Fic: Best of All Possible Worlds; Harry Dresden; #42 Demon
Title: The Best of All Possible Worlds
Chapter Title: Chapter 5 -- Tracking Evil. Chapter 1 is here; Chapter 2 is here; Chapter 3 is here; Chapter 4 is here; Chapter 6 is here; Chapter 7 is here; Chapter 8 is here.
Fandom: TV-verse and book-verse
Characters: Harry, John Marcone
Prompt: #42 Demon
Word Count: 3126
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry gets his heart's desire, and something he'd rather not have along with it.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files most emphatically do NOT belong to me. The series belongs to Jim Butcher, ROC Books, the SciFi Channel and Lionsgate Entertainment. No profit is being made, nor is any copyright or trademark infringement intended.
Table: Conjure at Your Own Risk
***
Marcone drove through the streets of Chicago, effortlessly combining speed, efficiency and control. I would have found it relaxing if Murphy's life hadn't been at stake. As it was, I was fighting to keep myself from throwing up as I probed the world around me for the magical spoor of something that didn't belong here.
Other than me, that is.
Nothing was overtly wrong, so far as I could sense with my magic. Instinct, however, was screaming something very different. It was like gazing at the ocean on a mild and sunny day. Everything looked fine-until you saw a ripple zooming toward you. Common sense, as well as your senses, told you that the ripple could be caused by a branch, a fish or a snarl of seaweed. The hindbrain screamed "SHARK!"
Right now, I wanted nothing more than to get everybody out of the water.
Try to focus, Harry. Think of a spell or ritual that will stop the demon. There has to be something...
"What did the ghost tell you?"
Damn it, I did not need to have my train of thought interrupted. "That's not important. Just drive."
"Oh, I think it is important, Mr. Dresden." To my horror, he began to slow down.
"Hell's bells--!" I made a grab for the steering wheel. He sharply jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow and kept driving as if he were out for a Sunday afternoon in the country.
I glared at him. "We haven't got time for this kind of crap. Murphy could be dying. She doesn't know how to handle the supernatural."
The son of a bitch laughed. "What do you think Murphy and I do for a living, Dresden? She may not be magical, but she can handle anything supernatural that life throws at her, believe me."
"Except me."
"She survived what you did. That counts. Now. Tell me what the ghost remembered, Dresden. I can't operate in a vacuum."
I stared out of the tinted windows, searching for any sign of the demon. "The girl had second sight-just enough to scare her. The boy had powerful magic; he might have had the girl in thrall. He kept looking for ways to expand his power, and unfortunately he was drawn to the black--"
"If he mentally enslaved his girlfriend, there's little doubt of that." He turned a corner. "He summoned the demon, then."
"No," I said bitterly. "I did. They came to me for help-well, the boy did. I guess he figured that if he wanted to learn about black magic he should go to the most powerful dark wizard out there. I gave them the name of a demon, and instructions on how to summon him. And then after they left, I summoned the demon myself. I got their powers. He got their souls." I broke off there. If I said another word, I was going to be violently sick.
He gave me a peculiar look. "The ghost remembered that you summoned the demon after she and her boyfriend left?"
It took me a second to understand. Once I did, I considered banging my head against the dashboard. "How did I miss that?"
"Because, aside from the illogic, it was plausible?" He pulled over and stopped the car. "So. Do you see any point in going on to the station?"
"Unfortunately, yes." I bit my lip. "It might be a trap, yes. But it might not. The demon might be waiting to strike--"
"If there is a demon."
"Huh?" I wasn't feeling particularly bright.
"Think, Dresden," he said in exasperation. "Someone or something wanted you to feel guilty and to run straight into danger. He, she or it created a story that you'd buy emotionally. That was the point. There could be a demon involved, yes. But there doesn't have to be."
I shook my head. "Grace's ghost was telling the truth, at least as far as she knew it."
"And no one could order her to lie?"
That stirred a memory-something about a ghost with no will of its own, compelled to obey whoever possessed it, for good or for evil. For a moment, I was puzzled. How could anyone enslave a ghost?
"I'll take that odd expression on your face as a yes," Marcone murmured. "Leave that for the moment. What's the first thing you remember? Really remember, not remember only if you force yourself to do so?"
Instinctively I didn't want to tell him. The idea, for some reason, was repugnant. "It's not important."
