FIC: Head Case (1/4) [The Dresden Files]
TITLE: Head Case
DISCLAIMER: The Dresden Files doesn't belong to me - the TV series belongs to Lionsgate, and the characters themselves were created by Jim Butcher. Written for entertainment purposes, no money made, please don't sue, yadda.
FANDOM: The Dresden Files
PAIRING: Harry/Bob UST
WORD COUNT: 27,369
RATING: R for descriptions of violence.
WARNINGS: Dead and injured characters. Descriptions of violence. Minor spoilers from the TV series include Birds of a Feather, The Boone Identity, Rules of Engagement, Soul Beneficiary, What About Bob?, Things That Go Bump, and Second City. Minor spoilers from the books include Storm Front, Death Masks, Dead Beat, and Welcome to the Jungle.
SUMMARY: When Murphy calls Harry in for a murder, it's only the tip of the iceberg.
PRAISE BE: An amazing amount of thanks goes out to shiplizard, beachkid, and gehayi for their beta-reading, encouragement, and questions. This fic would've never seen the light of day, if not for you guys. Thank you very much!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is an installment in the Forged series.
***
Sigmund Freud once said that a cigar is a cigar, and while I can agree with the sentiment, sometimes a dream really isn't just a dream. In my line of work, you get used to the idea that what you just dreamed could actually be something important to watch out for. The stuff dreams are made of aren't necessarily all that great, either, so it's kind of nice to have an advance-warning system.
But, like with everything else, sometimes the advance warning system has a hiccup, goes on the fritz, or just craps out. Like, waking up three nights in a row from a nightmare, and not being able to remember a damn thing about it.
Unfortunately, insomnia's not that strange for me, either. If I'm not working a case that demands all of my attention for as long as I can stay awake, then it's usually a nightmare or two about things that have happened, or things that could happen, that keeps me up. So, when sleeplessness hits, I try to make myself useful. Clean up the mess I made around the office or my living room, put books back where I pulled them out from.
Make some potions.
See, I'm the magical equivalent of a computer geek. Even when I'm just puttering around the house, trying to think of something productive, it ends up being magical somehow. I've already made the spells in my staff more efficient, thanks to Bob's suggestions, and I occasionally make it a habit to touch-up the wards that are painted all around my place. I should probably learn how to play an instrument, but since a piano won't fit in my living room, and violins are freaking expensive, I guess brewing the odd potion (while not exactly a cheap hobby, depending on the potion) is my best bet.
I can't help it. Magic ends up being so cool sometimes, and if it weren't for the fact that I've hung up a shingle as Chicago's only professional wizard listed in the phone book, I'd probably spend a lot more time just smiling stupidly whenever I come up with something new. Sometimes, Bob gets as enthusiastic as I do, though his focus can be a bit morbid for my tastes occasionally. Being nearly a thousand years old can do that to you, I guess.
Still, I was in the middle of making a dreamless sleep potion when I heard the phone ring in my office.
Making my way out of the lab and closing the steel door behind me, I got to the phone and picked it up. "Dresden." I glanced over at the wind-up clock on my desk and noticed it was almost one o'clock. That's never a good sign.
"Harry, I need your help," Murphy said, sounding grim.
I frowned. "What's up?"
"I've got a corpse, and I need your take on how he died."
"Is it on the books?" I asked. While I've been getting work lately, it was barely enough to pay the bills. Any jobs I got from Chicago PD would help ease tension between me and my landlord considerably.
Murphy sighed, sounding annoyed. "Yes. And don't wear any shoes you plan on keeping."
I blinked. "You're kidding, right?"
"Hardly." She gave me the address, which I wrote down, and after getting my gear together and reactivating the wards behind me, I headed off into the night.
The steel mill just outside of downtown Chicago had been standing by I-55, old and run-down, since before I'd moved to the city proper years ago. It enjoyed an infamous reputation because it had been abandoned for years, but no one wanted to tear it down because of the asbestos that had been used in its construction. It was a squat-looking building, and while I ordinarily didn't give it a second glance when I drove past it, the two or three black-and-whites along with a medical examiner's van near the front entrance would've been enough to attract anybody's notice. Heading inside, I made sure to clip my ID on the lapel of my leather coat, and a uniformed officer led me to the crime scene. He gave me a facemask to wear, and after I strapped it on over my nose and mouth and pinched the metal closed over my nose, we joined the others.
The corpse lay in the middle of an open area, what equipment had been there long since removed from the building when it had been shut down, leaving a good view of the crime scene. Inside the taped-off area, I could see the body laying where it had fallen, his limbs splayed, surrounded by an incredible amount of not-quite-clear water, and drenched. There wasn't the telltale whiff of blood, or any kind of damage to any of the surroundings that screamed gunfight. If it weren't for the police tape cordoning off the area, I probably would've figured that a guy had slipped on a pretty large puddle and had knocked himself out.
I could see Murphy and Kirmani standing off to one side, Murph talking to one of Butters' assistants while Kirmani was talking with a skinny, nervous-looking kid and his friend, both of them dressed in designer black clothes, everyone wearing little face masks like the one I'd been given. When I reached out to feel any magic in the area, I felt a buzzing sensation against my skin, like touching a vibrating washing machine with one hand.
I pitter-pattered over to the corpse and squatted down as best I could on the balls of my feet. I was almost kind of grateful that I was just wearing a leather coat and not something longer, because the puddle of water around the victim was spreading. The victim, Mr. Soggy, I supposed, was a man with stringy brown hair, frog-like eyes, and had the bloated look of a man who'd been dead and floating in Lake Michigan for a few weeks. When Murphy's shoes hove into view, I Spocked an eyebrow up at her. "If this is what happens when you drink more than eight glasses of water a day, I'm cutting back."
Murphy snorted. "Cute, Harry." She looked at Mr. Soggy. "Any ideas?"
"From a guy drowned on solid ground? It's not anything I've ever heard of." I looked at the water I was squatting in. "Where'd all this water come from?"
"That's what we were hoping you could tell us," Murphy said.
I made with the Spock impersonation again.
Murphy nodded at the man on the floor. "All of the water is coming from him, but we can't figure out how it's happening."
"And you think I know?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
Murphy didn't look impressed. "It's weird, and you're the only guy I've got who's an expert on 'weird'."
I nodded. After the past couple of years of working together with Murphy on cases, I'd gotten used to being her go-to guy whenever something supernatural came up, and it was kind of stupid to deny it. "At least now I know what you meant about my shoes."
"And you thought I was kidding," she said with a snort. "Are you sure you've never seen anything like this before?"
"I'm pretty sure I'd remember seeing something like to Mr. Soggy here," I said, waving a hand at the corpse. "Going by the crime scene, there were no scuff marks or signs of a struggle, though the water could be hiding anything that might've dug into the floor. Maybe he was drowned, and then dumped here as some kind of message?"
"That's what we'd like to find out," Murphy said, not looking pleased with my answer.
I shook my head. "It's nice for you to call me in, but I'm not getting it, Murph. What makes this 'weird'?"
"The water, Harry," she said. When I showed her that she hadn't revealed the secrets of the universe, she explained. "When the guys from the morgue tried to get him into a body bag, he started leaking all of this." She waved a hand at the puddle. Now that I was paying closer attention to it, I saw that it had a faint pinkish tinge to it, like diluted red food dye. I looked again at the guy's face while Murphy continued. "We don't know how much he's already leaked, but if this keeps up, the meat wagon could get flooded pretty quick if they try to move him."
Standing up, I gripped my staff and gently prodded the corpse's shoulder with the butt of it. More pinkish water oozed out of him, and I don't mean that it poured out of the guy's mouth or anything -- it literally oozed out of his eyes, his nose, his ears, even his skin like a grotesque sponge. As I looked closer at the guy's face, I noticed that his skin was almost bone-white, and that the pinkish color was darker coming out of his nose and mouth.
"Stars and stones," I yelped when I realized what I was looking at. I did a stupid little dance to try to get out of the water and away from the body as fast as I could. I wish I could've pretended it was because of some kind of allergy to dead people, but suddenly realizing I was standing in a pool of blood, heavily diluted with water, tends to dampen a guy's chances of bullshitting his way out of it and still being able to save face.
Murphy shot me a look like she was sure I'd gone off the deep end. "What?"
"It's not just water, Murph," I told her as calmly as I could. "He's leaking blood. I'm betting that when he stops leaking, and the guys get him to the morgue, he's not going to have any blood left in his body."
Murphy blinked, and then stepped out of the puddle with a grimace. "Great. And I liked these shoes." Shaking off one foot in a futile gesture to dry it, she looked back at me expectantly. "Well? This starting to ring any bells now?"
I shook my head. "At this point, I really don't know. There's not a lot of supernatural creepy-crawlies that can dish out this much water, let alone drown a guy and drag him here without leaving a trace."
"By 'not a lot', does that mean you have a short list?" Murphy asked with exaggerated patience.
I smiled. "A water elemental could dish out this kind of punishment, no problem. Probably fill the victim's lungs with water."
"I'm hearing a 'but'," Murphy said sourly.
