A/N: My first Dresden Files story, so don't be too harsh. I know I'm not that good at writing mystery yet.

Dresden Files: Death Mark

Chapter 1

I have to admit, Molly's shield was getting better. Perhaps it was some endearment for Morgan, who had given his life freely to stop Peabody, who had told me I was too soft on my apprentice. He had told me that she would learn better if she was trained harder; obviously Morgan had never met Charity. But I was doing what he had noted, and was tossing baseballs at her instead.

Of course, we were also out of snow at the moment.

One baseball barely managed past her shield and grazed her arm. She rubbed it and gave me a dark look. Her shield wasn't perfect so far. But seeing as how she was raised by Michael and Charity, I was pretty confident that she would survive. Besides, I doubt she would complain to her mother, who would take pity on her. After all, Charity was a lot tougher than I had expected when I first met her. And she had been tough then. Molly would be all right.

Gleefully Mouse ran after the balls and began racing to bring them back to me. Molly beat him to some, who tossed them back to me a bit harder than usual. I caught them easily. Mouse still got plenty of balls himself, and I ignored the drool on them. He didn't much of a chance to get out. With the aftershock of dealing with the entire Morgan and Peabody incident, I had taken a few weeks before considering myself on full duty again. Molly's training had returned to its fullest intensity. She hadn't gone into anyone else's mind again, either.

"You ready to try again?" I asked. "Or think you've had enough for one day?" Molly frowned ever so slightly. She'd learned that the latter option involved having wind shot at her, not baseballs. She now always chose the first option. I winded up to throw and tossed it straight at her stomach. Mouse watched the ball zip across the park. Molly was already falling down before the ball reached her.

Molly plus falling minus ball equals bad. Instinctively, and perhaps stupidly, I checked the magical currents of Chicago to see what caused my sensitive apprentice to collapse randomly. I immediately stopped out of some unconscious fear. I couldn't exactly name what had just entered Chicago, but it seemed familiar. Familiar, and powerful. If I had to rate this on a scale of one to ten, I would be a three who just caught a glimpse of a fourteen. Something massive had just entered through the Nevernever.

"Molly?" I asked, turning back to my apprentice, who was curled into a ball. She was gripping her head. Molly was more sensitive to magic than I was which is why she probably would never be a fighter like I was. Her mother didn't see that as a bad thing, and I guess I agreed. Molly didn't need to do what I did. But now wasn't the time to learn about the fetal position. "Come on, grasshopper; we need to get back. Mouse, get to the car."

While the Blue Beetle object to Mouse's entrance, I helped my apprentice to her feet and began to walk her to the car when the power I had been aware of vanished, and Molly warily helped herself without issue. "Harry, what just happened?" Molly asked. I wasn't sure, but got in the Beetle and turned on the engine. I knew somebody who might be able to tell me, but the question was whether Bob would have felt it in the basement. I doubted he hadn't.

*****

"Wake up, Bob," I said, entering the lab. Molly was upstairs, petting Mouse. As a rule she still didn't know about Bob's existence, who would without end make innuendos once he was allowed to 'meet' her. Molly was under the impression that I was confronting an oracle. In a way, I was. Bob probably knew as much and had just as much power. I had never realized how much until the events with Kemmler's disciples. Man, I had too many adventures, and I was always the Rebellion in each of them."

Bob's eyes twinkled to life, and they were uneasy. His teeth were chattering. "Harry, I think we should move," he said. I could tell that he had felt the power. Anything that had Bob on edge that uneasily was usually not good. Beatable, eventually, but only with sucker punches and with lots of my ass getting kicked in the beginning. That whole Rebellion thing again. My enemies needed much more obvious exhaust ports.

"What are we dealing with here, Bob?" I asked. Bob didn't answer for a moment. "Bob, I want to know."

