Fic: Domino Theory
Title: The Domino Theory
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: G
Disclaimer: <----
Word Count: about 3,200
Notes: Also at AO3. Awkwardly unseasonal Christmas fic! But it's what comes next, sooooo. Happy Easter?
Summary: The Archive stops by the Dresden household over the holidays.
"So are you going to be spending Christmas with the Carpenters again?"
"Yup."
"Going to mass?"
"No," I said sullenly.
Murphy chuckled.
"Don't laugh at my pain," I whined.
It was a couple days before Christmas-the day after Maggie's first birthday, actually, and I was still certain that being born on Winter Solstice couldn't be a good omen. Murphy had stopped by to exchange gifts before she went up to her folks' out in the suburbs, the latest in the parade. Scan had come by the office for our semi-weekly chess game-I lost, as usual-and given Maggie a brightly coloured glockenspiel. Probably to balance out the enchanted pacifier she'd given me at the baby shower. Last Game Night, the Alphas had come up with children's books by Neil Gaiman, which was maybe not the best idea but definitely predictable. My land-lord and the upstairs tenants had hit me yesterday.
"You're not in pain, Harry. If you had to sit through the second-longest mass of the year while suffocating on incense, maybe then you'd be in pain."
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "They're nagging me twice as hard since everything with Molly."
"How's that going anyway?" Murphy asked.
"She's going to mass." I sighed and rubbed my face. "I don't know; I've never done this before. I'm trying to spend as much time with her as I can while she's off from school, get her grounded in the basics; but it's all still pretty nuclear over there."
"Not fans of the girlfriend?" Murphy guessed.
"Or the facial piercings or the magic. Go figure. She is disgustingly adorable with the girlfriend, I have to admit." I thought Inari was getting dragged along to mass, too. Thomas was currently making himself scarce, the big coward. But I supposed he had a point: people would get suspicious if they saw us hanging out together; it was risky enough he was staying with me. And, you know. Molly trying to hold hands under the table with Inari was going to raise everyone's blood pressure enough.
I'm really not sure how Michael and Charity would have taken it without the supernatural complications, though. I mean, it's hard to get down on your daughter's big gay love when it is possible to empirically prove it's curing her girlfriend's vampirism. And I was keeping a real close eye on that, believe you me. Closer than I was really comfortable with, thanks to Thomas' investment in the matter. He kept insisting on telling me things I didn't want to know, like and then Molly said, "Hey, I don't blame you. I'd totally bang Harry too if I had the chance."
Yeah. I'd been having some long conversations with my apprentice. Really long, uncomfortable conversations.
"Everyone's stupid as a teenager. If this is as bad as it gets, they should feel lucky."
"What, even you?" My teens had not been the brightest point in my life, no argument there. But I had a hard time imagining Murphy as anything but solid.
Murphy quirked an eyebrow at me. "I got married when I was seventeen."
"Oh." Right.
Murphy let her breath out in a long sigh and slouched in her chair, staring up at my ceiling. "I should get going," she said after we had sat in silence for a while.
I nodded and creaked to my feet. Maggie was down, hopefully for the night, so I stepped out to see Murphy off; she had a talisman that let her pass through my wards unharmed, but polite is as polite does.
"Well, there's no avoiding it," Murphy told her motorcycle helmet.
"You sure you're gonna be okay? I mean, I'm not going to pick up the paper Christmas morning and read you've impaled your sister and your ex on the Christmas tree or something, am I?"
Murphy shook her head. "No homicide, I promise. My brothers always spike the eggnog anyway."
I made a face. Murphy laughed.
"What, still?"
"Frigging sex-vampires and their hallucinogenic booze," I grumbled. Speaking of brothers.
An SUV, its black gloss ruined by slush and road salt this time of year, pulled into my boardinghouse's small gravel lot between my landlord's car and Murphy's Harley. Both of us tensed, but when the driver's door opened it was only Kincaid, the Archive's I-was-almost-certain-not-a-vanilla-mortal bodyguard. No surprise mob bosses today.
"Dresden." Kincaid nodded, coming around to open the passenger's side door. He paused, regarding Murphy watchfully. "Who's that?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Murphy said, putting down her motorcycle helmet and letting her arms drop with deceptive casualness to her sides. "I could also ask you if you've got a permit for that weapon."
