Thomas started work in just a few minutes, but he let me know he'd be available to help watch my back after he got off later that night. I thanked him, then told him he owed me a new case of beer when he got his first paycheck; turns out that's why he was doing paperwork, setting up a bank account to get the money put into. Seeing as he doesn't pay rent, feed the pets or even clean up his own messes, he agreed to pick up some of Mac's finest on his way home. It was the least he could do.

Mister shot past him when he opened the door, off to go take care of whatever business cats have during the daylight hours outside. I heaved a sigh. I'd needed Mister for something today.

With Thomas out of the way, I grabbed Mouse's lead and a little baggie to take him for a walk before he unleashed the flood waters all over my floor, and the alert mountain of a dog kept his own nose and ears at the ready as we took a quick jog around the block. He's smart enough to know when he needs to do his business quickly, and I made a mental note that it was time to move up from small baggies to big ones. And I've been told that the dog, despite coming up to my belt, isn't done growing. Maybe not by half.

We hadn't been out very long, but apparently long enough. When I opened the door to my apartment again, it was sparkling clean.

The pets' food dishes had been filled and watered, the floor scrubbed and the empty bottles all taken off to god knows where. Thank goodness; it'd been too long since Thomas and I had both been out of the house at the same time, and my cleaning service doesn't work with an audience. Nor will they ever come back if I ever tell anyone about them, so Thomas has taken to calling me insulting names whenever I wave my hands and call it magic. I don't mind. I just want my house to stay clean, and he has a dozen habits that keep that from happening.

Given that all I really need is for him to be out of the house for ten or twenty minutes to walk the dog or grab some lunch, it shouldn't be that freakin' hard to do. And yet, being the slob of a brother that he is, it's still apparently too much to ask most days. You'd think that seeing the house clean wouldn't piss me off, but it put this morning's mess into a greater perspective. I have a magical fairy cleaning service, and my place is still always a pig sty.

I swallowed down several muttered obscenities at my brother's expense and made my way back down into the lab, where Bob was waiting. Or rather, reading a book.

"TAKE HER SHIRT OFF!" Bob shouted into the pages enthusiastically, then quickly turned a page. A moment later, he laughed, yelled and cat called at his romance novel.

"Bob," I interrupted, and he narrowed his glowing eye sockets at me, closing the book. "I need to pick your brain."

"Can't it wait five more minutes?" he whined. "I'm at the best part!"

"All I'm hearing is, 'No, boss, I don't need any more romance novels. Don't ever buy me those again.'"

His face fell. Given that he's a human skull made of immovable bone, I was impressed that he'd pulled that off. "Don't even joke about that, man."

I had my notepad back out. It's not something I carry everywhere, but it goes far when I remember it. I didn't pull out a pencil yet. There were a few things to clear up first.

"Bob, I have questions and I need answers. I may even need to send you out tonight to find out more, but first I need your perspective on everything going on."

I had his attention, and he put away his pouty face. "A ramble with Mister, eh? ...48 hours, minimum. And don't think I've forgotten about the two novels you owe me from earlier!"

I frowned. The last time I'd given him too much leash, he'd started an orgy at the local college. "Twelve, tops. It's time sensitive. Literally."

"I don't think you know what literally means, boss," he scoffed. Then he paused. Then he eyed me with those orange lights in his sockets again. "Well now… that's interesting, isn't it?"

"That's not what I'm asking you to go out looking for, but it's something I'd like to hear about if you see it in passing," I said, and realized I was rubbing my neck. I swallowed. "I need more on these new monsters. They want a basic rundown of the White Council, supposedly so they can make friends and play nice. Their King, though," I thought back, "he acted weird when I mentioned the laws. I get the feeling he knows somebody who broke them, and it might even be him."

Bob scoffed. "The laws normally only apply to humans, anyway. If they want information, I say go for it. Tell these new guys whatever you want about the White Council. The Council never did us any favors. I want twenty four hours."

I started looking around the ingredients lining the shelves, walls, and cluttered floor while we talked. The cleaning services didn't do much down here, probably because they knew better. It's a wizard's workshop, after all, with several dangerous things they wouldn't understand laying around, or… in one case, held in concrete under the floor.

