for Awanderingbard: This Is Madness
Title: This is Madness
Author:
gusthemoose
TV Verse
Characters: Harry Dresden, Connie Murphy, Sid Kirmani
Recipient:
awanderingbard
Request: Murphy, Harry and “that thing at the zoo”.
Word Count: 3,226
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, don’t sue.
Author’s Note: Now this was a great prompt. I had a lot of fun with it. I really hope people enjoy it, especially Bard. Thanks to my beta who has the patience of a saint to put up with me and the crimes I commit against grammar.
---
The P.I. business was not turning out quite like Harry Dresden expected. For awhile, he had imagined femmes fatales and trench coats, but that fantasy had gone up in smoke after a week of helping people find their keys and turning down more offers to perform at parties than he thought an add saying “no entertainment” should get. The one thing that was working out for him was the Chicago PD and Lieutenant Murphy. Though their first cases together had been rocky and she was more than a little suspicious of him, she kept calling him. In Harry’s opinion that was a very good sign and a good source of income. He might be able to make a living of this, after all.
He was curious though as to why the Lieutenant’s most recent call had him show up at the Lincoln Park Zoo, where a crowd of very annoyed tourists and locals stood outside the gates. There was a line of CPD patrol officers, keeping the crowd back, and one haggard-looking zoo official talking to the crowd. Discreetly, Harry moved to the side of the crowd and showed his consultant’s tag to an officer. The uniform didn’t even glance a second time at it before stepping to the side and letting Harry through, directing him towards the west end of the zoo. There was a swell of angry accusations behind him as he made his way in.
Lincoln Park Zoo was the only one within Chicago’s city limits and completely free to the public. Harry tended to avoid it, just in case his magic did something funny to the systems, locks, water filtration, display screens, whatever. He would have to stand clear of the exhibits with the dangerous animals. Once he figured out what the Lieutenant had called him for, he could wrap this up quickly and not cause anything to go kaput. It wasn’t long before another uniform showed up and escorted him through the zoo, hopefully towards Murphy. On the walk there, he realized something was very wrong - there was a giraffe in the swan pond. It didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that it was up to its knees in water - but the two zoo keepers trying to get it on to dry land looked really panicked.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked the uniform.
“Man, no one knows the answer to that.” he stopped and pointed towards the bat house, “The Lieutenant’s in there.”
“Thanks.” Harry quickly ducked inside the building that housed more bats than he was comfortable with. It wasn’t hard to find Murphy. Right in the entrance way there was a gathering of police, crime scene technicians, and the unmistakable form of Lieutenant Murphy. She was short, but her presence instantly commanded your attention and respect. He liked her, when she wasn’t looking at him like a suspect. She was busy talking to another zoo official and it looked like they were arguing. There was the smell of blood in the air too. Harry edged his way along the crowd, trying to get a look at what the techs were all hovering around. The movement got him noticed, though.
“Dresden.” Murphy called. She was annoyed. Harry could tell by her tone. This was going to be something really big and really hard to lie about. She dismissed the official and walked over to him, pulling him back from the scene and out of ear-shot of most of the people.
“What’s going on? I saw a giraffe in the swan pond.” He paused, “and no swans.”
“I’m hoping you can tell me. Since the zoo opened this morning animals have been disappearing and reappearing in the wrong exhibits. One of the bears showed up here and attacked a tourist. No one’s seen anyone actually moving the animals.” She looked up at him, “Your dad made things disappear, right?”
Harry nodded, but his mind was running over the details of what she told him. “Yeah, but he never worked with anything bigger than a rabbit.”
“So? You would know how this could be done, right?” She pressed, glancing at the crowd and the body there.
“Uh, well, sort of.” He hedged and Murphy narrowed her eyes at him. “How’d they disappear? Like, did they just poof disappear? Was there a distraction? Something like this you have to distract your audience, redirect their attention.”
Murphy sighed heavily, “Reports vary. Some witnesses said the animals just vanished, others say they… shimmered before they faded out of sight. Some even heard “maniacal laughter” before the animals vanished or appeared.”
If he was a lesser man, all the color would have drained from Harry’s face. As it was, he managed to just grimace. Now he had an idea of what was going on here - and he really didn’t like it. This was something he was not prepared for. When was he ever prepared for anything, though?
“What are you thinking?” Murphy asked. She could read him like a book, which he should expect from a cop. Especially a good cop like Murphy.