Of course Kincaid was armed. I wondered if telling Murphy she should be glad whatever it was was small enough to be concealed would help at all or just make things worse.
"I asked first."
Amusing as it was to watch Murphy get all territorial, December in Chicago is damn cold. "It's okay, Murph; I'm expecting them."
Kincaid shot a glance at me, then looked more carefully at Murphy. "Karrin Murphy? Yeah, I've heard of you."
Murphy eyed Kincaid's lean athleticism. His golden hair fell loosely to his shoulders this time. Really broad shoulders, I might add. It wasn't often I found I guy tall enough to look me in the eye, but Kincaid maybe even had an inch on me. "Really?"
"Still want to see my carry permit?"
I cleared my throat. "Should I leave you two alone?"
"Maybe." Kincaid smirked at me but finally opened the door for Ivy. "It's clear," he told the vehicle's other occupant.
Men. The face I made at him that was definitely less mature than the expression of the nine-year-old girl climbing out of the SUV.
"You ride that in the winter?" Kincaid asked Murphy.
It was Murphy's turn to make a face. "My car's in the shop."
"Hey, I told you it'd be smarter to take the Beetle," I protested.
Murphy remained unconvinced. Kincaid snorted.
With effort, I pulled myself together and turned my attention back to Ivy.
"Hello, Harry," she said.
"Hey, Ivy. You've grown."
"Approximately four inches since our first encounter. My rate of growth won't become significant for another two years, however," Ivy said. She was nothing but a pair of large blue eyes, as deep and ancient as the sea, and strip of pale skin peeking out from heavy winter garb. Her light British accent-it was as eerily precise as I remembered-drifted out from underneath a chunky knit scarf. "Taking into account nutrition and environmental factors, I expect to reach an adult height of five feet and five inches."
Kincaid was leaning back against the side of the SUV, chatting up Murphy. I kept half an eye on them; but hell, Kincaid was a big boy; he could defend himself. Probably.
"Sounds like a plan."
"It's not a plan, merely an estimate."
I accepted the correction without balking. Ivy wasn't your ordinary nine-year-old: she was the Archive, the hereditary repository of all human knowledge. Which was why I'd arranged this meeting: I needed some information, and someone had systematically destroyed the records that contained it.
"Well, how's this for a plan? We'll go inside, and I'll make you some hot chocolate," I suggested. "Kincaid, you joining us?"
"How long do you expect this to take?" Kincaid dragged his eyes away from Murphy to ask Ivy.
Ivy looked at me inquiringly. I shrugged. "About an hour?"
Kincaid pinned me with his eyes. "You aren't going to let anything happen to her."
"No, I'm not," I agreed, staring back.
Kincaid nodded, breaking eye-contact a second before we could fall into a soulgaze. "Call me when you're done," he told Ivy.
"Very well," Ivy agreed. "I believe I would like that cup of cocoa."
"Just a moment. Kincaid," I caught his eye again. "No means no."
"Harry," Murphy groaned.
I gave her a serious look, too. "Just because he's sexy doesn't mean he's not a supernatural fiend."
"You think I'm sexy?"
"No means no, Kincaid." I smiled apologetically at Ivy. "Come on in."
"You have injured your hand," Ivy noted as I mixed the hot chocolate. "Did you arrange this meeting to inquire after healing techniques?"
I blinked; I hadn't thought of that. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about something I picked up with it before it got fried."
I put down the cocoa on the coffee table in front of Ivy's armchair and eased the leather glove I'd taken to wearing since I'd stopped with the mummy impression off with my teeth.
"Oh! You put in marshmallows."
"Yup. But careful; it's hot," I warned her.
Ivy picked up my good Shakespeare quotes coffee mug, the one Billy the werewolf got me for Christmas year before last, and peered at my exposed palm over the rim. I could tell when she saw it. A fallen angel's sigil not-burned into the waxy flesh so damaged I had to pry my fingers away for the mark to be visible.
"May I touch you?" Ivy asked. She didn't sound at all afraid.
"Uh, sure."
Ivy set the mug down again and probed the hand. I barely kept myself from jumping out of my chair. When you touch someone else who uses magic, you feel it like an electric shock. Minor practitioners give you a bit of a buzz, maybe a snap like static electricity. Wizards can be like grabbing an electric fence.
Touching the Archive was like plugging myself into an electric socket. It settled, but I definitely felt it. Yowza.
