends, order something from Mac while you're at it," Dresden said. "I've got someone else to talk to."

I nodded, barely acknowledging Dresden heading toward the tin foil guy's table. After all, both Sveta and Ashley were here. It didn't take long to cross the room to the bar, and the barman acknowledged me with a nod and a grunt. After seeing me heading directly toward my friends, he walked over to the other side of the bar, ready to engage with other patrons.

Sveta stood and immediately gave me a hug when I was close, and I returned with just as much gusto.

"It's really her, Victoria," Sveta murmured in my ear. "It's not Damsel. She's our Ashley. Swansong."

I nodded as we released our hug, and Ashley had climbed to her feet.

"Victoria," Ashley said, looking me up and down. "Someone shot at you this evening?"

"Long story," I said. "Short version is vampires with guns, but… I'm not sure that really does justice."

"Vampires," Sveta said, disbelief in her voice. She frowned, looking between me and Ashley.

I shook my head and stepped closer to our friend. She gave me a nod, and the two of us hugged. Well, it was more me hugging her, and her leaning on me in the process. She was solid. Better yet, she was here. It didn't make sense on the how, given what I knew had happened. Valkyrie hadn't been there to take her, and she didn't resemble what had happened with Aunt Sarah. The hug was familiar, and it was comforting. "How are you here?"

"I was given a choice," Ashley said quietly. "I could move on, or I could help address an imbalance. I blame you, Victoria Dallon. How could I decide anything else?"

I shook my head. There was much I wanted to ask her, much that I wanted to apologize for. She'd died because of my decision, and it wasn't… It wasn't right. A second chance here was something I was happy to have.

"Where's Kenzie? Is she here?" Ashley asked. She almost whispered that in my ear.

"She's safe," I said, patting her back with my left hand. "With one of Dresden's friends, one he trusts implicitly."

"Dresden, hmm?" Ashley asked, releasing me from the hug. She rubbed her chin. "I've heard the name."

"We both have," Sveta said. "From some people that have come in and out of the pub today."

"Wizard of Chicago," Ashley said. "What, is he some Myrddin knock-off?"

"You remember Myrddin?" Sveta asked.

"Never got to meet him," Ashley said. "Or rather, the original me never got to. He didn't take part in the Boston Games, and thus wasn't important other than the novelty of his claims. As I recall, Armstrong liked him."

"Yeah," I said. "But Dresden's the real deal."

Both of my friends looked over at Dresden, talking to the guy at the table. The two seemed to be having an amiable conversation, though the man seemed agitated about something. Dresden had pulled out a notepad from some interior pocket in his duster and was jotting down some notes.

"I'll take your word for it," Sveta said.

"He's the reason why I found you," I said.

Ashley shrugged. "I suspect we would have found each other, regardless of whether you went to him or not, Victoria. If he had not been helping you look for us, perhaps I would have been able to seek you and Kenzie out rather than deciding to wait here for you."

"She did say that we shouldn't leave here," Sveta said. "At least not unless we got kicked out."

"We wouldn't be," Ashley said, and she stuck her thumb toward the sign that hung on the wall behind the bar. It read "Accorded Neutral Ground per the Unseelie Accords." Ashley smiled. "I had a feeling that we would either be found by you or Kenzie soon enough, Victoria. Though I thought that you would be looking for Sveta here."

I nodded. "I caught a glimpse of you in the portal. Your sister was with us, but she got separated as well."

"She can take care of herself," Ashley said with complete confidence. "But we should find her before we head home. Who else is here?"

"Tristan and Byron are with Kenzie, though Byron's healing from the injury he took in Teacher's base," I said. "I think Rain is here somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Aiden, Candy, Darlene, and Lisa were all with us when the event happened, but… I don't know if they ended up here, and I didn't think about them when we hired Dresden."

"Hired him?" Sveta asked. "How do you expect to pay him? It's not like we're made of money."

I shrugged. "I figured Kenzie might be able to figure out a way, and in the worst-case scenario, there are always muggers. Maybe I should have seen if any of the vampires had cash before…"

Both of them looked confused about the vampires. So, I told them. I explained to them everything that I had seen since Kenzie and I had arrived here, save for the personal things that I saw when Dresden and I had locked eyes. I did warn them against doing so with him, given his wizardly status, and happily, both of them agreed. At the very least, it wasn't worth it to them to try. Of course, there were a few minor exchanges that we did to verify identity beyond the initial hugs. They grilled me for details regarding the vampires, how I'd handled them.

"You only killed one of them," Ashley said. "Actually, you didn't even do that. The home's defenses killed it."

I shrugged. She wasn't wrong, and somehow knocking the one vampire onto the Carpenters' lawn ended with it dead. But if they were undead to begin with, was it wrong to make them properly dead? "They're… well, it's complicated."

"I know you don't like killing," Ashley said. "And… I can't blame you for this. You aren't pitying them because of what happened in that Maggie Holt movie we watched, are you?"

"I don't think that I am," I said. "I just wanted them away."

"Did Dresden explain how a vampire is made, exactly?" Sveta asked.

I shook my head. "Not exactly, no."

