Day 15 . Night of the Living Frustration . Dresden Files x Grimm
Title: Night of the Living Frustration
Author: jedibuttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not
Rating: PG-13
Prompt/Prompter: sulien, who asked for: "Portland has a zombie problem, as reported by the Paranet, and Ramirez has his hands full elsewhere, so Harry gets called in to deal with what he thinks are more Kemmlerites. Harry is in for a real surprise and so are Nick and company."
Spoilers: Post "White Night" in Dresden Files; Season 2 finale for Grimm
Notes: As always with Dresden, the story got away from me. I don't have the time or energy to retell the entire finale at the moment, so this reads more like a prequel to your prompt, but I hope it still satisfies?
Summary: I'd come to Portland on the wings of a panic attack that Mavra might have surfaced again with the Word of Kemmler. But what followed was more Night of the Living Frustration than City War Z. 3200w.
Life might be like a box of chocolates for some people. But not for me. From my perspective, life is more like a fruitcake: you know you're in for some shade of hell when you take a bite, yet it somehow manages to surprise you anyway. Every time.
"I don't know what the hell was wrong with this guy," I said, wrinkling my nose as I stared down at the body on the morgue table, "but he definitely wasn't a zombie."
Dr. Harper snorted in agreement. She seemed a little pale and shaky-- understandable, considering another of her customers had sat up in the middle of an autopsy a few hours before-- but also competent and perceptive: Portland, Oregon's version of Butters. "No, but I'm not surprised your informant described him that way; he did show all the classic signs. He was pronounced dead three days ago, then broke into a house this morning and started wrecking the place. The officers who responded to the disturbance call said he didn't even try to speak; just sort of growled." She gestured to the exit wounds marring the corpse's chest. "It took four bullets to bring him down."
I'd come a long way from the days when the sight of a dead body made me want to kneel at the porcelain throne, and as corpses go, Mr. Mulpus' wasn't even particularly grotesque. But I could practically feel the acrid magic rolling off him; if he wasn't a practitioner, whatever had happened to him probably hadn't even been voluntary. And I doubted he was; there were reasons warlocks didn't usually berserk themselves. Besides the minor inconvenience that it was kind of hard to keep a plan on track when you were too crazed to think clearly, it was a really good way to draw the attention of the sort of authorities that smite first and ask questions later.
Case in point: yours truly, Warden Harry Dresden, alerted by a chain of truly frantic calls sent up the Paranet. It had only been a year or so since an old friend and I had helped set up a support network for minor practitioners all across the country, and the number of times they'd sent a false alarm could be counted on the fingers of one hand; I hadn't wasted any time in responding.
Usually, Oregon would be Carlos Ramirez' turf as the West Coast's Regional Commander, but he was dealing with a sewage demon infestation in the zipcode envy sections of Los Angeles. Quite literally a horrorshow for all involved. Chicago, on the other hand, had been going through a quiet phase; it was May, smack between mystically significant spring holidays, an unattractive time for nasties whose power depends on the seasonally shifting currents of the Nevernever. So I'd taken the call instead, and had a brief panic attack over the idea that Mavra might have surfaced again with the Word of Kemmler.
I'd met my first zombie in a place not unlike the one where I stood, the last time the Word had changed hands. Though Chicago's morgue is technically a "Forensic Institute" now, an upscale building surrounded by well-sculpted landscaping, great views, and an industrial park full of biotech companies. A recipe for extra creepiness, if you ask me, never mind the more antiseptic naming scheme. Once upon a time, I'd known the security guard at the front desk well enough to call him Phil and sneak him six-packs of McAnnally's nectar of the gods to defray the inconvenience of my more unofficial visits. The necromancer who'd followed me in one day hadn't bothered with persuasion; he'd slit the man's throat from ear to ear and sent Phil to corner my friend Butters. Naturally, I'd gotten in the way.