“You won’t like it.” He cautioned, shifting nervously. She always got defensive when he started talking about magic. It was the biggest sore spot in their relationship.
“I never do. Tell me any way.”
He sighed and ducked down, lowering his voice so she was the only one who’d hear what he was going to say. “I think you have a Fae here. They like to play pranks and cause chaos, which moving a bunch of animals around would do in a zoo. It’s probably a really powerful one too.”
Murphy, as he expected, rolled her eyes, “Is this because of some magicians’ code? I have to take an oath before you can tell me what’s going on?”
“No, really, Murphy, to pull something like this off with stage magic would require hours, maybe even days, of set-up and people would notice.” He pressed, “The only thing that can do this is real magic and something very powerful. And probably very mean.”
Murphy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She wasn’t going to yell at him this time, which Harry took as a good sign. “Dresden, if you don’t have anything helpful to tell me, you can go home.”
He ducked his head for a moment. He really felt bad for Murphy. She was dealing with something she couldn’t understand or believe, and that was frustrating for her. It wasn’t like he could tell her magic was real, though. Both of them would get in trouble for that. He wanted to help her, he liked her. She treated him fairly and with respect. He didn’t get that a lot.
“Can we go to one of the exhibits? One with cats,” He said, having an idea, “Let’s go to the big cats one. They’ve gone missing right?”
She gave him a weird look and then sighed. “Kirmani!” she called as she turned her back to him, “I’m taking Dresden to examine one of the scenes. Stay with the body.”
“You got it, boss.” Now, Detective Kirmani didn’t bother to hide his annoyance with Harry. The look he shot his way would have intimidated a lesser man. Harry, being the self-confident soul he was, just returned the look with equal annoyance and dislike.
“Let’s go.” Murphy started off without him and Harry had to take a few quick steps to catch up. Once they were outside, Harry had to glance back towards the giraffe and the poor keepers in charge of rescuing it. They had managed to lure it up on the land with what looked like carrots and were now trying to get it loaded up on to a truck with very tall sides. The kid in Harry was fascinated by the whole thing.
“Dresden,” Murphy said, bringing his attention back to the woman at his side. “This “fae” thing, that’s what? A spirit or ghost or something?”
He was surprised she asked. Normally Murphy just ignored what he said about magic and tried to get him to talk about normal ways of killing people. “Uh, well, not really. Fae is the old name for fairies.”
One of Murphy’s eyebrows shot up, “Like Tinkerbell?”
“No,” but that made him smile, “More like the old fairy tales fairies, luring people into their realm where they spend a night and fifty years have gone by when they emerge. There’s a type in Russia mostly, called Leshy, they get hikers lost in their woods and then make deals with them to get them out. Fae really like making deals.”
Murphy grimaced, “It’s superstition.”
He shrugged, “Lots of superstitions have bases in facts, you know.”
Murphy snorted and they lapsed into silence. The big cats’ house wasn’t far from the bat building and contained a very large collection of big cats from all over the world. It was a big brick building, almost barn-like. The exhibits were on either side of a long aisle that stretched the entire length of the building. There were no cats in the exhibit this time though. The cages had zebras, a collection of brightly-colored birds, and some monkeys. The place echoed like a tomb and the din was almost unbearable. It was the perfect place for a trickster Fae to hide.
“What are you looking for?” Murphy yelled over the noise.
“I’ll let you know when I find it!” Harry yelled back, “You’re going to want to stay behind me.” Even with the noise he knew Murphy had snorted at that, but she did keep a step behind. Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. He was trying to enter a trance state, to open his Sight, but the noise was making the act harder than usual. He hadn’t spent much time working on his Sight. Using it was a terrifying experience at times and he didn’t like it, but to stop this, he would need it.
After a few more deep breaths, he felt the subtle shift in his awareness and opened his eyes to a whole new world. The zoo and the animals were transformed into entirely different animals. The zebras were wilder looking, with monstrous hooves and longer manes that blew about in a wind he couldn’t feel. The parrots were a massive collection of bright colors, shifting all the time and glowing like a neon sign. It was all very pretty but it wasn’t what he was interested in.
He started to look over the building, checking the highest places first. This Fae did like the high places best, where it could watch its handiwork. Perched way up on a light was a dark purple cat with its head tilted at an unnatural angle. Just as Harry spotted it, it dissolved from his Sight. It wasn’t gone long; this Fae liked to interact with people. It reappeared in front of him, head still titled awkwardly.