"And you said that one of them was a Student," Sveta said, and at my nod, she continued. "So, at the least, these vampires are working with Teacher here."

"Possibly," I said. "Or they could have just turned the Students somehow without involving Teacher at all."

The barman walked over to us and placed a bottle down in front of me with a grunt. He smiled. "From Dresden. Another glass?"

"Yes, Mac, I believe I will have another," Ashley said. "Thank you, sir."

He grunted and headed off to presumably get Ashley's wine.

"Vampires and Teacher working together," Sveta said. "Why am I not surprised that the first thing he does in a new world is try to consolidate his power again?"

Because that was what villains like Teacher did. Schemers needed to feel like they were in charge, and if the vampires offered him some sort of power to use his power on the minions, it really was no surprise that Teacher would take it. If he had these vampires under his control with his power, I had to wonder if he was a vampire now himself. With the way that the Asian vampire, Yoshimo, had thrown her minion, Teacher's Student, in the way of Dresden's flames, igniting him, I was certain that at the least, she saw them as pawns to be sacrificed. Perhaps Teacher did as well. It would fit with what we saw of his operations on Bet.

Hopefully, he wouldn't have any capes with him. The vampires were bad enough.

I took a sip of the bottle, to be slightly polite to Dresden. Normally, I wasn't a beer drinker. It just wasn't something I enjoyed going out of my way to get, and Gimel didn't really have any good brews anyway. Not yet. This brown ale, however, was surprisingly tasty. It was warm, but that let the entire flavor profile of the beer hit my tongue, and the bitterness of the hops was offset by the rest of the ale's flavor.

When Mac came back with a wine bottle to top of Ashley's glass, he nodded to me and the bottle in my hand.

"It's good," I said, honestly. Sure, it wasn't something I'd normally go for, but it was worth trying the once. Ashley, of course, had a bit more of a discerning palate.

"I think everything we tried here is," Sveta said. "You're sure Kenzie is safe?"

"The kid's as safe as she can be," Dresden said as he approached. "She's with people I trust with my daughter. You don't have to worry about her. "

Ashley gave Dresden a once-over and made a show about intentionally meeting his eyes. He looked away, almost instantly.

"No, Dresden," Ashley said. "Victoria mentioned what meeting your eyes would do. While I trust her judgment of you as a good person, I need to see what she saw."

"It won't be exactly that," Dresden said. "I don't think everyone who shares a soulgaze with me sees the same things."

Mac placed another beer near Dresden, and he pulled out a money clip. He peeled off several twenties and handed them to Mac.

Mac nodded to us. "How many?"

"At least six," Dresden said, and he looked at the bartender with a frown. "What do you know, Mac?"

"Told you before, Harry," Mac said. "I'm out."

"Interesting," Ashley said. "But ultimately irrelevant to the issue at hand. Victoria, I know you would not have signed off on Kenzie staying with anyone unsafe. I do trust you and your judgement. However, if I am to entrust anything more to this… wizard, I must know more."

"You don't need to soulgaze him, Ashley," I said.

Sveta nodded. "There's… he'd see you too. You know that, right?"

"And frankly, after the soulgaze I shared with Victoria today, I don't really want to do another," Dresden said. "I will need to replace that desk and call out for some repairs."

My friends looked at me, and I flushed a little in embarrassment. It wasn't my fault that my power lashed out as a result of that event.

Ashley sipped her wine. "Very well. When you are ready, Dresden, I insist upon it."

"Even knowing that I'll see your soul too?" Dresden asked.

Ashley looked at her glass. "If you were to ask me before we arrived here, I would have been uncertain whether or not I truly had a soul. Or even if the soul existed. Both Victoria and I know differently now, and I expect our friends will realize such a thing as well. Is Rain the final person left to find?"

"Of the original ones I was hired to look for, yes," Dresden said. "I wasn't expecting to find the two of you together, but I'm happy because Kenzie didn't have her hair." Dresden nodded at Sveta.

"What does my hair have to do with anything?"

"Sympathetic links, I suspect," Ashley said. "There are parahumans who are capable of similar activities. Victoria's files mentioned them, but I do not recall specifics."

Dresden nodded like he knew what she was talking about. "I can do the same for Rain, but I'd like to know a little more about him first. Is there anything that would seem familiar to him at all in a city like this? Also, what else can you tell me about him?"

"His name is Rain o'Fire Frazier," Ashley said. "And in around forty-five minutes, by my reckoning, he will be unconscious, due to how his power interacts with those who share it."

"And as for what might be familiar to him…" Sveta shook her head. "I'm not sure if he'd go to any churches, given his experiences, but that might be the most familiar."

"I'll make a phone call before casting the spell, but when you say he'll be unconscious… is he unable to wake up?"

"Not until the dream is finished," I said. "It's complicated."

Dresden frowned. "If he's not where I'm hoping he is, then we'll need to find him as soon as we can." He turned toward the bartender. "Mac, can I use your phone?"

