I was expecting a normal humdrum workaday when the Faceless Man set his eyeless sights on Chicago's only professional wizard. Needless to say, my life's not been anything close to normal ever since. It wasn't all his doing, of course - when you live like I do, you're bound to make a few powerful enemies and dangerous friends - but his organization was, at least, partially responsible.
My name is Harry Dresden, modern-day spellcaster, private investigator, and Warden of the White Council, as of late. Chicago's my usual beat, and as a Warden, I'm responsible for a big chunk of the Midwest too - protecting the innocent from the things that go bump in the night. Enforcing the Laws of Magic against misguided magical talents that didn't know which ones they were breaking. Fighting bloodsucking nasties on the front lines of a shadow war like I'm some tinfoil-hatted conspiracy nut who thinks the Deep State's out to get him; even as the Council loses ground against their foes with every passing day.
Except this shadow war is real, and I'm right there on its brink. It's taken dozens of good wizards and a few hundred humans too, and the death toll keeps ringing all the livelong day. You ask around, you'll find plenty of wizards older and wiser than me who'll say that I instigated it. To an extent, they're factually correct, but they choose to ignore the rest of the story to paint me and mine with a broad brush of dark grey. Almost black.
Doesn't matter. I made a single corner of this filthy, decrepit bed, and by God, I'll lie in it until things start to look up again.
Warden work's tough. It's grueling, tiresome, and weighs on a man just like our heavy grey cloaks do atop our shoulders. Only you can't take the responsibility off at the end of a campaign. It also doesn't pay the bills.
Sure, I get a check from the Council every time I help roast a nest of vampires or escort a group of allies to relative safety, but souls are cheap in Chicagoland. Rent's expensive, and the pay rate for Wardens hasn't been changed for decades and will be obsolete when it finally comes up for review sometime in the late 2030s. On top of that, I've got a St. Bernard-sized puppy who's not even close to being an adult at home, an entitled bobcat that weighs about 35 pounds, and a brother who just happens to be the urbane modern version of a bona fide incubus, all sheltered in my apartment the size of your average IKEA display, but quite a bit cheaper. And all that doesn't even address business expenses - oh yeah - and my personal needs as well. Nearly forgot those.
I'm not greedy. I don't love or covet money. I just need some to stay above water.
So - workaholic wizard that I am - I was actually looking forward to the bog-standard weekday when I came into my office on a cold late December morning, just two days from January 2006. The Council hadn't come calling for the entirety of the Christmas season, and business was steady on the home front. It was nice - the routine of it all. I found people's lost Christmas presents. I did a few paranormal investigations up North, some of them dealing with genuine hauntings. Had some time to work on a personal project, too. The life.
I was expecting to have a more-or-less normal day on the 30th that year. Maybe a busy one - New Years carry a sort of energy with them that can make some odd things happen, not counting mundane things like drunken socialites and whatnot, being the end of a cycle and all - but nothing too crazy. I'd file away a few old cases, see if any new ones came in before the weekend - and the New Year - arrived to herald a fresh start.
The day started out normal. Then she walked in.
She was a striking woman of Asian ancestry and average height, the latter of which meaning that I towered over her at 6'9" and the former of which meaning that she had my attention without even asking for it. She was pretty, but not remarkably so, wore a sensible spring green business suit, and she moved with a clipped, businesslike stride. I'd heard her heels approaching my office - click, clack, click, clack - about a minute before she'd arrived, even on the carpeted hallway of the fifth floor.
She reminded me of someone - that was the weirdest part - and yet, I knew that I'd never actually seen her around before. I couldn't place anything about her, but she had an air to her that suggested she was used to people recognizing who she was.
"Morning, ma'am. Harry Dresden," I greeted her as we sat down. My duster folded and rustled around my long legs as I did it. I've always liked the cold, but dozens of short December days and long, freezing nights in a small corner office with two windows and a powered-off heater tend to add up in the Windy City.
"Mr. Dresden," she replied. She had a nice voice, smooth and controlled, like a radio broadcaster's. Despite the cold, she had no detectable tremor in her voice at all. "I've heard quite a few things about you. You may call me Vivian Zhou. I'm here on behalf of a rather . . . prestigious client who's got a deal for you, if you'd hear it."
Prestigious. That word carried a big promise with it. Possibly a promise that was dollar-sign-shaped.
