So.

Murphy glanced back and did a once-over of the living room and kitchen. No messages on the phone. (Because Harry's phone didn't take messages, because he lived like a Neanderthal…) Gun back in holster; safety on, safety on. Coffee maker turned off, and... crap, what was she supposed to do about the cat? (She was of the opinion that it looked like a a very small grey yeti, but Dresden had assured her that it was, in actuality, a cat.) She turned towards the kid, the duster made him look like he was dressed up as Neo for Halloween. The urge to fix his hair was surprisingly strong...

Someone knocked on the door.

For some reason that left her rather wrong-footed; having someone want to come in as she was going out. Not to mention the fact that she felt rather uncomfortable answering Harry Dresden's door for him at all. She knew the kind of things that popped up on Dresden's doorstep, and as he'd mentioned before, his threshold wasn't exactly... robust.

But she wasn't going to hide behind the door like some awkward tween waiting for them to go away. If it was the sort of thing that could make it past her gun, it could make it through a closed door. After all, she was hardly going to invite something in. She wasn't that kind of stupid. Every other kind of stupid apparently, but not that kind.

She jerked it open, startling Potter. Harry. Potter.

"Harry's not here right no…" Murphy's mouth closed as her eyes widened.

The woman at the door was... dazzling. Dazzling in an almost in a literal sense, Murphy realized, like the glare of sunlight on snow. Harry leaned forward to see what had happened, and his eyes widened, in a way comically similar to Murphy's. The lady practically was a veela. He frowned, correcting himself, no, the eyes were different, more dangerous. Long white hair, frostbite-dark lips. Cat-eyes that glittered, watchful, more like the facets of an emerald than anything alive.

The cat - which had at some point during their last few moments of stunned silence stalked up to the door - hissed. Fang. Forbidden Forest….he had a moment of half-there insight which slipped away, as if buried under a sudden avalanche. He looked up at the veela-thing.

"I am aware. It is for that cause that I am here." Her voice breezed past them, low and full of impersonal loathing as her gaze drifted past them.

"Well, can I get your name and take a message?" Murphy asked, smiling her sunniest blonde-bimbo smile.

The cat-eyes turned on her. "Amusing." Her tone implied that she found it anything but.

"I am called Mab." she said.

Both Harry and Murphy shivered involuntarily at her tone, but apparently they hadn't responded with appropriate levels of terror. The cat-eyes narrowed. "Queen of the Winter Fae? Ruler of the Unseelie? Lady of Arctis Tor?" She sighed "Who would have thought that Dresden's friends would be even worse read than he?"

"I know who you are." Murphy said flatly. She apparently didn't do 'starstruck.' Harry kept his mouth firmly shut. He'd been ignorant often enough in his short life to know that it wasn't a great idea to advertise it.

"And I you, Lady Murphy." Mab tilted her head. It was an oddly inhuman movement. Cat-like again, or perhaps more like a wolf. She swiveled towards Harry "...you however..."

Harry frowned. He felt very much like a knickknack that she wanted to pick up and examine. He set his jaw, remaining stubbornly silent. Sure, she wasn't actually a veela. Probably. But there was a twinging, plucking sensation on his magic that was similar to a veela's that he didn't like.

Mab's expression didn't change, but Harry had the sensation of ice tightening and cracking around his heart. It made him feel oddly defiant. Her pupils narrowed and she wet her lips. "My first choice for Winter Knight has disappeared, squireling. And now you... appear in his place. An intelligent youth would offer his name."

"Neville Longbottom." Harry replied, probably too quickly.

She actually smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. "So you are mortal."

Harry was painfully aware that his confusion was drawn all over his face. Had there been any doubt?

"You can lie." She explained, and began drumming her fingers on the doorpost. Slowly. Like the thud of orc drums, Murphy thought.

Harry swallowed. There was being mouthy and then there was just being stupid. He had no doubt that this Lieutenant Murphy lady knew what she was talking about, not when everything she said had lined up with his instincts so far. If she said fairies were dangerous, they were probably dangerous. Very dangerous. "Harry Potter."