Aside from the bullet wounds, though... I couldn't see any other fatal injuries on the body. Nor did Mr. Mulpus show any of the signs of decay you'd normally expect if a body had been walking around unrefrigerated for days. The only weirdnesses I could see that might correspond to that aura of dark magic were the wide, bloodshot eyes and the dried green smears under his nose, visible on the pre-autopsy photographs. Hulk-colored discharge: and wasn't that a marvelous thought.
I cleared my throat. "Any idea what that green stuff was?"
Dr. Harper nodded. "The preliminary tox report shows a complex interaction of various drugs, including tetrodotoxin, scopolamine, and a powerful hallucinogen called Datura."
I winced. Potions making is like any other use of magic: intent and association matter a lot to the outcome. I'd done enough research on herbal ingredients over the years, beefing up my mental library the way I did with all my exercises of craft, that the effects of a plant as potent as angel's trumpet leaped to the forefront of my thoughts without much effort.
No other substance has received as many severely negative recreational experience reports as Datura: it has common side-effects as varied as hyperthermia, tachycardia, bizarre and violent behavior, severely dilated pupils, and even pronounced amnesia.
And one more thing: "Lazarus syndrome," I concluded, wrinkling my nose.
The ME nodded again. "Where the victim appears dead, only to awaken some time later. What's even stranger is the apparent method of delivery; I couldn't find any injection marks, and the contents of his stomach were clear of the toxins. The clue was the excessive inflammation of the eyes and upper respiratory system: someone apparently sprayed him in the face with it. I didn't have much opportunity to examine Lily O'Hara, the woman found with him, but when she woke she showed similar signs of soft tissue irritation."
I shuddered in sympathy, and made a mental note to swipe a set of eye-shields from the protective equipment stock on the way out.
I didn't care to take a guess yet whether the magic and the drug were a chicken and egg problem, or if he'd been blasted all at once; poor bastard. But all in all, I was glad the Paranetters had sent up a flare. This might not be another crop of Kemmlerites on the rise, but that didn't mean there wasn't a genuine threat out there: some wannabe bokor just getting his toes wet.
And on that cheery note: it was time to track down Lily O'Hara and see if a Look at a living victim would help me find the perpetrator.
I made my thanks and excuses and put the chilly halls of the dead behind me.
What followed was more Night of the Living Frustration than City War Z. My contact at the precinct, a sergeant named Robert Franco married to a hearthwitch on the 'Net, let me know that missing persons reports were trickling in at an alarming rate, but there hadn't been any more zombielike attacks. Lily O'Hara had disappeared from intensive care, and all my attempts to track her using traces she'd left behind at the hospital fizzled out into a gray blanket of magic, like the fog rolling up into the city from the nearby Willamette and Columbia Rivers.
The most incriminating thing I found as I beat feet around the city of six hundred or so thousand-- maybe a quarter the size of my native stomping grounds, but still far too large for one man to cover in a single night-- was a brickfront building labeled with a sign reading Voodoo Doughnuts. I didn't spy any Datura on their menu, but I did seize several Bacon Maple samples for more intensive examination.
I missed Mouse; he'd have been in canine heaven. One of these days I was going to have to figure out a way to take six foot nine inches of lanky wizard and a Dogus Giganticus of similar weight and intelligence cross country without more discomfort than the effort was worth. Not on my part, mind you. His. A full-sized Temple Dog is a lot of furface to be sharing space with when he decides he's bored with taking in the scenery. But direct passages through the Nevernever unfortunately don't grow on trees.
I licked frosting off my fingers all the way back to my hotel, then took a warm shower-- the water heater even lasted a full twenty minutes for once-- and collapsed into bed at oh dark thirty. Somewhere out there, Lily O'Hara and who knew how many others had been drugged and set up for some sick bastard's amusement, and I hadn't been able to find them; but I wouldn't do them any good if I ran myself into the ground. After a few too many all-nighters in my life, I'd learned to refill the tank when I could.
Even I can learn from experience. Eventually.
I was glad of the rest the next morning, when I woke to the sounds of chaos right outside my cheap chain hotel, and walked out into a scene from an action movie. I didn't see anyone who looked like Lily O'Hara, but there was a guy showing symptoms similar to Richard Mulpis', stinking of cloying dark magic and plowing through passersby as though oblivious to anything but a desire to destroy.
