Chapter One
Vampires suck.
Okay, no big revelation there, but at the moment I wasn't thinking of it in the literal sense. Ever since I'd gotten a war started between the vampires and the White Council a few years back, I've had to watch my back for the life-sucking bastards. White Court, Red Court, Black Court, you name it. They all wanted a bit of Harry Dresden. Literally.
My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I'm a private investigator. I'm also a wizard. Don't look at me like that. Just because most people don't believe in trolls, faeries, and vampires doesn't mean that they aren't out there. They crop up now and then in the mortal world, causing trouble. When they do, I'm there, ready to aid those in need.
It also helps pay the bills.
Okay, so vampires suck. I don't like them. Most of it was because they prey on mortals, using them as food. They were monsters, snatching up mortals whenever they felt a bit peckish. Man, woman, or child, it didn't matter to them. Human's were food, that was all. It was something I couldn't stand.
That's how I started the war. I stopped a vampire from murdering an innocent young woman, and they declared war. Okay, so maybe I sort of killed one of their nobles in the process, not to mention burning the rest of the blood-sucking guests at the party, but still. It wasn't really my fault. Anyways, at the moment, I wasn't so much worried about vampires swooping down on my fellow humans as I was about them swooping down on me.
I had been leaving the grocery store, minding my own business, when two vampires of the Red Court had materialized out of no where, leaping at me with all the speed of an amphetamine addict. Considering how well the drug trade was faring in Chicago recently, that was pretty fast.
I dropped the groceries and spun around, grabbing my blasting rod from the inner pocket of my black leather duster. Evidently, I wasn't fast enough, as the first vampire, a casually dressed male, slammed into me, causing me to fly back into the Blue Beatle.
My car wasn't really blue anymore. An untold amount of encounters with the paranormal had banged up the old car quite a bit. Mike, my genius mechanic, had to replace her parts every so often, especially the casing. The hood was orange, the left door was green, the trunk was read, and the roof was a pale shade of yellow. Most people thought it hurt the eyes to look at, but I wouldn't have any other car. Even though I wasn't sure that any of the original car was still in there.
Scrambling up from the parking lot tar, I lifted my blasting rod and pointed it at my attacker, who was experiencing slight disorientation from coming in contact with the magical wards I'd placed on my duster. A red light began to grow at the end of my blasting rod, charging up with the raw power I was pouring into it. Just as the vampire regained his orientation, I let loose.
"Fuego!"
A cone of flame erupted from the end of my blasting rod, and took the vampire square in the chest. Actually, it when square through his chest, but same general idea.
The vampire collapsed in a heap, and I swung my rod to the other vampire.
She had a pistol leveled at my head.
Damn it.
"I vould put zat down if I vere you, Mr. Dresden," she said in, ironically enough, a Transylvanian accent. It was probably German, but I figured that thinking Transylvanian would fit better with the whole vampire gig.
I slowly lowered my blasting rod to my side and then into my pocket. I didn't really have a choice, unless I wanted to have a new way to get oxygen to my brain.
I studied the vampire. She had straight, black hair that fell just short of touching her shoulders. Her skin was pale, and she had on an entire suit of skintight vinyl, and she made it look good. Bob would have loved to be here. Pretty vampires. There must be some rule against that. Why did all the badass vamps have to be so hot? Well, except for the Black Court. Rotting carcasses don't exactly add to the arousal factor, and the smell was terrible.
Well, maybe I could talk her out of killing me. She looked intelligent. And she had a gun. And probably orders to kill me without delay, but still, I might be able to sway her with my manly charms.
Yeah right.
"How do you do?" I said to her, putting on my best smile. "A good girl like you shouldn't be playing with that sort of thing." She didn't look like a good girl. That outfit gave the mind way too many ideas for her to be a good girl. And she was a vampire. That sort of tipped me off.
She smiled, and began walking towards me. "A good girl, oh?" she said, flipping her hair as she did so, causing her rather well endowed bits to press against the vinyl, threatening to tear through it. Yup. Way too many ideas.
She came within a foot of me, and leaned forward. "You are very handsome Mr. Dresden, and strong. I like a man viz… skills. And I've heard that yours are positively magical." She brought her face close to mine, though the gun was now pressed into my abdomen.
Okay, so we've established that she was not a good girl.
I instinctively cringed away from her. If she got her saliva on me, I'd be helpless to her advances. That's how the Red Court worked. Their saliva was like a narcotic of the most addictive kind. They got their saliva on their victims, paralyzing them with pleasure. Then they began to feed.
"Oh, don't be zat vay." She pouted, pulling back from me. "Is my body not good enough for you?"
"Believe me, it's not that," I said, adjusting my pants uncomfortably. "It's just that the prospect of sudden death sort of turns me off, you know?"