Ivy's face remained businesslike; I couldn't gauge her touch, not because of the few remaining bandages in the way, but because I had no intact nerve endings on my hand except where the sigil was.
"Thank you." Ivy let go of my hand. I started self-consciously wiggling my glove back on. "I assume you refer to having come into contact with the Denarius of the Fallen Lasciel."
"Yup, that would be the one."
"But you have not yet consented to host the demon."
"Right," I said. "But I've still got this thing-this shadow or whatever-in my head. I want it out."
Ivy blew on her hot chocolate. "I believe I understand."
"I've tried a lot of purification rituals," I went on. "Obviously, they haven't worked. My research mostly dead-ends about a century back; the last time Nicodemus destroyed the records. I've been told he makes a habit of that."
"You were informed correctly." There was an almost angry note to her voice.
"But I thought you might, uh, know something. Something that could help me get rid of my unwanted hitchhiker, I mean."
"The preservation of knowledge is the reason for my existence." Ivy sipped, her face going briefly blank. "If you had properly taken up the coin, you could separate yourself completely by relinquishing it. The Shadow of the Fallen is essentially a separate entity, although it retains an affinity with the demon housed in the denarius."
"Okay," I said. "What does that mean?"
"Puppy!"
"Huh? Oh."
I looked down and saw Mouse, the puppy I'd recently been bullied into adopting, sniffing at Ivy's boots. She stared down at him very intently. Mouse turned his big puppy-dog eyes on her and wagged his little tail. He was already half again as big as he'd been just last month, and about twice as fluffy. He looked more like a grey slipper than a dog.
"May I pick you up?" Ivy asked him very seriously.
"Knock yourself out." I shrugged.
"I was not asking you." Ivy kept staring. Mouse's mouth fell open in a happy pant. "Thank you, Mouse."
Ivy bent down and scooped up the puppy. Ookay, that was sort of unsettling. Mouse wriggled ecstatically, his notched ear flopping inside-out.
"Why do you wish to remove it?"
My own hot chocolate almost went down the wrong pipe. "What?"
"Why do you wish to remove the demon's shadow from your mind?" Ivy repeated.
"Because it's in my head." I didn't really think that needed very much explanation.
"Given the number and stature of the enemies you've made, it represents an invaluable source of information and potential power," Ivy explained.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Thomas had told me I was having anger-management problems. "I would rather die," I said, very slowly and clearly. "You ought to understand what it's like to have something in your head you can't control."
Ivy looked sadly down at Mouse's fuzzy belly. He whined and craned his neck around to lick her hand. "My mother felt much the same way."
And suddenly I felt like crap. Way to go, Harry. Making little girls cry. A-plus parenting.
"Aw he-uh, heck. I didn't mean it like that, Ivy. I'm sorry."
Ivy disappeared behind her blank mask once more. "I should be the one to apologise. I don't know what made me say that."
"You got a raw deal, Ivy. It's okay not to like it," I told her. "I never meant to compare being the Archive to having a demon in your head. It wants to make something I'm not. It's a danger to my child."
Ivy considered that. "My knowledge is limited to what has been documented. Most people succumb to the Fallen's blandishments at some point."
"Gee, great."
"There are also some few records of individuals who resisted the Fallen until their deaths," Ivy offered.
"Well, that's so much better."
"I would imagine so," Ivy agreed. "It is possible to rid yourself of the shadow. If you cease to employ your magical abilities, both will fade together."
"Yeah, not gonna happen. Got anything else?"
"Can I have some more hot chocolate?" Ivy asked.
"Sure." I suppressed a sigh and took her mug.
"The shadow is being sustained by your energy. Mortal magic atrophies with disuse; the shadow will eventually diminish to past the point where it can influence you."
"Not. Gonna. Happen," I repeated firmly. "What else?"
"You must sincerely wish to be rid of the demon."
"I already said I'd rather die," I protested.
"But you would rather live as you are than give up your magic," Ivy pointed out.
I glowered at the little can of chocolate powder. "Well that sucks."
"There is another possibility, but I don't think that you're going to like it very much either. Someone else might be able to excise the shadow."
"Excise, as in cut out? All right; now we're talking." My heart leapt, then sank again. "But the Third Law of Magic prohibits all sorts of mind-whammy."
"Oh, a human wizard would be a poor choice." Ivy accepted her refilled mug. "The shadow would most likely be transferred to any mortal who attempted it."
