Now, keep in mind as I tell you all this that my brother Harry is a crazy guy. We're talking about someone who thinks that a good day consists of fighting a couple ogres and not breaking both his legs off. But there's method to his madness—he's a tool, a total weakling when it comes to a pretty damsel in distress or a chance to save the human race. At the end of the day, after he's done talking to himself, trying to kill himself in the most creative ways possible, and all around looking like a madman with the brain that could've been fished out of an aquarium, he shambles home and has a beer and looks normal again. Believe me, I live with it. He puts his feet up, reads books, and eats pizza like any guy I've ever cared to know.

So you really have to imagine my surprise when I came home in the middle of a workday to see my dear little brother flinging magic at his wards and yelling at people I couldn't see.

I stopped dead for a moment at the top of the stairs, trying to take in what I was seeing, just as Harry threw another spell at the wards, where the magic was absorbed in a resounding lightshow that sent us both sprawling several feet backwards. Harry had flung up his shield, and because of our proximity when I came up the power had missed me for the most part as well—even so I opened my eyes on the asphalt of the street, feeling like a small car had run me over.

Harry hadn't noticed me, but instead he'd gotten back up and went forward again.

"Tell me where he's at, you bastard!" he yelled, and I squinted to see if someone was veiled in the area. Maybe they'd managed to turn the wards against him somehow? I really need to pay more attention when he rambles on about magic.

As though he'd been answered, Harry began again. "I don't believe you!" He sounded pained though, and it was then, as the blue light of his wards faded, that I could see a second, insidious layer of magic around my brother: a silvery sheen with sparks of hateful red. I came fully to the top of the steps as he prepared another spell, now very sure that he was not only alone, but out of his damn mind.

"Harry!"

I'm not sure what my plan was. My abilities with magic are minimal, despite my witch mother, and all the power I've got seems to go to the Hunger. But I can run fast and withstand a lot of damage, and in his current state, I was feeling sure I could redirect Harry's rage and get through to him. I was not prepared for his reaction, however.

For a moment he didn't seem to have heard me; then slowly he spun, looking up the stairs at me with wide eyes.

"Thomas?" I'd be damned if he didn't sound… scared? "But they said… I saw your… you were…"

He was probably hallucinating the whole thing, so I had to work myself into it, like with a sleep walker. I did some quick thinking. "You got hit with a spell—they're gone. I got you back to the apartment. Let's get you inside, man."

He nodded numbly, frowning at me, at my arms, and gazing around, as though he were seeing the big metal apartment door for the first time. By the time I'd trotted down with my keys and talisman at the ready to get inside the wards, he was slumping against the wall. He'd been fed on, and they'd used him to attack the wards. I wasn't sure what else they could do, but I knew the threshold would weaken their ability to get to him, and the wards—though weaker now—would keep them out, otherwise they wouldn't want them down so much. Whatever they'd sent into Harry's mind, and how ever, wouldn't be as strong when we got into the apartment.

He seemed drained, and his eyes flicked around, confused.

"Thomas?"

I was unlocking the door in a hurry and kept getting the wrong key. My hand was shaking. I felt Hungry and empty with worry, and Harry being off his rocker wasn't helping.

"I think I just saw them again. They're still here."

I took a steadying breath. "We have to get inside. We'll regroup and then deal with them, alright?" I had the door unlocked with a triumphant click and when Harry stumbled, I got him around the ribs and through the door.

Something odd happened as we passed the threshold, a weird sticking feeling, as though I were trying to move Harry's body through a thick wall of gelatin. His threshold used to not be so hot—one single guy and a cat living there, crashing and eating and obsessing over a lost love. But with myself and Mouse there too, I've felt it grow stronger, more than the connections in our blood forming extra webbing over the doorway. It had become more powerful as our friendship grew, and though no children or romance knew those rooms, the threshold was closer to that which you see over the doors of a busy home. That power was operating on Harry now as I pulled him in, stripping the influence away from him. The silver sheen vanished, left as a haze outside in the afternoon light, and I slammed the door on it.

I turned to see Harry looking at me, his eyes sane again; he was dressed in jeans, a black t-shirt and his leather duster, with a glove covering his mutilated left hand, and he still grasped his staff that he'd been using to fling his Fuego spell at his own wards. Its carved runes still glowed bright red and seemed to smoke slightly, giving off the smell of brimstone. I don't question him about it, but I've been fairly sure that's the smell of Hell coming out of my brother's staff. He was leaning on it at the moment, resting his head on its end.

"How did you know something was happening to me?"

"Sitting. Then questions," I rebuked.