I paused for a moment, looking at the one part of the floor that I never, ever let get dirty: a triple-layered circle made of silver with various runes of protection, custom made by a specialized fairy smith, was set into the ground. I found myself trying to squeeze my left hand into a fist, then swallowed and looked away, back to a small plastic shelving unit I got on sale, now full of odds and ends.

I pulled down some old coffee grounds as I asked, "Anything you think I should hold back from these new guys?"

"Don't bother with too many boring details, just give them the basics," Bob advised, eyeing my movements around the cramped room. "Are you making another Pick Me Up potion?"

I nodded, reaching for fresh soap. "I'm hoping we can do a little better than the super coffee we made a few years back. The energy was fantastic, but the crash almost got me killed. If we can't do a night's rest, I'll take a twenty minute nap."

He sighed. "Don't bother starting with coffee, then. Open with milk."

I paused. "I think we're out of milk. Let me go check."

As it turned out, we did have milk. My cleaning service had picked more up to go with the dozen or two boxes of Fruit Loops they'd bought a few trips ago, and thankfully there were other groceries along with it.

I noticed we had a few frozen steaks hidden in the bottom behind some packaged instant meals. I have neither a microwave nor a grill. Hmm.

I brought a glass of milk down with me back into my sub-basement, and noted that Bob had already gotten back into his book. "Twelve hours topside, max."

"Sixteen," he countered, not bothering to look up from his book. "And you'll want a pillow's softness to go with that."

Which was also upstairs, sitting on my bed. "Bob," I growled, pouring the milk into a beaker. I lit a small fire under it to bring it to boiling. "I need the information on these guys sooner, not later. What else will we need for the potion?"

He quickly rattled off the other six ingredients, but we were fresh out of pine needles. "Fresh gingerbread, or something else from a Glade plugin," he offered instead. I, as an economic wizard, prefer to get my less bizarre spell ingredients at Wal-mart or dollar stores when I can, so cutting corners with cheap-but-effective ingredients is a favorite pastime of mine.

Every potion has eight parts: one for the base to hold it all together, five for the five senses, and one each for mind and spirit. They're a wonderful tool for a beginning wizard, and there are a few things they can do better than any other branch of magic. The downside is they're slow and specific; you need to know exactly what you want, and they can take hours or days to brew depending on how difficult your goal is. I'd asked Bob for a Full Night's Sleep potion before taking on a loup-garou (super werewolf) years ago, but the best I could brew at the time was a potion of super coffee. The brightest candle burns quickest, and it's one of the few times in my life I'd completely drained myself of magic. I'd been captured and beaten with a tire iron as a result. Another Pick-Me-Up was a no go.

A quick nap, though, could be worth its weight in gold in my profession, and I'd taken plenty of those over the years. If I could get the same effect in a potion, maybe it'd mean the difference between life and death next time.

"Even a partial night's rest isn't going to be easy," Bob warned me as I pulled the ingredients down. "And you'll probably need to conk out for at least a few minutes to get even a partial effect."

"How much will it give me then?" I asked, then we both kept quiet as I measured out some gentle breeze for the sound.

"Maybe an hour and a half of rest out of fifteen minutes real time napping?" he estimated as I moved on. "And you'll want to try to stay as close to fifteen minutes as you can, or the potion'll wear off and you'll just stay asleep for another couple hours. We can tweak it to wake you when it's almost done. Turn down the heat on the milk, we want it warm for most of the mixing."

I nodded, turning down the burner, and asked, "Bob, you said there was a bunch of contradictory information on the Monsters earlier. Why won't you share it?"

He made an ugly sound, and I moved between him and the potion just in case. "Oh, don't give me that," he said dejectedly. "I can't hurt the potion from here."

He paused, and I heated some bacon-bite dog treats on another burner, for taste, while he mulled the question over. "The wrong kind of information is dangerous," he began slowly, "for the same reason that information on witches making deals with devils was dangerous in the middle ages. Even if some of it really was true, it might be just enough to get you into serious trouble with them." He paused again. "I can safely say that you could have a soul gaze with one if you stared at its eyes, but it might take longer than normal or no time at all. ...If you could get me a good sixteen hours on the streets, I might be able to dig up some more facts and fancy."

