Title: Night of the Living Frustration

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Post "White Night" in Dresden Files; Season 2 finale for Grimm

Summary: I'd come to Portland on the wings of a panic attack that Mavra might have surfaced again with the Word of Kemmler. But what followed was more Night of the Living Frustration than City War Z. 6500 words.

Notes: Originally posted to LJ in two parts on 9/22/14 and 12/9/14. Written for Sulien for a Wishlist prompt.

Life might be like a box of chocolates for some people. But not for me. From my perspective, life is more like a fruitcake: you know you're in for some shade of hell when you take a bite, yet it somehow manages to surprise you anyway. Every time.

"I don't know what the hell was wrong with this guy," I said, wrinkling my nose as I stared down at the body on the morgue table, "but he definitely wasn't a zombie."

Dr. Harper snorted in agreement. She seemed a little pale and shaky- understandable, considering another of her customers had sat up in the middle of an autopsy a few hours before- but also competent and perceptive: Portland, Oregon's version of Butters. "No, but I'm not surprised your informant described him that way; he did show all the classic signs. He was pronounced dead three days ago, then broke into a house this morning and started wrecking the place. The officers who responded to the disturbance call said he didn't even try to speak; just sort of growled." She gestured to the exit wounds marring the corpse's chest. "It took four bullets to bring him down."

I'd come a long way from the days when the sight of a dead body made me want to kneel at the porcelain throne, and as corpses go, Mr. Mulpus' wasn't even particularly grotesque. But I could practically feel the acrid magic rolling off him; if he wasn't a practitioner, whatever had happened to him probably hadn't even been voluntary. And I doubted he was; there were reasons warlocks didn't usually berserk themselves. Besides the minor inconvenience that it was kind of hard to keep a plan on track when you were too crazed to think clearly, it was a really good way to draw the attention of the sort of authorities that smite first and ask questions later.

Case in point: yours truly, Warden Harry Dresden, alerted by a chain of truly frantic calls sent up the Paranet. It had only been a year or so since an old friend and I had helped set up a support network for minor practitioners all across the country, and the number of times they'd sent a false alarm could be counted on the fingers of one hand; I hadn't wasted any time in responding.

Usually, Oregon would be Carlos Ramirez' turf as the West Coast's Regional Commander, but he was dealing with a sewage demon infestation in the zipcode envy sections of Los Angeles. Quite literally a horrorshow for all involved. Chicago, on the other hand, had been going through a quiet phase; it was May, smack between mystically significant spring holidays, an unattractive time for nasties whose power depends on the seasonally shifting currents of the Nevernever. So I'd taken the call instead, and had a brief panic attack over the idea that Mavra might have surfaced again with the Word of Kemmler.

I'd met my first zombie in a place not unlike the one where I stood, the last time the Word had changed hands. Though Chicago's morgue is technically a "Forensic Institute" now, an upscale building surrounded by well-sculpted landscaping, great views, and an industrial park full of biotech companies. A recipe for extra creepiness, if you ask me, never mind the more antiseptic naming scheme. Once upon a time, I'd known the security guard at the front desk well enough to call him Phil and sneak him six-packs of McAnnally's nectar of the gods to defray the inconvenience of my more unofficial visits. The necromancer who'd followed me in one day hadn't bothered with persuasion; he'd slit the man's throat from ear to ear and sent Phil to corner my friend Butters. Naturally, I'd gotten in the way.

Aside from the bullet wounds, though... I couldn't see any other fatal injuries on the body. Nor did Mr. Mulpus show any of the signs of decay you'd normally expect if a body had been walking around unrefrigerated for days. The only weirdnesses I could see that might correspond to that aura of dark magic were the wide, bloodshot eyes and the dried green smears under his nose, visible on the pre-autopsy photographs. Hulk-colored discharge: and wasn't that a marvelous thought.

I cleared my throat. "Any idea what that green stuff was?"

Dr. Harper nodded. "The preliminary tox report shows a complex interaction of various drugs, including tetrodotoxin, scopolamine, and a powerful hallucinogen called Datura."

