"Blood drinking and you don't call it a vampire, hmm?" Murphy asked as we left the examination room.

"Exchange of blood is one of the most common compacts between sentient beings," I said, shrugging. "Heck even normal everyday humans have done it in the past. Take a knife cut each other's palms..."

"Blood brothers," Murphy said nodding in understanding. "What's with the marks, notice I didn't say 'tattoos'?"

"Right, the blood-marks," I said. "Skin discoloration, it comes when the lamia bites a person, brides cause a lesser version, but the lamia gets bit a lot more so same effect. The colors and patterns are distinct to the individual family, apparently."

"That's handy to know," Murphy said.

"I'll get you a more detailed report tomorrow," I promised her. "See if I can get a copy of the Bathory report out of the Council."

"The Wardens were involved with that?" Murphy asked. "I thought they only policed mortal magic use."

"They're in the 'mortal enough' category as far as the Council and the Accords are concerned," I explained. "The lamia might argue otherwise, but they don't have a standing in the Accords, so they get more out of living under the Council's shadow than they would without it."

Murphy grunted and nodded, and I could see her restraining herself from commenting on the Council and its policies. Not that she had to in my presence, but the Forensic building probably wasn't the best place to vent.

"Is this something we're not set up for?" she asked hesitatingly.

"Should be, I've never had occasion to get in a fight with a lamia or a lamia bride before," I said, shrugging. "But I've never gotten the impression they're big league hitters. Once you had her in custody, I doubt she'd last to the trial though."

"Well, I'll talk to Stallings," she said, "but this is homicide's case right now and I doubt they're going to want to share a case with SI, or me. Not after the Splattercon debacle."

"So you called me in because..." I asked, confused.

If Murphy and SI didn't have the case, why was she calling me up to talk about it. What would she do with the situation if she had no jurisdiction to get involved.

"Because, Mr. Warden of the White Council," she said, smirking in a nostalgic manner. "I believe your job is to keep an eye on the supernatural craziness in the area and being a good friend who understands the responsibilities of such a position. I thought I just might give you a heads up and some information so that you could, you know, do your job properly. You know, instead of holding back vital information and leaving you fumbling in the dark."

I winced at the little dig.

"How long have you been waiting to use that little bit of moral payback on me?" I asked.

She turned to look up at me.

"Since you told me you'd joined the psychic police force," she said snickering.

"So when you asked me to come for consultation," I noted, "you meant that you'd be consulting me, not the other way around. I don't think consultants usually summon their clients like that, Murphy."

She shrugged.

"Ehh, whatever works," she said.

We turned a corner toward the exit and stopped momentarily as we saw a familiar face there. Turning toward us, and blinking a bit in surprise, Detective Sergeant Greene slowly took out a notepad from a pocket in his tweed suit and started writing something down in it as he started to walk toward us.

"Mr. Dresden, Sergeant Murphy," he said, accentuating her rank unnecessarily. "This is an odd place to find you."

"Even odder place to find you, thought you liked your meat a bit fresher," I responded.

Murphy gave me a glare and I almost regretted the comment. Almost.

You don't let me catch you illegally browbeating a minor and expect to get on my good side.

"Funny you should say that," he responded casually. "I thought I detected a bit of new blood in the water myself just now. Might I ask what you two are doing here? Speaking to Dr. Butters perhaps?"

"Sergeant, we're all busy people," Murphy said before I could open my mouth again. "Let's not waste our time with pointless chest-beating."

He nodded gradually.

"Fine," he said. "Though I think we'll be talking if I find you've been sticking your nose into my business again. Mr. Dresden."

He fixed me another of those glares that declared he knew I was involved somehow in something shady and not quite on the up and up. I fought down the usual impulse I had of doing something blatantly and undeniably magical to him and walked past him with Murphy.

It was a moment of mutually repressed hostility and distaste.

I'm very familiar with those, and I don't imagine that Greene is much of a stranger to them either.

"Of course he'd be on this case," Murphy said shaking her head and glancing over her shoulder. "But at least he's good at what he does."

"I don't like the way he does business," I half-growled.

"Down, Papa Wolf," Murphy said. "That incident with Molly is over and done with. Lydia Stern tore him a new political orifice over the whole thing."

"I'm not packed for a long journey right now, Murphy," I responded snarkily.

"Not packed for a..." she glanced up at me and narrowed her eyes.

"You asked me to come..." I started to say.