"I'm ready to hear it, Ms. Zhou," I said, scratching at an irritating spot on my neck. I'd cut myself shaving that morning, and it still twinged every now and then. "But first, I'd like to apologize for the office being as it is. Holiday season and all that. I can't run the heater all the time, especially when I'm not home, so to speak. Cases are coming in like crazy, got me running all over Chicagoland. Sorry about the cold. Can I get you some coffee?"
"Please."
Truth was, the heater had conked out a few days prior, unable to keep up the strain of warming even my relatively tiny office while competing with the residual field of my magic all the time. It happens. I was on a list to get it fixed, but the repairman was so busy, he wouldn't bring me and my clients salvation until February. At least it saved on heating and cooling bills. Steaming hot coffee would have to do for a while.
I grabbed the mail as long as I was over by the door. Bills. Junk mail. A Best Buy flyer advertising 50% off all electronics with a membership card.
"D*mmit," I swore under my breath with the kind of energy borne of repeated exasperated inconvenience. I'd written them twice by now, explaining that I don't need a 4k-ultra-HD flatscreen with all the streaming services and a free subscription to YouTube, and that I'd like to discontinue getting their newsletter already, for goodness's sake. They never listened.
"Here you are, ma'am," I said, placing a cup of steaming coffee in front of Ms. Zhou. I kept one for myself and put the mail off to one side of my desk. We each took a token sip of brewed ambrosia, even though it was almost scalding-hot. My pull may have been a bit longer than Ms. Zhou's, notwithstanding.
"Thank you, Mr. Dresden. Let's get down to business. Are you familiar with the television program Mysteries of the Windy City?"
"Heard of it. That's the one that collaborates with the Arcane every now and then, right?"
Ms. Zhou revealed a tiny smile. "The very same."
I sat forward in my chair. "I don't watch much TV, Ms. Zhou. But I do read the papers, and some other rags that make the newsstand every now and then. Word on the street is that Mysteries of the Windy City's going through some tough times."
The lady tossed a manicured hand in the air, causing the white winter light outside to flash off of her fingernails. "I wouldn't call them 'tough times,' Mr. Dresden. Merely setbacks. Rising maintenance and salary costs. A noticeable decrease in interest in paranormal programming. A . . . controversial and somewhat abrasive host, if I do say so myself. One of our biggest partners folding after the departure of their best writers."
I nodded. "Seems to me like the show's still doing just fine, if all the ads around Chicago are anything to go by."
"Well, that's the thing," she said. Now it was her turn to sit forward in her chair a little. "Mysteries of the Windy City may be suffering a downturn, but our fanbase is vocal, and our host is charismatic enough to sell a surprising amount of airtime, even if his political views are a little . . . distasteful for the majority of this city. Even without the Arcane, we can spin a yarn to rake in ratings. Especially considering recent events in the city."
"Go on," I prompted. I was starting to get a bad feeling, but I let nothing show on my face. My body language was still invested and interested, even if the little Harry in my head was beginning to prepare for battle.
"Mr. Dresden, do you recall the citywide blackouts and extreme severe weather this Halloween?"
Boom. There it was. My worst conception of how the conversation could have possibly gone, given form. I opted to keep my cards close to my chest. "Nasty business. How could I forget?"
"I hate to get conspiratorial here, Mr. Dresden, but certain people at my place of employment just can't seem to buy the official narrative. 39 people dead. Six missing, and countless injuries. Eyewitness accounts include everything from intense hallucinations to extreme poltergeist activity from here to Deerfield, and all the establishment wants to say is that everything was just the result of 'confusion' and 'college pranks?' Rather difficult to believe, wouldn't you say?"
"Lady, I wouldn't trust what the news said if Pinocchio wrote it all and his nose never grew an inch," I said carefully, adjusting myself in the chair. "But sometimes, a spade's a spade, you know? Lots of strange things tend to happen in this world of ours. Doesn't mean there's a grand conspiracy behind everything."
The words hung in the air for a moment or two. Mrs. Zhou said nothing, just stared at me with steady, unblinking brownish eyes and a sphinx's smile on her crimson lips.
"And besides," I continued, "have you considered that maybe the families of those injured and killed during the citywide blackout and storm of the century wouldn't appreciate you trying to spin their plight into some Patterson novel or ghost story to scare little children?"
"That's a rather conformist attitude for a hard-boiled private eye, Mr. Dresden. I get the feeling that you've seen your fair share of odd situations. What's the harm in looking deeper for the truth with Chicago's only practicing wizard?"
