Chapter 2 – Boundaries

Mortals lived on one plane. That was one of the rules about human life. They pottered around like insects in a hive, going through particular patterns from the grand to the tiny minutiae of simply living in the world. Humanity existed in one dimension, the supernatural beings on another; the Nevernever, aptly named in these modern times for its paradoxical nature of fictional allusions and indisputable fact. Lloyd was a man who liked rules and facts. They provided structure and the tacit simplicity of an arranged order of processes. And that very strength became their weakness. He stood in the office of his warehouse, looking through the wide window onto the floor of the building. Much of his equipment was still in boxes. He had gone through a lot to acquire it all, the books as well as the tools. It had taken years, in all, but he'd found his answer.

Mortals could wax lyrical all they wanted about romantic magic, about fairies and witches, about wands and broomsticks. Yet in truth, magic was a most practical process. Numbers became symbols, pictograms representing certain concepts, elements or objects. Where a mathematician must have experience and understanding to solve a problem, it also held true that a wizard must understand the nature of their discipline in order to utilise it. They must also have something else. Power. That was how all students had had it explained to them. In whatever language, in whatever era, the notion was the same. And a 'notion' it was indeed; this vague image of power which humanity called 'magic'. In all its forms of fact and fiction it was inherently….unknowable. Wizards had died trying to divine its nature, to unmask its true face. Some had held a similar obsession with life and death, a border which it was once thought only fiction could cross. Now wizards had been known to explore the undiscovered country in thought and, occasionally, deed.

So Lloyd had taken the notions and taken the symbols and the power and had re-formed them. The way between the worlds was not so stringent, not any more. Not where it could be transformed and bent at will. Given the right amount of power applied in just the right way, states of matter were forced to change. It was that simple, and both wondrous and terrifying. If the boundary between life and death could be manipulated in a similar fashion, then true immortality could be attained. It would enable the most indeterminate creatures upon the threshold of the worlds – ghosts and mere spirits – to regain mortal form, to be anchored to the world once more. However, the previous attempts had failed. The wizard had attempted to summon and bind a spirit, imprisoning it until he could create a body. But the spirit had broken free as soon as the two were fused. Time and again this had happened, leaving behind only the physical traces of blood and ash smeared upon the floor of the old warehouse. Material. Filthy.

Yet when a physical combined with the soul, or if the energy of a spirit was manifest in a corporeal form that would be when Lloyd's dream would be complete. But the problem remained that the spirits has almost uniformly rejected the bodies they were given to. No, if Lloyd wanted to harness a soul into the physical world, he had no choice but to find one which already had an anchor to it. It was almost a shame there was only one such soul in existence.

The wizard turned from the window to face his desk. An orderly stack of papers sat in the middle. At first glance, no-one would see a connection between them. Some dated back decades, others were copies of far older documents from centuries ago. They were title deeds to houses, inheritance payments and lists of names and addresses. Alastair had paid a lot of money for such a collection of archived records. And he had done it for a good reason, for one item connected all the places listed, from the seventeenth-century family home in the English county of Wiltshire to the single but large manor-house in America. And there, on top of the pile was a single address, the most recent. It was local, and far less grandiose then any of the others. A shop, Lloyd thought, was almost an insulting abode for the aim of his quest. And its owner had a reputation of his own, one of a family known for practicing black magic. The man had even been convicted of it himself, for breaking the first law. Though still relatively young and inexperienced, this Harry Dresden could prove a problem. Nevertheless, Lloyd had come too far to back out now.

He had estimated it would take the best part of the day for Greg to get as far as Dresden's home. That had given him several hours to secure his spells – the result of which was simply a mirror, but whose reflective surface was now showing something other then the office's cracked ceiling. His test-subject had reached its destination. The tracking device Lloyd had affixed to the man was, he admitted, a good idea. Once activated, it would transmit visual and audio information from wherever Greg was. In television shows, similar devices were used by fictional spies. If Lloyd were to concede that the 'normals' of the world had achieved anything of merit, it was that their imagination – stretching as it did far beyond their capabilities – was great indeed. It was rather ironic, then, that a group of people who could write of men going into space to fight monsters could not conceive that the monsters might be closer to home.

