Archive of Our Own

Technically, as a spirit of air and intellect, I do not have a personality. All I am is a self-aware being of logic and facts. In actuality, though, I do have a certain individuality – but that individuality changes depending on my guardian. Well, I say ‘guardian’ and they say ‘master’, and I say what’s the difference? Whoever claims ownership of the skull I reside in is bound to protect me from Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and in return for that protection, I am obligated to proffer them the aid of my vast intellect. Seems like a good deal for both of us.

Since my guardians have always been wizards, and as wizards tend to have rather eccentric personalities, I have had a variety very distinct personas over the years. Some of them I have liked better than others. How can I explain? Sometimes I enjoy being the persona my guardian evokes; sometimes I don’t – and sometimes the personality is so horrid that I do my best to eradicate all my memories of it once I have a new protector. Which pretty much sums up how I felt about the persona I had when I belonged to the arch-necromancer, Kemmler. He was a despicable human being, a dangerous wizard and a sociopathic bastard, and when my skull was in his possession, so was I. Even worse, he treated me with complete disrespect.

After the White Council brought him down, my skull passed from hand to hand rather quickly. Just in the first four hours I was taken by one of Kemmler’s apprentices, then my skull was stolen from him by another apprentice, who was killed by a Warden. I think I would have liked the Warden, but she was killed twenty-two minutes after she claimed my skull by a third member of Kemmler’s apprentices who was captured in turn by another group of Wardens before he even had a chance to introduce himself.

During this chaotic time I had managed to sequester the memories and persona that I had had with Kemmler and convinced one of my transient protectors to forbid me to remember them. It was a bit like cutting off a limb – but good riddance.

Once the Wardens got a hold of me for good, I was passed between no less than nine wizards and wardens before Anastasia Luccio, the new captain of the wardens of the White Council, decided that I too dangerous to be permitted to exist and convinced the Merlin that I should be destroyed. Not just the skull that was the only protection between me an the vengeful Winter Queen would be destroyed, but my actual spirit-self.

I objected, logically, rationally and at length.

Most of the Wardens were indifferent, but I convinced one – Justin DuMorne – that I was too valuable an asset to waste. He created a skull that looked just like mine and talked robotically, switched it for my skull, hid me for eighteen months and then retired from the Wardens, visions of dark power dancing in his head. I know because he talked to me endlessly about them.

I can say one good thing about Justin DuMorne – he wasn’t Kemmler. Faint praise I realize, but I mean every word. DuMorne was much weaker than the necromancer, his understanding of magic was greatly inferior, DuMorne’s dreams were incredibly limited, his intellectual curiosity and ambitions were stunted to the extreme – for which I thank all the gods of luck and fate. I loathed who I had been when Kemmler had been my guardian – I merely disliked who I was with DuMorne.

One day as I was sitting on a shelf in DuMorne’s study, bored out of my mind and feeling resentful that I had a guardian with such limited capacities when I suddenly felt the protections snap. The only way that could have happened was if DuMorne was dead. Suddenly I was all intellect again, nothing but logic and knowledge. I couldn’t actually feel fear, but I was aware that I was extremely vulnerable in that state. I needed to find another guardian as quickly as possible.

Minutes later a boy stumbled into the study, panting, his face streaked with tears and soot. Smoke billowed in after him and I deduced that the house was on fire. The boy started ransacking DuMorne’s desk and grabbing up the dead wizard’s magical foci. So I asked him, “What happened to Justin DuMorne? I sense that he is no longer alive.”

“I killed him. I killed them both,” the boy moaned, then did a double take. “Who said that?”

“I did,” I answered, and his panicked gaze swept right past me. “I am in the skull on the left-hand side of the third shelf of the bookcase.”

“What are you?” The boy demanded, finally focusing his eyes on my skull.

“I am a spirit of air and intellect,” I replied as I looked the boy over. He was extremely young and emotionally agitated, but had a lot of power – it seemed likely that this was DuMorne’s male apprentice, Harry. DuMorne had told me a great deal about this boy, mostly in the form of complaints, but on a purely intellectual level Harry seemed to have potential. Besides, the statement that he had killed two people implied that not only was DuMorne dead, so was his other apprentice, Elaine. It looked like Harry was the only wizard available.

“Do you know where Justin’s journals are?” Harry demanded. “I need them.”

“The current journals are located in the locked drawer on the right-hand side of the desk as you sit at it,” I informed him. “Justin carried the key with him. The older journals are on the shelf below me. There are twenty-seven volumes and it is unlikely that you could carry them all to safety before the fire reaches this room. However, I have memorized the complete contents of each of them and more besides. I am a repository of magical lore,” I continued. “I could complete your education.”

“You would?”

“All you need do is lay claim to the skull.”

He grabbed my skull and I felt the my new persona form. It was always an interesting experience to feel myself change so that I better aligned with my guardian. I was suddenly filled with all the desires of a healthy sixteen-year-old boy. A sudden interest in sexuality bloomed in me, accompanied by a lesser, but still strong, desire for mass media – I wanted, right then, nothing more than to read a book or watch a movie – preferably one with a lot of sex in it.

“Justin’s stash of pornography is in the left-hand bottom drawer, under the world atlas,” I informed my new guardian. “I can tell you which of the articles in Playboy are factually correct – and we can look at boobs while I do it.” Apparently my new persona had a sense of humor, too.

“Is this really the time?” Harry demanded. “I got the wand, I got the ring… what else do I need?”

“There are four potions hidden behind the bottles of liquor in the cabinet,” I replied. “A piece of crystal is located next to the corkscrew – DuMorne used it as a scrying focus. He has numerous rare components in his bedroom, but it appears that that portion of the house is already burning. I would suggest that you take the potions, the crystal and the porn and leave as quickly as possible.”

Instead of reprimanding me for my suggestion, as many of my guardians would have done, the boy grabbed everything, including half the journals but not the porn and escaped through the study window. We were safely ensconced in the woods behind the property by the time the fire engines arrived.

“Thank you for your help,” Harry panted.

“You’re welcome,” I was startled by the gratitude. None of my other guardians had ever actually thanked me for such minor aid before. ‘This,’ I thought to myself, ‘might be a satisfying partnership.’

And it was for the forty-two hours before the Wardens came to take Harry away for killing DuMorne. Harry stuffed me into the bole of a hollow tree along with DuMorne’s potions, turned himself over to the wardens and disappeared for two-and-a-half years.

Harry:

It had been three weeks to the day since I had reclaimed the skull and it still was barely speaking to me. Occasionally it would bitch about how I had abandoned it; squirrels had hidden acorns in its cranium, which apparently was the worst fate imaginable to it. Hah! It should try being the subject of White Council ‘justice’ sometime. Then it would know what real horror was.

