I gave Murphy a quick call at the station from the nearest pay phone I could find. All she could tell me for now was that SI was still doing an investigation into other related break ins similar to the one I had just been shown.

The first explanation the police believed was that dangerous wild animals had escaped from the local zoo and had gone on a rampage, but when they got descriptions of the creatures that had attacked the security guard and his statement of the slippery goo, Murphy decided to bring me in on the case.

It sounded like a clean and logical enough explanation, which is what the police and city officials most often want to hear. But with many cases of this type, there are too many holes that don't fill in the blanks very well; such as the fact that no escaped animals have been reported and no animal attack casualties have been reported either, but mostly how the creatures described didn't fit any known species and the nearest zoo was in Lincoln Park and this took place in the financial district.

I told Murphy that I will report any information I find to her as soon I as I could before I hung up the phone. She gave me 24 hours, and that's usually generous from Murphy. Anything I find today or tonight I am to have a report made for her by this time tomorrow afternoon.

It sounds easy enough but trust me, being a paranormal investigator and a wizard is not as easy as it sounds and will have plenty of drawbacks often enough.

I then called for another cab to take me back to my office, not that it's any place fancy to be but a guy's got to have a work place when you go into this kind of business.

My office is located in an ordinary looking building that is like any other in the neighborhood, with a law firm practice and a psychiatrist, as well as a private investigator and only practicing wizard in the Chicago phone book.

My personal office is on the fifth floor in a corner of the building where my desk sits in front of two windows at a perpendicular angle. At the door is a table with fliers explaining about magic in the modern age such as Magic is Real or Wizards and You, among others, most I've written myself.

The ceiling fan just gave a faint squeak as it spun lazily overhead and I smelled the familiar pleasant aroma of old coffee from my old fashioned coffee maker.

I looked at today's mail that had come in earlier which sat untouched on my desk. Some of it was more junk mail from Best Buy or some other high tech store line, which I keep trying to tell them to stop doing, and a couple of others were payments for past cases.

One of them was a little less than half of what my usual fee is, but that's another issue I have to put up with when I have to work with even the strongest of skeptics. The other was a bit more generous, a full payment plus a ten percent bonus all because I helped to relocate a few gnomes from a middle aged man's country home.

Those little guys are helpful to humans much of the time, but they do tend to occasionally play annoying but harmless pranks on people out of boredom.

All I did was help find them a new home for their growing family.

Still these new payments may be enough to help me pay off a few overdue bills, get a healthy dinner from Burger King, and put whatever is left into savings.

Hey, even a wizard needs to put away a little money for a rainy day, and believe me there's always plenty here in Chicago.

After checking for any messages from my message company, I decided to call it a day at the office and head for home to consult with someone I knew could help me in this new case about who may be summoning ghouls and what these other monsters may be.

My home is more of a bachelor pad than a real home, but hey I call it home. I live in the basement of an old brownstone that used to be a women's townhouse, among other things in its long colorful history, and I've occasionally done chores for my more elderly neighbors such as my land lady.

After walking down the stairs to my front door and lowering my wards, I opened my front door with a bit of a struggle. The next thing I knew I felt a heavy bump against my legs that almost toppled me over as I began to walk inside.

That would be my grey bobtailed cat, Mister. I found him in an alley when was still a tiny kitten, but I swear his father must've been a mountain lion because he's the size of a bobcat and thirty pounds of muscle in a domestic house cat.

As soon as the door began to open he dashed inside and jumped to his favorite stop on the top of my bookshelf and settled for a nice cat nap.

If only I could do that so easily.

I bought all of my furniture at second hand stores with a comfortable couch and a padded chair, both in front of a simple full fire place with a mantle above where I have an unused engagement ring. On the cold stone floor I have an assortment of throw rugs, one wall has a tall bookshelf where I have a modest collection of paperback books and one wall even has an old fashioned Star Wars poster, the one with Luke Skywalker holding up his lightsaber with Princess Leia down by his leg with a hand sensuously and defiantly on her hip.

