The phone rang. Never a good sign, usually it meant trouble. Scratch that, it almost always meant trouble. Hey, maybe this time it was just some old lady who had lost her car keys. And maybe I didn't owe rent.
"Hello?" I answered, the looming rent on my office and apartment ensuring that my voice stayed cheerful.
"Hi, I'm trying to reach Harry Dresden," said a rather chipper and alert feminine voice from the other end. Now that put me on guard: someone who wasn't nervous or wary calling. This was entirely out of the ordinary, almost everyone who called was certain they were going insane to even consider hiring me, I mean, who believes in magic, let alone, wizards?
"Speaking," I responded, not quite managing to keep my unease from entering into the words.
"This is Susan Rodriguez from the Arcane." She said briskly, "And I was hoping you could answer a few questions?"
I had heard of the Arcane, a magazine that mostly ran stuff that was as trashy as 'bat baby found in trailer park', but every once in a while they stumbled across something real, or at least that's what people in the magical community said. I'd never read it.
"What sort of questions?" I responded, even more warily.
"Oh, you know, the usual," she answered evasively. Stars and stones, I knew this was going to be trouble.
"Why don't I swing by your office and we can talk?" She suggested. This was something I wanted to avoid at all costs, I could just see some article coming out portraying me as a charlatan, something my reputation as a real wizard did not need the public to see. I managed to through some excuse in her way that hopefully would deter her. It didn't.
"Listen, Ms. Rodriguez, I'm with a client right now, why don't you give me a call some other time?" I lied, hoping to delay her enough that she would give up on me and move on.
"Are you now Mr. Dresden?" She responded with a rich chuckle, before hanging up.
I stared at the receiver blankly, wondering exactly what all this was about. I had a nasty feeling, paranoia you might say; you've never seen a demon materialize from pond scum either.
My contemplation of the receiver was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Hells bells," I murmured, understanding what was about to happen. The door then opened, and a head leaned through. She had dark hair that fell a little past her shoulders, with dark eyes, and a delicious mouth. She quirked up one corner of her mouth, increasing its appeal, and said playfully, "So where has this client of yours dashed off to Mr. Dresden?"
I sighed, and considered blowing her out the door with a blast of wind, but decided against it, my damn chivalry again. Instead I rose, and beckoned her in, "Ms. Rodriguez, I presume?"
"Indeed," she responded, stepping through the door, revealing a pair of jeans that fit her legs well, in addition to a white vee-neck tee-shirt that left a large amount of dark skin bare.
"I was on my way back from a little digging outside Chicago and figured I'd drop by while I was in the neighborhood," she continued, glancing around my small office. She turned her dark eyes onto me, regarding me curiously. I fidgeted uncomfortably for a few moments before she said rather bluntly, "So you claim to be a wizard."
"And you claim to be a reporter." I parried, the article I was dreading already beginning to materialize before me.
She arched an eyebrow, and said disarmingly, "I'm just here for a few questions Mr. Dresden; it wouldn't hurt to say yes, would it?"
I had always had a chivalry complex, and it was really going to get in the way. Again. So I sighed and said grudgingly, "No I suppose it wouldn't."
"Why, thank you." Another smile, before her face became serious. She took out a small recording devise and set it down on my desk, flicking it on. It made an annoying beep and then began to whir, a high pitch that I couldn't quite ignore. "So you're a wizard?"
"That's what my door says." I cast a glance up to make sure it still did, it got messed with every once in a while.
"And you use magic?" she said, managing to make her tone skeptic.
"Wouldn't be a wizard if I didn't," I answered, my tone annoyingly cheerful.
She blinked, considering, "And what exactly do you do as a wizard, Mr. Dresden?"
"Mostly I find lost items, car keys are a big one. Sometimes rings, watches, personal valuables. Every once in a while I get called to do an exorcisms," I paused, waiting for the next question, but seeing it coming, continued, "And no, not a single one of those has been real."
The conversation continued like that, questions, occasionally, but becomingly increasingly common at the interview went on, flirtatious, about magic, monsters, that sort of thing—as the conversation continued I was struck by how intelligent she was, and even more stunned by how much I enjoyed flirting with her. The interview was drawing to a natural close when she asked the question I knew was coming, it almost always did: "Would you mind showing me some magic then Mr. Dresden?"
"Su- Ms. Rodriguez," I corrected myself, "I find that either people believe in magic, or they don't. That there's not much I can do to change their minds no matter how much I make it cart-wheel in front of their face naked."
She smiled slightly and said, "Well try me."
As she was talking I glanced down at the recorder she had on my desk with its insufferable high-pitched whine and decided, what the hell, why not? So I sent out some of my will towards the recording devise on the table, hexing it into uselessness. It whined even higher for a moment and then simply stopped, a slight coil of dark smoke rose from the plastic.
I looked up at her as she glanced down at her recorder, and arched my eyebrows, steeple-ing my hands in front of me in what I hoped was a wizardly fashion.
"Did you do that?" she asked, slightly stunned. I don't think she expected me to kill her recorder and probably the tape that contained our interview when she asked for a demonstration of magic.
"And if I tell you I didn't?"
"I wouldn't believe you." She responded firmly and defiantly.
"There you go, you believe it; you just saw magic."
"But," she sputtered, trying to come up for an argument to my logic, she was obviously expecting more, "That could be just coincidence, I was looking for something more concrete and undeniable."
"If you would like I could imprison you until the sun rises tomorrow," I offered, "Or if you really wanted, sacrifice you to a demon."
Some people just don't get wizard jokes.
Recovering he face from absolute incredulity she shook her head in disbelief.
"You could bring me with you on an investigation, even just finding someone's car keys," she suggested hopefully.
I shook my head with a small smile, "I'm sorry, but my clients are confidential."
She pondered this, as she glanced around my office, taking in some of the pamphlets I'd just had printed on various facets of magic and the supernatural, and finally scanning across the largely blank expanse of my desk. I leaned back in my chair, significantly more relaxed and comfortable—the interview had gone much better than I had expected.
"Do you have any family?" she asked, gesturing around the room, indicating the lack of pictures.
Her words tore through me, ripping open a back closet in my brain, one that I usually keep securely locked. I felt my hands clench into fists as I struggled against the tide of emotions that flooded through me, bringing with them memories of a thousand laughs and smiles, and nightmares. I hardly noticed when the light-bulb above us blew out in a flurry of sparks, cascading the room into a melancholy gloom. In my shock, my eyes snapped to hers, too preoccupied with restraining the blaze of fury, wrath, and betrayal that arced through me to realize what was going on.
I exhaled slowly, commanding my hands to relax, as I slowly shut away the memories of a different era.
It was only then that I realized I had been looking Ms. Rodriguez directly in her elegantly shaped dark brown eyes for several seconds. And by the time I tried to jerk my eyes away, I was already rushing forward, diving through her eyes and into her soul.