“Hello, wizard.” The Cheshire Cat said, sitting down in front of him. “Are you mad?”
Harry glanced at Murphy, who exploded under his Sight in bright white and gold. He was stunned for a moment to see her like this, as an angel.
She raised an eyebrow at him, “What?”
“Nothing.” He said, snapping himself out of his stunned reverie. “Can you find the big cat keeper? I need to see behind the exhibits.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She’d caught that he was lying to her. He really had to work on that, but she sighed and jerked her head at the door. “I’ll see if I can get him on the radio. Don’t go anywhere, Dresden, you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am.” He smiled - he thought - charmingly and watched her walk out. There was something about Murphy with a pair of angel’s wings that he found oddly appropriate. He couldn’t stare all day though. He forced his attention back to the Cheshire Cat. It was not an overweight house cat like artists depicted it, but it was purple. The real Fae Cheshire Cat was built like a cheetah, long and lean with a deep chest and very long tail. It had the facial features of a lynx, though, and the small mane of an adolescent lion. The base coat was a deep purple, the kind of purple you only saw in summer sunsets. It had strange spots that were actually very small swirls of what looked like black but was really dark blue. The Cat’s eyes were a rich orange color with the traditional feline pupils. It also had a very human smirk in place as it gazed up at him with its head cocked at an extreme angle.
“I’ve made her radio malfunction.” The Cat said in a lazy drawl, “She won’t be able to find who she seeks. We will have our privacy. You haven’t answered my question. Are you mad, wizard?”
“Probably.” Harry muttered. He’d read an account long ago of a wizard who had tried to outwit the Cheshire Cat. That wizard had gone mad in the process. Harry didn’t have the wits to take on the double-talking Cat himself, but he had to get it to leave the zoo alone.
“Probably, yes, probably.” The Cat rose on its dainty legs and started to circle Harry. “Should be mad, everyone thinks you are. Might as well oblige them.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
The Cat chuckled, though it was more of a rumbling purr. “On what, wizard? There is nothing for you to get on. After all, you’re probably mad. Very mad.”
“Actually, I think I’m the only sane one. Everyone else here is mad.” Harry said, trying to go for a metaphor. He remembered from what he read that the Cat liked metaphors and speaking in riddles. If he had known what he was up against, he would have brought Bob. Bob was good at this backwards-talking, double-talk stuff.
“Yes, yes, everyone here is mad.” The Cat bobbed its head in a nod. It circled closer to Harry and brushed its tail over his legs. The Cat was wyldfae, with no loyalty to either the Summer or Winter courts. Its touch brought the sensation of temperate storm, could be either spring or fall. Harry wanted to step away, but then the Cat would know he was bothered by its touch and use it to its advantage. “Such madness in this place and without.”
“You caused the madness.”
The Cat raised an eyebrow and cocked its head to the other side, “You think I caused the madness? How can I when they were mad the moment they walked through the gates of this place?”
Harry must have been too direct with that last statement. He scrambled, trying to think of something vague and clever to say. Think like a fortune cookie writer! he told himself. “If they were mad when they walked in, you were here before them. You were here for a long time.”
“I am always here.”
Harry resisted the urge to rub his hands over his face or pinch the bridge of his nose like Murphy did when she got frustrated. “Okay, look, I don’t have time for this game. What will it take to get you to leave?”
The Cat had circled even closer and brushed against the back of Harry’s legs with its side. “Why should I leave? All are welcome here, especially animals.”
“Because you killed someone.”
“I have killed no one.” The Cat now came around the front, rubbing its head against Harry’s legs like it was an overgrown house cat.
“You did. A tourist is dead because of you.”
“Really? I thought the bear killed them.” Harry resisted breathing a sigh of relief when the Cat sat down in front of him again.
“Yes, but you’re the one who let the bear loose. It’s your fault. Their death is on your… paws.” Harry shook his head, “Look, you need to leave or else.”
The Cat laughed at that, “Oh, wizard, would you like to see where I put the lions? They are quite hungry as they missed their morning feeding. You might keep them sated for the rest of the day.”
Harry gulped, but pushed forward. “There’s iron everywhere in this zoo. You want to see madness, go try and touch it.”
The Cat considered him for a moment, the grin and disconcerting stare making Harry fidget slightly. He didn’t like it when the grin got wider, “Perhaps you are mad. You are fully aware of my power and yet you still threaten me. This is madness, is it not?”
