The Dresden Files belong to Jim Butcher. All characters and situations therein are his sole property, and no copyright infringement is intended. This is just for fun.
I
Any day that starts with a conversation with my subconscious is almost certainly going to be a bad day. For one thing, every time it happens, I become more convinced that I am, in fact, completely insane. For another, the guy (or rather, the manifestation of my inner desires) is a jerk. An arrogant jerk. I don't know what that says about me, but it certainly doesn't make for a good dialogue. His habit of sneaking into my dreams when I least expect it isn't terribly endearing, either.
"So nice to chat with you again, Harry," he sneered. With a resigned sigh, I turned to face him. The dream landscape shifted and faded around me, and my inner Id and I were standing in a pool of light, surrounded by infinite darkness. He looked like he always did – more or less like me, but with harder and nobler features, fewer scars, and a neatly trimmed beard. The beard, the neatly combed dark hair, and the slightly hooked nose, combined with my considerable height, made my alter-ego look uncomfortably similar to that evil wizard in the Disney movie… Jafar, that was his name. I also don't care to think about what that says about me, either.
He was wearing my black leather duster; it was the one Susan gave me, though his was considerably less torn and weather-beaten than mine. Mom's pentacle hung around his neck, though it hung on a silver chain instead of a tough leather cord. The leather of his duster drifted back and forth on the nonexistent wind, and he eyed me critically. I glared right back at him, more than a little annoyed.
"What do you want?" I snarled, in no mood to chat. "You are interrupting a very pleasant dream, I'll have you know."
"Oh, I know," slightly-more-sinister-me replied with a wicked smirk. "I do have some small role in crafting those dreams, you know. That one was particularly good – and Karrin does look really good in that swimsuit we put her in. I've been telling you to try and catch some of that ass for years now – you ever going to listen?"
I couldn't decide to be angry, horrified, or embarrassed. Like I said before, he's a real jerk, and, of course, knew exactly what buttons to push to get me worked up. I felt my face heat up – it was tough getting used to arguing with your own subconscious; after all, they probably know what is going on in your head at least as well as you do. And I'd prefer that my private thoughts regarding a certain police lieutenant remained private. Bandying them about, even in the isolation of my own mind, was not something I was comfortable with. Of course, she wasn't a lieutenant for much longer – another one of those things that just sort of happen to my friends, no matter how much I try to help them.
Instead of giving my Id the satisfaction of answering the question, I began to reason out loud. "Every other time we've had these conversations, I've been drugged, near death, or otherwise in a lot of trouble. So unless Molly's cooking has gotten even worse, and I'm dying of food poisoning, it must mean that you…" I paused for a second. "That is to say, I know something and don't know that I know it, and it means that trouble is coming. Decently big trouble, decently soon. Am I right, or do you need to give me a hint?"
The face that was almost a mirror of mine grinned broadly, a more pleasant and natural looking expression than the smirks and leers I was accustomed to seeing on it. It was vaguely unnerving. "You are getting smarter, aren't you?" Almost-Me said. "I was starting to give up hope, but it seems that you are starting to come around. I'm glad we've had this little talk." And then, if you can believe it, the bastard turned his back on me to leave!
"Oh, sure, thanks," I said sarcastically to his retreating back. "Glad that wasn't too cryptic or anything!" He didn't deign to reply, and the borders of this strange dream realm started to shift and fade, indicating that our little conversation was over. "You could have at least brought me back to the dream," I muttered as he disappeared into the darkness. It was hopeless anyways, because I could feel my body begin to bring itself out of its doze and into full wakefulness.
Because of this, I was in a particularly foul mood when I woke up. Of course, my life being what it is, it goes almost without saying that my day went more or less downhill from there.
Sometimes, being the only registered wizard in the Chicago phonebooks – not to mention Warden, sometime supernatural consultant to the CPD, mentor and all-around Yoda to a troubled teenager with a lot of natural power, and host to the shadow of a fallen angel, Lasciel the Temptress – is just more hassle than its worth.
The first thing I did when I got out of bed was throw myself into my home's icy torture device which barely qualifies for the name "shower." I made a mental note to myself – for the hundredth time – to come up with a way to rig a water heater so that it wouldn't leak or explode whenever I flexed my supernatural muscles. Maybe an enchantment on the showerhead that heated the water as it came out… I decided that I'd ask Bob next time I was in the lab.