"Oh? But vhy? I find it ze best part," she had her eyes fixed on mine and began to approach me again.
And that was the moment I chose to pull the blasting rod out of my pocket and let loose all the energy I had been building up in it. "Fuego!"
The she-vampire leaped back and out of the way just as the flame roared past her. She hit the pavement hard, but quickly whipped around the pistol and began shooting at me.
The bullets bounced off of the shield I had erected in the few moments between the fire and her shots. Yanking open the green door of the Blue Beatle, I leapt inside, turned the ignition, and began peeling out.
Yeah. You can do that with a Volkswagen.
As soon as friction realized what the wheels were doing, the Blue Beatle sped forward.
Into a bunch of Miss Good Girl's groupies.
I hate vampires, so I had no qualms about mowing them down, but the Blue Beatle had just gotten repaired two days ago, and I didn't have enough money to repair it and pay for last months rent.
A bullet came through the window.
Ah, screw it.
The first vamp went down like fully paid prostitute. The Blue Beatle lurched into the air for a second, but came back down a second later. I spun the wheel all the way to the left, re-positioning the Blue Beatle for another attack.
Bastards. Teach you to mess with my car.
The bullets flying into the Blue Beatle grew more numerous the more I ran down the bloodsuckers. I guess being beat down by a Volkswagen didn't sit well with them. I decided that I was having too much fun and it was time to make a break for it. Ugh. I could get them completely out of my fender later. Running down a few more stray vamps, I pulled out into the street.
Chicago at night is really nice, as long as you don't look to close. The lights flying by at high made for some interesting colors. But beneath the pretty colors was all the crime that went on after dark. Sure, it had calmed down several years ago thanks to crime lord John Marcone, but it still wasn't safe.
The lights faded behind me as I turned into a more residential district of the city. It's where my apartment was.
My apartment was in the basement of an apartment building. My furniture was mismatched, and I had random rugs covering the floor. Basically I had covered it with anything I could find. Cement was cold, dammit. I had no computer and no television, though I did have a phone. Electronics don't function too well around wizards. Something about the air of magic that surrounds us doesn't like them. Anything manufactured after the 1940s has a suicidal tendency around me. I take care not to stray to close to them. An exploding television is quite dangerous.
I heard a low humming sound coming from behind me. I frowned as the noise built in volume. I hopped that a stray bullet hadn't hit some important part of the Blue Beatles interior.
The sound continued to grow real loud. It was sort of like a buzzing sound, and by now I knew that it wasn't coming from the Blue Beatle. The sound was coming from outside the car. I glanced into the Beatles' mirror.
Alright, that's just not fair. The vampires had friggin' helicopters.
Stop it, God. That's not funny.
I pressed my foot down on the accelerator. I needed get back to my apartment, and fast. The wards I had put in place should hold off the vampires.
Suddenly I saw a flash of light come from one of the helicopters, followed by trail of smoke.
Okay, God. You've made your point. You don't like me, I understand. But why in the hell would you give them missiles?
I threw my hand out behind me and hoped that my shield bracelet would be able to hold off the missile. It would be a pain if I had to make another one, not to mention I might get blown to bits.
I felt the impact of the missile against the shield and the Blue Beatle lurched forward. Even though it's magic, it can't disobey the laws of physics. I still feel any force that pushes against the shield; it's just spread out over a larger area, thus lessening the impact. The missile had a pretty big impact. I didn't know how many more of those I could handle.
I sped forward, swerving back and forth, trying to evade the helicopter. I was thankful that there was no one on the road at the moment, though that seemed odd. This was Chicago. People were always on the roads. At the moment, I didn't particularly care about that. With the roads empty, people were less likely to get hurt.
A saw another flash of light in the mirror and pressed down on the pedal. Hard. The Beatle sped up to its max. I didn't know if I was going to make it. I threw out my hand behind me, readying the shield again.
Suddenly the floating light coming toward me flickered and then died. A few seconds later, and explosion erupted on the road several hundred feet to my rear. Sometimes I love being able to accidentally short out technology.
With a new weapon at my disposal, I sped toward my apartment, hexing down each missile that came after me. The vampires must have realized what I was doing, because after a while, the helicopter turned and flew off into the night. They were gone.
I pulled into my parking space and turned off the Blue Beatle. Well. That was fun.
I sat in my car and closed my eyes, extending my senses. Even though the helicopter had flown away, there might still be something here. I've walked into too many of the vampire's traps not to be suspicious. Perhaps that whole thing with Good Girl and the helicopter had only been a distraction. They had to know that I'd be able to hex down the missiles. However, my senses detected nothing. Satisfied, I opened the door and stepped out of the car.
