ooOO0OOoo

Capitolo Due.

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*Ring* *Ring* *Ring* *Ring* *Ring* *Ring*

Click

The male voice that picked up sounded rough. Tired. Bone-weary might have been a better description. The politeness in it was forced and the man on the other side already sounded like he didn't particularly want to be having this conversation.

The voice also sounded like freaking James bloody Marsters, without the phony English accent. Just like I remembered.

"Harry Dresden speaking," the voice said with forced politeness just this side of professional. "How can I help you?"

That was the moment I realized I should have probably thought of what I was going to say before picking up the phone. My mouth opened and closed a few times on its own as my brain tried to process a great many things at once, such as what I should say, how I should say it, and oh yeah, the man who was my favorite protagonist in a book series of all time might or might not have been on the phone with me at the moment. It was like… what would you say if you were suddenly on the phone Yoda? Suddenly my tongue felt entirely too big for my mouth.

"Hello?" said the man calling himself Harry Dresden, annoyance dipping heavily into his tone. "If this is a crank call I've got to tell you buddy: I'm really not in the mood."

"I think I can do magic," I blurted out. "And I don't want to get my head chopped off."

I winced. Oh yeah. Silver tongue and rapier wit, that's me. Earth swallow me whole right now please.

There was a sudden silence on the other side and what sounded like a tired exhale. I could almost see the man on the other side running a weary hand through his hair. "Look…" so-called Harry Dresden began again, his voice a good deal more patient and less hostile this time. "Where did you get the idea that someone was going to come and chop off your head?"

Crap. The whole White Council thing was supposed to be a secret wasn't it? That little detail had sort of slipped my mind when I'd started speaking without filters. I wasn't ready to open up the can of worms of everything that I might or might not know. Instead I made the snap decision to go with something that was probably believable.

"I've been doing some research and talking to a few people. There are rumors that sometimes scary men come and threaten people who are practitioners into not doing certain things. Decapitation may have been mentioned." Pause. "On second thought probably not how I should have opened up our conversation Mr., uh, Dresden." I can't tell you how bizarre it was to feel like I was possibly speaking to Harry soddin' Dresden. It just… I might as well have been speaking to Bilbo Baggins for how believable (or unbelievable as it were) the whole thing actually was at the time.

"Uhugh," he said, a trace of skepticism in his voice. "Look, first of all – what's your name Miss?"

"Rachel Bicchielli," I replied instantly without thinking… before smacking my face with my palm. I wasn't supposed to just give my name away! At least not without altering my own pronunciation or something. At least I hadn't blurted out my middle name too to go along with it. Though at that point I wouldn't have been surprised if I somehow managed to pull that off in the next five minutes.

"Alright look Ms. Bicchielli. What you're experiencing may or may not be magic. Why don't you tell me what's been going on and we'll take it from there?"

Sounded reasonable enough though for some reason I still found myself nervous at the situation. Still, haltingly at first, and then with increasing confidence I began to tell him everything I had been experiencing for the past month or so. The milk, the instances of possible superhuman feats, how I think I may have caused a plant to double in size overnight before it died abruptly, how a squirrel that had been flattened by a car had started breathing for a few seconds as I walked next to it before going back to being dead. "Harry" didn't say a word as I rambled, my words coming faster and tumbling over each other as I vented my spleen. I'd started to go in depth about my growing fear of drinking milk and possible use of such an ability to ferment alcohol when his voice cut me off.

"Well Ms. Bicchielli, it does sound like you might have a considerable burgeoning magical talent," he said in carefully measured tones. Most of all he did not sound very excited about it. That made me frown.

"Assuming I do have – magic. 'A considerable burgeoning magical talent' as you said," and boy did it feel awkward to be saying that kind of stuff out loud. "Why does it sound like you don't think it's a good thing?"

Mr. Dresden seemed a little taken aback by what I said. "What? No, no. Magic is a wonderful thing. It is the very stuff of life itself. It's very much a good thing, believe me."

"Then why the… grumpy unenthused response?" I asked as delicately as I could.