Mab raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, waiting for elucidation.

"Sorry. I'm used to the name being introduction enough." Harry felt a mad grin take over his face. He swallowed. Why? Why did he always have to do this, why did he always have such a gobby in the worst situations?

Mab didn't say anything for a disconcertingly long time.

"Well?" She raised her eyebrows. "I have lived long ages before you both. You can tell me what I want to know, or I can stand at this threshold until you are well in your graves." Left unspoken was the idea that they might be getting to use those graves a little sooner than they'd like.

Murphy raised her eyebrows right back. "The queen of fairyland doesn't have anything better to do with her time?"

Dammit. Murphy felt her entire body tighten at the look Mab gave her. She was going to get this boy killed. She was going to get herself killed. Mab didn't, fortunately, stab anyone with an icicle, but simply tapped her long burgundy nails against the doorpost. Her face opened in a soft, utterly chilling smile. "Oddly enough. No."

"Well, we don't know what you want to know." Murphy said, trying to keep her voice even, trying to walk the fine line between belligerent and terrified. This was decidedly not part of her job description. There was something deeply wrong with fairies. She wasn't sure what it was, but something was wrong with them.

Mab looked amused, tilting her head "Harry Dresden stepped out of this world. Not rare in itself. But he failed to enter the Nevernever upon his departure, which is uncommon strange. I require an explanation."

"No. I mean we don't know." Murphy said, gritting her teeth, trying not to think about how admitting that you had no useful information was probably not a great way to keep yourself alive.

"Ah… that does change things." Mab gave another one of those cold smiles. She could do a master-class for super-villains Murphy thought… Mab glanced over at Harry, then turned back to Murphy abruptly: "The paths of the Nevernever are shifting. I cannot protect you here."

That sounded suspiciously like Mab admitting that something was out of her control, that something she didn't understand was happening. Which was actually really worrying, Murphy thought. If Madam I-can-destroy-you-with-a-breath didn't have a handle on things, what hope did they have?

Still. Something didn't feel quite right. Why, after all, should she need them if they were so helpless? Unless they could be used for something - Murphy glanced at Harry - which didn't sound very promising.

Oh, this was so bad. So bad. Dresden was never very forthcoming, but he'd been very clear about how dangerous fairies and vampires were. And werewolves. But she'd been there, done that.

So she could with fairy-woman and possibly get turned into a dog (which seemed to be Dresden's main phobia regarding fairies) or she could stay and get herself and Harry killed.

Murphy set her jaw. "We're fine thanks."

Mab looked disbelieving. "With the paths of my world now tangled up with your Chicago? Whole cities have died because of less." "A horde of sluagh will be upon you before the sun rises tomorrow. What will you do, mortal?" A calculating look came over Mab's face. "What can you do, since your wizard has seen fit to keep you ignorant, helpless? ...a pretty, breakable bauble."

"Shut up." Murphy snarled, not caring or, more likely, not remembering who she was dealing with. That really had struck a nerve. Harry, Dresden, was never really forthcoming about useful -potentially life-saving, Murphy grit her teeth- information.

"...I meant no disrespect." Mab replied smoothly. "Only know that I can help you. Think of it as a boon to the wizard if you like."

"Why would you do that?" Murphy asked warily. Dresden had been pretty clear on the fact that fairies didn't really give gifts per se. They were more entrapment schemes with a ribbon on top.

Mab's smile widened to something almost feral "For a favor?"

"Not that desperate." Murphy bit out.

Her expression went back to its former elegant, crystalline blankness "I thought you might say so."

Mab paused, turning, a light flashing in her eyes like a flint sparking. "You are very like him, Lady Murphy."

Mab extended her arm across the threshold, charging the air, filling it with something like the smell of ozone. The grin reappeared when she saw Murphy's face.

Mab continued to speak softly, tugging a lock of Harry's hair and pulling him forward. "All you do is according to my will and by my sufferance Lady Murphy. Be thankful that you are of more use to me as you are than a toad would be. I give you three days."