"Well, that would be bad."
"A powerful inhuman might be able to amputate the shadow and destroy it," Ivy continued.
I considered the powerful inhumans of my acquaintance. The idea of asking any of them to do anything to my brain made me want to go hide under my bed. And not come out. For a very, very long time.
"Harry?"
I sighed. "Thanks, Ivy. About my end of the deal..."
I was interrupted by the sound of Maggie waking up. Excusing myself, I disappeared into my bedroom to retrieve the Scamp. Ivy sat calmly drinking hot cocoa and spoiling my dog.
"Where's the kitty?" Ivy asked when I came back out.
"Sulking. He's still upset about the interloper." I gestured with my burned hand at Mouse, the other firmly in the Scamp's possession for use as a stabiliser. Maggie followed the direction of my gesture and immediately started toddling towards Ivy. She was getting pretty good at it, which my back was thankful for. Maggie was growing fast, but I still had to bend more or less in half in order to be a mommy-walker.
"Maggie, this is Ivy. Ivy, meet the Scamp."
"Iee," Maggie declared.
Ivy was careful not to meet the Scamp's absorbed gaze directly. She took in Maggie's determined, bright-eyed approach with clinical detachment. Mouse flipped over in Ivy's lap and inched forward to lick the Scamp's face in greeting.
"Margaret Dorothy Ellinor Dresden. Margaret LeFay, Dorothy Dietrich, Ellinor Redan, and Eleanor Newton-better known as Dell O'Dell. Your mother; one of the world's premier escape artists; the first female member of the Society of American Magicians; and a stage and television performer whose act was distinguished by witty banter." Ivy let Maggie grab her finger.
"Nice party trick," I said nervously.
"You are very protective."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"On the contrary; if individuals fail to care enough to protect what is important to them, society falls into chaos. Not that most societies don't make it there anyway." Ivy waggled her finger up and down. "But to return to the matter of repayment."
I folded myself up to sit on the edge of the armchair across from Ivy's. "Uh, yeah. You want me to keep a demon diary or something?"
"In fact, I wanted to request that you continue to pursue a certain line of inquiry in your magical research."
I perked up a little. "You mean I'm actually onto something? What is it?"
"If I already knew, it wouldn't be nearly as valuable to me. But your theories on large-scale thaumaturgical proxies as an alternative to Intellectus, though crude, show promise."
I tried to think what she could be referring to; I hadn't exactly had a lot of time and energy-not to mention cash-to spare for non-case-related spellwork for the past couple years. Or ever, really. I didn't even think I knew what Intellectus was.
"You mean that map thing?" I guessed. It was an idea I'd tossed at Bob a couple years ago and proceeded to do nothing about. A searchable mini-city. Could be useful: most of my cases were of the where-the-fuck-did-I-leave-my-keys? variety, and thaumaturgy is a bit of a specialty of mine. Okay, so it would be overkill for keys; people, now...
"Yes," Ivy said. "Please remember to take good notes."
We sat for a while, going over the Lasciel thing in more detail. Maggie started yawning, and I wrapped her in a blanket and rocked her back to sleep. She was getting heavy to pick up one-handed. Maybe a little surreptitious wind-magic? I really had to work on my fine control with evocations sometime.
Kincaid answered promptly when Ivy called from my phone. I took the Scamp back to bed while Ivy put her coat and gloves back on, then walked her out.
Murphy and Kincaid were just getting out of the SUV-the front, I noted, not the back-when we went outside. Murphy looked a little flushed, but not rumpled. She said something to Kincaid that caused a a predatory grin to cross his face, sudden as a knife-slash. I scowled.
Murphy rolled her eyes at me and pulled on her helmet. Kincaid watched her zoom away until she turned a corner out of sight. Then his attention snapped back to Ivy. He opened the back door for her, professional as you please, but the glances he sent my way were distinctly amused.
"What are you so happy about?" I asked him grumpily.
"Don't worry; I'm not that kind of girl." There went his teeth again.
"You better not be."
"Seatbelt on," Kincaid told Ivy. "Merry Christmas, Dresden."
I sighed. "Merry Christmas."
__________
I don't actually know if Dell O'Dell's given name was Eleanor. Dell is a variant of Nell, which is itself a nickname for any of Ellen, Helen, or Eleanor; I figured I could get away with fudging it.
