Chapter 2

Michel Carpenter stopped his truck in front of the boarding house. He carefully made his way down the stairs to the basement apartment's warped metal door. Knocking, he called "Harry? It's Michel."

A few seconds later, the heavy door started moving with a painful groan. Once the opening was wide enough, a head popped out from behind it. "Hey Michel. Are you here to pick up Molly? I still had about an hour planned for this practice session."

Molly Carpenter, warlock and apprentice wizard was currently in Harry subbasement laboratory. As her teacher, he was having her practice different spells to locate items hidden around the lab.

"Actually, I came to see you."

Dresden opened the door the rest of the way and let his friend in. The wizard was tall, with messy dark hair. In the past, he had described himself as made of wire, but he had put on some muscle in recent years. Supernatural baddies didn't go down easy, so it was a good idea to be in shape if you were going to face them almost on a weekly basis the way Harry did.

As Michel came into the basement apartment, his eyes landed on two swords sitting on the mantelpiece. They were two of three holy swords, each having one of the nails from the true cross forged into them. One, Fidelacchius, the sword of Faith, had belonged to a wizened Asian man named Shiro, who had given his life to save Harry. Michel had wielded the second sword, Amoracchius, the sword of Love, for many years, until a semi-automatic had taken his out of the fight. Both swords now needed new masters, new knights of the cross. Like Merlin and Excalibur, the task of finding them fell to a wizard, namely, Harry Dresden.

"So what can I do for you?"

"I just met a young man. He was…troubling."

Harry sat on his sofa and invited his friend to take the mismatched love seat. "Troubling how?"

"When I shook his hand, I felt, the taint of some great evil. It might sound paranoid, but for a second there, I though he was the anti-Christ." His brow furrowed as he searched his memory for what, exactly, had triggered the feeling.

"The anti-Christ, as in, the anti-Christ? Son of Satan anti-Christ?"

Michel shook his head. "Not the son of Satan the same way Jesus Christ is the son of God, more…a chosen. A human being reared from childhood to bring about the Apocalypse."

Harry threw his head back, hands on his face. "Hell's bells Michel, the Apocalypse? Didn't we just stop one of those?"

Several months before, a group of Fallen Angels, each one bound to one of thirty ancient silver coins, had tried to gain possession of the Archive, the worlds greatest magical repository of knowledge, who just happened to be housed in a little girl. Harry and his friends had stopped it, but it was the reason Michel had a cane in his hand instead of the sword.

Again, the former Knight shook his head. "Not the kind of Apocalypse the Denarians could cause. I'm talking about Lucifer rising from the pit and walking the earth."

The wizard looked at his friend wide eyed. "And I don't suppose it occurred to you to slug him in the back of the head and tie him up?" He might have suggested murder, but killing man in cold blood, even if it meant saving the world, was something he knew Michel would never consider. He kind of hated that he himself was capable of it.

"Harry, I met him at Ste-Mary's. He was praying."

That gave Dresden pause. "Okay, so he's a potential destroyer of worlds but he's truing to fight it," he eventually concluded. "Now what?"

Reaching into his pocket, Michel withdrew the bloody napkin and handed it to Harry.

"How'd you manage to get his blood?"

"He had three gashes on the inside of his forearm, deep enough to need stitches. He started bleeding at the church. He gave me the napkin to wipe my hand before he left."

"Which means he isn't concerned at all about leaving his blood lying around. Which means he's probably not a member of the magical community." Blood can be used for all sorts of things if you know the right spell. He took the napkin. "Lets see what we can do. Come on Grasshopper."

Molly Carpenter appeared by her father, where she'd been hiding under a magical veil. "How did you know this time?"

"You, little missy, have been known to eavesdrop. Your father showing up to talk shop isn't the kind of thing you'd ignore."

Molly was in her early twenties and tall, a trait she had inherited from her mother, along with her magical abilities. Her hair was nearly platinum blond, except for some of the tips dyed it a variety of pinks, blues, and purples. She had a few tattoos and just enough metal on her face to make her weary of high power magnets. She also had a body that, lets just say that on one wizardly outings that had evolved Molly getting drenched, Harry had ended up actually having to beat a boy back with a stick. She was highly sensitive to magical energies and good with spells that required finesse rather than brut strength – the latter was Harry's forte. She was also a terrible cook.

"Now come on. You get to try one of those spells on something outside the lab."

The three of them went down to the basement. Molly set up a magic circle on the small desk Harry had brought down there for her. She poured some of her will into the circle to activate it, and used the blood and a crystal on a silver chain to guide her to the mystery man. The crystal spun a bit, and then started glowing and emitting a high-pitched whine. Two seconds later, it exploded.