I winced. Potions making is like any other use of magic: intent and association matter a lot to the outcome. I'd done enough research on herbal ingredients over the years, beefing up my mental library the way I did with all my exercises of craft, that the effects of a plant as potent as angel's trumpet leaped to the forefront of my thoughts without much effort.

No other substance has received as many severely negative recreational experience reports as Datura: it has common side-effects as varied as hyperthermia, tachycardia, bizarre and violent behavior, severely dilated pupils, and even pronounced amnesia.

And one more thing: "Lazarus syndrome," I concluded, wrinkling my nose.

The ME nodded again. "Where the victim appears dead, only to awaken some time later. What's even stranger is the apparent method of delivery; I couldn't find any injection marks, and the contents of his stomach were clear of the toxins. The clue was the excessive inflammation of the eyes and upper respiratory system: someone apparently sprayed him in the face with it. I didn't have much opportunity to examine Lily O'Hara, the woman found with him, but when she woke she showed similar signs of soft tissue irritation."

I shuddered in sympathy, and made a mental note to swipe a set of eye-shields from the protective equipment stock on the way out.

I didn't care to take a guess yet whether the magic and the drug were a chicken and egg problem, or if he'd been blasted all at once; poor bastard. But all in all, I was glad the Paranetters had sent up a flare. This might not be another crop of Kemmlerites on the rise, but that didn't mean there wasn't a genuine threat out there: some wannabe bokor just getting his toes wet.

And on that cheery note: it was time to track down Lily O'Hara and see if a Look at a living victim would help me find the perpetrator.

I made my thanks and excuses and put the chilly halls of the dead behind me.

What followed was more Night of the Living Frustration than City War Z. My contact at the precinct, a sergeant named Robert Franco married to a hearthwitch on the 'Net, let me know that missing persons reports were trickling in at an alarming rate, but there hadn't been any more zombielike attacks. Lily O'Hara had disappeared from intensive care, and all my attempts to track her using traces she'd left behind at the hospital fizzled out into a gray blanket of magic, like the fog rolling up into the city from the nearby Willamette and Columbia Rivers.

The most incriminating thing I found as I beat feet around the city of six hundred or so thousand- maybe a quarter the size of my native stomping grounds, but still far too large for one man to cover in a single night- was a brickfront building labeled with a sign reading Voodoo Doughnuts. I didn't spy any Datura on their menu, but I did seize several Bacon Maple samples for more intensive examination.

I missed Mouse; he'd have been in canine heaven. One of these days I was going to have to figure out a way to take six foot nine inches of lanky wizard and a Dogus Giganticus of similar weight and intelligence cross country without more discomfort than the effort was worth. Not on my part, mind you. His. A full-sized Temple Dog is a lot of furface to be sharing space with when he decides he's bored with taking in the scenery. But direct passages through the Nevernever unfortunately don't grow on trees.

I licked frosting off my fingers all the way back to my hotel, then took a warm shower- the water heater even lasted a full twenty minutes for once- and collapsed into bed at oh dark thirty. Somewhere out there, Lily O'Hara and who knew how many others had been drugged and set up for some sick bastard's amusement, and I hadn't been able to find them; but I wouldn't do them any good if I ran myself into the ground. After a few too many all-nighters in my life, I'd learned to refill the tank when I could.

Even I can learn from experience. Eventually.

I was glad of the rest the next morning, when I woke to the sounds of chaos right outside my cheap chain hotel, and walked out into a scene from an action movie. I didn't see anyone who looked like Lily O'Hara, but there was a guy showing symptoms similar to Richard Mulpis', stinking of cloying dark magic and plowing through passersby as though oblivious to anything but a desire to destroy.

He didn't seem to have any particular target; from what I could see- and hear, when I took a second to Listen- there were other affected folks scattered all over the nearby blocks of downtown Portland, committing random mayhem. If I'd had any doubt left whether it was a genuine zombie attack, that nixed it: they weren't following a drummer. Not even a car stereo set on heavy bass, one of the improvised tactics I'd run across that Halloween back in Chicago. That would make them harder to stop.