I sat back in my seat this time with some force. Things were going sour fast. "That's just it, Zhou. I'm a wizard. You want car keys found, I'll do it in an hour-and-a-half and throw in any number of educational booklets on magic for free. You wanna talk about things that go bump in the night, relationship advice just short of a love potion, my office door's open anytime. Heck, you wanna go out to some of these 'supernatural hotspots' or death sites around the city and have me snoop around, disturbing the peace, I'll do that at a reasonable rate and thank you when we're done. But I'm not going to exploit a recent tragedy for personal gain, and I'm not appearing on national TV to talk about how someone's son wasn't killed by being outside during a Midwestern monsoon and a blackout in America's third largest and most murderous city; but he was really chewed up by some presumably fictional boogeyman with zero evidence for my wild claims. I'm not doing this."
Now, Mrs. Zhou frowned. It was the first expression other than pleasant businesslike demeanor she'd made, putting aside her freaky conspiracy-theory moment. "Mr. Dresden, I urge you to reconsider. The network is paying a lot of money for this-"
"I said, it's a no for me and that's final," I repeated very firmly. "Anything else, yeah, I'd be happy to help. But c'mon, lady, it's been less than two months since this disaster rolled through town. Some people are still grieving. Cleanup efforts are still going on. At least wait for another year or five before you start inspecting this thing with a wizard's spyglass."
We frowned politely at each other for another minute and a half. I tried to put on a subservient, yet unmoving, posture. I still wanted the producer's business. But there are some lines I'm not willing to cross.
Especially when Mrs. Zhou had been right to some extent.
Especially especially when I was directly involved in the chaos she'd described.
Finally, she broke the silence by doing the one thing no businessman wants their potential clients to do: standing up with a dissatisfied expression on her face and disappointment in every syllable that came out of her mouth.
"Well," she said, dashing my hopes with a single word, "I'm very sorry that we couldn't come to an agreement, Mr. Dresden. I'll leave you my card in case you change your mind." She placed a small, cream-colored business card across the rim of her untouched coffee cup - still warm from the percolator - and turned for the door.
I got to my feet and saw her out. Basic decency for a failed negotiation.
"I appreciate it, Mrs. Zhou. You ever need anything else, just give me a call. I'm in the book."
She barely nodded back even as she pulled a smartphone from her handbag and went on with her day, crossing me off in her head and putting me out of her mind like a missed appointment in a planner book. I stepped back a little bit - people don't generally take the effects of magic on technology seriously - and pretended to busy myself with the coffee maker again.
I could hear her as she went down the hall - that muffled click-clack of her heels on the industrial carpet and the conversational cadence of a busy woman with little time to waste on trivial matters as she talked on her phone. She was angry with someone.
"-do you want now, Gerald. . . no, I'm not meeting with you again, I've got a full schedule today and no time for your drama . . . it's over. Just like you said . . . oh, please. I know exactly what you think of me. Don't try to . . . fine. I'll come over with the rest of your things, and that's it, all right? No, we can't get it back . . ."
Ah. Young love. Always so melodramatic.
"Stars and stones," I sighed, allowing myself a last caress with the idea of that big old money-sign-shaped speaking gig before moving on with my own day. I crossed the room back over to my desk and my modest chair, but not before gazing out at the cold world outside from the windows overlooking the Chicago River.
Views like this don't come cheap in the Windy City. The high-class skyscrapers in the Mag Mile rose above the icy ribbon of lakewater below like ornate tombs in New Orleans or someplace similar, the kind that are gorgeous attractions on their own, more monuments to a life well spent than a memorial erected after some poor sap died. There were a few buildings between me and them on the Loop side of the river, but they were high enough to be easily seen from such a distance. On the west side of my office, I had a great view of the L's route through Union Station, through the Ogilvie Center, and off to the north, where it would eventually cut back through the Mile and loop back down here, weaving through the streets like the trains were following the roadways themselves. If one peered upriver to the North, you could just barely see the dome of St. Mary of the Angels rising over Goose Island like that grand basilica in Florence, the red-and-white one I forget the name of.
It was a great view. I was lucky to have it and not be paying through the nose for the privilege. But the building was old and drafty, and "wizard" isn't generally a profession that comes with a lot of baggage in the eyes of Uncle Sam, so I got by.
