by Paula Guran
I leaned on the bar and chewed that thought over for a moment. Oh, sure, technically it could have been any of those. A number of drugs could cause psychotic behavior, though admittedly it might be hard to get that reaction in everyone in the bar at more or less the same time. Poisons were just drugs that happened to kill you, or the reverse. And if those people had been poisoned, they might still be in a lot of danger.
And once you got the magical side of things, any one of a dozen methods could have been used to get to the people through the beer they’d imbibed—but all of them would require someone with access to the beer to pull it off, and Mac made his own brew.
In fact, he bottled it himself.
“It wasn’t necessarily the beer,” I said.
“You think they all got the same steak sandwich? The same batch of curly fries?” She shook her head. “Come on, Dresden. The food here is good, but that isn’t what gets them in the door.”
“Mac wouldn’t hurt anybody,” I said quietly.
“Really?” Murphy asked, her voice quiet and steady. “You’re sure about that? How well do you really know the man?”
I glanced around the bar, slowly.
“What’s his first name, Harry?”
“Dammit, Murph,” I sighed. “You can’t go around being suspicious of everyone all the time.”
“Sure I can.” She gave me a faint smile. “It’s my job, Harry. I have to look at things dispassionately. It’s nothing personal. You know that.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I know that. But I also know what it’s like to be dispassionately suspected of something you didn’t do. It sucks.”
She held up her hands. “Then let’s figure out what did happen. I’ll go talk to the principals, see if anyone remembers anything. You take a look at the beer.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
After bottling it, Mac transports his beer in wooden boxes like old apple crates, only more heavy-duty. They aren’t magical or anything. They’re just sturdy as hell, and they stack up neatly. I came through the door of my apartment with a box of samples and braced myself against the impact of Mister, my tomcat, who generally declares a suicide charge on my shins the minute I come through the door. Mister is huge, and most of his mass is muscle. I rocked at the impact, and the bottles rattled, but I took it in stride. Mouse, my big shaggy dogosaurus, was lying full on his side by the fireplace, napping. He looked up and thumped his tail on the ground once, then went back to sleep.
No work ethic around here at all. But then, he hadn’t been cheated out of his well-earned beer. I took the box straight down the stepladder to my lab, calling, “Hi, Molly,” as I went down.
Molly, my apprentice, sat at her little desk, working on a pair of potions. She had maybe five square feet of space to work with in my cluttered lab, but she managed to keep the potions clean and neat, and still had room left over for her Latin textbook, her notebook, and a can of Pepsi, the heathen. Molly’s hair was kryptonite green today, with silver tips, and she was wearing cutoff jeans and a tight blue T-shirt with a Superman logo on the front. She was a knockout.
“Hiya, Harry,” she said absently.
“Outfit’s a little cold for March, isn’t it?”
“If it were, you’d be staring at my chest a lot harder,” she said, smirking a little. She glanced up, and it bloomed into a full smile. “Hey, beer!”
“You’re young and innocent,” I said firmly, setting the box down on a shelf. “No beer for you.”
“You’re living in denial,” she replied, and rose to pick up a bottle.
Of course she did. I’d told her not to. I watched her carefully.
The kid’s my apprentice, but she’s got a knack for the finer aspects of magic. She’d be in real trouble if she had to blast her way out of a situation, but when it comes to the cobweb-fine enchantments, she’s a couple of lengths ahead of me and pulling away fast—and I figured that this had to be subtle work.
She frowned almost the second she touched the bottle. “That’s . . . odd.” She gave me a questioning look, and I gestured at the box. She ran her fingertips over each bottle in turn. “There’s energy there. What is it, Harry?”
I had a good idea of what the beer had done to its drinkers—but it just didn’t make sense. I wasn’t about to tell her that, though. It would be very anti-Obi-Wan of me. “You tell me,” I said, smiling slightly.
She narrowed her eyes at me and turned back to her potions, muttering over them for a few moments, and then easing them down to a low simmer. She came back to the bottles and opened one, sniffing at it and frowning some more.
“No taste-testing,” I told her. “It isn’t pretty.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” she replied in the same tone she’d used while working on her Latin. “It’s laced with . . . some kind of contagion focus, I think.”
I nodded. She was talking about magical contagion, not the medical kind. A contagion focus was something that formed a link between a smaller amount of its mass after it had been separated from the main body. A practitioner could use it to send magic into the main body, and by extension into all the smaller foci, even if they weren’t in the same physical place. It’s sort of like planting a transmitter on someone’s car so that you can send a missile at it later.
“Can you tell what kind of working it’s been set up to support?” I asked her.
She frowned. She had a pretty frown. “Give me a minute.”
“Tick tock,” I said.
She waved a hand at me without looking up. I folded my arms and waited. I gave her tests like this one all the time—and there was always a time limit. In my experience, the solutions you need the most badly are always time-critical. I’m trying to train the grasshopper for the real world.
Here was one of her first real-world problems, but she didn’t have to know that. So long as she thought it was just one more test, she’d tear into it without hesitation. I saw no reason to rattle her confidence.