Three days until what? Until the offer of help was retracted? Until she just decided to haul them off to faerie-land and use them (well, use the kid at least... Murphy was under no illusions about her disposability) for…well, whatever she wanted them for?

Mab tilted her head, eyes closed, and Murphy watched Harry's hair knit together in an intricate Celtic-knot-looking cord. She was sure Dresden would have technical name for it, but she really didn't care right then. Mab opened her eyes and said to Harry: "For when you grow desperate." To Harry's quizzical look she said: "There is power in making and unmaking. Do they not teach you this in your world Harry Potter?"

"My world?" Harry tried to look innocent. He failed of course. Didn't he always? he sighed.

Mab lifted her eyes up in half a roll, as if to say why else would I be interested in two insignificant mortals? "Again child, when one is surrounded by those who cannot lie, one develops a discerning ear. Do not hide from me. You already have enemies in this land, you would do well not to make me one of them."

Harry blinked. Enemies? How?

Mab turned to Murphy, answering her unasked question regarding the hair-thing: "It will fare best in the hands of a wizard."

At which she turned on her heel and disappeared. It seemed Mab assumed that she and Harry were together for the duration of… whatever this was. And the more Murphy thought about it, the more obvious it was. She didn't care if this was a thirteen year old Hitler, there was no way she was leaving him to deal with all that on his own. Dresden's garbled stories of Chicago-over-Chicago and stone tables and girls turning into trolls turned over in her mind. No.

Just no. No. Friggin'. Way.

Harry blinked. "Uh…"

"Uh, indeed." Murphy agreed. "Come on, let's go." She headed out towards her car, trusting Harry to follow.

Harry pulled the skull out of the gym bag instead. He wasn't sure why, Bob clearly didn't need to "see" in the normal sense. It was just that not looking at something while he was talking was even stranger than seeing a skull talk.

"What are sluagh?" Harry blurted out.

"Oh for godsake!" Bob exclaimed. "You're all hopeless. Hopeless ...and here I was thinking that no one could be more oblivious than Harry." Bob said. Murphy paused and turned to give him a dirty look.

Harry glared at it. "What. Are. Sluagh."

Bob slipped into his lecturing tone immediately: "They're technically wyldfae. Typical vengeance spirits. They travel in flocks, destroy anything they touch, that sort of thing. They reproduce using the death energies of their victims. Like a cross between vampires and fairies, though don't quote me on that. And for gods' sake stop saying their name."

"Why?" Harry asked, though he already had an uncomfortable inkling of what the answer would be. They had covered a lot of dark creatures last year with Lupin.

"Because it summons them." Stupid, Bob left unsaid.

"So they're here now?" Harry asked.

Bob rolled his lights. "Do we look like we've been set upon by a host of life-eating fairies Potter? Not all summonings are immediate. Obviously."

"So when she was "warning" us... " Harry began.

"She was probably summoning them. I don't know who else would have at least." Bob said. "Regardless, she's got pretty good deniability; they're mostly just considered pests in Faerie."

Harry raised his eyebrows; he didn't want to know what they didn't consider mere pests then.

"And the hair thing?" Murphy asked.

"An elflock." Bob replied.

"A what?" Harry asked. Well, given the context, it was pretty obvious that it was a lock of hair having to do with an elf, but that didn't explain very much.

Bob gave a long-suffering sigh. "This is that very Mab, that plats the manes of horses in the night, and bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, which once untangled, much misfortune bodes..."

"Oh." Murphy said "Romeo and Juliet." She mistook Harry's look of befuddlement: "What? I took high school English."

Bob ignored her. "Yes, well, elflocks can have different purposes, they aren't always strictly unfortunate, but Shakespeare had the right idea, mostly. Though... it may just be that receiving one indicates that you're involved with fairies, which almost always is unfortunate…"

"So what does this one do?" Harry asked, feeling oddly bemused rather than irritated.

"No idea." Bob said breezily. "Depends on the weaving."