I walked up to the door of my apartment and disabled the wards, before slowly opening the maximum security, steel door. I'd had a demon get in a few years ago, and decided that a wooden door just wasn't enough. Shutting the door behind me, I stepped down into my apartment.
Mister slammed into my legs as I did so. It's his way of greeting me.
Mister is my cat. I'd found him in a dumpster many years ago with his tail torn off. I'd always assumed that it had been a dog or a car, because Mister hated both. But anyway, Mister was big. I mean really big. Like Catzilla. He was bigger than most dogs, so when he slammed into my legs, I had to hold on not to be thrown over.
I reached down and scratched Misters ears. Mister, seeming satisfied that his servant had greeted him properly, turned and walked away with his nose in the air. He seemed to think that he owned the apartment and I was the one he was letting stay. I shook my head. Cats.
As I stepped into the main room I waved my hand and the candles flickered on. I told you I'm not good around electronics, so I don't have any lights. The light illuminated my original Star Wars poster hanging on the wall. You know, the one where Leia is hanging onto Luke's leg? It's one of my most prized possessions. I turned my head and looked toward the kitchen, and then frowned.
Damn vampires. I wasted all that food that I bought, and thus the money used to buy it.
There was food in there, and I would never run out. I helped out the Faeries a while back and they've been cleaning my house as thanks ever since. They brought food every time they cleaned too, but Faeries didn't really have a concept of mortal food all that well. Whenever they restocked my fridge or my pantry, there was always something weird with their selections. One time they had brought me several hundred boxes of chocolate, and another time it had been cakes. Most of the time though, there were frozen Pizzas. Faeries liked pizza, and sweet things. That's why their selections of food were a little odd. Oh well, I guess I could survive off of pizza for a little while.
I walked over and sat on the couch, waving my hand at the fireplace in front of me. My apartment smelt vaguely like wood smoke, since I didn't have a gas or electrical heater. The reason why I don't have an electrical heater are obvious, and when things tend to fail like that when you are around, you don't take chances with gas heaters.
The light flickered in front of me as I sat there and closed my eyes. What a day. No jobs, which meant no money, and then I was attacked by vampires. It was the best day I've had all week. They only tried to kill me once today.
You know that cliché they use in movies when someone says that it couldn't get any worse, and then it does? Well, a few seconds later, there was a loud explosion and my roof collapsed in a torrent of stone and fire.
Damn it.
Recovering from being thrown off my couch, I swung around to see what happened. An entire half of the apartment building had been blown off. Damn it. I had made the wards to keep them from entering, I didn't think that they'd actually knock the building down!
There had been people in this building, and the vampires had destroyed it. I extended my senses outward quickly, looking for signs of life among the rubble. I felt nothing. I glanced up and saw the helicopter whirring above the whole in my ceiling, and Good Girl was smiling down at me.
Alright. Now I was pissed.
"Forzare," I whispered in an angry calm, and my wizard's staff flew from beneath the rubble and into my hand. Pointing my staff up at the helicopter, I focused all my rage at the helicopter.
There had been people this building.
I readied my will to strike.
There had been families.
The runes on my staff began to glow orange and smoke.
And the vampires had killed them.
"FORZARE!" I screamed, and raw force exploded out from the staff and flew towards the helicopter, orange fire streaming up towards the bastards.
I saw the shock on Good Girl's face a moment before the spell hit her. The helicopter exploded in fire, instantly incinerating anyone—no, anything inside.
I was shocked by the force of my attack. It had never looked like that, and my staff was smoking, smelling slightly of sulfur. My shock didn't last long, because then the helicopter crashed, setting everything ablaze.
Everything was on fire, and I was exhausted. I had put everything into that last attack, and I didn't have enough power to put out to flames. I needed to get out of here, fast.
I grabbed my staff and looked around for Mister. I couldn't find him. Then I heard a hissing noise and spun around. Mister was already out of the house, and was hissing at the remains of the helicopter. At least I didn't have to worry about him. I ran around to the door, grabbing a cane as I went. I couldn't leave that here.
I got to the doorway and stoped. Oh crap.
Throwing the staff and cane through the doorway, I spun around and ran back into the flames.
I went to a hatch in the ground and opened it, running down into the basement.
"Harry? What the devil is going on up there?" Bob the Skull said, sitting on his shelf.
"Fire," I told him, running over and grabbing him off the shelf. "Vampires."
Bob swore.
Bob wasn't really a skull, but a spirit of intellect. He just lived in the skull which had been fashioned for him eons ago, and he held all the knowledge of the wizards he had served all that time. He was a valuable resource that I couldn't afford to lose. Besides, he was also a friend.
I jumped out of the hatch leading down to the basement, slammed it shut, and hoped to God that it would keep the fire out. The lab was the most expensive part of my apartment, and I didn't want to lose all the materials, ingredients, and notes that I had down there.