It wasn’t fair that the White Council tried me for murder when I was just protecting myself. Well, proactively protecting myself. I had gotten away from Justin and managed to fight off the demon he’d sent after me, so I guess it was possible that I could have escaped him completely – not that I had any idea of where I could have escaped to. It wasn’t like he ever mentioned the Wardens or the White Council to either Elaine or I. But I was smart enough to know that Justin would probably send another demon after me and I couldn’t risk that it would find me sleeping or at the end of my magical reserves. So I went back and fought him face-to-face. I wasn’t really trying to kill him; at least that wasn’t the plan. Not that I had much of a plan at all. I thought I could intimidate Justin into leaving me alone and maybe convince Elaine to leave with me – but the magical duel didn’t go quite as I had imagined it – and Justin ended up dead.

Elaine had ended up dead, too.

That is what I really felt guilty about. I thought I had meant something to her. I loved her and had thought that she had loved me. She had been my first real friend, my first girlfriend, my first lover, my first everything. But she’d taken Justin’s side in the battle. I felt so betrayed. I never had enough focus with my fire spells to begin with and with the extra emotion I was feeling… Well, one of them ended up being a lot stronger that I intended it to be. Fire splashed everywhere and I nearly burned myself in the conflagration. Justin and Elaine never had a chance. I still heard her screams every night in my nightmares.

Lucky for me, someone intervened when the White Council tried me for murder and they decided not to chop my head off right away. They decided that another wizard would take over my apprenticeship and warned me that if I ever put a toe out of line then they would chop my head off. The Doom of Damocles they called it.

I had been really suspicious of my new master at first; I expected someone like Justin, I guess. But the guy they stuck me with – Ebenezer – was exactly his opposite. He was old where Justin had been fairly young, his hair was gray instead of Justin’s black. Ebenezer has blue eys that twinkled when he smiled. Justin’s eyes never twinkled and I could count the number of times he had actually smiled at me on one hand. Ebenezer didn’t lecture me on how to behave, he just modeled it. I thought that was pretty cool. His lessons in magic were a lot less painful than Justin’s, too. I liked him. I respected him. But I never told him about the skull.

Once my apprenticeship was over Ebenezer had invited me to stay on his farm in Missouri, but I burned to go home to Chicago. I wanted to go and do some good with my life – partially to make up for killing Elaine and partially because it just seemed better to use my talents to help people. Ebenezer was cool and all, but I couldn’t envision my life studying magic just for the thrill of it, or tending hogs on a decaying little farm. So the old man gave me his blessing and five hundred dollars to get started on and sent me off into the wide world with a warning about the White Council. “Remember, boy, that you’ve still got the Doom hanging over your head,” he’d said. “There are folks on the Council who would dearly like to see you dead. Don’t do anything to give them the excuse to call that Doom down on you.” I thanked him, took a bus to Chicago and went to find the skull.

It wasn’t precisely grateful to be found. When the skull did talk to me, it questioned my judgment, parentage, appearance, intelligence and loyalty. It also hated the name I’d given it. I couldn’t bring myself to call it ‘skull’ or ‘spirit’, so I named it ‘Bob’ and decided to call it a ‘he’. Apparently ‘Bob’ wasn’t an exciting enough name for him. After three weeks of arguments I was beginning to wish I had left him in the damn tree.

Bob:

It had been three weeks since Harry had reclaimed me and I was still barely speaking to him. I had been alone for that whole time, with no one who could talk to me. Squirrels had stored acorns in my cranium and moss had grown on my jaw. It was undignified. I hadn’t been able to revert to my logical self because Harry lived – which was a good thing, I supposed, as he was the only one who knew where my skull was hidden. My skull could have been hiding acorns in that hollow tree for a century or more.

But I had been alone and frightened for thirty-one months, two weeks, four days, eighteen hours and twenty-three minutes, and it appeared as if my new personality also included abandonment issues. I wasn’t about to let Harry forget deserting me, ever. On the few occasions that I did talk to Harry I would catalog all his faults, in detail. I never abused his magical talent, of course, Harry had magical talent in spades. But at nineteen he barely had control of it. It was obvious that he’d become a very powerful wizard one day, though, and I wasn’t going to get on his bad side.

But after being abandoned for all that time I wasn’t sure that I wanted to belong to young Harry Dresden any longer. I spent a lot of time considering how best to find another wizard while still avoiding the attention of the wardens and the Winter Queen. While I mused, Harry let himself in to the shabby motel room we were sharing. I was about to renew my abuse when I saw how particularly downhearted he seemed. The kid was literally on the edge of despair. “They said ‘no’?”

“They all said ‘no’,” Harry acknowledged, dropping his tall, gangly body on to the bed. “I saw three agencies today. They all said that they weren’t hiring. Even Monarch and they had an ad in today’s paper. ‘Sorry, kid, we need someone with experience’. How am I ever going to get experience if no one will hire me?”

“There are eighteen more detective agencies in the Chicago phone book,” I said as sympathetically as I could.

“I’ve been rejected by thirty-four agencies already,” Harry replied, his voice utterly flat. I was getting worried about how bad his aura was. “Why should those eighteen be any different?”

“You know that it only takes one,” I said. “Do you want to work on some divination magic tonight? I know a nifty little scrying that’ll let you see right through a woman’s clothes.”

“Not tonight, Bob,” Harry muttered, rolling on to his side. He still had his jacket on. “Wake me in an hour, okay?”

“Okay, Harry,” I said and let him fall asleep.

Normally the name was another bone of contention between us, but I let it lie. The kid was in no condition to enjoy a little verbal jousting. Once I had woken him I could bully him into eating something, that might help restore the balance in his aura a little. Then maybe I could convince him to let me out to scout for something that might help. He knew that I’d spy on the prostitute that worked out of the room next door, but I would go out into the world and might be able to scare up something – maybe some blackmail material – that would get the kid the job he wanted.

The idiot wasn’t even sure what a detective did, other than to tell me ‘they help people’. I had suggested that he apply for the police force, but he’d pointed out that they carried radios around which would fry after a few hours in his presence. Besides, they wanted a college degree these days. Ditto for doctors, nurses, social workers and every other kind of helpful career out there. If he had even the tiniest iota of faith or even cynicism, I would have suggested he work as a preacher – but the kid had too much integrity to fake it.

Considering his back-story, I almost admired his principals. But right now his principals were clashing rather violently with reality and Harry was the one taking the damage. I was worried about him – that was just the kind of persona he had created in me. Wild horses, or even an angry fairy queen, would never get me to admit that I actually liked the kid.

Not that I was going to forgive him for abandoning me in a tree for two-and-a-half years or saddling me with a boring name like ‘Bob’. I might like the boy, but I still wasn’t certain that Harry was the right wizard for me.

Three hours later, Harry gave me permission to leave the skull for the purposes of helping him find a job. He even phrased it well, limiting my activities and requiring that I return before sunrise. Sometimes he actually used the brain in his skull.

