Fic: Dirty Dancing, Chapter Two
Title: Dirty Dancing
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Dresden Files
Pairing: Harry Dresden/John Marcone
Rating: PG (with a sharp spike in later chapters)
Disclaimer: <--
Notes: Also at AO3. Dirty Dancing's answer to the events of Proven Guilty.
Summary: Like all great romances, this story is best read after repeated viewings of Hitchcock's The Birds. Maggie is two and a half.
Chapter One
The first one was to Billy Borden. He and the rest of the Alphas were down at Wolf Lake Park, chasing my apprentice around. Werewolves: they're such suckers for cliché. The voice on the other end of the line when Billy's phone stopped ringing belonged to Georgia, though, his new bride.
"Will Borden's phone; to whom am I speaking?"
"It's just me, Georgia," I told her.
"Oh, hi, Harry. Did you make your appointment?"
"No, and my car got towed. How's the Scamp behaving for you?"
"She's been running around almost as much as Molly, but there are thirteen of us and we can cheat. How do you keep track of her on your own?"
That was Maggie all over. "I can cheat, too. Listen, something's come up. Can you get Molly for me?"
"It might take a minute." A pause. "What happened?"
I made a face Georgia couldn't see over the phone. "It looks like I've got a case after all."
"Here, give me a sec," Georgia said. "Hey Maggie, want to talk to your mom for a bit?"
"Mommy?" a high, childish voice came on the line.
"Heya, Scamp. You having fun with Uncle Billy and Aunt Georgia?" I paused my rummaging for spare change. There are some times, I have to admit, that a cellphone would be useful. But that static Keithly had been getting wasn't an aberration: one of the reasons I drive a car that saw its first owner before Watergate is that anything newer just can't hack it. Technology and magic don't mix well, period.
"Mowwy an' Affas pway hide'n'seek."
I felt a goofy grin spread over my face. "Did they let you play?"
"I not pway; I dwink joos," Maggie replied with all the scathing logic of a two-year-old. "We pway tag," she allowed magnanimously.
"Who played tag with you?"
"Mouse an' Cinny an' Marcy, an' then Gee an' Andi. They all nakes. I not nakes 'cause I not a woof."
I choked. Maggie was a precocious little scamp all right. I could be glad at least the boys were making the change out of sight. I could just picture it: a small, dark-haired figure running naked through the grass, surrounded by a pack of giant wolves. That would have been such great blackmail material later in life.
"That's great," I told her. "I'm sorry I missed it. I had to go to work."
"Mommy work lots," agreed Maggie sagely.
"Yeah, and she's going to have to work tonight, too. So Molly's going to take you home, and then Thomas is going to stay with you. Okay?"
"'Kay."
One thing you could say about the Scamp was that she was adaptable. I'd say it was my erratic lifestyle, but the truth was I'd just lucked out. The downside was that she was easily bored and not afraid to let me know it.
"You've got your faerie wand and your special hankie, right?" I asked. "And your chalk?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good." I bit my lip on telling her to be safe because this was Maggie, after all, and she was too young for it to mean anything to her but smart enough to maybe be scared. "Mommy loves you," I said instead. "Can you give the phone back to Georgia now?"
"Gee!" I heard, a bit muffled, and then Georgia was back.
"Hey. Molly should be here soon. Is there anything we can do to to help?"
The Alphas weren't just werewolves: they looked after Hyde Park the way I looked after Chicago, sort of like the CPD and UCPD, only we were friends. And the UCPD doesn't have an equivalent of the CPD's SI, with whom I regularly consult. I'd seen the Alphas grow from a bunch of pimply, over-eager kids into a tough, competent unit. Not to mention good friends.
"Nah, just tell everybody they can go home," I said with exaggerated casualness I knew Georgia would pick up on. "Uh. I could use a ride, though."
"I think we can swing it. Here she- Holy shi-I mean, what happened to you?"
The last half of this was faint, as though Georgia were holding the phone away from her face, but I could still hear the snicker in her voice.
"Wipe your hands first," I heard, then Molly's voice speaking directly into the receiver. "Hey." She sounded more than a touch peeved.
"I thought the two-year-old was the one I had to tell not to play in the mud, Padawan." Keenly honed powers of deduction, that's me.
"Have you ever had to hide from a pack of werewolves in the woods?" Molly asked acidly.
"Yup," I said. "I stayed pretty clean up until they dumped me in the pit, though."
"...Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to for a minute. You know, for friends of yours these guys spend a lot of time without their clothes on."
I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? No, never mind. This case is heating up; I want you to take Maggie home. Call Thomas; he'll look after her for the night."
"What case?" Molly asked.
I grimaced. "Looks like there's something fishy about those kidnappings. When you get home, tell your dad I said to keep everyone behind the threshold. Especially Matt and Harry."
"Dad's not home," Molly said after a beat too long. "He got called away this morning."
Molly's father Michael was one of the Knights of the Cross. He took his orders, so far as I could tell, from arch-angels; and when he got called away, it usually meant something evil was about to get smote. Occasionally, that something was something I was also trying to smite. Looked like this wasn't going to be one of those times.
"Okay, Mols. I've got your back, and some pretty hefty Heavenly forces have got your dad's. The wards still good?"
Since Molly had become my apprentice a couple years back-and especially since some zombies had banged through my own wards last fall-she'd been helping me put up wards around her parents' house in secret. It was part prudence, part thank-you, part good practice for Molly, and part chance for me to experiment with new ideas before I stripped down my own wards, because I didn't dare leave my apartment vulnerable even for one night. My landlord was an ex-cop and it had been Halloween, so he'd bought that I'd pissed off a street gang. Barely. Since the whole city was going crazy. Not that that gave me a whole lot of points in his book.
Secret because her parents were-big surprise-pretty devout, and they didn't really approve of magic. I'd managed to convince them Molly's wasn't going to go away no matter how hard they ignored it, but let's just say it was still a tense subject. They hadn't really appreciated my role in introducing Molly to her girlfriend, who was sweet and not in any danger at all of turning into a vampire anymore, either.
"Yeah."
"And I've got a feeling I'm going to be drawing the heavy fire on this one anyway."
"Gee, that makes me feel so much better." I could almost hear the eye-roll.
"Oh, and stay-"
"-inside after dark, I know."
They grow up so fast. I sighed. "No kidding, grasshopper."
"I can do more than just babysit," Molly bulled on. "I mean, I could help you with your case."
"Maybe, but I'm asking you to do this."
A note of surly defiance crept into Molly's tone. "I'm legally an adult now. You were out on your own at my age."
Speaking of growing up too fast.
"I was nineteen, actually. And I'd been studying magic since I was ten." How could I get it through to my apprentice that the things that had made me tough so young were bad accidents, not good intentions? "It's not a question of being ready. I'm asking Thomas to stay at home, too."
There, that was a good point. But. "This is the way it is, Molly. I'm not your parents. You agreed back when we started this to follow my instructions. That doesn't just mean magic."
"Yes'm," Molly mumbled contritely. "Um, Georgia wants to know where to pick you up."
