I don't own a bunch of stuff, and I don't own either of these Series. One is owned by Jim Butcher, the other S.M. Stirling.
When the dome of light appeared before my car, there were two main thoughts that went through my head, the first was a prayer that the other passengers in the car would be safe, namely my daughters Maggie and Bonea, and my woolly mammoth, Mouse. The second thought was that I should have known my life was going too well these last few months, not counting the Winter Mantle, dealing with having Bonnie springing from my head, and the hair raising, heart-thumping experience of getting to know Maggie. In fact one of the only things that was not giving me trouble was Mouse, who, it turns out, found it pretty funny to see me tripping over myself when I was trying to talk to my daughters.
And yet, throughout all this, I was still having the best time I have had in years, spending time with friends, family and Murphy. Murphy was out of the hospital now on a pair of crutches, after Nicodemus put her in a few months ago. When Murphy got out of the hospital, the first thing she did was threaten to kick my ass if I ever gave her that many diamonds again in a old sock. Our relationship was going pretty well, with me just trying to be there for her and not overcrowd her, and introducing her to Bonnie. It seems that Murphy and Maggie had met before at Michael's, and got along pretty well with her. I even ended up inviting Murphy to Arcanos night with the Alphas, which she actually seemed to enjoy.
For my time with my daughters it was an exhilarating experience getting to know them and trying to teach Bonnie to act around other people, which was a little difficult due to her nature. Like Bob she was a spirit of intellect, so it was a little bit hard to explain the concepts of good and evil to someone who just did not see the point. One of the ways I tried to work around this was exposing Bonnie to the public more often, so she could see normal interactions between people. I had to get creative with due to the fact that normal interactions won't occur around someone carrying a wooden skull with runes etched into it, so I resorted to making my daughter a new container. Using information from Bonnie, as well as the next best thing to ten million dollars, I was able to construct a new home for my daughter that was least noticeable then a skull. In the end I went with a design that both Bonnie and I agreed on, namely a silver coin with a picture of a face on it, two chips of a diamond for eyes, runes to make it harder than a regular silver coin, and a hole so that it could be hung from a chain like a necklace. Maggie had taken to wearing the necklace to school so that she would always have family with her.
In spending time with Maggie I learned more about her and her life, but it was this that actually led me to my current predicament. I was trying to become more of a part of her life by doing all the things that a father was suppose to do, such as going to parent teacher meetings, meeting her friends, and introducing her to some of my family members which was a fun idea at the time. One such idea I had was to show off a little bit, because who doesn't like to show off to their kids, by introducing her to River Shoulders, one of the forest people, I mean what kid doesn't want to meet Bigfoot. That's how Maggie, Mouse,Bonnie and me wound up in the forest late one Friday night, camping out and eating s'mores, waiting for River Shoulders to arrive. When he did, Maggie jumped up and tried to hide behind me and Mouse. It took a little bit to convince her come out and introduce herself but once she did, she seemed to enjoy talking to him, and enjoying hearing stories from Native American legends .One of my proudest moments as father was when introducing Maggie to River Shoulders, she looked at him and asked if he was Chewbacca.
Leaving the forest the next morning while carrying Maggie piggyback with Mouse walking beside me, I was feeling pretty content with my lot in life, till she turned her head to me.
"Hey dad" Her voice was tired from lack of sleepy.
"Yeah Maggie?" I responded, looking over my shoulder at her.
"This was really great, thank you for doing this"
"You welcome Maggie, anything else?"
"Yeah I am going to sleep now, goodnight"
That got a brief chuckle out of me, and a "goodnight". Heading back to the car I slowed down my walking pace, Maggie snuggled in a little closer against my leather coat, and fell asleep. Looking around for a second and pulling Maggie closer, I saw Mouse giving me a big doggy grin. After reaching the car, the first thing I did was move aside and let Mouse into the back seat of the old car I had bought second hand with the heist money, and then tossed the camping gear and my staff in the back after him. Settling Maggie in the front seat and pulling a blanket around her, I got myself into the front seat and pulled away from the shoulder of the road near the forest and started heading home.
I had only been driving for thirty minutes when the dome of light appeared less than twenty feet in front of my car. With what little time I had I threw up a shield in front of the car, and hit the breaks, waking Maggie with the sudden jolt, who gave a started yelp. I yelled "Hang on" as the car hit the dome and went inside, and my last memory was of the bright burning light.