Fic: Mob Bosses Make Great Mother Hens [Slow and Steady Series]

[jade_dragoness]

And so we kick off the Dresden Files April Fic Fest, with the first story.

Title: Mob Bosses Make Great Mother Hens
Author: J.D. aka jade_dragoness
Series: Slow and Steady, Story #3
Rating: PG
Pairing: Harry Dresden/John Marcone
Spoilers: None; set pre ‘Changes’
Summary: John gets a call from Ivy.
Word Count: 2,385
Disclaimer: Never ever will be mine. *sadness*
A/N: Thank you so much beachkid for the beta. She's been inundated with fic and didn't kill me for it! So many thanks, binz!
Feedback is hugely welcomed.
*-*-*-*
Sequel to: Denial Ain’t Just a River, it’s a Tsunami
*-*-*-*

“Hello, Mr. Marcone.”

I raised both eyebrows in surprise at the sweet girlish voice at the other end of the phone line. A voice that was entirely too young and innocent to have had access to my private line.

“Who is this?” I asked, calmly. The voice sounded familiar but I was unable to identify the speaker.

“This is Ivy. The Archive, Mr. Marcone.”

I straightened in my chair. It was hardly surprisingly that I had been unable to recognize her. It had been nearly eight months since I had last spoken to her, and her voice had been strained from the effects of fear and cold. “Ivy,” I said my tone warmer. “How have you been?”

From their own satellite desks Ms. Gard arched a blonde eyebrow at me, and even Mr. Hendricks caught my gaze. Only the years that he has spent at my side made the flicker of concern in his eyes obvious.

I shook my head minutely. Considering the high position and power of the Archive, it was more than logical for those charged with my security to be concerned over her sudden contact. I turned in my chair and looked through the office windows at the Chicago River and the Tribune Tower.

“I‘m much better now, Mr. Marcone,” said Ivy. “I‘m calling for a certain reason.”

“I see, Miss Ivy. Why have you called me?” I asked gently, even as my eyes narrowed in thought. I did a swift mental review of all supernatural beings in Chicago that had been tagged as potential future problems. They had yet to make a threatening move to me and those in my city but that could always change.

“One of your business rivals, a Mr. Marc Toscane, has hired an assassin to go after Harry Dresden, Mr. Marcone,” she said, her voice entirely too grave and adult for her age. “The assassin confirmed the contract only a few minutes ago, and he is set to arrive in Chicago in less than two hours.”

I stilled and my grip on the phone tightened. The anger that surged through my veins was a torrent. Until I inhaled slowly and controlled it, fury coiled around my abdomen, its claws still unsheathed but now it would come when I called. And I was able to actually contemplate this knowledge rationally.

Toscane was involved in the weapons trade, with a penchant for involving himself in human trafficking, bringing shipments through from Canada. He was a major supplier of guns in the north, second only to myself, though he usually preferred to do business through Washington. That he was making a move against me - in my city - was hardly surprising. He had been steadily losing clients for the last two years, as well as finding it nigh impossible to market his human cargo within my territory.

That he had chosen to make Harry Dresden his target, on the other hand, was very surprising. Although considering Harry’s predilection of picking up enemies who had no compunction about killing him by any means necessary, it shouldn’t have been so astonishing.

If the threat to him had come from the realm of magic, I would have sat back in certain knowledge that Harry would not only prevail against the danger but he would succeed in eliminating it completely. But the very idea that someone who essentially came from my world, from the mortal criminal sphere, was threatening him made me angrier than I had been in a long time.

My own feelings for Harry were clearly going to make me immensely irrational regarding his safety. Something I had considered and accepted before this moment, although I hadn’t thought that my emotions would be so quickly stirred in his defense. I had only spoken of them to Harry a month ago.

“Tell me everything you know,” I said, my voice flat and cool.

“The assassin is using the alias of Aaron Larken. He had made a reservation at one of your hotels, Mr. Marcone.”

“Why have you chosen to tell me this, Miss Ivy?” I asked. “Would it not be easier to inform Mr. Dresden directly?”

