Disclaimer - The Dresden Files is the property of Jim Butcher and the SciFi Channel. No profit is being made from this fanwork, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Between Two Worlds

Chapter One – Tales

This is the world of the dispossessed. The haunted and lost all come here eventually, together in a disparate group. From time to time they stay a while, days, weeks, but never longer. As the seasons change through the turbulent, ever-moving city, these men and women feel only the cold of winter, the heat of summer. Nothing else penetrates their minds and souls brought low through any number of events or troubles. And so they move on, some to search for new warmth, others to escape, as though moving on would somehow change them for the better. Change their worlds to something new.

Few who live around the abandoned industrial estate have family left. Some tell tales of wives and daughters, sons and fathers. They could be true, these fleeting memories, or they could be the wretched fantasies of people who have no other source of comfort. One man, here and now, remembers these tales. He heard them long ago, the way stories work: a child being told tales of 'far, far away', and 'once upon a time'.

Down in an alleyway leading between two warehouses, the man pulls himself unsteadily to his feet. His clothes, once new, are caked in drying mud and his shoes slip on the rain-slick ground. He brings a hand up to support himself against the wall, misses, and his palm is grazed as it slams against a sheet of corrugated iron leaning against the wall. The sound booms out and down the alley, but only the rats are disturbed. They rush away from a fallen bin, where they had been feasting on a burger dumped there by the security guard the night before. It is barely touched, and the man, disorientated as he is, focuses upon the prize. Food. Discarded by man and, as it happened, animals…he wonders briefly in his hazy mind which he counts as, if either.

He is sure, fairly sure, he knew a home once, and all the pleasures that one brought. Where the conscious and subconscious minds meet, he holds a picture there. One of a good, kind wife, clever, obedient children. They'd attend good schools, and the boy'd be good at sports. Get on the soccer team for sure, for his dad for…Greg. Was that his name? Or, or the girl'd wear her hair in braids, have a boyfriend when she's just in high school. Too old for her, of course. Drives, does drugs. Teenagers these days. Her mother wouldn't approve. A dog perhaps? Yes, a dog. And they'd walk the dog in the park, as the kids would argue about….

Damn. He'd bent down towards the burger and…missed. Ended up sprawled on his stomach, arms out-stretched. He was sure he'd been going somewhere, before he woke up in this mess. He feels a rat nibbling at the sleeve of his coat. He waves his hand angrily, frantically to dislodge the flea-ridden creature. This only causes it to bite his finger and then run away. The sharp pain causes him to remember something.

A room, dark and cold. Unnaturally so, for it is summer. And a man, standing before him in the room. No, it's a warehouse, and he knows this because he can see the closed gate through the doorway beyond his companion; it must be night. He is angry, he knows that, angry at this man who had promised so much and given so little – a traitor, a teller of stories, of lies. And anger is the strongest emotion he's felt in a long while. It is a fire inside him which he wants to keep alive. The man is well-dressed in an immaculate suit, an odd thing to see around here. He is speaking of worlds and words. Of magic and mystery. Of a new world where he could live again. But he says 'live' in an odd way, like people say that they 'exist'. It is too cold and clinical and Greg thinks the man must be mad. He says so. But the man pays no attention as he leads Greg to a circle, a large circle its circumference marked with a mess of intricate sigils. And Greg remembers the old tale about the worlds, the fairy-worlds where it is the words, and not always the actions, which determine your path.

This is a new story, the suited man says, as though he can read Greg's mind. A new story for a new world beyond the boundaries of this one. And now Greg is angry, because he wants his story. His story of a home and children, not someone else's tale. The man….has kept him here, yes, that's it! He's locked him up for some mad….experiment. He had given Greg a job. To search, to find, to help in some grand quest. And he had failed. So now, because of that, he can feel cold earth beneath him. He is lying in a pool of rainwater which is seeping through his thin coat. The pain in his hand and finger has gone, and opening his eyes and raising his head he sees the setting sun. A sun which he cannot feel, that shines weakly upon a world which now seems even further away. But he is alive, and has a new task.