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Dresden Files
Rating: G
Disclaimer: <----
Word Count: about 3,200
Notes: Also at AO3. Awkwardly unseasonal Christmas fic! But it's what comes next, sooooo. Happy Easter?
Summary: The Archive stops by the Dresden household over the holidays.
"So are you going to be spending Christmas with the Carpenters again?"
"Yup."
"Going to mass?"
"No," I said sullenly.
Murphy chuckled.
"Don't laugh at my pain," I whined.
It was a couple days before Christmas-the day after Maggie's first birthday, actually, and I was still certain that being born on Winter Solstice couldn't be a good omen. Murphy had stopped by to exchange gifts before she went up to her folks' out in the suburbs, the latest in the parade. Scan had come by the office for our semi-weekly chess game-I lost, as usual-and given Maggie a brightly coloured glockenspiel. Probably to balance out the enchanted pacifier she'd given me at the baby shower. Last Game Night, the Alphas had come up with children's books by Neil Gaiman, which was maybe not the best idea but definitely predictable. My land-lord and the upstairs tenants had hit me yesterday.
"You're not in pain, Harry. If you had to sit through the second-longest mass of the year while suffocating on incense, maybe then you'd be in pain."
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "They're nagging me twice as hard since everything with Molly."
"How's that going anyway?" Murphy asked.
"She's going to mass." I sighed and rubbed my face. "I don't know; I've never done this before. I'm trying to spend as much time with her as I can while she's off from school, get her grounded in the basics; but it's all still pretty nuclear over there."
"Not fans of the girlfriend?" Murphy guessed.
"Or the facial piercings or the magic. Go figure. She is disgustingly adorable with the girlfriend, I have to admit." I thought Inari was getting dragged along to mass, too. Thomas was currently making himself scarce, the big coward. But I supposed he had a point: people would get suspicious if they saw us hanging out together; it was risky enough he was staying with me. And, you know. Molly trying to hold hands under the table with Inari was going to raise everyone's blood pressure enough.
I'm really not sure how Michael and Charity would have taken it without the supernatural complications, though. I mean, it's hard to get down on your daughter's big gay love when it is possible to empirically prove it's curing her girlfriend's vampirism. And I was keeping a real close eye on that, believe you me. Closer than I was really comfortable with, thanks to Thomas' investment in the matter. He kept insisting on telling me things I didn't want to know, like and then Molly said, "Hey, I don't blame you. I'd totally bang Harry too if I had the chance."
Yeah. I'd been having some long conversations with my apprentice. Really long, uncomfortable conversations.
"Everyone's stupid as a teenager. If this is as bad as it gets, they should feel lucky."
"What, even you?" My teens had not been the brightest point in my life, no argument there. But I had a hard time imagining Murphy as anything but solid.
Murphy quirked an eyebrow at me. "I got married when I was seventeen."
"Oh." Right.
Murphy let her breath out in a long sigh and slouched in her chair, staring up at my ceiling. "I should get going," she said after we had sat in silence for a while.
I nodded and creaked to my feet. Maggie was down, hopefully for the night, so I stepped out to see Murphy off; she had a talisman that let her pass through my wards unharmed, but polite is as polite does.
"Well, there's no avoiding it," Murphy told her motorcycle helmet.
"You sure you're gonna be okay? I mean, I'm not going to pick up the paper Christmas morning and read you've impaled your sister and your ex on the Christmas tree or something, am I?"
Murphy shook her head. "No homicide, I promise. My brothers always spike the eggnog anyway."
I made a face. Murphy laughed.
"What, still?"
"Frigging sex-vampires and their hallucinogenic booze," I grumbled. Speaking of brothers.
An SUV, its black gloss ruined by slush and road salt this time of year, pulled into my boardinghouse's small gravel lot between my landlord's car and Murphy's Harley. Both of us tensed, but when the driver's door opened it was only Kincaid, the Archive's I-was-almost-certain-not-a-vanilla-mortal bodyguard. No surprise mob bosses today.
"Dresden." Kincaid nodded, coming around to open the passenger's side door. He paused, regarding Murphy watchfully. "Who's that?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Murphy said, putting down her motorcycle helmet and letting her arms drop with deceptive casualness to her sides. "I could also ask you if you've got a permit for that weapon."