"Well that isn't very much help." Harry said, his tone flat, again resisting the urge to just drop something heavy on the… thing.

Bob was unaffected by his disapproval: "I suppose you'll find out when you're finally desperate enough to try anything. That also might be a reason they're considered to be unlucky" A grin coloured his voice: "Also, I should warn you that we're at a magical nexus, charged by a local ley-line. It's one reason Harry's life is so interesting. ...and Mab's entrance and exit have now pretty much pushed us over any reasonable activation energy."

Murphy sighed. "Which means?"

"You'll probably be encountering an alarming number of coincidences within the next five minutes." Bob supplied, sounding smug.

"What sort of coincidences?" Murphy asked.

"Haven't the foggiest." Bob chirped. "Should be entertaining though."

"Quite right." The ficus next to Harry's neighbor's door spoke in an accent that was vaguely Scottish, and even more vaguely English with a little bit of Welsh, and, so, ended up as some sort of indeterminate British. "I do my best anyway."

The ficus rapidly expanded into a tall blond man, wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt and moss-colored hipster jeans. Bob groaned. In recognition? Murphy wondered. She sighed. As annoying as the skull was, she felt the same way. She glanced to Harry. He looked wary. Well, come to think of it, she hadn't seen the boy not looking wary yet. Perhaps it was better to say that he looked warier.

The blonde man flashed her a dazzling smile. "I see you're not going to be doing introductions Lady Murphy. Obviously, I mean you no harm. Somewhat less obviously, I thought your little chat with the Ice Bitch might convince you that you'd like some help that has fewer strings attached."

"Ice Bitch?" Murphy said, voice flat, and full of disbelief.

He shot her another smile. "Yes well, have you ever known anyone who called their ex a nice name? ...and the whole 'queen of air and darkness' thing is a little bit passe, so..."

"Not interested." Murphy blurted. She was guessing what with otherworldly beauty and the slight air of complete sociopathy that this was a fairy too. Whatever it was, they clearly didn't need to be messing with something that had been masquerading as a ficus. A ficus.

He frowned, almost pouting, like some heartthrob who has unexpectedly failed to pick up a girl. "You won't even hear me out? I'm not even trying to make a deal." he whined.

"I've never heard of a fairy who doesn't try to cut deals. You can't do anything for free. It's a rule of the universe. Harry said." Murphy kept her gaze level.

The man shrugged, as if her ignorance and/or disbelief wasn't his problem. "I do as I like."

"So you'd just up and decide to "help" us out of the goodness of your heart?" Murphy raised a skeptical eyebrow.

His grin widened "Well. Not exactly."

"Then why?" Murphy asked. If she had known fairies were this annoying...

"It'll piss Mab off? I like seeing that little twitch go off in Medb's eye?" His eyes twinkled, green and flippant like light on the sea. He shrugged. "I'm free this week?" He laughed at Murphy's incredulous look.

"Well. That explains precisely nothing." Murphy muttered.

He nodded. "Aye, that's true." "Like your little doohickey there by the way." He nodded towards Bob, who Harry was still holding, and slipped into a deeper, somehow older, tone of voice: "Will ye honor me Spirit?"

Bob did not seem amused, in fact his tone was almost sour as he said: "Tam Lin."

"What?" Harry and Murphy said at the same time.

"His name" Bob said slowly, as if trying to give them extra time to get the idea through their thick skulls "...is Tam Lin. Former Knight of Winter."

Murphy knew enough at least to think that that didn't sound good.

'Tam' interrupted "I've also gone by 'true Tom,' Thomas Rhymer. Bercilak. Bredbeddle. Fear Glas. Lord of Whiteland. Ruler of the High Wilds. Jack..."

"Jack?" Murphy mumbled, a little shell-shocked.

"Yes well, a little pedestrian I'll admit. Let's go with Tam. Simple, easy for you post-Gaelic louts to say." Tam shot her another winning smile.

Bob cleared his throat. "A freeholding lord. He rules the Sìth, aka the daoine sídhe, aka the free Fair Folk."

