Fic: Life is Never Easy, But Neither is Death [2/5]

[jade_dragoness]

Title: Life is Never Easy, But Neither is Death [2/5]
Author: J.D. aka jade_dragoness
Rating: R, for the entire fic
Pairing: Harry Dresden/John Marcone, (sorta kinda oh you’ll see!)
Spoilers: Post ‘Changes’, with no intentional spoilers for ‘Ghost Story’.
Summary: Harry is dead. He knows he’s dead. So how in the world did he end up here? He’d much rather prefer Hell.
Word Count: 3,918 for this part.
Disclaimer: Never ever will be mine. *sadness*
A/N: Thank you beachkid for the beta! All mistakes are my own and I reserve the right to sneak ninja fix them. Inspired by the cliche_bingo Card slot number 7 - Bodyswap/Bodyshare, but with a twist! Umm, also I’ve been avoiding all ‘Ghost Story’ spoilers so please don’t mention any in the comments. Thank you!
Feedback is hugely welcomed.
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[Part One]
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When I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t in the Realm of Dreams, and I sure as hell wasn’t in Marcone’s office dream.

I was disoriented and confused, because instead of an endless field of giant dream bubbles I was expecting all I saw was the familiar skyline of Chicago, although an oddly grey-toned Chicago. If I was in some other part of the Nevernever, I was in a pretty weird area because there wasn’t a speck of color anywhere. All the buildings were grey. The sky was overcast and grey. Hell, even the trees I could see from where I was standing were grey. Everything was different shades of grey: from a very pale white-grey to a shade so dark it could be confused for black.

It was oppressive and disturbing and I shuddered as a chill went down my spine. A quick look at my hands showed that my skin was still a pink hue. I sighed in relief.

I looked around but I didn’t see anyone, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good because that meant that there wasn’t anything about to jump up and eat me. Bad, because there was no one to find where the hell I was. I shifted my gaze to the skyline and from where I stood, I could see the top of the Trump Tower and it helped make it easier for me to orient myself. Since I didn’t really have a choice I shrugged and started walking. It wasn’t until I was pretty well into downtown that I saw signs of life. Kinda. The cars I saw pass by me had drivers that were partially transparent and as grey as the rest of the place.

Once in a while, a pedestrian would walk by me on the sidewalk but they were just like those drivers. It was like this was a city full of ghosts. Except that they didn’t seem to see me. I tried to talk one, and I was ignored. I tried to grab another but my hand when through them like I was the ghost. Well, I was a spirit but this felt more than that.

That shouldn’t have happened if I was in the Nevernever. There was no reason that I shouldn’t be able to interact with any part of it, or its inhabitants, even as a spirit. There’s a reason ghosts ended up in the realms of the Nevernever.

Where in the hell was I?

I spent hours wandering this grey version of Chicago. It was exactly like the Chicago I knew. I know the city pretty damned well and downtown Chicago I know down to the trees in the streets and the cracks in the sidewalk. I had to. I’d once built a pewter replica of Chicago. It had to be perfect for when I poured in my will and turned it into an exact echo of the living breathing the city. I‘d called the replica Little Chicago. I didn’t like thinking about how it was now a puddle of melted pewter at the bottom of the burned out shell which had once been my apartment building.

I hadn’t been having a good few days before I’d been killed. I think I mentioned that.

This Grey Chicago was even more detailed than Little Chicago. Through windows I could see into the foyers of different buildings, and I recognized the décor in a lot of them from my own walks around the real city. Little Chicago could only show the outsides of buildings and the movement on the streets. This was so much more. This grey version of Chicago was impressive. Whoever had created it had a seriously deep obsession with the city. I paused at that thought to reconsider it. Grey Chicago felt like a construction even with the ghost-like people that populated it. It felt like the trees, the buildings, and even the sky was made of the same stuff, which of course, it didn’t answer my question of where in the hell I was. It only left me more confused.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by a thunderous feline roar. It was a sound that just about knocked me off my feet, and not just from surprise. It literally shook the streets of Grey Chicago, causing windows to shiver and trees to sway dangerously. I tried to track where it had come from but the man-made canyons that were skyscrapers of downtown made the sound echo oddly off the glass lined buildings.