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Harry stared at the person in front of him. For a moment he wondered if his mind, inebriated and over-tired, was playing tricks on him. The magical energy centred in the room spoke of a being of immense spiritual potential: volatile, intelligent, even, depending on its original nature. Certainly not a simple psychic imprint doomed to infinitely repeat a soul's old memories. Yet what now stood before him and Bob looked to be none of those things.

It was a man, or at least man-shaped. So erratic were the magical energies pouring from the form in fires of yellow and gold that Harry could not ascertain what the thing was through either form of sight. It shimmered like a mirage, fading from a solid if iridescent form of a man, to a vague outline with the limbs and head marked out only by pinpricks of light. Curiously Bob had not reacted since commanding the 'ghost', if that's what it was, to come forth. He stood in silence looking at the being as it flickered like a will-o'-the-wisp.

As Harry opened his mouth to address the visitor, it seemed to become solid as the lights which marked out its body came together, forming something which was definitely human. The man was dressed in filthy clothes, his face and coat splattered with mud.

The man inhaled slowly, as though gathering strength for some exertion. With great difficulty, he turned his head from one side to another, but his eyes seemed unfocussed even as he looked at Harry.
"You…..D-Dresden?"
Harry blinked, not exactly expecting this man to speak, let alone intelligibly.
"Um. Yeah. Thas', that's me…."
The man grunted, nodded and reached a hand towards his face in apparent relief. What happened next made Harry jump, as the man's hand went through his face, passing through it leaving a trail of sparkling light, much like when Bob appeared from his skull.
"You, ah, you have a reason for coming here?" Harry shook his head, asking the one question that came to mind. Ghosts didn't normally turn up in his house. The combination of the wards and the constant presence of a far more potent spirit tended to dissuade your average wandering soul from meandering into Dresden's territory simply out of chance or curiosity.
"Home." The man muttered, swallowing and wrapping his arms around himself. He was shivering, Harry noticed. It was yet another unusual trait, as although some ghosts could maintain the illusion of such physical reactions, they simply didn't feel changes in temperature. Which meant that this poor bastard was afraid and showing it.
"Want…to go home. There was…a man. Said he'd make me better. Wanted me to do something."
This was, slightly, more coherent information Harry nodded in understanding. "He made you an offer? You got to go home if you did what he asked?" Perhaps, Harry reckoned, this man had been summoned by an ectomancer, one who had demonstrated both crappy spell-work and lax morals in binding this man to any kind of deal and leaving him in this state. It was stuff like that that gave perfectly decent mediums a bad name.
"Mmm" The man nodded, his voice and gaze wavering as much as his body seemed to, shimmering in the air once more. He took a step forward, and Harry heard his foot make contact with the floor. Showing his surprise would have disturbed the man more, so he asked another simple question, "Look. You know my name, right? What's yours?"
"Miller. Greg Miller."
"You know I'm Harry, and this, this is Bob." Harry gestured to the other ghost who responded with a curt nod to Miller.
"Mr. Miller…What do remember about coming to this place?" Bob asked,
"Darkness. Lights. Things feel. Things I knew were see". Bob frowned at this, clearly wondering, as Harry was, how this 'ghost' could feel.
"And why were you sent here?"
"He wants to do this again. I found out what…before he did this. You and his plans. To make someone…like me. Only better. That's what he said, Lloyd. Called himself a wizard."
"Uh-huh?"
"Is that so?"
Responding together, Harry and Bob exchanged a glance. So, this was a wizard meddling with ghosts and mortals. Miller put his head on one side, as though listening to something. "He's coming. Here. He wanted me to see you. The ghost. Cursed." And Miller's eyes flickered to Bob, focussing upon him, before shaking his head frantically,
"I didn't want the same thing to happen. Can't stop it." Voice raised to a hysterical pitch, the man laughed, "I'm I'm sorry. Can't stop him. He'll come here. I led him. I'm sorry, I'm really…" He held out his hands imploringly, as though begging forgiveness from the wizards before him. And then he faded, form slipping away into a pale golden light as whatever energy had sustained him in the real world was spent. Harry felt the receding energy in his mind as it rushed from the room, a stab of pain leaving him reeling. Flinging out a hand shakily, he balanced himself against a table, squeezing his eyes shut against the mental assault. As he did so, he saw Bob dematerialise, as the sudden explosion of energy, rebounding off the wards, sent him unwillingly back to his skull.

