Harry

A little man had crawled between my ears and begun to ring a gong in the spacious cavity that lay between.

Or at least, that was what it felt like when my phone started an unrelenting, strident wail, yanking me from an already dodgy attempt at sleep. With a groan, I lifted my head from the pillow and turned a bleary stare to the Mickey Mouse wind-up clock that sat on the bedside table. I couldn't always count on the thing to give me an accurate time. Even simple pieces of technology have trouble doing their jobs with a wizard close at hand.

If the cartoon mouse was to be believed, it was about fifteen to six, and the ass-end of morning. Whoever was calling me had better have a damn good reason for dragging me out of bed at this hour.

My first attempt to sling my legs over the side of the bed was thwarted by enormous furry mass that had laid itself perpendicular to me on the bed. A thousand needles prickled dully from my calves downward where the giant animal had laid itself across me like a localized weighted blanket.

I slid a leg free, in so much as I could manage it, grimacing when the effort made my bones creak. I used one long toe to poke at the dog's flank with a muttered.

"Up, you big lug. I think it's for you."

Mouse lifted his head and his eyes fluttered open. He gave me a lazy yawn and a look that very clearly told me I was full of it, to stop stalling, and to get off my lazy ass and answer the phone.

Damn it. Sometimes I hate it when the dog is right.

It took another few minutes for me to limber myself up enough to shuffle from the bedroom to the phone. Even when I wasn't tired and a little hungover, the journey would have been difficult upon waking. I hadn't done any of my therapy exercises yet.

Not so long ago a group of rouge necromancers who called themselves the Heirs of Kemmler had tried to turn Chicago into a sacrificial altar on their attempted ascension to godhood. I, along with a group of Wardens had been able to stomp the plan into the ground with the help of a zombie T-Rex and one-man-band extraordinaire Waldo Butters. But the victory had come at a cost.

One of the Heirs, Capiorcorpus-better known to most as the Corpsetaker-had gotten into my head. Badly. I was fuzzy on the finer points of what had been done. I wasn't a healer and mind magic wasn't my area of expertise. But the gist of it was that the Corpsetaker had crumpled my brain like a tin can and tossed me away like so much trash before breaking every single one of my fingers for good measure. Even on my badly charred left hand. What kind of petty bullshit is that?

When all was said and done, it had hobbled me. Before my exercises, my mind didn't communicate well with my body. Nothing was technically wrong with either. My brain was on the mend, my body still hale and hearty, my magic still intact. But the bridges between them had been so much scorched earth when Corpsetaker was through. If it hadn't been for Anastasia Luccio, I'd be grub in the stomach of a thousand happy maggots by now.

Mouse had to be my therapy dog for real those first few months. I'd had help from Michael and Karrin as well, and Ebenezer and Listens to Wind had given me enough intensive therapy that I was up and moving and could get back in the game, teaching baby Wardens when needed.

Now if only I could get myself spry enough to answer the phone on time.

The phone stopped ringing before I got there, and the call clicked off before the other party could leave a message. That might have been that if the caller hadn't been the obstinate sort and put in a second call directly on the heels of the first. My hand hesitated over the receiver. I don't get many purely social calls, as a general rule. And if someone wanted to talk to me this early and this badly, it was unlikely to be anything I wanted to deal with.

The phone buzzed furiously for a third time and I lifted it from the cradle with a long-suffering sigh, raised it to my ear, and mumbled; "Hello?"

"Dresden," Karrin Murphy fairly snarled from her end of the phone. I got the sense that if she could have climbed through the earpiece to throttle me, she would have.

"Murphy?" I answered, hoping my voice didn't betray any hint of guilt. If it did it'd be enough to convict me before a jury of one and justify a thorough ass-kicking by one very pissed off Police Sergeant.

"When I get to your house, your ass is grass, Dresden," she seethed into the other end of the phone. "I'm going to shove my boot into your ass a foot for every day you've kept me out of the loop."

"Loop?" I echoed. "What loop? I'm loopless, Murph. Even my Fruit Loops have gone the way of the dodo. Mind filling me in on the charges before you hoist me on my own petard?"

Karrin must have been practicing her breathing exercises on the other end of the phone because for about thirty seconds all I heard was a buzz of static and heavy breaths. Finally, she seemed to get a handle on herself.

"You don't know what's going on? You swear to God, Dresden? Because I don't need an uncooperative wizard on top of everything else."

"I swear it, Murph. I am literally and figuratively in the dark. What's going on?"