"Dresden, this had better not be a short joke," she said firmly. "If it is a short joke, then you had better not finish it. I believe you are well aware of the consequences."

"One little comment and you're all over me," I said, "but you get to snark at me with impunity."

"It's not my fault that I save my wise-ass credit for special occasions while you sling it about until your up to your eyeballs in past due wise-assery," she explained.

"Wise-ass debt," I said. "Funny, very funny Murph. I think I'll charge you a couple of snarks on that one."

"Which still leaves you owing me a few thousand," she returned.

"While we're on the subject of me consulting you," I said. "Think you can do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is," Murphy responded. "I don't have quite the clout I used to, you know."

"I know, Murph. God, do I know," I promised her.

"What do you need?" she asked, nodding in acknowledgment.

"Can you look into reports in Miami about fifteen years ago," I asked. "See if there's anything about an antique knife being stolen. Probably nothing there, but just in case."

"Finding lost items, I'm guessing?" she said. "Give me a better description and I'll look into it."

"Thanks, Murphy," I said with a smile.

"By the way, where's Mouse?" she asked.

"Molly, something about a stupid comment, a cute guy and a dog show," I said shrugging.


Walking down to my door, I first had to deal with Mister and his normal linebacker impression. Thirty pounds of cat into the back of your legs is nothing to sneeze at. Mister is one of those cats you hear about on the news who give bears pause.

"Hey there," I said. "Have a good walk around the block? Kill any caribou while you were out there? Terrorize a few cavemen?"

Opening my door is something that can replace a good daily work out. It was never installed properly, perhaps the person who did it was not quite as competent with this sort of home improvement project as he might have thought he was.

I certainly wouldn't know.

Once I got into the building, the mountain of fur that was the other prehistorically sized fur-bearing mammal in my life heaved himself to his feat and lumbered forward to greet Mister and I. Usually Mouse was walking around with me most of the day, but earlier my apprentice had come storming into my apartment giving some sort of panicky description about claiming to be in the dog show communities. Mouse had seemed as confused as I was, but now he was looking pretty damn proud of himself.

His mouth was open in a big doggy grin and he was puffing out his chest which proudly bore a huge and intricately woven blue ribbon.

"Oh, look at this," I said with a smile. "You're the best of show eh? Really showed all those other dogs a thing or two, didn't you."

He gave a silently little doggy laugh and the canine equivalent of an "aw, shucks" shrug.

"Argg!" Molly shrieked coming out of the lab and looking more than a little peeved. "Mouse stole the entire day! Everybody was 'Mouse, this!', 'Mouse, that', 'What an amazingly polite and unique breed!' Gah. I think Devin was going to ask Mouse out by the end of the whole ordeal."

"Devin?" I repeated, looking down at Mouse, who shrugged his shared confusion back at me.

"Never mind," Molly said, crossing her arms and shrugging back her hair.

Currently it was bleached white, a lot like the lamia lying on the slab in the Forensics Institute.

"Dr. Butters was looking for you," she said.

"Yeah, he got Murphy to track me down," I responded.

"Do we have a case then?" Molly asked excitedly.

"Murphy's not on the assignment, looks like Greene is," I told her, getting a wince in response. "But she thinks it might be Warden business, and it seems like she's right."

"So, we have a case," Molly said.

"We have a case," I agreed as I walked toward the kitchen and grabbed a coke. "Lamia."

"Lamia?" she asked. "Isn't that one of the Lawbreaking examples? Lesbian vampires, right?"

I sighed expressively and looked down toward Mouse.

"Everything's the lowest common denominator around here, isn't it?" I asked.

The dog shook his head in commiseration.

"Anyway, what do you want me to do?" Molly asked.

"Right now, not much," I said. "Go to the tome on near mortal critters and research up on the matter first. And there'll be a quiz later."

"What, why?" she demanded.

I didn't say what I was thinking, give credit to Pavlov, sometimes when the button pushing results in pain often enough even someone like me can learn a thing or two. What I was thinking was that Molly was an attractive young female with lots of talent and a fervent need to prove herself and that, lesbian or not, lamia and their brides would be only too willing to offer her a lifetime commitment, especially if one was coming into age right about now.

Not that I immediately thought they'd be deceitful about the full creepy hive-mind, die without my blood side-effects, but just to be on the safe side.

If she knew all the funtime consequences and still went for it...well, I'd deal with that later.

"Because that's what you do, padawan," I said. "Never go into a situation uninformed. A wizard is more than just magic, sorcerers are all about magic. A wizard is all about knowledge. Got it, kid?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, moving down to the lab to get the aforementioned tome. "And why do you call it a tome? It's a three ring binder."