After a moment, Harry opened his eyes at the sound of a voice speaking his name. Bob stood in front of him, his pale face telling Dresden that he'd not suffered any better from Miller's exit. Harry groaned thickly, "Argh, between a hangover and a ghost like that, I'd take a hangover. You alright?"
"Better then you, I'd say. Though, it has been quite a while since anything has activated that particular failsafe on my skull."
"Humph. Protecting you from anything spiritual fucking with the curse or something, isn't it?"
"Oh yes, the Council was remarkably accommodating when it came to such possibilities. Regardless of the consequences." Bob said darkly, casting a swift glance to the manacle, apparently without a chain, upon his left wrist. Setting aside his instant reaction of anger at the High Council's treatment of his friend, Harry focussed instead on the words of the ghost Miller. Bob moved aside as Harry straightened up and walked towards his desk, picking up a stray scrap of paper and a pen.
"How much do you have to write down?" The ghost enquired. "The man told you very little."
"He gave me names, Bob. His name, and the name of the man who did this to him. That's enough to work with."
"You cannot use thaumaturgy upon the man with a name alone, Harry, not if he's as powerful as he appears. You will not even be able to locate him without some physical possession. And that thing." Bob stabbed a finger in emphasis to the place where Miller had stood "is hardly a reliable witness."
"Maybe not. But you saw him. He was in trouble. He's dead, and someone is trying to make sure he doesn't quite stay that way."
"I sympathise." Bob sighed with more then a hint of sarcasm.
"It would be helpful if you did. You know more about this sort of thing then I do."
"Thank-you for recognising that-"
"And you're the one he looked at. Not me. If Miller was right about Lloyd, he's coming after you."
"That, Dresden, is all the more reason why you must be careful."
There was silence for a moment, broken by the click of Harry putting his pen on the desk. 'Dresden', was it now? Bob turned to Harry, candle-light flickering across his face, leaving him half in shadow. For a cynical moment Harry found the image terribly appropriate.
"All I want to do is find out what happened to this guy. It's just another case. This Lloyd guy could just be another hack, or he could be….worse. But if you're in trouble, I'm not about to sit idly by and see you get hurt. Not again…."

Bob did not move, his gaze not leaving Harry's face as he sent him a knowing look.
"Harry. You should know by now how much I….appreciate your support. Your friendship. Yet I cannot stress enough that this issue not one you can take on lightly. That man clearly retained physical sensations. He could affect the world."
"And, I guess you would like that too, wouldn't you, Bob?" Harry asked, cagily.
"Oh, I did. In a way, I still do, were it not for the inevitable consequence of my regaining my mortal form."
"You would eventually die." Harry latched onto the one thing he guessed the ghostly necromancer would consider.
"Ha! Indeed. And were it that simple I would perhaps relish such finality. No, no Harry." Bob shook his head sadly, and as he approached his friend, Harry could not help but see a pitying light in his eyes, even as he felt he was not being told everything.

"There is more to my existence then you realise." Bob waved a hand nonchalantly through the table they stood beside.
"More to my life and liminal death" he snarled in disdain "then you can conceive of. If it is thought that my skull, my curse is threatened, then the Council will react. In their minds they cannot risk me becoming mortal."
"What, they think you'd go seeking revenge?" Harry chuckled, part of him not wanting to seriously accept what he heard, or the truth behind Bob's words and his own, "Kill them all in fire and…such-like?"
"No." Bob smirked, "Bringing them death would be all too easy. You see, Harry," he smiled, "They see me as dangerous, as a threat to the magical world as they know it. A curious image, perhaps, but it suits them."
"So? I've heard that from Morgan. He thinks you haven't changed. I'd like to think I know better."
"Yes….you do, don't you?" Bob sighed deeply, and now seemed deflated, looking to his former student with a sad smile. "The Council does not look on me as kindly as you, Harry. I do not want you to become implicated in my old concerns. I am warning you. That is all."
Before Harry could respond, Bob faded in a display of light and smoke, returning to his ancient prison.