I threaded my way through the frantically scattering foot traffic, ducking a couple of idiots filming the scene with their so-called smart phones, and smiled grimly at the surprised outcries as their screens fritzed out in my wake. Then I gestured with my blasting rod, muttering a low-voiced ventas servitas to knock the 'zombie' back as he charged toward a man on a bike in a neon green jacket.

This wasn't so much an attack as it was a flashy distraction; that much was obvious. But if I could track the guy back to where the warlock had been keeping his victims, I might be able to pick up more concrete clues as to his identity. Or hers; always keeping in mind Murphy's repeated attempts to cure me of my chivalry thing and the year-plus I'd spent trying to keep ahead of an aggressive-minded, very female teenage apprentice.

First things first, though. I charged down the pavement as he staggered back to his feet, punching a guy who had misguidedly reached out a hand to help. I skidded to a halt in front of a bus shelter just as he reached inside for its sole occupant, a panicked blonde woman already trying to get out of the way, and knocked him ass over teakettle with a blast from one of my kinetic force rings. Then I planted a boot on his chest and took a deep breath as I opened up my Sight.

I tried not to do that more often than I had to. A wizard's Sight is an extra sense that typically manifests as augmented vision, showing the primal nature of things: the true and emotional core of what they are. It's good at picking up traces of magical energy and cutting through illusions. Unfortunately, it's also indelible: what you See quite literally can't be unSeen. It'll remain in your memory forever, as crystal clear as the day you first Saw it. Look on a few angels, and you'll weep for beauty; but in my line of work, horrors to scorch the mind are far more common.

It was still the absolute quickest way to get a glimpse at what was going on with this guy before the cops followed a 911 call to the source. And I was betting on Portland's PD being swift responders.

I'd Seen people psychically shredded by fetches before, creatures of Faerie that feed on fear. I'd Seen teenagers with tiny holes in their temples, maddened by a friend's attempt to 'fix' their addictions for them. And I'd Seen a friend wrapped in the ice-cold thorns of a torture curse, missing chunks of psychic flesh from a Nightmare's attack on his spirit. What I Saw in that nameless victim was nothing so immediately horrible: a man's face in repose, eyes closed, tossing as if in a dream. But I could also See a vicious blot of green- the drug causing his maddened trance?- and the shadow of another man's visage overlaid on his: a leaner face, with a suggestion of a goatee, intense dark eyes, and a top hat. The perp Sgt. Franco had described, the one who'd taken Lily O'Hara from the hospital.

I sat back on my heels at that, wondering what my next step should be- then flinched as a hand came down on my shoulder. I inadvertently glanced up at the cop who'd approached me while I'd been concentrating with my Sight still open, and got a good Look at something infinitely weirder. I'd met lycanthropes and werewolves and loup garou, but I'd never seen someone with a pig's face before. And it was clearly a face: proportioned like a human's, seated atop a human body, but snouted and eared like an actual porcine.

Part of my backbrain made note of the ironic nature of the vision, and wondered if contact with the 'zombie' was somehow causing me to hallucinate. The rest of me took a startled step back, inadvertently freeing the growling 'zombie', and caught a glimpse of several other animal-headed people in the crowd as my sight range widened. It was like a convention of transplanted Egyptian gods: a lion here, a snake there, and something that looked disconcertingly like a beaver across the street. Maybe a quarter of the onlookers had been transfigured.

I hurriedly shook off the Sight: and voila, they were just people again. Human people, rubbernecking at an interesting spectacle. But the cop who'd interrupted me looked as startled as I'd felt at his touch.

"Grim," he growled, one hand falling to his holster.

Fortunately for me- though not so much for him- the 'zombie' chose that moment to lurch back upright, tackling the cop and diverting his focus.

I took that as my cue to scamper. Stars and stones. What the hell was going on in the Rose City?