He didn't seem to have any particular target; from what I could see-- and hear, when I took a second to Listen-- there were other affected folks scattered all over the nearby blocks of downtown Portland, committing random mayhem. If I'd had any doubt left whether it was a genuine zombie attack, that nixed it: they weren't following a drummer. Not even a car stereo set on heavy bass, one of the improvised tactics I'd run across that Halloween back in Chicago. That would make them harder to stop.
I threaded my way through the frantically scattering foot traffic, ducking a couple of idiots filming the scene with their so-called smart phones, and smiled grimly at the surprised outcries as their screens fritzed out in my wake. Then I gestured with my blasting rod, muttering a low-voiced ventas servitas to knock the 'zombie' back as he charged toward a man on a bike in a neon green jacket.
This wasn't so much an attack as it was a flashy distraction; that much was obvious. But if I could track the guy back to where the warlock had been keeping his victims, I might be able to pick up more concrete clues as to his identity. Or hers; always keeping in mind Murphy's repeated attempts to cure me of my chivalry thing and the year-plus I'd spent trying to keep ahead of an aggressive-minded, very female teenage apprentice.
First things first, though. I charged down the pavement as he staggered back to his feet, punching a guy who had misguidedly reached out a hand to help. I skidded to a halt in front of a bus shelter just as he reached inside for its sole occupant, a panicked blonde woman already trying to get out of the way, and knocked him ass over teakettle with a blast from one of my kinetic force rings. Then I planted a boot on his chest and took a deep breath as I opened up my Sight.
I tried not to do that more often than I had to. A wizard's Sight is an extra sense that typically manifests as augmented vision, showing the primal nature of things: the true and emotional core of what they are. It's good at picking up traces of magical energy and cutting through illusions. Unfortunately, it's also indelible: what you See quite literally can't be unSeen. It'll remain in your memory forever, as crystal clear as the day you first Saw it. Look on a few angels, and you'll weep for beauty; but in my line of work, horrors to scorch the mind are far more common.
It was still the absolute quickest way to get a glimpse at what was going on with this guy before the cops followed a 911 call to the source. And I was betting on Portland's PD being swift responders.
I'd Seen people psychically shredded by fetches before, creatures of Faerie that feed on fear. I'd Seen teenagers with tiny holes in their temples, maddened by a friend's attempt to 'fix' their addictions for them. And I'd Seen a friend wrapped in the ice-cold thorns of a torture curse, missing chunks of psychic flesh from a Nightmare's attack on his spirit. What I Saw in that nameless victim was nothing so immediately horrible: a man's face in repose, eyes closed, tossing as if in a dream. But I could also See a vicious blot of green-- the drug causing his maddened trance?-- and the shadow of another man's visage overlaid on his: a leaner face, with a suggestion of a goatee, intense dark eyes, and a top hat. The perp Sgt. Franco had described, the one who'd taken Lily O'Hara from the hospital.
I sat back on my heels at that, wondering what my next step should be-- then flinched as a hand came down on my shoulder. I inadvertently glanced up at the cop who'd approached me while I'd been concentrating with my Sight still open, and got a good Look at something infinitely weirder. I'd met lycanthropes and werewolves and loup garou, but I'd never seen someone with a pig's face before. And it was clearly a face: proportioned like a human's, seated atop a human body, but snouted and eared like an actual porcine.
Part of my backbrain made note of the ironic nature of the vision, and wondered if contact with the 'zombie' was somehow causing me to hallucinate. The rest of me took a startled step back, inadvertently freeing the growling 'zombie', and caught a glimpse of several other animal-headed people in the crowd as my sight range widened. It was like a convention of transplanted Egyptian gods: a lion here, a snake there, and something that looked disconcertingly like a beaver across the street. Maybe a quarter of the onlookers had been transfigured.
I hurriedly shook off the Sight: and voila, they were just people again. Human people, rubbernecking at an interesting spectacle. But the cop who'd interrupted me looked as startled as I'd felt at his touch.