"But," I said, dragging out the word for effect, "water elementals don't have that kind of intelligence. They have to be summoned by somebody, and then they have to be tightly controlled." I looked around pointedly at the crime scene. Except for the expanding puddle on the floor that I was trying to discreetly dodge, everything else was dry. "Not only that, but this place is way too dry for it to be an elemental. If it was taking out Mr. Soggy here, it would've covered everything else in the process."
Murphy scowled. "All right, fine, no water elemental. Any other ideas?"
I frowned. "Whoever did this had a hell of a lot of power to play with, if they were able to saturate this guy's entire body with water. Other than that...." I shrugged. "I can't tell for sure. Let me go hit the books, and when I come up with something, I'll letcha know. Okay?"
Murphy didn't look happy with my answer, but at least this time, she wasn't asking me to play with black magic to figure out who'd killed this guy. This guy had drowned on dry land, as weird as that sounds, and while it broke the first law of magic all to hell, it wasn't necessarily black magic. Someone just let loose with way too much water and turned the guy into a sponge.
"Fine," she said. "But if you find out anything--"
"You'll be the first to know," I told her, nodding. "Promise."
She snorted, and then made her way back to Kirmani and the ME's guys. I made my way back home.
Since I was already awake, I figured I might as well hit the books now instead of later, and when Bob finally materialized hours later, the fiery ember swirling around him, trailing black smoke, I had already nose-deep in a book about Greek mythology. It was a bit of a long shot, but since I had no idea what was going on, I figured that it never hurt to cover all the bases.
"A new client already?" Bob asked, blocking the light as he leaned over to see what I was reading.
"Murphy called," I replied, a yawn escaping before I could suppress it. "Looks like somebody drowned on dry land."
"Unusual, but not unheard of," Bob pointed out. "Was the murder weapon a pool or a toilet? Perhaps a repeat of the police officer with the enchanted branding iron?"
"God I hope not." I shook my head. It didn't take long to bring Bob up to speed about what few details I knew about the murder so far, but when I did, he frowned, curiosity in his eyes.
"Curiouser and curiouser," he murmured, sounding intrigued. "What have you been looking at?"
I flipped the book closed on my arm to show him the cover. "Greek mythology. I'm thinking maybe a naiad did it?" I knew that it had been a stretch, but it had been the best I could think of while running on less sleep than usual.
Bob narrowed his eyes, looking skeptical. "Naiads don't have that kind of power. What sort of facility was it again?"
"A steel mill," I said. "The one out by I-55 that's been shut down for years because of the asbestos."
Bob shook his head. "That blows your theory right out of the water then, if you don't mind my saying so. Naiads need to be near the body of water that they're the patroness of. If it had been a water-bottling plant, perhaps, but all of the metal and machinery in the vicinity would have seriously hampered any attempt by a natural creature to effect any change, let alone kill someone like you've described."
"Any thoughts?" I asked Bob, mirroring Murphy's question to me earlier in the night.
"Did you sense any residual magic in the area?" Bob asked.
I nodded slowly. "Some, but it didn't feel like it does when magic's been used in an area."
Bob frowned. "Oh?"
"It was more like a buzzing against my skin," I said. "That sound familiar to you?"
Bob shook his head, frown still firmly in place. "No, it doesn't. My, my." He then narrowed a penetrating gaze at me. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
"No, I didn't," I replied evenly. "And it's not the first sleepless night that I've had." I could tell from the way he was looking at me what he was going to ask next.
"Did you have that nightmare again?" he asked.
I sighed. "Yes, Bob, and no, I don't remember any details."
Bob's lips pursed, and I let myself get mildly distracted by the curve of his lower lip before I sternly told myself to get back to the subject at hand. "Bob, it's nothing."
Bob glanced at me with a snort that clearly said that he didn't believe me. "Harry, when your health is concerned, you're rarely in a position to know what's best for you." He looked pointedly at the book in my arms. "If you're thinking that a naiad had any chance of killing a man inside of a steel mill, I think you need sleep."
"Very funny," I grumbled. "Murphy needs anything I can give her as soon as possible."
"And the fact that I'm a researcher who doesn't require sleep didn't occur to you?" he asked mildly.
"I've already asked you to look up a lot of information for me this past week," I said. "You deserve the downtime, and I should learn not to rely on you so much."
Bob blinked, looking genuinely surprised for a moment before recovering. "You know you don't need to give me time off."
"You bitch if I don't," I muttered, scrubbing my face with both hands in an effort to wake up a little more. My head already felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
Bob snorted. "I see. Very well, then if I'm officially on vacation, why not let me research this for you on my own time? It already sounds much more fascinating than figuring out the best way to preserve amaranth for minor bindings."
I shook my head. "It's fine."
"So I should read absolutely nothing into the fact that you're about to land face-first into a section about Hephaestus, then?" Bob asked.
I grumbled, very tempted to flip him the bird, but too tired to try. Instead, I glowered at him.
"Ah, Harry, you are the very soul of wit," Bob said. I think he actually smiled. "What if it were a homunculus?"
I blinked, my brain waking up a little out of sheer surprise. "A what?"
"A homunculus, Harry," Bob said patiently. "Surely you aren't so far gone you've forgotten what they are?"
A homunculus was a creature that was entirely man-made, a servant that was neither living nor dead created by a wizard to do its master's bidding. Think the Golem of Prague. It was the most famous example I could think of off the top of my head, though I think I could've been mixing homunculi up with something else. My brain was frying from having lost three nights of sleep in a row, so sue me. "How would a homunculus be able to do that to someone?" I asked, scrubbing at my eyes.
"I didn't say that a homunculus did this to him, Harry," Bob said. "I'm saying what if the body Lieutenant Murphy found was the homunculus?"
I frowned, my brain perking up a little more at the possibility of a solvable problem. "Wait, you're saying that the homunculus was sent to the steel mill, and then made to self-destruct?" I asked. "What would be the point?"
Bob shrugged. "It's possible that if a rival wanted to sabotage the reputation of the mill in question, it need only create the impression that the mill was unsafe, or that the facility was used as an area for illegal activities when the mill was shut down for the night. Perhaps there was even corporate sabotage, and the homunculus's self-destruction was merely the icing on the cake. There are any number of reasons as to why it was made to self-destruct there."
I shook my head. "That mill's been closed down for years. It doesn't need anyone to sabotage it. And what about the blood?" I asked, what few brain cells I had starting to spark from the strain. "Homunculi don't actually have blood, unless they're made from corpses in the first place, and that breaks the fifth law."
Bob shrugged. "Perhaps the wizard in question decided to dig up a fresh body and use it. Creating a homunculus doesn't break any of the laws of magic, since you're not dominating the will of another person, nor are you actually bringing the spirit of the dead back to inhabit its original body."
"Kind of a fine line there, Bob," I grumbled.
Bob shrugged. "Wizards have been toeing the line since the laws were first established. Now, considering that you haven't offered any good arguments against the corpse being a homunculus, are you going to get some sleep now?"
The glare I shot him wasn't as intimidating as I thought when I yawned halfway through it. One of the things that our partnership thrived on was the ability for both of us to try to poke as many holes in the other person's argument as possible. Considering that I hadn't been able to come up with a good counter for his homunculus idea, he might've been right about me needing sleep.
"Fine," I growled, "but if I wake up because of that nightmare again, I'm not going to be better off."
"Go to bed, Harry," Bob said firmly. His voice warmed when he added, "Sleep well."
"Night," I managed, stumbling out of the lab. I debated for a second whether or not I could make the trip up to the loft without falling on my ass, but my legs solved my dilemma for me by moving me over to the couch and depositing me there. I was out like a light in moments.
***
Lots of things were happening fast, but there was one thing I knew. It wasn't real. It didn't feel real. Whatever I touched with my bare hands felt rubbery, and when I acted, it was half a second too slow. Time dragged right in front of me, and it wasn't a good feeling.
I was in the lab. I remember that much. I was in the lab, looking around wildly like I was expecting to see something there. When Bob walked through the wall, his baby blues wide, I turned to him.
I shouted at him, but my voice was garbled, like someone had recorded it on tape and was trying to play it for me while the tape player fouled up. I didn't catch all of what I'd said, but it didn't matter. The near-shriek my voice had become was all the meaning I needed.
I need you safe. I need you safe. Those four words kept crashing through my mind. I need you safe. Safe from who, or what, I didn't know, but all I knew was that Bob wasn't safe, and I had to protect him somehow.
Bob stared at me, and then he was shaking his head, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. I couldn't hear his voice, but his lips, flush and almost red, were shaping the words, "no" and "Harry" over and over again. He didn't want to leave me, not like this.
But the words pounded in my head again, the imperative to keep Bob safe from harm. I reached out to him, and... it was like I was grabbing him. Not physically, but grabbing the stuff his soul was made out of, his entire freaking being. Part of my brain had a surprised "huh" moment while the rest of it concentrated on grabbing Bob's soul and stuffing it into his skull like he was a pile of wet clothes that I was stuffing into a garbage bag. As I jammed him in there, he shouted at me, calling my name again, grabbing uselessly at my hands, and the last thing I saw of him was two blue eyes, absolutely terrified.