"I'm wizard," I reminded her as I followed downstairs into the sub-basement. "You're an apprentice. If I want to call a three ring binder a tome, then it is a tome."

Once down into the basement, Molly went to her workspace, which always seemed to have more and more stuff piling up in its area without ever looking unorganized. I think it was something she got from her mother. Some sort of organizationalmancer thing or something. I shrugged it aside.

"Upstairs, padawan," I said. "Safety rules."

She fixed me a look as she turned about in her chair.

"Of all the times you've cast some sort of spell down here and sent me out for safety," she said. "When has anything ever happened?"

"All it takes is once, Molly," I reminded her. "Up you get."

"Right, right," she said, taking the aforementioned tome and heading upstairs to read through it as instructed.

I waited until she was gone before turning toward the talking skull on its shelf.

"Bob," I said. "Up and at em."

The skull shook as a pair of orange lights appeared in its sockets.

"Oh, Harry," Bob yawned, the skull turning about on the shelf. "Did you need something?"

"A bit of research," I said, and then took a deep breath as I waited for the torrent of comments in bad taste. "I need to know about lamia."

"Lamia?" Bob asked immediately turning interested. "Are you serious, Harry? Really and truly serious?"

"Umm, yeah," I said, waiting for the lesbian vampire comments.

"This time, Harry, you have to get me pictures!" the skull declared exultantly. "Ooo, lamia, this is like a dream come true."

"Eh, no lesbian vampire comments?" I asked.

"Better than lesbian, Harry," the skull said, practically bouncing. "Polyamorous women into casual, short-term relationships with men! It's like a playa's wet dream!"

"'A playa'," I repeated arching an eyebrow.

"Seriously, Harry," Bob continued. "Think about it, lamia and their brides rarely if ever marry. They're practically married to each other even though most of them never have sex with each other (such a waste that is), but they all go out looking to procreate. If a lamia's contacted you, I'm guessing there's a little hubba hubba sperm donoring going on? Am I right? Huh? Huh? Nudge nudge, wink wink? Or is Molly getting bridal offers? Molly as a Bride, she's already stacked, a few years on that diet and she'll be practically a demigoddess!"

"Bob," I said tightly. "I'm not about to go sell my services as a sperm donor to a bunch of heterosexual lifemates. And I'm not selling my apprentice up the harem river. I need to know about lamia because it looks like I have a dead one on my hands in the city morgue."

"Such a spoil sport," Bob said. "You seriously have a dead lamia?"

"Seriously," I said, and told him the situation.

"I think Murphy is right about a lost bride," Bob said.

"I agree," I said tightly. "Can you give me something more about lamia than I already know?"

"You said the blood-marks were yellow and blue?" he asked and I nodded. "That would be the Kabakes family then, they're electromancers."

"Kabakes, thanks," I said noting it down. "What can you tell me about the extent of their powers, I've heard something about mind magic."

"They have something like your communion spell going on between each other," Bob said. "It's why they give the impression of being a hive mind. Usually, they've discussed and come to more or less an agreement on matters before ever opening their mouths to an outsider."

"So, one doesn't necessarily know what the others know," I said. "They're not in each others heads, they're just bouncing messages around."

"That's right," Bob said. "It takes an act of will to send the message."

"That's a rather inefficient if polite way to go about the mental solidarity thing," I said. "Not to mention opening yourself up to all sorts of nastiness if you're not careful."

"Four minds acting in concert is usually enough to keep out invasion and manipulation," Bob reminded me. "They may have open doors, but it's a killing zone inside for the uninvited."

"And the brides?" I asked.

"Heal like wizards with less of a lifespan, never lose their beauty, tough, fast and strong," Bob said.

"So, like ghouls or white court vampires?" I asked.

"About the same as a ghoul," Bob confirmed. "But, like I said, not nearly the healing ability. They try to supplement with combat training, but most of the families have started to slack off as people start to overlook them more."

"Were the Kabakes one of the families going slack?" I asked.

"Not really," Bob said. "They like their brides to be able to take care of themselves, and the bridal families they're mostly connected to seem to agree. Did you see the crime scene?"

"No," I said. "I only saw the lamia's body."

"Damn, it would be nice to know something a bit more about how things went down," Bob said.

"So we know if we were dealing with Uma Thurman or Charlie's Angels," I said, nodding. "I'll see what I can do."