Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story other than the plot and any original characters that may appear.
The Dresden Files are the property of Jim Butcher.
Ghost Rider is the property of Marvel Comics.
CHAPTER 1
It was difficult getting used to being a normal person again. Well, as normal as you can get when you're a Warden of the White Council of wizards, the Warden of a prison full of supernatural nasties, and the Knight of the Winter Court of Faerie...all at the same time. It really keeps a guy busy, you know?
I still had to keep an eye on Demonreach, which is what I'd named the aforementioned prison full of the worst things you can imagine (and one cranky British guy). It's an uncharted island in the middle of Lake Michigan. Alfred, the island's genius loci assured me that I don't have to actually be present on the island at all times, which freed me up to have some kind of social life. My friends had convinced me that spending more time not brooding on an island by myself would be good for me. I was staying away because I wanted to protect them from the monster I was sure I'd become, well, any minute now.
So, I was getting to spend more time with my daughter Maggie, and the Carpenter family in general. Murphy was still in the hospital recovering from the injuries to her arm and knee. Nicodemus had hurt her badly and she required multiple surgeries to recover from it. It killed me that I couldn't be there for her, but if I stayed in her room for longer than a few minutes I ran the risk of frying the equipment keeping the patients in nearby rooms alive. Not the first time the wizardly aversion to technology has inconvenienced me, and I was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last.
Today, though, I was heading over to visit the Alphas, who I hadn't seen in quite a while. They were a group of college kids who had learned how to transform into wolves and had helped me out on cases occasionally. Good kids. Butters was taking a short break from training as a Knight of the Cross to meet me there for a session of Arcanos, the roleplaying game the Alphas had introduced me to. I was also going to meet Will and Georgia's son Kirby for the first time. I winced as I thought about that. Kirby was named for another one of the Alphas who had been killed taking on Shagnasty the naagloshii while trying to back me up.
With all that running through my mind I parked my new car outside a convenience store to pick up a couple six packs of beer to bring with me to the game. My trusty Blue Beetle had died a horrible death a few years ago and I hadn't been able to replace him until recently. I looked for a long time for a car that wouldn't immediately blow up and finally found one.
"A wizard in his natural habitat," I said to myself with a grin for probably the hundredth time since I'd gotten the car "a Studebaker."
In a happy coincidence, the store I'd picked to stop at was one of a handful that carried a wide selection of local craft beers. That made my choice that much easier and I left with two six packs of MacAnally's Dark. I loaded the beer in the passenger seat of the Studebaker and stood there for a moment just enjoying the crispness of the early April air.
"It's going to be a good night." I said to no one in particular.
And that, of course, is when I heard the scream.
I could tell three things from that scream immediately. One, the person screaming was female. Two, they were clearly terrified. And three, they were within a few blocks of me. I debated on grabbing my staff out of the backseat for a couple seconds and decided against it. It would get in my way while running and the threat might be purely mortal in nature which would make it unnecessary.
What? It could happen.
I called on the Winter Mantle just a little bit and sprinted in the direction the scream had come from. I had been pretty fast before when I ran away from things on a regular basis. Now I would leave an Olympic gold medal sprinter in the dust. It was nice, but I was wary of relying on the Mantle too much when I didn't really need it. This time it seemed justified, though. When I got to about a half a block from where I judged the scream to have originated I saw something that made me wish I'd brought my staff after all. A flare of light that was unmistakably coming from some sort of fire. So much for a purely mortal threat.
I shook my new shield bracelet out of the sleeve of my duster as I ran. I was better with raw magic than I had ever been before thanks to Mab's training regimen (which consisted of trying to kill me every morning for eleven weeks), but I still liked to use focus items when possible. They cost me less energy and gave me a little more control over what I wanted. Since I'd left my staff in the car and hadn't gotten around to making a new blasting rod yet I was stuck with raw magic for offense this time.