I sighed. "Bob-"

"I can't do it in twelve, Harry," he cut me off bluntly. "If I'm going to do this right, I need to catch them unaware, and there's a good chance they'll still see me. Neither of us want stories of a certain spirit of intellect floating around where the Fey might find out about it, or you might as well grab that claw hammer and have done with it."

I focused on the potion. It was going to need to simmer for a good long night no matter how much I wanted it ready, and the ingredient for the mind was either a daydream or actual dream, so I was going to have to nap today anyway.

"...Harry, I'll even promise not to make too much trouble on the surface. But I'll want another novel."

"Twenty four hours," I finally said. "Do it right, and come back as soon as you're done. You can take up to twenty four hours, but get back sooner if you can. The report isn't due tonight anyhow."

He smiled wide, as only a skull can. "You got it, Boss. Now, what was that you were asking about time?"

I scowled, then told him about the encounter I'd had with Morgan.

He whistled, a high pitched noise given he didn't have any lips. "Gotten yourself back on the White Council's naughty list, have you? You told Thomas I'm down here in case you don't come back alive, right?"

I huffed a laugh and mixed in the pillow's softness before grinding up some melatonin pills with a pestle and mortar. "You have my permission to find him if I die. You want to go with Mister as soon as he gets back?"

"Nah," he said, "I need to keep an eye on you when you mix in the dream, day or otherwise. It'll be best if I leave between now and noon. Don't worry about the time problem just yet. I'll find out what I can without breaking anything."

My dream was important. I knew that. Something about Sue and a scientist… and then it was gone, and I wasn't sure I'd dreamed at all.

After my quick nap near the open flame (don't give me that look, I had a spotter) and a distant feeling that I was forgetting something important, I left the potion to simmer and called my voicemail at my office. I may not be able to have much in the way of technology at home, but my old rotary phone was necessary for my job, whenever it didn't drop calls.

Yes. My landline phone can drop calls. It's not funny.

I'd gotten another few messages from random church members telling me to give up my witchcraft and that they'd pray for me, another few death threats from anonymous sources that I'd long since realized were mostly harmless, if annoying, and several from reporters asking for free interviews in exchange for fame. None for cash this time around, so I didn't bother writing them down.

Near the end, I finally got a message worth hearing, but one I didn't want to hear. When the SI branch of Chicago PD leaves me a message, it's rarely good news.

"Dresden," Murphy's light voice came through, and I was glad the connection was clear enough to hear my favorite Lieutenant. "When you get this, give me a call at the station. We don't have a body yet, but I need to brief you on recent events. It counts as consultant work, so it pays."

Huh. That's different. Normally, Special Investigations holds the purse strings tight until somebody dies. It's more a sign of desperation than anything; they get the worst cases in the precinct, and a couple wooden nickels for their budget.

"Sounds like the higher ups have finally realized that SI actually matters now that you've put us on the front page. Thanks for that, by the way."

It sounded vaguely like someone muttered "jackass," but my friend Karrin Murphy was a proper lady, albeit one who could break my arm without getting out of her desk chair, so I couldn't be sure. At least it explained the paycheck.

"I'm also getting a paid vacation soon, so I'd rather leave you in capable hands as opposed to tossing you out to Homicide, but we can burn that bridge when we get to it. Call me back, Dresden. Soon."

I grabbed the phone and walked past my lazing dog back towards the basement when I heard scratching at the door. I set the phone down down and strode over to let Mister in. He sprinted full bore into my legs the moment the door was open, and I had to hold onto the door handle to keep from falling over. After rubbing his scent into my shins in greeting, Mister sauntered over to his dish in the kitchenette and ate a few bites, then saw that Mouse's food bowl was also full. It had been left untouched, awaiting Mister's approval.

Mouse got up as soon as he saw that Mister had returned. The big dog walked over to his bowl and laid down in front of it. Mister pawed his face, hard, and the huge dog got up and walked a few steps away, where he sat. Mister then ate a bite of Mouse's dog food, and then flipped the bowl over and splattered dry dog food across the floor. Mister walked away haughtily as Mouse's tongue lolled out in a happy doggy smile, and the dog took it as his signal to dig in, lapping kibble off the floor.