"Yes, it damned well is important!" he snapped. "Are you that different in your world? Do you habitually run away from facts because they might be unpleasant?"
It took every ounce of effort not to deck him. Instead I favored him with a poisonously sweet smile. "Gee, I don't know. Do you habitually insult wizards who could turn you into barbecue?"
He laughed, and there was both mockery and humor in that laughter. "Oh, Mister Dresden. All the time."
I couldn't quite suppress a grin at that. "Damn it, will you stop sounding so much like me?"
I expected him to taunt me about that, but instead, the smile vanished from his face like an image from an Etch-A-Sketch. When he spoke, his voice had lost much of its polish and at least three social classes. "If I sound like you do...am I you, in your world? Am I Harry Morningway?"
"Oh, sure. You're terrifying--"
Then I noticed his eyes. Bright, fierce...and frightened. The eyes of a tiger that's scented a predator that could destroy him with one blow. He would fight; it was his best chance of surviving. But in his bones, he was afraid.
I barely glanced away in time.
"No," I replied, feeling a stab of guilt. "That's not true. There's no Harry Morningway in my world. At least I don't think there is. His personality isn't familiar. And I don't know what you're like in my world. I've never met you."
The tension completely failed to drain from him. "I might not even exist in your world."
"Marcone, there are trillions of people in my world that I've never even met."
That didn't seem to reassure him. I expected him to continue the conversation. Instead, he all but physically forced the subject away, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded flat and ironed-out. "Do you recall your first memory yet?"
"Yes. I said, 'Da-da.'"
"Oh," he gibed. "A recent memory, then. How recent is that memory, Dresden? A week? A day?"
"Not even that far," I said, sobering quickly. "The first thing I remember is waking up this morning in my lab. And Morgan was banging on my door."
"Why?"
"Can't you guess?"
"Yes, but I might be wrong. I'd prefer to learn the facts, rather than assume that I know them already."
With a few pithy sentences-all right, more than a few--I told him about the conversation between Morgan and me regarding the murders at Le Colonial, Morgan's rage at the mention of Ancient Mai, and the senseless slaughter of a teenage girl. I could almost feel him drawing away as I spoke of her.
"You killed somebody's little girl?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I did." There wasn't much point in denying it. I felt that the other me had been in charge...but wasn't that what every criminal said? That it wasn't them committing the crime, but some darker side of them?
I was grateful that a street lamp nearby was casting heavy shadows over his face. I didn't want to have to see his expression.
I wasn't expecting Marcone to reach out, grip my jaw with one hand, forcibly turn my face toward the street lamp's light and stare me in the eyes.
I tried to turn my head away, but he was holding my face too tightly. I would have closed my eyes next, but by that time the soulgaze had already begun.
Marcone wasn't the kind of person I would have expected to be working with Murphy, because Murphy was and will always be a paladin, striving to save lives and souls because it's the right thing to do. Not Marcone. Practicality was what ruled him, not morality. He would do exactly what he had to do to solve a case or stop a bad guy, supernatural or otherwise-and if that happened to involve pain or killing, that was neither a pleasure nor a burden, but merely the cost of doing business. He was a coolly efficient fighter, and his mind was just one more weapon.
And he hated Harry Justin Morningway with a cold and deadly fury. The hatred was coupled with bitter shame. I couldn't see what had caused either, but I knew the hatred and shame were there, lurking in the shadows of his mind. Whatever the cause of both was, it had made him change sides...though not his nature.
It's not a pleasant thing to surface from a soulgaze and realize that the man beside you could kill you without a second thought, just because of who you are. I shivered.
He gave me a probing look, as if he could read my mind. "You're not Morningway," he said, in a get-over-yourself-you-know-this tone. If he'd been nice and reassuring, I'd have been scared. As it as, I felt dumb but relieved. And I'll take feeling dumb but alive over reassured but soon-to-be-dead anytime.
"How do you know?" I demanded, wondering why I couldn't just leave well enough alone.
He grimaced. "I've soulgazed him. It's not one of my more pleasant memories."
Enough people have turned white after seeing my soul to make me ask him. "Is there any difference?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"You're still human."
Well. That shut me up. He pulled out into traffic again, and I went back to trying to track the demon. And whoever was in control of it. If someone was.