-----

From the other end of the alley, a man in a suit watches Greg, once nothing more then a homeless drunk, crawl to his feet once again, and walk away unsteadily. Of course, the events of the previous night hadn't changed much. Greg was still a homeless drunk. But the balance between the worlds had shifted, the wizard had felt it. The circle had thrummed with energy this time, not the chaotic sputtering mess he'd managed in the first few attempts. The only positive side to those failures was that there hadn't been much to clean up afterwards. Greg was his first success…if you could call it that. Greg had survived only because his body had been wrenched, temporarily and fitfully, through the tainted mix of leyline energy and into the Nevernever where it had been transformed. Senses dulled, his mind was left stranded neither fully in one realm or the other but sensing both in a violent cacophony of sense impressions. Quite enough to drive a man mad. Whilst the subject's body had remained almost entirely corporeal, his sense perceptions had lessened. Doctors would put it down to some neurological defect, brought on by his lifestyle; drink and living on the streets were hardly a healthy combination. It would be a plausible story, but the wizard knew the truth. His name was Alastair Lloyd. And he was going to change the story of the world.

-----

When a noise disturbed Bob from a book he'd been reading, he realised he'd half been expecting it. Harry had gone out on a date, but he gauged the time to be long after midnight. Not that Bob had exactly been reading anyway, not properly. The spiritual form he held was versatile enough to let him change his appearance and take on the form of someone from the smallest amount of information. Though also allowed him to read books simply by placing his hand upon them and slowly absorbing the information, he had decided long ago that it just wasn't the same. Unlike some, in his life Bob had never thought of books as objects worthy of great reverence. They, like the knowledge they contained, were merely tools to be applied to the task to which they were best suited. It was such an approach he'd had in mind when he'd written his own grimoires.

For all that the material was considered to be amongst the darkest and most devious ever seen in the magical world, it was most definitely organised. One could never be too careful with such things, and there was once a time Bob had taken tacit pride in hearing a few of his former masters praise his work for being, if anything, accurate. It wouldn't do for him to actually agree, of course. That would give the wrong impression about his opinion on his punishment, and one of the few things which Bob found agreeable about his sentence was that once he was by order of the Council under the care of an individual, he would remain there without – if they were lucky – much interference.

The same did not go for the current possessor of his accursed skull. Though the physical circumstances of Hrothbert of Bainbridge had not changed in seven centuries, one could hardly call living with Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden tedious. Not when 'exasperating' was often far closer to the truth. Sighing, Bob turned from the bookshelf and walked through Harry's work table, passing through the lab's warded door without a backward glance. He was the only person who could thanks to some detail of the spell now linking himself to Harry's legal possession and to his home. The sound which had broke his concentration had come from the front of the shop. The door had closed with a loud bang, followed by only the sound of footsteps. Thus, Bob deemed it safe to investigate. If Harry was back from his date alone, this was a fine time to acquire information. If he had returned with company, and so was otherwise occupied….well, Bob could make do with that just fine, too.

He paused as he walked up the stairs, feeling a sudden fluctuation in the wards nearest to him. Bob waited for a moment, stretching his sense out to ascertain the cause. Finding nothing but storing the incident away for future reference, he continued out into the shop.

Bob was aware he teased Harry lightly about his luck with women. Well, no, actually he'd been known to tease him quite a lot about having very bad luck with women. And it wasn't even as though he had no opportunities. There were perfectly suitable ladies who came to the only wizard in Chicago for help and advice on things supernatural, and the occasional children's party. It seemed to Bob that Harry should take advantage of the situation. Once a woman was no longer a client, for example, it was perfectly proper and courteous for Harry to, say, ask her out for a drink…or wherever people went these days. Yet whether or not Harry used this tactic, things tended to end badly. Alas, it seemed tonight had been no exception.

Bob found Harry sprawled out on the sofa, eyes closed in a position radiating sullen defeat. Oh, dear. This did not bode well. It would be better for both of them if this situation was dealt with now. Bob cleared his throat meaningfully. Harry opened his eyes with a grunt, and squinted up at the ghost.
"Yeah…?"
"I take it your date with Laura did not go well?" Bob enquired calmly. Harry gritted his teeth in apparent annoyance, but waved a hand dismissively as he answered
"Bad idea. She was hoping for something….else." He stopped abruptly, rubbing at his eyes wearily.
"Ah." It was all Bob could think of as a response, not really wanting to make Harry feel any worse then he already did. Not unless it was necessary, of course. The last thing he needed was for his friend to fall into some depressive mood over a woman, and sometimes a short, sharp shock was the only thing which jerked him out of it.