"Outside the Art Institute," I told her, dialling back the intensity.
"Right. Don't do anything Yoda wouldn't do," Molly told me with an approximation of her usual spunk and cut the call.
"You raised a good kid, Michael," I said softly. The least I could do was figure out how to keep her from getting herself killed or mixed up in black magic. It's tempting at that age to think magic is the solution to everything, and you're usually stumbling around in such a haze of hormones and conflicting impulses that you don't think ahead to the consequences. I had been alone, betrayed, and ignorant; it was amazing I'd survived long enough for the choices I'd made to come back to haunt me. I was determined that Molly not be shackled to similar self-sabotage for the rest of her life.
I called my answering service next and jotted down the number Izabylle Washington had left for me yesterday. I still had some time and some change, so I called her, too. Making calls kept me busy and helped me ignore the recuperative effects all the delicious and tempting food-smells were having on my empty stomach. I didn't think the cops would be thrilled with letting me back in tonight
"Hello?"
"Izabylle Washington?"
"Yeah, that's me. Who're you?"
"This is Harry Dresden."
I hastily jerked the phone back from my ear as Izabylle got rolling on a rant about my professionalism, manners, ancestry, and humanity. Well, what was I supposed to say? Sorry, but I really need you to hire me because I'm already on the case?
"Look," I said over her when it became apparent Izabylle wasn't going to wind down on her own anytime soon, "I'm sorry. I got tied up in Grant Park; I don't know if it's made it on the news yet."
Blessed silence on the other end of the line. "Sons of bitches got someone else, didn't they?"
"Yeah," I said. "I'd like to take your case, but I need to meet with you as soon as possible."
"I gotta get back to work; I already had to take time off."
"Where do you work? When do you get off?" I asked.
"Lagniappe. But I don't get off 'til like a hour after the Taste closes down."
"Wait, where are you right now?"
"Two blocks away from the park. Look, I don't have time to waste going all the way-"
"I'll come to you," I said. "Tall woman, dark hair, big stick. Are you on Adams or Madison?" I asked, looking down Adams for a black woman on a cellphone.
Izabylle sighed. "Madison."
Of course.
"I'll be right there," I told her and put the phone back in the cradle.
Madison was two blocks away, and they were two of the busiest blocks in the city right now, in the middle of summer with an event in Grant Park. The second block was Millennium Park, and there was only a border of young trees between me and the face-fountain towers that most people think of when they think of Millennium Park. That or the Bean. I wasn't a big fan of the Bean, though.
On top of that, Chicago foot traffic refuses to arrange itself in any kind of order. There's none of this stay-to-your-right nonsense you get in other cities, just pedestrians stomping around in unwieldy mobs. At intersections, one mob runs head-on into the mob going the other way in the middle of the street and the tourists and power-suits end up playing chicken with the strollers and college students and any car insane enough to try making a right turn.
I didn't-quite-end up running down the sidewalk, but my legs are so long that I can walk as fast as most people jog if I put a little effort into it. I won't say I thumped anyone with my staff either, but it does come in handy when you have to pry your way between people. I was fortunate in that the only street I had to cross was one of the ones blocked off for the Taste, except it was naturally full of people on their way to the Taste and I almost got pulled under by the riptide.
Madison doesn't connect through from Michigan Avenue to Lake Shore Drive; instead, it turns into a sort of pedestrian boulevard leading into Millennium Park and up to the big outdoor auditorium that looks like it lost a fight with an aluminum foil factory. When I got there, I stood by the big, motor-vehicle-discouraging flower bed and spun in a slow circle, trying to spot someone who looked like she was looking for someone, too. I could see the El tracks a few blocks away.
"Harry Dresden?"
I turned around. The tone of voice was belligerent and matched perfectly the expression of the short black woman in front of me. Her hair was an alarming shade of orange, shaved up the sides and with bangs falling all over her oval face, I assumed on purpose. It clashed-or was that contrasted?-with the blue tank top she was wearing, which was long and loose in the body and gathered almost below the hems of her jean shorts. She was carrying enough extra pounds to emphasise her curves even through the baggy shirt-I, who had barely had a figure before I got pregnant and still have no hips to speak of, was faintly jealous-and her unusually dark skin glowed with youth.
"That's me. You must be Izabylle." I put her at about Molly's age. Since the newspapers said Ayden Washington was ten years old, I figured her for sister and not mother.
"Talk fast."
We started back down the way I had come, moving almost as quickly. Izabylle didn't seem too concerned about keeping together. I think I detect some misplaced anxiety. Or properly-placed anger. A good clip for someone in sandals, anyhow.
"When was the last time you saw Ayden?" I asked.
"Two days ago, about one-thirty, quarter of. I had him for the day. He got bored, and I gave him some tickets to go get some food. I told him he was supposed to get his ass back to the stand by three, which is when I get my break, so I was gonna go around with him. I figured I'd see his lazy ass before that; boy never stood an hour in his life. But maybe he found somewhere to sit in the grass or down by the fountain, right?"
"You let him wander off alone when there had already been three kidnappings?"
"It was just for a hour, and there was supposed to be cops everywhere. Cops ought to be good for something, but I guess not. Besides, he had a cellphone," Izabylle said defensively. "Can't pry the damn thing away from him. He sends me stuff every couple minutes. Like, I thought I'd have my inbox full of pictures of fried food and fat white people or something."
"Did he leave you any messages?" I asked. I was starting to get a picture: harried older sister stuck with a kid who'd probably rather be playing videogames with his friends and too busy working to keep him entertained. Her mother probably blamed her, not entirely without justification, which would make it even harder for Izabylle to deal with her own feelings of guilt. The FBI wasn't getting anywhere with the case; things would be getting worse at home with fears and frustrations mounting and nothing to do but wait. More than enough motive for a young woman to take whatever money she could scrape together and hire a PI.
"Not a damn thing. I tried calling him, but it just didn't go through. FBI say they couldn't track the phone or nothing."
"That when you called the cops?"
"Well, some pervert has been grabbing little boys. I'll tell you something; if a bunch of little white kids hadn't gotten theyselves snatched, cops'd just blow me off."
We turned the corner, approaching the entrance. "Can you remember anything unusual happening, either that morning or since the Taste started up? Anyone following you? Any bad feelings? Weird stuff happening? It might be something small," I added. "Appliances breaking down a lot or something."
Izabylle shook her head, digging a restaurant staff visor out of her purse-which was big enough her ten-year-old brother could probably have fit in it-and pulling it on.
"I don't know," she said, "but if one more person tells me the birds in Chicago are weird, I'm gonna beat them senseless with a frying pan."
"Just one more thing," I said as Izabylle made to use her privileges to cut in line.
"Yeah?"
"If you didn't think there was something strange-I mean, supernaturally-about your brother's disappearance, why did you come to me?"
"I didn't." It hadn't been too obvious before, but now that we'd stopped walking, I could tell that Izabylle was definitely avoiding meeting my eyes. "I went to the PI down the street, Nick Christian, and he told me go to you."
"Ah."