The problem was, I didn't know who specifically would want to kill me in this universe. Well, aside from everybody.
I didn't want to ask Marcone his opinion. But he was the only option I had left. So, reluctantly, I asked.
"You? Murphy. Rawlins. Possibly myself. After all, we've met you. Who'd want to kill the other one..." He considered the question carefully. "Aside from everyone he's ever wronged? I'd put my money on Hrothbert of Bainbridge."
The name rang a faint but distinct bell. "I...that seems...I think I've heard of him," I said lamely.
He snorted in evident disbelief. "'You think'? Do us both a favor, Mister Dresden...don't think. Tell me what you feel to be true instead. Thinking does nothing but get you into trouble."
I was just opening my mouth to blister him with my devastating wit when I sensed the demon.
I'd been expecting something low-level, mainly because that was about what I was used to dealing with when I dealt with demons at all. I tried not to. Low-level was plenty bad, as far as I was concerned. Low-level demons are the infantry of Hell. Intimidation, terror, death...those things they're good at. Subtle, they're not. The upper-level ones are good at subtle. They're perfectly reasonable, intelligent and charming...until the moment that they've got you where they want you, and don't have to be reasonable or charming anymore.
This demon wasn't anything that I'd run into during my daily grind-though I had no way of knowing what Harry Morningway's daily grind consisted of. I did know that the creature was unimaginably old by human standards, powerful and, unless I missed my guess, pissed off.
We weren't anywhere near Murphy's police station, but the demon was close. So much for my theory about where it was going to strike next. That meant that I had to develop another theory in a hurry, or it was going to start doing things that would make the murders at Le Colonial look like a mother's kiss. And if anyone suffered then, it was going to be my fault.
I tapped Marcone on the shoulder. "Stop here. The demon's nearby."
Marcone shot me a curious look-and immediately started slowing down. Thank God he wasn't the argumentative sort. He only said one word after parking--"Where?"
I got out of the car and looked around. A tracking spell was out. I didn't have anything to track the demon with. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the demonic magic. As unpleasant as that was, it beat using wizard's Sight. I really didn't want to have to do that. I wasn't sure a human mind could tolerate seeing a demon as it truly was.
No good. The magic was doing that whole "coming from everywhere and nowhere" thing that a lot of practitioners-not only humans--enjoy using so much. Very helpful if you use it in battle yourself. Hellaciously annoying if you're on the receiving end. And yes, pun very much intended.
There was no alternative-not if I wanted to keep a whole bunch of people, including Murphy, from dying in the next few minutes. Sighing, I focused and opened my Sight, hoping that I'd see the demon's trail, not the demon.
Seeing what was really there was-as usual-unpleasant. The normal night sky of the city, bleached of starlight by a thousand neon signs, filled with roiling, blood-tinged clouds that were bloated with power. A clammy, scummy black mist clung to buildings, benches and buses. The streets and sidewalks in this area were splattered with some sort of glistening greenish semi-fluid that looked half acidic and half venomous. Even though no one who wasn't magically gifted could have seen it, pedestrians and drivers were trying to avoid it anyway, weaving away from the worst of it.
This wasn't the first time the demon had been here-or the second, or the third-and the whole area was corrupt, as a result.
But I needed to find out, not where the demon had been, but where it now was. I turned from side to side, scanning and searching. And then I saw the courthouse-and wished I hadn't.
Where the rest of the buildings were covered in black scum, the courthouse was glowing white. Not in a benevolent or innocent way, either. It was as if someone had taken the color of a skull that had lain in the desert for a thousand years or so and crossed it with the deadly white fire of Ground Zero of a nuclear explosion. My skin prickled at the sight. I'd heard of color that could kill before, but I'd never expected to see it.
There was just one patch on the courthouse that wasn't glowing white-a brownish-black patch that alternately resembled a fungoid growth and an insect's carapace. At the sight of it, I started swearing.
"What's the matter, Dresden?" Marcone asked-well, half demanded, half asked-from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
"Stars and stones, Marcone, don't do that!" Then I closed my eyes, consciously closing the Sight. Seeing Marcone's soul had been enough for one night without risking seeing him as he truly was. When I felt sure that my Sight was shut, I dared to glance at him.
He looked at me, amused. "You're a bit jumpy."