"Harry?"
I woke up, bolting upright from what I lay on the couch, my breath coming too hard and fast for it to be comfortable.
"Harry!" came Bob's voice again, sharper than just a moment ago, and I jumped, looking up to see him staring at me with alarm. When he saw I was awake, he took a moment to compose himself, and kept up his disapproving-mother act. "Another nightmare?" he asked, sounding fondly exasperated.
For a second, I just stared at him, totally dumbfounded. There he was, whole, unharmed, not looking like he'd been stuffed anywhere, much less his own skull. I lifted a hand to wipe at the sweat on my forehead, only to find that it was shaking. "Stars and stones," I muttered to myself.
"I'll take that as a yes," Bob said, his lips pursing thoughtfully. I wanted to let myself get distracted by them, letting them banish the dream that'd made me wake up in a cold sweat, but Bob wasn't cooperating. "Do you remember anything about it?"
I stared at him again, finding myself debating whether or not I wanted to tell him about this. He used to figure somewhat prominently in my dreams when I was a kid, but having him be the subject of a dream that was less about hormones and more about sheer panic was kind of new for me. Usually, whenever I had any kind of dreams that featured him and panic, I was thinking more about myself, and what he'd think if (or when, given my luck with relationships) he'd found out about the crush thing. This one...
Bob snorted. "I'll take that as another yes, then."
Sometimes, I forget just how perceptive Bob is. I glared at him a little, running both hands through my hair and resisting the urge to grab two handfuls and pull. "It was nothing."
"You're a terrible liar," Bob said.
I couldn't fault him there. "Fine. I had a nightmare," I admitted grumpily. "Are you happy?"
"Hardly," Bob drawled, folding his arms across his chest. "You do realize that you aren't going to get out of telling me, don't you? What happened?"
I shook my head, feeling bits of the dream leave except for the way my voice had sounded. Not just scared, but the kind of bone-deep terrified that chills you to your soul. Bob hadn't looked that composed himself in the dream, if the way he was talking to me while I was panicked was any indication. "It's a stupid dream, Bob."
Bob sighed. I could see him nearly vibrating with tension, and not the good kind. "Harry, we've been over this. You haven't had a good night's sleep in three-- no, four days now. This is the first time that you've actually remembered anything about your dream, so out with it."
One of the things about me and Bob is that we butt heads a lot. Whether it's about a potion, a new magical item I'm testing out, or how to deal with clients, we routinely have an argument. Right now, though, I wasn't in the mood. "What time is it?" I asked, digging the heel of one hand into my eye to see if that would make seeing a bit better. It did, a little.
"You're not going to get out of discussing this," Bob muttered.
"But I can hold it off until I've gotten some caffeine in my system," I shot back. I got up from the couch, not bothering to check the sign since I knew it wouldn't have flipped over in the middle of the night. I padded over to the kitchen and dug a Coke out of the fridge before popping the top and taking a good, long pull. I leaned a hip against the counter, feeling the cold metal in my hand as I watched Bob stride across the room, his legs eating up ground and his narrow hips showing themselves off in the three-piece suit he was wearing--
Eye on the ball, Harry. Don't let yourself get distracted.
Thus mentally fortified, I was ready for the conversational salvo Bob fired at me. "Harry, why are you resisting talking about this? You yourself describe this dream as being 'stupid', though I wonder about your definition at times." He watched me take another swig of Coke. "The last time you had significant dreams, a young boy was in danger from a skinwalker."
I shivered, trying to push the mental image away from me. It had been over a year since that had happened, but I had trouble forgetting just how Melissa had looked when her corpse lay in the middle of my office, the muscles gleaming a sickening, wet red. "Don't remind me."
"Harry," Bob nearly growled, and for a second, I let the voice roll over me, doing the mental equivalent of gathering it up in both hands and rubbing my face all over it, it felt so good. "Someone was in danger then, and if these past four nights have been any indication, someone could be in much worse trouble now. If you tell me what you remember, both of us can be better armed against whatever might be lurking in the shadows." He paused for a moment, and then added in a worried voice, "Could it be related to your newly-discovered corpse?"
It was a sign of how much I was running on fumes that I had to remember what corpse he was talking about.
Oh. Right. Mr. Soggy.
I shook my head. "I've been having these dreams since before Mr. Soggy showed, Bob." Bob looked like he was ready to interrupt, but I kept going. "And when Scott showed up, he was still very much alive. There's nothing I can do to help this guy, whoever he was." I stopped for a moment, and eyed Bob. "Wait, what happened to your homunculus theory?"
A grey eyebrow lifted. "I'm pleased to see that your memory of last night is still intact, though how long it took you to recall it is rather disappointing. Perhaps you should go back to sleep."
I shook my head again. I could still feel that dream waiting in the wings, ready to strike the moment I let myself drift off. "I don't think I could fall asleep again."
"Why not lay down and give it a try?" Bob asked, almost gentle. "You never know."
I shook my head again, finishing off the Coke and rinsing it out before tossing it in the trash. "I'll catch up on sleep tonight. So, what about the homunculus theory? Did you do some research last night after I crashed?"
Bob nodded, looking annoyed. "I didn't find much, I'm afraid. You've a fairly extensive library collection, but unfortunately, not much about the creation of non-human life."
"It's a little too close to necromancy for my tastes," I said, my mind flashing back to Kemmler's disciples from a while ago.
"There is a difference," Bob said, his voice softer. I glanced at him, and then shame gave me a kick in the pants. Bob had been a necromancer once upon a time, and he'd done it for love, no less. He'd never told me necromancy was even possible until I'd come across a necromancer with a money-making scheme that involved killing the same guy over and over again and collecting the life insurance.
"Well, yeah, but the whole 'creating life when there was none before' thing creeps me out. Hell's bells, I wouldn't know where to look to get some books about homunculi," I said, shooting him an apologetic glance. "Did any of your former masters ever use them?"
Bob shook his head slowly. "None that I recall off-hand."
I opened my mouth to say something, and then I shot him a surprised look. " 'None that you recall off-hand'? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't part of your geas supposed to turn you into a repository of knowledge?"
"Not entirely, and certainly not on the same level as the Archive itself," Bob said. "I can recite the laws of magic word-for-word, and I can quote passages from any number of texts that I've read before, but I'm nearly a thousand years old, Harry. The human mind was never equipped to deal with the sheer amount of information one can gather in that length of time, let alone be able to regurgitate it on command."
I had to admit, I was intrigued. "Then how does it work? You learn new things, and you end up forgetting the older stuff?"
"More like, I learn new things, but unimportant details slip by," Bob corrected me. "For example, I'm aware that I had three different masters in the 1600s, but I can't recall their names, or what any of them looked like."
"Which explains why you never mention them," When Bob frowned, I said, "I've been wondering why you never waxed nostalgic for the days of yore, or about masters you liked, or whatever. Now I know."
Bob pursed his lip, a bit bemused. "There's been very little about my imprisonment to 'wax nostalgic' about. To some masters, I was a tool to be used when they had specialized in a specific area of magic, to some I was terrible warning about the dangers of black magic, and a threat to keep a very close eye on, and to some...."
To some, I thought to myself, he'd been an irredeemable evil, one that arrogant assholes for guardians could hurt and punish all they wanted because they were the good guys. They thought they were, at any rate. All they'd ever done was hurt someone with a soul, with a mind of their own, someone who couldn't fight back. They were bullies, and, well, let's just say I don't think too highly of those masters.
I shot Bob a look. "But... things are better, right?"
Bob looked genuinely surprised, but before he could say anything, the phone rang. I picked it up.
"Dresden."
"Harry," Murphy said, "I've got another body."
"What?" I asked stupidly. "Was he drowned? Where?"
"Not drowned," Murphy said. "Just get your ass over here." She gave me directions, and I hung up the phone. When I looked up at Bob, he was arching an eyebrow at me.
"I gather from your expression that wasn't good news?" Bob asked.
"It was Murph," I said, setting my mug down and sweeping my coat off from where it was draped on the staircase. I shrugged it on. "She's got another body."
Bob frowned, and then nodded. "I'll see what else there might be in the books." He paused before adding. "Be careful."
"Aren't I always?" I asked.
Bob looked less than impressed.
***
Over the years, Murphy has called me out to all kinds of crime scenes, from zoos to hotel rooms to I can't remember what else. Anytime that Murph and I aren't out having a drink, I'm meeting her at a crime scene.
This time, it was a diner. It wasn't one that I recognized off-hand, since I tend to stick to Mac's when I have the cash, but it looked like it would've been a good place to grab a cup of joe at a decent price.
The still-smoking husk of a person in the middle of the scorched tiled floor did cut down on the decor a little.
The ID tag clipped to my jacket got me past the growing crowd and the yellow police tape, and when I found Murphy inside, she didn't look happy.
"Hey, Murph." I glanced down at Mr. Crispy Mark II, and then back up at her again. "Did you miss me?"
Murphy snorted through her nose. "You look like hell."
"Really? I must be having a good hair day." I looked down at the corpse again. "What's the story?"
"Witnesses say that this guy walked in, started clawing at his skin, screaming about cockroaches, and then he set himself on fire." Murphy said, looking down at the corpse and wrinkling her nose.