I seeped under the door, then slipped into the prostitute’s room. She wasn’t entertaining anyone. Instead she was complaining on the phone that she was menstruating and hence could not work that evening. I cursed my luck and considered finding another working girl to follow home – who knows, they might have a john who owned a detective agency, right? Then I reconsidered – Harry’s aura was still awfully dark. Like suicidal dark. Maybe I should do look for entertainment after I helped Harry – I was the only one in a position to help him. The last thing I needed was for him to commit suicide and my skull end up in some evidence room or museum. Or, shudder, a landfill. That would be as bad as being stuck in the tree.

So I floated around the city, looking for some blackmail material that would convince one of his prospective employers to hire him – either to keep him quiet or because the boy did have the ability to discover secrets – and not only through me. I was in Monarch Investigations, the place that had just turned Harry down, when I found what I was looking for. Actually, what I discovered was better than what I was looking for. Forgetting all about prostitutes and sex-shows, I zipped straight back to Harry.

“You’re back awfully early,” Harry observed when I went back into my skull.

“I think I found something you’ll like,” I answered. “Want to guess what it is?”

“No,” he frowned. “Just tell me, Bob.”

“You couldn’t have named me something interesting like ‘Hrothbert’ or ‘Akhenakil’,” I complained. “Heck, at this point I’ll settle for ‘Robert’.”

“Spill it, Bob,” Harry commanded.

“Norman Pritzger, scion of the real estate mogul Pritzgers has been kidnapped and a million dollar reward has been posted,” I informed Harry triumphantly. “Get an article from the kid, and hey, presto, hello big money!”

“I don’t want big money,” Harry protested. “Although if I did find this kid, I suppose it would look great on my résumé.”

“Well, you better get on it because the guys at Monarch think that a guy named Nick Christian from Ragged Angel is going to find the kid,” I warned. “Apparently he is a specialist in finding lost children or something.”

“Ragged Angel?” Harry repeated, then pulled out the pages he’d ripped from a phone book. “Ragged Angel Agency is next on my list. I’ll go talk to him first thing tomorrow.”

“Why not just find the kid by yourself?” I asked. “A million bucks would give you enough to get a college degree and have the pick on any job you wanted.”

“I want a job now,” Harry insisted. “I’m sure I can convince Mr. Christian to let me help him. I’ll work for free on the condition that he hire me when I help him find the kid. We can find the kid, right?”

“I know some great divinations,” I answered, not mentioning that Harry had a lot of talent in that area. “We’ll find the kid.”

Harry:

Ragged Angel’s office was a shabby little hole-in-the-wall that looked like it had seen better days – many, many years ago. There were three battered metal desks with equally battered office chairs behind them, a pair of upholstered chairs that had not aged gracefully, some filing cabinets that looked like they had been rescued from a bomb-site and an old analog clock on the wall. Also tacked to the wall were one fairly clean whiteboard, four head shots of children and maybe a dozen children’s drawings. The walls were painted a faded industrial green that reminded me of the orphanages I was raised in and the floor was curled, cracked linoleum with a couple of tiles missing.

There was a man who was scruffy enough to match the décor at one of the desks – the only desk with a computer on it; he was pecking at the keys as if he were unfamiliar with them even though the computer looked about as battered and old as the rest of the office. He didn’t look up when I came in. For the first time since I’d returned to Chicago I felt over dressed. I was in my standard interview outfit, a white shirt and black slacks with a navy blue blazer, but the guy at the computer was wearing ragged jeans and a flannel shirt. A minute passed, but the man never looked from at his keyboard. Feeling completely self-conscious, I cleared my throat.

That didn’t work, either. The man totally ignored me in favor of typing on the keyboard. I waited another few minutes, nervously shifting my weight from one foot to the other and thought of leaving, but not too hard.

I guess I got a little impatient because the computer made a piercing electronic whine, gave out a puff of smoke and started pushed things out of itself. The man thumped it twice and cursed mildly, but I was pretty sure I killed it. I felt a tiny bit guilty, but why did he have to be such a jerk about ignoring me? With nothing to distract him, the man finally looked at me. “Your more patient that the usual missionary, boy,” he said, still fiddling with the computer. “Most of them would have started their spiel by now.”

“I’m not a missionary, sir,” I replied. “I’m looking for a job.”

That made the man look up. It also made him laugh, a real belly laugh. I hate being laughed at, but I really needed a job, so I swallowed my pride and let him.

“That’s a good one,” he said, still chuckling. “What are you really here for?”

“I want to work for you,” I repeated. “You are Mr. Christian, aren’t you? I think I can help you with the Pritzger case.”

That got his attention. He scowled at me, a gave me a careful look-over. “I’m Nick Christian. You know where the boy is?”

“No, but I can help you find him,” I said. “I’m really good at finding things.”

“Kid,” he sighed, “This is no time for amateurs.”

“Okay, I’m an amateur,” I agreed. “But I have to start somewhere, don’t I? I can help, really, I can.”

“How?”

“I can find things,” I repeated.

“A kidnapped child isn’t like a ring of keys, kid,” he told me. “There is a boy’s life depending on this. The people who took the kid are very bad men and they will hurt the boy if they think someone is sniffing around were he’s hold up.”

“I can find anything,” I insisted, a hint of pride in my voice. “And I can be discrete, too. Won’t you give me a chance, Mr. Angel? I swear that I can help.”

“Call me, Nick, kid,” he said, still frowning at me. “How old are you anyway? Seventeen? Eighteen? Are you even legal?”

“I’m twenty,” I lied. I was only exaggerating by a couple of months. Okay, six months.

“So you aren’t legal,” he said, smiling. “Go home, kid. Your parents are probably looking for you.”

“I don’t have parents,” I snapped at him, finally letting my annoyance show. Any mention of family was likely to make me do that. “What do you mean ‘legal’, anyway?”

“You can’t even buy a drink,” Nick replied. “What do you mean you don’t have parents? Everybody has parents, kid.”

“My mom died when I was born and my dad died when I was six,” I informed him. “So I had parents at one point, but I don’t have them now. And how is any of this your business?”

“You’re here for a job, aren’t you? Consider it at interview.”

“Oh,” I said, all traces of anger gone. “Are you really thinking about giving me a job?”

“Kid, do I look like I can afford to give you a job?” He gestured at the tatty office. “I can barely afford the rent on this place.”

“You could afford to hire me if you solved the Pritzger case,” I said hopefully. That earned me another scowl. “You wouldn’t even have to pay me until the case was solved.”

That interested him, I could tell. “You are that sure that you can help me solve this case?”

“Yes,” I insisted.

“And how would you go about doing that?”

“All I need is an article from the victim,” I replied carefully. I didn’t want to mention magic outright – people tend to think I’m crazy when I do that. “Preferably some hair or nail-clippings, but even something the boy uses every day would be fine.”