Never say that I can't be mature. That night, I refrained from ripping Marcone apart with pure sarcasm, and if I ever have to take oath before God and the High Council, I will swear before both that it was the most heroic thing I've ever done.
Instead, I pinched my nose and explained what I'd seen.
He took it all rather calmly, I thought, until I noticed the way his eyes were scanning everything. He couldn't see it, would never see it in a million years, but his instincts were trying to show him where the danger lay in spite of this.
But all he said was, "And what's the dark patch?"
"A hole. Sort of."
"A hole in a building imbued with demonic magic?"
"And necromancy," I said with a grimace. "A lot of what's been poured into the courthouse is death magic. And as a rule, necromancers are human. I mean, there's an outside chance it could be a vampire, but--"
"But you don't believe it is."
"No."
"Of course not. That would be too simple. " He leaned back against the car and sighed. "So the hole is what? A door?"
"No." This was the part that I liked the least. "It's part of what's feeding both the necromancer's magic and the curse infesting that building. That's why the city feels like something's just below the surface, ready to tear Chicago apart. Because there is. The life of the city, for want of a better word, is being consumed by three things-a necromancer, a demon and a curse."
Marcone glared at the courthouse as if he were mentally aiming a .38 at it. "A mouth. And it eats magic."
"More like life. But life's the source of magic, so..."
"And it's the only way in there, is that what you're telling me?"
"Um." I studied the sidewalk. Fascinating patterns there. "Pretty much. I mean, you could walk in through an emergency exit or break a window without feeling anything--"
"I don't feel it the instant that I'm infected with a cold, either, Dresden." He crossed his arms and scowled at nothing in particular. "So what you're telling me is that the only way to get past the death curse is to walk through a mouth that sucks life and magic out of everything, and the closer we get to it, the better the chances that we'll end up inadvertently feeding our lives and your magic to the monsters that we want to save Murphy from in the first place."
"Well...yeah."
He groaned. "Please tell me that you have a plan."
"Of course I do!" I said indignantly. "It may even be a cunning plan."
It was also dependent on my increasingly imperfect memory, on the good will of a man who, if he even existed, would be Harry Morningway's mortal enemy, and on whatever deity that rules my life smiling down on me with benevolence instead of the usual sadistic grin.
But hey. Details.
Chapter Title: Chapter 5 -- Tracking Evil. Chapter 1 is here; Chapter 2 is here; Chapter 3 is here; Chapter 4 is here; Chapter 6 is here; Chapter 7 is here; Chapter 8 is here.
Fandom: TV-verse and book-verse
Characters: Harry, John Marcone
Prompt: #42 Demon
Word Count: 3126
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry gets his heart's desire, and something he'd rather not have along with it.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files most emphatically do NOT belong to me. The series belongs to Jim Butcher, ROC Books, the SciFi Channel and Lionsgate Entertainment. No profit is being made, nor is any copyright or trademark infringement intended.
Table: Conjure at Your Own Risk
***
Marcone drove through the streets of Chicago, effortlessly combining speed, efficiency and control. I would have found it relaxing if Murphy's life hadn't been at stake. As it was, I was fighting to keep myself from throwing up as I probed the world around me for the magical spoor of something that didn't belong here.
Other than me, that is.
Nothing was overtly wrong, so far as I could sense with my magic. Instinct, however, was screaming something very different. It was like gazing at the ocean on a mild and sunny day. Everything looked fine-until you saw a ripple zooming toward you. Common sense, as well as your senses, told you that the ripple could be caused by a branch, a fish or a snarl of seaweed. The hindbrain screamed "SHARK!"
Right now, I wanted nothing more than to get everybody out of the water.
Try to focus, Harry. Think of a spell or ritual that will stop the demon. There has to be something...
"What did the ghost tell you?"
Damn it, I did not need to have my train of thought interrupted. "That's not important. Just drive."
"Oh, I think it is important, Mr. Dresden." To my horror, he began to slow down.
"Hell's bells--!" I made a grab for the steering wheel. He sharply jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow and kept driving as if he were out for a Sunday afternoon in the country.
I glared at him. "We haven't got time for this kind of crap. Murphy could be dying. She doesn't know how to handle the supernatural."
The son of a bitch laughed. "What do you think Murphy and I do for a living, Dresden? She may not be magical, but she can handle anything supernatural that life throws at her, believe me."
