by Jim Butcher
"You two were at this booth?" I prompted.
"Yes," he said. He licked his lips. "She went to pick up some napkins from the bar, right over there. She wasn't twenty feet away and somehow she just vanished."
Personally, I was more inclined to go with the cop's line of reasoning than the kid's. People in general tend to be selfish, greedy, and unreliable. There are individual exceptions, of course, but no one ever wants to believe that the petty portions of human nature might have come between themselves and someone they care about.
The kid seemed awfully sincere, but endearing, awfully sincere people, their decisions driven mostly by their emotions, are capable of being mistaken on an epic scale. The worse the situation looks, the harder they'll search for reasons not to believe it. It seemed more likely that his girl left him than that someone took her away.
On the other hand, likely isn't the same as true-and Mac isn't the kind to cry wolf.
"How long you two been together?" I asked Braddock.
"Since we were fifteen," he replied. An anemic smile fluttered around his mouth. "Almost ten years."
"Making it official, eh?"
"We both knew when it was right," he replied. He lost the smile. "Just like I know she didn't walk away. Not unless someone made her do it."
I stepped around Braddock and studied the high-backed booth for a moment. A keg sat on the table, next to a little cardstock sign that had a cartoon bee decked out with a Viking-style helmet, a baldric, and a greatsword. Words beneath the bee proclaimed BRADDOCK'S MIDNIGHT SUN CINNAMON.
I grunted and reached down, pulling a simple black leather ladies' purse from beneath the bench seating. Not an expensive purse, either. "Not much chance she'd walk without taking her bag," I said. "That's for damn sure."
Braddock bit his lip, closed his eyes, and said, "Elizabeth."
I sighed.
Well, dammit.
Now she had a name.
Elizabeth Braddock, newlywed-maybe she'd just run off, but maybe she hadn't. I didn't think I would like myself very much if I walked and it turned out that she really was in danger and really did get hurt.
What the hell? No harm in looking around.
"I guess the game's afoot," I said. I gestured vaguely with the purse. "May I?"
"Sure," Braddock said. "Sure, sure."
I dumped Elizabeth's purse out on the booth's table, behind the beer keg, and began rummaging through it. The usual-a wallet, some makeup, a cell phone, Kleenex, some feminine sanitary sundries, one of those plastic birth control pill holders with a folded piece of paper taped to it.
And there was a hairbrush, an antique-looking thing with a long, pointy silver handle.
I plucked several strands of dark wavy hair from the brush. "Is this your wife's hair?"
Braddock blinked at me for a second, then nodded. "Yes. Of course."
"Mind if I borrow this?"
He didn't. I pocketed the brush for the moment and glanced at the birth control pill case. I opened it. Only the first several slots were empty. I untaped the folded paper and opened it, finding instructions for the medicine's use.
Who keeps the instruction sheet, for crying out loud?
While I pondered it, a shadow fell across Braddock, and a beefy, heavily tattooed arm shoved him back against the spine of the partition between booths.
I looked up the arm to the beefy, heavily tattooed bruiser attached to it. He was only a couple of inches shorter than me, and layered with muscle gone to seed. He was bald and sported a bristling beard. Scar tissue around his eyes told me he'd been a fighter, and a lumpy, often-broken nose suggested that he might not have been much good at it. He wore black leather and rings heavy enough to serve as passable brass knuckles on every finger of his right hand. His voice was like the rest of him-thick and dull. He flung a little triangle of folded cardstock at Braddock. "Where's my keg, Braddock?"
"Caine," Braddock stammered, "what are you talking about?"
"My keg, bitch," the big man snarled. A couple of guys who wished they were more like Caine lurked behind him, propping up his ego. "It's gone. You figure you couldn't take the competition this year?"
I glanced at the fallen table tent. It also had a little Wagnerian cartoon bee on it, and the lettering, CAINE'S KICKASS.
"I don't have time for this," Braddock said.
Caine shoved him back against the booth again, harder. "We ain't done. Stay put, bitch, unless you want me to feed you your ass."