“And how are you going to get that?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Maybe you could ask the parents, or the police…”

He laughed again, but bitterly instead of amused. “The family hasn’t hired me, kid, so I’m not is a position to ask them for anything. Technically they aren’t hiring anyone. They are hoping the kidnappers will settle for the million bucks instead of whatever they are demanding and hand the kid in themselves.”

“My name is Harry,” I responded. “Not kid. So what other options do we have?”

“We?” He raised one eyebrow at me. “There is no ‘we’, kid.”

I ignored him with a wave of my hand. “I need something from the victim,” I insisted. “Do you have any ideas about how we – I,” I corrected myself. “How I can get a hold of something like that.”

“If I tell you, you’ll go away?”

“If you promise me that you’ll give me a job if I help you find the kid,” I answered.

“Fine,” he said, holding out his hand. “You don’t bother me until you have solid evidence about where the Pritzger boy is and who is guarding him, okay? And if by some miracle you can get me that information, I will hire you.”

“As a detective,” I insisted. I wasn’t going to let him make me his secretary or office boy.

“As a detective,” he agreed, with his hand still outstretched. I shook hands with him, sealing the deal.

“Go look in the Pritzger’s garbage,” he told me. “But don’t get caught looting it on their property. Once it is off the premises, its fair game. Now go on, get out of here.”

Grinning like an idiot I left the office and headed back to the cheap motel I was calling ‘home’. I had a job! Or at least I almost had a job.

Bob:

I was a little surprised when Harry came back into the motel room carrying three big bags of garbage, but I was ignoring him again, so I didn’t comment. It was a bit harder not to remark when he opened one of the bags and began sorting through it. But I lost my resolve not to speak when he started strewing the stuff around the room. “What are you doing?” I finally asked. “That stuff is going to stain the carpet! You can’t afford to be charged for that.”

“I’m looking through the Pritzger’s garbage,” he replied, as if that explained anything. I couldn’t help grinding my teeth a little.

I counted to twenty and asked, “Why?”

Harry looked up at me smiling, he was about half-way through the first bag. And his aura was brighter than I had ever seen it. “Mr. Christian is going to give me a job if I help him find the Pritzger boy! Isn’t that great?”

“I meant why are you sorting through garbage on the floor of our motel room? It’s going to stink in here.”

“No worse than it usually does,” Harry dismissed my observation with a shrug. “I have to find something that belonged to the boy so I can work a divination spell. Maybe some hair from his comb, or blood from a band-aid… Maybe even a favorite toy.”

“Why not just ask for it?” I sneered.

“Can’t,” Harry said, his attention back on the garbage. “They haven’t actually hired anyone to find the kid, so they aren’t handing out anything. Looks like they had fish for dinner… yuck.”

“Harry, you are not going to find what you need in the garbage,” I said, trying for reasonable and maybe coming out a little condescending. Okay, maybe a lot condescending. “The parents aren’t going to throw out anything that belongs to the boy. Look, they might not ever see him again, right? So they’ll think that everything that the boy has ever touched as valuable.”

“Nobody values loose hair or nail clippings, Bob,” Harry said. He’d found something at the bottom of the bag and was looking at it curiously. “What is this?”

“A used tampon,” I informed him.

He flung across the room in a spasm of disgust. “Oh, gross!”

“There will be more,” I warned him. “Stop with the garbage already. There isn’t going to be anything worthwhile in there.”

“So you say,” Harry sneered back at me.

“Who sent you on this wonderful garbage hunt, anyways? Or did you suddenly have the brilliant idea of redecorating the room with used food, dirty feminine hygiene products and snot-filled tissues?”

“Mr. Christian,” Harry said, finishing with the first bag and teasing the second one open.

“What exactly was the deal between you two?” I asked, an unpleasant suspicion crawling through my thoughts.

“He’d give me a job if I found where the kid was and who was guarding him,” Harry replied, his attention on an empty wine bottle.

“No, the deal about the garbage.”

“I told him that I’d need something from the boy and he said to look in the garbage,” Harry said.

“And then what did he say?”

“Not to bother him until I had the information, then I should call him. Look he gave me his card,” Harry dug in his pocket and pulled out a faded business card.

“You idiot!” I snapped. “He was just trying to get you out of his hair, Harry! He has no intention of helping you or of giving you a job. That’s, like, one of the oldest tricks in the book.”

Harry got that stupid stubborn look on his face and his aura got all dark and swirly. I had forgotten how down he had been before and wished I hadn’t spoken so harshly. “Look, Harry,” I tried to backtrack. “Maybe I’m wrong...”

“Shut-up, Bob,” Harry snapped and I couldn’t talk any more. Damnit, my persona with Harry was just as impulsive and immature as his. And I felt guilt, too. It is all Harry’s fault, I told myself. He was the one who had saddled me with these feelings. I missed my cool, rational side. I needed to find another wizard to attach myself to.

While Harry sifted through the trash, I pondered my options. They weren’t good. In order to get another master I would have to find another wizard. A wizard who wasn’t allied too closely to the White Council, because that bunch wanted to destroy me. And no one too closely allied to faerie, either. Harry didn’t actually hang out with any other wizards, either. I dismissed the idea of trying to tempt a minor practitioner. Justin DuMourne had had enough power to make Warden and I’d felt really limited with him. Harry had a lot of power and enough intellect to harness it. No matter which way I looked at it I wasn’t going to find a better situation any time soon.

Harry scrabbled through the garbage for over an hour, but I had been right, he found nothing useful. The swirls of anger faded out of his aura and it was almost black again. I tried to speak and found that I could – Harry’s command had faded, probably because of the despair he was feeling. “You can get a copy of a photograph of the boy, right?” I said. “A reward notice or something from the paper would be fine.”

“A reproduction of a photograph isn’t going to work as a focus for a divination, Bob,” he reminded me tiredly.

“No, but it’ll help the being we summon to look for him.” I said. “I have a plan.”

That captured Harry’s interest. “I don’t know any summonings,” he said. “No one would teach them to me.”

For a good reason, I was sure. Summons are fairly complex magic and could go spectacularly wrong, especially if the summoned being had any power. “I agreed to teach you, remember? When you first grabbed my skull, I said I’d be your tutor.”

“Yeah,” he said perking up. His back straightened, his frown diminished and his aura lightened considerably. I reminded myself that the teenaged years where often emotionally turbulent for humans. The despair that Harry had felt was transient and had probably left no scars. Then his face got serious. “Summonings are dangerous, Bob.”

As if he needed to tell me. “I’ll walk you through it several times before you do the actual summoning. Keep your head and everything will be fine. And the creature that you summon won’t be that powerful – just strong enough to help you but not strong enough to kill you. Probably.”

“Probably?” He repeated uncertainly.