"Um, I like smoking corpses as much as the next guy," I said, "but why call me in on this one? Isn't it fairly open and shut?"
"There's no trace of accelerant, what little we could find on him didn't include a flame-thrower or even a lighter, and according to witnesses, he was--" She flipped open her notebook and read aloud, "--'chanting in some weird language'."
I shrugged. "Some crackpot who thought he could do magic," I explained easily enough.
Murphy arched an eyebrow. "One of the waitresses also said that before he came in, he'd been arguing with a guy outside."
"What'd he look like?" I asked. "Might be your trigger-man, if he was involved with this."
She didn't look impressed, but read off the description from her notebook. "Tall, black, medium build, short hair, dark brown three-piece suit, and he looked like he'd been carrying something on his side."
"Something?" Just from the description so far, it was starting to sound uncomfortably like Morgan. I was really hoping she wouldn't say what I thought she was going to say.
"Some say it looked like a cane, others think it was a sword."
She said it. Hell's bells.
I grinned, trying to pass it off as something stupid. "A sword? C'mon, Murph, who carries a sword around nowadays?"
"I don't know, Harry," she said patiently. "You tell me."
I'd already managed to avoid telling her about the Wardens and the High Council a bunch of times. It was going to take a lot more than Mr. Crispy the Second to make me spill my guts about everything I'd been keeping from her since we started working together.
I shrugged. "Could be some nut from those historical re-enactment groups," I said. I had to take a moment and mentally push the nausea back from my mind before I knelt down and looked over Mr. Crispy, up close and personal.
The difference between the first burned corpse that I'd dealt with and this one was that the first had been a demon's minion who'd been blasted by a massive amount of fire. I mean, from the waist up, the ex-minion I'd seen had been twisted and black, but his legs and feet had been fine, completely untouched. I know because I still remembered how pristine the first corpse's pants had looked to this day.
This guy, though... It looked like he'd been a hollowed-out tree trunk, and someone had set a fire inside of him. There was no part of his body that had gone unscathed, and the heat from it alone had to have been freaking intense for it to twist and mangle the corpse into a charred pretzel. If Murphy hadn't told me this had been a man when he was alive, I wouldn't have been able to tell from just looking at him. Closing my eyes for a moment, I reached out with my other senses, trying to get a read on any residual magic in the area. Unlike the buzzing sensation that I'd gotten the night before, it felt like I was touching a wire with current running through it, a burr against my skin that jangled against my nerves.
"Sure, Harry," Murphy said, "pull the other one while you're at it." She looked at the corpse, and then back at me. "Don't you think it's weird that not twenty-four hours after we find a guy drowned on dry land, we find a guy who burned alive inside of a diner?"
"Pretty weird," I grunted, getting to my feet and dusting my hands off on my jeans. I could see the question on her lips, so I cut her off before she could ask. "And no, I don't have any answers yet as to how Mr. Soggy drowned. As soon as I know something, I'll call you."
"Make it sooner than later, will you?" Murphy said. "A drowned guy in a closed steel mill is one thing, but as soon as this hits the papers, Fairweather's going to be on my ass to get it solved, and fast."
City Police Commissioner Howard Fairweather had been on Murphy's ass since the first time she'd first caught an 'unusual' case and had called me in to consult. Ever since then, Murphy had also been having trouble getting promotions, even though she'd been up for it twice since I've known her. And she'd never told me about it, but she'd also been getting the short end of the stick in terms of cases other departments didn't want to deal with.
"Murph, I want to help, but I really don't know what I can do with this one," I said. "You could just have a case of spontaneous combustion on your hands."
Murphy stared at me. "Spontaneous combustion."
"There's been cases of it happening, y'know, spontaneously." I shrugged. "If the guy actually had some magical talent before he went up, he could've managed it." I pointed at the body. "I mean, look at him. He burned so hot that he's not even recognizable as human anymore."
"And yet, the rest of the place is untouched," Murphy finished for me, sounding annoyed. "I know that, Harry. The sprinklers didn't go off, even though they're up to code. And like I said before, it's weird, and you're the resident expert on 'weird'."
"Okay, I'll give you that this guy dying the way he did is weird," I admitted, "but where's the crime? It's not like you can arrest him for committing suicide."
"What about the guy he was arguing with? Didn't you just say that this guy could be the trigger-man? What was that kind of magic you told me about, the kind you can do long-distance with a voodoo doll? Thaumaturgy?" she asked. "He could've done it that way."
There were times that I wished I weren't so open with the information that I gave to Murphy whenever she hired me. Then again, that was kind of the point of her hiring me to consult in the first place. My relationship with the Chicago police, and Murphy in particular, has always been a balancing act between giving Murphy just enough information for her to be able to close cases, or at least get some sense of closure when mortal law wouldn't be able to punish the guilty, and not enough information to get her killed by the High Council. "I don't think he was your guy."
"What's changed in the five minutes we've been talking, Harry?" Murphy's eyes narrowed suddenly, and she looked at me steadily without meeting my gaze. It's interesting how she can do that, actually. "You know the guy my vic was arguing with, don't you."
"I didn't say that," I said quickly.
Murphy snorted. "Don't even try it, Harry. You looked like you recognized him from the description I gave you. Who is he?"
"He's kind of in the same field, but he has a different specialty," I said. I wasn't technically lying, since Wardening tends to be more law enforcement than consulting work.
Her brown eyes flashed, and she glared at me. "Harry. What is his name?"
I shook my head. "Can't tell you. Trade secret."
"If he's a tax-paying citizen of Chicago, it's not going to be much of a secret, and all you're doing is delaying the inevitable," Murphy said flatly. "Help me out here, Harry."
"I'm serious, Murphy," I said. "Yeah, I know him, but he wouldn't have done this. He's so morally uptight that he wouldn't have used thaumaturgy on his worst enemy." What I conveniently left out was that Morgan had a big, shiny sword that he could use to remove someone's head from their neck if he got within range. I mean, why use up all of your energy throwing spells around when you can just take care of a problem with one quick swing? "I've had plenty of run-ins with him; he doesn't tolerate people so much as gently bending the rules."
"Sounds like my kind of guy." Murphy folded her arms across her chest. "If you're not going to tell me who he is, how about telling me where I can find him?"
I sighed heavily. "Murph."
"No, Harry. If someone's hurting people in my city, I want it to stop. One guy drowned in a steel mill and another setting himself on fire within twenty-four hours of each other doesn't sound right. If this guy knows anything about it, I want to ask him questions."
"I know you do, but that's not how he operates," I said. "Hell, he could be investigating what's going on too, including what happened to this guy--" I waved a hand at the corpse. "I don't know where to find him, but how about I go talk to him, and ask him to tell me what he knows? I'll share anything I get out of him, scout's honor."
Murphy stared at me for a long moment, and sighed heavily. "Fine. But I want everything."
I nodded. "You got it."
"And I still want what could've killed my drowner last night."
I nodded again. "I know. You'll get it as soon as I figure it out."
It didn't take me long to get back to my place, and when I got there, I headed straight for the phone.
Morgan isn't too hard to get a hold of, especially for me. Ever since I killed my uncle with black magic almost six years ago, I'd been put under an accelerated form of probation known as the Doom of Damocles. If I break any of the seven laws of magic, there's no trial. I'm just dead. And since Morgan's the Warden assigned to Chicago, he's basically my parole officer. If I see signs of black magic, I get in touch with him. I've done it a few times already, but I try not to make a habit of it. He doesn't like me all that much, and the feeling's mutual.
I tried the phone number that I keep in my wallet, and after giving the password to the Warden on the other end, I was surprised to learn that Morgan wasn't available. Nobody spends their life sitting by the phone, sure, but nine times out of ten, Morgan was usually there. Maybe I'd just caught him on that tenth time.
With two bodies headed for the morgue that died under extremely weird circumstances, I had a feeling that not being able to get in touch with Morgan was a bad thing.
Bob emerged from the wall that divided the lab from my office area, looking curious as he walked over to stand next to me. "Ah, there you are. I had been wondering what was taking you so long. What sort of new corpse does the lieutenant have now?"
"Somebody who spontaneously combusted, apparently," I said. After explaining the situation, Bob's eyes narrowed.
"One who died by water, and another by fire," Bob murmured. "Whoever this killer is, he's certainly not risking identification through how he kills his victims."
I shook my head. "The magical signature felt different. It's possible these two deaths aren't linked."
Bob arched an eyebrow at me. "Two deaths within twenty-four hours of each other is hardly coincidence, Harry. Have either of the victims been identified yet?"
I shook my head. "Murphy didn't tell me that the drowner'd been ID'd, and the burned guy didn't even look human when I saw him."
Bob grimaced. "It will take some time, then. Who were you calling when you came in?"
"I was trying to get in touch with Morgan," I said. "But he wasn't there."
"He could be doing other work for the Wardens," Bob suggested. "Perhaps even an assignment? It's not unusual for him to be out of the office."
"Yeah, but he's usually in some kind of contact." I shook my head. "I don't like it. I can't put my finger on it, but something screwy's going on."