My kitchen is just an alcove with a sink and an icebox, where I quickly made myself a ham sandwich and grabbed a coke, and the next smaller room is my bedroom, where there's barely enough room to walk with an extra long twin bed, a tiny closet and an even tinier bathroom.

I have no kind of modern technology whatsoever, and for good reason.

I don't even have heated plumbing, so I've always had to tolerate cold showers for most of my adult life.

My tiny apartment may not be much to look at but it's comfortable as any place for Chicago's only practicing wizard, it's warm enough in the winter and cool enough in the summer. Aside from only candles I have strategically placed around my apartment and my large fire place, the only source of light I have is a small rectangular window in my living room that is placed at street level.

As soon as I finished my quick snack, I put on a cozy bathrobe and opened a floor door with a pull down stair way that lead down to my lab, which was also the sub-basement of the old town house.

Believe me there's a reason why wizards are iconic for wearing long robes, and it's not always some fashion statement. It's because our labs get very cold, and mine is always cold and even worse than hell in the freezing Chicago winter.

My lab is about a little more than half the size of the rest of my apartment, and all around are wire shelves with Tupperware, boxes, and bottles filled with everything a wizard would need to make potions or any other kind of magic spell, some of it obvious and some of it questionable.

And before you ask, no I don't have any eye of newt. Hollywood has gone really overboard using that cliché.

The center of my lab had a rectangular wooden table where I do most of my work that takes up most of the lab and still barely leaves enough room for moving around. The only open space in the entire lab and clear of any physical objects is a copper circle imbedded into the stone floor about four feet wide.

It's my summoning circle for when I need to call up some extra special expertise on certain cases, which I try not to do very often.

I looked up at the tallest wire shelf in my lab, which had candle holders covered in lava spills of candle wax of various colors. Also there was a small stack of Victoria's Secret magazines and a small collection of erotica novels which all surrounded a bleached white human skull.

Yes, a real human skull.

"Hey, Bonehead, wake up," I said to the skull, "It's time to get to work."

Small orange specks of light glowed from the skull's eye sockets as it then opened its jaws wide to give a long loud yawn from a long nap.

"That joke's getting really old, Harry," it said, "When are you going to come up with new material?"

"Don't knock the classics, Bob, they never go out of style."

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you Bob the Skull.

Okay, his name isn't actually Bob and he isn't really a talking skull. He's an air spirit of intellect with more knowledge and experience in magic than anyone living I've ever met, and he's forgotten more about the Mystic Arts than I'll ever know.

Except Bob doesn't forget anything, which makes him all the more valuable to me.

The skull just happens to be a physical object that Bob can safely inhabit, because he can't exist outside it without a solid corporeal form because of his nature of being only an air spirit.

I inherited him from my late mentor, Justin DuMourne, after he died and I've been able to count on Bob ever since then.

More on that later.

Anyway, the name Bob is just something I've called the spirit of the skull just because it's easier than something like 'spirit-of-knowledge-who-lives-in-a-skull' or 'spirit-thing-with-a-bad-attitude-and-takes-up-space-on-my-shelf'.

As annoying as he can be most often, I know I can always count on him for any kind of magical assistance.

From another shelf I took down a legal pad of paper and a freshly sharpened number 2 pencil as I told Bob about this latest case SI is working on and what I've been told about it.

Bob just gave a low hum as if thinking about something.

"Ghouls just randomly attacking a financial building that happens to be owned by Johnny Marcone," Bob said, "And a security guard saved by other unknown monsters. Well, we both know ghouls aren't always the sharpest tact on the board when it comes to some of the more dangerous creatures of the Nevernever, Harry. These creatures may all have been just the bad out of control summoning of a young wizard now discovering his magic, and that's best left for the Wardens to deal with. So unless you can tell me anything else that happened or any more details about these other monsters, I've got nothing for you."

I just frowned at him, it's so rare that Bob wouldn't have anything to tell me with his knowledge of magic and the supernatural that would rival the Library of Congress.

But I know him too well. He wants something.

"I don't have time for your bad joking, Bob, so you tell me anything you might know or I'll just put you in a box at the bottom of my closet for the next two or three hundred years."