"Eh, debatable, most of them like me no better than they liked Mab. Besides, if I rule them they're not exactly free are they?" Tam pointed out.

Bob ignored him "... and is, to date, the only knight of Winter to ever escape Mab's clutches alive."

That made Murphy perk up a bit.

Harry finally spoke up. "Who, exactly, are they? The uh...'free fair folk'?" he asked.

"A kind of wyldfae." Bob supplied. Unhelpfully.

Tam made a scoffing noise. "You've been bound for too long Spirit, if you're reduced to that kind of trash talking. Might as well call the Tylwyth Teg wyldfae."

Harry frowned. "And who are…"

"The Welsh Fae." Bob and Tam said at once. "Well, not Welsh exactly…" Tam corrected himself immediately. "More that their seat of power overlaps Wales…"

Bob made a disgusted sound and continued. "Don't confuse him. You know humans are easily confused. They're called "free" because they belong to neither the Summer nor Winter courts, and so are separate signatories to the Unseelie Accords. Both Summer and Winter have allowed it because they're not really worth bothering with." There was a definite biting, malicious quality to Bob's tone there.

Bob continued, voice sly: "Tam Lin's people have been saor sioga ever since the war he instigated against his former lady and queen."

Tam winced. "That wasn't entirely me. But come on, it was exciting, admit it." he added, as if starting a rebellion was on the same level as a good prank.

Harry was used to only being this lost when Hermione was talking. "Er, Unseelie Accords?" he asked, blinking, as if by doing it enough he could somehow see the situation more clearly.

"The Geneva Convention for magical beings." Tam supplied breezily.

"That is the most ridiculous analogy I've ever heard." Bob complained.

"I thought you didn't want to confuse him." Tam shot back.

Murphy frowned, thinking over what he'd said. It was certainly encouraging that someone had the power to defy Mab, even, potentially, useful. But he did make her wonder..."Entirely you?" she asked "Who else were you going to blame it on?"

Tam's brow wrinkled. ""Blame?" That's a bit harsh. Remember, I can't lie, poppet. Mab broke her word. To her great misfortune, I might add. Consider me the reason that she's now on the straight and narrow. She's quite careful now." His grin bared his teeth that time.

Murphy made a choked sound at that. She was glad she'd never seen Mab when she hadn't been on the straight and narrow then.

Tam shot her another high-wattage smile, as if knowing exactly what she was thinking... "If we have time later I'll have to tell you the story."

"I still don't understand." Murphy said stubbornly. "How can you do anything without an agreement?"

"We would have an agreement. That I would help you. And I do get something out of it. Just not from you. I'm very good at finding loopholes." He grinned again.

"Loopholes." Murphy said flatly.

"Yes. Loopholes." Tam's tone was ridiculously affable. "Look, I don't see that you have a lot of other options, a stor."

Murphy turned to look at Harry. "Yes there are. We're going to McAnally's."

"Which is neutral territory under the Accords." Bob added, for some reason deciding to finally mention that little fact.

Something disconcertingly hungry flashed in Tam's eyes. "If you can make it McAnally's, be my guest."

"Or we could stay here." Harry suggested, though he hated the very sound of it. He wasn't sure about the whole 'threshold rule' or why Lieutenant Murphy's place was better (supposedly,) but a tiny Chicago apartment sounded like the worst place in the world, barring Knockturn Alley maybe, to be under siege.

Tam inclined his head. "You could."

"He's stalling you, you idiots." Bob sighed.

Murphy winced. She had known that. And she had gone along with it, because it had meant that she hadn't had to make a decision, hadn't had to fully refuse the offer of help. It seemed so foolish to make a deal with a fairy when she didn't even know what she'd be up against, alone - well, not completely alone, she had her Luger, and if worst came to worst she could have Harry try to shrink something else... she almost smiled - if she didn't. She knew not to make deals. But to never make deals? She'd learned to not say "never." But how desperate, exactly, did you need to be? How did you know when you were close enough to death to justify it?

