Blue Monday

Prologue:

It's dark out, past midnight, and Pesto walks out to the end of the wharf. His arms are shaking despite his jacket. He tells himself it's from the ocean breeze, not the hooded figure waiting for him between the falafel and corn dog stands. Pesto tosses the figure a brown paper bag and asks "when"? The hooded figure bends to pick up the bag with a too-grey hand and sharp nails. The figure shows his yellowing teeth, "tomorrow."

Oo00oO

Bob keeps staring at the freakishly tall guy in the last booth. He thinks it way too hot to be wearing a full blown leather duster. When he first came into the restaurant, Bob was too scared of the gigantic furry dog with him to ask about the 6 foot walking stick.

"Louise, go take his order"

"Why dad, are you scared of the guy here for wizardcon?" Louise says as she walks away from the bar.

"wizar… what?"

"Hey mister, what's your dog's name?

He looks up from his menu as the giant temple dog raises his paw for a shake, "Mouse," he replies.

"Oh my god! Can I ride him! I want to ride him, DAD! Pick me up and put me on top of this dog!"

"NO LOUISE JUST TAKE HIS ORDER!"

Mouse actually rolls his eyes, and the wizard eventually says he wants a steak sandwich and a beer.

Linda walks out from the kitchen, "Ooooh Bobby, we need to go out for a nice dinner. Jimmy Pesto takes his wife out for dinner!"

"Uhhh" Bob sighs, "We can't afford it after Tina hit Jimmy Freakin Pesto's Car last week" and walks over to the stranger, "Sorry, we don't have steak, how about a 'Blue Monday Burger'? It's a burger stuffed with blue chee..."

Shattered glass rang through the front of the restaurant as a figure with a large khaki overcoat slowly stepped through the broken window. Barefoot, but not bothered by the shards of glass. Bob caught one look at his face which was too grey to be human and saw that he was smiling a sharkish grin, yellow teeth almost glowing in the fluorescent lighting.

Before he could even react, the mysterious 'wizard' pushed him into the booth and yelled "Mouse, guard!" The figure, seemingly out of a horror film, shot his… finger nails? Talons? At the tall man standing in front of the booth. Bob heard a jingling of metal as the man shook loose a bracelet and a translucent sphere appeared around the man. Projectiles harmlessly bouncing off the sphere and falling to the floor.

Bob looked at him in shock, "what the…"

The man in the leather duster pulled out a slender brown piece of wood that looked to Bob like it should be banging on a drum and yelled fuego. As the translucent sphere disappeared a stream of red and white flames shot towards the monster and flung him back out the broken window in flames. Bob's apparent savior ran to the window and stared for a moment, then walked back to bob.

Bob shivering in fright, and almost incomprehensible stutters "Is… is it dead?"

"No, it just ran away."

"Who the hell are you?" Bob wonder strikingly asks.

"Dresden, Harry Dresden. I have a feeling life is about to get real interesting for you Bob."

Semilogue

"Fishoeder number 2, you told me…"

"It's Felix!" Felix Fishoeder glaringly snapped at Pesto.

"Sorry, Felix" Pesto furiously corrected, "you told me he was your top guy"

"He is. You didn't tell me there was a wizard to get involved." he sighed, "I'll have to talk to my brother about this…" Felix muttered

Oo00oO

"Burger… boy wonder…" Linda muttered as Bob got out of bed. He headed downstairs to open the kitchen only to realize he was out of buns. He walked to the basement door and realized it was already unlocked, stupid kids, he thought. He headed down the stairs skipping the broken step and reached for the freezer door.

"Morning" said Harry (Bob would later find out Harry isn't much of a morning person).

"What the…" Bob flinched back only to trip over a huge furry dog lazing about next to the fridge.

Harry stood up and offered his hand to Bob, "Easy, glad to see you up after last night."

"Last night?" the memories of last night came rushing back to Bob and he fought back the urge to panic. The monster who jumped through the window, and Harry Dresden? A wizard? "Why are you in my basement? What the hell happened last night?"

"I'm here to help." Harry explained, "I've been tracking the… creature from last night for over a month now. It made its way here from Chicago, taking odd jobs along the way. I think he wanted to kill you."

"Kill me… why would he want to kill me?" Bob exasperatedly asked as he took stock of the changes made to the basement, there was a green army issue cot along the wall where presumably this strange man named Harry had slept, a glimmering circle made of… was that gold? in the corner of the basement, a long wood staff leaned against the wall. The man himself looked like he hadn't slept much, he had silver banded rings on multiple fingers, a strange bracelet with a few charms attached and a leather duster which he had used as cover to sleep.

"I think he was probably hired for it. Have you made any enemies recently?"

Bob thought back over the past couple of years and a few names came to mind; Fishoeder, Pesto, the school counselor, Fishoeder number 2… then there was that one time when he suffered from a form of psychosis and thought he was the world's best spy…

Bob rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and sighed, "Okay, maybe one or two."

"Boooobbb!" Linda yelled frantically from up the stairs. Bob immediately rushed upstairs to find his wife crying over Louise's bed, "…She's… gone." She muttered.

Harry walked into the small room where a pair of pink bunny ears lay on the floor, "Is there a Burger King nearby? We've got lots of work to do."

Epilogue

"You woke me up just to kidnap me… ugh that is freakin' awesome" Louise told her captor, "are you gonna' ransom me? How much are you asking for? I've been in a hostile situation before, something about a bank robbery, I don't really remember, but it was pretty cool."

"Shut up!" he reached into his overcoat pocket and pulled out a phone, "Yes Mr. Fisho…? I had to go with the contingency plan, He showed up… I understand." He hung up the phone and showed his yellow smile to Louise.