Disclaimer:

I don't own the rights to the Dresden File books or any of the characters contained within them.

Mostly Joking

"Normally I'm not a spiteful or vengeful man" Ebenezer said to Harry across the table, " But damn it boy, you of all people should know that sometimes you have to answer an insult with a swift and severe lesson!"

Harry stared at his old friend Ebenezer McCoy with a look of complete shock on his face. "Ebenezer, what did you do?"

Laughing heartily he said, "Relax old hoss! Nobody was hurt, just scared the bejezus out of them. Have Mac keep the beer coming and I will tell you all about it."

Harry ordered another round then sat back to enjoy what was left of the one in front of him while Ebenezer got his thoughts together so he could tell him the story of what had happened at the farm.

Ebenezer polished off the last of the beer in front of him then looked towards the bar. Mac was working on someone's food order so it would be a few minutes before the next round arrived. "Well Harry, you know my reputation with the locals near the farm. I'm the crazy old coot who still uses horse and plow instead of tractors. My family reputation, for the lack of a better way to put it, usually keeps the locals from getting too interested in my comings and goings. Also keeps them from realizing that my extended family exists of only me."

"Understandable. I know eventually that I will have to do something similar. That is assuming I live long enough for it to be an issue!" said Harry.

"Well just so you know ahead of time old hoss, sometimes it backfires on you." said Ebenezer.

Harry raised an eyebrow and gave Ebenezer with a puzzled look.

Laughing heartily, Ebenezer replied "All in good time old hoss. First things first, it looks like the next round has arrived! And I don't know about you Harry, but I could use some food. And get that look off of your face! I know business has been slow for you lately. Its my treat."

They both placed their orders with Mac then settled back to enjoy their beers. Ebenezer took a long pull from his beer then gave a contented sigh. "Damn that man can brew! You had better not let me forget to take a case home with me or I will haunt you after I die!"

"Don't talk like that Ebenezer. You aren't going to die any time soon." said Harry.

"Oh, don't get yourself in a twist. We all die eventually. Some of us just get to have more fun than others before we go!" said Ebenezer. "Speaking of being haunted, lets get on with this explanation."

Harry looked at Ebenezer quizzically but then nodded for him to continue.

"Ok, where was I? Oh, that's right, backfires." said Ebenezer. "You know how every year around Halloween some of the local kids start daring each other to knock on my door then run?"

"Yes" said Harry. "You've mentioned it before but if memory serves, you found it amusing yourself."

"Well yeah, I did." grumbled Ebenezer. "But that was when it was kids having a bit of harmless fun. You know, a bunch of 8 year old boys trying to see who is the bravest by actually knocking on my door."

Both men suddenly focused their attention on the door to the pub as it swung open, letting in a roaring burst of the chilly December air. When Harry realized it was one of the regulars, he visibly relaxed. Ebenezer took that as his que and settled back in his chair to nurse the last of his beer as he signaled Mac for another round.

"You seem a bit tense there old hoss. Something I need to know about?" asked Ebenezer.

Harry chuckled a bit and said, "No Ebenezer, everything is going pretty smooth other than the lack of work. Problem is, smoother things run, the more nervous I tend to get." He shivered a bit, not only at the remaining cool from the door having been opened. "Just waiting for the hammer to fall I guess."

"Just remember son," said Ebenezer. "A little bit of paranoia is a healthy thing, as long as it remains a little bit. You're too young to be a pessimist just yet. Anyway, we can discuss official business later. Right now I have a story to tell, remember!"

"Ah yes" said Harry, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice. "You were about to reveal to me the affront committed against you by a group of third graders so great that you had to do something so spectacular that it not only made CNN, but has caused you to at least temporarily flee your farm."

Ebenezer glared at Harry for a full minute before his expression softened and he let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Ok, maybe I did overreact a bit. But damnit boy, that is my HOME!" he said, almost yelling at the end. "They had NO right! No right at all."

At Ebenezer's outburst, the entire bar shook and all attention was focused on him. Everyone was tense for a moment until they saw it was just a momentary flash of anger, not a full-blown argument or loss of temper. Mac's place was designed with the magical in mind, but there was only so much that you could do. The thirteen seemingly randomly placed columns and other precautionary design features worked well at dispelling the random unfocused energies of the relatively minor, mostly untrained talents that hung around.