"Grim," he growled, one hand falling to his holster.
Fortunately for me-- though not so much for him-- the 'zombie' chose that moment to lurch back upright, tackling the cop and diverting his focus.
I took that as my cue to scamper. Stars and stones. What the hell was going on in the Rose City?
More to the point-- why hadn't it been brought to my attention before? If I could See it, surely others could as well. And you'd think it would be an important fact to know when investigating in the area. Had Ramirez known that people with, ah, alternative heritage had settled here, and just not told me? Because that was the only thing they could be: descendants of long-ago changelings and other supernatural beings, diluted with human blood until their heritage was largely invisible to the average mundane human... unless they chose to make it visible.
I didn't know much about the phenomenon, just that it was responsible for a lot of the animal-headed deities in ancient pantheons; most of the actual crossbreeds I'd met were far more recent, genetically speaking. A prime example being the Hellhound, the centuries-old assassin and bodyguard who served one of the scariest little girls I'd ever had the pleasure to meet. Why would so many gravitate to the Pacific Northwest? Or was it one of those widespread facts of the preternatural world that my first Master hadn't seen fit to educate me about, and everyone since had just assumed I knew? I had an irritating tendency to trip over such landmines when they were least convenient.
And what the hell had that cop meant, accusing me of being 'grim'? He hadn't exactly been a picture of sunshine and happiness, himself.
I shook off the thought for later contemplation, and ran toward the sound of screams on the next block.
It wasn't long before I ran across another locus of police activity: a storefront with a broken window being guarded by a couple of uniforms, while a man covered in cuts was being loaded into an ambulance. Glass, meet innocent consumer of expensively doctored caffeine, I gathered; the place was a coffee shop. While I rubbernecked behind the police cordon, trying to determine if there were any 'zombies' still at large on the scene, a blocky grey station wagon/SUV type vehicle pulled up and disgorged a plainclothes cop. A detective, probably: I recognized the body language.
He was at least a foot shorter than I was, with a pale complexion, blue eyes, and stylishly disordered dark hair; not quite my half-brother Thomas' level of pretty, but he wouldn't have looked out of place in that neighborhood. He had a quick, grim-faced-- ha!-- conversation with the uniform, and then the pair went into the shop, weapons drawn. I took a chance and drew my own laminated ID, walking past the officer they'd left to guard the door as though I'd been expected, and walked into the wrecked storefront just as the detective cocked his head to listen to something upstairs.
I frowned, and focused to Listen myself. Interestingly, it took the uniform several seconds longer to register the sounds of growling and crashing upstairs; was the detective some kind of practitioner himself? Curiouser and curiouser. They lifted their weapons again, and headed for the stairs...
...just as I stepped on a shard of broken glass. The uniform went on up the stairs, apparently not having heard me, but the detective whirled around, aiming in my direction.
And then something really weird happened: the detective's eyes went completely black, like lightless pits, seeming to stare right through me.
A shiver went up my spine, and I resisted the temptation to open my Sight again. What was it with this town? Was there some real-world equivalent of a Hellmouth knocking around in the old tunnels beneath the city?
"Whoa there," I said. "Harry Dresden, consultant to Chicago PD."
"Nick Burkhardt, Portland PD," he replied, lowering his gun with a frown; and with a blink, empty eyes faded back to normal blue. "What is Chicago PD's interest here? No, you know what, that can wait. Mr. Dresden, this is an active crime scene. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask...."
A loud crash from above interrupted him, followed by a cry of pain from the other officer.
"Wu!" he cried, then shot me a glare and pointed toward the door. "Go outside and wait with the other officers!" Then he ran for the stairs.
I whipped up a veil and followed after him. What? Murphy, I might have thought about obeying; an unknown cop of unknown heritage assigned to a magically related crime wave, not so much. I recognized his name from my conversation with the ME.
New plan: I intended to stick like glue to Burkhardt's side until the case was solved. And maybe after.