"Thas' the problem you see…" Harry explained, looking up at Bob again, his gaze wavering slightly. "She wants something else. Something more that supposedly" and here his arm flailed in emphasis. It passed through Bob's chest, but Harry didn't notice and Bob ignored it, "I haven't got!"
"Is that so?" Bob muttered matter-of-factly, eyebrows raised "And you don't think that this….absence and the fact you've come home drunk for the first time in months is a suggestion that you and this particular girl are simply not 'meant to be'?"
Harry began to rise from his seat, but now fell back giddily, clearly drunker then Bob had assumed. "Waddaya mean, 'meant'?"

"I mean" Bob emphasised calmly "that this is not the first time you've engaged in a relationship with this woman. I mean that her desire for something 'else' might just be a sign that you should – pay attention" He snapped, as Harry made a point of rolling his eyes and looking away only for instinct to kick and in and grudgingly return his gaze to his former teacher.
"– that you should just go your separate ways."
Bob smiled softly parting his hands in what he hoped was a conciliatory gesture. That got Harry's attention, and for a moment Dresden merely glared at the ghost standing before him. Now he raised a finger and said gruffly;
"Hey! She asked me! Not 'other way round, Bob."
Indeed she had, Bob knew, for the waitress had come into the shop only that morning, greeting Harry with a bright smile and a kind peck on the cheek. A bit too confident, he'd noticed, seeing as the last time he'd seen Laura, it had been when her date with Harry had been interrupted by Bianca. So now it appeared that once again, Harry had lost out; had in all his charm and good nature fallen for the advances of a woman who seemed nice enough…and had all those qualities thrown back in his face. Were it not for the fact that Harry hardly made it easy on himself, sitting here drunk with only a hangover to look forward to in the morning, Bob would have felt more indignant and upset on his behalf.

Sometimes Bob wondered that his friend was too kind-hearted for his own good. At this, he gave in. As people said, one could not always kick a man when he's down.
"It was just bad luck." He ventured, moving to sit down beside Harry, or as close to it as he could manage under the circumstances. Harry just grunted at this, the alcohol still clouding his mind now tipping him closer towards sleep. "You meant well. She meant well. Perhaps you are just incompatible, hmm?" Harry nodded, if bleakly, and Bob felt relived that his sympathetic words were having some effect. At least he wasn't angry any more, so Bob was pretty sure he'd saved them both from bearing the brunt of the worst of Harry's annoyance once he sobered up.

Bob looked over at Harry, who was resting his head against the arm of the sofa, eyes closed. "You should go to bed." He stated gently, but received no response. "Really, Harry, in your current condition you'll feel bad enough in the morning as it is without the pain of having fallen asleep on this thing. Move." He raised his voice slightly, hoping to jolt Harry into wakefulness. Harry grimaced, rose, and when he spoke his voice was clearer then it had been.
"Right, right…." He walked towards the staircase, but stopped, cocking his head on one side. "What are you so pissed off about?"

Bob frowned at this; he had done his level best to not appear 'pissed off'. "I'm sorry?"
"You. There's some kind spiritual energy messin' around here" Harry wiggled his fingers in illustration, "and you're the only spirit in here". He gave a lopsided grin, and began to walk up the stairs clearly unconcerned. Bob gave a start. Harry was right. So attentive he had been to his friend's state, Bob had not noticed that the disturbance he had sensed before was back again. And even in his alcohol-befuddled mind, Harry had come to the right conclusion. It wasn't some malicious influence passing around the wards, nor a malfunction within them. There was another ghost nearby.
"Come down here, Harry."

Harry looked down at him, having been struck by the realisation that something really was up, and complied. When he stood next to Bob, Harry prepared to summon his staff to him. At the silent magical command, the hockey stick twitched in its corner by the door, but merely fell over. Bob rolled his eyes. As Harry quietly cursed his drunken clumsiness and walked towards the stick, the ghost raised a hand.
"Stop." He ordered, as though he was speaking to someone other then just Harry. The spiritual energy was most unusual. It was strong enough to indicate a ghost who could manifest themselves as Bob could – and those were rarer then most people thought. And yet there was nothing to be seen in the room, only a shimmering in the air and in the occulted frequency which was making Harry flinch in discomfort, and jarred Bob's metaphysical senses most unpleasantly. Focussing his gaze upon the quivering patch of air, Bob spoke once more;
"We know you're there. Come out."
His tone was soft, almost kind but the words were a command, and one which the spirit in question did not disobey.