“Yes. It would be,” agreed Ivy, her tone shading into a deeper timber full of the power of the Archive. “Yet, I can‘t be seen as having influence on his life. The Archive must maintain a neutral stance.” Her voice became childish again. “Which is so stupid, but if certain people think that I‘m giving Harry an advantage, it will make his life even more difficult.”

I understood.

“I would send Kincaid to help, but he refuses to go,” said Ivy, her tone now sulky. “I even offered him a good bonus and he turned me down.”

The pout was clear in her voice and my lips twitched in amusement.

“That won‘t be necessary, Miss Ivy,” I said. “I am more than capable of handing this particular task.”

“I know,” Ivy agreed. “And Mr. Marcone? Harry is my friend. He named me. He deserves to be happy.”

My eyebrows went up.

“Yet I want to wish you luck in getting him to date you. It won‘t be easy. Harry gives stubborn a new meaning, and I would know.”

“That is very true,” I agreed wryly.

“But I think you can make him happy. Goodbye, Mr. Marcone.”

I had no words to respond to this unexpected encouragement. “Goodbye, Miss Ivy,” I said, and waited for the click of the cut line before I set the phone back on its stand.

I looked over at Hendricks and Ms. Gard to see them both gearing up with various guns and assorted weaponry.

“Heard the name Dresden,” explained Mr. Hendricks, as he procured extra clips from the drawers of the desk.

“I don’t believe we will be coming into contact with Mr. Dresden today,” I said regretfully, and felt a pulse of amusement as my words made Hendricks return a couple of clips back to their storage. “Though I do believe that we will be making a couple stops.”
*-*-*-*

I was exhausted and hurting as I waited at Murphy’s desk at the police station. Someone had been kind enough to find me an ice pack and I was holding it to my aching head.

I wouldn’t normally have shown up at SI just because I’d gotten shot at. But considering the case involved a few kidnapped teenagers descended from the bloodlines of practioners, I’d wanted the manpower that Murphy could bring to help me find them. And it just so happened that an idiot reaching a spectacular new level of stupid went and shot at me when I was in the presence of so many cops that I there was no way I could wiggle out of coming in and giving a statement. Trust me, I tried.

Damn it. If it had just been Murphy and her partner, Rawlins, I would already be back out on the streets. As it was I had about a hour to go before I could make my escape.

Not for the first time, I reminded myself to find out what was on the Nevernever side of the police station. Using the Nevernever to get out of here would be so much easer than trying to sneak past the sergeant manning the front desk. I made a mental note with added underscores to look into that next time I had a free moment.

Of course, knowing my luck, that won’t be happening anytime this century.

“Murph…”

“Oh stop your whining, Harry. I know several small children with more patience,” grumbled Murphy. She was frowning at the papers in front of her and holding ice to her elbow where she’d landed when she’d pushed me down out of the line of fire. She had a nasty bruise along her jaw and I wince with guilt whenever I saw it.

That had been my fault. I’d accidentally clocked her when I tried to see where the shot had been coming from.

I slumped in my chair.

“Excuse me, are you Mr. Harry Dresden? I was told up front that I could find him here. The sergeant gave a pretty good description.”

I turned. A man decked out in a delivery uniform was pushing a dolly bearing a tall cardboard box, about six feet long and about three feet wide, give or take a few inches. It was surprisingly flat, barely a foot and a half in depth.

“You‘re getting your deliveries here?” asked Murphy, both annoyance and amusement. “You don’t actually live at the station, Dresden. No matter how long you‘ve been here today.”

“Ha ha,” I said dryly. Oh, my razor sharp wit!

“If you could sign-” the delivery guy cut off as the machine he’d been holding out to me made an odd whirling noise and died. “-how did that happened?”

“I have no idea,” I said, a total bald-faced lie. Murphy snorted.

The guy looked helpless so I stole a sheet of blank paper from Murphy’s desk and signed it. Which made him happy, and left me with a big box.

“Someone shot at you today,” said Murphy, grimly. She was staring at the box, her blue eyes narrowed dangerously. “What are the chances of them giving it another try with a bomb?”