Bob just scoffed, this is just an old game of ours that we've always played since before I even got my investigative license. He knows I would never do such a thing to him, and I know he's more valuable to me as my magical 'assistant' than just another piece of junk filling up my closet.

"Sure, sure, Harry. But it's just been so slow lately in the last several months. I need to get out and see the world."

"No, Bob. The last time I let you out the police were called about an out of control rave at an adult movie store, and don't deny you didn't have something to do with it because I know you do."

If it was possible for the creepy smile of a skull to become bigger, somehow Bob did it.

"Ah, c'mon, Harry, it wouldn't be so bad. I promise to keep it down to a minimum tonight."

I just gave him a dirty look as I said, "I knew you'd be difficult, Bob, that's why I bought this before I came home."

I held up a glossy magazine for him to see and his orange lights became bigger and brighter.

"The latest edition of Victoria's Secret swimsuit edition?" he exclaimed with growing excitement and squeak in his voice. He then just turned to one side like he didn't care, but I can tell otherwise.

"That's nice."

I placed the magazine next to my notepad and waited.

"Okay, skull head, spill the beans and the magazine is yours."

"Oh, all right," he complained, "But what I have to tell you is going to be worth a lot more than just a swimsuit magazine."

"I'll think about it."

He made a sound like he was clearing his throat, which is amazing because he has no throat, and began to say, "As you know, Harry, something such as a ghoul must be summoned by a mortal magic user in order to cross over into our world. But there are occasional creatures of the spirit world that can crossover on their own if they're powerful enough, such as one of the Third Race, like the Sidhe, or a deity, but even they on rare occasions need a summoning if the wizard is powerful enough."

I knew the basics of this myself already, having performed a few summons myself, but not that recently, but I wrote it down as Bob spoke just to be sure I didn't miss anything.

However, one thing caught my attention.

"What a minute, the Third Race? Exactly how many races are there, aside from humans, vampires, werewolves, demons, and fairies? Wait, are there magical Martians on Earth that I was never told about?"

Bob just turned his skull and started hitting his 'head' against the wall behind him as he let out a frustrated sigh.

He finally turned back to face me and said,

"Harry, you're a wizard, you should know this stuff already. Didn't Justin ever teach you about the Three Races?"

"No, that's what I have you for."

That first part came out a bit harsher than I intended. You see, though Justin taught me a lot about magic, in the end it turned out I didn't really know him at all.

"Alright, smart ass, try to follow me on this, and if I need to use smaller words for your caveman brain to understand better just speak up."

"Ooga booga."

"It's all very simple, Harry. There are three major races to this world, though throughout history the second and third races had had more interaction and intimate relationships than with the first. The stories I can tell you will have your libido running wild in two seconds."

"Bob. Focus."

"Oh. Right. Anyway, creatures like vampires and werewolves aren't exactly separate races themselves, though they do strongly seem like it, but thousands of years ago they were actually regular humans, the second race, that became cursed by the Third Race in various ways that got past down from one generation to the next, or they stupidly dabbled in magic they had no business to in the first place."

"So if the 'second race' is just regular humans and this 'Third Race' is. . ."

"The Fey, Harry, or more precisely Oberon's Children. Fairies, which include the Little Folk that your little friend Toot Toot belongs to. But for a bigger picture, and to make a long story short, the Third Race are all the magical beings ever written about in history including the ancient gods and goddesses of all the old pantheons you can think of. They are among the most powerful of the Third Race, and rightly so."

I could only just look at Bob with a raised eye brow in confusion. This was not exactly how it had been taught to me when I was younger and I had just discovered that magic is real.

"I thought gods were something separate from fairies and elves."

"Not really, Harry, just superior to the less powerful ones. Much like your just superior to a gibbon."

I gave him a dirty look, but the orange lights of his eyes just twinkled, I mean really twinkled, as the airy spirit within chuckled.

I just got back to business with him as I said,

"If humans are the second race, and gods and fairies are the third, than what is the first?"

"Gargoyles."

"Excuse me?"

Bob gave a groaning sigh. Obviously this was something else I should already know.