Mac grunted and gestured. Clearly, Dresden took more from that than I did, as Dresden scurried off. A sucking feeling in the pit of my stomach had me worrying about Rain now. Yes, he could take care of himself, and he was far from stupid, but if Dresden's church idea didn't pan out, I wasn't sure how long it would take to find him. The city was dangerous, even without factoring in the supernatural predators that Dresden and I had encountered earlier that evening.

Sveta wrapped an arm around me idly, and Ashley squeezed my shoulder. Both knew I was worrying, and until we were all reunited, there wasn't much I could do about that. Ashley being here helped, but it brought up another question. Was her sister here as well? Was anyone else? If Tattletale and the rest of the Chicken Tenders were here, wouldn't it be right to try and locate them next?

Dresden came back shaking his head. "I've got some people on the lookout for him, in case he's at one of the local shelters. How old is he, exactly?"

"About seventeen," I said.

Dresden nodded. "We'll head out in about twelve minutes. I know that's cutting it close to his time, but I need that much time to prepare."

"What takes twelve minutes?" Ashley asked.

"It's the delivery time for Pizza Express to here," Dresden said. "It's key for us to find your friend in time."

"Pizza?" Sveta asked. "How is pizza key to finding Rain?"

"I have to pay the searchers somehow," Dresden said enigmatically.

"What sort of search party works for pizza?" I asked.

"Mine," Dresden said with a smile as enigmatic as his statement. I would not throttle the wizard. I would not throttle the wizard.

Even if he deserved it.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Nine

Pizza Express didn't take all that long to deliver to Mac's. An addition to my standing order with my usual tab wasn't out of the norm for the company, and the delivery drivers knew that they would get paid well for a swift delivery. After what happened this summer, most drivers knew where the pizza was going too. An order of twelve large pizzas with pepperoni and bacon arrived, and I directed the driver where to place them, much to the dismay of Victoria and her fellow superhero friends.

"You'd said you were ordering pizza, but I really can't see how that helps us find Rain," the woman that Victoria had called Sveta said. "A search party wouldn't be able to find him in time before his nightly dream starts."

"A human search party wouldn't be able to find him in time," I said, raising a finger. "But that's the operative word."

Victoria crossed her arms, just looking at me, and the white-haired girl standing near her did the same. I knew that I would have to produce quickly, and I shook my head. "Ashley, right?" At her nod, I continued. "Would you mind standing a little over to the right?"

"Does that matter?" she asked. "Surely you don't need to have me stand in a specific place."

I didn't, but she really didn't know that. "What I'm about to do requires precise concentration and the right placement of people."

She crossed her arms and stared me down for a second. My poker face had gotten a lot better over the years, but something about how this girl was looking at me almost made me break it. After a few seconds, she shook her head, moving to where I'd indicated.

"Do you need me to move anywhere, Dresden?" Victoria asked. "Or Sveta?"

I took a look at the pair of them. Something about Sveta twigged my senses some. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I chalked it up to something about whatever her power was. I knew each of them had some sort of power, after all, and until they chose to reveal their power to me, I would have to hold off on figuring that out. "You should be fine where you are, actually. Just… don't get too close to the pizzas."

"You still haven't told us what kind of search party works for pizza alone that you can call up on such a short notice," Victoria said.

I smiled, and I made sure that all twelve pizza boxes were arranged carefully on the asphalt of the parking lot. I had no need to make any sort of circle for this, we had been working together for too long to have it be necessary. Still, the basic circle trap, set up around the entirety of the pizzas, was mostly a formality at this point. I settled down on my knees and closed my eyes, placing a picture in my mind of me, as I was in life, whispering a Name. I chanted the name quietly, kneeling and holding the image in my head with only a whisper of energy to it.

It took less than three minutes. There was a buzzing on the wind, and I saw all three ladies look up with confusion. Victoria managed to not tense, but both of her friends did. For the briefest of seconds, Ashley held up a hand, seeming to debate over something before she lowered it back down. Interesting. Her power must have had something to do with her hands.

I smiled at them before looking up as the only vassal I had arrived.

Major-General Toot-Toot Minimus was more of a violet-colored comet or meteor as he approached with the low-pitched hum of his dragonfly wings. The nimbus around him didn't resolve into the shape of an athletic young man with a shock of dandelion-silk hair in shades of violet and lavender until he was much closer. Even at thirty inches tall, he was an impressive sight to see.

He wore the suit of gothic armor that he'd worn that fateful day a couple months ago, colored that deep shade of purple that was so dark it was almost black. A small black cape emblazoned with the logo of Pizza 'Spress surrounded by golden letters embroidered on in the shape of "FOR THE ZA LORD". He held a spear in his hand as long as he was with a long blade made of the same metal as his armor clearly designed for slashing or stabbing. On his back, he had a pair of swords made of a similar metal. He was dressed for battle.

Though ideally, there would be no battle for him this evening.

He ignored the circle entirely and, after passing some more small folk in his wake, came up to me. He floated mid-air, his wings fluttering, and he raised his spear in a salute. "My Lord! You have called, and the Guard comes to your aid."

I smiled. "Major-General, thank you for coming so quickly."

"Well, when you place an offer like that, Harry…" Toot-Toot said quietly, glancing at the pizzas longingly. "What can we do for you this evening?"