Was she jumping at shadows? (Which actually, when you thought about it, wasn't always a bad idea, because shadows usually belong to something…) Add to that, she had no reference point for any of this. Not really, having Harry, Dresden, point her at something, saying all the while 'silver bullets' or 'Yay! Chainsaw, great idea' was one thing, this was another. With this, by the time she realized how serious things really were they'd probably be dead. It made the whole thing rather less exciting.

Tam's smile moved to his eyes, flitting and winking back and forth. "I can neither confirm nor deny that claim." "Though you might be interested to know that Mab pretty severely weakened your threshold and this is not the best place to make a stand against the spirits of the dead."

Murphy's eyes narrowed. "Spirits of the dead? That's not what Bob called them."

"Bob?" Tam's eyes twinkled, almost sparking with delight as he looked down at the skull. "They call you Bob?"

"Should I tell you a few of Mab's pet names for you?" Bob asked sourly "...and what's with the Gaelic?" Bob asked "You're not even from that area. You sound like a hipster from Dublin."

Tam shrugged. "Gaelic is really the only one of the old tongues that isn't dead. Well. Besides Basque. There's no power in a language that you can order a venti double mocha frappucino in."

"I did ask a question." Murphy said, tapping her foot pointedly, her eyes bored. Though she was starting to wonder how fairies would respond to bullets. Probably wouldn't kill them… she wouldn't have to feel too guilty...

Tam pulled up short, his expression suddenly flattening, settling. "That you did." "Ah… spirits of the dead… well they aren't, not exactly…. it's all very metaphysical and, well, magical. She could probably explain it to you..." He trailed off, evidently continuing down his own line of thought in silence.

"She?" Harry asked, something - either in tone of Tam's voice, the cant of his shoulders - told him that he definitely wasn't referring to Mab.

"The witch-queen." Bob said flatly. Harry turned to the skull, dumbfounded, wondering if he was enjoying being so deliberately unhelpful.

Tam's face, though, broke into what looked like a genuinely delighted smile, he put a hand on Harry's shoulder, breaking through the threshold again. "He speaks of my lady, a runsearc, Muirgen. I'll tell you of her too, if time permits." "You know…" he said thoughtfully, looking down at Harry "...she would like you. Been a long time since she palavered with another wizard."

A wave of wild, irrational hope washed over Harry… until he thought better of it. Experience should have taught him by now that most wizards/witches were, in fact, bad news.

There was a loud crack of thunder and they all looked up to the quickly darkening sky. It hadn't exactly been a nice day before (it was Chicago after all) but it had definitely taken a turn for the worse.

Tam turned to Murphy. "Truly Lady Murphy, I mean you no harm, you know I cannot lie… I can contend with the sluagh and get you out of here."

Murphy gripped the handle of her gun and nodded towards the sky. "That's their calling card I take it?'

Tam shifted his head from side to side in an ambivalent sort of way. "Not exactly, but yes, they are coming."

"One at ten o'clock." Bob offered, in the even, unconcerned tones of a weatherman.

"What? Oh fu…" Murphy shrieked as something shot down like a ball of lightning, expanding on impact, clawing at her, drowning her, suffocating her all at once. The gun went off, once, twice, without any conscious decision on her part to fire. She opened her eyes (she hadn't realized they'd been closed.) The sound kept repeating in her ears. In truth, the only thing she'd been certain of was that Harry and the cat were behind her. She'd had a better than fifty/fifty shot of hitting the fairy.

Tam looked back and her, unconcerned and moved to kick the… thing over.

If she had ever seen a naked vampire, she would have recognized the similarities immediately. It was skeletal, corpse-colored, with hands and feet that seemed too long. Too strong, she shuddered. Had it gotten anywhere her throat? She wasn't sure, but she still almost felt its hands - slimy, rough, too soft though… the softness of decay - around her neck. She had a brief, insane, moment where she wondered whether that was her father. Whether that was what her father looked like now... that was what she'd meant…

But she swallowed and looked at Tam, feeling almost triumphant. Guns could kill them. Or at least stop them. That she could work with. That she could handle. She glanced over at Harry. His face was white, nose narrow, and he looked like he was about to pass out. She looked for another long moment watching his deep, even breaths, his almost closed eyes. She shook her head, more at herself than anything. No, he wasn't going to pass out.