“Yes it is. Now put everything back before I prove to you how crazy I am.” Harry said with all the false bravado he could muster. The only iron he had on him was a pocket full of iron nails that he always carried with him. He didn’t think those would be anything but a minor annoyance to the Cheshire Cat, who was right up there with the higher levels of the Fae courts. He was in serious trouble. He didn’t even have his hockey stick with him and his drum stick wouldn’t have enough fire power if he actually had to take on the Cat.
But the Cat laughed again, “Oh, I like you wizard. I will fix all that is wrong if you give me your Name.”
“No.” Harry said automatically.
The Cat pouted, “No? But you want this fixed, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m not giving a wyldfae power over me.” There was no way Harry was giving up his Name to the Cat. If the Cat had his name, he’d become its personal slave. The Cat could summon him at any time - and control him. It could even sell his name to other Fae and then Harry would never be free of the Courts. He wanted to stay as far from the Fae world as much as possible. “What else do you want?”
“Give me her Name.” The Cat demanded, its tail twitching back and forth in irritation.
“Murphy’s?” Harry gapped, then glared hard, “Never.”
“Murphy.” The Cat repeated with patience and care. Harry swallowed. Whoops. He’d given the Cat part of Murphy’s name without meaning to. If it got the rest, it would get Murphy. The grin got bigger and the Cat spoke again with the same care and patience, “Dresden.”
A shudder went through Harry. Crap! The Cat had gotten part of Murphy’s Name from him and part of his Name from Murphy. The Cat had set it up perfectly. He should have been more careful and warned Murphy not to use his name. Again, crap.
“We will meet again, wizard Dresden. We most certainly will and then I will show you true madness.” The Cheshire vanished, the last part to disappear its grin. When it was gone, there was a massive pop of magical energy and the wrong animals vanished from the cages, replaced by the right ones. Harry let out a long sigh and closed himself from the Sight. He was dizzy when he opened his eyes and dropped heavily onto a bench. He found a male lion staring at him with its head cocked much like the Cheshire Cat’s.
“Could you not do that, please?” He asked, “I’ve had enough of curiosity and cats for today.”
Author:
gusthemoose
TV Verse
Characters: Harry Dresden, Connie Murphy, Sid Kirmani
Recipient:
awanderingbard
Request: Murphy, Harry and “that thing at the zoo”.
Word Count: 3,226
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, don’t sue.
Author’s Note: Now this was a great prompt. I had a lot of fun with it. I really hope people enjoy it, especially Bard. Thanks to my beta who has the patience of a saint to put up with me and the crimes I commit against grammar.
---
The P.I. business was not turning out quite like Harry Dresden expected. For awhile, he had imagined femmes fatales and trench coats, but that fantasy had gone up in smoke after a week of helping people find their keys and turning down more offers to perform at parties than he thought an add saying “no entertainment” should get. The one thing that was working out for him was the Chicago PD and Lieutenant Murphy. Though their first cases together had been rocky and she was more than a little suspicious of him, she kept calling him. In Harry’s opinion that was a very good sign and a good source of income. He might be able to make a living of this, after all.
He was curious though as to why the Lieutenant’s most recent call had him show up at the Lincoln Park Zoo, where a crowd of very annoyed tourists and locals stood outside the gates. There was a line of CPD patrol officers, keeping the crowd back, and one haggard-looking zoo official talking to the crowd. Discreetly, Harry moved to the side of the crowd and showed his consultant’s tag to an officer. The uniform didn’t even glance a second time at it before stepping to the side and letting Harry through, directing him towards the west end of the zoo. There was a swell of angry accusations behind him as he made his way in.
Lincoln Park Zoo was the only one within Chicago’s city limits and completely free to the public. Harry tended to avoid it, just in case his magic did something funny to the systems, locks, water filtration, display screens, whatever. He would have to stand clear of the exhibits with the dangerous animals. Once he figured out what the Lieutenant had called him for, he could wrap this up quickly and not cause anything to go kaput. It wasn’t long before another uniform showed up and escorted him through the zoo, hopefully towards Murphy. On the walk there, he realized something was very wrong - there was a giraffe in the swan pond. It didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that it was up to its knees in water - but the two zoo keepers trying to get it on to dry land looked really panicked.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked the uniform.