The loud roar came again but this time I was ready and I Listened.

Listening is one of those tricks that I’ve picked up several years ago that let me to hear sounds that a normal people don’t pick up. I don’t think that it has anything to do magic. It’s just concentration. It’s similar to the way that humans can train themselves to tolerate higher levels of cold, or hold their breath for longer than usual. I just heard more than most people. By Listening, I knew exactly where the roar came from and so like a total idiot I turned and ran towards it.

Now, I got to say that I’ve seen some pretty strange things over the years. Scary, ugly sights I wish I could scrub out of my brain and wonderful good things that I hold close when I need that touch of beauty. But never in the entire years I was alive have I ever seen a giant saber-toothed tiger made of out metal. If it had been a zombie T-rex I would have been less impressed, after all I‘ve seen that before, but this was a freaking robot, the size and length of a delivery truck. Hell’s bells.

I probably would have stood there gaping like a moron if I hadn’t seen a flash of blue near the thing’s head.

Blue.

Color, in this completely grey-toned world.

The color held my attention like a magnet, and the scrap of blue became a sleeve of an shirt. It belonged to someone hidden behind an overturned car. And the saber-toothed tiger’s metal jaws were about snap around them.

“Fozare!” I shouted, my palm pointed at the metal tiger. The blast of force hit it on the side. It rocked back, more startled than hurt. I focused, pouring more precious will into the spell. “Ventas servitas!”

The gale of wind made the saber-toothed tiger crouch back on its huge haunches. Its metal ears flattened against its skull in an oddly organic way, and - more importantly - it closed its eyes.

“Come on!” I shouted, as loud as I could to be heard over the whistling wind. “Move!”

A uniformed cop came out from behind the car and ran towards me. He was slim and of average height but well muscled with dark. Not only was he the only spot of color in Grey Chicago, he was also the only solid real person I’d seen in this place.

“Run!” he shouted as he came towards me. His voice shaded with a hint of a street Chicago-Italian accent. “That won‘t hold it for long!”

“But-” I barely got the chance to say when he snagged me around my free arm and hauled me after him. His hand held tight. I stumbled. “Hey!”

“Trust me! I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” I said, sarcastically. I shook his hand off my arm and ran at his side. “I can see that, no wonder I had to rescue you.”

He turned to me and although the cop’s face was shadowed under the brim of his hat I saw a bright flash of a smile. I also noted his name tag read: Officer Franco Moretti. His star-shaped CPD badge glowed with golden light. Interesting.

Behind us, the saber-toothed tiger roared with metallic leonine fury at being denied its prey.

Officer Moretti ran faster and so did I.
*-*-*-*

It’s weird how we finally managed to escape. For one, I’d thought we’d head for somewhere with thick walls like a bunker. I would’ve even accepted hiding in a bank vault. Instead, we ran for safety to an elementary school.

“He won‘t follow us in here,” Moretti gasped out, as soon as we where behind the double doors.

Double doors that were not only flimsy, but weren‘t even locked. I gave him a skeptical look and tried desperately to catch my own breath. Normally, I had more endurance than this, but my low energy levels was starting to affect me physically, not just my reserves of magic.

“The tiger stays away from schools.”

“You‘re relying about the good nature of a robotic saber-toothed tiger that was about to eat you?” I asked, incredulously.

“It‘s worked so far.” And again I got that flash of a brilliant grin. I still couldn’t see the rest of his face.

“When it busts in to eat us, I‘m throwing you at it so I can get away,” I grumbled. His grin widened. I shook my head. “What was that thing?”

“A robotic saber-toothed tiger,” Moretti said promptly.