"So that's a sluagh?" Murphy asked, trying to take deep, even breaths herself.

Tam shook his head. "They haven't really got a name. People started calling them that, but sluagh just means "host," "horde," though I suppose you could call it a marbán... 'corpse' doesn't quite cover it..." He mused.

"Not really interested right now." Murphy grunted. "I'm sure there are more coming."

"Many more." Tam agreed, looking almost sad. "Lady Murphy…" Either Tam was a superior actor, or he actually had something riding on the outcome, because he looked truly desperate.

"Don't do it Karrin." Bob said.

"Stay out of things that don't concern you, you little shite." Tam hissed, lunging towards Harry, grabbing at the skull. Murphy only had time to think that there might be more of a grudge there than either of them had admitted.

Harry didn't exactly think. He always tried to explain - afterward, whenever anything had happened, like a troll, or a spontaneously-combusting Voldemort, or a spelunking adventure, or his brief career as a vigilante - that there wasn't always time to think. He just reacted.

The staff came up, his mouth opened….

"Stupefy." A cloud of red light burst out of the staff, cascading over Tam's face. He slumped unceremoniously on the welcome mat.

And that was that.

Harry winced. "Bugger." Looked out at the sky. Looked at Murphy "Sorry."

Murphy shrugged, backing inside the door, wondering whether it was better to shut it, or to have the visibility. Or perhaps they might be better off outside. If they could find flowing water… "He was the asshole who charged towards you."

"I meant… uh…" Harry flushed "...for the cursing actually, but… uh…"

She couldn't help it, she just started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. After a moment it occurred to her that she'd probably better stop while she could stop. "It's…" she took a deep gulp of air "...it's fine, kid. I hear much worse than that when the coffee machine's not working at work."

She started to drag Tam inside. She wasn't sure whether the sluagh, marban, whatever, things could do anything to him, but figured it would be pretty unsporting to leave him there in order to find out. After all, he hadn't been the one to call them. Probably.

Harry watched this process stupidly for a moment. Oh right. He was a wizard.

"Wait, oh…" Harry said "...wingardium leviosa."

Tam shot up to about the height of her chest, and floated there for a moment, arms flopping. He jerked suddenly sideways, into the door frame, making a very large cracking noise. Harry winced.

"Er… yeah, not the right spell really..." Harry considered for a moment, frowning, thinking back to the year before, then twisted the staff "Mobilicorpus"

Murphy rolled her eyes. "Don't trouble yourse…"

And then another one was at the door. The gun fired. Murphy watched herself shoot three more. Two went down. They weren't staying down though. They didn't bleed. A blob of red light hit the third one. No effect.

It reached forward to throttle her again. It was too hard to fight them, she'd never thought about it, but she'd never tried hand-to-hand with something that couldn't feel pain.

"Knidos!" Harry shouted from behind her and she felt a shock travel along her body and the closest marban-thing let go. She shot it too. And then another one. Some strangely detached part of her mind wondered what they were going to do about all the corpses when they were done. The next one grabbed her hair, vaulting itself up against the lintel of the door, and that detached feeling shattered into a million tiny pieces. She might have screamed. Or it might have been Harry.

And then, as if things weren't going badly enough, somewhere one of the things figured out what was doing them all the damage, and twisted the gun from her hand. It got a bullet for its trouble, but the gun was then over where the ficus had been, so that hardly mattered did it?

Harry was putting a lot of effort into not panicking. And to not passing out. Fire. Fire should work on just about everything. And gun powder, that could explode...

"Plosio!" he shouted at the one that had taken the gun from Lieutenant Murphy. It burst into flame. Too-bright, fluorescent orange flame. Cool. He did the same to any of the others that had noticeable bullet-holes. He'd worry about magical exhaustion later.