More to the point- why hadn't it been brought to my attention before? If I could See it, surely others could as well. And you'd think it would be an important fact to know when investigating in the area. Had Ramirez known that people with, ah, alternative heritage had settled here, and just not told me? Because that was the only thing they could be: descendants of long-ago changelings and other supernatural beings, diluted with human blood until their heritage was largely invisible to the average mundane human... unless they chose to make it visible.

I didn't know much about the phenomenon, just that it was responsible for a lot of the animal-headed deities in ancient pantheons; most of the actual crossbreeds I'd met were far more recent, genetically speaking. A prime example being the Hellhound, the centuries-old assassin and bodyguard who served one of the scariest little girls I'd ever had the pleasure to meet. Why would so many gravitate to the Pacific Northwest? Or was it one of those widespread facts of the preternatural world that my first Master hadn't seen fit to educate me about, and everyone since had just assumed I knew? I had an irritating tendency to trip over such landmines when they were least convenient.

And what the hell had that cop meant, accusing me of being 'grim'? He hadn't exactly been a picture of sunshine and happiness, himself.

I shook off the thought for later contemplation, and ran toward the sound of screams on the next block.

It wasn't long before I ran across another locus of police activity: a storefront with a broken window being guarded by a couple of uniforms, while a man covered in cuts was being loaded into an ambulance. Glass, meet innocent consumer of expensively doctored caffeine, I gathered; the place was a coffee shop. While I rubbernecked behind the police cordon, trying to determine if there were any 'zombies' still at large on the scene, a blocky grey station wagon/SUV type vehicle pulled up and disgorged a plainclothes cop. A detective, probably: I recognized the body language.

He was at least a foot shorter than I was, with a pale complexion, blue eyes, and stylishly disordered dark hair; not quite my half-brother Thomas' level of pretty, but he wouldn't have looked out of place in that neighborhood. He had a quick, grim-faced- ha!- conversation with the uniform, and then the pair went into the shop, weapons drawn. I took a chance and drew my own laminated ID, walking past the officer they'd left to guard the door as though I'd been expected, and walked into the wrecked storefront just as the detective cocked his head to listen to something upstairs.

I frowned, and focused to Listen myself. Interestingly, it took the uniform several seconds longer to register the sounds of growling and crashing upstairs; was the detective some kind of practitioner himself? Curiouser and curiouser. They lifted their weapons again, and headed for the stairs...

...just as I stepped on a shard of broken glass. The uniform went on up the stairs, apparently not having heard me, but the detective whirled around, aiming in my direction.

And then something really weird happened: the detective's eyes went completely black, like lightless pits, seeming to stare right through me.

A shiver went up my spine, and I resisted the temptation to open my Sight again. What was it with this town? Was there some real-world equivalent of a Hellmouth knocking around in the old tunnels beneath the city?

"Whoa there," I said. "Harry Dresden, consultant to Chicago PD."

"Nick Burkhardt, Portland PD," he replied, lowering his gun with a frown; and with a blink, empty eyes faded back to normal blue. "What is Chicago PD's interest here? No, you know what, that can wait. Mr. Dresden, this is an active crime scene. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask..."

A loud crash from above interrupted him, followed by a cry of pain from the other officer.

"Wu!" he cried, then shot me a glare and pointed toward the door. "Go outside and wait with the other officers!" Then he ran for the stairs.

I whipped up a veil and followed after him. What? Murphy, I might have thought about obeying; an unknown cop of unknown heritage assigned to a magically related crime wave, not so much. I recognized his name from my conversation with the ME.

New plan: I intended to stick like glue to Burkhardt's side until the case was solved. And maybe after.

Clearly, there were layers to this town that the Warden Commander of North America should really be better informed about.