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, smartass. I don‘t suppose you can tell me where the hell we are?”

Moretti’s mouth opened.

“And don‘t say a school!”

Moretti chuckled then his head tilted to the side to consider me. I was beginning to get disturbed that I couldn’t see the upper part of his face. It was hidden by a deep shadow that didn‘t even let me see his eyes. He asked me in surprise, “You really don‘t know?”

“Would I ask if I knew?”

He was quiet for a moment and then he nodded as if coming to a decision. “You‘re in the mind of Gentleman Johnny Marcone.”

Hell’s bells.

And now I wished I was still being chased by hellhounds. It seemed the safer option.
*-*-*-*

Officer Moretti said we had to wait out the tiger. It would move on after about an hour, if it didn‘t have prey to chase. Apparently, even robotic saber-toothed tigers got bored. You learn something new everyday.

So we stayed in the school to avoid becoming cat food. Moretti spent most of the time looking out the windows, keeping an eye on the tiger as it paced the perimeter while I sat on the floor.

I kept trying to process the information about where I was but I kept getting stuck on the thought that I was in Marcone’s mind. It was just too different from just popping into one of his dreams. Grey Chicago was his mind and its landscape was his subconscious.

I wasn’t even in the Nevernever anymore.

My soul was in his brain. In his body.

I had to invoke a lot of relaxation techniques to keep from panicking. In no way, did I think that was a good thing. I was human. I shouldn’t be capable of taking up a time-share in the mind of another person. Non-human beings can pull that off. Bob, my assistant/magical computer/pain-in-my-backside, is a spirit of air and intellect. He can hitch a ride in a mind without the possessed man or woman suffering any side-effects other than maybe some memory loss, or bewilderment of how they got up so much trouble. Demons also did the same thing, although they usually damaged the mind of the person. And the Fallen, angels for the Dark Side, could even imprint a shadow of themselves in a human brain.

I wasn’t any of those things. I was a soul. How did I get sucked in from the Realm of Dreams in the Nevernever? Why didn’t the boundary stop me? I kept turning over the details of Marcone’s dream in my mind - um - skipping past the embarrassing parts.

Then I remembered, Marcone had held on to me when the dream had dissolved. No other dreamer had done that, in the hundreds and hundreds that I talked to none of them had tried to hold on to me. Marcone had to be the one to pull me into him though I doubt that’s what he’d intended. But if he was the cause of this, then how did I get out? I couldn’t stay in Marcone’s mind forever.

“Come on,” Moretti said, breaking into my thoughts. “The tiger‘s given up for now.”

“For now? That‘s not reassuring,” I said, as I lowly stood up. My entire body was aching, more than it should be considering it was incorporeal.

“It comes around every one in a while,” he said. His mouth quirked up in amusement. “It’s been months since I‘ve seen it though. You must have caught his interest by showing up here.”

“Great, I‘m so I‘m saber-toothed tiger cat nip.” I sighed and followed Moretti back to the streets of Grey Chicago. The sky was becoming dark. I stared up at the thickening clouds. It looked like a storm was coming. What that said about Marcone’s state of mind couldn’t be good.

“He‘s pissed about something,” Moretti said, as he looked up.

I turned to him. I noted his face was still shadowed even with this new angle. “There‘s no way we can find out why that is, could we?” I had a feeling that I was the cause of that bad mood.

“There may be a way only it doesn’t always work, but any other way will make the saber-toothed tiger find us. Follow me.”

I grimaced. I followed Moretti as he walked off briskly.

“If Marcone’s emotions stay that way for too long then we‘ll face a pretty bad storm,” Moretti continued. He looked over to me. “You don’t have a place to stay do you?”

“I‘ve only just blew into town, pardner,” I said, with my best pseudo-Western accent.

Moretti grinned at me. “That‘s just begs for this town ain’t big enough for the two of us jokes.”

“Three of us.” The giant tiger robot counted. Four if I wanted to count Marcone, even if he was the city at this point.