Problem here was that neither Harry nor Ebenezer were anywhere near minor talents and both were not only fully trained but also heavy in combat experience. Both were on the White Council, a very powerful ruling body of the human magical community, and Ebenezer was the Black Staff of the Council. If there was someone or something out there that needed killing right now, no muss, no fuss, and of course no official connections to the Council, it was Ebenezer's job to kill it. While most of the people in the room didn't know that last bit of info, they did know that he was a senior member of the Council and no one to be trifled with.

Mac walked up to their table, plates of food in hand and a questioning look on his face directed at Ebenezer. "Sorry old hoss," said Ebenezer a bit sheepishly. "Wont happen again." Mac placed the food in front of them and nodded at Ebenezer, seemingly satisfied by the apology and promise, then went back behind his bar.

"Anyway" said Ebenezer between bites "as I was saying before, this year it wasn't a bunch of youngsters double dog daring each other to knock on the crazy old mans door. It was a bunch of teenagers, wannabe thugs, soon to move on from juvie to real prison. You know the type."

Harry just nodded at Ebenezer to continue, not wanting to interrupt, as Ebenezer seemed to be getting into a groove with his tale. Besides, he was really hungry and the steak and fries were delicious!

"Well, as you know I have been pretty busy here lately. The whole Red Court thing and all." said Ebenezer. "I usually make it a point to be upstairs early enough on Halloween in order to play crotchety old man for the kids. Well, I was pretty heavy into my research. Had to tap a few, well shall we say less than conventional sources of information!"

Demons, thought Harry. They are one of the best sources of information in the world, and one of the most dangerous to use.

"So here I am, in my lab down in the basement, trying to have a meaningful conversation with a creature who is less than interested in conversing and more interested in disemboweling me when I hear a noise upstairs. I cant exactly leave what I'm doing to go investigate and I figure its just one of the youngsters who not only got up the nerve to knock but actually opened the door so I just continue on with what I'm doing. I have a spell up to block outgoing noise so no chance of being heard."

Ebenezer sat back a moment to collect his thoughts and continued. "I get back to the business at hand and don't thing much of it. Not like 8 year olds are gonna steal from me or anything. After a few minutes I start hearing voices. Problem is, these are older voices. Not adults but definitely not 8 year olds either. I start to get a bit worried at this point. You know how my defenses are, nothing specifically targeting a human unless there ability is strong enough to trigger it. Not nearly the chance of human cohorts of my enemies getting to my place undetected as with your place. That's one of the advantages of living in a small town. Well liked or not, strangers aint gonna be allowed to go poking around someone's place without the whole town knowing about it and being up in arms."

"Anyway" continued Ebenezer, "right after hearing the voices, I start hearing loud noises. Stuff being dumped on the floor, furniture being overturned and such. Didn't even think about it, just turned around and started for the stairs. Realized immediately that I'd screwed up big time. The demon had already broken out of the circle and was almost on me by the time I could turn back around. It launched itself at me and I fell backwards. As it passed over me I threw an air spell at its chest, blowing it up through the trap door."

"OH SHIT!" exclaimed Harry loudly.

"Oh shit indeed." said Ebenezer. I ran up the steps to find the demon had about six teenagers cornered in my living room, growling and snarling at them. You know, putting on the full show. Well, long story short, we fought and I obviously I won."

"Obviously" said Harry. "But what about the kids?"

"Well, right after I beat the demon they all got up and did what most people do. They explained away what they had just seen. The leader of the gang even said that they had been hurt during the explosion when I blew the door off the cellar. Said he was gonna sue me for injuries and pain and suffering. The little shit broke into MY house destroyed MY property and was gonna sue ME!" Ebenezer almost screamed.

Mac slammed a bottle of beer on the table in front of Ebenezer who jumped, startled at the unexpected interruption. As the foam rolled out of the bottle Ebenezer looked around the now emptied bar to see the shamble of tables and chairs that had crashed to the ground immediately after Mac had distracted him with the beer. He also noticed the column nearest him was out of place and split opened, like some giant had taken hold of it by both ends and gave it a little twist.