***
Continue to Part Two.
DISCLAIMER: The Dresden Files doesn't belong to me - the TV series belongs to Lionsgate, and the characters themselves were created by Jim Butcher. Written for entertainment purposes, no money made, please don't sue, yadda.
FANDOM: The Dresden Files
PAIRING: Harry/Bob UST
WORD COUNT: 27,369
RATING: R for descriptions of violence.
WARNINGS: Dead and injured characters. Descriptions of violence. Minor spoilers from the TV series include Birds of a Feather, The Boone Identity, Rules of Engagement, Soul Beneficiary, What About Bob?, Things That Go Bump, and Second City. Minor spoilers from the books include Storm Front, Death Masks, Dead Beat, and Welcome to the Jungle.
SUMMARY: When Murphy calls Harry in for a murder, it's only the tip of the iceberg.
PRAISE BE: An amazing amount of thanks goes out to shiplizard, beachkid, and gehayi for their beta-reading, encouragement, and questions. This fic would've never seen the light of day, if not for you guys. Thank you very much!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is an installment in the Forged series.
***
Sigmund Freud once said that a cigar is a cigar, and while I can agree with the sentiment, sometimes a dream really isn't just a dream. In my line of work, you get used to the idea that what you just dreamed could actually be something important to watch out for. The stuff dreams are made of aren't necessarily all that great, either, so it's kind of nice to have an advance-warning system.
But, like with everything else, sometimes the advance warning system has a hiccup, goes on the fritz, or just craps out. Like, waking up three nights in a row from a nightmare, and not being able to remember a damn thing about it.
Unfortunately, insomnia's not that strange for me, either. If I'm not working a case that demands all of my attention for as long as I can stay awake, then it's usually a nightmare or two about things that have happened, or things that could happen, that keeps me up. So, when sleeplessness hits, I try to make myself useful. Clean up the mess I made around the office or my living room, put books back where I pulled them out from.
Make some potions.
See, I'm the magical equivalent of a computer geek. Even when I'm just puttering around the house, trying to think of something productive, it ends up being magical somehow. I've already made the spells in my staff more efficient, thanks to Bob's suggestions, and I occasionally make it a habit to touch-up the wards that are painted all around my place. I should probably learn how to play an instrument, but since a piano won't fit in my living room, and violins are freaking expensive, I guess brewing the odd potion (while not exactly a cheap hobby, depending on the potion) is my best bet.
I can't help it. Magic ends up being so cool sometimes, and if it weren't for the fact that I've hung up a shingle as Chicago's only professional wizard listed in the phone book, I'd probably spend a lot more time just smiling stupidly whenever I come up with something new. Sometimes, Bob gets as enthusiastic as I do, though his focus can be a bit morbid for my tastes occasionally. Being nearly a thousand years old can do that to you, I guess.
Still, I was in the middle of making a dreamless sleep potion when I heard the phone ring in my office.
Making my way out of the lab and closing the steel door behind me, I got to the phone and picked it up. "Dresden." I glanced over at the wind-up clock on my desk and noticed it was almost one o'clock. That's never a good sign.
"Harry, I need your help," Murphy said, sounding grim.
I frowned. "What's up?"
"I've got a corpse, and I need your take on how he died."
"Is it on the books?" I asked. While I've been getting work lately, it was barely enough to pay the bills. Any jobs I got from Chicago PD would help ease tension between me and my landlord considerably.
Murphy sighed, sounding annoyed. "Yes. And don't wear any shoes you plan on keeping."
I blinked. "You're kidding, right?"
"Hardly." She gave me the address, which I wrote down, and after getting my gear together and reactivating the wards behind me, I headed off into the night.
The steel mill just outside of downtown Chicago had been standing by I-55, old and run-down, since before I'd moved to the city proper years ago. It enjoyed an infamous reputation because it had been abandoned for years, but no one wanted to tear it down because of the asbestos that had been used in its construction. It was a squat-looking building, and while I ordinarily didn't give it a second glance when I drove past it, the two or three black-and-whites along with a medical examiner's van near the front entrance would've been enough to attract anybody's notice. Heading inside, I made sure to clip my ID on the lapel of my leather coat, and a uniformed officer led me to the crime scene. He gave me a facemask to wear, and after I strapped it on over my nose and mouth and pinched the metal closed over my nose, we joined the others.
The corpse lay in the middle of an open area, what equipment had been there long since removed from the building when it had been shut down, leaving a good view of the crime scene. Inside the taped-off area, I could see the body laying where it had fallen, his limbs splayed, surrounded by an incredible amount of not-quite-clear water, and drenched. There wasn't the telltale whiff of blood, or any kind of damage to any of the surroundings that screamed gunfight. If it weren't for the police tape cordoning off the area, I probably would've figured that a guy had slipped on a pretty large puddle and had knocked himself out.
I could see Murphy and Kirmani standing off to one side, Murph talking to one of Butters' assistants while Kirmani was talking with a skinny, nervous-looking kid and his friend, both of them dressed in designer black clothes, everyone wearing little face masks like the one I'd been given. When I reached out to feel any magic in the area, I felt a buzzing sensation against my skin, like touching a vibrating washing machine with one hand.
I pitter-pattered over to the corpse and squatted down as best I could on the balls of my feet. I was almost kind of grateful that I was just wearing a leather coat and not something longer, because the puddle of water around the victim was spreading. The victim, Mr. Soggy, I supposed, was a man with stringy brown hair, frog-like eyes, and had the bloated look of a man who'd been dead and floating in Lake Michigan for a few weeks. When Murphy's shoes hove into view, I Spocked an eyebrow up at her. "If this is what happens when you drink more than eight glasses of water a day, I'm cutting back."
Murphy snorted. "Cute, Harry." She looked at Mr. Soggy. "Any ideas?"
"From a guy drowned on solid ground? It's not anything I've ever heard of." I looked at the water I was squatting in. "Where'd all this water come from?"
"That's what we were hoping you could tell us," Murphy said.
I made with the Spock impersonation again.
Murphy nodded at the man on the floor. "All of the water is coming from him, but we can't figure out how it's happening."
"And you think I know?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
Murphy didn't look impressed. "It's weird, and you're the only guy I've got who's an expert on 'weird'."
I nodded. After the past couple of years of working together with Murphy on cases, I'd gotten used to being her go-to guy whenever something supernatural came up, and it was kind of stupid to deny it. "At least now I know what you meant about my shoes."
"And you thought I was kidding," she said with a snort. "Are you sure you've never seen anything like this before?"
"I'm pretty sure I'd remember seeing something like to Mr. Soggy here," I said, waving a hand at the corpse. "Going by the crime scene, there were no scuff marks or signs of a struggle, though the water could be hiding anything that might've dug into the floor. Maybe he was drowned, and then dumped here as some kind of message?"
"That's what we'd like to find out," Murphy said, not looking pleased with my answer.
I shook my head. "It's nice for you to call me in, but I'm not getting it, Murph. What makes this 'weird'?"
"The water, Harry," she said. When I showed her that she hadn't revealed the secrets of the universe, she explained. "When the guys from the morgue tried to get him into a body bag, he started leaking all of this." She waved a hand at the puddle. Now that I was paying closer attention to it, I saw that it had a faint pinkish tinge to it, like diluted red food dye. I looked again at the guy's face while Murphy continued. "We don't know how much he's already leaked, but if this keeps up, the meat wagon could get flooded pretty quick if they try to move him."
Standing up, I gripped my staff and gently prodded the corpse's shoulder with the butt of it. More pinkish water oozed out of him, and I don't mean that it poured out of the guy's mouth or anything -- it literally oozed out of his eyes, his nose, his ears, even his skin like a grotesque sponge. As I looked closer at the guy's face, I noticed that his skin was almost bone-white, and that the pinkish color was darker coming out of his nose and mouth.
"Stars and stones," I yelped when I realized what I was looking at. I did a stupid little dance to try to get out of the water and away from the body as fast as I could. I wish I could've pretended it was because of some kind of allergy to dead people, but suddenly realizing I was standing in a pool of blood, heavily diluted with water, tends to dampen a guy's chances of bullshitting his way out of it and still being able to save face.
Murphy shot me a look like she was sure I'd gone off the deep end. "What?"
"It's not just water, Murph," I told her as calmly as I could. "He's leaking blood. I'm betting that when he stops leaking, and the guys get him to the morgue, he's not going to have any blood left in his body."
Murphy blinked, and then stepped out of the puddle with a grimace. "Great. And I liked these shoes." Shaking off one foot in a futile gesture to dry it, she looked back at me expectantly. "Well? This starting to ring any bells now?"
I shook my head. "At this point, I really don't know. There's not a lot of supernatural creepy-crawlies that can dish out this much water, let alone drown a guy and drag him here without leaving a trace."
"By 'not a lot', does that mean you have a short list?" Murphy asked with exaggerated patience.
I smiled. "A water elemental could dish out this kind of punishment, no problem. Probably fill the victim's lungs with water."
"I'm hearing a 'but'," Murphy said sourly.