“Almost positively,” I assured him. “It’ll be fine. But first you have to clean up all this garbage and then get a photo of the kid.”

Harry:

Bob had insisted that we perform the summoning outside, at twilight, in the middle of an otherwise empty park. He’d made me buy an expensive loaf of bakery bread, an equally expensive jar of heather honey, a pint of whole milk and a tiny china tea set as an ‘offering’ for the summons. I’d spent the last of my money on them. I soaked a tiny piece of the bread in the honey and a single drop of my blood, filled one of the tiny tea cups with milk, then inscribed a circle around it and retreated to a safe distance.

The summoning worked – I guess. I had made the circle properly, spoke the incantation correctly, chanted the name and caught – something – in the magical circle. I just couldn’t believe what it was. I turned from the creature that I had summoned to glare at Bob. “This is no time to be jerking me around, Bob. I swear, if you don’t give me the name of something that can actually help me I am going to find a hammer and…”

“Ixnay on the threats!” Bob hissed at me, his eye lights flickering to the creature then back at me. “You do not want to insult one of the fae!”

“It’s a dewdrop faerie, Bob!” I yelled, suddenly furious beyond belief. “How in Hell is a pipsqueak dewdrop faerie going to help me?” I had trusted Bob to help me and instead he’d gotten me to play a practical joke on myself! Didn’t he understand how much I needed this job?

“Oh, no you didn’t!” The little purple bit of fluff screamed up at me in a tiny, tinny voice. “I’ll plant potatoes in your ears for that! Potatoes, right in your ears! You’ll have vines trailing down to your ankles, you big, dumb human! I’ll curse you with maggots and fleas! As soon as I get out of here you are going to suffer the wrath of Toot! Cower in fear, vile dog!”

“Now look at what you’ve done,” Bob said. “He’ll do it, Harry. You think you’ve got troubles now? You do not want to piss off even the most minor of the fae.”

“I’ll rot the teeth in your head,” the creature ranted. “I’ll fill your mouth with dung, you pasty-faced, flat-footed, ugly big-nose!” The thing that was threatening me so vociferously was less than six-inches tall with a dandelion fluff of pale magenta hair and silver dragonfly wings a bit longer than it was tall. It was surrounded by a silvery aura as bright as the moon and was red-faced in anger. Luckily it was trapped inside of my magical circle – if had come at me I would have swatted it like a mosquito.

“Stop joking!” I screamed at Bob. “You think this is funny? You said you would help me!” I was as angry as I had been when Justin and I had battled and little sparks of electricity were jumping between me and the ground. Grass withered and died in a circle surrounding me. I jerked my eyes away from Bob and looked up into the clear twilight sky in an effort to calm down. I wanted to cry.

The tiny creature ranted on.

After a long moment, Bob spoke. In a very quiet, almost pleading voice he said, “Harry, this is help. Everyone underestimates the little folk, but they are everywhere and they see everything. I swear, if you make nice with Toot-toot, he’ll find the boy for you. He can lead you right to him, I promise. And I can’t break a promise, Harry, you know that.”

I did know that. Bob was a spirit of the fae courts and was bound by their laws. If he gave his word, he had to keep it. I gripped my skull tight with both hands and tried to calm myself down. “I’m sorry,” I said.

I was speaking to Bob, but the dewdrop faerie assumed the apology had been meant for him. “You had better be sorry, you ignorant lout! Now release me or I will tell the Queen what you have done.”

“Why should I release you if your just going to curse me and rat me out?” I asked it – him, in a mostly respectful voice. Well, I was trying for respectful and at least I didn’t sneer. “That sounds like solid motivation to keep you in.” It looked confused, I guess it wasn’t confronted with logic all that often. “Look, your name is Toot-toot, right? My name is Harry…”

“Foolish mortal, I have your name, now! Just wait until I conjure you!”

“Respected Toot,” Bob soothed. “He has not given you all of his name. This human is one of the wise and is versed in the ways of the fae.”

“Damnit,” the tiny faerie cursed, his shoulders slumping. After a moment he perked up again. “I will have my revenge, though,” he started. “When I tell the Queen…”

“The Queen will no doubt say that any faerie lured in with the promise of bread and milk and honey deserves what comes to them,” Bob interjected. “He comes to you as a supplicant, gracious Toot; he seeks knowledge and guidance. And you do owe him for the gift of food.”

“He could at least cower,” Toot-toot sniffed haughtily. “Very well, mortal, I will grant you a minor favor for the gift of your victuals. Free me now.”

Bob shook his skull back and forth, looking at me meaningfully. I remembered the instructions he had given me. I knelt down at the edge of the circle so I could better examine my diminutive captive and spoke firmly. “Promise me your aid, first.”

“You call that cowering?” Toot sniffed. “Apologize for your slurs and then I will promise.”

“I’m sorry I insulted you, Toot-toot,” I said. “My imprecations were meant for my companion. I should never have directed them at you.”

“Apology accepted, mortal. Release me.”

“You have to promise,” I reminded him. I only knew a little about the minor fae, but I did know that they were forgetful.

“I promise you my aid,” Toot-toot replied impatiently. “Let me out!”

I held up the newspaper I’d purchased and pointed to the photo of Norman Pritzger, the kidnapped boy. “I need you to find this boy and for you to lead me to him.”

“That’s two favors,” the little Faerie objected. “I only agreed to one. Don’t try your sneaky tricks on me, Wizard! I’m know all about your kind!”

I hadn’t expected him to quibble. After a second’s though I said, “You can have the rest of the bread, milk and honey if you do both.” Bob rolled his eyes in dismay, but didn’t say anything, so I guess I hadn’t blundered too badly.

“I’ll do it!” Toot-toot said excitedly.

“Harry,” Bob warned.

“You promise?” I said to Toot-toot. “I want your word as a dewdrop faerie on it.”

“You have it!” He shouted. “I promise! I promise! I promise! Let me out!”

I carefully scuffed the line of the circle and the containment for the faerie collapsed. He jumped at the paper bag that held the rest of the food. “Hey!” I exclaimed. “After you lead me to the boy!”

He groaned and stamped his little foot, then darted away in a swirl of fairy dust. Some of it got up my nose and I sneezed.

“Did he just run away?” I asked Bob.

“He went in search of the boy,” Bob assured me. “He’ll be back in an hour or so with the information.”

“You are sure?”

“If he can’t find the boy then nobody can,” Bob said. It took me about ten minutes to realize that what he meant was that if Toot-toot couldn’t find the Pritzger boy, it would be because he was already dead. I looked at the picture in the paper; he was about eight years-old. I remembered how it felt to be eight years-old, alone and scared. No one should ever have to feel that way.

I packed Bob and the rest of the supplies back up in my bag and waited for the little faerie to return.