"Um…." Said Ebenezer, unable to look Mac in the eye.

Mac stared at Ebenezer for a few seconds, the expression on his face unreadable. His expression softened into one of understanding and then he patted Ebenezer on the shoulder and walked back to the bar, never saying a word.

"Damned if that man cant say more with facial expressions than the most educated person can with words." said Harry, tipping his bottle respectfully in Mac's direction.

"Yes he can," said Ebenezer. "I will pay for any damages and get that pillar fixed for you Mac."

Mac gave him a look that absolutely screamed, "Damned straight you will!"

"As I was saying," said Ebenezer breaking the slightly uncomfortable silence. "After the kid threatened to sue me, I went kind of nuts. Injun Joe has been helping me with some of the glamour spells, to help disguise myself. Not much use in a fight but great for avoiding one for as long as possible. Anyway, I was so angry that I didn't even think, just launched into a spell that started transforming me into a dragon. Well, not literally, but the image around me was real enough."

At the word dragon, Harry started to spit and sputter as he choked on the swallow of beer he had been trying to take. "What in God's name possessed you to transform into a dragon?" asked Harry. "For that matter, what possessed you to even learn how to do that? No, scratch that. I don't even want to know."

Ebenezer laughed heartily and picked up the beer Mac had distracted him with only minutes before. He looked at the half empty bottle with a frown on his face. "Damn shame that is. Not sure which I regret more, me losing my temper or Mac wasting half of this wonderful brew in order to snap me out of it!"

"Tough call," laughed Harry. "Personally I'm leaning towards the alcohol abuse though!"

"Well," said Ebenezer. "As my head started enlarging into that of a large, rather nasty looking fowl tempered lizard, the children of course ran out the door screaming. I pursued far enough just to make sure they were really and truly leaving. What I didn't realize was that one of them had a camera phone. Why the hell would you want to put a camera in a telephone anyway?"

"I honestly don't know Ebenezer. But how did the phone survive the magic being thrown around?" asked Harry.

"Best I could tell, the one who was filming this was standing by the front door when the demon blew through the floor. They filmed just long enough to get a good image of the demon before they hoofed it out the door. Which unfortunately meant they were well away from the front door and facing it when I came out chasing behind their friends. "

"Hence the footage on the news," said Harry with a sigh. "Well, fortunately for you they are calling this an elaborate hoax. By the end of the week the only show on TV willing to play that video will be Tosh.0. But till then, how do you plan on covering this up at home?"

"Well that's easy old hoss!" said Ebenezer. Two days before Halloween, I left for Chicago to visit my nephew Harry!"

Harry just stared at Ebenezer, not quite comprehending what was meant.

Ebenezer got a serious look on his face then waived his right hand in front of him. "These are not the druids you are looking for," he said with mock seriousness.

Harry's eyes went wide. "NO Ebenezer, I wont let you do that! You can't use the black to change people's memories! Not even considering what the Council would do to you when they found out, you more than most know how dangerous a road that is to start down."

Ebenezer grinned from ear to ear then reached across the table and affectionately swatted Harry upside the head. "Relax old hoss. No need for worry on that point. Before I left town and before the video had been released, I stopped by that little restaurant just outside of town. Acted upset and told them that I had gotten all the way to Chicago before I remembered that I had promised my nephew that I would bring him some of their home made salad dressing next time I came to visit. Said he would be so disappointed if I forgot it and since it wasn't an announced visit I had the time to spare even though it put me two days behind."

"So when you get back, you just play dumb about the whole thing," laughed Harry. "And since people try so hard to rationalize things they cant explain, they will simply assume they remembered you leaving the two days before! Brilliant! But salad dressing? You know I rarely eat salads. How much did you get?"

"A full gallon!" laughed Ebenezer. "Fortunately it makes a really good marinade for steaks so I gave it to Mac when I got here. I know you haven't had a good steak in a while but you didn't notice a difference in yours tonight?"

"Well, I thought it tasted even better than usual but chalked it up to hunger. Wait a minute. You need me to come back to Missouri to support your alibi, don't you?" exclaimed Harry.

Ebenezer just grinned at Harry then got up and headed for the door.