"Except me."
"She survived what you did. That counts. Now. Tell me what the ghost remembered, Dresden. I can't operate in a vacuum."
I stared out of the tinted windows, searching for any sign of the demon. "The girl had second sight-just enough to scare her. The boy had powerful magic; he might have had the girl in thrall. He kept looking for ways to expand his power, and unfortunately he was drawn to the black--"
"If he mentally enslaved his girlfriend, there's little doubt of that." He turned a corner. "He summoned the demon, then."
"No," I said bitterly. "I did. They came to me for help-well, the boy did. I guess he figured that if he wanted to learn about black magic he should go to the most powerful dark wizard out there. I gave them the name of a demon, and instructions on how to summon him. And then after they left, I summoned the demon myself. I got their powers. He got their souls." I broke off there. If I said another word, I was going to be violently sick.
He gave me a peculiar look. "The ghost remembered that you summoned the demon after she and her boyfriend left?"
It took me a second to understand. Once I did, I considered banging my head against the dashboard. "How did I miss that?"
"Because, aside from the illogic, it was plausible?" He pulled over and stopped the car. "So. Do you see any point in going on to the station?"
"Unfortunately, yes." I bit my lip. "It might be a trap, yes. But it might not. The demon might be waiting to strike--"
"If there is a demon."
"Huh?" I wasn't feeling particularly bright.
"Think, Dresden," he said in exasperation. "Someone or something wanted you to feel guilty and to run straight into danger. He, she or it created a story that you'd buy emotionally. That was the point. There could be a demon involved, yes. But there doesn't have to be."
I shook my head. "Grace's ghost was telling the truth, at least as far as she knew it."
"And no one could order her to lie?"
That stirred a memory-something about a ghost with no will of its own, compelled to obey whoever possessed it, for good or for evil. For a moment, I was puzzled. How could anyone enslave a ghost?
"I'll take that odd expression on your face as a yes," Marcone murmured. "Leave that for the moment. What's the first thing you remember? Really remember, not remember only if you force yourself to do so?"
Instinctively I didn't want to tell him. The idea, for some reason, was repugnant. "It's not important."
"Yes, it damned well is important!" he snapped. "Are you that different in your world? Do you habitually run away from facts because they might be unpleasant?"
It took every ounce of effort not to deck him. Instead I favored him with a poisonously sweet smile. "Gee, I don't know. Do you habitually insult wizards who could turn you into barbecue?"
He laughed, and there was both mockery and humor in that laughter. "Oh, Mister Dresden. All the time."
I couldn't quite suppress a grin at that. "Damn it, will you stop sounding so much like me?"
I expected him to taunt me about that, but instead, the smile vanished from his face like an image from an Etch-A-Sketch. When he spoke, his voice had lost much of its polish and at least three social classes. "If I sound like you do...am I you, in your world? Am I Harry Morningway?"
"Oh, sure. You're terrifying--"
Then I noticed his eyes. Bright, fierce...and frightened. The eyes of a tiger that's scented a predator that could destroy him with one blow. He would fight; it was his best chance of surviving. But in his bones, he was afraid.
I barely glanced away in time.
"No," I replied, feeling a stab of guilt. "That's not true. There's no Harry Morningway in my world. At least I don't think there is. His personality isn't familiar. And I don't know what you're like in my world. I've never met you."
The tension completely failed to drain from him. "I might not even exist in your world."
"Marcone, there are trillions of people in my world that I've never even met."
That didn't seem to reassure him. I expected him to continue the conversation. Instead, he all but physically forced the subject away, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded flat and ironed-out. "Do you recall your first memory yet?"
"Yes. I said, 'Da-da.'"
"Oh," he gibed. "A recent memory, then. How recent is that memory, Dresden? A week? A day?"
"Not even that far," I said, sobering quickly. "The first thing I remember is waking up this morning in my lab. And Morgan was banging on my door."
"Why?"
"Can't you guess?"
"Yes, but I might be wrong. I'd prefer to learn the facts, rather than assume that I know them already."
With a few pithy sentences-all right, more than a few--I told him about the conversation between Morgan and me regarding the murders at Le Colonial, Morgan's rage at the mention of Ancient Mai, and the senseless slaughter of a teenage girl. I could almost feel him drawing away as I spoke of her.