“Man, no one knows the answer to that.” he stopped and pointed towards the bat house, “The Lieutenant’s in there.”
“Thanks.” Harry quickly ducked inside the building that housed more bats than he was comfortable with. It wasn’t hard to find Murphy. Right in the entrance way there was a gathering of police, crime scene technicians, and the unmistakable form of Lieutenant Murphy. She was short, but her presence instantly commanded your attention and respect. He liked her, when she wasn’t looking at him like a suspect. She was busy talking to another zoo official and it looked like they were arguing. There was the smell of blood in the air too. Harry edged his way along the crowd, trying to get a look at what the techs were all hovering around. The movement got him noticed, though.
“Dresden.” Murphy called. She was annoyed. Harry could tell by her tone. This was going to be something really big and really hard to lie about. She dismissed the official and walked over to him, pulling him back from the scene and out of ear-shot of most of the people.
“What’s going on? I saw a giraffe in the swan pond.” He paused, “and no swans.”
“I’m hoping you can tell me. Since the zoo opened this morning animals have been disappearing and reappearing in the wrong exhibits. One of the bears showed up here and attacked a tourist. No one’s seen anyone actually moving the animals.” She looked up at him, “Your dad made things disappear, right?”
Harry nodded, but his mind was running over the details of what she told him. “Yeah, but he never worked with anything bigger than a rabbit.”
“So? You would know how this could be done, right?” She pressed, glancing at the crowd and the body there.
“Uh, well, sort of.” He hedged and Murphy narrowed her eyes at him. “How’d they disappear? Like, did they just poof disappear? Was there a distraction? Something like this you have to distract your audience, redirect their attention.”
Murphy sighed heavily, “Reports vary. Some witnesses said the animals just vanished, others say they… shimmered before they faded out of sight. Some even heard “maniacal laughter” before the animals vanished or appeared.”
If he was a lesser man, all the color would have drained from Harry’s face. As it was, he managed to just grimace. Now he had an idea of what was going on here - and he really didn’t like it. This was something he was not prepared for. When was he ever prepared for anything, though?
“What are you thinking?” Murphy asked. She could read him like a book, which he should expect from a cop. Especially a good cop like Murphy.
“You won’t like it.” He cautioned, shifting nervously. She always got defensive when he started talking about magic. It was the biggest sore spot in their relationship.
“I never do. Tell me any way.”
He sighed and ducked down, lowering his voice so she was the only one who’d hear what he was going to say. “I think you have a Fae here. They like to play pranks and cause chaos, which moving a bunch of animals around would do in a zoo. It’s probably a really powerful one too.”
Murphy, as he expected, rolled her eyes, “Is this because of some magicians’ code? I have to take an oath before you can tell me what’s going on?”
“No, really, Murphy, to pull something like this off with stage magic would require hours, maybe even days, of set-up and people would notice.” He pressed, “The only thing that can do this is real magic and something very powerful. And probably very mean.”
Murphy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She wasn’t going to yell at him this time, which Harry took as a good sign. “Dresden, if you don’t have anything helpful to tell me, you can go home.”
He ducked his head for a moment. He really felt bad for Murphy. She was dealing with something she couldn’t understand or believe, and that was frustrating for her. It wasn’t like he could tell her magic was real, though. Both of them would get in trouble for that. He wanted to help her, he liked her. She treated him fairly and with respect. He didn’t get that a lot.
“Can we go to one of the exhibits? One with cats,” He said, having an idea, “Let’s go to the big cats one. They’ve gone missing right?”
She gave him a weird look and then sighed. “Kirmani!” she called as she turned her back to him, “I’m taking Dresden to examine one of the scenes. Stay with the body.”
“You got it, boss.” Now, Detective Kirmani didn’t bother to hide his annoyance with Harry. The look he shot his way would have intimidated a lesser man. Harry, being the self-confident soul he was, just returned the look with equal annoyance and dislike.
“Let’s go.” Murphy started off without him and Harry had to take a few quick steps to catch up. Once they were outside, Harry had to glance back towards the giraffe and the poor keepers in charge of rescuing it. They had managed to lure it up on the land with what looked like carrots and were now trying to get it loaded up on to a truck with very tall sides. The kid in Harry was fascinated by the whole thing.
“Dresden,” Murphy said, bringing his attention back to the woman at his side. “This “fae” thing, that’s what? A spirit or ghost or something?”