"Is Lacuna here as well?" I asked.

"I am," said a feminine voice, as a pixie dressed in black armor, nearly the same size as Toot alighted upon a nearby car. She carefully held her spear, looking at the three ladies assembled with me. "Though the offering of pizza disgusts me."

"Bite your tongue, woman," Toot-Toot said. "It's real pizza this time! Proper pizza! Harry, what do you need?"

"Your help," I said. "And as much of the Guard that twelve pizzas will supply. There is a missing young human man, somewhere in the city, and he is cursed to sleep at specific times, no matter where he is."

"Oh no," said Toot. "And you wish us to wake this biggun?"

"You won't be able to," Victoria said, stepping forward. She locked her gaze on Toot specifically. "The curse prevents him from waking up until it releases him from its grasp, and it reacts violently to those who try to interfere."

Toot looked blankly at Victoria for a moment.

"She means it would be bad to try and wake the biggun, idiot," Lacuna said.

"Oh," Toot said. He then looked at me. "Harry, how do we know which biggun this is going to be? It's not easy to tell them all apart."

"If I had some of his teeth…" Lacuna said.

I shook my head. "I have one of his hairs, and I can use that to create a thaumaturgical link for you to follow."

Toot nodded, and then he flitted close to my ears. "Harry, is this person we're looking for like them?"

I glanced to Victoria, Ashley and Sveta before looking back at Toot. "I assume so but follow the thaumaturgical link that I'll set up. The faster we can get to him and get him to safety, the better."

Toot frowned. "And this pizza is our payment, right?"

"This, and another twelve tomorrow, when we're sure he's okay," I said.

"Twenty-four?" Toot-Toot exclaimed. "That's almost thirty! That's so good!"

"That's too much pizza!" Lacuna yelled. "It's extremely bad for your teeth."

I held out my peace offering for her, a small to-go tray of celery sticks. "Lacuna, I'll need you too. If something happens in there…"

She snatched one of the sticks off the tray. "As a prisoner of war, my allegiance currently lies in support of the Major General, as you well know."

I nodded. I knew that I likely didn't need to give her the celery, but I still was trying to win her over. "Then help us locate this young man. His name is Rain."

"Rain o'Fire Frazier," Sveta added, frowning. "Forgive me, but these are polevoi, correct?"

"Yes!" Toot puffed up his chest. "I am a strong polevoi! Though I am too tall now."

"Major-General, does the Guard take the deal?" I asked.

"Yes, my lord!" He then took an aside to me. "These are the good pizzas, right? Not pro forma ones? Not worried about the conomee?"

"Not at this time, Toot," I said. "They're real. And the second set will be as well."

"Right then," Toot said, standing quickly and saluted. He gave out a ringing cry. "Members of the Za-Lord's Guard, tonight, we aid the Za-Lord in his search, and he has promised us pizza in payment!"

"Pizza!" came the rallying cry from a cloud of stars above. This wasn't quite the same size as the group that had helped when Ethniu and the Fomor attacked the city, but they were here. As one, the group of fairies descended upon the pizza boxes allayed before them. I made sure to break the circle, as they had made their agreements already.

It is a fascinating thing, watching little pixies and other wyldfae attack pizza the way they do. The closest thing I can find to describe it is something similar to the old nature videos where they filmed piranha feasting as a swarm upon whatever unlucky thing happened to land in the water. They tore into the pizza with gusto, swiftly finishing it in less than two minutes.

I surveyed the superhuman ladies with me. All three watched with fascination, albeit expressed in different ways.

"Those are tiny fairies," Sveta said. "Eating pizza. Not projections?"

"If you're asking if they're illusions, no," I said. "Far from it."

"And you're sending that to search for Rain," Ashley said. She let out a short laugh that wasn't really mocking, but it sounded more confused than anything else. "Are they up to the task?"

"I'd be shocked if they weren't," I said.

"And pizza…" Victoria shook her head. "They seem obsessed with it."

"Because they foolishly are," said Lacuna, nibbling at a celery stalk. "It rots their teeth, and it could end with them all losing them all completely. Such a horrible fate."

I brought out the hair of Rain, swapping out Ashley's hair, and I focused my will, casting the tracking spell without a circle, so that I could at least have a general direction for them to search. Lacuna floated next to my shoulder on one side, and Toot took up residence in the air on the other. Both almost instinctively placed a hand on a shoulder, and I used the link I had to them, as my vassals, to help guide them to where Rain would be.

Shortly, I could feel Toot's grin, and he said quietly, "We've got you, Harry. We'll find this Rain guy before his sleepy curse sleeps him."

"No matter where he is," Lacuna said in agreement.

Then, in streaks of light, each resembling a miniature comet, the Guard took off toward the destination. As they did, Victoria tensed as if to follow them.

"I'm not sure who flies faster," I said. "But give them some trust. We can drive in that general direction, if need be."

"That wasn't obsession," Sveta said. "That was addiction. You're feeding the fairies' addiction to pizza. Why do they like it so much?"

