Mike, my mechanic, deserves a sainthood. Or a burning at the stake, because I'm pretty sure some of the miracles he pulls off with my poor little Blue Beetle have to be magic.

Not that I'm anti-magic. The opposite, actually, since it's hard to be when you're a wizard. Which I am. Says it right on my business card: Harry Dresden, Wizard. It says it on my office door, too, and my wanted posters, when the occasion comes.

It happens more than you might think.

"What happened this time, Harry?" Mike asked, taking off his baseball cap so he could scratch his head puzzledly.

I scowled. "It got stabbed. With a sword."

Mike looked doubtfully at the aerated Beetle. "Lotta holes for that."

"There were a lot of swords."

Normally, I try to fix my own car problems, with a little help from my old friends, Duct Tape, Gorilla Glue, and Dumb Luck. This time, though, a ninja had stabbed right through the engine block. Considering I have the electrical skills of a small bomb, I figured me and my wallet would bite the bullet and head to the auto repair shop.

"I'm not gonna be able to get it running for at least a week." Mike said, slapping the hat back on his head. "More, if it's as busted up as you usually bring it in."

I groaned.

"Dresden, got a call for you!" One of the mechanics stuck his head out of the office in the corner of the big garage with a phone receiver pressed to his chest.

I waved in acknowledgement and turned to Mike. "Any chance I can actually afford this?"

"Nope, no way." Mike said cheerfully.

"You always know just what to say." I said dryly, leaving him behind to head for the office. I don't have a cell phone, because I can be dumb sometimes, but not that dumb. Me and electronics? Not on good terms. I've got a landline at home and in my office, but otherwise, my friends and acquaintances are left calling around town looking for me. Good thing I'm so loveable.

"Hey, stay away from my welding equipment, Harry." One of the mechanics said, protectively standing in front of said equipment with her arms crossed. "I can't afford new stuff if you break this." Like I said, duct tape isn't always enough for the disasters me and the Beetle get into. The grease monkeys like to call me a repeat offender.

"Ha, ha." I said dryly, giving the station a wide berth. I couldn't afford to replace it if my magic went on the fritz either.

Mike followed me as I went towards my phone call, pulling out a pad of paper to scratch expenses on.

"Yello?" I said, taking the phone from the first mechanic's grease-stained hand. He waved to me as he left, joining the crowd of people staring at the holes scattered around the ancient VW. I was pretty sure a light could shine through the car, front to back. It was not the worst injury the Beetle had suffered throughout our years together, but it was one of the more interesting ones.

"Dresden?" Karrin Murphy's voice asked over the line.

Murphy heads up the Special Investigations, or SI, division of the Chicago police, and she's good at it, too. Five foot nothing of blonde fury, she looks like a cheerleader and fights like a black belt. Which, coincidentally, she is.

I once saw her make an ogre cry. An ogre. She's one of my best friends in the entire world.

"Yep, that's me." I said. "You stalking me now?"

I could practically hear her rolling her eyes. "Your brother told me you wrecked that piece of junk car again. Figured I'd check your poor mechanic first."

I tried to defend myself. "Hey, Mike likes taking care of the Beetle! It's a professional challenge."

Mike shook his head, but said nothing, using a calculator and a notebook to figure out exactly how much my wallet was going to weep tonight.

"What's up, Murph?" I asked, leaning on the grimy counter.

"I might have a job for you."

"My favorite phrase. Police or private work?"

"Private. Friend of mine. Can you meet me and I'll take you to her place?"

I pulled the receiver away from my mouth. "Any chance you'll magically be able to fix the Beetle in the next fifteen minutes?"

"No."

"Loaner car?"

"Not with your track record, Harry."

"That's fair." I put the receiver back up to my ear. Murphy was laughing at me. "Yeah, I'm gonna need a ride."

"I should have figured, you useless freeloader." Murphy said. "Be there in twenty."

She didn't need directions. Like I said, repeat offender.

Mike ripped off an expenses sheet and gave me my copy. I winced.


"So?" I asked Murphy, once she'd made me wait for a sufficiently long time in the freezing Chicago air so that she could turn off her cell phone and her police and car radios. "What's this case you have for me?"