"C'mon, Harry, don't tell me you're that stupid. You know what gargoyles are."

"I only know that they're grotesque monstrous statues used for decoration on tall buildings and churches. I also know that there's a lot of them on Notre Dame."

He gave a heavy sigh.

"Okay, true, but there's a lot more to them than that. Those old stone statues are just inspired and screwed up versions of the real thing sleeping in a stone shell during the day. What do you think those statues are put up there for, besides Gothic decorations?"

"It's believed they protect the churches or buildings from evil spirits."

"Exactly, Harry. But in truth gargoyles protect, period. Now the real things are a lot more complex. Centuries before I came into Justin's possession, I belonged to a wizard who had allied with a local clan of gargoyles who agreed to allow him to live on the edge of their territory in exchange for him using his magic to protect them during the day. It worked for a little while, but unfortunately it was when the Inquisition was in full swing and the poor bastard was burned at the stake and the clan was killed in their sleep, all because it was thought a warlock was controlling a hoard of demons."

"But they aren't actually demons."

What Bob had to tell me made some sense, because I've had my share of dealing with true demons, especially in recent years. But in my youth I had a dangerous encounter with a kind of super demon called an Outsider, and as the name obviously shows virtually nothing is known about them and there's mostly just speculation about anything that's written about them.

I had a feeling that this may take a little longer than I thought it was going to, but there's always one question about what I was going to deal with in any case I took if I was going to be prepared.

"Alright, Bob, if gargoyles aren't really demons, are they still dangerous?"

"That depends."

"On what?" I asked in an almost annoyed tone.

"On how you present yourself to them and treat them in return. You see, Harry, gargoyles are as ancient as Dragons, and an honorable, stubborn and proud race. And though they are very territorial about a place they've chosen to protect as their home, they've proven to be a lot more intelligent than humans, and a lot less quick to judge or prone to pettiness. But cross them wrong and they won't hesitate to defend themselves or their protectorate. They may try anything from simply trying to scare away intruders to ripping them apart with their bare hands. So it's never a good idea to provoke them."

"So how do I avoid provoking them?"

"Think about how you don't like to be provoked, Harry, or how stupidly you tend to provoke a dangerous creature. Unless they share your pathetic sense of humor, you may want to keep that mouth in check."

I gave the skull a dirty look.

"Anyway, they especially can be really dangerous if you threaten their young, which they will defend literally to their dying breath, especially the females. And my God, the gorgeous boobs I've seen on some females. . ."

"Bob."

"Ahem. So it's never a good idea to provoke them."

I chewed on my pencil's eraser for a minute to think. I then remembered a small blood sample I'd taken from the crime scene just hours before, which Murphy had told me wasn't human.

"Do gargoyles bleed, Bob?"

He just gave another frustrated groan as he said, "Yes, Mister Obvious, though gargoyles live longer than humans and have connections to the spirit world only they understand, they're like most other mortal creatures, they bleed which means they're mortal."

I then showed him the blood sample I rubbed off from the crime scene, telling him it wasn't human.

"If I am dealing with gargoyles, Bob, I just need to be certain."

"Alright, let's have a looksee."

I opened the white cloth tissue and held it up for Bob to see.

"Hmm," he hummed after a few moments, "That's strange."

"What is it?"

"If this is gargoyle blood, Harry, there's something peculiar about it. As if it's altered somehow. There's also some small traces of human blood in it."

"Maybe some of it was the security guard's. He was pretty beat up when I saw him."

"Maybe, but I don't think so," Bob said, "I can see at least two individual blood samples there, and neither appears to be the security guard's blood. Anyway, if you're going to use that blood sample to try tracking down the owner it's too old by now."

I just gave him another dirty look, because I already knew that.

Everything Bob just told me got me thinking about what to do next while some more questions started going through my head.

If gargoyles protect, then they may have been the other monsters described by the security guard that saved him, while the others may've been ghouls or some other form of demons.

So what were they doing in Chicago now, and why?

And that still left the question of who summoned those other monsters and why they attacked a financial building belonging to Johnny Marcone.