She muttered to herself. She poured some of the beer out into the beaker and held it up to the light from a specially prepared candle. She scrawled power calculations on a notebook. And twenty minutes later, she said, “Hah. Tricky, but not tricky enough.”
“Oh?” I said.
“No need to be coy, boss,” she said. “The contagion looks like a simple compulsion meant to make the victim drink more, but it’s really a psychic conduit.”
I leaned forward. “Seriously?”
Molly stared blankly at me for a moment. Then she blinked and said, “You didn’t know?”
“I found the compulsion, but it was masking anything else that had been laid on the beer.” I picked up the half-empty bottle and shook my head. “I brought it here because you’ve got a better touch for this kind of thing than I do. It would have taken me hours to puzzle it out. Good work.”
“But . . . you didn’t tell me this was for real.” She shook her head dazedly. “Harry, what if I hadn’t found it? What if I’d been wrong?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, grasshopper,” I said, turning for the stairs. “You still might be wrong.”
They’d taken Mac to Stroger, and he looked like hell. I had to lie to the nurse to get in to talk to him, flashing my consultant’s ID badge and making like I was working with the Chicago cops on the case.
“Mac,” I said, coming to sit down on the chair next to his bed. “How are you feeling?”
He looked at me with the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “Yeah. They said you wouldn’t accept any painkillers.”
He moved his head in a slight nod.
I laid out what I’d found. “It was elegant work, Mac. More intricate than anything I’ve done.”
His teeth made noise as they ground together. He understood what two complex interwoven enchantments meant as well as I did—a serious player was involved.
“Find him,” Mac growled, the words slurred a little.
“Any idea where I could start?” I asked him.
&n
bsp; He was quiet for a moment, then shook his head. “Caine?”
I lifted my eyebrows. “That thug from Night of the Living Brews? He’s been around?”
He grunted. “Last night. Closing.” He closed his eyes. “Loudmouth.”
I stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Rest. I’ll chat him up.”
Mac exhaled slowly, maybe unconscious before I’d gotten done speaking.
I found Murphy down the hall.
“Three of them are awake,” she said. “None of them remember anything for several hours before they presumably went to the bar.”
I grimaced. “I was afraid of that.” I told her what I’d learned.
“A psychic conduit?” Murphy asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s like any electrical power line,” I said. “Except it plugs into your mind—and whoever is on the other end gets to decide what goes in.”
Murphy went a little pale. She’d been on the receiving end of a couple of different kinds of psychic assault, and it had left some marks. “So do what you do. Put the whammy on them and let’s track them down.”
I grimaced and shook my head. “I don’t dare,” I told her. “All I’ve got to track with is the beer itself. If I try to use it in a spell, it’ll open me up to the conduit. It’ll be like I drank the stuff.”
Murphy folded her arms. “And if that happens, you won’t remember anything you learn anyway.”
“Like I said,” I told her, “it’s high-quality work. But I’ve got a name.”
“A perp?”
“I’m sure he’s guilty of something. His name’s Caine. He’s a con. Big, dumb, violent, and thinks he’s a brewer.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You got a history with this guy?”
“Ran across him during a case maybe a year ago,” I said. “It got ugly. More for him than me. He doesn’t like Mac much.”
“He’s a wizard?”
“Hell’s bells, no,” I said.
“Then how does he figure in?”
“Let’s ask him.”
Murphy made short work of running down an address for Herbert Orson Caine, mugger, rapist, and extortionist—a cheap apartment building on the south end of Bucktown.
Murphy knocked at the door, but we didn’t get an answer.
“It’s a good thing he’s a con,” she said, reaching for her cell phone. “I can probably get a warrant without too much trouble.”
“With what?” I asked her. “Suggestive evidence of the use of black magic?”
“Tampering with drinks at a bar doesn’t require the use of magic,” Murphy said. “He’s a rapist, and he isn’t part of the outfit, so he doesn’t have an expensive lawyer to raise a stink.”
“How’s about we save the good people of Chicago time and money and just take a look around?”
“Breaking and entering.”
“I won’t break anything,” I promised. “I’ll do all the entering, too.”
“No,” she said.
“But—”
She looked up at me, her jaw set stubbornly. “No, Harry.”
I sighed. “These guys aren’t playing by the rules.”
“We don’t know he’s involved yet. I’m not cutting corners for someone who might not even be connected.”
I was partway into a snarky reply when Caine opened the door from the stairwell and entered the hallway. He spotted us and froze. Then he turned and started walking away.
“Caine!” Murphy called. “Chicago PD!”
He bolted.
Murph and I had both been expecting that, evidently. We both rushed him. He slammed the door open, but I’d been waiting for that, too. I sent out a burst of my will, drawing my right hand in toward my chest as I shouted, “Forzare!”
Invisible force slammed the door shut as Caine began to go through. It hit him hard enough to bounce him all the way back across the hall, into the wall opposite.
Murphy had better acceleration than I did. She caught up to Caine in time for him to swing one paw at her in a looping punch.
I almost felt sorry for the slob.
Murphy ducked the punch, then came up with all of her weight and the muscle of her legs and body behind her response. She struck the tip of his chin with the heel of her hand, snapping his face straight up.