Of course Kincaid was armed. I wondered if telling Murphy she should be glad whatever it was was small enough to be concealed would help at all or just make things worse.
"I asked first."
Amusing as it was to watch Murphy get all territorial, December in Chicago is damn cold. "It's okay, Murph; I'm expecting them."
Kincaid shot a glance at me, then looked more carefully at Murphy. "Karrin Murphy? Yeah, I've heard of you."
Murphy eyed Kincaid's lean athleticism. His golden hair fell loosely to his shoulders this time. Really broad shoulders, I might add. It wasn't often I found I guy tall enough to look me in the eye, but Kincaid maybe even had an inch on me. "Really?"
"Still want to see my carry permit?"
I cleared my throat. "Should I leave you two alone?"
"Maybe." Kincaid smirked at me but finally opened the door for Ivy. "It's clear," he told the vehicle's other occupant.
Men. The face I made at him that was definitely less mature than the expression of the nine-year-old girl climbing out of the SUV.
"You ride that in the winter?" Kincaid asked Murphy.
It was Murphy's turn to make a face. "My car's in the shop."
"Hey, I told you it'd be smarter to take the Beetle," I protested.
Murphy remained unconvinced. Kincaid snorted.
With effort, I pulled myself together and turned my attention back to Ivy.
"Hello, Harry," she said.
"Hey, Ivy. You've grown."
"Approximately four inches since our first encounter. My rate of growth won't become significant for another two years, however," Ivy said. She was nothing but a pair of large blue eyes, as deep and ancient as the sea, and strip of pale skin peeking out from heavy winter garb. Her light British accent-it was as eerily precise as I remembered-drifted out from underneath a chunky knit scarf. "Taking into account nutrition and environmental factors, I expect to reach an adult height of five feet and five inches."
Kincaid was leaning back against the side of the SUV, chatting up Murphy. I kept half an eye on them; but hell, Kincaid was a big boy; he could defend himself. Probably.
"Sounds like a plan."
"It's not a plan, merely an estimate."
I accepted the correction without balking. Ivy wasn't your ordinary nine-year-old: she was the Archive, the hereditary repository of all human knowledge. Which was why I'd arranged this meeting: I needed some information, and someone had systematically destroyed the records that contained it.
"Well, how's this for a plan? We'll go inside, and I'll make you some hot chocolate," I suggested. "Kincaid, you joining us?"
"How long do you expect this to take?" Kincaid dragged his eyes away from Murphy to ask Ivy.
Ivy looked at me inquiringly. I shrugged. "About an hour?"
Kincaid pinned me with his eyes. "You aren't going to let anything happen to her."
"No, I'm not," I agreed, staring back.
Kincaid nodded, breaking eye-contact a second before we could fall into a soulgaze. "Call me when you're done," he told Ivy.
"Very well," Ivy agreed. "I believe I would like that cup of cocoa."
"Just a moment. Kincaid," I caught his eye again. "No means no."
"Harry," Murphy groaned.
I gave her a serious look, too. "Just because he's sexy doesn't mean he's not a supernatural fiend."
"You think I'm sexy?"
"No means no, Kincaid." I smiled apologetically at Ivy. "Come on in."
"You have injured your hand," Ivy noted as I mixed the hot chocolate. "Did you arrange this meeting to inquire after healing techniques?"
I blinked; I hadn't thought of that. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about something I picked up with it before it got fried."
I put down the cocoa on the coffee table in front of Ivy's armchair and eased the leather glove I'd taken to wearing since I'd stopped with the mummy impression off with my teeth.
"Oh! You put in marshmallows."
"Yup. But careful; it's hot," I warned her.
Ivy picked up my good Shakespeare quotes coffee mug, the one Billy the werewolf got me for Christmas year before last, and peered at my exposed palm over the rim. I could tell when she saw it. A fallen angel's sigil not-burned into the waxy flesh so damaged I had to pry my fingers away for the mark to be visible.
"May I touch you?" Ivy asked. She didn't sound at all afraid.
"Uh, sure."
Ivy set the mug down again and probed the hand. I barely kept myself from jumping out of my chair. When you touch someone else who uses magic, you feel it like an electric shock. Minor practitioners give you a bit of a buzz, maybe a snap like static electricity. Wizards can be like grabbing an electric fence.
Touching the Archive was like plugging myself into an electric socket. It settled, but I definitely felt it. Yowza.