He was surprised she asked. Normally Murphy just ignored what he said about magic and tried to get him to talk about normal ways of killing people. “Uh, well, not really. Fae is the old name for fairies.”
One of Murphy’s eyebrows shot up, “Like Tinkerbell?”
“No,” but that made him smile, “More like the old fairy tales fairies, luring people into their realm where they spend a night and fifty years have gone by when they emerge. There’s a type in Russia mostly, called Leshy, they get hikers lost in their woods and then make deals with them to get them out. Fae really like making deals.”
Murphy grimaced, “It’s superstition.”
He shrugged, “Lots of superstitions have bases in facts, you know.”
Murphy snorted and they lapsed into silence. The big cats’ house wasn’t far from the bat building and contained a very large collection of big cats from all over the world. It was a big brick building, almost barn-like. The exhibits were on either side of a long aisle that stretched the entire length of the building. There were no cats in the exhibit this time though. The cages had zebras, a collection of brightly-colored birds, and some monkeys. The place echoed like a tomb and the din was almost unbearable. It was the perfect place for a trickster Fae to hide.
“What are you looking for?” Murphy yelled over the noise.
“I’ll let you know when I find it!” Harry yelled back, “You’re going to want to stay behind me.” Even with the noise he knew Murphy had snorted at that, but she did keep a step behind. Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. He was trying to enter a trance state, to open his Sight, but the noise was making the act harder than usual. He hadn’t spent much time working on his Sight. Using it was a terrifying experience at times and he didn’t like it, but to stop this, he would need it.
After a few more deep breaths, he felt the subtle shift in his awareness and opened his eyes to a whole new world. The zoo and the animals were transformed into entirely different animals. The zebras were wilder looking, with monstrous hooves and longer manes that blew about in a wind he couldn’t feel. The parrots were a massive collection of bright colors, shifting all the time and glowing like a neon sign. It was all very pretty but it wasn’t what he was interested in.
He started to look over the building, checking the highest places first. This Fae did like the high places best, where it could watch its handiwork. Perched way up on a light was a dark purple cat with its head tilted at an unnatural angle. Just as Harry spotted it, it dissolved from his Sight. It wasn’t gone long; this Fae liked to interact with people. It reappeared in front of him, head still titled awkwardly.
“Hello, wizard.” The Cheshire Cat said, sitting down in front of him. “Are you mad?”
Harry glanced at Murphy, who exploded under his Sight in bright white and gold. He was stunned for a moment to see her like this, as an angel.
She raised an eyebrow at him, “What?”
“Nothing.” He said, snapping himself out of his stunned reverie. “Can you find the big cat keeper? I need to see behind the exhibits.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She’d caught that he was lying to her. He really had to work on that, but she sighed and jerked her head at the door. “I’ll see if I can get him on the radio. Don’t go anywhere, Dresden, you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am.” He smiled - he thought - charmingly and watched her walk out. There was something about Murphy with a pair of angel’s wings that he found oddly appropriate. He couldn’t stare all day though. He forced his attention back to the Cheshire Cat. It was not an overweight house cat like artists depicted it, but it was purple. The real Fae Cheshire Cat was built like a cheetah, long and lean with a deep chest and very long tail. It had the facial features of a lynx, though, and the small mane of an adolescent lion. The base coat was a deep purple, the kind of purple you only saw in summer sunsets. It had strange spots that were actually very small swirls of what looked like black but was really dark blue. The Cat’s eyes were a rich orange color with the traditional feline pupils. It also had a very human smirk in place as it gazed up at him with its head cocked at an extreme angle.
“I’ve made her radio malfunction.” The Cat said in a lazy drawl, “She won’t be able to find who she seeks. We will have our privacy. You haven’t answered my question. Are you mad, wizard?”
“Probably.” Harry muttered. He’d read an account long ago of a wizard who had tried to outwit the Cheshire Cat. That wizard had gone mad in the process. Harry didn’t have the wits to take on the double-talking Cat himself, but he had to get it to leave the zoo alone.
“Probably, yes, probably.” The Cat rose on its dainty legs and started to circle Harry. “Should be mad, everyone thinks you are. Might as well oblige them.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
The Cat chuckled, though it was more of a rumbling purr. “On what, wizard? There is nothing for you to get on. After all, you’re probably mad. Very mad.”
