The Compass 1.1

It was a dark and stormy night, and I was sitting in my office, trying to finish some novel I had bought from the bookstore. Being a wizard was more boring than I thought. Here I was, sitting in my office, waiting for someone to knock on the door. Well, anyone other than my landlady. Old lady had been nagging me for rent for the past week, and I was pretty desperate for any job that would prevent me from losing the office, the house, and force me out onto the streets to die of hunger.

Would be pretty embarrassing way to go.

I looked up from my book as the doorbell rang. What appeared before me was a woman with amber eyes, smooth white skin, long, dark hair that went down to past her shoulders, and legs that seemed to go on forever. She was wearing a shot-red dress that went past only one-third of her thighs, and had high heels that chinked like glass when she took a step.

I was alert and paying attention in an instant.

She smiled at me when she noticed me sitting at the desk.

"Hello, Mr. Detective, I heard that you specialised in searching for people." Her voice was sultry, barely a over a whisper, but I could hear her just fine. "Normally, I wouldn't go searching for you…" She said, gesturing towards the rather….run down and drab office I had setup shop in.

"Yeah, I know that it's not looking so great now, but…. Aren't appearances deceiving?" I hoped that the excuse would be enough to convince her to pay me for this one job. I didn't want to be late on the rent again.

Hoping to change the topic, I asked: "So how may I help you? I specialize in finding people. Especially lost relatives." That was what I had placed on the advertisement. Thaumaturgy was useful like that. I just hoped that she wasn't going to ask me to find an adopted family member. Or at least had one of their possessions.

"Or so I heard. The name's Angelika Blandelli. I've already hired several private investigators and the police have already been alerted. But so far, all they have is a dead end. No clues at all have been found." She spoke, sliding a picture towards me. On it was a photograph of a smiling, 10 year old girl. Blonde, with green eyes. "This is my daughter. Her father is currently…. unavailable. She had disappeared since last year, and I haven't heard from her since." I could hear the worry that was in her voice.

"No ransom? No communication from whomever could have taken her?"

"No. None at all. It's been months, and I'm getting worried."

Well, that was a problem. Most kidnappings occurred for several reasons. One was money. Judging from the clothes, this woman had lots of it. So they were either dragging it out to make her desperate and get a higher ransom, or…they weren't looking for it.

This day couldn't get any worse, could it?

A/N: So yeah. This happened.

Was discussing with Ryuugi what Dresden could do with his time between world-ending missions. So I wrote an OC here. There would be no insanely powerful enemies. No world-ending warlocks. Just finding and helping people here.

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