I glanced at Mac, who stared at Caine, frowning, but not doing anything. Mac doesn't like to get involved.
He's smarter than I am.
I stepped forward, seized Caine's hand in mine, and pumped it enthusiastically. "Hi, there. Harry Dresden, PI. How you doing?" I nodded at him, smiling, and smiled at his friends, too. "Hey, are you allergic to dogs?"
Caine was so startled that he almost forgot to try crushing my hand in his. When he got around to it, it hurt enough that I had to work not to wince. I'm not heavily built, but I'm more than six and a half feet tall, and it takes more strength than most have to make me feel it.
"What?" he said wittily. "Dog, what?"
"Allergic to dogs," I clarified, and nodded down at Mouse. "Occasionally someone has a bad reaction to my dog, and I'd hate that to happen here."
The biker scowled at me and then looked down.
Two hundred pounds of Mouse, not acting at all friendly now, stared steadily at Caine. Mouse didn't show any teeth or growl. He didn't need to. He just stared.
Caine lifted his lips up from his teeth in an ugly little smile. But he released my hand with a jerk, and then sneered at Braddock. "Say, where's that pretty little piece of yours? She run off to find a real man?"
Braddock might have been a sliver over half of Caine's size, but he went after the biker with complete sincerity and without a second thought.
This time Mac moved, interposing himself between Braddock and Caine, getting his shoulder against Braddock's chest. The older man braced himself and shoved Braddock back from the brink of a beating, though the younger man cursed and struggled against him.
Caine let out an ugly laugh and stepped forward, his big hands closing into fists. I leaned my staff so that he stepped into it, the blunt tip of the wood thrusting solidly against the hollow of his throat. He made a noise that sounded like glurk, and stepped back, scowling ferociously at me.
I tugged my staff back against my chest so that I could hold up both hands, palms out, just as the dumpy cop, attracted by Braddock's thumping and cursing, came into the room with one hand on his nightstick. "Easy there, big guy," I said, loud enough to make sure the cop heard. "The kid's just upset on account of his wife. He doesn't mean anything by it."
The bruiser lifted one closed fist as if he meant to drive it at my noggin, but one of his two buddies said urgently, "Cop."
Caine froze and glanced back over his shoulder. The officer might have been overweight, but he looked like he knew how to throw it around, and he had a club and a gun besides. Never mind all the other uniforms theoretically behind him.
Caine opened his fist, showing an empty hand, and lowered it again. "Sure," he said. "Sure. Misunderstanding. Happen to anybody."
"You want to walk away," the cop told Caine, "do it now. Otherwise you get a ride."
Caine and company departed in sullen silence, glaring daggers at me-well, glaring letter openers, anyway; Caine didn't seem real sharp.
The cop stalked over to me more lightly than he should have been able to-no question about it, the man knew how to play rough. He looked at me, then at my staff, and kept his nightstick in his hand. "You Dresden?"
"Uh-huh," I said.
"Heard of you. Work for Special Investigations sometimes. Call yourself a wizard."
"That's right."
"You know Rawlins?"
"Good man," I said.
The cop grunted. He jerked his head toward the departing Caine as he put the stick away. "Guy's a con. A hard case, too. Likes
hurting people. You keep your eyes open, Mr. Wizard, or he'll make some of your teeth disappear."
"Yeah," I said. "Golly, he's scary."
The cop eyed me, then snorted and said, "Your dentures." He nodded, and walked out again, probably tailing Caine to make sure he left.
The cop and Caine weren't all that different, in some ways. The cop would have loved to take his stick to Caine's head as much as Caine had wanted to swat mine. They were both damn near equally sensitive about Braddock's missing wife, too. But at least the cop had channeled his inner thug into something that helped out the people around him-as long as he didn't have to run up too many stairs, I guessed.
I turned back to Mac and found him still standing between the kid and the door. Mac nodded his thanks to me. Braddock looked like he might be about to start crying, or maybe start screaming.
"No love lost there, eh?" I said to Braddock.
The kid snarled at the empty space where Caine had been. "Elizabeth embarrassed him once. He doesn't take rejection well, and he never forgets. Do you think he did it?"