After I defrosted, I put on some gym clothes and sat down for a quick breakfast. While I scarfed down grapefruit and cereal, I quickly looked over the homework assignment that Molly had dropped off the night before. Michael's daughter was rapidly approaching seventeen, and was driving her father's pickup when she stopped by – aspiring wizard or not, there was no way she was going to be caught dead going anywhere in her mother's minivan. Since I'd agreed to take her on as an apprentice, she'd started going back to school and was living in the Carpenters' home again, but she insisted on cooking dinner when she stopped by, once or twice a week – and though I very much appreciated the thought and the effort behind it, Molly was still learning, and at times my gastrointestinal tract suffered for it.
According to Michael, there was still a bit of friction between Molly and her mother, but it was the typical friction that you always get between parents and almost-grown-up children. I wouldn't know. The closest thing to a real family I've got, besides Mouse and Mister, is my vampire half-brother Thomas. I hadn't talked to him in a little under a month. Our last conversation had basically amounted to a verbal smack upside the head regarding my relationship with Karrin, though he was sufficiently cryptic that I wasn't sure whether the smack was "you idiot, you should get over yourself and ask her on a date," or "you idiot, you bared your souls to each other and decided not to try it, get over her." Neither of which were really much of an option for me, unfortunately. Of course, it could also have meant something entirely different – Thomas, despite being an incubus, knew a hell of a lot about human nature, especially women. Unfortunately, it wasn't genetic, and, as I think I've mentioned before, the females of the species are a complete riddle to me.
When I elected to take on Molly as my apprentice, it turned out to be a LOT more work than I had anticipated – and this is despite the fact that Molly is a lot more tractable and even-headed than I was at that age. I was almost grateful that I had been forced to keep my instruction to a bare minimum while Molly tried to catch up on nearly three months of missed schoolwork. Since she'd dropped out of high school halfway through the spring semester of her junior year, she jumped at the opportunity to go to a six-week summer school program that her mother had found. It was specifically designed to help kids who had dropped out get back into high school. Besides winning her points with her mother – which makes everyone's lives easier – it allowed her to catch up on three months of missed school in half the time.
She told me that, since she couldn't study magic full-time until she finished high school (my rule), she'd do her level best to graduate on time. That meant that she had to focus on trigonometry before she got to thaumaturgy – and it meant that I had time to figure out exactly how I was going to teach her.
I had presented to Molly an old, dog-eared copy of the very first book of magic I'd ever read, and her first assignments mostly involved reading up on the basic principles of sorcery and then describing them back to me. It wasn't the same as face-to-face tutoring and practical examples, but it would have to do until the school year began, and I could start taking up her Friday and Saturday nights. Besides, Molly was both smart and studious – if she could get a grounding in the basic fundamentals, we'd be able to move quickly, and she wouldn't have any superstition or bad habits getting in the way of her education.
Between my library of arcane lore, my own research, and the encyclopedic knowledge contained within Bob the Skull, I knew I had more than enough material to teach Molly all that she needed to know. The problem was that I had no idea how I was going to go about presenting to her. My own apprenticeship was little help – my first teacher, the black wizard Justin DuMorne, had used a method that relied on rigid memorization and a great deal of pain. Besides being limiting, it was barbaric, and I'd be damned before I'd subject Molly Carpenter to the same kind of torment. My second "apprenticeship" was far more useful, and since, at the time, I was under the same Doom that Molly was under, I figured that talking things out with my old master might do me some good.
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I paused briefly, waiting for the shadow of Lasciel to worm her way into my brain, to offer me the wisdom and guidance I'd need to make Molly into all that she could be. It was just the sort of thing she'd been whispering into my ear for more than a year now, and now, like all those times, I probably could use her help, if not for the teensy-tiny price of a small portion of my soul. No such offer came, however. Perhaps the mental guards I put up around my psyche proved too much for her. Maybe she had realized that I'd never take her up on her offer. Or, hell, maybe she was just giving me the silent treatment after I snubbed her during our last "conversation." Remember what I said earlier about women? Demon women make just as little sense to me as their mortal counterparts.
In any case, not hearing her seductive whisper in my ear brightened my spirits considerably. The warm summer morning beckoned to me out through my steel-and-spell-reinforced doorway, and I felt sufficiently invigorated to scratch Mouse behind his enormous, shaggy ears, gesture to the door, and say those words every dog loves to hear.
"Who wants to go for a run?"