Ivy's face remained businesslike; I couldn't gauge her touch, not because of the few remaining bandages in the way, but because I had no intact nerve endings on my hand except where the sigil was.
"Thank you." Ivy let go of my hand. I started self-consciously wiggling my glove back on. "I assume you refer to having come into contact with the Denarius of the Fallen Lasciel."
"Yup, that would be the one."
"But you have not yet consented to host the demon."
"Right," I said. "But I've still got this thing-this shadow or whatever-in my head. I want it out."
Ivy blew on her hot chocolate. "I believe I understand."
"I've tried a lot of purification rituals," I went on. "Obviously, they haven't worked. My research mostly dead-ends about a century back; the last time Nicodemus destroyed the records. I've been told he makes a habit of that."
"You were informed correctly." There was an almost angry note to her voice.
"But I thought you might, uh, know something. Something that could help me get rid of my unwanted hitchhiker, I mean."
"The preservation of knowledge is the reason for my existence." Ivy sipped, her face going briefly blank. "If you had properly taken up the coin, you could separate yourself completely by relinquishing it. The Shadow of the Fallen is essentially a separate entity, although it retains an affinity with the demon housed in the denarius."
"Okay," I said. "What does that mean?"
"Puppy!"
"Huh? Oh."
I looked down and saw Mouse, the puppy I'd recently been bullied into adopting, sniffing at Ivy's boots. She stared down at him very intently. Mouse turned his big puppy-dog eyes on her and wagged his little tail. He was already half again as big as he'd been just last month, and about twice as fluffy. He looked more like a grey slipper than a dog.
"May I pick you up?" Ivy asked him very seriously.
"Knock yourself out." I shrugged.
"I was not asking you." Ivy kept staring. Mouse's mouth fell open in a happy pant. "Thank you, Mouse."
Ivy bent down and scooped up the puppy. Ookay, that was sort of unsettling. Mouse wriggled ecstatically, his notched ear flopping inside-out.
"Why do you wish to remove it?"
My own hot chocolate almost went down the wrong pipe. "What?"
"Why do you wish to remove the demon's shadow from your mind?" Ivy repeated.
"Because it's in my head." I didn't really think that needed very much explanation.
"Given the number and stature of the enemies you've made, it represents an invaluable source of information and potential power," Ivy explained.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Thomas had told me I was having anger-management problems. "I would rather die," I said, very slowly and clearly. "You ought to understand what it's like to have something in your head you can't control."
Ivy looked sadly down at Mouse's fuzzy belly. He whined and craned his neck around to lick her hand. "My mother felt much the same way."
And suddenly I felt like crap. Way to go, Harry. Making little girls cry. A-plus parenting.
"Aw he-uh, heck. I didn't mean it like that, Ivy. I'm sorry."
Ivy disappeared behind her blank mask once more. "I should be the one to apologise. I don't know what made me say that."
"You got a raw deal, Ivy. It's okay not to like it," I told her. "I never meant to compare being the Archive to having a demon in your head. It wants to make something I'm not. It's a danger to my child."
Ivy considered that. "My knowledge is limited to what has been documented. Most people succumb to the Fallen's blandishments at some point."
"Gee, great."
"There are also some few records of individuals who resisted the Fallen until their deaths," Ivy offered.
"Well, that's so much better."
"I would imagine so," Ivy agreed. "It is possible to rid yourself of the shadow. If you cease to employ your magical abilities, both will fade together."
"Yeah, not gonna happen. Got anything else?"
"Can I have some more hot chocolate?" Ivy asked.
"Sure." I suppressed a sigh and took her mug.
"The shadow is being sustained by your energy. Mortal magic atrophies with disuse; the shadow will eventually diminish to past the point where it can influence you."
"Not. Gonna. Happen," I repeated firmly. "What else?"
"You must sincerely wish to be rid of the demon."
"I already said I'd rather die," I protested.
"But you would rather live as you are than give up your magic," Ivy pointed out.
I glowered at the little can of chocolate powder. "Well that sucks."
"There is another possibility, but I don't think that you're going to like it very much either. Someone else might be able to excise the shadow."
"Excise, as in cut out? All right; now we're talking." My heart leapt, then sank again. "But the Third Law of Magic prohibits all sorts of mind-whammy."
"Oh, a human wizard would be a poor choice." Ivy accepted her refilled mug. "The shadow would most likely be transferred to any mortal who attempted it."