I shrugged. "Probably because of the combination of milk and the sugar in the sauce. Dewdrop fairies, like Toot Toot, historically really enjoyed milk and sugar, often in the form of milk and honey on toast. Some years back, Toot let me know how much he enjoyed pizza, and I gave it to him the next time I needed his help."

This wouldn't be the first time someone with a Russian name called me on how I handled the Small Folk. Still, it wasn't harming them, and in reality, Toot had gotten stronger and smarter in helping me.

Each of the former Wyldfae had, and one really only needed to look at what happened during the Fomor invasion to see the results of that.

"You're sure they'll find him?" Victoria asked. She seemed to be half an inch off the ground. I knew she was eager to get to her friend and teammate.

"Assuming he's not behind a Threshold, certainly, and even if he is, it's probable that they will," I said.

"What do you mean by that, Dresden?" Ashley asked as the four of us walked in the parking lot toward the Munstermobile.

"I'm not sure if you heard the rule about invitations and supernatural creatures, vampires being the most popular one in pop culture with this," I said. I had no way of knowing for certain what stories they had in their Earth's history, but vampires were usually an easy guess.

"I guess in some stories, sure," Victoria said.

"It's like that," I said. "When inside a home, supernatural things are not going to get in without an invitation from someone who lives there. Especially if they intend harm. Some creatures can bypass the threshold but the moment that there is hostility, the threshold protects the home's owner. It's a complicated thing, really."

"Magic, huh?" Ashley asked, and she and Victoria seemed to have a short conversation nonverbally before determining that she would be the one up front while Sveta sat in back with Victoria. She gave me a calculating look. "You didn't need me to stand in a specific area, did you?"

"Some of it was out of the splash zone when the Guard attacked the pizza," I said.

She let out a short snort as she opened the door. "I suppose I should thank you, but a more detailed explanation would have been appreciated."

"Not really his style, Ashley," Victoria said. "He likes playing up the mysterious wizard vibe."

"I mean, I am a wizard," I said as I got in the driver's seat. "And we'll find your friend Rain. Toot and Lacuna know more or less where I am most of the time due to how we're linked through their nature."

Sveta and Victoria climbed into the back seat, and I started the car.

"I'm trusting Victoria's trust of you, Mr. Dresden," Sveta said.

"You can call me Dresden or Harry," I said. "Victoria's already taken to calling me the former."

She nodded.

"I, of course, will continue to call you my Knight," said an icy female voice from behind me.

"Oh, what the fuck?" Victoria exclaimed in surprise.

I adjusted the mirror, as calmly as possible, and sitting behind me, between Victoria and Sveta, was Queen Mab of the Winter Court, my queen. Mab wore a fluffy white fur coat and had her snow-white hair pulled back into a braid behind her. She was inhumanly beautiful, with pale skin and painted blue lips. Her eyes were green, of course, and they had the catlike pupils that all the high Sidhe had. Queen Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, was who fairy tale villains went to for lessons, and not because she was actually evil, but instead because her cold calculation was simply the best at accomplishing something efficiently.

Immediately, Sveta's body… unfurled is probably the best word. She unfurled into ribbons of flesh, each lined with serrated edges. Underneath the ribbons, I could see glimpses of some sort of multicolored armor. She held up her ribbons defensively, not quite attacking, but clearly waiting on some sort of cue.

Ashley had spun around in her seat and was aiming her hand at Mab. I could feel energy starting to gather within it.

Mab simply smiled. "You make such interesting friends, my Knight. Tradition dictates that you should introduce us."

I let out a short sigh. "Ladies, meet Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, Queen of the Winter Court of the Fae." I closed my eyes. "My queen. Queen Mab, meet Victoria, Sveta, and Ashley."

"Victoria Dallon, Antares," Mab said, nodding to Victoria. "Sveta Karelia, Tress. Ashely Stillons. But you would be Swansong, not Damsel of Distress. The Watchman chose well."

"What do you mean?" Ashley asked.

"Don't answer that," I said, warning my queen and Ashley in the same sentence. "That's information that she'll be able to puzzle out, not information that is necessary to indebt herself over."

Mab's lips quirked. "Oh, my Knight, such a simple sentence will not indebt her more than her sister already has. You can feel it, no? What the Watchman has done for her?"

I blinked, and then I glanced at Ashley. The energy gathering in her hand did feel familiar. No. The rest of them had implied that she'd been… dead.

"You need to find Precipice before his dreams take him. While my Knight's Guard are highly competent and will get to him in time, if you dally here while waiting, you will not reach him in time yourselves," Mab said. "My Knight, I have a task relating to these visitors for you."

"And you're okay with them hearing?" I asked.

She gave me a sharp look.

Victoria glanced at her friends. "Sveta, Ashley, it's… well, it's not okay, but I don't think we're in danger here."

Not that they would be able to do much to Mab if they tried. Ashley might do something, but I wasn't sure what she was capable of, especially if what I felt and Mab implied was accurate.

"Do supernatural women make common appearances in your car, Dresden?" Ashley asked.

"Technically, this is my car, as Harry Dresden is my Knight," Mab said. "And my task for my Knight coincides with your needs. The first of the tasks is simply to locate all of you visitors. Then we will consider what is necessary to return you to where you came from."