"My old college roommate." Murphy said. "She called me up with a problem, and it sounds like a Dresden problem to me."

"Yeah?" I asked. "What kind of problem?"

"She thinks her house is haunted."

I groaned. "Murph-"

She held up a hand to forestall me. "I know, I know. But Stacy isn't some paranoid nut. She's level-headed, rational. If she thinks something's going on, it probably is."

"Yeah, all right." I said, slightly mollified. Murphy doesn't suffer idiots around her. If she was vouching for this girl, she was probably legit. "I hope this friend of yours can pay."

"Is that all you think about?" Murphy teased.

"That and food." I said. I grinned, doing my best Neanderthal impression. "Harry poor. Harry hungry."

"All right, all right, I get the point." Murphy said. "I'll buy you some Burger King after we talk to Stacy."

I patted my stomach. "If this friend of yours really can pay, I'm buying. You can even get a milkshake."

"Generous." Murphy said with a smile, flicking on her turn signal and turning into a gated community. "And yes, she can afford it. She went into writing after college, published some pretty popular books."

"Yeah?" I asked, interested. I read a lot of books. It's kind of a necessity when you can't go near a tv without a disaster of explosive proportions. I think the last movie I saw was Star Wars. So I read a lot of cheap paper novels, when I'm not busy running for my life from zombie ninjas or bloodthirsty vampires. "What books?"

Murphy gave me a weird look as we pulled up to a big two-story house covered in greenery and with a sprawling driveway. I mean, it wasn't a mansion or anything, not like the Raith place or some of Chicago's ridiculously wealthy, but it was definitely bigger than my little apartment. Then again, almost everything is. I've seen bedrooms bigger than my whole place.

"I always forget you're a book guy." Murphy said. "Her pen name's S.T. Hawkins."

"No way!" I said, half laughing already. "Murphy, she writes vampire fiction."

We stepped out of Murphy's car, heading up the long gravel driveway towards the house proper.

Murphy brought a hand up to her mouth. "You're kidding." She was hiding a smile. "I've never read her books."

"They're about vampires!" I said gleefully. "They're horrible. It makes Thomas wince every time."

Honestly, I like reading the trashy stories. Turns out, when you spend a majority of your life stabbing, fighting, running from, and solving relationship problems for vampires, you kind of want to wind down with less realistic stuff. I'd actually be kind of concerned if Hawkins' stuff gave detailed descriptions of how to kill Red or White Court vampires or the like. Partially because my brother is one of those White Court vampires, and partially just because it would be a huge pain in my behind to track down and probably eventually fight one of my favorite authors.

"And yet, I notice you read them." Murphy said with a smirk, leading me up to the door. "Although, I can't say there's anything I wouldn't do to annoy a sibling." She knocked as I was snickering, leaving me to try and sober up before the door was opened.

It opened almost immediately after Murphy's knock, showing that Stacy had been waiting anxiously for us.

"Karrin!" She said.

Stacy was Murphy's age, but they certainly didn't look similar. Stacy had long brown hair, tied up into one of those gravity-defying buns women somehow make, put all the way on top of her head. She had three pencils, a red correcting pen, and a spoon stuck into the mess. She looked harried, wearing a dark pair of jeans either stained with pen ink or else one of those trendy styles I just don't get. There were bags under her eyes, casting a shadow on an otherwise plain beauty.

"Stacy, it's good to see you." Murphy said, giving her a quick hug. "This is the guy I told you about. Harry Dresden, this is Stacy Hawkins."

"Nice to meet you." I said. "Love the books."

She smiled. "You read them?"

"Sure thing." I said. "I love the vampire priest who's sworn to a life of chastity."

Murphy coughed out a laugh behind her hand. She's met vampires, too, and one word I'd never use to describe most of them, my brother included, is chaste.

"Oh, good." Stacy said, shaking my hand. She had a firm grip and pencil marks smudged on her hands. "You're the wizard?"

"Yep." I said. "Full-time wizard, part-time Ghostbuster."