Izabylle looked up, and it was my turn to dodge her gaze. "I don't know from wizards, witches, any of that. Can you find my brother? He may be a whiney little brat, but I can't let anything happen to him."
"I'll do my best," I told her wide nose. "Tomorrow, bring something of his to work. Hair-" er, "-fingernail clippings, a toothbrush. Something he keeps with him a lot might work, too." A shame the FBI hadn't been able to locate that cellphone.
Izabylle, looking a lot more worried all of a sudden, nodded. "I'll get it."
"Good. I'll swing by tomorrow as early as I can. In the meantime, I'll see what I can get the FBI and police to cough up. They have a limited point of view which means that sometimes they miss things."
__ __ __
I hurried back to the Art Institute-there wasn't any parking on this part of Michigan Avenue outside of an extortionist parking garage, which had a snowball's chance in hell of having a free spot right now anyway. You'd think the kidnappings would be scaring away more of the crowd.
Someone honked, which isn't so unusual in downtown Chicago; but they honked out the first five beats of shave and a hair-cut. I looked back down the line of cars and saw a familiar dark SUV.
Normally, I'm a bit sceptical about people who drive SUVs in the city; but Billy and Georgia did in fact haul that many people around on a regular basis. Actually, they'd be better off with a full-sized van, except then they'd really never be able to find a parking space. All these people with Hummers and SUVs, I don't know where they put them. I have enough trouble trying to wedge the Beetle into street parking.
I opened the door of an SUV driven by a long-faced woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a shiny new wedding ring on her left hand. Her dirty blonde hair, almost as uncooperative as my own, was pulled back from her face in a similar braid-but neater, since she had the full use of both hands.
Georgia Borden was wearing a University of Chicago tee-shirt that read, Where the only thing that goes down on you is your GPA. I snorted involuntarily. That was almost as good as the one she and the other Alpha girls had given me at Maggie's baby shower and said, It's like unprotected sex: you were glad you got in but sorry you came. The University of Chicago is one of the best institutions of higher learning in the world, and situated smack-dab in the middle of the South Side. They have a strange sense of humour down there.
I'd often considered asking Georgia how she managed to be willowy instead of stick-like, but it really wouldn't fit with my image as badass magical mentor. Not that I'd been looking to become the Alphas' mentor; but they'd been more than eager to press me into the role, and from time to time it even helped me keep them out of trouble. Besides, I ought to be over whining about my looks by now.
Those last three inches of height I'd put on probably had something to do with it. When I'd finally hit my growth spurt and it just wouldn't stop, I'd been inclined to start slouching. But neither Justin nor Ebenezar was having any of that, so here I stood, sticking up out of the crowd like a ship's mast.
"You really that eager for me to kill this thing again?" I asked Georgia.
"As long as no one bashes in all your windows at the impound lot, it shouldn't be for too long," she replied with equanimity. I winced, reminded of who had smashed them in last time and why, and what had happened to him. Namely, me. "Come on, get in before the light changes."
Obediently, I got inside and buckled up. There was a tense moment after I closed the door when I wasn't certain the dinging mantra of the door is ajar was going to stop again; but it did, and somewhere up ahead the light changed, and we started moving.
"Where to?" Georgia asked.
"My office," I said. I was in the middle of adjusting the cushy bucket seat, my head tilted back against the headrest to enjoy actual air-conditioning for once and less than eighty per cent humidity. Then I froze, my blood running cold for a different reason entirely.
Before I could freak out too much, my stomach growled. Bodily functions are a pain, but I've found they help me keep my feet in reality. "Uh. I could maybe eat something."
Georgia smiled knowingly, apparently unaware of my momentary panic attack. We stopped at Harold's and got about an entire fried chicken apiece. I tore into mine immediately. Georgia waited until she was done driving, pulling one of two wooden chairs up to the other side of my desk. She'd reassured me Maggie and Molly were secure behind my wards, and that Molly had promised to call Thomas immediately and not sit on anything until she changed out of her muddy clothes.
The new office was a bit smaller than my old one. My desk was on the long inner wall, on your left as you come in and facing the windows. The room had way too many windows. I'd installed some inconveniently short, battered filing cabinets against the wall on the other side of the desk; they were an unhealthy, seventies sort of dark green. Two mismatched armchairs were crammed into the corner beyond them on either side of a little end table with a chess board inlaid on the top, the pieces set up for a new game. I had a reading light on my desk, but with the blinds down most of the light came from two lamps across the room, which worked more reliably. There was a big cardboard box shoved in one corner that Maggie's toys and books might or might not make it back into when we cleared out for the day.
I'd had to furnish it with fresh stuff, since my old building had been demolished-courtesy of Marcone-before I had a chance to find another. My desk, my filing cabinets, the table where I'd displayed my pamphlets (which had been replaced by a row of hanging wall files), my slightly lumpy easy chairs, the ancient plastic reed roll-up shades on the windows-all gone.
I looked around, seeing it all in a different light now I knew Marcone had had my old building knocked down two years ago because the Red Court had planted explosives in the walls. It was a radical readjustment to my world view, and I was still acclimating.
"So, are you going to tell me about this new case?"
"Missing kids," I grunted. I leaned my staff in the corner where it would be within easy reach from the desk and set my blasting rod down between Georgia's grape soda and the phone.
"Oh my god. Those boys who are disappearing from the Taste?"
"Uh-huh. Gimme a sec," I told her. I dialled the phone. "Hey, Murph. It's me."
"Harry. Tell me you need a babysitter," Murphy greeted me.
"Can you feel the love?"
Murphy snorted.
"Relax; I'm just looking for some information. I've been hired to find one of the missing kids," I explained. "Do you think you could pull the file on the case for me? I'm not sure how much help the FBI is going to be."
"They weren't dazzled by your winning personality?" Murphy asked drily.
"Can you believe it?" I grinned.
"I go off-shift in an hour. I'll be over then."
"Thanks, Murph."
"Uh-huh." She hung up.
Looked like I had some time to kill, no leads, and no suspects. I reached for the phone again: time to attend to some other business.
That morning, besides acquiring a reel of mental images for my next nightmare, I'd also received two messages: a request from my second mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, to find out why the Faeries weren't out kicking Red Court ass after what they'd pulled last fall and an even-more-inscrutable-than-normal note from the Gatekeeper. Which was saying something if you knew the Gatekeeper. It read only, Look up.
Yeah. Like I didn't have enough to be paranoid about already.
I had even less idea what to do about the Gatekeeper's note than the kidnappings. But past Faerie shenanigans had left me with a few contacts in both the Winter and Summer Courts. I called the least perilous of these: the Summer Knight, Fix.
Fix wasn't in a talking mood, which unsettled me a little. His caution was justifiable-or maybe he just didn't want to talk in front of whoever that was he'd been in bed with. My relationship with the current Summer Knight and Summer Lady had up to now been a good one. Anyway, I did manage to set up a meeting with him for the next morning. Fix hadn't been too happy about the timing, but if I didn't get lucky with a tracking spell on Trevor Abbascia tonight, I was going to have to spend all day watching for the sorcerer to make his move, which meant I was going to have to be on site.
