Some people put a lot of stock into dreams. In that whole kind of 'foretelling the future' way. Now, I've experienced a lot in my twenty years as a professional wizard. (Hell's bells, I'm getting old.) I've mucked about with time here and there, and used dreams to talk to my subconscious. The guy's a grade-A asshole, let me tell you. So I'm not going to say that using dreams to predict the future is impossible. But as far as I'm aware, the future is too malleable to predict that accurately.
Which is why I tried not to worry too much about a dream in which I was surrounded by some kind of weird crow people, as a masked man watched from a cliff laughing maniacally. Said dream mercifully ended when Mouse, my dog the size of a small car, licked my face as an alarm. "Uck, I've been kissed by a dog!" were the first words out of my mouth once I was fully conscious, quoting one of my favorite cartoons from my childhood as a reflex. "Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!" I was laughing even as I pretended to be upset, and from the doggy grin on Mouse's maw, he seemed to know I was in a good mood.
Taking in my surroundings, I realized I was home again. In this case, 'home' was an island cabin I'd made myself. I'd gone through a lot of homes, but this one had been lasting me quite a while. Instead of bringing me some sense of security, it just meant I was getting scared about some new nutjob burning it down when I wasn't prepared. Now, you would probably think that I, Harry Dresden, Wizard of the White Council and private detective would have slept in his bed, like a normal person. But if so, you would be very much incorrect.
You see, I'd taken on a case earlier that year that had meant a lot of travel, and I'd only gotten home from my last trip two weeks previously. A lot of that time after first getting back was spent resocializing: some dates with the girlfriend, game nights with Billy, Georgia, and their pack of pups, a few beers with Michael and my brother (separately, of course, I'm not an idiot), and more than anything as many nights as I could get with my daughters. But despite what you might have heard, I'm actually an introvert, so a week and a half of that, I needed some 'me' time.
Hence why I'd fallen asleep the night before while lounging on my discolored, aging, comfortable couch, with a paperback book in my hands. I rose from the couch with a long stretch. I was getting close to middle age for a normal person at this point, and even though being a wizard extended your lifespan, it didn't seem to be doing a lot for my joints. Every time I had Waldo Butters, my friendly neighborhood ex-medical examiner with a love for Polka, give me a look-over, it ended with getting an earful about taking care of myself. I knew he meant well, but considering the way I lived my life, I think he should have been ecstatic I made it past forty.
I was still wearing the most casual of casual clothes I owned: a Star Wars shirt so faded the text reading 'R2D2 where are you?' was completely illegible, and sweatpants so worn and well-loved they were on the brink of falling apart. I was about to start making myself breakfast, when I noticed a flashing light near my phone.
One thing you have to know about wizards is that we don't mix well with the high tech stuff. I don't mean smart phones, which die if I look at them too hard, I mean anything made after World War 2. I had gotten a landline phone set up, which was an unbelievable pain that I only went through because if I didn't my friends would kill me, but that wasn't enough. In order to have a phone that wouldn't fizz out more than once a year or so, I had to only install models so ancient that things like 'caller id' and 'voicemail' were normally impossible.
Which wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that even when I was in-town, I wasn't home all that often. These days, the idea that someone might not have a voicemail for when you call them, and no way to 'text' them, is pretty much unthinkable. I needed a way for people to leave me messages, so I worked out a solution with the aforementioned tech guru Butters. It had taken a lot to set up, but we managed to wrangle a low-tech voicemail machine, using the oldest tape recording we could, since it seemed like as long as I didn't throw spells too close to it, that stuff stayed pretty safe.
It was that exact device, and the old red light-bulb flashing on it, that caught my eye. It was the signal someone had left a message. I rewound the tape and hit play, feeling more than a little nervous about what it was going to say. Hopefully, it would be a friend checking up on me. After all, it had seemed like the crook was slowing down, so maybe he'd given up entirely? But as the recording started, I knew that wasn't the case.
"Hello, is this Mr. Dresden?" The voice coming out of the ancient speakers of the device was beautiful, something innocent and nostalgic about it that reminded me of a spring day. "My name is Anna, and I'm with the Unseelie Traveling Exhibit. I was told to contact you, because you've been working to catch him. This morning, I came to work and found...a calling card. Mask DeMasque is going to steal a painting from my Exhibit! Please, come quickly, we're currently in the country of Khura'in!" The recording ended there, and with a heavy sigh I knew my little vacation was over. It was back to trying to catch that damned masked thief.