She laughed. "Funny. Come on in. Try not to hit your head on the doorway, tall guy."

"That hasn't happened since yesterday." I said cheerfully, following Murphy and Stacy into the house.

Stacy sat us down in uncomfortable but trendy white armchairs, then bustled around making coffee.

I took a moment to observe the house. Modern, like something out of a catalogue, but it had that homey, lived-in feel that only comes from a life spent in it. The desk in the corner of the living room matched Stacy herself, disorganized and stacked to the brim with papers. A laptop sat in the center of it which I made a mental note to steer clear of, and two more forgotten cups of coffee cooled on its various surfaces. I couldn't see the rest of the house, but nothing so far was exactly screaming "nefarious haunting" at me.

I raised an eyebrow at Murphy.

She rolled her eyes. "Just wait and hear what she has to say, Dresden."

Stacy reemerged, handing us identical and trendy black coffee cups. "Three creams, right, Karrin? Sorry, Mr. Dresden, I wasn't sure what you'd like." She sat in a chair across from us.

"This is fine, thanks." I sat back with the cup of coffee in my hands, my duster brushing the floor from the awkward position the chair had forced me into. "Murphy tells me you think you might be haunted."

"I know, I know, it's silly." Stacy's fingers were almost white from where they'd been gripped around the mug of her own coffee. "But there's things going on here, things I can't explain."

"Like what?" I asked, leaning forward. I'm no ectomancer, no particular expert in spirits, but a ghost is a supernatural entity, just like fae, vampires, and any of the other nasties I've faced down over the years. It means they can be taken down.

Stacy glanced at Murphy, still a little unsure. Murphy nodded at her encouragingly, just observing.

Stacy took a deep breath. "Marta, my housekeeper, was killed here just a few days ago."

My eyebrows lifted in surprise, and I looked Murphy's way as well.

Murphy nodded. "I looked into the police report myself, Harry. The railing was broken, and she fell over the side of the landing. No fault on either side. Officially ruled an accident. "

"That's the thing." Stacy said. "I don't think it was. I heard Marta scream, then I heard the wood on the railing break."

"You think she saw who or whatever it was that killed her." I surmised. "You think she was pushed."

"That, or scared into falling." Stacy said, hands shaking, just a little. "Because it's not just that. I've been feeling things, too. Seeing things."

"Like what?" Murphy asked, as gently as she could. Years of working in law enforcement have left a little to be desired in the softness department, making questions sound like interrogations and interrogations sound like threats.

Stacy didn't seem to notice, absorbed with staring into her cooling coffee. "Noises at night. It sounds like there's someone talking to me, but they're muffled. Like they're underwater or something." The pretty, joking face from the front door was gone, pulled into tight, worried lines. "I always feel like I'm being watched. Sometimes I'll see flickers out of the corner of my eyes."

"Why don't you leave?" I asked, curious. A house is a house, and if whatever was haunting this poor woman had resorted to killing, staying could be fatal as well as spooky.

She folded her arms. "This is my house. I was here first."

I was surprised. "What do you mean?" Like I said, I'm no ghost aficionado. But the Poltergeist impression usually happens right after the hopeful little family moves into the house in the middle of nowhere. This didn't feel like that.

"This house is only a year old. I watched it built. This-" The hand with the coffee in it wavered in the air a moment, searching for an explanation that didn't sound insane. "Haunting only started a month ago."

"Really?" I asked. "Did anyone you know recently die?"

She shook her head. "Unless you're counting Marta, no."

I frowned. "That's odd. It's strange for a ghost to suddenly appear somewhere without some kind of significant trauma."

Murphy's lips were pressed together. With her turned up nose, it made her look adorable. Not that I'd ever tell her that. I prefer everything in my body where it is. "By trauma, you mean death."

I nodded. "Do you mind if I take a look around the house? Especially where the accident happened?"

"Of course." Stacy said. She stood up suddenly and set the coffee on a little end table. I drained mine and followed her.

She led us into the foyer of the house that I'd glimpsed from the front door. It was decorated in line with what I'd seen of the house. Modern, mostly in shades of grey, black, and white. There was a doorway leading to the kitchen and another to the small living room and office we'd just been in. There was also a tall, wide staircase.