"What did I do?" screeched a panic and wide-eyed Molly from where she had ducked. Tiny shards of quarts littered the floor around them.

Harry inspected the damage then glared at the bloody napkin. He picked it up, moved to his own worktable, and set up a new circle, only he used a shoestring instead of a crystal. Just like with Molly's location spell, the string made a few lazy movements. Then it started smoking. Harry broke the circle and dropped the smouldering shoestring before it could catch on fire.

"Woh," commented Molly. "Does that happen a lot?"

Harry just starred at the blackened shoestring. "Bob!" he shouted.

"Yeah boss?" Orange lights lit up in the scull sitting on one of the shelves. Said scull was inhabited by a spirit of knowledge, a.k.a. Bob the Scull. Technology and wizards don't get along, which makes it hard to do any internet research, so instead of a computer, Harry had Bob.

"Bob, what do you know that can make a location spell blow up?" The lights in the scull's eye sockets dimmed for a second as Bob tough about it. "Two possibilities. One, the person you're trying to find is under some heavy duty protection."

"But hex bags and veils would only make the spell fail, not catch on fire."

"Hence the words heavy duty. We're talking about interference from some of the higher ups from the NeverNever. The high sidhe, angels -"

"Satan?" Harry suggested.

Bob barked a laugh. "Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen. First, they'd have to let Lilith out, then break sixty-six angelic seals. The only way that'd happen is if the angels put out an invitation and hand the key to earth to the devil."

"Right, so what's option number two?"

"That the thing you're using for the spell, blood in this case, has been influenced or tainted by said higher ups."

"So whoever this kid is, he's got some pretty heavy hitters watching out for him."

"If magic doesn't work, how are we going to find him?" asked Molly.

Harry looked at the diner's name printed on the napkin. "Time for some good old detective work."

By the time Sam made it back to the motel, both his coat sleeve and his shirt, where he had pressed his wounded arm against his abdomen, were dripping red. He tried to keep blood from ending up all over the car seat as he got out, and hurried to the room.

"Hey Sam," said Dean from where he was sitting on his bed, a pile of cushions behind his back and the laptop on his legs. "Sam?" Seeing his brother rush to the bathroom, he put the laptop aside and got up. "Ow, stupid vamps. Sam, you okay?"

There was blood and bandages all over the en suit's small countertop. Sam hissed as he cleaned the wound.

"Shit Sammy, what happened?"

"It's fine, just some torn stitches."

"You did do kind of a rush job last night. And stitching up you're right arm isn't exactly obvious." He made a scooting motion, directing Sam to sit on the toilet. "Let your older, wiser brother do it this time."

Sam looked like he was going to disagree for a second, but thought better of it. "Yeah, sure, okay."

Sam had been listening a lot more since the whole Lilith think, probably to make up for all the not-listening he'd been doing before. It's not that Dean minded getting a little more respect, but it was a little too much as if all the fight had left his kid brother. But then, being tricked into unleashing the king of hell onto the human world could do that to a guy.

"You'll never guess what I found in the phone book," Dean started, trying to liven up the room as he washed his hands and Sam finished disinfecting the cuts.

"What were you looking for?"

"Pizza. I was hungry and wanted to find a place that delivered."

"It's ten in the morning."

"Dude, stop interrupting. And you've been in small town USA to long. This is Chicago. I could probably get a pizza at three AM. Anyway, I find this takeout menu tucked into the yellow pages." He turned off the faucet with his elbow, wiped his hands on sterile gauze, and got a clean needle from the extensive Winchester first-aid kit. "Only, someone must have used it as a bookmark or something, 'cause there was an ad circled on that page. He brought the skin on either side of the deepest cut together and made the first suture.

"What was it?"

Dean held out a hand in annoyance. "Trying to build up a little suspense here."

"Sorry."

"So the ad says, lost items found, paranormal investigations, consulting, advice." He made another careful suture.

"Paranormal investigations? A hunter?"

"Nuh uh." Dean shook his head, mouth split in a big grin. "Calls himself a wizard. Can you believe this nut job? The ad also says no endless purses, love potions or parties. And guess what this guy's name is. Harry."

"What, like Harry Potter?"

"Dresden actually, but still." He finishes a last stitch. "Too bad about the purses and potions, I could have used some of those, well, the endless purse anyway, you could have had the love potion."

They both cringe remembering what happened the last time Sam got close to a woman, or last times, plural, when you think about it.

"Okay, maybe not," rallied Dean. "But endless purses…"

"As opposed to fake credit cards?" suggests Sam, a small smile on his face, recognizing his brother's effort for what it was.

"Anyway, with the amount of blood you just spilled here, I think we're definitely going to need that pizza."