"But," I said, dragging out the word for effect, "water elementals don't have that kind of intelligence. They have to be summoned by somebody, and then they have to be tightly controlled." I looked around pointedly at the crime scene. Except for the expanding puddle on the floor that I was trying to discreetly dodge, everything else was dry. "Not only that, but this place is way too dry for it to be an elemental. If it was taking out Mr. Soggy here, it would've covered everything else in the process."
Murphy scowled. "All right, fine, no water elemental. Any other ideas?"
I frowned. "Whoever did this had a hell of a lot of power to play with, if they were able to saturate this guy's entire body with water. Other than that...." I shrugged. "I can't tell for sure. Let me go hit the books, and when I come up with something, I'll letcha know. Okay?"
Murphy didn't look happy with my answer, but at least this time, she wasn't asking me to play with black magic to figure out who'd killed this guy. This guy had drowned on dry land, as weird as that sounds, and while it broke the first law of magic all to hell, it wasn't necessarily black magic. Someone just let loose with way too much water and turned the guy into a sponge.
"Fine," she said. "But if you find out anything--"
"You'll be the first to know," I told her, nodding. "Promise."
She snorted, and then made her way back to Kirmani and the ME's guys. I made my way back home.
Since I was already awake, I figured I might as well hit the books now instead of later, and when Bob finally materialized hours later, the fiery ember swirling around him, trailing black smoke, I had already nose-deep in a book about Greek mythology. It was a bit of a long shot, but since I had no idea what was going on, I figured that it never hurt to cover all the bases.
"A new client already?" Bob asked, blocking the light as he leaned over to see what I was reading.
"Murphy called," I replied, a yawn escaping before I could suppress it. "Looks like somebody drowned on dry land."
"Unusual, but not unheard of," Bob pointed out. "Was the murder weapon a pool or a toilet? Perhaps a repeat of the police officer with the enchanted branding iron?"
"God I hope not." I shook my head. It didn't take long to bring Bob up to speed about what few details I knew about the murder so far, but when I did, he frowned, curiosity in his eyes.
"Curiouser and curiouser," he murmured, sounding intrigued. "What have you been looking at?"
I flipped the book closed on my arm to show him the cover. "Greek mythology. I'm thinking maybe a naiad did it?" I knew that it had been a stretch, but it had been the best I could think of while running on less sleep than usual.
Bob narrowed his eyes, looking skeptical. "Naiads don't have that kind of power. What sort of facility was it again?"
"A steel mill," I said. "The one out by I-55 that's been shut down for years because of the asbestos."
Bob shook his head. "That blows your theory right out of the water then, if you don't mind my saying so. Naiads need to be near the body of water that they're the patroness of. If it had been a water-bottling plant, perhaps, but all of the metal and machinery in the vicinity would have seriously hampered any attempt by a natural creature to effect any change, let alone kill someone like you've described."
"Any thoughts?" I asked Bob, mirroring Murphy's question to me earlier in the night.
"Did you sense any residual magic in the area?" Bob asked.
I nodded slowly. "Some, but it didn't feel like it does when magic's been used in an area."
Bob frowned. "Oh?"
"It was more like a buzzing against my skin," I said. "That sound familiar to you?"
Bob shook his head, frown still firmly in place. "No, it doesn't. My, my." He then narrowed a penetrating gaze at me. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
"No, I didn't," I replied evenly. "And it's not the first sleepless night that I've had." I could tell from the way he was looking at me what he was going to ask next.
"Did you have that nightmare again?" he asked.
I sighed. "Yes, Bob, and no, I don't remember any details."
Bob's lips pursed, and I let myself get mildly distracted by the curve of his lower lip before I sternly told myself to get back to the subject at hand. "Bob, it's nothing."
Bob glanced at me with a snort that clearly said that he didn't believe me. "Harry, when your health is concerned, you're rarely in a position to know what's best for you." He looked pointedly at the book in my arms. "If you're thinking that a naiad had any chance of killing a man inside of a steel mill, I think you need sleep."
"Very funny," I grumbled. "Murphy needs anything I can give her as soon as possible."
"And the fact that I'm a researcher who doesn't require sleep didn't occur to you?" he asked mildly.
"I've already asked you to look up a lot of information for me this past week," I said. "You deserve the downtime, and I should learn not to rely on you so much."
Bob blinked, looking genuinely surprised for a moment before recovering. "You know you don't need to give me time off."
"You bitch if I don't," I muttered, scrubbing my face with both hands in an effort to wake up a little more. My head already felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
Bob snorted. "I see. Very well, then if I'm officially on vacation, why not let me research this for you on my own time? It already sounds much more fascinating than figuring out the best way to preserve amaranth for minor bindings."
I shook my head. "It's fine."
"So I should read absolutely nothing into the fact that you're about to land face-first into a section about Hephaestus, then?" Bob asked.
I grumbled, very tempted to flip him the bird, but too tired to try. Instead, I glowered at him.
"Ah, Harry, you are the very soul of wit," Bob said. I think he actually smiled. "What if it were a homunculus?"
I blinked, my brain waking up a little out of sheer surprise. "A what?"
"A homunculus, Harry," Bob said patiently. "Surely you aren't so far gone you've forgotten what they are?"
A homunculus was a creature that was entirely man-made, a servant that was neither living nor dead created by a wizard to do its master's bidding. Think the Golem of Prague. It was the most famous example I could think of off the top of my head, though I think I could've been mixing homunculi up with something else. My brain was frying from having lost three nights of sleep in a row, so sue me. "How would a homunculus be able to do that to someone?" I asked, scrubbing at my eyes.
"I didn't say that a homunculus did this to him, Harry," Bob said. "I'm saying what if the body Lieutenant Murphy found was the homunculus?"
I frowned, my brain perking up a little more at the possibility of a solvable problem. "Wait, you're saying that the homunculus was sent to the steel mill, and then made to self-destruct?" I asked. "What would be the point?"
Bob shrugged. "It's possible that if a rival wanted to sabotage the reputation of the mill in question, it need only create the impression that the mill was unsafe, or that the facility was used as an area for illegal activities when the mill was shut down for the night. Perhaps there was even corporate sabotage, and the homunculus's self-destruction was merely the icing on the cake. There are any number of reasons as to why it was made to self-destruct there."
I shook my head. "That mill's been closed down for years. It doesn't need anyone to sabotage it. And what about the blood?" I asked, what few brain cells I had starting to spark from the strain. "Homunculi don't actually have blood, unless they're made from corpses in the first place, and that breaks the fifth law."
Bob shrugged. "Perhaps the wizard in question decided to dig up a fresh body and use it. Creating a homunculus doesn't break any of the laws of magic, since you're not dominating the will of another person, nor are you actually bringing the spirit of the dead back to inhabit its original body."
"Kind of a fine line there, Bob," I grumbled.
Bob shrugged. "Wizards have been toeing the line since the laws were first established. Now, considering that you haven't offered any good arguments against the corpse being a homunculus, are you going to get some sleep now?"
The glare I shot him wasn't as intimidating as I thought when I yawned halfway through it. One of the things that our partnership thrived on was the ability for both of us to try to poke as many holes in the other person's argument as possible. Considering that I hadn't been able to come up with a good counter for his homunculus idea, he might've been right about me needing sleep.
"Fine," I growled, "but if I wake up because of that nightmare again, I'm not going to be better off."
"Go to bed, Harry," Bob said firmly. His voice warmed when he added, "Sleep well."
"Night," I managed, stumbling out of the lab. I debated for a second whether or not I could make the trip up to the loft without falling on my ass, but my legs solved my dilemma for me by moving me over to the couch and depositing me there. I was out like a light in moments.
***
Lots of things were happening fast, but there was one thing I knew. It wasn't real. It didn't feel real. Whatever I touched with my bare hands felt rubbery, and when I acted, it was half a second too slow. Time dragged right in front of me, and it wasn't a good feeling.
I was in the lab. I remember that much. I was in the lab, looking around wildly like I was expecting to see something there. When Bob walked through the wall, his baby blues wide, I turned to him.
I shouted at him, but my voice was garbled, like someone had recorded it on tape and was trying to play it for me while the tape player fouled up. I didn't catch all of what I'd said, but it didn't matter. The near-shriek my voice had become was all the meaning I needed.
I need you safe. I need you safe. Those four words kept crashing through my mind. I need you safe. Safe from who, or what, I didn't know, but all I knew was that Bob wasn't safe, and I had to protect him somehow.
Bob stared at me, and then he was shaking his head, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. I couldn't hear his voice, but his lips, flush and almost red, were shaping the words, "no" and "Harry" over and over again. He didn't want to leave me, not like this.
But the words pounded in my head again, the imperative to keep Bob safe from harm. I reached out to him, and... it was like I was grabbing him. Not physically, but grabbing the stuff his soul was made out of, his entire freaking being. Part of my brain had a surprised "huh" moment while the rest of it concentrated on grabbing Bob's soul and stuffing it into his skull like he was a pile of wet clothes that I was stuffing into a garbage bag. As I jammed him in there, he shouted at me, calling my name again, grabbing uselessly at my hands, and the last thing I saw of him was two blue eyes, absolutely terrified.
"Harry?"
