Iced Chaos

When you're in a job like, say, being a private detective, you meet a huge variety of people, all of different personalities, quirks, and leaving different impressions on you. When you're Chicago's only professional wizard private detective, plus the only Warden in the Windy City, the old capital of crime after Capone, you meet a even stranger, metaphysical mix other than your plain vanilla human, some of them which could only be monsters of legend, or some so beautiful that they could keep men eternally in heat.

I've seen some of them. Girl next door? Check. Innocence of youth? Ditto. Angelic, inhumane splendour, just as well. The kind which makes everyone surrounding almost deformed by comparison, included. Even so, the beautiful can be scarier than the plainly monstrous, with an ideal epitome that could be summarised in a single name of the Unseelie Queen of Faerie. Personally, I'd rather choose a nice, safely attractive human woman any day. Human women don't come with so many of the dangerously insane clauses that land me in deep shit.

Now, said woman was standing in the ruckus that I call my office. Weird, I say; coincidence hasn't been kind that way. Someone up there takes a serious interest in my suffering.

The woman could be summarised in a single term: sex kitten. She had the kind of curves that you see only with porn stars, long auburn hair which fell past her hips, framing curves most women would kill for, and most men would kill to drool over, and Oriental tones suffusing the smooth skin. Her mouth was wide and pouty in a cattish, sexy way, and startling blue eyes were wide, clearly studying me. She didn't look at me like I was insane; my private investigator instincts picked up a core of steel-like strength, before it was shoved aside by my libido.

Bob the Skull, my nonmaterial lab assistant, would have been happy to see her. Seeing as I was here, I wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment, for a few seconds at any rate.

'What can I do to help, Miss…' I searched the few unaffected parts of my memory for it. '…Matsumoto?'

'I have a job for you,' the woman purred. It was an honest-to-God purr, a throaty, sensual sound that should be Marilyn Monroe's. The voice was obviously feminine, a bit like the ex-head of Special investigations.

Meaning that under all that slightly overblown sexuality and large, probably not plastic surgery curves, namely her large, possibly a D-cup chest –hey, I'm a man, and a red-blooded one- and her great ass, Matsumoto was probably just as dangerous as the woman in charge of Chicago's monster hunters.

Meanwhile, I realised that I was just about to lean over my dirt-cheap desk to look down at her…ahem.

Bob the Skull would be so happy in my place. I got out a pen, a notebook, and quietly set my .44 near my right hand. 'Please, tell me your problem.'

'Mister Dresden, I need you to find a missing boy,' she said. Inwardly, I groaned.

'How did that happen?' I asked, probably too bluntly. Oops.

'I was going to a bar, and I left my child in the room, and when I came back he wasn't there, so I hot-footed it straight to you.' She said, her expression bordering on hysteria, crossing her legs nervously. I tore my eyes off those amazingly smooth legs and got my head in the game. 'Can you give me a description of your child, Miss Matsumoto?'

'How do you know I'm not married?' she asked in an expression akin to wonder.

'You don't wear a ring,' I explained patiently. 'And before I direct you to Chicago Police Department's missing persons bureau, could you please explain the circumstances from which your charge disappeared.'

'My charge?' she asked, puzzled.

'Yes. Logically speaking, most women go to the police. The only time they don't is if they've got something to hide, or…' I placed special emphasis on the word, 'if they didn't want the child's real parents in this. Also, parents use the term 'child' to refer to their kids. Only a stranger refers to them by sex.'

'Astute,' she murmured. 'Logical. But couldn't I just be a concerned parent?'

'Hell, lady, if you were, you'd go to the police and let them, not come to me.' I replied patiently. 'Earlier, you said that you went to a bar. What kind of single mother leaves their kid alone in a room while they went out to a bar, I ask you.' I replied, placing my .44 on the table, the end pointing at her. 'Now, unless you want to get injured, please tell me your real purpose, Miss Matsumoto. I've had a bad day, my car's in the garage, and I still haven't recovered from horrible injuries given to me a few months ago, along with a blinding migraine. Believe me; you don't want to face me when I'm pissed.'