When I rounded the corner into the alley the attack was happening in I noticed two things. It was clearly supernatural in nature, and I had never seen anything like it before. One guy was holding another guy a couple feet off the ground by his throat, with one hand. That was my first clue that he wasn't strictly mortal. My second clue was the fact that he had a bare skull where his head should be and it was on freaking fire. Aside from the flaming skull for a head he was dressed like a biker with a spiked leather jacket and boots over grey pants. He also had a long chain double wrapped over his shoulder for some reason.
The fiery guy was doing something on the magic side of things to the guy he was holding. It looked a little bit like how a soulgaze looks from the outside, but I got the feeling it wasn't nearly as friendly.
"Hey, Sparky!" I shouted "Didn't anyone ever tell you it isn't polite to stare?"
Usually when I say things like that it pisses off whatever I said it to and they try to kill me instead of their chosen victim, but Sparky totally ignored me. I was actually a little offended. I mean, it wasn't the best line, but it should have at least gotten his attention.
"Okay asshole." I growled. "Object lesson time. When a wizard talks, you listen!"
Normally I would use fire in an attack, but he was too close to his victim and I figured it wouldn't be very effective since he was already on fire himself. Things that burn naturally tend to shrug off fire as a matter of course. So, I drew up my will and threw my right hand out in front of me.
"Forzare!"
The invisible bolt of pure kinetic force I had brought forth hit Sparky like a freight train. It would have turned a normal human into red goop, and even sent most supernatural heavy hitters flying. This guy was rocked by it, but nowhere near as much as he should have been. I started to get a very bad feeling about what I'd gotten myself into. This guy was maybe a few inches shorter than me and not built that heavily. A hit that hard should have knocked him into the far wall at the very least, if not through it and out the other side. But he shrugged it off like it was no big deal. Physics just didn't work like that.
Sparky dropped the guy he'd been staring at and turned in my direction. His victim wasn't moving in the slightest. Why was he staring at him like that anyway? I decided to figure that out after this fight was over. Assuming I survived it of course. He wasn't doing anything particularly threatening at the moment, just looking at me. Sizing me up I suppose.
"Protector of Chicago." Sparky said in possibly the creepiest voice I've ever heard, and I've heard some creepy ones. "This does not concern you. The threat is ended and the young lady is safe."
"Does not concern me, my ass!" I snapped back. "You just killed a guy with magic in violation of the First Law! That makes it my job to be concerned!"
I was gambling there. The Laws of Magic only apply to human practitioners. Non-humans were exempt from it. I was pretty sure it was a bluff because I was equally sure this guy wasn't human. Flaming-skull-for-a-head, creepy echoing voice, and superhuman strength all added up to Not Human.
"Killed?" Sparky replied with that Michael Myers head movement, like he needed to be any creepier. "I have not killed Alvin Morris, though he surely wishes I had. I have merely given him the punishment he deserves for his crimes And that is not your concern. Harry. Dresden."
I froze in sheer terror. He'd just said my Name. Perfectly. Not all of it, but enough that I felt the shiver of power run through me when he did it. That wasn't even supposed to be possible. He pulled my Name out of thin air and said it, just like that. If he'd decided to put power into it I'd have been totally helpless. What the hell kind of being was I dealing with that could say someone's True Name without hearing it from their own lips? I was suddenly more scared of this guy than I was almost anything I'd fought recently. But not scared enough to run when there was still someone in danger. Murphy says that trait is going to get me killed someday. She's probably right. Besides, I had an idea.
When Sparky turned to walk away I whispered a single word and gestured toward the ground at his feet. When the ice I called up had thoroughly coated the pavement I brought my hand up sharply.
"Forzare!"
And this time the pure force I conjured hit him right in the ankles. His feet shot out from under him and he landed with a sound like a bundle of sticks hitting something solid. A human would have had the wind knocked out of them, or possibly been hurt by that landing. But I was pretty sure it would just piss this guy off, so I was prepared with my next spell.
"Infriga Continus!" I shouted. My voice most definitely did not crack when I said it. No sir. That wouldn't be heroic.