Caine was brawny, big, and tough. He came back from the blow with a dazed snarl and swatted at Murphy again. Murph caught his arm, tugged him a little one way, a little the other, and using his own arm as a fulcrum, sent him flipping forward and down hard onto the floor. He landed hard enough to make the floorboards shake, and Murphy promptly shifted her grip, twisting one hand into a painful angle, holding his arm out straight, using her leg to pin it into position.
“That would be assault,” Murphy said in a sweet voice. “And on a police officer in the course of an investigation, no less.”
“Bitch,” Caine said. “I’m gonna break your—”
We didn’t get to find out what he was going to break, because Murphy shifted her body weight maybe a couple of inches, and he screamed instead.
“Whaddayou want?” Caine demanded. “Lemme go! I didn’t do nothin’!”
“Sure you did,” I said cheerfully. “You assaulted Sergeant Murphy, here. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“You’re a two-time loser, Caine,” Murphy said. “This will make it number three. By the time you get out, the first thing you’ll need to buy will be a new set of teeth.”
Caine said a lot of impolite words.
“Wow,” I said, coming to stand over him. “That sucks. If only there was some way he could be of help to the community. You know, prove how he isn’t a waste of space some other person could be using.”
“Screw you,” Caine said. “I ain’t helping you with nothing.”
Murphy leaned into his arm a little again to shut him up. “What happened to the beer at McAnally’s?” she asked in a polite tone.
Caine said even more impolite words.
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it,” Murphy said. “I’m pretty sure you can do better.”
“Bite me, cop bitch,” Caine muttered.
“Sergeant Bitch,” Murphy said. “Have it your way, bonehead. Bet you’ve got all kinds of fans back at Stateville.” But she was frowning when she said it. Thugs like Caine rolled over when they were facing hard time. They didn’t risk losing the rest of their adult lives out of simple contrariness—unless they were terrified of the alternative.
Someone or, dare I say it, something had Caine scared.
Well, that table could seat more than one player.
The thug had a little blood coming from the corner of his mouth. He must have bitten his tongue when Murphy hit him.
I pulled a white handkerchief out of my pocket, and in a single swooping motion, stooped down and smeared some blood from Caine’s mouth onto it.
“What the hell,” he said, or something close to it. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry about it, Caine,” I told him. “It isn’t going to be a long-term problem for you.”
I took the cloth and walked a few feet away. Then I hunkered down and used a piece of chalk from another pocket to draw a circle around me on the floor.
Caine struggled feebly against Murphy, but she put him down again. “Sit still,” she snapped. “I’ll pull your shoulder right out of its socket.”
“Feel free,” I told Murphy. “He isn’t going to be around long enough to worry about it.” I squinted up at Caine and said, “Beefy, little bit of a gut. Bet you eat a lot of greasy food, huh, Caine?”
“Wh-what?” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Heart attack should look pretty natural,” I said. “Murph, get ready to back off once he starts thrashing.” I closed the circle and let it sparkle a little as I did. It was a waste of energy—special effects like that almost always are—but it made an impression on Caine.
“Jesus Christ!” Caine said. “Wait!”
“Can’t wait,” I told h
im. “Gotta make this go before the blood dries out. Quit being such a baby, Caine. She gave you a chance.” I raised my hand over the fresh blood on the cloth. “Let’s see now—”
“I can’t talk!” Caine yelped. “If I talk, she’ll know!”
Murphy gave his arm a little twist. “Who?” she demanded.
“I can’t! Jesus, I swear! Dresden, don’t, it isn’t my fault, they needed bloodstone and I had the only stuff in town that was pure enough! I just wanted to wipe that smile off of that bastard’s face!”
I looked up at Caine with a gimlet eye, my teeth bared. “You ain’t saying anything that makes me want you to keep on breathing.”
“I can’t,” Caine wailed. “She’ll know!”
I fixed my stare on Caine and raised my hand in a slow, heavily overdramatized gesture. “Intimidatus dorkus maximus!” I intoned, making my voice intentionally hollow and harsh, and stressing the long vowels.
“Decker!” Caine screamed. “Decker, he set up the deal!”
I lowered my hand and let my head rock back. “Decker,” I said. “That twit.”
Murphy watched me, and didn’t let go of Caine, though I could tell that she didn’t want to keep holding him.
I shook my head at Murphy and said, “Let him scamper, Murph.”
She let him go, and Caine fled for the stairs on his hand and knee, sobbing. He staggered out, falling down the first flight, from the sound of it.
I wrinkled up my nose as the smell of urine hit me. “Ah. The aroma of truth.”
Murphy rubbed her hands on her jeans as if trying to wipe off something greasy. “Jesus, Harry.”
“What?” I said. “You didn’t want to break into his place.”
“I didn’t want you to put a gun to his head, either.” She shook her head. “You couldn’t really have . . . ”
“Killed him?” I asked. I broke the circle and rose. “Yeah. With him right here in sight, yeah. I probably could have.”
She shivered. “Jesus Christ.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. I went to her and put a hand on her arm. “I wouldn’t, Karrin. You know that.”
She looked up at me, her expression impossible to read. “You put on a really good act, Harry. It would have fooled a lot of people. It looked . . . ”