I looked at the clock on the far wall-as far from me as I could get it, ditto the lamps, although the coffee machine was too close for its own good-and decided to call Nick Christian, my third mentor. He was the one who had taught me the detective end of things, more or less against his better judgement. We crossed paths on one of his cases while I was working as a dance partner in a senior citizen organisation, and I was so starved for intellectual stimulation I latched onto him like a drowning woman.
Besides, there is only so long you can stand being groped by eighty-year-old men-or eighty-year-old women; you'd be surprised-before you start harbouring thoughts of euthanasia. Some of the old folks had had some interesting stories to tell, though. And it's the most television I've been able to watch since my magic manifested, even if it did skew heavily towards Dukes of Hazzard and M*A*S*H reruns. Explains a lot, right?
"Ragged Angel Investigations," Nick's gravelly voice, destroyed by years of alcohol and tobacco-firearms, too, but they didn't effect his vocal cords-answered after several rings.
"Relax, it's only Harry," I told him. "Just calling to thank you for the referral."
Nick grunted.
"What made you send her my way?" I asked.
"If you say it's not up your alley, I'll take it back," Nick offered.
"No, but if I have to go pry information out of the FBI, I want to be as well-armed as possible."
"Ha. Suits."
"Yeah. Hey, you know a guy named Keithly?" I asked.
"Didn't you ever run into him?" Nick sounded surprised. "No, you were pretty allergic to cops, weren't you? He's a big-shot, been at this almost as long as I have. Use you if he thinks he can, but he doesn't like people getting in his way."
Georgia had finished her food by now and was politely pretending the armchair where she was reading one of my second-hand paperbacks was out of earshot. I fiddled with the phone cord.
"You never answered my question," I reminded Nick.
"A bunch of little stuff that doesn't add up, except they're almost all like that. And then there are the birds."
"Birds?" I repeated intently.
"No witnesses to the kidnappings, although a bunch of folks reported what turned out to be the parents dragging the kids around earlier in the day. But a lot of people complained about a flock of pigeons or crows buzzing the crowd sometime after the last time the boys were seen. A lot of times, they don't even know where they came from. I don't work your side of the street, but that's significant, right?"
"Yeah," I said, chewing on my lip. "Magic will disturb animals if it's black, or if it's big enough. And if what I saw today was any indication, what we've got here is both."
"I don't want to know anything about it," Nick said loudly.
I grinned briefly. "Whatever you say. I'll let you know how it goes."
"Don't you dare." Nick punctuated this statement by hanging up.
I put the receiver back in its cradle. Georgia was watching me, book lying open on her lap. Her face, which was already predisposed to look sad, was far too grave for a newly-wed.
"So, how was the honeymoon?" I asked.
"I know you can't always tell us everything, like what happened last year," when a Black Court Vampire may or may not have blackmailed me into saving civilisation as we know it using pictures of Karrin Murphy blasting a Renfield with a sawed-off shotgun while standing next to Gentleman Johnny Marcone-ironically, it had been the same vampire we went in to kill in the first place, "but I speak for everyone when I say that if you think there's anything we can do to help, we want to do it."
"That bad, huh?" I said. "Well, all those tropical beaches, you're bound to get sunburn in some uncomfortable places."
Georgia, who was so tanned you could almost mistake her race if it weren't for her hair colour, flashed me a smile. "You know, my psych textbooks call humour an interrupted defence mechanism."
"That was Larry Niven."
"Quoting Doctor Vaillant."
I sagged back in my office chair. "Not like there's much to tell yet anyway. More information, that's the ticket."
I grabbed pen from my desk drawer and started laying out what facts I had on a half-full legal pad. Murphy should be by before much longer, and then I was going to have to go bug the Feds again. I could bug Marcone to bug the Feds, I supposed, but only if I were truly desperate. I had barely started investigating, I reminded myself. The kind of things I was looking for probably wouldn't show up in FBI reports anyway. I was used to doing my own legwork. But the Taste was only going to last four more days; after that finding the culprit-not to mention the kids-was going to get even harder.
Georgia went out into the hall to call Billy. She got a privately pleased look on her face when she mentioned him, one that sat somewhat at odds with my memory of her nearly ripping out Jenny Greenteeth's throat on the altar for impersonating her groom. It might be nice to have someone feel that way about me. I supposed I'd come close a couple times, but nothing had stuck.
Recent indiscretions aside, I was pretty good at ignoring my girl-parts and getting down to work. So it was working very industriously that Murphy found me when she showed up.
"You keeping a bodyguard now, Harry?" Murphy asked, slipping through the door and shutting it behind her. "Looks like they got you anyway."
I picked my head up from where it had tipped back, in aid of my examination of the plaster ceiling, only then noticing the continued absence of both Georgia and the book she'd been reading. My fingers twitched guiltily.
"My car got towed. Georgia's offered to chauffeur: she needs the practice. You know, since you can't actually get work with a post-graduate degree these days."
"I heard. I also heard you had another run-in with Marcone today. You working for his mafia friend from Youngstown?" Murphy asked, her voice acquiring a distinct edge. She was carrying several manila file folders held together with a rubber band.
"Is that where he's from? You'd think it would be someplace more exciting," I said. "And why is everyone assuming I work for Marcone today? You and your ex. I thought those rumours died out years ago."
"You met Rick, huh?"
I nodded. "Down at the crime scene. He's a real charmer."
"Isn't he though?
"I'm looking for Ayden Washington," I said. "A PI I know sent his sister to me, noticed something smelled about the case."
"What?" Murphy asked.
"Birds," I said. "Of course, birds are kind of smelly anyway."
Murphy set the folders on top of the dismembered newspapers currently occupying my desk. I leaned forward through the almost liquid air and pulled the rubber band off with a snap, flipping open the topmost.
"It's all I could get. SI isn't working this one; too high-profile, especially now. The commissioner wants people who know what they're doing."
I recognised the sour note in Murphy's voice. Special Investigations got stuck with the shittiest assignments, the ones that were too unglamourous for Homicide or Major Case, and anything too obviously preposterous-i.e. supernatural-that the Department wanted swept under the carpet. It was a thankless job, dealing with things the rest of the world didn't want to admit even existed and then having to cover it up so no one had to think about anything that might pop their cosy little bubble of denial. Being assigned as head of SI was essentially a career death sentence.
Murphy had thrown it back in her bosses' faces. But it wasn't, you know, unstressful.
"If you want anything more, you're going to have to ask the FBI."
"It's better than nothing, which is what this case has been so far. Thanks, Murph."
"Don't thank me yet," Murphy said. "I skimmed through those before I came over. I'm pretty sure you've still got a lot of nothing."
"And birds, Murph. Don't forget the birds."
Murphy snorted. "Well, let me know if you need backup."
"Is there some reason none of you will trust me to take care of myself?" I complained.
"Experience?" Murphy suggested.
"Ouch."
"Truth hurts." Murphy shrugged.
"Send my bodyguard in on your way out," I told her.