I ran for the door, feeling the searing heat through my leather duster. I held Bob underneath it, shielding him from the fire. I was almost to the door.
Fear shot through me when I heard a cracking sound from over head. I looked up just in time to see part of the ceiling come crashing down.
I raised my left hand.
"Harry!" Bob yelled from within my coat. "No!"
The shield flickered into being just as the burning piece of the building was about to crush us.
And then I screamed.
My hand burned. The pain was unbearable; it was like I was on fire. I looked at my hand and watched the skin begin to bubble as it turned red. The pain didn't stop, but kept growing as the heat flowed through the shield and into my hand. Through the pain I realized that my shield had been made to stop kinetic energy, but heat was a whole different part of physics.
Trying to shut out the pain, I ran under the burning debris and made for the door. As soon as I was clear, I let the shield go. The heat fled from my hand, but the pain didn't.
I curled up on the ground, cradling my left hand. The skin was red and blistery, and in some places it had even turned black. Tears were in my eyes as I tried to fight off the pain.
Mister came over and rubbed against my leg. He was worried about me. I cracked a smile, and reached out with my good hand to pet him.
"I'm fine Mister," I told him, panting from the pain. "It will take more than a little house fire to take me down."
Suddenly I felt Mister tense, and he spun around, letting off a growling meow into the distance.
I followed Mister's gaze, and saw someone standing among some of the burning debris. I couldn't see his face. He was wearing a big black cloak, and the hood cast shadows over his features. There was a staff in his left hand as well. It tapered to a point at the ground, and not so much split apart three quarters from the top as twisted apart. The entire thing was a good two feet taller than it's holder.
Great. This just shouted bad wizard all over.
With my hand injured—I winced from the pain—there was next to nothing I could do. If I tried to stand up, I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle the pain. Not moving was the only thing that kept me from falling unconscious from the pain.
The figure began walking toward me.
"Who are you?" I demanded, squeezing the words through the pain I felt.
The figure stopped approaching. "A friend," he said, sounding slightly amused.
"Nuh, uh," I told him. "I don't think so. You've got a sort of evil genius vibe going on. No thanks."
The man in the cloak laughed. "Didn't they ever teach you that stereotypes were bad, Mr. Dresden."
I looked at him suspiciously. "How do you know my name?"
I couldn't tell, but I thought that he smiled. "I know many things, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden."
I stared at the man in disbelief. He didn't just know my name; he knew my Name. And he had pronounced it perfectly.
You probably don't understand the significance of knowing something's True name. It is one of the baser forms of magic. If you know something's True Name, it's easier to perform magic on it or bind it to your will. I summon faeries all the time by using their True Names, and on occasion, when I'm desperate, I've called up a few demons. But to know a human's True Name…
This was bad, and I was scared. Really scared. As I was at the moment, I couldn't do anything to defend myself. What scared me more was that I had no idea how he had gotten my True Name. I had never told it to anyone, at least not correctly. If you don't pronounce a name exactly the way the owner does, it is not it's True name.
He must have seen me tense up, since he said, "Do not worry, Mr. Dresden. I mean you no harm. I only wish to help you."
"Bite me," I told him. This guy scared the crap out of me. I didn't want him to get near me.
Darkcloak sighed. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in the matter, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden."
I felt the energy rush out of him and toward me. I tried to gather my will against it, but I was unable to. Damn it, I didn't want his magic to touch me.
When it did, I gasped in surprised. Far from the cool, tainted, and wrong magic that I had come to associate with wizards in black cloaks who hide their faces, this magic was different. It was warm, and gave me a strong urge to laugh as it flowed over me. I felt pure joy just from contact with it. Slowly, the magic settled down into my burnt hand, and the pain ceased. I watched astounded as the burns slowly began to fade away.
There was a small amount of pain left in my hand when the magic stopped, and there were still several black marks and patches of scorched skin, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been.
"This is all I can do for now," Darkcloak said. He turned around. "You should get that looked at." Then he stepped into the darkness, and was gone.
I stared at where Darkcloak had vanished. Well. This has been one hell of a night.
I heard a car pull up somewhere behind me, a door opening, and then running feet. I tensed and turned to look at my latest visitor of the night.
"Christ's Blood Harry!" Michael swore as he reached me. That was one of the most potent swearwords Michael used. He was a Knight of the Cross, one of the carries of the three swords that had a nail from the Cross built somewhere into them. I looked up at the sky. He couldn't have gotten here sooner, could he? You've got a sick mind, you know that God?
"Hey, Michael," I said.
"What happened?"
"Oh, you know," I said, "vampires, helicopters, missiles. The usual."
Then I passed out.