About forty minutes later, Toot-toot trumpeted, “I have found the quarry!” Toot’s quiet, invisible return made me jump. Which had probably been the little faerie’s intention. I suppressed the urge to swat him like an oversize mosquito. “The bread! The milk! The honey,” he shrilled. “You have eaten them! Foul mortal, I shall smite you where you stand!

“They are in the backpack,” I explained, rummaging around to pinch off a piece of the bread. I got a little more than I bargained for and came out with a piece of bread almost as big as Toot was. I showed it to the little fae and he landed on my hand, grabbed the chunk of bread and gobbled it down.

All of it.

“Seriously?” I asked as the tiny creature forced the last of the bread into its mouth. It patted its bloated tummy with a smile and fell back to lie recumbent on my palm. It weighed almost nothing.

“Good bread,” Toot sighed. “None of that modern stuff, either. It goes better with the honey, of course. Say, I could really use a drink of milk right now.”

“You can have the whole rest of the carton after you lead me to the boy,” I replied. “You can still fly, can’t you?”

“Of course I can!” Toot sat up to glare at me. “I simply choose not to at this time. Head towards the lake, human, and I will direct you.” He gave a tremendous burp and lay back down.

I tipped him off of my hand, careful to have my other hand ready to catch him if he couldn’t fly. He flew fine, but he didn’t stay in the air long. He just fluttered up to my shoulder and sat there. “Your quest is that way, wizard,” he said, pointing. I had to crane my head around to see which way his tiny arm pointed.

I checked my backpack to make sure I had everything, especially Bob, then started walking towards the lake.

An hour later I was still walking, wishing that I had had the money and the forethought to hire a cab. It was dark and Toot was leading me through some unsavory neighborhoods. I moved quickly, as if I knew where I was going, Bob and my backpack slung over one shoulder and the little faeries sitting invisibly on the other. Chicago was a big place, and the boy could be anywhere in it. “Can you give me an address of the place the boy is held, Toot-toot?” I asked, finally. Maybe people would think I was talking to myself. Or maybe they’d think I was crazy – I didn’t care.

“You don’t address a place, wizard,” Toot sneered from his place on my shoulder. “You address a person. I mean – come on. That makes no sense!”

“How about a description,” I said. “Can you tell me what the building looks like?”

“Which building?” Toot asked cheerfully.

“The building with the boy in it,” I replied, fighting down the urge to swat the silly creature, again. “The boy in the picture; the one I sent you to find.”

“Oh, that boy,” Toot said, kicking his heels lazily against the top of my collarbone. I could barely feel it and it was still annoying. “He is way smaller than you, and his hair is almost as dark…”

“I don’t want a description of the boy,” I snarled. “I want a description of the building he is being held in.”

“Harry,” Bob warned me from inside my backpack.

“Oh,” Toot said, unconcerned. “It is huge! It’s made of those square stones that humans make… what are the called… Brocks?”

“Bricks,” I corrected.

“No, no, don’t tell me,” he retorted. “I’ll think of it in a minute! Brocks? Socks? Stocks? That’s it! Stocks!” Toot paused for a long minute and then said. “What were we talking about?”

“The building,” I replied, through gritted teeth. “The building that holds the boy in the picture I showed you.”

“Oh, it’s not too far up ahead,” Toot said. “Boy, you move slow. I could have flown there and back a dozen times by now.”

“Harry,” Bob said again in that warning tone.

“I’ll make you pay for this, Bob,” I promised. “Somehow I will make you pay.”

We walked along quietly for a few more minutes and I got my irritation under control. “Toot,” I said, determined to try again. “Do you remember the boy in the photograph I showed you? The one I sent you to find?”

“Of course I do,” Toot replied. “You are going to give me milk and bread and honey and cheese when I show you where he is.”

“Not cheese,” I said. “Cheese wasn’t in the bargain. I’ll give you milk and bread and honey when we find the boy. That is what we agreed to.”

“Not even a little cheese?” Toot wheedled.

“No cheese,” I repeated. “Keep your mind on the boy, Toot-toot.”

“I like cheese,” he sighed.

“Are there any humans around the boy?” I asked. “The boy in the photograph…”

“I know which boy we are talking about, Harry,” Toot replied. “I’m not stupid. Yes, there were many humans about.”

“How many?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Toot said, sounding uncertain. “Hundreds?”

“Hundreds!” I exclaimed.

“Dozens?” Toot corrected. “You didn’t ask me about the humans, you know. You only asked about the boy.”

“Okay,” I said, gesturing with my hands like I was trying to calm someone else own instead of myself. “Tell me about the boy.”

“Which boy?”

And on it went, around and around in circles for another hour or two until finally Toot pointed to a building and said “That is the place where the boy is held. Pay me! Pay me! Pay me!”

Toot had led me into the heart of the warehouse district, down near Lake Michigan’s shore. I was surrounded by big warehouse, but could smell the water. The building Toot was pointing to was newer and slightly smaller than it’s neighbors. I shushed Toot and hid in the shadows. Very carefully I looked to make sure no one was around. I was alone. Good.

“The food!” Toot shrilled directly into my ear.

I hushed him again and said, “I have to see the boy first, Toot. Don’t worry, you’ll get everything I promised.”

“He’s there,” he insisted. “There are big windows in the roof. One of them was open, that is the way I flew in.”

“Is there an open window that I can reach, Toot? I can’t fly like you can.”

“Some wizard you are,” Toot sniffed. “There are open windows on the other side.”

“Go count the humans inside the building,” I told him.

“Two favors, wizard,” Toot retorted, smug. “And you have nothing more to offer me to make me want to do you a third.”

I knew better than to say ‘I’ll owe you one’ to a faerie, no matter how small. I’d already been caught in that trap. So I’d have to find out the number of bad guys around the boy myself. I snuck back the way I came until I located a phone booth; I still had enough change to make the call. Also good. Very, very carefully I walked over a block, then crept down to the warehouses other side. There was indeed an open window, but it was only open a tiny crack. Wide enough for Toot to get through, but useless for me. I crept up to it anyway and took a quick look inside. There were four men standing in the middle of the floor talking. I scanned the interior as best as I could. There! A small child was tied to a chair up on a catwalk-type gallery. It was a good bet that it was Norman Pritzger, the kidnapped boy.

I moved as quickly and quietly as I could back to the phone booth and called the number on Nick Christian's card. He answered on the third ring. “I found the boy,” I told him before he could even say ‘hello’. “He’s in a warehouse and I saw four men guarding him. They have guns.” I gave him the address.

“You aren’t trying to fool me are you kid?” Nick asked uncertainly. “You are sure he’s there?”

“Well, there is a child tied to a chair, but he has a hood on his head, so I couldn’t check,” I retorted. “He’s still wearing the outfit they on the reward flier. How many kidnapped children do you think there are in Chicago?”