Murphy flashed a grin. "Sure."
Chapter Three
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Dresden Files
Pairing: Harry Dresden/John Marcone
Rating: PG (with a sharp spike in later chapters)
Disclaimer: <--
Notes: Also at AO3. Dirty Dancing's answer to the events of Proven Guilty.
Summary: Like all great romances, this story is best read after repeated viewings of Hitchcock's The Birds. Maggie is two and a half.
Chapter One
The first one was to Billy Borden. He and the rest of the Alphas were down at Wolf Lake Park, chasing my apprentice around. Werewolves: they're such suckers for cliché. The voice on the other end of the line when Billy's phone stopped ringing belonged to Georgia, though, his new bride.
"Will Borden's phone; to whom am I speaking?"
"It's just me, Georgia," I told her.
"Oh, hi, Harry. Did you make your appointment?"
"No, and my car got towed. How's the Scamp behaving for you?"
"She's been running around almost as much as Molly, but there are thirteen of us and we can cheat. How do you keep track of her on your own?"
That was Maggie all over. "I can cheat, too. Listen, something's come up. Can you get Molly for me?"
"It might take a minute." A pause. "What happened?"
I made a face Georgia couldn't see over the phone. "It looks like I've got a case after all."
"Here, give me a sec," Georgia said. "Hey Maggie, want to talk to your mom for a bit?"
"Mommy?" a high, childish voice came on the line.
"Heya, Scamp. You having fun with Uncle Billy and Aunt Georgia?" I paused my rummaging for spare change. There are some times, I have to admit, that a cellphone would be useful. But that static Keithly had been getting wasn't an aberration: one of the reasons I drive a car that saw its first owner before Watergate is that anything newer just can't hack it. Technology and magic don't mix well, period.
"Mowwy an' Affas pway hide'n'seek."
I felt a goofy grin spread over my face. "Did they let you play?"
"I not pway; I dwink joos," Maggie replied with all the scathing logic of a two-year-old. "We pway tag," she allowed magnanimously.
"Who played tag with you?"
"Mouse an' Cinny an' Marcy, an' then Gee an' Andi. They all nakes. I not nakes 'cause I not a woof."
I choked. Maggie was a precocious little scamp all right. I could be glad at least the boys were making the change out of sight. I could just picture it: a small, dark-haired figure running naked through the grass, surrounded by a pack of giant wolves. That would have been such great blackmail material later in life.
"That's great," I told her. "I'm sorry I missed it. I had to go to work."
"Mommy work lots," agreed Maggie sagely.
"Yeah, and she's going to have to work tonight, too. So Molly's going to take you home, and then Thomas is going to stay with you. Okay?"
"'Kay."
One thing you could say about the Scamp was that she was adaptable. I'd say it was my erratic lifestyle, but the truth was I'd just lucked out. The downside was that she was easily bored and not afraid to let me know it.
"You've got your faerie wand and your special hankie, right?" I asked. "And your chalk?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good." I bit my lip on telling her to be safe because this was Maggie, after all, and she was too young for it to mean anything to her but smart enough to maybe be scared. "Mommy loves you," I said instead. "Can you give the phone back to Georgia now?"
"Gee!" I heard, a bit muffled, and then Georgia was back.
"Hey. Molly should be here soon. Is there anything we can do to to help?"
The Alphas weren't just werewolves: they looked after Hyde Park the way I looked after Chicago, sort of like the CPD and UCPD, only we were friends. And the UCPD doesn't have an equivalent of the CPD's SI, with whom I regularly consult. I'd seen the Alphas grow from a bunch of pimply, over-eager kids into a tough, competent unit. Not to mention good friends.
"Nah, just tell everybody they can go home," I said with exaggerated casualness I knew Georgia would pick up on. "Uh. I could use a ride, though."
"I think we can swing it. Here she- Holy shi-I mean, what happened to you?"
The last half of this was faint, as though Georgia were holding the phone away from her face, but I could still hear the snicker in her voice.
"Wipe your hands first," I heard, then Molly's voice speaking directly into the receiver. "Hey." She sounded more than a touch peeved.
"I thought the two-year-old was the one I had to tell not to play in the mud, Padawan." Keenly honed powers of deduction, that's me.
"Have you ever had to hide from a pack of werewolves in the woods?" Molly asked acidly.
"Yup," I said. "I stayed pretty clean up until they dumped me in the pit, though."
"...Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to for a minute. You know, for friends of yours these guys spend a lot of time without their clothes on."
I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? No, never mind. This case is heating up; I want you to take Maggie home. Call Thomas; he'll look after her for the night."
"What case?" Molly asked.
I grimaced. "Looks like there's something fishy about those kidnappings. When you get home, tell your dad I said to keep everyone behind the threshold. Especially Matt and Harry."
"Dad's not home," Molly said after a beat too long. "He got called away this morning."
Molly's father Michael was one of the Knights of the Cross. He took his orders, so far as I could tell, from arch-angels; and when he got called away, it usually meant something evil was about to get smote. Occasionally, that something was something I was also trying to smite. Looked like this wasn't going to be one of those times.
"Okay, Mols. I've got your back, and some pretty hefty Heavenly forces have got your dad's. The wards still good?"
Since Molly had become my apprentice a couple years back-and especially since some zombies had banged through my own wards last fall-she'd been helping me put up wards around her parents' house in secret. It was part prudence, part thank-you, part good practice for Molly, and part chance for me to experiment with new ideas before I stripped down my own wards, because I didn't dare leave my apartment vulnerable even for one night. My landlord was an ex-cop and it had been Halloween, so he'd bought that I'd pissed off a street gang. Barely. Since the whole city was going crazy. Not that that gave me a whole lot of points in his book.
Secret because her parents were-big surprise-pretty devout, and they didn't really approve of magic. I'd managed to convince them Molly's wasn't going to go away no matter how hard they ignored it, but let's just say it was still a tense subject. They hadn't really appreciated my role in introducing Molly to her girlfriend, who was sweet and not in any danger at all of turning into a vampire anymore, either.
"Yeah."
"And I've got a feeling I'm going to be drawing the heavy fire on this one anyway."
"Gee, that makes me feel so much better." I could almost hear the eye-roll.
"Oh, and stay-"
"-inside after dark, I know."
They grow up so fast. I sighed. "No kidding, grasshopper."
"I can do more than just babysit," Molly bulled on. "I mean, I could help you with your case."
"Maybe, but I'm asking you to do this."
A note of surly defiance crept into Molly's tone. "I'm legally an adult now. You were out on your own at my age."
Speaking of growing up too fast.
"I was nineteen, actually. And I'd been studying magic since I was ten." How could I get it through to my apprentice that the things that had made me tough so young were bad accidents, not good intentions? "It's not a question of being ready. I'm asking Thomas to stay at home, too."
There, that was a good point. But. "This is the way it is, Molly. I'm not your parents. You agreed back when we started this to follow my instructions. That doesn't just mean magic."
"Yes'm," Molly mumbled contritely. "Um, Georgia wants to know where to pick you up."
"Outside the Art Institute," I told her, dialling back the intensity.