Clearly, there were layers to this town that the Warden Commander of North America should really be better informed about.
-x-
Author: jedibuttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not
Rating: PG-13
Prompt/Prompter: sulien, who asked for: "Portland has a zombie problem, as reported by the Paranet, and Ramirez has his hands full elsewhere, so Harry gets called in to deal with what he thinks are more Kemmlerites. Harry is in for a real surprise and so are Nick and company."
Spoilers: Post "White Night" in Dresden Files; Season 2 finale for Grimm
Notes: As always with Dresden, the story got away from me. I don't have the time or energy to retell the entire finale at the moment, so this reads more like a prequel to your prompt, but I hope it still satisfies?
Summary: I'd come to Portland on the wings of a panic attack that Mavra might have surfaced again with the Word of Kemmler. But what followed was more Night of the Living Frustration than City War Z. 3200w.
Life might be like a box of chocolates for some people. But not for me. From my perspective, life is more like a fruitcake: you know you're in for some shade of hell when you take a bite, yet it somehow manages to surprise you anyway. Every time.
"I don't know what the hell was wrong with this guy," I said, wrinkling my nose as I stared down at the body on the morgue table, "but he definitely wasn't a zombie."
Dr. Harper snorted in agreement. She seemed a little pale and shaky-- understandable, considering another of her customers had sat up in the middle of an autopsy a few hours before-- but also competent and perceptive: Portland, Oregon's version of Butters. "No, but I'm not surprised your informant described him that way; he did show all the classic signs. He was pronounced dead three days ago, then broke into a house this morning and started wrecking the place. The officers who responded to the disturbance call said he didn't even try to speak; just sort of growled." She gestured to the exit wounds marring the corpse's chest. "It took four bullets to bring him down."
I'd come a long way from the days when the sight of a dead body made me want to kneel at the porcelain throne, and as corpses go, Mr. Mulpus' wasn't even particularly grotesque. But I could practically feel the acrid magic rolling off him; if he wasn't a practitioner, whatever had happened to him probably hadn't even been voluntary. And I doubted he was; there were reasons warlocks didn't usually berserk themselves. Besides the minor inconvenience that it was kind of hard to keep a plan on track when you were too crazed to think clearly, it was a really good way to draw the attention of the sort of authorities that smite first and ask questions later.
Case in point: yours truly, Warden Harry Dresden, alerted by a chain of truly frantic calls sent up the Paranet. It had only been a year or so since an old friend and I had helped set up a support network for minor practitioners all across the country, and the number of times they'd sent a false alarm could be counted on the fingers of one hand; I hadn't wasted any time in responding.
Usually, Oregon would be Carlos Ramirez' turf as the West Coast's Regional Commander, but he was dealing with a sewage demon infestation in the zipcode envy sections of Los Angeles. Quite literally a horrorshow for all involved. Chicago, on the other hand, had been going through a quiet phase; it was May, smack between mystically significant spring holidays, an unattractive time for nasties whose power depends on the seasonally shifting currents of the Nevernever. So I'd taken the call instead, and had a brief panic attack over the idea that Mavra might have surfaced again with the Word of Kemmler.
I'd met my first zombie in a place not unlike the one where I stood, the last time the Word had changed hands. Though Chicago's morgue is technically a "Forensic Institute" now, an upscale building surrounded by well-sculpted landscaping, great views, and an industrial park full of biotech companies. A recipe for extra creepiness, if you ask me, never mind the more antiseptic naming scheme. Once upon a time, I'd known the security guard at the front desk well enough to call him Phil and sneak him six-packs of McAnnally's nectar of the gods to defray the inconvenience of my more unofficial visits. The necromancer who'd followed me in one day hadn't bothered with persuasion; he'd slit the man's throat from ear to ear and sent Phil to corner my friend Butters. Naturally, I'd gotten in the way.
Aside from the bullet wounds, though... I couldn't see any other fatal injuries on the body. Nor did Mr. Mulpus show any of the signs of decay you'd normally expect if a body had been walking around unrefrigerated for days. The only weirdnesses I could see that might correspond to that aura of dark magic were the wide, bloodshot eyes and the dried green smears under his nose, visible on the pre-autopsy photographs. Hulk-colored discharge: and wasn't that a marvelous thought.