"Just – look kid, Ms. Bicchielli, right now isn't really a good time. I'm extremely busy with an important project. To be safe you'll probably need at least some degree of help if your magic really is as strong as it sounds…" he said before trailing off. "Look, in the meantime I've got some brochures that might help tide you over until I can get you set up with someone. Why don't you come by my office and pick up a few of them? They should be able to answer a great many of your questions. That's what I made them for in the first place."

The hell? Why did it sound like he was trying to pass me off for somebody else to teach me stuff that I needed to know? Learn to control your magic from a brochure? Seriously? What happened to the legendary Harry Dresden weakness for anything female in distress? The guy was practically blowing me off.

If I kept going on the assumption that this was the Harry Dresden – just what was going on in his life right now?

"I can't just come over and pick them up," I said, my voice holding a trace of concern and annoyance for him despite my best efforts to keep it neutral. "I live in Cleveland."

"Oh," he said sounding genuinely surprised. "Well if you have an address I could mail them to, I'd be happy to send a couple of them your wa-"

"Actually," I said cutting him off. "I'm going to be in Chicago soon since I'm… going to be going to the University of Chicago."

And holy crap I just pulled all of that literally right out of my behind. I had in no way been planning a trip to Chicago. I'd never been the least bit interested in going to the city until now. If it wasn't for this "magic" business I'd have been perfectly happy never setting foot there in my entire life.

Then again it wasn't completely crazy. I was seventeen but I had skipped a year and a half. I was about a month away from graduating high school as salutatorian with an almost record setting number of AP credits. I would have been the valedictorian too if that smarmy parasite Benjamin Po wasn't such a shameless brownnosing ass kisser with all the staff. Point was if I really, really wanted to I could probably get into U of C without too many problems. Not that me and my mom could really afford it. But with a single parent and my grades I'm sure I'd qualify for financial aid and-

"I… see," his voice said, pulling me back from my wandering thoughts. "Well we'll probably want to meet at some point when you're in Chicago then. Given how your magic is developing it probably shouldn't wait too long. Then I can get a better idea of how to help you." Boy did he sound tired. Just what is wrong with you Harry Dresden-like person?

I thought I should probably do the man a favor and get off the phone with him. It sounded to me like he was itching to be done with me and go back to his "important project". If he was anything like book Dresden that probably meant that lives were at stake and innocent people needed saving. I swallowed, suddenly feeling guilty at having intruded on his time. My problems weren't as important as all that in the grand scheme of things.

"I'll give you a call when I'm in Chicago," I said to him, having absolutely zero idea how I was going to possibly convince my old-fashioned, overprotective mom to let me take a trip to a major city three states away.

"Right. Until then Ms. Bicchielli." Then with zero fanfare he hung up. The abruptness of it left me feeling slightly miffed. How rude.

I pulled my phone from my ear and just sat there staring off into space for the better part of half an hour. So. That had happened. I'd had a conversation with a man calling himself Harry Dresden, who seemed to take the existence of magic for granted and didn't seem to be surprised at all by the reality-breaking weirdness that had been going on in my life lately. He was from Chicago and sounded exactly like the actor from Buffy who narrated all the Dresden Files audiobooks (minus Ghost Story – what they were thinking not using Spike Marsters for that one I'll never know).

Yet I still wasn't convinced that was the Harry Dresden from my favorite book series that I had read in my previous life. And I wouldn't be convinced, not anything close to 100%, until I got to see and talk to him in person. And until I saw some of the other characters from the books in the flesh. And until I saw something iconic like the Blue Beetle – assuming this wasn't after Changes and the Blue Beetle hadn't been crunched together with Thomas's shiny white Jag yet. And maybe he would also need to make some awful Star Wars reference for me to truly believe. Also, he had better not look like the guy from the TV show. I hated that guy.

It was then that my cell phone let out high pitched irritating noise that had me reflexively covering my ears. The noise went on for about five seconds before it slowly died with a whimper. Wincing at the unexpected aural pain I checked my phone. The screen was now fuzzy, the display looking like it was covered in white snow. I was confused for a few moments before it clicked. Magic. Wizard. Techbane aura.

Fuck.