The banister at the top of the stairs was broken, patched hastily with plywood. Otherwise, the room was unremarkable.

"I've been using the back stairs." Stacy admitted as we looked up at the site of the poor housekeeper's demise. She looked embarrassed. "The firemen on scene said it should be safe, but."

"I wouldn't like it either." Murphy said. She squinted up at the banister. "Want to go take a look?"

"Always." I said. I led the way up the stairs, and crouched down to look at the splintered part of the landing. "Nothing weird." I muttered. Murphy crouched beside me to look as well.

Most of the original railing had already been replaced with the plywood, but what remained was splintered into chunks. I've fallen off a lot of things, and it looked like an accident to me. I looked around once more, spotting a window to the backyard with a blue pool and an expensive barbeque. Still nothing.

I drew in my power, feeling around me for something unusual. My senses stretched throughout the house, probing gently for anything malicious.

I frowned. "I don't feel anything." I held up a hand at Stacy's dismayed look. "That doesn't mean there's nothing here. The energy could have dispelled or it could be hidden." Or that there was nothing there. I hadn't seen anything to indicate foul play, much less anything in my wheelhouse.

But then again, this was a damsel in distress. I'm all soft inside when it comes to those; so sue me. Plus, she was Murphy's friend, which means neither of us would ever forgive me if this turned out to be real and I ignored it.

"Should we move on?" I asked brightly, standing up and sticking out a hand to help Murphy to her feet. "Where else have you felt this thing?"

Stacy nodded, giving the railing a wide berth as she walked around us to take the lead again. She gestured to several doors in the hallway. "The upstairs office, bedroom, and guest room."

I raised an eyebrow. That still left one door unaccounted for. "What's in there?" I motioned to it.

"Oh." Stacy said, blinking. "Just the bathroom." She opened the door to it to show us.

"And you've never felt it in here?" I asked.

"I guess not."

"That's strange." I said. "Don't you think a ghost would haunt the whole house? Maybe it's pee-shy."

Murphy snorted and elbowed me. "Dresden." She complained.

I grinned at her and stepped around Stacy into the bathroom. Now that was definitely bigger than my bedroom, not to mention more high tech. I got teary thinking about the kind of hot water pressure she must have had in there.

It was set up like any bathroom I've ever seen; bathtub and shower, the porcelain throne, and a big vanity whose lights flickered when I walked by it.

There were candles scattered in various places around the bathroom - decorative, not functional, like the ones I used.

My hand hovered over one of the candles. It was thick and orange and tied in a decorative twine bow.

"Where'd you get this?" I asked, brow furrowed. Stacy had been watching me do my wizardly mojo, but she still startled when I spoke.

"Uh, my neighbor at my old place gave it to me. She said it was lucky." She said, and looked alarmed. "Why, is it dangerous?"

I shook my head, flipping the candle around in my hand. "The opposite, actually. This is a Good Will candle."

"What's that?" Murphy asked.

I shrugged. "Basically what it sounds like. It gives good will to the person who has it. Luck, protection, stuff like that." I hadn't seen a Good Will candle in a long time. They take too much effort and time to make just to sell to tourists or suckers, so most people don't bother making them any more.

A Good Will candle isn't too hard to make, if you have a specific person you're thinking about when you're making it. You focus your will on protecting them, get a few rare ingredients, and stew for a few days. Your mind also has to be fairly free of worries, struggle, and darkness, which is why I've never made one.

They also take at least a small amount of magical ability. Not strong magic, but not anything to sneeze at, either.

Murphy gave me a look. She guessed that, too. "Can I get your neighbor's address, just in case?"

"Yeah, of course." Stacy scrambled in her pockets and emerged with a receipt to write on. She pulled a pen out of the mess of her hair and started scribbling on it.

I examined the candle for a second longer, searching for any subtler feelings of ill-intent woven into the wax. Nothing, just pure, honest good wishes.

Sure would be nice if someone would give something like that to me every once in a while.


"You don't think it was the neighbor, right?" Murphy asked as we drove back out of Stacy's sprawling driveway.

