The call had come on Monday. Bathed in the ebbing daylight, John Stallings stood across the street from the abandoned warehouse with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He reflected that the date should've been a tip off. Nothing good ever came of Mondays. It hadn't been a particularly ominous call; a security guard from the building across the street had noticed part of the chain link fence lying broken and twisted in the street. A drunk driver could've knocked it over and sped off. The odd howling noises the guard had heard could've been the wind.

Stallings sighed as he stared into the cobwebbed windows. Yeah. They could've been. 90 percent of things SI got called to investigate were mundane oddities, usually involving alcohol and college students. But there was always the other 10 percent of calls to consider.

He had finished mentally preparing himself for entering a building that, knowing Chicago, could either contain nothing but a nest of cats strung out on catnip, or a godforsaken tentacle-creature that ate human hands for fun, when a man walked up to the building from the other side of the street. Stallings eyed him. He didn't recognize the man's face, but looking closely… Stallings groaned. He was wearing a cloak, and Stallings could make out what looked like a sword strapped to his left hip. He'd been in SI long enough to recognize a wizard when he saw one.

Suddenly another man appeared, from the opposite direction. He was taller and more solidly built, with a gait reminiscent of a heavily armored dinosaur. Stallings winced. Any policeman knew that face; Hendricks was the infamous right hand man of the city's favorite mob boss. Between him and the wizard, this looked to be a fascinating night.

"Excuse me," Stallings called out as he hurried towards the entrance. He flashed his badge in a perfunctory attempt to instill order into the proceedings. "Chicago PD. There's an investigation underway; this building is currently off limits to the public."

Hendricks ignored him. Instead, he turned to the caped man. "I've got this covered. You aren't needed in Chicago right now, Morgan."

The man named Morgan scowled. "Chicago was well within the Council's jurisdiction the last time I checked; your employer will have to resign himself to my interference."

Stallings squared his shoulders and frowned at both of them. "With all due respect, I don't give a damn. It's a crime scene; you're civilians."

Morgan and Hendricks both looked at him. Then they looked at each other.

"With all due respect to Chicago PD, Detective, this particular investigation is better suited to a different skill set," Morgan said, smoothly but firmly. Without further ado, he unsheathed his sword and stalked past Stallings into the darkened entrance of the warehouse. Hendricks shrugged apologetically, drew a sawed off shotgun from a pocket Stallings hadn't even seen, and followed.

Stallings stared at the fading light glinting off of the weapons, then cursed and followed the two into the building. Like hell he was letting this happen on his watch.

The three walked quietly through the deserted corridors of the warehouse. Stallings held a flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other and tried very hard not to think about what was lurking in the miasma of darkness that surrounded them. A faint scent akin to rancid meat pervaded the air.

After a good five minute trek, Morgan stopped suddenly, squinting in the darkness and muttering unintelligible nonsense. "Ghouls," he said abruptly, jerking his head back to look at Stallings and Hendricks. "I'd thought there were only a handful, but I'd say it's closer to a dozen." He frowned ominously. "Our chances of survival are low."

Well, that was new, Stallings thought. The ghouls, not the survival chances. Stallings was pretty sure that anyone who had ever worked with Harry Dresden in a professional capacity had faced impending death at least once. Stallings glared at the warden's back. "This is what you get for entering a crime scene without police permission," he muttered.

Morgan gave him a look. Stallings was really beginning to hate those looks.

Hendricks shrugged and pulled out his gun. "So, Ghouls."

"Are they like zombies?" Stallings asked. If Morgan was going to declare certain death, it would be nice knowing what he was up against, at the very least. Zombies, he figured, couldn't be so bad. They seemed rather slow in all the movies he'd seen.

Morgan hefted his sword and waved it in patterns that Stallings presumed had some sort of arcane purpose. "No. They're faster and stronger than the average human. Though they do eat human flesh."

Lovely. "So more like the zombies from 28 Days Later than the ones from The Walking Dead?"

Morgan gave him another look and continued like he hadn't heard. Perhaps he didn't get AMC. "They may also have machine guns."

Stallings looked down at his own handgun and winced. Fucking Mondays.

They didn't talk much as they walked deeper into the warehouse; it was silent except for a handful of skittering rats and the intermittent moan coming from deeper within the warehouse.

"Should've called Dresden," grunted Hendricks.

Morgan glared. Stallings thought about the two wizards and decided there was definitely potential for clashing personalities.

"Just saying," Hendricks continued, sounding slightly annoyed. "Ghouls would be dead by now."

"Along with the entire building and countless innocents, if his previous exploits are anything to go by," Morgan growled. "Perhaps this would work better if we split up. I could work better if I didn't have to babysit for the local mortal Mafioso who somehow thinks he has a right to interfere with Council affairs."

Hendricks snarled and hefted his shotgun, "He's a signatory of the accords-"

"-because he consorted with a known traitor and practitioner of black magic-" Morgan cut in.