I cleared my throat. "Any idea what that green stuff was?"
Dr. Harper nodded. "The preliminary tox report shows a complex interaction of various drugs, including tetrodotoxin, scopolamine, and a powerful hallucinogen called Datura."
I winced. Potions making is like any other use of magic: intent and association matter a lot to the outcome. I'd done enough research on herbal ingredients over the years, beefing up my mental library the way I did with all my exercises of craft, that the effects of a plant as potent as angel's trumpet leaped to the forefront of my thoughts without much effort.
No other substance has received as many severely negative recreational experience reports as Datura: it has common side-effects as varied as hyperthermia, tachycardia, bizarre and violent behavior, severely dilated pupils, and even pronounced amnesia.
And one more thing: "Lazarus syndrome," I concluded, wrinkling my nose.
The ME nodded again. "Where the victim appears dead, only to awaken some time later. What's even stranger is the apparent method of delivery; I couldn't find any injection marks, and the contents of his stomach were clear of the toxins. The clue was the excessive inflammation of the eyes and upper respiratory system: someone apparently sprayed him in the face with it. I didn't have much opportunity to examine Lily O'Hara, the woman found with him, but when she woke she showed similar signs of soft tissue irritation."
I shuddered in sympathy, and made a mental note to swipe a set of eye-shields from the protective equipment stock on the way out.
I didn't care to take a guess yet whether the magic and the drug were a chicken and egg problem, or if he'd been blasted all at once; poor bastard. But all in all, I was glad the Paranetters had sent up a flare. This might not be another crop of Kemmlerites on the rise, but that didn't mean there wasn't a genuine threat out there: some wannabe bokor just getting his toes wet.
And on that cheery note: it was time to track down Lily O'Hara and see if a Look at a living victim would help me find the perpetrator.
I made my thanks and excuses and put the chilly halls of the dead behind me.
What followed was more Night of the Living Frustration than City War Z. My contact at the precinct, a sergeant named Robert Franco married to a hearthwitch on the 'Net, let me know that missing persons reports were trickling in at an alarming rate, but there hadn't been any more zombielike attacks. Lily O'Hara had disappeared from intensive care, and all my attempts to track her using traces she'd left behind at the hospital fizzled out into a gray blanket of magic, like the fog rolling up into the city from the nearby Willamette and Columbia Rivers.
The most incriminating thing I found as I beat feet around the city of six hundred or so thousand-- maybe a quarter the size of my native stomping grounds, but still far too large for one man to cover in a single night-- was a brickfront building labeled with a sign reading Voodoo Doughnuts. I didn't spy any Datura on their menu, but I did seize several Bacon Maple samples for more intensive examination.
I missed Mouse; he'd have been in canine heaven. One of these days I was going to have to figure out a way to take six foot nine inches of lanky wizard and a Dogus Giganticus of similar weight and intelligence cross country without more discomfort than the effort was worth. Not on my part, mind you. His. A full-sized Temple Dog is a lot of furface to be sharing space with when he decides he's bored with taking in the scenery. But direct passages through the Nevernever unfortunately don't grow on trees.
I licked frosting off my fingers all the way back to my hotel, then took a warm shower-- the water heater even lasted a full twenty minutes for once-- and collapsed into bed at oh dark thirty. Somewhere out there, Lily O'Hara and who knew how many others had been drugged and set up for some sick bastard's amusement, and I hadn't been able to find them; but I wouldn't do them any good if I ran myself into the ground. After a few too many all-nighters in my life, I'd learned to refill the tank when I could.
Even I can learn from experience. Eventually.
I was glad of the rest the next morning, when I woke to the sounds of chaos right outside my cheap chain hotel, and walked out into a scene from an action movie. I didn't see anyone who looked like Lily O'Hara, but there was a guy showing symptoms similar to Richard Mulpis', stinking of cloying dark magic and plowing through passersby as though oblivious to anything but a desire to destroy.