“Actually, I think I’m the only sane one. Everyone else here is mad.” Harry said, trying to go for a metaphor. He remembered from what he read that the Cat liked metaphors and speaking in riddles. If he had known what he was up against, he would have brought Bob. Bob was good at this backwards-talking, double-talk stuff.
“Yes, yes, everyone here is mad.” The Cat bobbed its head in a nod. It circled closer to Harry and brushed its tail over his legs. The Cat was wyldfae, with no loyalty to either the Summer or Winter courts. Its touch brought the sensation of temperate storm, could be either spring or fall. Harry wanted to step away, but then the Cat would know he was bothered by its touch and use it to its advantage. “Such madness in this place and without.”
“You caused the madness.”
The Cat raised an eyebrow and cocked its head to the other side, “You think I caused the madness? How can I when they were mad the moment they walked through the gates of this place?”
Harry must have been too direct with that last statement. He scrambled, trying to think of something vague and clever to say. Think like a fortune cookie writer! he told himself. “If they were mad when they walked in, you were here before them. You were here for a long time.”
“I am always here.”
Harry resisted the urge to rub his hands over his face or pinch the bridge of his nose like Murphy did when she got frustrated. “Okay, look, I don’t have time for this game. What will it take to get you to leave?”
The Cat had circled even closer and brushed against the back of Harry’s legs with its side. “Why should I leave? All are welcome here, especially animals.”
“Because you killed someone.”
“I have killed no one.” The Cat now came around the front, rubbing its head against Harry’s legs like it was an overgrown house cat.
“You did. A tourist is dead because of you.”
“Really? I thought the bear killed them.” Harry resisted breathing a sigh of relief when the Cat sat down in front of him again.
“Yes, but you’re the one who let the bear loose. It’s your fault. Their death is on your… paws.” Harry shook his head, “Look, you need to leave or else.”
The Cat laughed at that, “Oh, wizard, would you like to see where I put the lions? They are quite hungry as they missed their morning feeding. You might keep them sated for the rest of the day.”
Harry gulped, but pushed forward. “There’s iron everywhere in this zoo. You want to see madness, go try and touch it.”
The Cat considered him for a moment, the grin and disconcerting stare making Harry fidget slightly. He didn’t like it when the grin got wider, “Perhaps you are mad. You are fully aware of my power and yet you still threaten me. This is madness, is it not?”
“Yes it is. Now put everything back before I prove to you how crazy I am.” Harry said with all the false bravado he could muster. The only iron he had on him was a pocket full of iron nails that he always carried with him. He didn’t think those would be anything but a minor annoyance to the Cheshire Cat, who was right up there with the higher levels of the Fae courts. He was in serious trouble. He didn’t even have his hockey stick with him and his drum stick wouldn’t have enough fire power if he actually had to take on the Cat.
But the Cat laughed again, “Oh, I like you wizard. I will fix all that is wrong if you give me your Name.”
“No.” Harry said automatically.
The Cat pouted, “No? But you want this fixed, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m not giving a wyldfae power over me.” There was no way Harry was giving up his Name to the Cat. If the Cat had his name, he’d become its personal slave. The Cat could summon him at any time - and control him. It could even sell his name to other Fae and then Harry would never be free of the Courts. He wanted to stay as far from the Fae world as much as possible. “What else do you want?”
“Give me her Name.” The Cat demanded, its tail twitching back and forth in irritation.
“Murphy’s?” Harry gapped, then glared hard, “Never.”
“Murphy.” The Cat repeated with patience and care. Harry swallowed. Whoops. He’d given the Cat part of Murphy’s name without meaning to. If it got the rest, it would get Murphy. The grin got bigger and the Cat spoke again with the same care and patience, “Dresden.”
A shudder went through Harry. Crap! The Cat had gotten part of Murphy’s Name from him and part of his Name from Murphy. The Cat had set it up perfectly. He should have been more careful and warned Murphy not to use his name. Again, crap.
“We will meet again, wizard Dresden. We most certainly will and then I will show you true madness.” The Cheshire vanished, the last part to disappear its grin. When it was gone, there was a massive pop of magical energy and the wrong animals vanished from the cages, replaced by the right ones. Harry let out a long sigh and closed himself from the Sight. He was dizzy when he opened his eyes and dropped heavily onto a bench. He found a male lion staring at him with its head cocked much like the Cheshire Cat’s.
“Could you not do that, please?” He asked, “I’ve had enough of curiosity and cats for today.”