"And you're doing this out of, what, the goodness of your heart?" Victoria asked.

"I am Mab," she said. "There are some who say I do not have a heart. Now, my Knight, move swift. Your next target awaits."

"You know where he is?" I asked, putting the car into drive.

"Yes," Mab said, and then her next words made my blood run cold with worry. "Undertown. Rain o'Fire Frazier is in Undertown."

Hell's bells.

 

[Ellf]

Chapter Ten

Undertown. Mab. Pardon me, Queen Mab, had said that Rain was in Undertown. I was getting a little irritated at the fact that every supposedly supernatural thing and its uncle seemed to know us, but at least this so-called Fairy Queen was ostensibly on our side. As much as anyone who called themselves Mab could be. What did I know about Mab, exactly? Not much. She appeared in a monologue in one of Shakespeare's plays that I read in high school. But English class was never really one of the classes I cared all that much about, and at what point in a superhero's career would you expect Romeo and Juliet to be relevant at all?

Fae folklore was the next thing to consider. Still didn't know much. But something about this woman next to me set me on edge the moment she had appeared. The resemblance to Valkyrie's former identity notwithstanding, I needed instead to just focus on the problem at hand.

"What exactly is Undertown, Dresden?" I asked him primarily because something felt wrong about just asking the so-called fairy queen. "It doesn't sound like something very pleasant."

Dresden turned down a street, following a general direction that the streaks of light I now knew to be tiny fairies had gone. "Undertown's something of a Chicago legend that happens to be true."

"Go on," Ashley said, as if she hadn't been ready to blow out the back of Dresden's car.

"So, I suppose the first thing you should know is that Chicago itself is built on a swamp, right?" Dresden said, clearly asking something rhetorical. Given how little time I'd spent in this city to begin with, I had to assume that he was correct. Lake Michigan was right next to the city, after all. So, we all nodded, and he continued. "Since the city was built upon a swamp, parts of the city ended up sinking beneath the ground, beneath the muck, and then city was just built up overtop of it. Then, of course, the Great Chicago Fire happened, burning up most of that, and things had to just be rebuilt on top of that. Then, in the early 1900s, some of the walkways and tunnels were built out even further, creating a series of tunnels and underground buildings that effectively create its own little city below the city. An Undertown."

"I take it you've been there," said Sveta.

"Yep," Dresden said. "It's a place, as far as the locals know, that is mostly made up of drug addicts, homeless, and even some criminals. Supposedly, the Manhattan Project had some research done down there in the 40s. But the real issue in Undertown isn't any of that. Undertown is a great place for monsters to hide."

"Monsters?" Sveta asked.

"Ogres, malks, ghouls, goblins, vampires, trolls, anything that would happily feed upon any sort of human parts," said Mab, somehow sounding completely nonchalant. "My daughter liked to hold her court down there when she was Winter Lady."

"Was Winter Lady?" Ashley asked.

"There's a new Winter Lady," I said, before Queen Mab could answer Ashley. I didn't want to risk any sort of fairy debt being incurred on my friend that had somehow come back to us. "Molly. Kenzie and I met her at Dresden's place."

"What did Kenzie think of her?" Ashley asked.

"She didn't interact with her long enough to form a real opinion one way or another," I said. "Though, you know how she is."

"Always wanting to see the best in anyone," Ashley said. "Was she smiling around her?"

I shook my head. "Like I said. Not long enough of an interaction. I had an uneasy feeling about her to begin with."

"Lady Molly has an adequate performance of her role as Winter Lady," Mab said. "Perhaps the wisdom reflected by your name is truly earned, Antares."

"I'm sorry, Mab, and forgive me for asking, but…" Dresden said. "What the Hell are you still doing in my car?"

"You have not yet stopped to let me out," Mab said. "And your guests are truly interesting. It is not often that one is capable of conversing with someone from another universe without having to worry about quantum effects."

I blinked. So, someone like this had the opportunity to worry about quantum effects. Where the heck was she when we had to deal with Scion? Now that we had to deal with whatever Teacher was having us deal with… we were here, dealing with it.

"When you say quantum effects, do you mean that there is the chance of some sort of collapse when you speak with people from alternate universes?" I asked. I'll admit that I wasn't a scientist exactly, but people had many theories with how powers worked. Quantum theory was one that I had spent a good semester and a half banging my head against a wall on, but I had managed to get at least halfway decent grades in that.

"Somewhat," Mab said. "When speaking with alternate versions of myself or my knight, there are protections that I would need to set up prior to doing so, to guarantee that nothing untoward were to happen when viewing someone that might have been. Given the tasks we have set before us, there are numerous protections needed."

"Yet you still required Butters to pull that blade from your eye," Dresden said.

"Yes, we do still owe Sir Butters a favor for that," Mab said. "We shall need to speak with him later about such things."

"What about when speaking to people who aren't your alternates?" I asked. "Or his."

"It depends upon the setting. Sometimes it may lead to violence," Mab said. "But oftentimes there is no need. After all, I am Mab. Sometimes I merely need to direct them. Now, as I have answered your question, Antares, I have one of my own."