Magic is fueled by your will and the energy you put into it. Emotions can add quite a bit of power to spells. Anger was a good one for offensive spells. Fear worked too, and I had plenty of that just then. The spell I used was a new one I had been working on. The Winter Mantle was all primal instinct. It didn't understand much besides violence and mating, frequently at the same time. But I was determined to use it as non-violently as possible. I had the feeling it would be bad if I gave into its urges too often. This particular spell was a containment spell using ice. I had never been very good with ice magic since I generally preferred fire and force, but the Mantle had given me an innate ability with it. This particular spell was a simple one. It covered my target with ice several feet thick and froze it to the ground beneath.
So now I had a scary fiery biker guy frozen to the ground in front of me, and still had no idea exactly what or who he was. He could be a new player or could have been knocking around Chicago for a few years. I'd been out of the loop for a while, so I didn't know one way or the other.
I took advantage of the break in the fight to take a quick look at the guy he'd been staring at. He was physically unharmed as far as I could tell, but his eyes looked weird. I don't mean oddly colored or glassy. They looked like chunks of charcoal that had smoldered for a while. Creepy. I didn't have time to examine him more thoroughly at the moment, so I made a mental note of the weirdness and turned to the girl whose screams had gotten me involved.
She was about five and a half feet tall and cute in a quirky way. She was carrying a few extra pounds, but gave the impression of being someone comfortable enough with themselves to not care. At the moment she was watching me with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.
"Okay, miss," I told her "I think you're safe now. But you should probably get out of her before Sparky there breaks out of that ice. My name is Harry Dresden. I'm a, uh, wizard."
"Yeah, genius." she replied with a respectable level of snark "I know who you are. I'm a practitioner. Name's Barb."
"Alright then." I replied "That makes this easier. Any idea why Sparky would be attacking you and your friend there?"
"Wow." she said "How could you be that dumb and still remember how to breathe?"
"Huh?" I said in the most wizardly and intelligent way I could muster
"First off, that guy isn't my friend, dumbass. He was attacking me." Barb explained "Second, the fiery guy just saved my ass and you came charging in to fight him without a freaking clue what was going on. Look at the guy's neck."
If this girl hadn't been aiming her weapons-grade snark at me, I probably would have appreciated her talent for it. As it was, I was starting to feel as dumb as she thought I was. Since she mentioned it, I took a closer look at the neck of the...victim?...assailant? As soon as I saw it, I slapped my forehead with an open palm. Gills. The guy was a Fomor servant. Sparky's hand had been covering the gills when I first saw him so I didn't notice them.
"Ah, crap." I said eloquently. "I didn't realize he was Fomor. Sorry about that."
"Yeah," she snarked back "you're a complete tool. But I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."
As she said that, she nodded her head at something behind me.
Crap.
I slowly turned and saw exactly what I expected. Sparky was back on his feet looking at me. Skulls don't have much in the way of facial expression, but the guy's body language told me he was, well, annoyed. He didn't seem actively angry, which was a good thing, but he wasn't happy either. The ice I had coated him in was now a puddle of slightly steaming water around his feet. I silently cursed myself for getting distracted by the sarcastic girl and giving Sparky a free shot at my back if he'd wanted to take it. Relieved didn't even begin to describe how I felt about the fact that he hadn't.
"Okay, um." I began. Smooth, Dresden. Really smooth. "Sorry about the misunderstanding. Guys who look like you are usually the bad guy in my experience. But you aren't, are you?"
"No, mortal wizard," Sparky responded in that uber creepy voice of his "I am not."
"So, what are you, exactly?" I asked "And what did you just do to that Fomor chump?"
"I have many names, but they are not important" he replied "I am the Spirit of Vengeance. I protect the innocent and punish those who spill innocent blood."
"Well, that certainly explains not much at all." I told him "You got a name I can call you? I mean, I could keep calling you Sparky."
"I was given a name many years ago that will suffice" Sparky said "Mortals gave it to me, so it seems...appropriate. You may call me Ghost Rider."