"I'm not exactly sure," Bob admitted. "But it seems like an Outsider had briefly entered Chicago." That was definitely not good. First, it was against the Laws of Magic, and that meant I was going to have to find some punk sorcerer who was either dead seeing what he could do, or I had a warlock in my territory. That meant hell and paperwork. Let's start with hell.

Molly called through the locked lab door. "Harry? There's someone at the door," she said.

"Answer it," I told her. The wards would protect her if it was something threatening. I turned back to Bob. Outsiders were serious, nasty, terrifying business. "Is it an Outsider or not? If it is, then there's either running around Chicago or there's a warlock around there." I was expecting the phone to ring any moment to inform me that I had Warder duties. Dresden Outsider Services, please hold.

"It was an Outsider, I'm sure now," Bob said after a moment. "But I've never felt Outsider power worked in that way, or in such power, either. I don't know any that are that strong, but it's not like we know much in the first place. It could be vamps, Harry." That was sore. Not only was Chicago supposed to be vampire-free, but we were supposed to be in a cease-fire. The Outsiders had been an ally of the Red Court during the recent war, and if the Red Court was planning a preemptive strike, then calling Outsiders meant they were going to hit heavy.

I filed this all away in my head. "So do you have any idea of what kind of power we're dealing with, here?" I asked.

"You just felt it, Harry. You tell me."

"Specifics, Bob."

"There isn't that much on Outsiders in the first place! Don't you get it? Someone with more juice that I know had to have summoned it! And if you really want specifics, I would have to say that this thing is like a lord among peasants!" Bob was panicky, and now I was. Bob rarely, rarely snapped. And so it made sense that if he was panicky about this, I felt that good old paranoia creeping up.

"What do you mean lord among peasants?" I asked slowly.

"The Outsiders, Walkers, whatever, they have rankings among themselves. This one, for however briefly it was here, makes some of the few I know look like you to Nicodemus." I gulped. Last I knew, Nicodemus could be dead, but I had gotten him with my sucker punch, too. In a fair fight, he could beat me with both hands behind his back and Anduriel, his fallen angel, blinded. And if this made other Outsiders look like that comparison…

"Bob, exactly what could this guy to somebody?" I asked. "Who might come close to being in its division?" I knew I would be outclassed, but I had a theory as to why it had been summoned.

"Let's see, someone who might come close to taking him on…you ever guessed how much power Cowl might have had if he had succeeded? It probably would have been stronger than this guy." I gulped again. The Rebellion was turning out to be against ten Death Stars. "Or if the Summer Lady had succeeded in transferring her power to Winter? That would be a serious contender for it, too. Just put it up there above He Who Walks Behind." That blew me away. This guy was a serious heavy hitter. If it turned out to be deadly, then I was going to have issues with it. He Who Walks Behind was frightening enough.

"You know, while I'm sitting here writing my will," Bob interrupted my thoughts, "That babe still has the door open."

"Shut your mouth and try to figure which Outsider it is," I told him. Bob complained about that one as I headed out of the lab. I opened the door, ready to deal with whatever Molly was doing. It might be that Vince PI; Molly had said that she had a date with him after she had mercilessly used her wiles on him. Poor kid would probably never recover.

It wasn't him at the door though. The sight that greeted me was both new and suspicious. What made it so new was Molly's reaction to the young man standing at the door. She was, first off, stammering endlessly, trying to say what sounded like, "Yes." She was failing. Her cheeks were a deep pink blush, and I could have sworn that in the common intervals where her mouth failed her and hung open, she was drooling. Her mind had been turned to mush. My apprentice, who had managed to keep her wits around my brother, was drooling at this young man.

That was what also made it suspicious. If a White Court vampire had been unable to get this reaction out of Molly, then who was this guy who could? I examined him more closely as I came to the door. He was young, a few inches under me. And he was good looking. I had always assumed that it was my brother Thomas who set the standard for looks, but seeing this guy I was certain he could turn people gay. His white hair was combed to one side in a way that was cool, and his physique was a tone of muscle that male supermodels dreamed of. Deep blue eyes were locked on Molly. His entire attention was turned to the drooling stuttering adolescent girl, but it was in confusion over her state. Did he seriously not know how good he looked? He had to be from Siberia.