Following Detective Burkhardt as he chased a raving woman through the rooms above the coffee shop, I was reminded of that old PSA about the egg and the frying pan. You know the one: This Is Your Brain On Drugs. Even a budding wizard like me hadn't been able to avoid that one, blanketed all across public media during my impressionable teenage years. The guy I'd tackled on the sidewalk might survive his living dead impersonation without much damage, but the way the blonde had toppled shelves, sunk her teeth into Officer Wu's leg, and threw herself out of an upstairs window... she might shake it off like it was nothing now, but when the magic wore off, she'd be lucky if the damage didn't cripple her.

Like Officer Wu said: I didn't know what she was on, but she was on a lot of it. At least she was still alive; Mr. Mulpis hadn't been that lucky.

And perhaps more to the point: if my glimpse of her distorted face hadn't been mistaken, she was the missing second victim, Lily O'Hara. That meant the other formerly missing persons would probably be capable of that level of violence soon enough, if they weren't already. The total cost in property damage and affected lives would be almost as horrific as if they'd been genuine zombies.

I bit back a curse, then froze as Detective Burkhardt's forehead wrinkled in a frown. He turned away from the broken window to walk slowly in my direction, giving me flashbacks to Molly trailing me to crime scenes a year before. I could almost hear her laughing at me now: what was that, Boss? Do as I say, not as I do?

Well, with nothing else to learn inside, it would probably be less risky to sneak back out, then approach Burkhardt again when he emerged with a slightly edited synopsis of the work I did for Special Investigations. I still had one of Murphy's old SI cards on me; Lieutenant Stallings ought to be willing to back up my record, though Murphy'd give me hell for it when I got back to Chicago. Hopefully, that would be enough; if Burkhardt wasn't already assigned to Portland's version of Black Cat investigations, I'd eat my spell-reinforced leather duster.

I ducked out into the hall, evading Wu as I headed back toward the front stairs- and nearly collided with another faux zombie wearing a uniform shirt with a name embroidered on it: Al. I stumbled backward, tripping over the corner of one of the shelving units pushed up against the walls, and lost control of the veil as I toppled.

The unfortunate Al and I hit the floor in an awkward tangle of limbs. I managed to get a hand on my blasting rod in time to bring it up between us, but Al's teeth closed over the end before I could summon a ventas servitas to knock him away.

"Portland PD!" I heard Burkhardt start to announce as he tracked our ruckus into the hall, followed by a curse. "Mr. Dresden, I thought I told you to wait outside!"

I rolled my shoulders against the cheap wooden flooring, bringing my arms up enough to heave Al's weight off my stomach and get a little more air into my lungs. "No, you said you were going to have to ask; but you never said what the question was," I quipped, as I tried to wrench the blasting rod free of his teeth.

Al's growling only increased as I tried to relieve him of his newest toy; he struck out at me, flailing wildly with his limbs as he tossed his head back and forth, digging ugly gouges through the runes carved in my handiest magical tool. If I didn't get it away from him soon, it was going to be no more use than any other random piece of wood as a magical channel; and given the other restraints at hand...

Burkhardt swore again, drawing his weapon, and I decided to hell with it. Putting the victim to sleep would make it harder to backtrack him to the perp, but it was the best option I could come up with off the top of my head. The spell worked better with a few grains of sand to sprinkle on the eyes; but if there's anything I'm justifiably well known for, it's magical improvisation.

"Dormius," I murmured in Latin, focusing my will on the struggling body over me. "Dorme. Dormius!"

The blasting rod smoked a little with the bleedover of energy scattered by the broken runes, but Al's struggles slowed almost immediately, until he was slumped full-length atop me.

"What did you just do?" Burkhardt exclaimed again, a little wild around the eyes- which were once again transformed into black pits, like windows into space devoid of stars. "That glow..."

The crunch of another boot heel startled us both, and Burkhardt's handgun and my blasting rod both tracked immediately toward the doorway. Unfortunately for my dignity, but luckily for the integrity of Burkhardt's skin, it wasn't another zombie wannabe; it was another detective. Probably Burkhardt's partner, the Detective Griffin Dr. Harper had mentioned.

