by Jim Butcher
I put them all together, plopped Harry down in the middle of it, and gleefully watched as it caught fire.
I was sitting in my office, sorting through my bills, when Mac called and said, “I need your help.” It was the first time I’d heard him use four whole words all together like that.
“Okay,” I said. “Where?” I’d out-tersed him—another first.
“Loon Island Pub,” Mac said. “Wrigleyville.”
“On the way.” I hung up, stood up, put on my black leather duster, and said to my dog, “We’re on the job.”
My dog, Mouse, who outweighs most European cars, bounced up eagerly from where he had been dozing near my office’s single heating vent. He shook out his thick grey fur, especially the shaggy, almost leonine ruff growing heavy on his neck and shoulders, and we set out to help a friend.
October had brought in more rain and more cold than usual, and that day we had both, plus wind. I found parking for my battered old Volkswagen Bug, hunched my shoulders under my leather duster, and walked north along Clark, into the wind, Mouse keeping pace at my side.
Loon Island Pub was in sight of Wrigley Field, and a popular hang-out before and after games. Bigger than most such businesses, it could host several hundred people throughout its various rooms and levels. Outside, large posters had been plastered to the brick siding of the building. Though the posters were soaked with rain, you could still read CHICAGO BEER ASSOCIATION and NIGHT OF THE LIVING BREWS, followed by an announcement of a home-brewed beer festival and competition, with today’s date on it. There was a lot of foot traffic in and out.
“Aha,” I told Mouse. “Explains why Mac is here, instead of at his own place. He’s finally unleashed the new dark on the unsuspecting public.”
Mouse glanced up at me rather reproachfully from under his shaggy brows; then he lowered his head, sighed, and continued plodding against the rain until we gained the pub. Mac was waiting for us at the front door. He was a sinewy, bald man dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt, somewhere between the age of thirty and fifty. He had a very average, unremarkable face, one that usually wore a steady expression of patience and contemplation.
Today, though, that expression was what I could only describe as grim.
I came in out of the rain, and passed off my six-foot oak staff to Mac to hold for me as I shrugged out of my duster. I shook the garment thoroughly, sending raindrops sheeting from it, and promptly put it back on.
Mac runs the pub where the supernatural community of Chicago does most of its hanging out. His place has seen more than its share of paranormal nasties, and if Mac looked that worried, I wanted the spell-reinforced leather of the duster between my tender skin and the source of his concern. I took the staff back from Mac, who nodded to me and then crouched down to Mouse, who had gravely offered a paw to shake. Mac shook, ruffled Mouse’s ears, and said, “Missing girl.”
I nodded, scarcely noticing the odd looks I was getting from several of the people inside. That was par for the course. “What do we know?”
“Husband,” Mac said. He jerked his head at me, and I followed him deeper into the pub. Mouse stayed pressed against my side, his tail wagging in a friendly fashion. I suspected the gesture was an affectation. Mouse is an awful lot of dog, and people get nervous if he doesn’t act overtly friendly.
Mac led me through a couple of rooms where each table and booth had been claimed by a different brewer. Homemade signs bearing a gratuitous number of exclamation points touted the various concoctions, except for the one Mac stopped at. There, a cardstock table tent was neatly lettered, simply reading MCANALLY’S DARK.
At the booth next to Mac’s, a young man, good-looking in a reedy, librarianesque kind of way, was talking to a police officer while wringing his hands.
“But you don’t get it,” the young man said. “She wouldn’t just leave. Not today. We start our honeymoon tonight.”
The cop, a stocky, balding fellow whose nose was perhaps more red than warranted by the weather outside, shook his head. “Sir, I’m sorry, but she’s been gone for what? An hour or two? We don’t even start to look until twenty-four hours have passed.”
“She wouldn’t just leave,” the young man half shouted.
“Look, kid,” the cop said. “It wouldn’t be the first time some guy’s new wife panicked and ran off. You want my advice? Start calling up her old boyfriends.”
“But—”
The cop thumped a finger into the young man’s chest. “Get over it, buddy. Come back in twenty-four hours.” He turned to walk away from the young man and almost bumped into me. He took a step back and scowled up at me. “You want something?”
“Just basking in the glow of your compassion, Officer,” I replied.
His face darkened into a scowl, but before he could take a deep breath and start throwing his weight around, Mac pushed a mug of his dark ale into the cop’s hand. The cop slugged it back immediately. He swished the last gulp around in his mouth, purely for form, and then tossed the mug back at McAnally, belched, and went on his way.
“Mr. McAnally,” the young man said, turning to Mac. “Thank goodness. I still haven’t seen her.” He looked at me. “Is this him?”
Mac nodded.
I stuck out my hand. “Harry Dresden.”
“Roger Braddock,” the anxious young man said. “Someone has abducted my wife.”
He gripped too hard, and his fingers were cold and a little clammy. I wasn’t sure what was going on here, but Braddock was genuinely afraid. “Abducted her? Did you see it happen?”
“Well,” he said, “no. Not really. No one did. But she wouldn’t just walk out. Not today. We got married this morning, and we’re leaving on our honeymoon tonight, soon as the festival is over.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You put your honeymoon on hold to go to a beer festival?”
“I’m opening my own place,” Braddock said. “Mr. McAnally has been giving me advice. Sort of mentoring me. This was . . . I mean, I’ve been here every year, and it’s only once a year, and the prestige from a win is . . . The networking and ...” His voice trailed off as he looked around.
Yeah. The looming specter of sudden loss has a way of making you reevaluate things. Sometimes it’s tough to know what’s really important until you realize it might be gone.
“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 b
eneath 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.