"I guess…" I shrugged. If this was a way to avoid a debt to a fairy like this queen, I was all for it.

"When you bonded with your power, what precipitated the transmission?" Mab asked. "And please, do not attempt to lie in this circumstance."

"Define bonded," I said, frowning. I held up a hand briefly. "Because there's a few ways that I can interpret that. If you mean how I got my power in the first place, that's one answer, but I'm not sure my power and I have ever bonded."

For a second, I felt a wave of something that almost seemed like disappointment, and Mab's lips quirked into a smile.

"You may be wrong on the second part," Mab said. "But I would like to know how you obtained your power. Sveta Karelia and Ashley Stillons are of less interest, given what I know of them."

"And what do you know of me?" Ashley asked.

"Many things, dear child," Mab said. "Some, I am sure, you do not know yourself. If you wish to, we can discuss that later."

"I wouldn't," Dresden said. "The only deals fae make are deals that benefit them more than the other party. Fae queens aren't any different."

"Didn't you say you were her knight?" Sveta asked. "Or she did."

"I am, but I went in knowing mostly what I was getting into," Dresden said. "Even then, she surprised me. I endeavor to do the same to her at every opportunity."

Mab's smile turned downright disturbing at that moment. "You do indeed, dear Knight."

Ashley looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but Dresden pulled over the car. Out front, the lights the small fairies had emitted were easily visible near what looked like an access door to a tunnel's side.

"Right. I'm sure that you have places to be, Mab, and I can see where we need to get," Dresden said. "Before you ensnare my clients, I do have a job to do."

Mab nodded, and she looked at Ashley. "Miss Stillons, given the investment the Watchman has made, I would recommend learning from my Knight. Do not make the same mistake your sister made."

Then suddenly, she was gone. No warning. No puff of smoke, burst of snow, nothing. Just gone.

"You have a sister, Ashley?" asked Dresden.

"Of sorts," she said. "We had been somewhat estranged. Our… developments diverged somewhat, and she acts how she believes she should, as I do."

"It's complicated," I said, opening the car door. "But simpler to refer to her sister as Damsel. We can do some more explanations after we find Rain."

"Except she implied that she knew my sister," Ashley said. "What mistake could she have been referring to?"

Dresden met my eyes for a brief second, and then he shook his head. "Something to worry about after we find your friend. How much time do we have?"

"I'm not sure," I said as we walked away from the car. We approached the floating fairy lights near the tunnel's entrance. Funny, in all the stories, it wasn't the right answer to go toward those types of things. "It depends on how this world syncs up with ours, but it likely will be soon. The monsters Mab mentioned, the flesh-gorgers. How likely is it we'll run into them?"

"First rule about the Winter Queen, Victoria? Don't say her name when she's not around. You don't want more of her attention than you already have," Dresden said. "But she wasn't wrong about the monsters. The last time I went down there, several malks and something called a Grendelkin held a woman hostage. With the help of an ally, we managed to defeat the Grendelkin. That was several years ago."

"So, you don't really know what we'll find then," Sveta said.

"Really bigguns!" said the male fairy when we got close. I think Dresden said his name was Toot-Toot. He and the female certainly were the largest of their lot, coming up almost to my chest. "The sleepy curse boy is hiding from really bigguns! Harry, they smelled Winter, but not right."

The fairy had probably intended to whisper that last part.

"Thank you, Toot. Well done. Can you lead us?" Dresden asked.

"Elidee will," said the female. Lacuna. Interesting name for what apparently was a tooth fairy. From what I remembered of my Latin, it meant a cavity, specifically in bone. "I will cover you from the back, Za-Lord. It was the request of the Major General while he investigates something else."

"And what else is that?" Dresden asked, looking at Toot-Toot.

"There is something, my Lord," said the fairy. "I can't explain it, but something similar nearby. I have taken the nishavive to look into it!"

"Be careful, Major General," I said, playing along with the setup. Actual fairies were a new thing to all of us here. "Depending on who you go for, you may not run into someone with nice powers."

"Go and find your sleepy friend," said the fairy with a salute. "Elidee, go!"

A jingling came through the air, and a very small fairy light, nearly the size of a bulb on a string, appeared before us. The light blinked blue and red a couple times before moving in a loop and leading the way into the dark tunnels of Undertown.

As we stepped down the stairs, Dresden pulled out the amulet that he'd used to find Ashley, and he cast his spell once more, searching for Rain. As he did so this time, the amulet lit up with a silvery-white glow, illuminating the stone walls of the tunnels leading downward.

The first thing I noticed as we made our way down the stairs into the tunnels was the smell. This part of Undertown, at least, did not smell of human waste or any sort of sewage. However, there was a distinct coppery yet sickly sweet smell that made its way to our nostrils. It combined with a faint smell of rot which caused a roiling in my stomach as we descended. I kept myself barely an inch off the ground as we followed the small fairy that I assumed was a pixie.

"Such lovely smells you've introduced us to, Dresden," said Ashley. She was looking around at the construction of the tunnels. They seemed to be a mix of brick and concrete, with the ground being old, cracked asphalt. The ceiling of the tunnel was cracked, dilapidated cement, and through the cracks, I could see remnants of old pipes or perhaps steel beams used to hold it together.