He didn't seem to have any particular target; from what I could see-- and hear, when I took a second to Listen-- there were other affected folks scattered all over the nearby blocks of downtown Portland, committing random mayhem. If I'd had any doubt left whether it was a genuine zombie attack, that nixed it: they weren't following a drummer. Not even a car stereo set on heavy bass, one of the improvised tactics I'd run across that Halloween back in Chicago. That would make them harder to stop.
I threaded my way through the frantically scattering foot traffic, ducking a couple of idiots filming the scene with their so-called smart phones, and smiled grimly at the surprised outcries as their screens fritzed out in my wake. Then I gestured with my blasting rod, muttering a low-voiced ventas servitas to knock the 'zombie' back as he charged toward a man on a bike in a neon green jacket.
This wasn't so much an attack as it was a flashy distraction; that much was obvious. But if I could track the guy back to where the warlock had been keeping his victims, I might be able to pick up more concrete clues as to his identity. Or hers; always keeping in mind Murphy's repeated attempts to cure me of my chivalry thing and the year-plus I'd spent trying to keep ahead of an aggressive-minded, very female teenage apprentice.
First things first, though. I charged down the pavement as he staggered back to his feet, punching a guy who had misguidedly reached out a hand to help. I skidded to a halt in front of a bus shelter just as he reached inside for its sole occupant, a panicked blonde woman already trying to get out of the way, and knocked him ass over teakettle with a blast from one of my kinetic force rings. Then I planted a boot on his chest and took a deep breath as I opened up my Sight.
I tried not to do that more often than I had to. A wizard's Sight is an extra sense that typically manifests as augmented vision, showing the primal nature of things: the true and emotional core of what they are. It's good at picking up traces of magical energy and cutting through illusions. Unfortunately, it's also indelible: what you See quite literally can't be unSeen. It'll remain in your memory forever, as crystal clear as the day you first Saw it. Look on a few angels, and you'll weep for beauty; but in my line of work, horrors to scorch the mind are far more common.
It was still the absolute quickest way to get a glimpse at what was going on with this guy before the cops followed a 911 call to the source. And I was betting on Portland's PD being swift responders.
I'd Seen people psychically shredded by fetches before, creatures of Faerie that feed on fear. I'd Seen teenagers with tiny holes in their temples, maddened by a friend's attempt to 'fix' their addictions for them. And I'd Seen a friend wrapped in the ice-cold thorns of a torture curse, missing chunks of psychic flesh from a Nightmare's attack on his spirit. What I Saw in that nameless victim was nothing so immediately horrible: a man's face in repose, eyes closed, tossing as if in a dream. But I could also See a vicious blot of green-- the drug causing his maddened trance?-- and the shadow of another man's visage overlaid on his: a leaner face, with a suggestion of a goatee, intense dark eyes, and a top hat. The perp Sgt. Franco had described, the one who'd taken Lily O'Hara from the hospital.
I sat back on my heels at that, wondering what my next step should be-- then flinched as a hand came down on my shoulder. I inadvertently glanced up at the cop who'd approached me while I'd been concentrating with my Sight still open, and got a good Look at something infinitely weirder. I'd met lycanthropes and werewolves and loup garou, but I'd never seen someone with a pig's face before. And it was clearly a face: proportioned like a human's, seated atop a human body, but snouted and eared like an actual porcine.
Part of my backbrain made note of the ironic nature of the vision, and wondered if contact with the 'zombie' was somehow causing me to hallucinate. The rest of me took a startled step back, inadvertently freeing the growling 'zombie', and caught a glimpse of several other animal-headed people in the crowd as my sight range widened. It was like a convention of transplanted Egyptian gods: a lion here, a snake there, and something that looked disconcertingly like a beaver across the street. Maybe a quarter of the onlookers had been transfigured.
I hurriedly shook off the Sight: and voila, they were just people again. Human people, rubbernecking at an interesting spectacle. But the cop who'd interrupted me looked as startled as I'd felt at his touch.