I ushered him to the couch first and grabbed us both Cokes, while Mouse, about as big as Mister by now, all paws and fluff and gangly legs, scrambled out of the kitchen alcove to demand a pat on the head before bounding over into my brother's lap. Harry scratched the puppy's notched ear with his healthy right hand; he appeared pale, and a sheen of clammy sweat had appeared on his forehead, but he didn't show much more damage than that—I figured he was just as fatigued from fighting the influence that had come over him and churning up spells as he was from what the thymophages might have taken from him. I gave him the note and its contents wordlessly, observing his face as he read it. His reaction surprised me; when he was done he put them down, calmly, no rage evident on his face. Maybe he didn't have the energy to conjure more anger, or they'd drained all he could muster for the time being.

"Do you recognize these guys?" he asked. "They seem like they know who you are."

I shook my head. "Not by face or name. The White Court all know me, because I'm Raith's son and he's always sent me around to do his dirty or tedious work. But they came to work and started a feeding to get my attention, before they fired off a machine gun. They're thymophages. White Court vampires who inspire and suck on rage. They can send people into berserker fits, if they're ready to kill them."

Harry crinkled his forehead at the ceiling, resting his head on the back of the couch. "Sounds weird—them going to those extremes when we're at war. If they got me and killed me publically, after how the war started"—

"Yeah, I thought so too," I said, taking a long pull of Coke. It did nothing to quench a kind of rasping, hot thirst growing inside me. "They'd gain huge amounts of power for themselves among the White Court families, and a lot more for them among the vampire courts. But they're driven by hunger. There's so much anger against you, and you've got lots of it yourself. For vampires who eat rage, you're like an orgy with the Playboy bunnies."

Harry laughed. "Remind me to save that for the next high school reunion. That'll show all the popular kids."

I couldn't stop a smile. "Wiseass. Something must've happened to make them open you up the way they did—like the times you've seen me with Justine. There's a moment of contact, where they rile up the emotion they want in you. Then it snowballs and you're under their control."

Harry shuddered visibly. "No. I got a call from Murph, some murders they'd dumped on her lap with people torn apart. Seemed like a normal killing spree to me, or maybe an ogre involved, but she wanted me to look around. So I went to Mac's to see if he'd seen anyone new in town or see if anything was suspicious. He said something about some demons possessing people to make them kill and I went to Bock's to check it out. He'd just got in and he wasn't open per se, but he let me peruse the books. I thumbed through a couple. It's been one of the more boring days this year. Then I…" he trailed off. "I was waiting for the bus back to the office, but my hand started hurting like no tomorrow. I forgot the pain pills in the car last night and I knew it was with you, but there's more here at the apartment—so instead of going back to the office, I got on the bus back home. I think…" he frowned again, like remembering a dream. "I fell asleep on the bus—must've looked like some kind of hobo, but this old lady woke me up before we got to my stop. I got off the bus." He was looking at me now, and seeing beyond me. "Crazy shit started happening. A man I'd never seen before was standing at the top of the stairs leading down here, and he was smiling like a lunatic as I came up. I was just about to get a read on him with my senses when he threw something at my feet."

Harry looked genuinely disturbed. Which, you know, is hard to do, because he's seem some really messed up crap. He's told me about a bunch of his cases—hearts that flew out of people's chests, huge werewolves jumping at him and tearing police officers to shreds, a Knight of the three holy swords laid out and tortured to ribbons in a chapel… he's seen a lot. But when he looked at me I knew they'd gotten to him. I stayed silent, waiting for him to tell me.

"It was…" he got a grip on himself, closing his eyes. "It was your left hand. By itself. Burnt up, the way mine was when it happened. Without the rest of you."

Get away from him. He will be safer if you leave. The Hunger sounded genuinely uncomfortable.

The apartment seemed warmer than before, even though it was cold outside; I wanted to strip layers off, but resisted the urge. And almost as though I'd been draining heat from the room, Harry pulled the blanket I'd left on the couch around himself and Mouse. He hid the vulnerable gloved hand from me under the covers. It was one of those moments, those quirks, when the wizard Harry Dresden, who commands immense stores of power and can blasts holes in several buildings at a go, suddenly looks very human, and very fragile. He went on.

"Things get sorta blurry after that, like being drunk. Everything seemed really… red. Like I was in a firestorm. I chased the guy, I don't how far. We were in an alley, but I couldn't describe it if you asked me to. He could throw around a lot of magic, blue lightening bolts. I tried to get him to tell me where you were, what had happened to you. Then I… I don't know. Everything sorta shivered, like an earthquake, and melted, and I was looking up and saw you. Then I was here again. I tried to reason it out and I felt really tired, so it made sense that I'd been unconscious after the last flash of magic that hit me. Then I opened my eyes in here and the red was gone. I can think again." Harry met my eyes. "I've been angry lots of times in my life. But I've always been able to bring up a lot of magic, or run really fast when I am. This time… I don't know. I felt like they wrapped me in plastic. I was weaker, not stronger. The angrier I got, the weaker my magic was."