"-just like half the members of the council do on a regular-"

"How dare you accuse-"

"Technically it's illegal for both of you to even be-" volunteered Stallings

And of course the ghoul picked that exact moment to attack. Of course.

It burst from the shadows with inhuman shrieking, and Stallings had just enough time to gratefully realize it had no gun when it bowled him over and reached for his throat. He let out a shocked gasp as the ghoul bared its teeth.

Suddenly he felt a hot spray of blood across his face as the ghoul's head toppled to the ground. He looked up to see Morgan standing with a long suffering expression, his sword painted bright crimson with ghoul blood. He opened his mouth to say something when he saw a second ghoul, this one armed with a knife, stab at Morgan's back.

And Stallings knew, with a sickening feeling, that Morgan hadn't seen it. He opened his mouth to yell a warning, but he knew with a cold certainty that stuck in his throat that Morgan wouldn't be able to turn around in time.

He didn't have to. Hendricks twisted sharply as the ghoul leapt and let loose a spray of staccato gunfire, catching the ghoul in the face at point blank range. It fell in a mass of fleshy pulp to the ground.

Gripping his gun, Stallings jumped up and turned his back to the other men, forming a tight triangle. They worked surprisingly well together, he reflected as he shot another ghoul in the chest. It didn't die, but rather made a frustrated gurgling sound and stopped for a moment. Stallings shot it another three times for good measure

None too soon, the fight was over. Stallings blinked and stared at the masses of Ghoul remains on the ground. About a third were missing their heads, and another third had gaping wounds that belied the strength of a shotgun at point blank range.

In the sudden silence, Stallings briefly allowed himself to dream of a hot shower and a cup of coffee.

"We should search the rest of the building, just to be sure," Morgan said. Hendricks grunted affirmatively. Stallings sighed.

Fifteen minutes and another two dead ghouls later, they walked out into the cool night air, bloodied and bruised, but alive.

"That was fun, gentlemen," Stallings remarked.

"Congratulations on not dying," Morgan said.

"You're almost as good as the competent wizard," Hendricks answered.

Morgan twitched and began walking down the street.

Stallings sighed and leaned back against his squad car, wistfully thinking about the steaming coffee he was going to drink as soon as he got back to the office. And not thinking about the reports he was going to write.

Oh god, the reports. Premonitions of an intense headache crackled ominously in the back of his mind. Okay. He could do this. The shooting? Drunk college students with firecrackers. The big ones that had different colors and names like 'Hornet Swarm,' that were illegal enough that you had to drive across state lines to find, but not so illegal that they'd warrant a serious investigation. He thought back to Morgan's distinctive cape. And these kids liked to dress up as people from Harry Potter, or maybe those vampire books his teenaged nieces mooned over. And perhaps they were also horror enthusiasts/biology majors who somehow had the time and inclination to set up thirteen incredibly lifelike humanoid bodies in an abandoned warehouse, and then embed used bullets in various vital organs so it 'looked' like they'd been shot.

Yeah. This was going to be great.

"You okay?"

Stallings looked up to see Hendricks with pretty much the same expression he'd had for the entire evening, albeit with the hint of a frown. A large gob of ghoul blood was smudged over his nose. He looked a bit like a clown, Stallings reflected. One of the evil ones that chopped people up and turned them into stage props, but still, the resemblance was there.

"Uh, yeah," he said with a wince. "Just thinking of the paperwork. Gonna be a mess."

Hendricks grunted noncommittally as he pulled a phone from his blood-splattered jacket. Flipping it open, he walked a few meters from the car, turning his back so that Stallings couldn't read his lips.

Stallings sighed and made an abortive attempt to wipe the ghoul blood from his own arms. It smeared. Might as well head back. Bullshit reports didn't write themselves. Maybe he could blame it on a gas leak? But no, the bodies… Besides, he'd used that excuse two months ago with The Missing Pizza Hut Incident. S.I. tried not to repeat freak accidents of the same nature within the same calendar year. People got nervous.

"No more bodies," Hendricks suddenly said, turning back towards him.

Stallings blinked. "What?"

"No bodies for your reports. Building got bought. Bulldozers get here in 20 minutes."

Stallings blinked again. "No bodies?" he repeated.

Hendricks nodded patiently, with the reserved manner of one talking to the very young or the very stupid. "No bodies. No blood. No bullets. No building."

He breathed in. Exhaled. "Alright. That's… ok. No bodies." He looked at the sleek, disgustingly expensive cell grasped in Hendricks' left hand. He caught the other man's eye. "And no sawed off shotgun."

Hendricks nodded imperceptibly and strolled back to his car, leaving Stallings in the parking lot, staring wistfully at the sky.

Well. Firecrackers it was, then. Stallings smoothed back his hair, not really caring about the blood anymore. He opened the door to his cruiser, and sat down slowly. Well. He sighed. Coffee first. Then shower. Then bed. The rest, for now, was going to have to take care of itself.