Murphy dove for the gun. She had it in her grip before a pair of them lifted her off the ground, kicking and screaming like a little girl. She really didn't care by that point. It was like all anyone's worst zombie nightmares come true, except completely unromantic. They were literally dead. Whatever they actually were, it seemed like she was looking at her own cold dead corpse. She resisted the urge to slump to the ground and kicked one of them. Hard. Of course, being dead, it didn't appear to have any especially vulnerable areas, so it just seemed to piss it off more.

"Knidos!" Harry yelled again, and Murphy had a strangely disorienting sense that he was aiming at her. The fuzzy, crackly feeling came back and the morbans dropped her.

Murphy heard her wrist crack as she hit the ground. Her right wrist. She tried not to panic. Or was she already panicking? she wondered, as she felt the world wobble as if viewed from a ferris wheel. Fine. She tried not to panic more.

Harry, meanwhile, had been trying to think of a suitably damaging fire spell. Once he had been able to think again, that was. Most of the ones they'd been taught were specially designed to be safe. Safe was so clearly not what they needed. When Murphy had been first attacked he had put down Bob's carefully impervioused skull and run through his list of dark creatures. He was pretty sure that he'd never heard of a sluagh before, and didn't recognize it once he saw it. He might not have a chance to try everything he thought might work… so yeah, that still left fire. Most things didn't like fire.

The stinging spell worked surprisingly well, but he didn't think he could use it on himself, so he had to come up with a solution fast. Before one or both of them… well, better not to go there.

And then Murphy had screamed. Despair, cold and grey washed over him, almost making him lose his grip on the staff. He didn't even know her, but there was just something wrong about her making that noise. Something utterly foreign, a warped, cruel kind of magic...

That's when it hit him. It didn't matter that the stinging spell shouldn't have worked on them… clearly, clearly, something in this completely mad world was different. "I. Am. An. Idiot."

Murphy hoisted herself up, getting ready to try to shoot with her left hand. She heard the satisfying thwack of the staff hitting one of the morbans and crushing a bone (or whatever they had left inside.) She jabbed the rightmost morban with her elbow and jerked her head forward to look at Harry.

He had his eyes closed, and he had both hands on the staff, arms stretched out. Several morbans had been able to get past the threshold in the time that she'd spent trying to get the gun back.

"Expecto Patronum!" He shouted. Who cared if it was last year's spell?

A silvery white stag burst out of his wand, running towards the door, its horns catching the two closest morban and tossing them to the side. It skidded to a stop in front of Murphy, shoveling aside the morbans closest to her with an almost balletic grace. One tried to shoot past it, inside and a single sweep of its antlers took care of that.

For a moment the morban just stood there, somehow appearing to float on the ground. Then, suddenly, as if they'd all conferred, they shot back up towards the sky.

Murphy stood there, watching the deer made of light (or whatever it was) for a moment. She cradled her wrist, feeling the sweat drip off her nose, suddenly aware of the dog's snuffling. She forced the cold back and down.

She stared up at the sky, feeling completely blank. "Well. That almost seemed too easy."

Harry choked back a laugh, and slid down against the wall. He gave Bob a pat on the skull. "Yeah. If only I could do that for final exams instead."

Murphy frowned. She might as well ask now. She might get away with it if he was in shock. She pushed aside the thought that she was probably in shock. "Not your first time?" she asked.

Harry seemed to know exactly what she meant. He shook his head. "No."

"You know, I hate to interrupt your little heart to heart, but she's just going to send something else." Bob said. "That's how Mab is. None of them are entirely sane."

"Says the talking skull." Murphy pointed out, without getting up.

Bob's tone was very prim: "I'm perfectly sane. I'm just amoral."

Murphy rubbed her forehead. "We shouldn't go to McAnally's, I don't think. We'll just endanger other people."

Of course that left them with no options. She grimaced.

Harry just nodded.

"Can you float him out to my car?" Murphy asked. "Without killing him?"

He thought about it for a moment. "What happens if I do? Just, you know, by accident?"

Murphy laughed. She shouldn't have, she knew, but she did anyway.