"Not really. Mac," I said, "something tipped you off that this was from the spooky side. Lights flicker?"
Mac grunted. "Twice."
Braddock stared at Mac and then at me. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Active magic tends to interfere with electrical systems," I said. "It'll disrupt cell phones, screw up computers. Simpler things, like the lights, usually just flicker a bit."
Braddock had a look somewhere between uncertainty and nausea on his face. "Magic? You're kidding, right?"
"I'm tired of having this conversation," I said. I reached into my pocket for Elizabeth Braddock's fallen hairs. "This joint got a back door?"
Mac pointed silently.
"Thanks," I said. "Come on, Mouse." THE BACK DOOR opened into a long, narrow, dirty alley running parallel to Clark. The wind had picked up, which meant that the cold rain was mostly striking the upper portion of one wall of the alley. Good for me. It's tough to get a solid spell put together under even a moderate rain. When it's really coming down, it's all but impossible, even for a relatively simple working-such as a tracking spell.
I'd done this hundreds of times, and by now it was pretty routine. I found a clear spot of concrete in the lee of the sheltering wall and sketched a quick circle around me with a piece of chalk, investing the motion with a deliberate effort of will.
As I completed the circle, I felt the immediate result-a screen of energy that rose up from the circle, enfolding me and warding out any random energy that might skew the spell. I took off my necklace, a silver chain with a battered old silver pentacle hanging from it, murmuring quietly, and tied several of Elizabeth's hairs through the center of the pentacle. After that, I gathered up my will, feeling the energy focused by the circle into something almost tangible, whispered in faux Latin, and released the gathered magic into the pentacle.
The silver five-pointed star flickered once, a dozen tiny sparks of static electricity fluttering over the metal surface and the hairs bound inside it. I grimaced. I'd been sloppy, to let some of the energy convert itself into static. And I'd been harping on my apprentice about the need for precision for a week.
I broke the circle by smudging the chalk with one foot, and glanced at Mouse, who sat patiently, mouth open in a doggy grin. Mouse had been there for some of those lessons, and he was smarter than the average dog. How much smarter remained to be seen, but I got the distinct impression he was laughing at me.
"It was the rain," I told him.
Mouse sneezed, tail wagging.
I glowered at him. I'm not sure I could take it if my dog was smarter than me.
The falling rain would wash away the spell on the amulet if I left it out in the open, so I shielded it as carefully as I could with the building and my hand. A hat would have come in handy for that purpose, actually. Maybe I should get one.
I held up the amulet, focusing on the spell. It quivered on the end of its chain, then swung toward the far end of the alley, in a sharp, sudden motion.
I drew my hand and the amulet back up into the sleeve of my duster, whistling. "She came right down this alley. And judging by the strength of the reaction, she was scared bad. Left a really big trail."
At that, Mouse made a chuffing sound and started down the alley, snuffling. The end of his short lead, mostly there for appearance's sake, dragged the ground. I kept pace, and by the time Mouse was twenty yards down the alley, he had begun growling low in his throat.
That was an occasion worth a raised eyebrow. Mouse didn't make noise unless there was Something Bad around. He increased his pace, and I lengthened my stride to keep up.
I found myself growling along with him. I'd gotten sick of Bad Things visiting themselves upon people in my town a long time ago.
When we hit the open street, Mouse slowed. Magic wasn't the only thing that a steady rain could screw up. He growled again and looked over his shoulder at me, tail drooping.
"I got your back," I told him. I lifted a section of my long leather duster with my staff, so that I could hold the amulet in the shelter it offered. I looked only moderately ridiculous while doing so.
I'm going to get a hat one of these days. I swear.
The tracking spell held, and the amulet led me down the street, toward Wrigley. The silent stadium loomed in the cold grey rain. Mouse, still snuffling dutifully, abruptly turned down another alley, his steps hurrying to a lope. I propped up my coat and consulted the amulet again.
I was so busy feeling damp and cold and self-conscious that I forgot to feel paranoid, and Caine came out of nowhere and swung something hard at my skull.