"Well, that would be bad."
"A powerful inhuman might be able to amputate the shadow and destroy it," Ivy continued.
I considered the powerful inhumans of my acquaintance. The idea of asking any of them to do anything to my brain made me want to go hide under my bed. And not come out. For a very, very long time.
"Harry?"
I sighed. "Thanks, Ivy. About my end of the deal..."
I was interrupted by the sound of Maggie waking up. Excusing myself, I disappeared into my bedroom to retrieve the Scamp. Ivy sat calmly drinking hot cocoa and spoiling my dog.
"Where's the kitty?" Ivy asked when I came back out.
"Sulking. He's still upset about the interloper." I gestured with my burned hand at Mouse, the other firmly in the Scamp's possession for use as a stabiliser. Maggie followed the direction of my gesture and immediately started toddling towards Ivy. She was getting pretty good at it, which my back was thankful for. Maggie was growing fast, but I still had to bend more or less in half in order to be a mommy-walker.
"Maggie, this is Ivy. Ivy, meet the Scamp."
"Iee," Maggie declared.
Ivy was careful not to meet the Scamp's absorbed gaze directly. She took in Maggie's determined, bright-eyed approach with clinical detachment. Mouse flipped over in Ivy's lap and inched forward to lick the Scamp's face in greeting.
"Margaret Dorothy Ellinor Dresden. Margaret LeFay, Dorothy Dietrich, Ellinor Redan, and Eleanor Newton-better known as Dell O'Dell. Your mother; one of the world's premier escape artists; the first female member of the Society of American Magicians; and a stage and television performer whose act was distinguished by witty banter." Ivy let Maggie grab her finger.
"Nice party trick," I said nervously.
"You are very protective."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"On the contrary; if individuals fail to care enough to protect what is important to them, society falls into chaos. Not that most societies don't make it there anyway." Ivy waggled her finger up and down. "But to return to the matter of repayment."
I folded myself up to sit on the edge of the armchair across from Ivy's. "Uh, yeah. You want me to keep a demon diary or something?"
"In fact, I wanted to request that you continue to pursue a certain line of inquiry in your magical research."
I perked up a little. "You mean I'm actually onto something? What is it?"
"If I already knew, it wouldn't be nearly as valuable to me. But your theories on large-scale thaumaturgical proxies as an alternative to Intellectus, though crude, show promise."
I tried to think what she could be referring to; I hadn't exactly had a lot of time and energy-not to mention cash-to spare for non-case-related spellwork for the past couple years. Or ever, really. I didn't even think I knew what Intellectus was.
"You mean that map thing?" I guessed. It was an idea I'd tossed at Bob a couple years ago and proceeded to do nothing about. A searchable mini-city. Could be useful: most of my cases were of the where-the-fuck-did-I-leave-my-keys? variety, and thaumaturgy is a bit of a specialty of mine. Okay, so it would be overkill for keys; people, now...
"Yes," Ivy said. "Please remember to take good notes."
We sat for a while, going over the Lasciel thing in more detail. Maggie started yawning, and I wrapped her in a blanket and rocked her back to sleep. She was getting heavy to pick up one-handed. Maybe a little surreptitious wind-magic? I really had to work on my fine control with evocations sometime.
Kincaid answered promptly when Ivy called from my phone. I took the Scamp back to bed while Ivy put her coat and gloves back on, then walked her out.
Murphy and Kincaid were just getting out of the SUV-the front, I noted, not the back-when we went outside. Murphy looked a little flushed, but not rumpled. She said something to Kincaid that caused a a predatory grin to cross his face, sudden as a knife-slash. I scowled.
Murphy rolled her eyes at me and pulled on her helmet. Kincaid watched her zoom away until she turned a corner out of sight. Then his attention snapped back to Ivy. He opened the back door for her, professional as you please, but the glances he sent my way were distinctly amused.
"What are you so happy about?" I asked him grumpily.
"Don't worry; I'm not that kind of girl." There went his teeth again.
"You better not be."
"Seatbelt on," Kincaid told Ivy. "Merry Christmas, Dresden."
I sighed. "Merry Christmas."
__________
I don't actually know if Dell O'Dell's given name was Eleanor. Dell is a variant of Nell, which is itself a nickname for any of Ellen, Helen, or Eleanor; I figured I could get away with fudging it.