She glared at me defiantly, then her mouth curved into a smile, and she seemed almost happy. 'Good. I need you to find a boy.'

I groaned. 'We've been through this…'

'No, really,' she added hurriedly, grabbing her nearby purse, an oddly large affair with a box clasp. She pulled a Polaroid out, placing it on the table to reveal its subject.

My lungs felt like someone had pulled at my diaphragm extra hard to push more air in, as I looked at the kid in question. About twelve or thirteen, short, his hair a natural white, since I couldn't see any colour about the roots. The Japanese kid's cold teal eyes was looking at the camera, a scowl on his young face, as his hands went into the pockets of his white corduroy pants that made him look slightly older than he actually was. I knew that kid, having met him once before.

I looked at the photo of the death god Hitsugaya, to Matsumoto, and back.

Hell's bells.

'You're a Shinigami.' I blurted out.

She seemed amused. 'Is that surprising? I'm not the only one you've met before.'

'Uh, well, you're the first female death god I've met.' I admitted lamely.

'Oh?' she grinned, showing even white teeth and cute dimples, which sent my hormones into an unruly stage and accelerated my bloodstream by quite a bit.

'So tell me,' I drawled. 'How're you related to Hitsugaya? You seemed so secretive and all that.'

'The kid's my captain,' she replied coyly, 'my superior, my boss, and a better warrior than I am, to be exact.'

I've lived through attacks on me and my friends, fighting the forces of things trying to kill me and friends, which included something out of the Sci-Fi Channel's October line-up. I survived a few years with a psycho faerie as my godmother, two times working for the Winter Queen, and just a few months ago, an immortal North American nightmare of a skinwalker. If someone came up to me and spun a ridiculous yarn on the supernatural nations, I'd believe that.

I almost didn't believe her claim. Almost, if I hadn't met the Archive, a twelve-year-old girl. She took on eight Denarians, the holders of thirty silver coins, each containing a fallen angel, and every Denarian a walking nightmare, where 'hard to kill' didn't even describe them in most senses. I'd been blown out by a single one of them, and a twelve-year old beat them. Same with Hitsugaya; the first time I saw the kid, said kid was holding a Japanese katana, slicing a green monster to bits like it was Parmesan.

Still…how novel.

'Okay,' I said. 'Freakishly powerful kid in Chicago, possibly loose, and you want me to find him. Because for some skewed reason, you people can't actually track anything here, if I'm correct.'

'Correct.' She replied happily. 'So what's your answer?'

'Here's the part where I ask why don't you not involve me in this and go?' I asked, my temper rising. 'You come here and ask me to find a god? A freaking god?'

'To be more accurate it's kinda like a lesser god, but you get the point.' She replied. 'He went missing in your town, after all. And if he isn't found, then we'll have to pull a manual search.'

'And that would be horrible how, exactly?' I asked, leaning back in my old chair.

'The twelve most powerful death gods would assemble here, in Chicago. If any more than three appear in any given place, weird things happen. Last time the strongest came out, it nearly melted the Arctic caps. Another time caused a hurricane, and another some horticultural problems involving a forest growing over a city in a day.'

I blinked. 'Wow.'

'If Captain Hitsugaya isn't found, at least ten would come here. And when death gods assemble, there's going to be an imbalance on. This could mean war.'

I sighed. 'And with Chicago as the battlefield for the involving parties. People will get hurt.'

'Yes. Then again, being near a Captain of the death gods could also result in some people gaining power.' Matsumoto added after a thought.

I decided against the merits of slamming my head on the desk. 'Dammit. I'm in. What was Hitsugaya doing here in the first place?'

'I believe it was to…find somebody.' She suggested. 'Perhaps you could track down who he was supposed to find. Here's the guy's hair.'

I glanced at the eerily familiar lock of orange bristles, feeling another headache develop. Damn.

This is my first attempt at crossovers longer than one chapter. Hopefully, this is okay. Pls review, or I swear, I will purposely think of a horrible Artemis Fowl x Dresden Files crossover and post it up.

I do not own Dresden Files, or Bleach. This is a standard cover-ass line. Pardon the pun.