Murphy swallowed convulsively on the other end of the phone, and my dread ticked up a few notches. Murphy wasn't the sort of girl who scared easy, and if she was disturbed this early in her case, it boded nothing but ill.

"So I guess it's safe to say you haven't read the paper or stepped outside yet. Something has...happened."

"I gathered," I said dryly, reaching down to scratch the spot between Mouse's ears as he padded up to me. Thankfully, the dog can do a passable impression of a grizzly at a distance and I didn't have to reach very far. "Mind telling me what that thing is?"

"Dead people, Dresden. We're all seeing dead people. The mayor has put the city in a public state of emergency because something seems to have unearthed everything dead from Uptown to Brighton Park. It's a parade of roadkill on every street, every grave in Graceland and a few others have been clawed open, and Dr. Brioche had a heart attack when the body on his slab got up and walked out the freaking door. It's Night of the Living Dead out here, and I need some answers, damn it."

My stomach bottomed out and a little panicked voice started up a little litany of muttered curse words. I had answers, alright, but they didn't do me any good. I knew that at least one of Kemmler's slimy little proteges had skedaddled after the Darkhallow had gone fubar. This had to mean they were back.

Mondays were a real kick in the teeth sometimes.

"Please tell me you know what could have done this," Murphy said, though half her sentence was almost drowned as she leaned heavily on her horn and employed a few choice words at a passing motorist.

"How do you know what his mother's like?"

"Shut it, wiseass. I'm not in the mood. Traffic is a nightmare. There's so much crap in the way."

"No chance it could be a natural phenomenon?" I cast out the suggestion hopefully, though I knew it was false. "Earthquake, maybe?"

"That's probably what we'll end up spinning it as, yeah. But I want the truth, Dresden. Is it...is this what was going on last Halloween?"

Murph was a sharp cookie. Normally I really like that in a gal, but right now, I was wishing she were a little less savvy, so I could crawl into bed and pretend that this was all a really bad dream. I didn't like the thought of going up against one of the Heirs in this reduced state.

But if I didn't, Murphy would do it alone and get herself killed in the process. What sort of man was I if I'd let her?

"Maybe. Let me talk to a few people, Murph. I'll meet you soon. McAnally's alright?"

Karrin gave me a singularly masculine grunt normally reserved for the interior of a men's locker room and hung up without saying goodbye. I took the affirmative for what it was and laid the phone back into its cradle. My hands were shaking. I leaned my head against the wall. I felt stiff, brittle, all too aware of how easy it might be for this unnamed foe to snap me in two.

Mouse shoved himself bracingly against my thighs, almost toppling me to the floor. I barely recovered my balance in time. Even so, I couldn't find it in myself to be angry with the pooch. He meant well.

The knock at my door made me jerk hard and I had a hand out for my staff almost without thinking. I let it drop after a half-second of thought. The knock was probably coming from one of Thomas' many admirers. I'd redirect her with gentle and not at all envious reprimand and get on with my day.

But when I dismantled my wards and tugged open my front door, it wasn't a tall, statuesque woman waiting on the other side. It was a young man, about a head shorter than I was. He was built of lean, sinewy muscle, though somehow still managed to be gawky despite it. He hadn't filled out into the shoulders he'd inherited from his father. He still had a lot of potential to him though, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that he was a fan favorite at his high school.

The kid's good-looking, in a rugged sort of way. Dark hair, gray eyes, somber expression, and just the hint of a beard coming in now. The brooding vampire fangirls probably ate him up.

"Daniel?" I checked. It'd been a while since I'd seen the kid.

As a general rule, I stayed away from the Carpenter house. Michael claimed I was always welcome but I could practically feel resentment and accusation boiling off Charity when we met. I'd failed to bring back Molly. Failed to save her from the monsters or even give them a clue of what might have happened to their oldest daughter. She thought I didn't deserve to be in their house.

I agreed.

Daniel licked his lips nervously and nodded. "Can I come in, Mr. Dresden? It's important."

I didn't have time for it. The longer I delayed, the longer the unnamed necromancer had time to wreak havoc on my city. But I couldn't toss the kid out without being polite. I could at least humor him and give him a ride home.

"Alright. For a little while. What's going on?"

Daniel waited until the door was closed to round on me. The panic on his face drew me up short, and I leaned back on my heels away from him.

"I made a big mistake, Mr. Dresden. I really, really, need your help."

Of course, he did. I sighed.

I really, really hated Mondays.