"Grim," he growled, one hand falling to his holster.
Fortunately for me-- though not so much for him-- the 'zombie' chose that moment to lurch back upright, tackling the cop and diverting his focus.
I took that as my cue to scamper. Stars and stones. What the hell was going on in the Rose City?
More to the point-- why hadn't it been brought to my attention before? If I could See it, surely others could as well. And you'd think it would be an important fact to know when investigating in the area. Had Ramirez known that people with, ah, alternative heritage had settled here, and just not told me? Because that was the only thing they could be: descendants of long-ago changelings and other supernatural beings, diluted with human blood until their heritage was largely invisible to the average mundane human... unless they chose to make it visible.
I didn't know much about the phenomenon, just that it was responsible for a lot of the animal-headed deities in ancient pantheons; most of the actual crossbreeds I'd met were far more recent, genetically speaking. A prime example being the Hellhound, the centuries-old assassin and bodyguard who served one of the scariest little girls I'd ever had the pleasure to meet. Why would so many gravitate to the Pacific Northwest? Or was it one of those widespread facts of the preternatural world that my first Master hadn't seen fit to educate me about, and everyone since had just assumed I knew? I had an irritating tendency to trip over such landmines when they were least convenient.
And what the hell had that cop meant, accusing me of being 'grim'? He hadn't exactly been a picture of sunshine and happiness, himself.
I shook off the thought for later contemplation, and ran toward the sound of screams on the next block.
It wasn't long before I ran across another locus of police activity: a storefront with a broken window being guarded by a couple of uniforms, while a man covered in cuts was being loaded into an ambulance. Glass, meet innocent consumer of expensively doctored caffeine, I gathered; the place was a coffee shop. While I rubbernecked behind the police cordon, trying to determine if there were any 'zombies' still at large on the scene, a blocky grey station wagon/SUV type vehicle pulled up and disgorged a plainclothes cop. A detective, probably: I recognized the body language.
He was at least a foot shorter than I was, with a pale complexion, blue eyes, and stylishly disordered dark hair; not quite my half-brother Thomas' level of pretty, but he wouldn't have looked out of place in that neighborhood. He had a quick, grim-faced-- ha!-- conversation with the uniform, and then the pair went into the shop, weapons drawn. I took a chance and drew my own laminated ID, walking past the officer they'd left to guard the door as though I'd been expected, and walked into the wrecked storefront just as the detective cocked his head to listen to something upstairs.
I frowned, and focused to Listen myself. Interestingly, it took the uniform several seconds longer to register the sounds of growling and crashing upstairs; was the detective some kind of practitioner himself? Curiouser and curiouser. They lifted their weapons again, and headed for the stairs...
...just as I stepped on a shard of broken glass. The uniform went on up the stairs, apparently not having heard me, but the detective whirled around, aiming in my direction.
And then something really weird happened: the detective's eyes went completely black, like lightless pits, seeming to stare right through me.
A shiver went up my spine, and I resisted the temptation to open my Sight again. What was it with this town? Was there some real-world equivalent of a Hellmouth knocking around in the old tunnels beneath the city?
"Whoa there," I said. "Harry Dresden, consultant to Chicago PD."
"Nick Burkhardt, Portland PD," he replied, lowering his gun with a frown; and with a blink, empty eyes faded back to normal blue. "What is Chicago PD's interest here? No, you know what, that can wait. Mr. Dresden, this is an active crime scene. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask...."
A loud crash from above interrupted him, followed by a cry of pain from the other officer.
"Wu!" he cried, then shot me a glare and pointed toward the door. "Go outside and wait with the other officers!" Then he ran for the stairs.
I whipped up a veil and followed after him. What? Murphy, I might have thought about obeying; an unknown cop of unknown heritage assigned to a magically related crime wave, not so much. I recognized his name from my conversation with the ME.
New plan: I intended to stick like glue to Burkhardt's side until the case was solved. And maybe after.
Clearly, there were layers to this town that the Warden Commander of North America should really be better informed about.
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