"You killed somebody's little girl?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I did." There wasn't much point in denying it. I felt that the other me had been in charge...but wasn't that what every criminal said? That it wasn't them committing the crime, but some darker side of them?
I was grateful that a street lamp nearby was casting heavy shadows over his face. I didn't want to have to see his expression.
I wasn't expecting Marcone to reach out, grip my jaw with one hand, forcibly turn my face toward the street lamp's light and stare me in the eyes.
I tried to turn my head away, but he was holding my face too tightly. I would have closed my eyes next, but by that time the soulgaze had already begun.
Marcone wasn't the kind of person I would have expected to be working with Murphy, because Murphy was and will always be a paladin, striving to save lives and souls because it's the right thing to do. Not Marcone. Practicality was what ruled him, not morality. He would do exactly what he had to do to solve a case or stop a bad guy, supernatural or otherwise-and if that happened to involve pain or killing, that was neither a pleasure nor a burden, but merely the cost of doing business. He was a coolly efficient fighter, and his mind was just one more weapon.
And he hated Harry Justin Morningway with a cold and deadly fury. The hatred was coupled with bitter shame. I couldn't see what had caused either, but I knew the hatred and shame were there, lurking in the shadows of his mind. Whatever the cause of both was, it had made him change sides...though not his nature.
It's not a pleasant thing to surface from a soulgaze and realize that the man beside you could kill you without a second thought, just because of who you are. I shivered.
He gave me a probing look, as if he could read my mind. "You're not Morningway," he said, in a get-over-yourself-you-know-this tone. If he'd been nice and reassuring, I'd have been scared. As it as, I felt dumb but relieved. And I'll take feeling dumb but alive over reassured but soon-to-be-dead anytime.
"How do you know?" I demanded, wondering why I couldn't just leave well enough alone.
He grimaced. "I've soulgazed him. It's not one of my more pleasant memories."
Enough people have turned white after seeing my soul to make me ask him. "Is there any difference?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"You're still human."
Well. That shut me up. He pulled out into traffic again, and I went back to trying to track the demon. And whoever was in control of it. If someone was.
The problem was, I didn't know who specifically would want to kill me in this universe. Well, aside from everybody.
I didn't want to ask Marcone his opinion. But he was the only option I had left. So, reluctantly, I asked.
"You? Murphy. Rawlins. Possibly myself. After all, we've met you. Who'd want to kill the other one..." He considered the question carefully. "Aside from everyone he's ever wronged? I'd put my money on Hrothbert of Bainbridge."
The name rang a faint but distinct bell. "I...that seems...I think I've heard of him," I said lamely.
He snorted in evident disbelief. "'You think'? Do us both a favor, Mister Dresden...don't think. Tell me what you feel to be true instead. Thinking does nothing but get you into trouble."
I was just opening my mouth to blister him with my devastating wit when I sensed the demon.
I'd been expecting something low-level, mainly because that was about what I was used to dealing with when I dealt with demons at all. I tried not to. Low-level was plenty bad, as far as I was concerned. Low-level demons are the infantry of Hell. Intimidation, terror, death...those things they're good at. Subtle, they're not. The upper-level ones are good at subtle. They're perfectly reasonable, intelligent and charming...until the moment that they've got you where they want you, and don't have to be reasonable or charming anymore.
This demon wasn't anything that I'd run into during my daily grind-though I had no way of knowing what Harry Morningway's daily grind consisted of. I did know that the creature was unimaginably old by human standards, powerful and, unless I missed my guess, pissed off.
We weren't anywhere near Murphy's police station, but the demon was close. So much for my theory about where it was going to strike next. That meant that I had to develop another theory in a hurry, or it was going to start doing things that would make the murders at Le Colonial look like a mother's kiss. And if anyone suffered then, it was going to be my fault.
I tapped Marcone on the shoulder. "Stop here. The demon's nearby."
Marcone shot me a curious look-and immediately started slowing down. Thank God he wasn't the argumentative sort. He only said one word after parking--"Where?"
I got out of the car and looked around. A tracking spell was out. I didn't have anything to track the demon with. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the demonic magic. As unpleasant as that was, it beat using wizard's Sight. I really didn't want to have to do that. I wasn't sure a human mind could tolerate seeing a demon as it truly was.