I woke up, bolting upright from what I lay on the couch, my breath coming too hard and fast for it to be comfortable.
"Harry!" came Bob's voice again, sharper than just a moment ago, and I jumped, looking up to see him staring at me with alarm. When he saw I was awake, he took a moment to compose himself, and kept up his disapproving-mother act. "Another nightmare?" he asked, sounding fondly exasperated.
For a second, I just stared at him, totally dumbfounded. There he was, whole, unharmed, not looking like he'd been stuffed anywhere, much less his own skull. I lifted a hand to wipe at the sweat on my forehead, only to find that it was shaking. "Stars and stones," I muttered to myself.
"I'll take that as a yes," Bob said, his lips pursing thoughtfully. I wanted to let myself get distracted by them, letting them banish the dream that'd made me wake up in a cold sweat, but Bob wasn't cooperating. "Do you remember anything about it?"
I stared at him again, finding myself debating whether or not I wanted to tell him about this. He used to figure somewhat prominently in my dreams when I was a kid, but having him be the subject of a dream that was less about hormones and more about sheer panic was kind of new for me. Usually, whenever I had any kind of dreams that featured him and panic, I was thinking more about myself, and what he'd think if (or when, given my luck with relationships) he'd found out about the crush thing. This one...
Bob snorted. "I'll take that as another yes, then."
Sometimes, I forget just how perceptive Bob is. I glared at him a little, running both hands through my hair and resisting the urge to grab two handfuls and pull. "It was nothing."
"You're a terrible liar," Bob said.
I couldn't fault him there. "Fine. I had a nightmare," I admitted grumpily. "Are you happy?"
"Hardly," Bob drawled, folding his arms across his chest. "You do realize that you aren't going to get out of telling me, don't you? What happened?"
I shook my head, feeling bits of the dream leave except for the way my voice had sounded. Not just scared, but the kind of bone-deep terrified that chills you to your soul. Bob hadn't looked that composed himself in the dream, if the way he was talking to me while I was panicked was any indication. "It's a stupid dream, Bob."
Bob sighed. I could see him nearly vibrating with tension, and not the good kind. "Harry, we've been over this. You haven't had a good night's sleep in three-- no, four days now. This is the first time that you've actually remembered anything about your dream, so out with it."
One of the things about me and Bob is that we butt heads a lot. Whether it's about a potion, a new magical item I'm testing out, or how to deal with clients, we routinely have an argument. Right now, though, I wasn't in the mood. "What time is it?" I asked, digging the heel of one hand into my eye to see if that would make seeing a bit better. It did, a little.
"You're not going to get out of discussing this," Bob muttered.
"But I can hold it off until I've gotten some caffeine in my system," I shot back. I got up from the couch, not bothering to check the sign since I knew it wouldn't have flipped over in the middle of the night. I padded over to the kitchen and dug a Coke out of the fridge before popping the top and taking a good, long pull. I leaned a hip against the counter, feeling the cold metal in my hand as I watched Bob stride across the room, his legs eating up ground and his narrow hips showing themselves off in the three-piece suit he was wearing--
Eye on the ball, Harry. Don't let yourself get distracted.
Thus mentally fortified, I was ready for the conversational salvo Bob fired at me. "Harry, why are you resisting talking about this? You yourself describe this dream as being 'stupid', though I wonder about your definition at times." He watched me take another swig of Coke. "The last time you had significant dreams, a young boy was in danger from a skinwalker."
I shivered, trying to push the mental image away from me. It had been over a year since that had happened, but I had trouble forgetting just how Melissa had looked when her corpse lay in the middle of my office, the muscles gleaming a sickening, wet red. "Don't remind me."
"Harry," Bob nearly growled, and for a second, I let the voice roll over me, doing the mental equivalent of gathering it up in both hands and rubbing my face all over it, it felt so good. "Someone was in danger then, and if these past four nights have been any indication, someone could be in much worse trouble now. If you tell me what you remember, both of us can be better armed against whatever might be lurking in the shadows." He paused for a moment, and then added in a worried voice, "Could it be related to your newly-discovered corpse?"
It was a sign of how much I was running on fumes that I had to remember what corpse he was talking about.
Oh. Right. Mr. Soggy.
I shook my head. "I've been having these dreams since before Mr. Soggy showed, Bob." Bob looked like he was ready to interrupt, but I kept going. "And when Scott showed up, he was still very much alive. There's nothing I can do to help this guy, whoever he was." I stopped for a moment, and eyed Bob. "Wait, what happened to your homunculus theory?"
A grey eyebrow lifted. "I'm pleased to see that your memory of last night is still intact, though how long it took you to recall it is rather disappointing. Perhaps you should go back to sleep."
I shook my head again. I could still feel that dream waiting in the wings, ready to strike the moment I let myself drift off. "I don't think I could fall asleep again."
"Why not lay down and give it a try?" Bob asked, almost gentle. "You never know."
I shook my head again, finishing off the Coke and rinsing it out before tossing it in the trash. "I'll catch up on sleep tonight. So, what about the homunculus theory? Did you do some research last night after I crashed?"
Bob nodded, looking annoyed. "I didn't find much, I'm afraid. You've a fairly extensive library collection, but unfortunately, not much about the creation of non-human life."
"It's a little too close to necromancy for my tastes," I said, my mind flashing back to Kemmler's disciples from a while ago.
"There is a difference," Bob said, his voice softer. I glanced at him, and then shame gave me a kick in the pants. Bob had been a necromancer once upon a time, and he'd done it for love, no less. He'd never told me necromancy was even possible until I'd come across a necromancer with a money-making scheme that involved killing the same guy over and over again and collecting the life insurance.
"Well, yeah, but the whole 'creating life when there was none before' thing creeps me out. Hell's bells, I wouldn't know where to look to get some books about homunculi," I said, shooting him an apologetic glance. "Did any of your former masters ever use them?"
Bob shook his head slowly. "None that I recall off-hand."
I opened my mouth to say something, and then I shot him a surprised look. " 'None that you recall off-hand'? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't part of your geas supposed to turn you into a repository of knowledge?"
"Not entirely, and certainly not on the same level as the Archive itself," Bob said. "I can recite the laws of magic word-for-word, and I can quote passages from any number of texts that I've read before, but I'm nearly a thousand years old, Harry. The human mind was never equipped to deal with the sheer amount of information one can gather in that length of time, let alone be able to regurgitate it on command."
I had to admit, I was intrigued. "Then how does it work? You learn new things, and you end up forgetting the older stuff?"
"More like, I learn new things, but unimportant details slip by," Bob corrected me. "For example, I'm aware that I had three different masters in the 1600s, but I can't recall their names, or what any of them looked like."
"Which explains why you never mention them," When Bob frowned, I said, "I've been wondering why you never waxed nostalgic for the days of yore, or about masters you liked, or whatever. Now I know."
Bob pursed his lip, a bit bemused. "There's been very little about my imprisonment to 'wax nostalgic' about. To some masters, I was a tool to be used when they had specialized in a specific area of magic, to some I was terrible warning about the dangers of black magic, and a threat to keep a very close eye on, and to some...."
To some, I thought to myself, he'd been an irredeemable evil, one that arrogant assholes for guardians could hurt and punish all they wanted because they were the good guys. They thought they were, at any rate. All they'd ever done was hurt someone with a soul, with a mind of their own, someone who couldn't fight back. They were bullies, and, well, let's just say I don't think too highly of those masters.
I shot Bob a look. "But... things are better, right?"
Bob looked genuinely surprised, but before he could say anything, the phone rang. I picked it up.
"Dresden."
"Harry," Murphy said, "I've got another body."
"What?" I asked stupidly. "Was he drowned? Where?"
"Not drowned," Murphy said. "Just get your ass over here." She gave me directions, and I hung up the phone. When I looked up at Bob, he was arching an eyebrow at me.
"I gather from your expression that wasn't good news?" Bob asked.
"It was Murph," I said, setting my mug down and sweeping my coat off from where it was draped on the staircase. I shrugged it on. "She's got another body."
Bob frowned, and then nodded. "I'll see what else there might be in the books." He paused before adding. "Be careful."
"Aren't I always?" I asked.
Bob looked less than impressed.
***
Over the years, Murphy has called me out to all kinds of crime scenes, from zoos to hotel rooms to I can't remember what else. Anytime that Murph and I aren't out having a drink, I'm meeting her at a crime scene.
This time, it was a diner. It wasn't one that I recognized off-hand, since I tend to stick to Mac's when I have the cash, but it looked like it would've been a good place to grab a cup of joe at a decent price.
The still-smoking husk of a person in the middle of the scorched tiled floor did cut down on the decor a little.
The ID tag clipped to my jacket got me past the growing crowd and the yellow police tape, and when I found Murphy inside, she didn't look happy.
"Hey, Murph." I glanced down at Mr. Crispy Mark II, and then back up at her again. "Did you miss me?"
Murphy snorted through her nose. "You look like hell."
"Really? I must be having a good hair day." I looked down at the corpse again. "What's the story?"
"Witnesses say that this guy walked in, started clawing at his skin, screaming about cockroaches, and then he set himself on fire." Murphy said, looking down at the corpse and wrinkling her nose.