"Hey, hey; take it easy, Nick, it's me," he said, furthering the impression. Then he furrowed his brow at me. "What the hell is going on here? And who's this?"

"That was Lily O'Hara," he said. "And this guy said he was with Chicago PD, though I haven't exactly had time to check his credentials," Burkhardt replied dryly, lowering his weapon. "He followed me up here, and did something to knock that guy out."

Griffin didn't seem to notice the unnatural darkness of Burkhardt's eyes. Did that mean Griffin himself was mundane? I had to hope he was read in on the concept of the preternatural at least, or it was going to make the rest of the conversation a lot more awkward.

"Let's just call it what it is," I said, grunting as I heaved Al's body off me to slump limply to the floor. "Magic. Like whatever curse is affecting this guy, and the woman who jumped out the window. Do you have any leads yet? Chicago PD usually doesn't call me in until they have pretty clear proof something unusual's going on, but I sort of stumbled into this particular investigation on my own."

Both cops stared as though I had spoken in a foreign language... but not as though I was crazy; more as if my matter-of-fact approach had caught them off guard.

"Magic? Curse?" Griffin pshawed, trying to brush the subject off; probably by reflex. "I don't know what you think you saw, but this poor man's a victim of some kind of new drug. Once we find the dealer..."

Nick snorted, eyes fading back into a normal, sharp blue again. "It's not what he saw, Hank. It's what he did. What kind of wesen are you? I could see a glow when you said- whatever it was- in Latin, but otherwise, you look like... well, human. Second-generation part-zauberbiest, maybe?"

I had no idea what the words he was using meant; the only languages I really spoke were- as the joke goes- English, and Bad English. Even the Latin I knew was mostly second-hand cobbled-together phrases; I'd horrified more than one classically trained wizard with my go-to firelighting spell, Flickum Bicus. Like a lot of the other gaping holes in my education, that could be laid at the feet of my first master, Justin DuMorne, who'd wanted his apprentices utterly dependent on him for everything- to the extent of not even telling us there were other wizards. Was this 'wesen' thing another casualty of his patchwork teaching methods? No way to tell, but to brazen it out.

"One hundred percent homo sapiens magus, at your service," I replied, climbing to my feet. "And you? What's the deal with your eyes? I hope that's not what I look like when I open my Sight."

"My eyes?" Burkhardt's eyebrows flew up. "What do you mean, what's the deal with my eyes?"

Did he not even know? But how was that possible? Even among the lesser practitioners I'd met- and I'd mentored a lot of them, recommended to me by other patrons at McAnally's for a little basic training- I'd never seen anyone trigger a magical gift later than their early twenties. Magical abilities ignored for more than a few years usually bled away, never to return. But Burkhardt was obviously closer to my age; thirty, if I had to hazard a guess.

"Nevermind," I shook my head, deciding to deal with that question later. "What do you want me to do with this guy? I have no idea how long that sleep spell will keep him down; it's usually more a gentle nudge than a sledgehammer, and I've never tried it on someone with an altered consciousness before. Have you got a place to take him? I wouldn't advise locking him up with Ms. O'Hara, unless you already have an antidote on hand."

"Sleep spell," Griffin mouthed to himself, shaking his head.

Burkhardt looked like he wanted to argue, but wrinkled his brow at the mention of the antidote. "I have... a place. Somewhere to look into this. But..."

I fumbled a creased SI card out of my wallet, and thrust it in his direction. "Call that number after we get him wherever it is; Murphy or Stallings will vouch for me. Or hell, call the main Chicago PD line if you don't trust the number; might take a while, since Special Investigations is pretty much bottom of the local heap, but they'll pass you through eventually. I wasn't kidding about the spell, though; the sooner we get this guy out of here, the better."

Burkhardt simmered with frustration as he took the card, but finally nodded, then pocketed it and produced a set of car keys. "Hank, you think you can pull my car around to the side? Then Mr. Dresden and I..." He tipped his chin in my direction.