"Right. Don't do anything Yoda wouldn't do," Molly told me with an approximation of her usual spunk and cut the call.
"You raised a good kid, Michael," I said softly. The least I could do was figure out how to keep her from getting herself killed or mixed up in black magic. It's tempting at that age to think magic is the solution to everything, and you're usually stumbling around in such a haze of hormones and conflicting impulses that you don't think ahead to the consequences. I had been alone, betrayed, and ignorant; it was amazing I'd survived long enough for the choices I'd made to come back to haunt me. I was determined that Molly not be shackled to similar self-sabotage for the rest of her life.
I called my answering service next and jotted down the number Izabylle Washington had left for me yesterday. I still had some time and some change, so I called her, too. Making calls kept me busy and helped me ignore the recuperative effects all the delicious and tempting food-smells were having on my empty stomach. I didn't think the cops would be thrilled with letting me back in tonight
"Hello?"
"Izabylle Washington?"
"Yeah, that's me. Who're you?"
"This is Harry Dresden."
I hastily jerked the phone back from my ear as Izabylle got rolling on a rant about my professionalism, manners, ancestry, and humanity. Well, what was I supposed to say? Sorry, but I really need you to hire me because I'm already on the case?
"Look," I said over her when it became apparent Izabylle wasn't going to wind down on her own anytime soon, "I'm sorry. I got tied up in Grant Park; I don't know if it's made it on the news yet."
Blessed silence on the other end of the line. "Sons of bitches got someone else, didn't they?"
"Yeah," I said. "I'd like to take your case, but I need to meet with you as soon as possible."
"I gotta get back to work; I already had to take time off."
"Where do you work? When do you get off?" I asked.
"Lagniappe. But I don't get off 'til like a hour after the Taste closes down."
"Wait, where are you right now?"
"Two blocks away from the park. Look, I don't have time to waste going all the way-"
"I'll come to you," I said. "Tall woman, dark hair, big stick. Are you on Adams or Madison?" I asked, looking down Adams for a black woman on a cellphone.
Izabylle sighed. "Madison."
Of course.
"I'll be right there," I told her and put the phone back in the cradle.
Madison was two blocks away, and they were two of the busiest blocks in the city right now, in the middle of summer with an event in Grant Park. The second block was Millennium Park, and there was only a border of young trees between me and the face-fountain towers that most people think of when they think of Millennium Park. That or the Bean. I wasn't a big fan of the Bean, though.
On top of that, Chicago foot traffic refuses to arrange itself in any kind of order. There's none of this stay-to-your-right nonsense you get in other cities, just pedestrians stomping around in unwieldy mobs. At intersections, one mob runs head-on into the mob going the other way in the middle of the street and the tourists and power-suits end up playing chicken with the strollers and college students and any car insane enough to try making a right turn.
I didn't-quite-end up running down the sidewalk, but my legs are so long that I can walk as fast as most people jog if I put a little effort into it. I won't say I thumped anyone with my staff either, but it does come in handy when you have to pry your way between people. I was fortunate in that the only street I had to cross was one of the ones blocked off for the Taste, except it was naturally full of people on their way to the Taste and I almost got pulled under by the riptide.
Madison doesn't connect through from Michigan Avenue to Lake Shore Drive; instead, it turns into a sort of pedestrian boulevard leading into Millennium Park and up to the big outdoor auditorium that looks like it lost a fight with an aluminum foil factory. When I got there, I stood by the big, motor-vehicle-discouraging flower bed and spun in a slow circle, trying to spot someone who looked like she was looking for someone, too. I could see the El tracks a few blocks away.
"Harry Dresden?"
I turned around. The tone of voice was belligerent and matched perfectly the expression of the short black woman in front of me. Her hair was an alarming shade of orange, shaved up the sides and with bangs falling all over her oval face, I assumed on purpose. It clashed-or was that contrasted?-with the blue tank top she was wearing, which was long and loose in the body and gathered almost below the hems of her jean shorts. She was carrying enough extra pounds to emphasise her curves even through the baggy shirt-I, who had barely had a figure before I got pregnant and still have no hips to speak of, was faintly jealous-and her unusually dark skin glowed with youth.
"That's me. You must be Izabylle." I put her at about Molly's age. Since the newspapers said Ayden Washington was ten years old, I figured her for sister and not mother.
"Talk fast."
We started back down the way I had come, moving almost as quickly. Izabylle didn't seem too concerned about keeping together. I think I detect some misplaced anxiety. Or properly-placed anger. A good clip for someone in sandals, anyhow.
"When was the last time you saw Ayden?" I asked.
"Two days ago, about one-thirty, quarter of. I had him for the day. He got bored, and I gave him some tickets to go get some food. I told him he was supposed to get his ass back to the stand by three, which is when I get my break, so I was gonna go around with him. I figured I'd see his lazy ass before that; boy never stood an hour in his life. But maybe he found somewhere to sit in the grass or down by the fountain, right?"
"You let him wander off alone when there had already been three kidnappings?"
"It was just for a hour, and there was supposed to be cops everywhere. Cops ought to be good for something, but I guess not. Besides, he had a cellphone," Izabylle said defensively. "Can't pry the damn thing away from him. He sends me stuff every couple minutes. Like, I thought I'd have my inbox full of pictures of fried food and fat white people or something."
"Did he leave you any messages?" I asked. I was starting to get a picture: harried older sister stuck with a kid who'd probably rather be playing videogames with his friends and too busy working to keep him entertained. Her mother probably blamed her, not entirely without justification, which would make it even harder for Izabylle to deal with her own feelings of guilt. The FBI wasn't getting anywhere with the case; things would be getting worse at home with fears and frustrations mounting and nothing to do but wait. More than enough motive for a young woman to take whatever money she could scrape together and hire a PI.
"Not a damn thing. I tried calling him, but it just didn't go through. FBI say they couldn't track the phone or nothing."
"That when you called the cops?"
"Well, some pervert has been grabbing little boys. I'll tell you something; if a bunch of little white kids hadn't gotten theyselves snatched, cops'd just blow me off."
We turned the corner, approaching the entrance. "Can you remember anything unusual happening, either that morning or since the Taste started up? Anyone following you? Any bad feelings? Weird stuff happening? It might be something small," I added. "Appliances breaking down a lot or something."
Izabylle shook her head, digging a restaurant staff visor out of her purse-which was big enough her ten-year-old brother could probably have fit in it-and pulling it on.
"I don't know," she said, "but if one more person tells me the birds in Chicago are weird, I'm gonna beat them senseless with a frying pan."
"Just one more thing," I said as Izabylle made to use her privileges to cut in line.
"Yeah?"
"If you didn't think there was something strange-I mean, supernaturally-about your brother's disappearance, why did you come to me?"
"I didn't." It hadn't been too obvious before, but now that we'd stopped walking, I could tell that Izabylle was definitely avoiding meeting my eyes. "I went to the PI down the street, Nick Christian, and he told me go to you."
"Ah."