I shook my head at their old ritual, and headed downstairs with the phone. I'd adopted Mouse about a year ago before a run in with a coven of porn witches (you read that correctly), back when he could fit in my pocket, but Mister still treated him like a newborn pup that needed to be reminded of the house's pecking order. Of course, Mouse goes along with it. I like to think he appreciates the ritual in his own way, seeing as it's one of the few times Mister bothers to fully recognize him.

"It's no good," Bob told me as I came down. "We're going to have to start over."

"What? Why?" I asked, nearly dropping the phone as I took two long strides to my potion. I inhaled deep, and blinked as the unfinished potion made my eyelids droop the slightest amount.

"The dream didn't take, and you don't want to risk getting this one wrong. You make a bad sleeping potion, and next thing you know you've got a beard and have to wait for princess charming to kiss you awake." His eyes glinted. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you, a quick kiss from a beautiful lass is just the thing-"

I let out a long, exasperated noise, and let him keep talking to himself as I went upstairs to get more milk. When I returned, he'd rambled on to more lecherous topics about how best to appreciate a kiss upon waking up to one, and how to move it to something a little more… earthy.

"Enough, Bob," I cut his gibbering off. "What was wrong with the dream?"

He chuckled softly, eye lights twitching left and right. "Nothing, really. Just didn't take."

I paused, then looked a little closer at him. "Are you… scared?"

"Me? 'Course not, boss, never. Well, except when Winter Fey might be around, but that's a whole other thing, of course. Nothing wrong here!"

"Bob, you're about as hard to read a billboard. What's going on with you today?"

"Nothing. When's Mister going to get here? I think you could work a pleasant daydream into the potion without me now that you've put the first one together without me, no problem. I mean it won't be much trouble to do it again, and I need to get moving soonest."

"Bob, slow down," I insisted, putting my hands up and attempting a calming gesture. "Mister's already here, he just got in. What're-"

There was an orange flash, and Bob was gone up the stairs.

I put the milk down and stared after the spirit, and my mouth may have dropped open a bit.

Bob is a spirit of intellect. He holds himself together with magic, and during the day, he lives in his skull, a kind of gilded cage or doghouse, for protection and comfort. He doesn't take risks, though, not when he could do the same thing carefully. More than once over the years, his advice to me had been to take a quick vacation to another state or country to meet chicks and come back when whatever magical storm was threatening Chicago had passed. In a word, he likes safety, and I'd expected to need to bring Mister to him.

The sun, on the other hand, is a magical cleansing force that cleaves through magic like a wave of force from an atom bomb, and only fortified magic survives a sunrise, let alone hours of concentrated daylight. My home's wards, for example, thrum like power lines if you have the magical ears to listen to them, because I built them strong, to last for years without much upkeep. Even so, I have to renew them from time to time to keep the sun off, and that's with my home's Threshold, the sense of Home I've built into the very walls just by living here, holding the wards up as a hell of a base.

Now, chances are pretty good that the few small windows I have near the ceiling aren't letting in much sunlight, and that Bob could easily get around them without much effort, but if I had to bet on which would win, I'd give Bob ten thousand to one odds of surviving for more than a few seconds in direct sunlight. He doesn't even like to see sunlight.

He just shot upstairs in the daytime like I was after him for six-months-past-due rent money.

"Bob?" I asked carefully, taking the stairs back into my living room one at a time. "Is everything OK?"

"No, Harry, it isn't."

Mister looked at me from across the room, eyes glowing orange. He pawed once at the door, then sat back and stared.

"Bob?"

Mister tilted his head.

"Bob, if it's that bad, I won't force you to go out there today. There are other ways to find out what I need to know."

Mister pawed at the door again, not taking his eyes off of me.

I sighed, strode across the room and pulled the door open, and Mister ran back out into the daylight, protecting Bob from the worst of it. Mouse whined quietly, and I agreed with his sentiment.

Strange happenings. I didn't like it, not one bit, and I got the feeling I didn't know the half of it.