A gate to the Never Never, a magical dimension that mortals called Faerie, popped up suddenly in the middle of the floor, probably cast from behind the door by the Pudding. I could feel the magical presence of the gate, winding across my psyche like one of Murphy's family picnics... only without the food and entertainment.

"Hold still," the Pudding said from somewhere to the left of me, "in your condition, if you try to enter the Never Never, you'll be easy pickings. Even for the Spiders. I will provide a suitable substitute for the Mantle while en route to our destination."

Something wet and cold and contained began oozing over my body, and I had a sudden flashback to the Han Solo versus Carbonite Celebrity Death Match. And by the way, Han And Greedo Both Shot at the Same Time. Bite Me.

A crawling sensation crept over my skin, covering my ankles, my calves, my knees. The cold substance started up over my thighs, transforming my rubber duckie pyjamas as it gave me a rather disturbing wedgie. It crept over my back, meshing with my spine and leaving me doing my best Robocop impression on the floor of the motel.

"Fuck, that's cold!" I managed, trying unsuccessfully to bite back on the chatter of my own teeth.

But the stuff kept creeping over me, filling my pores and shoving into me. Changing me. It felt like a tsunami of ice had suddenly decided to make out with my skin.

Gooseflesh crumpled me up in a little ball when it was over; I lay there shivering, wondering absently if this was how ice cream felt after they put the ice in.

"Try to stand up," the Pudding said from no particular location. "You'll find you won't miss your old... self. Once we find Mab, my contract with you is done, and I retract my power. Do you understand, Knight of Winter?"

"What do I look like, Cinderella?" I breathed, riveted as my exhalation turned to ice, the spent breaths curving into white butter curls like the flames from the mouths of carvings of Kukulcan I remembered from the pyramid in Chichen Itza.

I stared at empty air for a moment, trying to construct a logic chain that actually got me somewhere before I got up and ambled to the bathroom mirror.

So we were going into Faerie to find Mab. Fair enough. I didn't have the Mantle, for some reason. That would be a problem. But I had the Pudding's gift of power to counter that, at least for the duration of the mission. But where would we come in at? Faerie wasn't exactly the kind of place you brought your friends to for a good glass of port and a cheese tasting. In the Never Never, the cheese eats You, the wine is blood, and the art jumps out at everyone. With teeth and claws. And ample... tracts of land.

Before I realized it, I had gotten to my feet and was standing in front of the motel room's bathroom mirror.

My entire lower body below the navel was covered in a sheath of moving silver that seemed to ripple like a silk cloak when I moved. My feet were encased in thick silver boots, narrow and fine, a succession of shells which grew into greaves to the knee then flowed up onto my thighs and around my buttocks. Something of the stuff was attached to my spine, almost like a cybernetic implant; I could feel the weird liquid of the symbiotic armor inside me, feeding through my nerves, filling my body with the Pudding's strange energies. There was a space between the high points of silver that flared slightly out into crystalline waves of silver that bared the front of my hips, and I could see the line of hair that ran from my navel to my bits had been showcased provocatively in the wide cutout.

"What the hell?" I choked, touching the suggestively exposed bare spot between my navel and my toy chest. "Great. I'm Sydney from Vagrant Story. I hope nobody sees me in this."

The Black Pudding's rubbery malboro laughter echoed from everywhere, jangling around inside my head and rattling my bones and brains.

"The Red Caps are coming," it said simply, still not revealing itself as its voice shattered my ears from every corner of the room.

And it was true; there was a hard pounding at the door to my motel room.

Someone called out, "Mister Dresden? Are you in there?"

A man I didn't recognize. Well, it was either the cops or the super, so to speak.

I glanced around the room for a moment, my brain idly noting at the last minute that my staff and the makeshift blasting rod were now nowhere in sight. Fucking faeries.

My sigh was a bit involuntary, story of my life. But I cracked my neck, put one foot over the gate to the Never Never pooling on the blood-soaked floor, and let gravity do the rest.