No good. The magic was doing that whole "coming from everywhere and nowhere" thing that a lot of practitioners-not only humans--enjoy using so much. Very helpful if you use it in battle yourself. Hellaciously annoying if you're on the receiving end. And yes, pun very much intended.
There was no alternative-not if I wanted to keep a whole bunch of people, including Murphy, from dying in the next few minutes. Sighing, I focused and opened my Sight, hoping that I'd see the demon's trail, not the demon.
Seeing what was really there was-as usual-unpleasant. The normal night sky of the city, bleached of starlight by a thousand neon signs, filled with roiling, blood-tinged clouds that were bloated with power. A clammy, scummy black mist clung to buildings, benches and buses. The streets and sidewalks in this area were splattered with some sort of glistening greenish semi-fluid that looked half acidic and half venomous. Even though no one who wasn't magically gifted could have seen it, pedestrians and drivers were trying to avoid it anyway, weaving away from the worst of it.
This wasn't the first time the demon had been here-or the second, or the third-and the whole area was corrupt, as a result.
But I needed to find out, not where the demon had been, but where it now was. I turned from side to side, scanning and searching. And then I saw the courthouse-and wished I hadn't.
Where the rest of the buildings were covered in black scum, the courthouse was glowing white. Not in a benevolent or innocent way, either. It was as if someone had taken the color of a skull that had lain in the desert for a thousand years or so and crossed it with the deadly white fire of Ground Zero of a nuclear explosion. My skin prickled at the sight. I'd heard of color that could kill before, but I'd never expected to see it.
There was just one patch on the courthouse that wasn't glowing white-a brownish-black patch that alternately resembled a fungoid growth and an insect's carapace. At the sight of it, I started swearing.
"What's the matter, Dresden?" Marcone asked-well, half demanded, half asked-from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
"Stars and stones, Marcone, don't do that!" Then I closed my eyes, consciously closing the Sight. Seeing Marcone's soul had been enough for one night without risking seeing him as he truly was. When I felt sure that my Sight was shut, I dared to glance at him.
He looked at me, amused. "You're a bit jumpy."
Never say that I can't be mature. That night, I refrained from ripping Marcone apart with pure sarcasm, and if I ever have to take oath before God and the High Council, I will swear before both that it was the most heroic thing I've ever done.
Instead, I pinched my nose and explained what I'd seen.
He took it all rather calmly, I thought, until I noticed the way his eyes were scanning everything. He couldn't see it, would never see it in a million years, but his instincts were trying to show him where the danger lay in spite of this.
But all he said was, "And what's the dark patch?"
"A hole. Sort of."
"A hole in a building imbued with demonic magic?"
"And necromancy," I said with a grimace. "A lot of what's been poured into the courthouse is death magic. And as a rule, necromancers are human. I mean, there's an outside chance it could be a vampire, but--"
"But you don't believe it is."
"No."
"Of course not. That would be too simple. " He leaned back against the car and sighed. "So the hole is what? A door?"
"No." This was the part that I liked the least. "It's part of what's feeding both the necromancer's magic and the curse infesting that building. That's why the city feels like something's just below the surface, ready to tear Chicago apart. Because there is. The life of the city, for want of a better word, is being consumed by three things-a necromancer, a demon and a curse."
Marcone glared at the courthouse as if he were mentally aiming a .38 at it. "A mouth. And it eats magic."
"More like life. But life's the source of magic, so..."
"And it's the only way in there, is that what you're telling me?"
"Um." I studied the sidewalk. Fascinating patterns there. "Pretty much. I mean, you could walk in through an emergency exit or break a window without feeling anything--"
"I don't feel it the instant that I'm infected with a cold, either, Dresden." He crossed his arms and scowled at nothing in particular. "So what you're telling me is that the only way to get past the death curse is to walk through a mouth that sucks life and magic out of everything, and the closer we get to it, the better the chances that we'll end up inadvertently feeding our lives and your magic to the monsters that we want to save Murphy from in the first place."
"Well...yeah."
He groaned. "Please tell me that you have a plan."
"Of course I do!" I said indignantly. "It may even be a cunning plan."
It was also dependent on my increasingly imperfect memory, on the good will of a man who, if he even existed, would be Harry Morningway's mortal enemy, and on whatever deity that rules my life smiling down on me with benevolence instead of the usual sadistic grin.
But hey. Details.