“Smart ass,” Nick said, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “Look, the guys who have him are part of the Chicago mob, so if it really is the kid I want you to back away…”

“Oops,” I said as a big hand grabbed my shoulder and forced me to turn around. “Wow, that’s a big gun, mister,” I said into the phone.

I heard Nick yell, “Kid!” into the phone, but I was giving the gun, and the man holding it, my complete attention.

The bruiser with the gun was a few inches shorter than I was, but at least twice as wide. He had strong shoulders and muscular arms that strained the seams of his jacket. His long brown hair was caught up in a ponytail and he’d broken his nose several times. His eyes were cold and dark and utterly uncaring. They reminded me of Justin’s eyes. The gun in his hand looked as big as a cannon with an barrel that I was pretty sure a train could drive through. He twitched it to my left and put a bullet right through the phone. The line went dead, not that I cared. I was too busy cowering with my hands up and saying, “Don’t shoot me!”

“Was that the cops, you little turd?” Mr. Bruiser demanded (I thought it appropriate to call anyone with a gun in my face Mister). The gun swung back so that it was pointed directly in my face again.

“No,” I shook my head, half panicked. “My employer – er – potential employer. Not the cops, definitely not the cops.”

“Liar,” Mr. Bruiser said and cocked the gun.

“Vince,” said another voice. “What’s going on?” I managed to drag my gaze away from the gun and saw another man jogging towards us. He was wearing a suit and was a bit taller than the guy with the gun but much less muscular. From the looks of his flabby gut Mr. Bruiser Number Two looked like he had an on-going love affair with pasta and beer.

“I caught a rat,” Mr. Bruiser Number One said, his gun steady in my face. “I saw him peek in the warehouse window, and caught him just as he was making a call. You want me to shoot him?”

“Did you call the police?” Mr. Bruiser Number Two asked in the same tone that Mr. Bruiser Number One had.

“No, I didn’t call the police!” I babbled, thoroughly frightened. So thoroughly frightened that I couldn’t seem to gather up my power. “I was trying to call a potential employer, to see if I got the job, that’s all! I swear!”

“Shoot him in the warehouse,” Mr. Bruiser Number Two commanded. “It’ll make less noise there. Have Stevie grab the kid and we’ll move to the alternate location.” He straightened his food stained tie and walked back to the warehouse. Maybe I should upgrade him to Boss Bruiser.

Mr. Bruiser Number One, dragged me out of the phone booth and pushed me stumbling after his boss. I still had my backpack, but Toot had disappeared. I didn’t know what good Bob or my stolen foci were going to do me in this situation. All I had was Justin’s wand, two potions that I hadn’t even identified and the sack of groceries for Toot-toot. If I could get to Justin’s wand I could use it to channel some fire magic, but that was a pretty big ‘if’.

At least I couldn’t see the gun now that it was pointed to the back of my head. I was still scared, but I was able to pull my thoughts together enough so that I would be able to cast when I needed to. I thought of Justin’s painful lessons and started working on a shield. I knew it would be strong enough to protect me from a baseball pitch, but would it protect me from a bullet? I just had to cross my fingers and hope so.

Once in the warehouse I could see that there were four men, not five, but the guy with the belly was definitely the boss. He ordered another Bruiser to grab my backpack and search it. “What they hell..?” he said when he found Bob’s skull. “What is this?”

“It’s a skull,” I said defensively. “I need it for- for anatomy lessons.”

“Bullshit,” the Bruiser said. “They don’t hand out real skulls to students, asshole. Where did you get it?”

“It belonged to my foster father,” I admitted.

“No way,” said Bruiser Number Three. “That thing is real? Let me see.” I flinched hard when Bruiser Number Two casually tossed Bob’s skull to Bruiser Number Three. Oh, God, if they broke it Bob would have no protection from the Winter Queen – and that meant no more Bob.

“Looks like he brought lunch,’ Bruiser Number Two said, pulling the paper grocery bag from the back pack. He tossed the sack to Bruiser Number Four and then found the two potion bottles. “What are these?”

“Energy drink,” I lied. “I get a big bottle because it’s cheaper and decant it into little bottle that I can carry with me.”

The boss retrieved the sack of food from Bruiser Number Four and took out the container of milk. As I looked on in horror he casually took a long swig.

“Oh, no, you didn’t!” Toot screamed and dive bombed the startled boss. “My milk, you dastardly thief! Mine! Mine! Mine!” The boss took a startled step back and dropped the container on the floor. While everyone’s attention was elsewhere, I dove towards Bruiser Number Two and my backpack. I wrenched the wand out of my pack and put my back against the wall. The guy with the gun tried to shoot me. The bullet hit my shield harder than anything I’d ever experienced before, but held with a dazzling flare of silver light.

“Harry!” Bob yelled from where he’d been dropped on the floor. His skull was laying on its side, but it hadn’t broken.

The boss was still crouching down and trying to slap at the madly buzzing Toot and mostly just hitting himself. Toot was getting his own licks in, too – the boss’s nose had a pair of sausages stuffed up each nostril and his eyes were flooded with tears. He was practically choking on fairy dust, which I knew, caused dizziness and euphoria in large doses. From the looks of things, it looked like boss-man was going to be giddy for days.

Two of the Bruisers tried to help their boss and only managed to smack him around a little harder. The other two had drawn their guns and aimed them at me, so I was looking down three huge barrels now. I gestured with the wand and screamed “Stay back!” They ignored me.

I looked up towards the catwalk where the kidnapped boy was and my heart sank. There were two more Bruisers up there, although these guys were wearing all black and had ski-masks on. They pointed another pair of guns at me.

I had a decision to make. This was the first time I’d ever been fighting against multiple people, and even if they where vanilla mortals, they still had guns. I could try to hold the shield or I could attack – I knew I didn’t have the ability to do both. At best my attack would hit one or two of the Bruisers, but I didn’t think my shield could block five bullets at once. I didn’t have a chance to make up my mind before the boss yelled, “Shoot him, just shoot the son of a bitch!” Reflexively I started chanting, “Defendre, defendre, defendre.”

“Harry!” Bob screamed.

Time seemed to telescope.

There was a single tremendous sound as all five guns went off at the same time.

Two bullets hit the shield, which held in a burst of light that lit up the whole room like a strobe. The left over force picked me up and threw me against the wall. It knocked the breath out of me but I maintained the shield.

One bullet hit the wall beside my head.

And two of the Bruisers fell over, dead.

I gaped at them and the remaining Bruiser gaped at me.

Then the guys on the catwalk shot the third Bruiser, one bullet each, both in the head. It exploded like a ripe melon and I screamed. Hot blood and gore smeared across the shield and then slid slowly down, seemingly stopped in mid-air. I thought I was going to throw up.

The boss had managed to get the sausages out of one nostril; I guess that Toot had fled because of the noise. He glared up at the pair on the catwalk and screamed in rage. “Johnnie! I know that’s you, you son-of-a-bitch-bastard! You are a dead man, Johnnie! A dead man! Kill him!”