Looking back on it, I may have been trying to distract myself from the questions, both said and unsaid, that Mrs. Zhou brought up during our ill-fated meeting. Because, truth be told, I knew exactly what had gone down on that Halloween. As a matter of fact, I'd been an integral part of that night's violent events. I'd probably even unintentionally released the entity responsible for at least half of those deaths and disappearances. I'd left a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton strewn across a college campus in Evanston. And all of it certainly hadn't been a senior prank at Northwestern University.
Think more along the lines of "necromancer civil war," "the Wild Hunt loose in Northern Chicago," and "wizard Navy SEALS dispatched to put down a series of potential newborn gods of death."
And I'd been at the center of it all. God, I love my life.
I blew out a long breath, checked my wall clock, and threw myself back down into my desk chair, with the idea of reading that week's mail in more detail. Maybe I'd even write the fourth letter to Best Buy before going home for New Year's. You never know.
About halfway through the stack, I realized something had changed since Mrs. Zhou left. The smell came first, like some kind of sharp chemical scent that made my nostrils burn and my eyes water a little bit. It was like someone had sneaked into the office and placed a can of spray paint beneath my seat, and now I was paying for it. It wasn't a thick, cloying smell, but it was certainly noticeable. And it wasn't the familiar scent of a cold office and hot coffee, either.
The second thing I noticed was that Mrs. Zhou's business card across her coffee mug had changed everything but its basic shape. Where it had once been marked with crisp, professional letters detailing her name, contact information, and position at GBS, there was now only a single character: a bold, black question mark in the center of the card.
Oh yeah, and the card had turned bright orange, too.
"What the . . ." I muttered. I unconsciously tugged at the black glove covering my hideously scarred left hand - a souvenir from a past altercation with burning napalm - and reached out for the card, making sure that there weren't any holes or tears in the glove. In my business, reaching out for a color-changing artifact, even something as innocuous as a business card, almost never ends with sunshine and roses. I'd learned that one the hard way.
Steam curled up from the card's corners as I lifted it into the light. There was something written on the back now. I turned it over. In a rough, scratchy hand, someone had written:
Dresden -
You missed one little thing this Halloween, sticking your nose where it didn't belong. It's gonna catch up to you if you're not careful. Eyes open
-?
I set the card down.
My hand was shaking, and it had very little to do with residual nerve damage this time. I told it to cut it out with another quick curse.
I knew at least one of those Kemmlerites had gotten away. I hadn't figured into the equation that they'd still be in Chicago - the Wardens tend to scare off most baddies for at least a few more months than this when they go full Götterdӓmmerrung on clutches of wannabe psychopomps.
Faces of people that I'd met in October and really didn't like that much streamed through my mind. I'd missed one, the note said. Which one? To my knowledge, they'd all died during the battle, brought down by the Wardens' magic-cutting swords or taken out as they warred for dominance over the Darkhallow.
But, of course, they had been necromancers. Death was probably just a state of mind for them.
On the other hand, what if I was being set up? Someone trying to throw me off my rhythm with a vague Warning of Ultimate Doom as a prank, or, worst-case scenario, a distraction while they did something else sinister and hopefully manageable right under my nose. Heck, this could have been one of those college pranks the media was always on about.
Even as I watched, weighing my options and preparing to take the warning with smooth, level-headed caution, the card slowly changed again, reverting back to the cream-colored card for Vivian Zhou, Producer, GBS. The writing on the back even disappeared.
But it was replaced by another message. The same hand, rough and heavy, scratched into the card so hard it had left time, there were only three words:
NAVY PIER. NOON.
Well, that escalated things. A location, a warning, a time, and a creepy card left by some unassuming dame from one of the town's local TV stations. I wondered how much else she knew, even as I rose again from my seat.
I'd swing by GBS later. But for now, at least, I had to check out this lead. If I was right, it'd either be a harmless diversion in midwinter Chicago, or a trap set by one of my lesser enemies. I'd faced worse odds before, and I knew the Pier like the back of my scarred hand. I'd just have to keep my wits about me, not make any dumb mistakes, and everything would be just peachy.
But if I was wrong and the message meant what I'd thought it meant . . . people would be in danger. Not even death would be able to save them.
My mind whirling to figure out an angle on this whole situation that had settled in my lap like a 30-pound housecat, I slapped an "Out for Lunch" sign on my door, shut the office door behind me, and set out into the cold.
I'd stay calm. Stay collected. And I'd be back before one.
Sure, Harry. Keep dreaming.