Dresden, for his part, frowned at the darkness ahead. Something was moving out there, scratching like claws on the concrete. "We aren't alone. It isn't far, is it?"

"No, Za-Lord," said Lacuna from behind. "Last we checked; it was just around the corner ahead."

Elidee jangled sharply, and I think we all go the intended message. Be silent as we came upon a split in the tunnels. She led us down the right, and the twisting in my stomach turned worse. Would we find Rain awake? Would we find him in one piece?

A roar echoed down the tunnel. "Kill the little humie!"

No thoughts. I blasted down the tunnel, echoes of rapid footsteps behind me. The tunnel opened into a room apparently the size of half a city block. The ceiling of the room was maybe fifteen feet above the ground, made of cracked concrete and bits of asphalt.

Six misshapen humanoid creatures with shaggy white fur and long claws, large hands and feet, standing at a height taller than Dresden were in the room, chasing after someone. Due to the light, I caught a glimpse of the person only temporarily, but the glimpse was enough.

Silvery-lit blades flickered in the dark, cutting through one of the creatures, the so-called "bigguns." As the creature took its next steps, it fell into literal pieces.

Rain. They were chasing Rain.

One of the creatures howled out, insisting it was going to kill Rain, but I did what felt right at that moment.

I pulsed out my aura, sending out a wave of fear. All five white-furred creatures turned toward me, pausing their pursuit of my friend.

I floated in the air with my arms crossed, making sure to stay below the ceiling, yet above their heads. I scowled down at them. "Leave him alone."

The problem with using my aura for a fear response, as a general rule, is that there's no telling how people will respond to fear. This was the primary reason I chose simply to pulse it rather than use it consistently. I wanted their attention, and given their humanoid form, I was reasonably certain that they'd have some humanlike responses.

But they weren't human.

Three of them snarled at me, but one stepped forward. "And what is he to you, wizard?"

The creature's voice was like gravel, rocks grinding against each other, or perhaps the sound of an avalanche given voice and turned down significantly. I could feel the chill air in this area of Undertown.

"My teammate," I said. "Not your lunch."

"Well, no," said one of the other creatures. This one had a bit of a dopier sounding voice, younger somehow. "It's dinner time right now, innit? So, he can't be our lunch. Because he'd be dinner."

"… Shut up," said the first one, and then glaring at the one next to the younger one, he insisted. "Shut him up."

"He's not your food," I said, reinforcing my statement.

"Victoria…" Rain said. "It's almost time…"

"He killed Gurk," said the first creature. "We deserve satisfaction in recompense."

"He was defending himself," I said. "You will let him leave here without being harmed."

"And why should we do that?" asked the first one. "What are you going to do, wizard?"

"Oh, I'm not a wizard," I said, noting as the other four had taken up flanking positions around me. They moved faster than I had expected but nowhere near fast enough for me to miss their movement. "And you will let him leave because it's in your best interest."

"Little practitioner," said the lead creature. "I will grind your bones to make my bread."

"Not a practitioner either," I said, floating closer to him, bringing my force field online. Its many arms reached out toward the creature, and I could feel its desire matching my own. Surely this thing wasn't a giant. I didn't think any fairy still used those lines. "What I'm doing isn't any sort of magic. You will let him leave unharmed."

"I don't think so," said the creature, rearing back its claws.

My force field was faster. I caught his arm in three of its, pulling the creature off the ground and hurling it at its fellows. Overly large bodies collided, and I placed myself between the creatures and Rain, their focus remaining on me. I doubted they expected me to send their leader as far as I did.

I let my feet touch down. "You okay, Rain?"

"It's been a day, and I can feel I don't have much time," he said. "Where did you come from?"

"Out," I said.

"You said you weren't a practitioner or a wizard," said the lead as it stood.

"I'm not," I said.

"She really isn't," said Dresden, loudly, from the entrance of the room. "She's a superhero. And really, so are they. So, you yeti-wannabe, why don't you and your pals scurry on out of here before you get hurt?"

Sveta slipped past them in her ribbon state, and Ashley used her power with a roar to jump over the ogres, each of them landing on either side of me. For a brief second, I saw a blue-ish silver light come with the maelstrom of Ashley's power, pushing her in a more controlled manner over the creatures.

In front of Dresden, Lacuna landed, brandishing her sword.

One of the creatures roared, charging Dresden. Dresden simply lifted his right hand and snapped. "Arctis."

Ice engulfed the creature in an instant, and he leveled his stick at the next one.

I shook my head. "He's the wizard, and he's the Winter Knight, whatever that means."

I saw what might have been worry in the posture of the creature, but something steeled its resolve. "Kill them all! We feast like kings tonight!"

Sure, this wasn't the worst situation I'd been in, but if I had a nickel for every time someone wanted to eat me that night, I'd have two nickels. It's certainly not a lot, but it is strange that it happened twice in the same night.

We'd do our best to protect our friend. I knew Dresden would as well.

He's a good man.