The Bruisers that had been helping the boss were both shot before they pulled their guns. I was fairly sure that one was dead, but the other one was hit in the side and was still mobile. The boss man scampered out the door. One of the two guys on the catwalk shot at him, but he made through the door with just a graze wound. Once the boss was gone, catwalk-guy exchanged fire with the wounded man, but both of them had cover by now.

The other guy on the catwalk stooped behind the boy and freed him in one economical gesture. He pulled the boy from the chair with one hand and pulled off the blindfold with the other. “Run, Norman!” he commanded the boy. “Run to the young man downstairs! He’ll get you out!” He then thumped the other man on the shoulder and they started to retreat off the catwalk.

Norman ran full tilt down the stairs and headed straight for me. The wounded Bruiser took a shot at the boy which chipped the concrete about three feet behind the kid. He froze in a crouch, trying to make himself as small as possible, but in the middle of the floor he was an obvious target. Outraged that someone would try to shoot a fleeing child I did something stupid.

I called up fire.

I called up all that I could, totally forgetting that I had the wand in my hand. It amplified my power twice over but gave me no more control than I had ever had.

A wave of stifling heat washed over me as a wall of fire lashed out from my hand towards the wounded Bruiser. Too late I remembered the Doom of Damocles – if the wounded bruiser died because of my magical attack, the Wardens would kill me. I tried wishing the power away but it was too late. I turned my face away from the carnage and saw that the guys on the catwalk had frozen in place for a second, apparently shocked. One of them, the one who had freed the kid, stepped towards me. The bigger one went to grab him and missed. “Look out!” the first guy yelled, gesturing and I spun around to see that the wounded bruiser had survived my attack unscathed.

“Yipe!” I cried out, without meaning to. The wounded guy took a shot at me. It passed so close by that I felt the whiffle of it's passage through my hair.

The pair on the catwalk opened fire on the wounded guy, and the first guy yelled, “Take the boy and get out of here, you fool!”

Apparently the stuff being stored in the warehouse was particularly flammable because the whole place was catching fast. While the catwalk-guys and the wounded bruiser shot at each other, I darted forward and grabbed the boy, then doubled back for my backpack and Bob’s skull. I saw Toot try to haul off the bottle of honey, which had to outweigh him by twenty times. He could barely hover.

“Fly away, Toot!” I yelled. “I’ll pay you double tomorrow, I promise!”

The tiny faerie dropped the bottle and darted over to me. “You had better, wizard!” he cried, diving into my jacket pocket. I stuffed Bob back into the backpack, got a better hold on the crying boy and beat feet for the exit.

I could hear the sirens as soon as I got to the alley, police and fire trucks both. I dropped Bob’s skull into a handy dumpster with a promise that I’d come back for him as soon as possible, and headed towards the sound, Norman wrapped around me like a vice. Nick arrived with the cops and I waved them over to me, exhausted but triumphant.

My triumph didn’t last for more than a few minutes, though. Once the cops figured out that I wasn’t a kidnapper they started screaming at me about how I was supposed to leave police work to the police. Literally screaming. Eventually it dissolved down to yelling, which dissolved down to lecturing, mainly because Norman wasn’t willing to let go of me and the loud voices scared him. When the first police office finished yelling at me, his sergeant took over. When he got done, an EMT lectured me. I told myself that it was better than dealing with the White Council and did my best to look penitient.

Finally the Pritzgers arrived. Norman dropped away from me like I had rabies and ran towards them with a joyful cry. There were tears and hugs all around and Mr. Pritzger actually thanked me and shook my hand. By that time I was feeling pretty small, but still victorious. I received another round of lectures from the police lieutenant and a captain before Nick Christian finally pried me away. I smiled at him, weary but happy.

“I ought to slap you,” Nick snarled at me as he walked me back to his car. “What kind of hare-brained idiot are you? I told you to stay away from this, kid. You could have gotten yourself killed, you little moron! You could have gotten the kid killed! What were you thinking? Did you ever bother thinking? Jesus, kid!”

“But,” I said in a small voice, all my triumph wiped away. “You said…”

“I know what I said,” Nick snapped. “That was Mario Vargassi and his men in there. I don’t know how you survived. He would have blown your head off! He still might; his father is the head of the racket in this town. You probably already have a price on your head!”

“But…”

“Get in the god damned car, kid,” Nick glared at me as if daring me to continue. “I’m driving you home. Idiot.”

Bob:

Harry retrieved me the very next morning; he had talked Nick Christian into giving him a fifty dollar advance on his salary so he could hire a cab to get around. That’s right, after lecturing Harry until midnight, Nick Christian actually honored his promise and hired Harry on at Ragged Angel - as a detective. Harry was walking on air when he finally dug me out of the trash. He didn’t even have to tell me, I could tell from his aura – but he told me anyway, and I pretended to be surprised.

We stopped in a little bakery to pick up two loaves of fresh baked bread, two containers of honey and two pints of milk – I told Harry not to buy a quart because dewdrop faeries weren’t very discerning about size and all that mattered was that he have two. Harry left them in the park where he had summoned the fae and Toot had appeared immediately, overjoyed at his bounty. He even asked Harry if he could do him any more favors. Harry solemnly promised that if he ever needed the help of a dewdrop faerie, he would call Toot first.

The cops found Marco Vargassi’s blood in the alley outside of the burned warehouse and set out an APB for him. A few days later he appeared briefly in a nasty shoot-out in the same park that Harry had used to summon Toot. A young girl died. That was the last anyone ever saw of Marco Vargassi. Three weeks later Marco’s father, Anthony Vargassi, disappeared too. Word was that he’d taken an early retirement from the mob, probably in a bridge abutment or concrete foundation somewhere.

Christian didn’t provide Harry with a lavish salary, in fact Harry had to find some odd jobs to supplement his income enough to get a deposit for an apartment and buy a genuinely used Volkswagen Beatle. It was powder blue and Harry was over the moon when he got it. Nick helped Harry to find an apartment in an old boarding house and taught him how to be a detective. There were no more black moods for Harry.

As for me, I decided I would stick with Harry Dresden and see what the future held. He’d handled himself pretty well in that battle in the warehouse and had demonstrated to me just how much power he could command. I decided that I liked him. Even better, I liked the me he had inspired. I thought that my persona with Harry was probably the best and happiest I had ever had. Harry is a geeky pain-in-the-ass sometimes, but I think I’ll keep him.

So, about a month after all the dust had settled, Harry set me up in the little lab area in the sub-basement of his basement apartment and asked me about how to focus his power so that he only got the amount of flame or force he wanted. I told him that he needed a staff.

“You’ll help me create it, right?” He asked.

“Whatever you want, Boss,” I agreed.