"Um, I like smoking corpses as much as the next guy," I said, "but why call me in on this one? Isn't it fairly open and shut?"
"There's no trace of accelerant, what little we could find on him didn't include a flame-thrower or even a lighter, and according to witnesses, he was--" She flipped open her notebook and read aloud, "--'chanting in some weird language'."
I shrugged. "Some crackpot who thought he could do magic," I explained easily enough.
Murphy arched an eyebrow. "One of the waitresses also said that before he came in, he'd been arguing with a guy outside."
"What'd he look like?" I asked. "Might be your trigger-man, if he was involved with this."
She didn't look impressed, but read off the description from her notebook. "Tall, black, medium build, short hair, dark brown three-piece suit, and he looked like he'd been carrying something on his side."
"Something?" Just from the description so far, it was starting to sound uncomfortably like Morgan. I was really hoping she wouldn't say what I thought she was going to say.
"Some say it looked like a cane, others think it was a sword."
She said it. Hell's bells.
I grinned, trying to pass it off as something stupid. "A sword? C'mon, Murph, who carries a sword around nowadays?"
"I don't know, Harry," she said patiently. "You tell me."
I'd already managed to avoid telling her about the Wardens and the High Council a bunch of times. It was going to take a lot more than Mr. Crispy the Second to make me spill my guts about everything I'd been keeping from her since we started working together.
I shrugged. "Could be some nut from those historical re-enactment groups," I said. I had to take a moment and mentally push the nausea back from my mind before I knelt down and looked over Mr. Crispy, up close and personal.
The difference between the first burned corpse that I'd dealt with and this one was that the first had been a demon's minion who'd been blasted by a massive amount of fire. I mean, from the waist up, the ex-minion I'd seen had been twisted and black, but his legs and feet had been fine, completely untouched. I know because I still remembered how pristine the first corpse's pants had looked to this day.
This guy, though... It looked like he'd been a hollowed-out tree trunk, and someone had set a fire inside of him. There was no part of his body that had gone unscathed, and the heat from it alone had to have been freaking intense for it to twist and mangle the corpse into a charred pretzel. If Murphy hadn't told me this had been a man when he was alive, I wouldn't have been able to tell from just looking at him. Closing my eyes for a moment, I reached out with my other senses, trying to get a read on any residual magic in the area. Unlike the buzzing sensation that I'd gotten the night before, it felt like I was touching a wire with current running through it, a burr against my skin that jangled against my nerves.
"Sure, Harry," Murphy said, "pull the other one while you're at it." She looked at the corpse, and then back at me. "Don't you think it's weird that not twenty-four hours after we find a guy drowned on dry land, we find a guy who burned alive inside of a diner?"
"Pretty weird," I grunted, getting to my feet and dusting my hands off on my jeans. I could see the question on her lips, so I cut her off before she could ask. "And no, I don't have any answers yet as to how Mr. Soggy drowned. As soon as I know something, I'll call you."
"Make it sooner than later, will you?" Murphy said. "A drowned guy in a closed steel mill is one thing, but as soon as this hits the papers, Fairweather's going to be on my ass to get it solved, and fast."
City Police Commissioner Howard Fairweather had been on Murphy's ass since the first time she'd first caught an 'unusual' case and had called me in to consult. Ever since then, Murphy had also been having trouble getting promotions, even though she'd been up for it twice since I've known her. And she'd never told me about it, but she'd also been getting the short end of the stick in terms of cases other departments didn't want to deal with.
"Murph, I want to help, but I really don't know what I can do with this one," I said. "You could just have a case of spontaneous combustion on your hands."
Murphy stared at me. "Spontaneous combustion."
"There's been cases of it happening, y'know, spontaneously." I shrugged. "If the guy actually had some magical talent before he went up, he could've managed it." I pointed at the body. "I mean, look at him. He burned so hot that he's not even recognizable as human anymore."
"And yet, the rest of the place is untouched," Murphy finished for me, sounding annoyed. "I know that, Harry. The sprinklers didn't go off, even though they're up to code. And like I said before, it's weird, and you're the resident expert on 'weird'."
"Okay, I'll give you that this guy dying the way he did is weird," I admitted, "but where's the crime? It's not like you can arrest him for committing suicide."
"What about the guy he was arguing with? Didn't you just say that this guy could be the trigger-man? What was that kind of magic you told me about, the kind you can do long-distance with a voodoo doll? Thaumaturgy?" she asked. "He could've done it that way."
There were times that I wished I weren't so open with the information that I gave to Murphy whenever she hired me. Then again, that was kind of the point of her hiring me to consult in the first place. My relationship with the Chicago police, and Murphy in particular, has always been a balancing act between giving Murphy just enough information for her to be able to close cases, or at least get some sense of closure when mortal law wouldn't be able to punish the guilty, and not enough information to get her killed by the High Council. "I don't think he was your guy."
"What's changed in the five minutes we've been talking, Harry?" Murphy's eyes narrowed suddenly, and she looked at me steadily without meeting my gaze. It's interesting how she can do that, actually. "You know the guy my vic was arguing with, don't you."
"I didn't say that," I said quickly.
Murphy snorted. "Don't even try it, Harry. You looked like you recognized him from the description I gave you. Who is he?"
"He's kind of in the same field, but he has a different specialty," I said. I wasn't technically lying, since Wardening tends to be more law enforcement than consulting work.
Her brown eyes flashed, and she glared at me. "Harry. What is his name?"
I shook my head. "Can't tell you. Trade secret."
"If he's a tax-paying citizen of Chicago, it's not going to be much of a secret, and all you're doing is delaying the inevitable," Murphy said flatly. "Help me out here, Harry."
"I'm serious, Murphy," I said. "Yeah, I know him, but he wouldn't have done this. He's so morally uptight that he wouldn't have used thaumaturgy on his worst enemy." What I conveniently left out was that Morgan had a big, shiny sword that he could use to remove someone's head from their neck if he got within range. I mean, why use up all of your energy throwing spells around when you can just take care of a problem with one quick swing? "I've had plenty of run-ins with him; he doesn't tolerate people so much as gently bending the rules."
"Sounds like my kind of guy." Murphy folded her arms across her chest. "If you're not going to tell me who he is, how about telling me where I can find him?"
I sighed heavily. "Murph."
"No, Harry. If someone's hurting people in my city, I want it to stop. One guy drowned in a steel mill and another setting himself on fire within twenty-four hours of each other doesn't sound right. If this guy knows anything about it, I want to ask him questions."
"I know you do, but that's not how he operates," I said. "Hell, he could be investigating what's going on too, including what happened to this guy--" I waved a hand at the corpse. "I don't know where to find him, but how about I go talk to him, and ask him to tell me what he knows? I'll share anything I get out of him, scout's honor."
Murphy stared at me for a long moment, and sighed heavily. "Fine. But I want everything."
I nodded. "You got it."
"And I still want what could've killed my drowner last night."
I nodded again. "I know. You'll get it as soon as I figure it out."
It didn't take me long to get back to my place, and when I got there, I headed straight for the phone.
Morgan isn't too hard to get a hold of, especially for me. Ever since I killed my uncle with black magic almost six years ago, I'd been put under an accelerated form of probation known as the Doom of Damocles. If I break any of the seven laws of magic, there's no trial. I'm just dead. And since Morgan's the Warden assigned to Chicago, he's basically my parole officer. If I see signs of black magic, I get in touch with him. I've done it a few times already, but I try not to make a habit of it. He doesn't like me all that much, and the feeling's mutual.
I tried the phone number that I keep in my wallet, and after giving the password to the Warden on the other end, I was surprised to learn that Morgan wasn't available. Nobody spends their life sitting by the phone, sure, but nine times out of ten, Morgan was usually there. Maybe I'd just caught him on that tenth time.
With two bodies headed for the morgue that died under extremely weird circumstances, I had a feeling that not being able to get in touch with Morgan was a bad thing.
Bob emerged from the wall that divided the lab from my office area, looking curious as he walked over to stand next to me. "Ah, there you are. I had been wondering what was taking you so long. What sort of new corpse does the lieutenant have now?"
"Somebody who spontaneously combusted, apparently," I said. After explaining the situation, Bob's eyes narrowed.
"One who died by water, and another by fire," Bob murmured. "Whoever this killer is, he's certainly not risking identification through how he kills his victims."
I shook my head. "The magical signature felt different. It's possible these two deaths aren't linked."
Bob arched an eyebrow at me. "Two deaths within twenty-four hours of each other is hardly coincidence, Harry. Have either of the victims been identified yet?"
I shook my head. "Murphy didn't tell me that the drowner'd been ID'd, and the burned guy didn't even look human when I saw him."
Bob grimaced. "It will take some time, then. Who were you calling when you came in?"
"I was trying to get in touch with Morgan," I said. "But he wasn't there."
"He could be doing other work for the Wardens," Bob suggested. "Perhaps even an assignment? It's not unusual for him to be out of the office."
"Yeah, but he's usually in some kind of contact." I shook my head. "I don't like it. I can't put my finger on it, but something screwy's going on."
***
Continue to Part Two.