Izabylle looked up, and it was my turn to dodge her gaze. "I don't know from wizards, witches, any of that. Can you find my brother? He may be a whiney little brat, but I can't let anything happen to him."
"I'll do my best," I told her wide nose. "Tomorrow, bring something of his to work. Hair-" er, "-fingernail clippings, a toothbrush. Something he keeps with him a lot might work, too." A shame the FBI hadn't been able to locate that cellphone.
Izabylle, looking a lot more worried all of a sudden, nodded. "I'll get it."
"Good. I'll swing by tomorrow as early as I can. In the meantime, I'll see what I can get the FBI and police to cough up. They have a limited point of view which means that sometimes they miss things."
__ __ __
I hurried back to the Art Institute-there wasn't any parking on this part of Michigan Avenue outside of an extortionist parking garage, which had a snowball's chance in hell of having a free spot right now anyway. You'd think the kidnappings would be scaring away more of the crowd.
Someone honked, which isn't so unusual in downtown Chicago; but they honked out the first five beats of shave and a hair-cut. I looked back down the line of cars and saw a familiar dark SUV.
Normally, I'm a bit sceptical about people who drive SUVs in the city; but Billy and Georgia did in fact haul that many people around on a regular basis. Actually, they'd be better off with a full-sized van, except then they'd really never be able to find a parking space. All these people with Hummers and SUVs, I don't know where they put them. I have enough trouble trying to wedge the Beetle into street parking.
I opened the door of an SUV driven by a long-faced woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a shiny new wedding ring on her left hand. Her dirty blonde hair, almost as uncooperative as my own, was pulled back from her face in a similar braid-but neater, since she had the full use of both hands.
Georgia Borden was wearing a University of Chicago tee-shirt that read, Where the only thing that goes down on you is your GPA. I snorted involuntarily. That was almost as good as the one she and the other Alpha girls had given me at Maggie's baby shower and said, It's like unprotected sex: you were glad you got in but sorry you came. The University of Chicago is one of the best institutions of higher learning in the world, and situated smack-dab in the middle of the South Side. They have a strange sense of humour down there.
I'd often considered asking Georgia how she managed to be willowy instead of stick-like, but it really wouldn't fit with my image as badass magical mentor. Not that I'd been looking to become the Alphas' mentor; but they'd been more than eager to press me into the role, and from time to time it even helped me keep them out of trouble. Besides, I ought to be over whining about my looks by now.
Those last three inches of height I'd put on probably had something to do with it. When I'd finally hit my growth spurt and it just wouldn't stop, I'd been inclined to start slouching. But neither Justin nor Ebenezar was having any of that, so here I stood, sticking up out of the crowd like a ship's mast.
"You really that eager for me to kill this thing again?" I asked Georgia.
"As long as no one bashes in all your windows at the impound lot, it shouldn't be for too long," she replied with equanimity. I winced, reminded of who had smashed them in last time and why, and what had happened to him. Namely, me. "Come on, get in before the light changes."
Obediently, I got inside and buckled up. There was a tense moment after I closed the door when I wasn't certain the dinging mantra of the door is ajar was going to stop again; but it did, and somewhere up ahead the light changed, and we started moving.
"Where to?" Georgia asked.
"My office," I said. I was in the middle of adjusting the cushy bucket seat, my head tilted back against the headrest to enjoy actual air-conditioning for once and less than eighty per cent humidity. Then I froze, my blood running cold for a different reason entirely.
Before I could freak out too much, my stomach growled. Bodily functions are a pain, but I've found they help me keep my feet in reality. "Uh. I could maybe eat something."
Georgia smiled knowingly, apparently unaware of my momentary panic attack. We stopped at Harold's and got about an entire fried chicken apiece. I tore into mine immediately. Georgia waited until she was done driving, pulling one of two wooden chairs up to the other side of my desk. She'd reassured me Maggie and Molly were secure behind my wards, and that Molly had promised to call Thomas immediately and not sit on anything until she changed out of her muddy clothes.
The new office was a bit smaller than my old one. My desk was on the long inner wall, on your left as you come in and facing the windows. The room had way too many windows. I'd installed some inconveniently short, battered filing cabinets against the wall on the other side of the desk; they were an unhealthy, seventies sort of dark green. Two mismatched armchairs were crammed into the corner beyond them on either side of a little end table with a chess board inlaid on the top, the pieces set up for a new game. I had a reading light on my desk, but with the blinds down most of the light came from two lamps across the room, which worked more reliably. There was a big cardboard box shoved in one corner that Maggie's toys and books might or might not make it back into when we cleared out for the day.
I'd had to furnish it with fresh stuff, since my old building had been demolished-courtesy of Marcone-before I had a chance to find another. My desk, my filing cabinets, the table where I'd displayed my pamphlets (which had been replaced by a row of hanging wall files), my slightly lumpy easy chairs, the ancient plastic reed roll-up shades on the windows-all gone.
I looked around, seeing it all in a different light now I knew Marcone had had my old building knocked down two years ago because the Red Court had planted explosives in the walls. It was a radical readjustment to my world view, and I was still acclimating.
"So, are you going to tell me about this new case?"
"Missing kids," I grunted. I leaned my staff in the corner where it would be within easy reach from the desk and set my blasting rod down between Georgia's grape soda and the phone.
"Oh my god. Those boys who are disappearing from the Taste?"
"Uh-huh. Gimme a sec," I told her. I dialled the phone. "Hey, Murph. It's me."
"Harry. Tell me you need a babysitter," Murphy greeted me.
"Can you feel the love?"
Murphy snorted.
"Relax; I'm just looking for some information. I've been hired to find one of the missing kids," I explained. "Do you think you could pull the file on the case for me? I'm not sure how much help the FBI is going to be."
"They weren't dazzled by your winning personality?" Murphy asked drily.
"Can you believe it?" I grinned.
"I go off-shift in an hour. I'll be over then."
"Thanks, Murph."
"Uh-huh." She hung up.
Looked like I had some time to kill, no leads, and no suspects. I reached for the phone again: time to attend to some other business.
That morning, besides acquiring a reel of mental images for my next nightmare, I'd also received two messages: a request from my second mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, to find out why the Faeries weren't out kicking Red Court ass after what they'd pulled last fall and an even-more-inscrutable-than-normal note from the Gatekeeper. Which was saying something if you knew the Gatekeeper. It read only, Look up.
Yeah. Like I didn't have enough to be paranoid about already.
I had even less idea what to do about the Gatekeeper's note than the kidnappings. But past Faerie shenanigans had left me with a few contacts in both the Winter and Summer Courts. I called the least perilous of these: the Summer Knight, Fix.
Fix wasn't in a talking mood, which unsettled me a little. His caution was justifiable-or maybe he just didn't want to talk in front of whoever that was he'd been in bed with. My relationship with the current Summer Knight and Summer Lady had up to now been a good one. Anyway, I did manage to set up a meeting with him for the next morning. Fix hadn't been too happy about the timing, but if I didn't get lucky with a tracking spell on Trevor Abbascia tonight, I was going to have to spend all day watching for the sorcerer to make his move, which meant I was going to have to be on site.