You must get away from him. You're selfish, endangering him like this. The voice of the Hunger sounded too much like mine.

The room was ridiculously hot, but it wouldn't be better outside.

"Maybe we should get out of the city," I ventured, even though I knew his response already.

Harry smiled, a smart ass remark on his tongue already; I could see it brewing in his eyes. "What, won the Buffy the Vampire sweepstakes, Thomas? Gonna take me on that honeymoon to Sunnyvale?"

I didn't give into his amusement this time, though I wanted to fire back with a similar obnoxious remark. When he's around I have the pleasure of being big brother, which means telling him to shut the hell up.

"The further you are from the thymophages, the less they can do to you."

His amusement evaporated and he appeared weary again.

"If we leave, we'll never be able to come back. They'll get the Wardens on our tails and we'll be on the run from wizard law and from the vampires too. Lara can't protect us."

I ran my hand through my hair distractedly. "I don't want you fighting them. I have no idea how big House Alecto is, or how many allies might come after us if we try. They think I'm living with you to feed off you, so they don't have any expectation that I'll protect you. If I do, they'll suspect worse. They could figure it out, and then the whole White Court could know we're brothers. They've got their hands in financial and governmental ventures all over the place, Harry. You don't even want to know how bad things could be for us." I sighed; my own hand felt burning hot. "Plus… until we know how they accessed you, you're stuck in this apartment. You can't fight."

Harry remained silent for a few moments.

"This is our home, Thomas."

Our home. Mouse gave me a doggy grin, licking Harry's hand. The Hunger practically screamed at me. Getoutgetoutgetout!

I ignored it, keeping my poker face. "We can discuss it more later. You should sleep and stuff—if you want to have a dream of leaving this apartment again, you'll need all the resources you can get."

"Sleep is for humans," Harry grinned.

I moved over to help him up, as Mouse bounded down onto the floor.

"Yeah, maybe they'll have a cure for that in a thousand years."

Harry winced as my hand touched his back.

"Jesus Christ on a crutch, Thomas—are you sick or something? Can you even get fevers? You're burning up."

My hand had heated immediately on touching my brother, while the Hunger scrambled around trying to get me to let go.

"No," I said, evenly. Harry nodded. Sometimes my brother can be smarter than he looks. Which, you know… isn't really saying much. But it's something. He didn't reply or inquire, just allowed me to get him into his bed so he could drop off for a while.

"Hey," he held me back before I could leave, making me twitch. I didn't want to, but the way the Hunger was raging I needed to get away from him for a while. I needed him asleep and not sitting there caring about me. "I think… maybe these guys have something to do with Murphy's case."

God, at this point I wanted to knock him out. "We can't talk to her about it, Harry. We can't tell anyone. Family project. You and me."

"You ran from the scene of a crime, after someone fired on you. And I'm working on the case with her. Murphy knows you're here, Thomas. She could bring Hell down on us too."

I heard myself laugh. "You're being chased by the scum of the White Court and we're being blackmailed into oblivion. Somehow I doubt Karrin Murphy is our biggest problem."

"Even so, be extra careful around squad cars if you leave the apartment."

I looked at him in disgust, not directed quite at him but the insult of the idea. "I'm not leaving here while you're sleeping. Not with things the way they are."

He smiled at me, and I realized he was half asleep.

"Yeah, I know."

Harry was in dreamland almost before he finished speaking, snoring slightly. I didn't move, watching him for signs of more thymophage activity. I should have gotten him to strip so I could search his clothes for some kind of talisman, though I wouldn't know what best to look for, having no experience with this House Alecto. I threw the blanket over him, and then on a second thought tucked it in, examining his hands as I did so. Nothing new there. A gloved left and a ringed right, the same plain silver circlet he'd worn since the first time we'd met. His shield bracelet, the charms warped and battered, still blackened with signs of burning. Scar tissue showing where the glove ended, mottled red and white skin, unnatural and waxy. His t-shirt and jeans, both slightly burned and dirty from fighting his own wards. Hair tousled and a face that looked younger than Harry's years, and a pentacle that would be identical to my own if it wasn't scarred and battered. I realized I was angry with myself, and wasn't sure why. Self-consciously, I left the burned hand out of blankets, feeling my own lips tingle where I'd kissed Justine for the last time and came away blistered. Sometimes you get burned, and it's worth it. No reason to be ashamed.

I left feeling like I'd taken a too-hot shower, to dig through the rest of the apartment for some way my brother had been accessed. It wasn't long before Mouse started up his puppy barking, and I heard Harry let out a low, guttural, angry scream.

Can a starving incubus never catch a break?