"I don't think so." I said. Before we had left, I had advised Stacy to keep the candle in her bedroom, maybe carry it in her purse or something. It wasn't going to keep out any big nasties, or anything, but it seemed to have been working okay deterring whatever was haunting Stacy so far. "But it takes magical talent to make one of those candles, so it's always possible."

"It's worth checking out, anyway." Murphy said.

"Yep."

"Do you have any idea what it could be?" Murphy asked. "Do not say vampires. I'm sick of those guys."

"Vampires." I said, just to be contrary. "I don't know. It could be a legitimate haunting, but there would have been some sort of spectral energy. It could be something else, or it could be nothing."

"Amazing." Murphy said. "How did I get by without you?"

"No one knows." I said.

Murphy stopped the car, squinting up at an apartment building. "We're here."

"Wow, big step up for Stacy." I observed. The complex definitely wasn't shabby or anything, but it also wasn't the opulent suburban house Stacy lived in now.

"Yeah, well, she was a starving author for a long time until she got successful. It was hard for her to move on from that life." Murphy said. "It was only about a year ago that she finally made the move to that big neighborhood."

I folded myself out of Murphy's car and followed her up to the second level of apartments.

"This is it." Murphy said, peering at the scrap of receipt paper Stacy had given us. She knocked on the door.

"They've got a threshold and some medium wards." I leaned over to murmur to Murphy. I could probably bust through them with a little effort, but I'd definitely get my fingers burned and it would give the owner of the house a fair warning that someone was coming. Not bad.

Murphy shot me a wary look and the door swung open to reveal a friendly-faced woman. In terms of height, she was even shorter than Murphy, wearing overalls and a crop top. She had thick-rimmed, giant glasses that glinted in the light.

"Hello- wow, you're tall."

"I've never heard that before." I deadpanned.

Murphy rolled her eyes. "I'm Detective Murphy, Chicago P.D. This is a consultant, Harry Dresden. We'd like to talk to you about an old neighbor of yours."

"Yeah? Which one?"

"Stacy Hawkins."

"I'm Ameena." The woman said, face breaking out into a small smile at the name. She stuck out her hand to shake.

Murphy took it, and then me. There was a small tingling in my fingers that let me know she was definitely a minor practitioner, and she took her hand back quickly, shaking it out like she was trying to get rid of a last bit of electricity. "Wow, what does a wizard want with Stacy?"

"There's something supernatural after her." I said. "We found your Good Will candle in her house, and it seemed like it was keeping it away."

"Oh." Ameena blinked, and stood aside. "Come on in."

Ameena led us into the small apartment, which was filled with various trinkets and curios, some of which were magic and some of which were just pretty.

"Sit down." Ameena said. We did. A cat jumped up onto the couch beside us and I started giving it the vigorous ear-scratching it deserved. It flopped down into my lap and I continued to pet it while Ameena settled across from us.

"Why did you give Stacy a Good Will candle?" I asked.

Ameena blushed. "Well, we weren't exactly neighbors. I mean, we were, but we dated for a while, too."

"Oh." I said, nodding. That made sense. If the relationship was happy enough, it would certainly be enough juice to give the candle power.

Then again, if the relationship had been bad, that would be enough motive to attack Stacy.

"If you don't mind me asking," Murphy said, all sweetness and definitely not mentally revising her suspect list, "What happened between you two?"

Ameena shrugged. "I don't know. We wanted different things, I guess. It was a real amicable breakup."

"What do you mean by that?" Murphy asked.

"Not sure, I guess." Ameena shrugged. "She got so busy with her writing, and I run an occult shop. She never really believed in that stuff. We'd fight about it sometimes. When she got all that money from her books, she wanted to move into a better neighborhood. We figured we'd just end it there. Nice and clean."

That, at least, didn't sound like a housekeeper-murdering revenge spectre. My gut was telling me it wasn't Ameena. Of course, my gut's lied to me before. Usually it wants pizza.

"Did you do anything special to the candle you gave Stacy?" I asked. "It seems to be keeping whatever it is away from her, at least for now."