"Ghost...Rider?" I asked, slightly confused "I didn't see a whole lot of riding going on."
Ghost Rider gave me a look that somehow managed to be condescending and nodded farther down the alley at the motorcycle I had completely failed to notice until that moment. Hey, I was busy and it's not like the motorcycle was doing anything particularly threatening.
"Still. Ghost Rider? Who gave you that name, anyway? Makes you sound like a comic book character. How's Spider-Man doing these days?"
See? I can be diplomatic.
"You take your duties as a protector seriously." Ghost Rider intoned. Seriously, that's the only way you can describe his speech. The guy didn't just talk, he intoned.
"Of course I do." I told him. "This is my city. It's my job to keep the vanilla mortals safe from supernatural predators. And their own ignorance, sometimes. You wouldn't believe how often a mortal gets in trouble because they lipped off to something that can squash them like a bug if they get offended."
No, the irony was not lost on me there. Not at all.
"Be that as it may, do not interfere with me again." Ghost Rider echoed at me "Your intentions were noble, but I will not tolerate a mortal involving themselves in my business again. No matter the power they wield. Or the Court they represent. Your liege would not appreciate the need to acquire a new Knight."
Yikes. How much did this guy know about me? And how did he know it? It's not like we shared life stories before I walloped him. I was still a little unnerved by him using my Name like he had. It shouldn't have been possible to do, but he did it without blinking. Did he blink? Hard to tell, really. Definitely needed to find out more about this guy if he was going to be in Chicago for any length of time.
"What exactly is your business?" I asked him "Difficult to stay out of it if I don't know what it is. And if it involves mortals being endangered, we might have an issue. You might be tough, but you wouldn't be the first heavy hitter I've taken down."
Hooray for bravado!
"As I said." The Rider replied "I protect the innocent and punish those who would spill their blood. We are not so different in that, you and I."
"Yeah, I got that part." I said "Still haven't told me what you did to that guy. You have the Power of Stinkeye or something?"
"It is called the Penance Stare." Ghost Rider rasped. "Whoever receives it feels all the pain and suffering they have inflicted on innocents throughout their life."
Sounded a lot like a weaponized soulgaze to me.
"Sounds like a party." I said "Is it lethal?"
"It can be so for the very worst offenders. Not often, but it does kill the recipient on occasion." he indicated the Fomor goon in a crumpled heap "This one will likely be incapacitated for several weeks. And now this conversation is at an end."
After making it clear he was no longer interested in talking, Ghost Rider walked over to his bike and climbed on. The second he touched the handlebars the motorcycle's tires burst into flames and the engine turned over with a rumble that had the undertone of an almost sentient sounding growl to it. He took off past me and exited the alleyway at probably upwards of sixty miles an hour, making a turn at the end that defied the laws of physics. I ran to the sidewalk and looked for where he had gone, but the only motorcycle within sight was being ridden by a guy with dirty blonde hair that looked like any other biker out for an evening ride.
"Crap. Harry, what the hell did you just get yourself into?" I asked myself.
Unsurprisingly I didn't have an answer.
Author's Note
Hey guys, I'm back with a totally revamped version of my Dresden/GR story. Some plot elements will remain, but others will be altered.
I decided to shift the timeline to occur post-Skin Game for a couple reasons.
I wanted Harry to be on somewhat more even footing with Ghost Rider and having access to the Winter Mantle will make him more of a match.
Can't have Harry having too much help. After Skin Game a lot of his allies are either out of commission or otherwise occupied and not available to help. Harry's at his most interesting when he's largely on his own.
I spent a lot of the intervening time doing research for this story and re-reading a few Dresden books in an attempt to get his personality down a little better and get closer to Jim Butcher's writing style. I'm still putting my own spin on it, but I want it to feel as much like a Dresden story as possible.
What kind of research, you ask? You'll find out later. This one is pretty ambitious and I wanted to be as accurate on certain...things as I could.
If all goes according to plan I'll be updating this one every few weeks at most.