"I can veil us- make us invisible to get him out there," I nodded, picking chips of wood out of my blasting rod and then gesturing with it, murmuring the concealing spell again. It looked slightly wavery- I'd have to carve a new focus soon, or retool that particular spell- but it would probably be enough for now.

Burkhardt swore again, then finally agreed, with ill grace. "To the spice shop, then," he said, grimly.

Spice shop? I wondered. Well, to each their own.

The shop in question proved to be the Exotic Spice & Tea shop, a specialty storefront that blended easily in with all the other odd nooks and crannies of downtown Portland. I had to wonder, as we carried our still-unconscious passenger in from Burkhardt's Volkswagen, whether the magical subculture it was a part of had moved to the Rose City because of its well-known 'weird' factor... or if that 'weird' factor was a byproduct of the magical subculture. I'd seen places altered by their character of their inhabitants- Undertown back in Chicago being only one example- too many times to rule the latter out.

The drive over had been largely silent; Burkhardt had insisted that he only wanted to explain things once, and apparently the proprietors of the store would be a vital part of that conversation.

They looked normal enough, as they rushed out from behind the counter to greet the detectives; obviously friends of Burkhardt's, and in the know, but still distressed by the condition of our guest.

"He looks dead," one of the pair said; a woman about Burkhardt's age, or maybe a little older. She had brown eyes, shoulder-length brown hair that fell in tendrils around her face, and most tellingly wore comfortable modern clothes, so she probably wasn't the sort of practitioner I was familiar with either.

"Yeah, I know he looks dead, and he probably was for a little while, but he's not now. So far we've seen three just like him," Burkhardt replied as we eased him down on a chair.

"Three?" I frowned at that. "Total? I saw at least that many just this morning."

"And you are...?" the woman's partner threw a distracted glance in my direction. He was slightly older, with scruffy facial hair and a similarly warm-shirt-and-jeans themed wardrobe. "A new friend, Nick?"

"That remains to be seen," he said, "as soon as I can make a call to verify his ID. He says he's some kind of police consultant from Chicago; he did some kind of magic spell to put this guy down?"

"Chicago?" Sweater Guy flinched back at that; the first sign I'd seen of any of Burkhardt's circle recognizing something from my world. "Dude. Between the mob and the rumors of some kind of predator there that finds wesen especially tasty, most of our kind fled the city like Reinigens from a sinking ship years ago."

Well, there was a partial answer to my 'what the hell is a wesen' question; good to know I hadn't just been overlooking them all this time. The White Court had a long-established outpost on the Gold Coast, and Bianca had been steadily increasing the Red Court presence in town before I'd burned the original Velvet Room to the ground several years back, so either type of vampire could easily have been the predator in question.

"I'm not surprised," I said, then stuck out a hand. "Harry Dresden; you can also find me under Wizard in the Chicago phone book: lost items found, paranormal investigations. No love potions, endless purses, parties, or other entertainment."

"Uh... Monroe, clockmaker. Blutbad," he said. "A wizard? Wow, I thought you guys were even scarcer than Grimms."

I could almost hear the capital G and second 'm' this time, as it abruptly occurred to me what the pig-snouted cop had meant earlier: not an emotional state, but a reference to the famous fairy tale collecting brothers. Which apparently had some kind of significance to Burkhardt and Monroe's subculture. Whatever that was.

"We mostly keep to ourselves," I bluffed. "But since I recently dealt with a zombie infestation back home..."

"You've seen this before?" the woman asked; her expression was fascinated, but a lot warier than Monroe's. "Oh; I'm Rosalee. Calvert. This is my store."

I couldn't tell whether 'calvert' was meant to be a last name, or another unfamiliar descriptor like 'blutbad'; I filed both away for later investigation. "Not this exactly. They were actual zombies; these guys appear to be less Night of the Living Dead and more distraction for something else."

"Something called a Cracher-Mortel, we think," Griffin broke in with a nod. "There was also a reference to a voodoo priest known as Baron Samedi, among other names. We were hoping Rosalee might have some information about what he's done here."