Ameena looked startled. "She really still has it? I'd have figured she'd throw it away." She shook her head. "No, it was pretty typical. I sourced all the ingredients at my own shop and everything. It would give protection, but not against anything big."

"You can't think of anyone who would want to hurt Stacy?" Murphy asked.

Ameena lifted an eyebrow. "Like I said, we don't see each other any more. I'd have no idea."

Great. Dead end. Murphy and I looked at each other, then stood up in unison.

"Okay, thank you, Ameena." Murphy said, extending her business card to her. "Please call if you think of anything."

"I will." Ameena said, sounding genuine. I gave her my card, too, and we retreated back to the car.

"Great, that was a waste of time." I grumbled. "We still don't know what's after Stacy, or why the candle is keeping it away."

Murphy sighed, running a hand through her hair. "It can never be easy, can it?"

"Where's the fun in that?" I asked.

"Dresden, I'm going to punch you." Murphy said.


I opened the door to my apartment, toting a few grocery bags and bracing myself for impact. Sure enough, a few seconds later, my shins were assaulted by a furry mass which did its best to knock me over with the force of its greeting.

I leaned down to scratch my cat's ears. "Hi, Mister." I said. Mister blinked at me, sniffed at the hair from Ameena's cat, and sullenly stomped away. "Thomas, you home?"

"In here, little brother." My brother stuck his head out of the bathroom, toweling his hair. "You got groceries." He said. The two of us were terminally poor and neither of us knew how to cook, so groceries were kind of a treat.

"New client." I said. "Paid in advance."

"Ahh, Murphy got ahold of you." Thomas ducked back into the bathroom and emerged a second later, hair still wet but somehow giving off an aura that he'd styled it that way on purpose. Lucky jerk.

I put the groceries into my old-fashioned ice box and gave my dog a quick scratch. "Yep." I said. "Mike said the car's gonna take at least a week to get back into shape. Though that's a relative term when it comes to the Blue Beetle."

Thomas stretched, muscles rippling, totally visible because he wasn't wearing a shirt. He was only clad in jeans that were probably too tight to be healthy and the pentacle necklace that matched the one around my neck.

Thomas tends to forget social niceties like clothes when he's in my apartment, but honestly, considering all the other problems I have in my life, getting my vampire brother to put on a shirt is just not the hill I'm willing to die on.

Not that I'm planning on dying on a hill. I'll probably be murdered by a werewolf or something first. Stars and stones, my life is depressing.

"Want me to pick up the Beetle when it's done?" He asked, using a bare foot to rub Mouse's huge scruff of fur. Mouse flopped over in bliss, huge doggy tongue hanging out of his mouth.

"Ugh, no." I said. "Everyone there thinks you're my boyfriend because you use that dumbass fake French accent whenever you go there."

"'Ah-ree." Thomas protested, in a dumbass fake French accent.

I shot him a glare, kicking his feet out of the way so that I could move past. My apartment in the boarding house is small, and it definitely wasn't meant for two tall brothers, a horse-sized dog, a monstrous cat, and a spirit trapped inside a skull to live in all at once.

I flopped down on the other side of the couch that Thomas uses as a bed, bracing myself as I saw Mister tensing to leap down from the bookshelf.

The cat landed with a thump that pushed most of the air out of me, and looked disdainfully up at my face as if disappointed in my actions.

"It's your fault the possessed zombie ninjas were stabbing my car and me, anyway." I said, trying to look as gruff as is technically possible when there's forty pounds of purring grey fur kneading its claws into your jeans. "I should have made you pay for it."

"If you'll remember, I got stabbed a few times as well." Thomas said with no heat, dropping the accent. "How's the new case of yours?"

"Weird." I said. "The woman thinks she's being haunted, and I'd agree. Except it's a little too perfect."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's a textbook haunting. It could be ripped out of any one of cheap horror movies." I frowned. "Something about it seems wrong."

"Well, with you, it usually is." Thomas said cheerfully. "Call me if the world is about to end, okay? I have things I'd like to do first."

"See if I save the world again for you ungrateful losers." I grumbled. "I get nothing but disrespect."