“Pretty good, I‘d say.” Bombs were showing up entirely too often these days. I looked at the address on the labels and blinked in surprise. It was the same P.O. Box that Marcone had been using when he’d been sending me all those gifts - which I still think fit better under bribes - a couple of weeks ago. He’d stopped, but I still remembered the address.

I was startled when, almost as soon as I had read it, a tiny rune flashed over the address and left it a jumbled mess. I sighed in irritation. That was definitely the work of a certain Nordic blonde.

“I think it‘s okay,” I said, even as I frowned at the box. “I know who it‘s from.”

I borrowed Murphy’s pocket knife to cut through the thick layer of tape. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin as a body slumped out of the box and onto the floor.

“What the hell?!” I yelped, scrambling to bring up my blasting rod.

My shout grabbed the attention of everyone in the room ,and more than one gun was pointing in my direction. They were mostly focused on the body but I froze and barely dared to breathe. I was in room full of cops that had already been shot at once today. They were jumpy. And friendly fire was never actually that friendly.

Oh, I was going to kill Marcone if I got shot at again today. I've reached my bullet quota!

Murphy crouched by the man at my feet and pressed her fingers to his neck. “He‘s still breathing. And there‘s a note.” She peeled away the large envelope taped to back of the man’s shirt and looked it over critically. Then she handed it to me. “I think this is for you.”

Well, of course. It had my name on it.

I opened up the envelope and pulled out a note. I unfolded it and nearly dropped a CD onto the floor. Only a quick catch saved it. I read the note, blinked and read it again before I handed it all back to Murphy.

“Does this mean I can go now?” I asked her, as she read it too.

Murphy shook her head in more disbelief than denial and stood. She signaled to a pair of uniformed patrol cops. “Call a bus for him. Then I’ll need you to go with him to the hospital. I want someone there to question him when he wakes up. It seems that someone found our shooter for us. And someone come and take this box down to get it processed as evidence.”

Her words made the attention that fell on the unconscious guy from the other cops get really unfriendly. I did mention that the moron had shot at me while I was with a lot of cops, right? They don’t exactly take kindly to that kind of thing. Especially when a couple of them ended up getting winged from ricochets and needing medical attention.

“You heard her, rookie,” said the older of the uniformed cops to a young one. “Get processing.”

The rookie sighed, “I always get the boring jobs.” But he grabbed the box and carried it away.

“Later,” Murphy said, as she gave me an assessing look that made me want to squirm in embarrassment, “you‘re going to tell me exactly who you know that goes around delivering to you assassins with video taped confessions.”

I blinked and tried to radiate clueless innocence. She didn’t look like she bought it. Curses, foiled again.

Hell’s bells, it wasn’t that I couldn’t tell her about the interest that Marcone had expressed to me last month. I could. I trusted Murphy with things a helluva lot more dangerous than that. It was just… I still hadn’t managed to wrap my head around it. Mostly, I admit, because I spent a lot of time very deliberately not thinking about it. So, considering I had yet to process it, I was hardly comfortable enough with the idea to go around to telling anyone else. It just sounded so insane. Gentleman Johnny Marcone having the hots for little ol’ me. It made me think it was a really terrible joke. And I’d been there when I’d gotten it directly from the tiger’s mouth.

But if there was anyone is my life who should know, it was Murphy. If rumors started up again connecting me to the mob, it would be Murphy who got the backlash.

“After we get those kids back, Murph,” I said, pulling on my leather duster. “You and me have a couple of bottles of Mac‘s beer with our names on them.”

“You‘re on,” she agreed with a quirk of her mouth, and side-by-side we headed out of the station.

It wasn’t until we were in her car that it hit me.

Marcone had finally found a gift that I couldn’t refuse and have sent back to him. My stomach did a nervous flip. Crap, my life just insisted on getting better and better, didn’t it?

End

Next in the series: The Weather Outside is Frightful

a/n: So the name for this series is the ‘Slow and Steady Series’ and yes. More is forthcoming, including an eventual masterpost of all the fics. =D