I looked at the clock on the far wall-as far from me as I could get it, ditto the lamps, although the coffee machine was too close for its own good-and decided to call Nick Christian, my third mentor. He was the one who had taught me the detective end of things, more or less against his better judgement. We crossed paths on one of his cases while I was working as a dance partner in a senior citizen organisation, and I was so starved for intellectual stimulation I latched onto him like a drowning woman.
Besides, there is only so long you can stand being groped by eighty-year-old men-or eighty-year-old women; you'd be surprised-before you start harbouring thoughts of euthanasia. Some of the old folks had had some interesting stories to tell, though. And it's the most television I've been able to watch since my magic manifested, even if it did skew heavily towards Dukes of Hazzard and M*A*S*H reruns. Explains a lot, right?
"Ragged Angel Investigations," Nick's gravelly voice, destroyed by years of alcohol and tobacco-firearms, too, but they didn't effect his vocal cords-answered after several rings.
"Relax, it's only Harry," I told him. "Just calling to thank you for the referral."
Nick grunted.
"What made you send her my way?" I asked.
"If you say it's not up your alley, I'll take it back," Nick offered.
"No, but if I have to go pry information out of the FBI, I want to be as well-armed as possible."
"Ha. Suits."
"Yeah. Hey, you know a guy named Keithly?" I asked.
"Didn't you ever run into him?" Nick sounded surprised. "No, you were pretty allergic to cops, weren't you? He's a big-shot, been at this almost as long as I have. Use you if he thinks he can, but he doesn't like people getting in his way."
Georgia had finished her food by now and was politely pretending the armchair where she was reading one of my second-hand paperbacks was out of earshot. I fiddled with the phone cord.
"You never answered my question," I reminded Nick.
"A bunch of little stuff that doesn't add up, except they're almost all like that. And then there are the birds."
"Birds?" I repeated intently.
"No witnesses to the kidnappings, although a bunch of folks reported what turned out to be the parents dragging the kids around earlier in the day. But a lot of people complained about a flock of pigeons or crows buzzing the crowd sometime after the last time the boys were seen. A lot of times, they don't even know where they came from. I don't work your side of the street, but that's significant, right?"
"Yeah," I said, chewing on my lip. "Magic will disturb animals if it's black, or if it's big enough. And if what I saw today was any indication, what we've got here is both."
"I don't want to know anything about it," Nick said loudly.
I grinned briefly. "Whatever you say. I'll let you know how it goes."
"Don't you dare." Nick punctuated this statement by hanging up.
I put the receiver back in its cradle. Georgia was watching me, book lying open on her lap. Her face, which was already predisposed to look sad, was far too grave for a newly-wed.
"So, how was the honeymoon?" I asked.
"I know you can't always tell us everything, like what happened last year," when a Black Court Vampire may or may not have blackmailed me into saving civilisation as we know it using pictures of Karrin Murphy blasting a Renfield with a sawed-off shotgun while standing next to Gentleman Johnny Marcone-ironically, it had been the same vampire we went in to kill in the first place, "but I speak for everyone when I say that if you think there's anything we can do to help, we want to do it."
"That bad, huh?" I said. "Well, all those tropical beaches, you're bound to get sunburn in some uncomfortable places."
Georgia, who was so tanned you could almost mistake her race if it weren't for her hair colour, flashed me a smile. "You know, my psych textbooks call humour an interrupted defence mechanism."
"That was Larry Niven."
"Quoting Doctor Vaillant."
I sagged back in my office chair. "Not like there's much to tell yet anyway. More information, that's the ticket."
I grabbed pen from my desk drawer and started laying out what facts I had on a half-full legal pad. Murphy should be by before much longer, and then I was going to have to go bug the Feds again. I could bug Marcone to bug the Feds, I supposed, but only if I were truly desperate. I had barely started investigating, I reminded myself. The kind of things I was looking for probably wouldn't show up in FBI reports anyway. I was used to doing my own legwork. But the Taste was only going to last four more days; after that finding the culprit-not to mention the kids-was going to get even harder.
Georgia went out into the hall to call Billy. She got a privately pleased look on her face when she mentioned him, one that sat somewhat at odds with my memory of her nearly ripping out Jenny Greenteeth's throat on the altar for impersonating her groom. It might be nice to have someone feel that way about me. I supposed I'd come close a couple times, but nothing had stuck.
Recent indiscretions aside, I was pretty good at ignoring my girl-parts and getting down to work. So it was working very industriously that Murphy found me when she showed up.
"You keeping a bodyguard now, Harry?" Murphy asked, slipping through the door and shutting it behind her. "Looks like they got you anyway."
I picked my head up from where it had tipped back, in aid of my examination of the plaster ceiling, only then noticing the continued absence of both Georgia and the book she'd been reading. My fingers twitched guiltily.
"My car got towed. Georgia's offered to chauffeur: she needs the practice. You know, since you can't actually get work with a post-graduate degree these days."
"I heard. I also heard you had another run-in with Marcone today. You working for his mafia friend from Youngstown?" Murphy asked, her voice acquiring a distinct edge. She was carrying several manila file folders held together with a rubber band.
"Is that where he's from? You'd think it would be someplace more exciting," I said. "And why is everyone assuming I work for Marcone today? You and your ex. I thought those rumours died out years ago."
"You met Rick, huh?"
I nodded. "Down at the crime scene. He's a real charmer."
"Isn't he though?
"I'm looking for Ayden Washington," I said. "A PI I know sent his sister to me, noticed something smelled about the case."
"What?" Murphy asked.
"Birds," I said. "Of course, birds are kind of smelly anyway."
Murphy set the folders on top of the dismembered newspapers currently occupying my desk. I leaned forward through the almost liquid air and pulled the rubber band off with a snap, flipping open the topmost.
"It's all I could get. SI isn't working this one; too high-profile, especially now. The commissioner wants people who know what they're doing."
I recognised the sour note in Murphy's voice. Special Investigations got stuck with the shittiest assignments, the ones that were too unglamourous for Homicide or Major Case, and anything too obviously preposterous-i.e. supernatural-that the Department wanted swept under the carpet. It was a thankless job, dealing with things the rest of the world didn't want to admit even existed and then having to cover it up so no one had to think about anything that might pop their cosy little bubble of denial. Being assigned as head of SI was essentially a career death sentence.
Murphy had thrown it back in her bosses' faces. But it wasn't, you know, unstressful.
"If you want anything more, you're going to have to ask the FBI."
"It's better than nothing, which is what this case has been so far. Thanks, Murph."
"Don't thank me yet," Murphy said. "I skimmed through those before I came over. I'm pretty sure you've still got a lot of nothing."
"And birds, Murph. Don't forget the birds."
Murphy snorted. "Well, let me know if you need backup."
"Is there some reason none of you will trust me to take care of myself?" I complained.
"Experience?" Murphy suggested.
"Ouch."
"Truth hurts." Murphy shrugged.
"Send my bodyguard in on your way out," I told her.
Murphy flashed a grin. "Sure."
Chapter Three