The conversation turned into a bantering back and forth among the various parties as Rosalee immediately went to her shelves, fielding questions to and from Griffin with the help of the clockmaker, and Burkhardt withdrew into a corner with my card and his cell phone. Both conversations appeared to result in enlightenment; but none of the participants looked any happier when Burkhardt hung up the phone and rejoined the others.

"So we can probably treat it," Griffin summarized, "but only in the final, most violent stage. And it's going to take a while to prepare the doses."

I almost offered to help with that; it's not like I don't know my way around a cauldron. But the cause of all the mayhem- this Cracher-Mortel- was still out there.

"Will you two be okay if we leave him here with you, then?" Burkhardt asked. "Hank and I have to get back to the precinct, and I think we'd probably better bring Mr. Dresden with us; the Captain will want to talk with him about his... experience."

I could tell by Monroe's quick wince that there would be more to that conversation than met the eye, as well. Well, what hadn't been, since I'd arrived in Portland?

"Good luck."

I would remember that ill-timed well wish later- after the promised conversation with a tall man in a suit who gave off unexplained dangerous vibes at least as potent as Kincaid's, an introduction to Burkhardt's pretty, strong-willed girlfriend, and a discovery that led us to a container yard down by the waterfront- and wish he'd thought to knock on wood; some superstitions have more substance to them than you'd think. Burkhardt himself got sprayed in the face with Cracher-Mortel venom, and only another quick sleep spell kept him from going off the rails. Which, I gathered from the pale faces who found me, the sleeping Burkhardt, and the knocked out Cracher-Mortel several minutes later, would have been the absolute worst outcome any of them could imagine.

I pinched my nose, and put the obvious clues together. "This whole thing was a trap for Burkhardt. Why?"

"To make him vulnerable," the tall Captain, replied grimly. He looked at me, then stared at each of the others, and thrust his hands in his pockets. "Now, thanks to you, he's not. Though now that we have the Cracher-Mortel, perhaps it would be best if we took the rest of the case from here."

"And if I'm not done with my investigation?" I asked. I didn't want to challenge whatever he was directly if I could help it, but I couldn't just forget everything I'd seen in Portland, either. I still had far too many questions.

He gave me a thin, sharp smile. "I'm sure you'll be hearing from Detective Burkhardt; and I think you'll find John Stallings a more... effusive source of information, now that I've spoken with him."

I tried to recall if I'd ever seen Stallings with my Sight, and came up decidedly blank. Did this mean he was a 'wesen'? My stomach sank for a moment as I wondered how many of the people I thought I knew had been masking secret identities for years... then settled again as reason resurfaced, because of course if Murphy, or Michael, or Molly, or any of the other important people in my life- hell, even Marcone, and Stars and Stones, I knew a lot of scary people whose names started with 'm'- were a part of that subculture, I'd have Seen that a long time ago. Soulgazes don't lie.

Which still left me with an unsolicited bite of metaphorical fruitcake to choke down. But at least it wasn't an entire loaf.

"The police aren't the only ones I answer to in this matter," I countered, as close as I wanted to come to a mention of the White Council in public.

Renard nodded at that, surprisingly unsurprised. "You may wear a grey cloak, Mr. Dresden; and I'm not ungrateful for your assistance. But these are my people, and this is my territory to defend."

"I suppose if I mentioned your name to my... coworkers... they'd know it?"

"Let's just say, I wouldn't rule it out."

Well, we'd see about that. I came up with another card- mine, this time- and held it out toward the Captain. "Call me if you have any problems a grey cloak might prove more useful with, then."

Burkhardt's girlfriend snagged it out of my hand first, offering both of us a tight smile. "Thank you, Mr. Dresden. We will," she said, firmly, then turned her attention back to Renard. "Captain, if you don't think it'll be a problem, I'd like to take Nick home now?"

I shook my head, and took that as my cue to say my farewells.

Candies and nuts. Sugar and spirits.

Wesen and wizards?

It remained to be seen if that mix would prove any more palatable.

-x-