Moretti shrugged. “Well, I‘m offering you place to stay.”

“I wasn‘t planning on being here for long,” I protested.

He snorted. “I‘m not asking you to move in. My apartment‘s not big enough for two.”

“You don‘t even know me,” I pointed out. “I could be a crazy person.”

“Oh, I know you‘re crazy. I also know you‘re a wizard, Mr. Dresden,” Moretti said. “There isn‘t much that Marcone knows that I can‘t find out. Especially about someone he thinks about as much as you.”

I stared at him. Then I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head. “Please, don‘t say such disturbing things.”

Moretti burst out laughing. It was a wild and bright sound that seemed to draw light around him. It made me open my eyes to enjoy the sight and even smile unwillingly. It was that kind of laugh. I caught him by the shoulder and he stopped walking to look up me.

I held out my hand. “You may know me, but let me introduce myself properly. I‘m Harry Dresden, wizard.”

Moretti took my hand in a firm clasp. “It’s great to finally meet you, Mr. Dresden. I‘m Officer Franco Moretti, cop. You can call me Frank.”

I shook his hand and I gave him a mischievous grin. “You‘re sure your nickname isn‘t Frankie?”

Moretti grimaced, the shape of his mouth twisting in distaste. “Ugh, I haven‘t been called Frankie since I was a kid.”

“Frankie it is!” I said cheerfully.

“I can leave you on the street for the saber-toothed tiger, you know,” he grumbled as he began walking again.

“No, you won‘t, Frankie,” I said confidently.

“What makes you say that?” he asked, with a curious tone.

“Your shield. It wouldn‘t be throwing out so much light if you didn‘t have such intense feelings for it,” I said. “You‘re a cop, through and through.”

Frankie looked down at his chest. And the line of his mouth softened. “Okay,” he said, “I‘ll give you that much, Harry.”

The guy was giving me a place to stay as well as kept me from being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. He’d pretty much earned the right to call me Harry. “Hey, do you have Coke in your place? I haven‘t had any in days.”
*-*-*-*

Frankie’s apartment was in a small building in a poor, primarily Mexican neighborhood. But it was clean, and filled with a lot of those see-through gray people. There were even children - the first I’ve seen - running around free. It was a good sign that they were well fed and unafraid. This area was safe, even if most of its residents fell below the poverty line. The one thing that surprised me was that Frankie actually got acknowledged while I was still being ignored by the ghost-people. It made me wonder if to Frankie they looked as see-through as they did to me.

“Why do they respond to you but not to me?” I asked, as I waited for him to open his apartment door.

“They know me,” Frankie said. He opened the door and waved me in. “You‘re probably too new.”

I hovered outside the door instead of heading in, “You‘ll need to invite me.”

Frankie paused. “A threshold will still work?”

I raised my eyebrows but I shouldn’t be surprised. He’d already said he knew a lot of what Marcone knew. And if Marcone didn’t know about the basics like the protection offered by thresholds then he should demand his money back from Monoc Securities. Frankie had brought up a good point. I was in Marcone’s mind, no matter how realistic it looked. Normal laws of magic may not apply.

I walked in and met no resistance. There wasn’t even the weakest of barriers.

“No threshold,” I said. I looked around with interest. The place was that of a bachelor. It had the starkness to it of a man who didn’t care about decorations. There was an entire wall with cheap bolted shelves that were stacked to the ceiling with books.

“So, at least you know you can enter any place without worrying about leaving your magic at the door,” Frankie said.

It was good to know.

“You have interesting tastes,” I said, nodding at the books. There were a lot of philosophy books there, from Aquinas to Descartes to Plato. As well as books on tactics, criminal law, and criminal procedure.

Frankie shrugged. “I didn’t used to read much growing up. But I have a friend who‘s a bookworm that passes a book along when he‘s done. And he‘ll demand I argue with him about it, so I have to read them or I never hear the end of it.” He settled into the couch by the living room and waved me to the kitchen. “Pick out anything you want from the kitchen. Mi casa es su casa.”