I turned my head and twitched sideways at the last second, taking the blow just to one side of the center of my forehead. There was a flash of light, and my legs went wobbly. I had time to watch Caine wind up again and saw that he was swinging a long, white, dirty athletic sock at me. He'd weighted one end with something, creating an improvised flail.
My hips bounced off a municipal trash can, and I got one arm between the flail and my face. The protective spells on my coat are good, but they're intended to protect me against gunfire and sharp, pointy things. The flail smashed into my right forearm. It went numb.
"So what, you steal my keg for Braddock, so his homo-bee cinnamon crap would win the division? I'm gonna take it out of your ass."
And with that pleasant mental image, Caine wound up again with that flail.
He'd made a mistake, though, pausing to get in a little dialogue like that. If he'd hit me again, immediately, he probably could have beaten me unconscious in short order. He hadn't hesitated long-but it had been long enough for me to pull my thoughts together. As he came in swinging, I snapped the lower end of my heavy staff into a rising quarter spin, right into his testicles. The thug's eyes snapped wide-open, and his mouth locked into a silent scream.
It's the little things in life you treasure.
Caine staggered and fell to one side, but one of the Cainettes came in hard behind him and pasted me in the mouth. By itself, I might have shrugged it off, but Caine had already rung my bells once. I went down to one knee and tried to figure out what was going on. Someone with big motorcycle boots kicked me in the guts. I fell to my back and drove a heel into his kneecap. There was a crackle and a pop, and he fell, howling.
The third guy had a tire iron. No time for magic-my damn eyes wouldn't focus, much less my thoughts. By some minor miracle, I caught the first two-handed swing on my staff.
And then two hundred pounds of wet dog slammed into Cainette Number Two's chest. Mouse didn't bite, presumably because there are some things even dogs won't put in their mouths. He just over-bore the thug and smashed him to the ground, pinning him there. The two of them thrashed around.
I got up just as Caine came back in, swinging his flail.
I don't think Caine knew much about quarterstaff fighting. Murphy had been teaching it to me, however, for almost four years. I got th
e staff up as Caine swung and intercepted the sock. The weighted end wrapped around my staff, and I jerked the weapon out of his hands with a sweeping twist. With the same motion, I brought the other end of the staff around and popped him in the noggin.
Caine flopped to the ground.
I stood there panting and leaning on my staff. Hey, I'd won a brawl. That generally didn't happen when I wasn't using magic. Mouse seemed fine, if occupied holding his thug down.
"Jerk," I muttered to the unconscious Caine, and kicked him lightly in the ribs. "I have no idea what happened to your freaking keg."
"Oh my," said a woman's voice from behind me. She spoke perfectly clear English, marked with an accent that sounded vaguely Germanic or maybe Scandinavian. "I have to admit, I didn't expect you'd do that well against them."
I turned slightly, so that I could keep the thugs in my peripheral vision, and shifted my grip on the staff as I faced the speaker.
She was a tall blonde, six feet or so, even in flat, practical shoes. Her tailored grey suit didn't quite hide an athlete's body, nor did it make her look any less feminine. She had ice blue eyes, a stark, attractive face, and she carried a duffel bag in her right hand. I recognized her. She was the supernatural security consultant to John Marcone, the kingpin of Chicago crime.
"Miss Gard, isn't it?" I asked her, panting.
She nodded. "Mr. Dresden."
My arm throbbed and my ears were still ringing. I'd have a lovely goose egg right in the middle of my forehead in an hour. "Glad I could entertain you," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm working."
"I need to speak to you," she said.
"Call during office hours." Caine lay senseless, groaning. The guy I'd kicked in the knee whimpered and rocked mindlessly back and forth. I glared at the thug Mouse had pinned down.
He flinched. There wasn't any fight left in him. Thank God. There wasn't much left in me, either.
"Mouse," I said, and started down the alley.
Mouse rose up off the man, who said, "Oof!" as the dog planted both paws in the man's belly as he pushed up. Mouse followed me.
