Notes: A one-shot written for the "lost" challenge at the LiveJournal community "dresdenflashfic". You're either going to get this one or you aren't :-)
(Again, one-shot... no current plans to continue this.)
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Destination Unknown
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"Well..." Bob said as he looked across the crystal blue ocean water that glinted in the sunshine. "I do suppose this is better than the time you transported us to that polar ice sheet."
"Yeah, yeah," Harry muttered as he used his hockey stick to draw a wide circle in the white sand.
"Transportation spells are just not your forte, Harry. We all have little weaknesses in our power."
"Oh yeah?" Harry said half distractedly as he finished out the circle. "What's yours?"
"Hmmmmm... alchemy was always a challenge. Just could never get it quite right though the elixir of life I tried to brew DID become a popular alcoholic beverage in my day."
Harry got to his knees and started to carefully draw symbols in the sand. He looked up at the ghost and said, "Yeah? And how did the whole turning ordinary metals into gold turn out for you?"
"Even less productive, I'm afraid. I managed to transmute copper into clay and iron into stone." He sighed dramatically. "Yes, I'm sorry to say I never could master the practice."
"No one is good at alchemy, Bob, and besides, it's forbidden."
"Oh yes, forbidden, and heaven knows neither of us has ever been known to break the rules."
"Dammit!" Harry growled and wiped away the glyphs he had been working on.
"What is it?"
"The damn sand. I can't carve any decent symbols in it. It keeps filling in if I push too deep."
"Perhaps try using wet sand, or perhaps clearing some bare ground in there." Bob nodded in the direction of the verdant jungle that was encroaching on the beach.
Harry stood up and looked to the thick vegetation. "Let's try the wet sand first. I'd hate to get lost in there."
"Oh yes, because you know exactly where you are right now."
Ignoring the ghost, Harry headed to the edge of where the sea lapped up against the shore. He used the end of his hockey stick to drag a pile of the moist sand a couple of feet away from the reach of the surf then got to his knees again to spread the sand out and pat it down into a relatively flat surface.
With Bob commenting and correcting from over his shoulder, Harry redrew a circle and carved out the required symbology with much greater success. He wiped the sand from his hands and got to his feet.
"That ought to do it."
"Yes, but do try to execute the spell so that we return somewhere in the vicinity of Chicago."
Harry planted the hand of the hockey stick into the sand, closed his eyes in concentration, and spoke the spell slowly, being careful to clearly pronounce each word.
Nothing happened.
Harry looked to Bob, who shrugged and then said, "Try again, Harry. That should have worked."
Harry repeated the spell, but achieved the same result.
"You did charge your staff fully before attempting the first transport, did you not?"
"Of course I did," Harry snapped. "Something's not right."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning not just that the spell didn't work..." Harry trailed off in thought and tossed the hockey stick down. He took a few steps back and then reached for it, attempting to summon it. Nothing happened. "Something in me isn't working."
"You just need to focus harder, that's all," Bob said firmly. "Try the transport spell again. Take it as slowly as you need to. You can do this."
Harry took a deep breath and nodded. He leaned down to retrieve the hockey stick, but then froze. In the moist sand, he saw his own footprints... and another's. Faint, not as heavy as his own, but there.
"Bob," he whispered.
"Yes?"
Harry stood and stepped close to Bob, then reached out a hand to pass it through the ghost. His hand went in, but it wasn't like passing through air: there was resistance, there was substance.
Bob gasped and stepped backwards. "I felt that."
"What the hell is going on here?"
As if in response, a loud clanking, crashing, roaring noise emanated from the direction of the jungle. Harry and Bob both turned and saw the trees in the far distance shaking and swaying as something moved through them. And on the edge of the greenery, where the beach and forest met, a rotund man with thick curly hair stood staring at them. The man uttered a single word.
"Dude."