“Gracias,” I said. Since Frankie didn’t drink Coke - the heathen didn’t drink soda - I pulled out a couple bottles of beer. He had all the ingredients for a bologna sandwich, so I made four. The fact that they were as grey as everything didn’t make them any less appetizing. I put the food on plates that looked clean even if they stacked on the counter. When I sat down on the couch next to Frankie I handed him a plate and a beer.

“Thanks,” he said, surprised.

I shrugged. “I‘m eating your food, Frankie. I might as well feed you too.”

He sighed and rubbed at where his eyes would be under the shadow on his face “There‘s nothing I can do to get you to stop calling me Frankie, is there?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I said, around a mouthful of bologna sandwich. I smirked as I chewed.

He shook his head and turned on the beat up TV that sat on a milk crate in front of the couch.

I tensed half-expecting the technology to die but similar the way that Grey Chicago didn’t mimic the normal laws of magic, my affect on it was also non-existent. When I saw what was on the screen I almost dropped my food. I could see the insides of a car while Hendricks and Gard looked right at the camera.

No. Not a camera. Marcone’s eyes. Instead of getting a TV show or news or anything that normally came on day-time television, we were seeing through the eyes of Marcone. In color.

“How?” I asked, surprised.

Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn‘t always work but every once in a while, especially when Marcone‘s emotions are agitated, I can get a signal.”

Marcone stared talking so I shut up and we both paid attention to the TV.

“The Dresden in my dream was rather insistent that it was him.”

“It’s possible, Mr. Marcone,” Ms. Gard said, calmly. “Mortal souls often pass beyond this plane and into the Nevernever. The only reason I would be reluctant to agree that it was really Harry Dresden is the presence of a strong barrier between the living world and the dead planes. It is nearly impossible for a soul to pass through it unless certain conditions are met like those on Halloween night a few years ago.”

“But it’s not improbable,” Marcone said, and Gard nodded. “Then I‘d suggest we move forward with the assumption that the dream being was Dresden.”

“The researchers came up with this,” Hendricks said. He handed Marcone a flat screened tech toy, I recognized from all those advertisement that Best Buy kept sending me. Huh, who’d have thought they’d be actually helpful. Marcone flipped through the file on the screen too quickly for me to read them but I saw my name more than once. Hendricks continued, “He’s becoming an internet meme.”

“So I wasn‘t the only one that he reached through a dream,” Marcone said thoughtfully.

Then the TV picture started to be filled with static. Marcone’s emotions had to be calming down.

“No!” said Frankie. He stood up and smacked the side of the TV. “Not yet.”

But his words were futile and the picture became filled with static snow.

Frankie snarled, a low angry sound, and he hit the TV so hard it fell off its milk crate stand. He dropped to his knees. His shoulders were tense as he put the TV back on the stand. It seemed to be okay.

I sat back on couch and watched him. This was the angriest I’ve seen Frankie. Even when we’re being chased by the saber-toothed metal tiger he was more relaxed. “Who is Marcone to you?”

Frankie turned away from me. “Nobody.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, sarcastically. “And in life I‘m really five feet tall.” His hands clenched until his knuckles went white. I could see him struggle to control himself when he succeeded his hands relaxed again. “Why are you here in Marcone‘s mind?” I asked, gently. “I can name one hundred places off the top of my head that would be a lot better place to set up shop.”

Frankie turned to me. I wished that I could see his face so that I could read the emotions in his eyes. But his bitter tone told me plenty. “You’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking: Who am I to Marcone?”

“Who are you to Marcone, Frankie?” I asked obligingly.

Frankie raised his head enough so that I could see his mouth quirk in a humorless smile. “Me? I‘m the first person that John Marcone killed.”

TBC in [Part Three]

a/n: Dun, dun, dun…