Naturally, he was a suspicious character for being so good-looking. Only a few types of beings I'd ever met looked so good, and most of them you wouldn't trust with a penny. Or your life for that matter. I caught his attention as I reached the door. His smile threw me off guard; it was pleasing and honest. His warning meter went up. How anyone could be that honestly nice was beyond me; maybe I'd fought one too many bad guys.

"Good day, sir," he said to me in a pleasant voice, offering me his hand. I noticed my apprentice's drool increased as he spoke. "I'm sorry to have bothered you, but are you Harry Dresden? She couldn't seem to answer." There was no amusement in his voice; the kid was blatantly naïve. He must have been raised around equally stunning people, or he was dumb. Or maybe he didn't care.

"I am," I answered, taking care not to use my name in front of him. Things that good-looking were usually more powerful than I was. Molly had shut her jaw to wipe away a trail of drool. Her eyes never left him. Yep; he had to be powerful. There was a nagging in the back of my head, and I hoped he didn't turn hostile. "What do you want?"

"Well, I merely wanted to meet you at first," he explained. "I have heard a lot about you." I had to admit that a little bit of pride entered my brain-process. Yeah, I have done some heavy hitting, mostly with luck. But he didn't know that. "But I also realized that you could help me."

"How?" I asked. I gave Molly a nudge with my elbow to wake her to the fact she was about to drool again.

"I don't understand the alignment and balance of power between the factions of the Unseelie Accords, and I believe you might be able to explain to me. I'm new, you see," he said. Something didn't fit, and the nagging increased. There was no way he could be human, and the chance an inhuman didn't know what was what in the supernatural world was zero.

"Sure, come in," I said. I prepared to disable my wards so that he could enter, just in case something would hit him, but before I could he walked through, and I had the impression that all of my powerful wards were walked through like paper. All of my alarms went off. Molly even knew what had happened, evidenced by a slightly suspicious look in her eye. She didn't take her eyes off him, though.

"Could you wait here a sec? I need to check something. Molly will keep you company," I said. He nodded politely, and Molly's face beamed. I left, half wondering if she would even be able to speak, half wondering what the hell was in my apartment. I dashed into the lab.

"Bob, you have my permission to leave your skull only to enter Mister," I said. Bob didn't leave just yet. He knew something was up. "I want you to come up and see who I just invited in and whether I should be dead."

"You didn't just invite that skinwalker, did you?" he asked before he drifted out of his skull into Mister. The large Manx-cat hopped up out of the lab with me. Molly's ability had improved; she had managed to ask him to sit down and was sitting across from him. He was in the middle of asking her a question.

"So what is your name?" he was asking. He turned his gaze towards us as I came up. Immediately Bob aka Mister screeched. I immediately had defenses up, and Molly in surprise veiled herself. My guest stood up in surprise and looked around defensively, as though there was something else that was making Bob run in fear. He obviously didn't see himself as a threat.

"Molly, go into the kitchen," I ordered, ready to blast him if he so much as twitched. His eyes focused as he realized my attention was on him, and his posture straightened. He had some vague idea that I was wary of him, and looked almost apprehensive of what I might do. Once I was certain Molly was away, I flicked my eyes down at Mister. Mouse ran into the room, heaving heard the commotion. He kept his eyes on the young man, who in turn became interested in Mouse. "Bob, what's up?" I asked him.

Bob floated out of Mister and headed straight back for the lab, calling back over his shoulder, "That is the Outsider!"

Damn. I had let a demon of the deadliest sort, an Outsider of the Nevernever, into my house. And this one made others look weak. I was already being cast as the underdog, and something in the back of my head told me that even if I got the first hit, I wouldn't be landing the last.