I opened my eyes, my head groggy, rain on my face and my feet, strangely, moving. Dammit, I thought I was done with this after Ivy pulled her 'healing hands' trick. Noises assaulted my ears; growls, roars, the unmistakable sound of steel rasping through air.

Voices.

"Harry! Can you walk?"

"Molly?" I blinked. I was standing, which felt like a minor miracle in and of itself. We were moving, her under my left arm, holding me up, her own left arm swinging away with her sword.

She looked at me, and a zombie leapt at her. Without thinking, I lifted my hand and shouted, "Forzare!"

The dead woman went flying away, and I suddenly doubled over with a splitting headache. Should have used a force ring. Well, at least I wasn't short of breath and wheezing with chest pains. I was, however, nauseous. Well, a guy can only take so many blows to the head, I guess.

"Thanks," Molly was saying. Then she was pulling me along the street.

"How long - ?"

"Just a minute, I think, but time's getting weird!"

"Weird?"

"I can see the stars, Harry, but it's barely dinner time!"

"You okay?" another voice shouted. Thomas.

I straightened up. A little. He got under my other arm. "What the hell happened?" I asked.

"I ran a corpse down, and the son of a bitch flipped us over!"

"Nevernever?"

"I can't open a Way!" Molly said.

I glanced over my shoulder, squinting as the pain slowly evaporated. Sure enough, Thomas' tank was on its roof. And swarmed. Zombies, hobgoblins, a few Black Court vampires…

"Hell's bells!" I cursed.

"Yeah. Let's keep going, shall we?" My brother was pulling on the neck of my coat.

I pulled my blasting rod out, walking backwards as Thomas guided me, with Molly at my side. The creatures were everywhere, crawling out of alleyways and off rooftops, out of building doors and sewers. I shook out my shield bracelet, the pain behind my eyes finally washing away, replaced by pure adrenaline. My newly-repaired heart was thundering.

"How the hell do we get out of this one?" Thomas asked quietly.

"And why aren't they attacking anymore?" Molly added.

"Oh, don't ask that question, Invisible Woman. You know it'll just - "

I was cut off when they charged. We kept moving, Thomas all but dragging me. I threw up a shield without even thinking about it, and pain went ripping though my brain, back to front. Too many blows to the head?

Harry, a voice said. It wasn't Lash, it wasn't Demonreach.

Yup, definitely too many blows to the head.

It's me, stupid!

Elaine?

Get down!

"Down! Now!" I screamed. I made myself dead weight, dragging Thomas down, and grabbed Molly with my free hand, left arm still extended, holding a shield in place. With the pain receding, I gave the energy in the bracelet a gentle nudge, tuning it from physical resistance, to electrical. Then I closed my eyes.

A bolt of lightning struck the ground not far from us. I'm pretty sure the vampires and animated corpses at the centre of the blast were incinerated, and those surrounding them were blown out in all directions as the blast of thunder followed. A powerful electric shock rolled up my arm, numbing me right to the shoulder. In spite of the shield, I was momentarily blinded and deafened. But not fried or blown to bits, so yippee for that.

I blinked my eyes into operation as I was struggling back to my feet. Without being able to hear anything but ringing, I staggered. I felt hands on my shoulders, and a voice calling to me from about a hundred and fifty miles away. Then, clearly, from behind my eyes, Harry? Are you okay?

Elaine. Yeah. Severely handicapped, but, thanks. As teenagers, Elaine and I had been… well, 'intimate' is a good starting point. We'd mutually crafted a spell that allowed us to 'pass notes' in class, without needing pen or paper. The nature of the spell was different from what Molly had done; ours had been mutual, based on our Names and a feeling of love.

It still worked, but damned if all these voices in my head weren't making it feel a little crowded.

My sight returned, though the colours were off. Molly and Thomas were also blinking, but they were standing. Both seemed to have recovered faster than I had. Beyond them, I saw still more corpses crawling and walking towards us. And behind them, hobgoblins and gruffs peeking around corners.

"Let's keep moving!" I heard myself say from under water. I scooped up my rod and staff, then we turned and ran.

We got about twenty feet before I felt a slight, unnatural chill in my spine. Glancing around, I saw the source: "Vampires. On that roof." I pointed up and to the left, above a large doughnut sign. Four reasonably fresh Black Court vampires were staring down at us.

"I see them," Thomas said, and he sounded almost relaxed to me. The vamps jumped and were moving before I could take another breath.

"And?" I asked.

"And somebody saw them," he said. Four enormous dog shapes exploded out of the shadows behind the vampires, overtook them in an second, and ripped them to shreds mere feet away, then Mouse and half the Alphas joined us in our run.

The other Alphas were waiting at a street corner, as was a pick-up truck, engine running. As we got closer, I saw Lara in the driver's seat. "Let's go, wizard."

Molly hopped in the bed and hauled me up. Thomas went for the passenger seat.

Elaine had one foot in when the last attacker jumped at us.

He came down from above, throwing himself off a 5-storey roof, and managed to land on her ankle. She fell. I heard myself yelling her name. I jumped back out of the truck; if the guy hadn't smashed its own head in on impact, I would have killed him. He couldn't have been a vamp, or we would have sensed him coming; must have been a Renfield.

I ignored the mess as well as I could and kneeled down. "Are you okay?"

She groaned. "It's just my ankle."

Thomas was suddenly there. "Help me," I said.

We pulled her up, handed her to Molly. I turned at a growling sound. I looked at Billy, then at what he was looking at.

The mob behind us had grown, and was now charging. There had to be over 200 zombies, hobgoblins, vampires… I think I saw a few human-shaped creatures with strange-coloured hair and wooden weapons; the Sidhe themselves.

50 feet away and closing.

No time to think of a plan B.

No time to think, really.

I pulled my staff out of the truck bed. "Go!" I told Thomas.

"Not a chance in hell, Harry!"

"Thomas, I'm not asking!" I stepped away and started drawing in power. I was rewarded with pain behind only one of my eyes. I triggered a couple of my force rings, aiming at the ground. I threw up debris and a few sets of legs. "Get them to safety." I lowered my voice, and said, "Please." His eyes, for once, had not a trace of silver; they were completely human.

Above us, Molly tossed a few balls of ice that smashed into some of the closest creatures, slowing them. "Alphas, Mouse, go, now!"

I heard a low growl and glanced at my dog. He looked defiant. And he's more stubborn than I am.

I pointed my staff at him and said, "I'll stun you and make Thomas carry you."

Then I felt two strong arms on my mine, and I was lifted.

"Lara, go!" my brother shouted, and I felt the truck try to get out from under me. "Toss magic from up here, you idiot!" Molly was on my other side, and Mouse and the Alphas were running at pace, flanking us and making it look easy.

I looked at Thomas, who still holding me up. "Jackass. You're always ruining my noble sacrifices!"

"You'd have to be noble for that to work, Harry!"

In response, I pointed my blasting rod behind the truck and shouted, "Fuego!" Wonder of wonders, it didn't even hurt.

Thomas pulled a ridiculously large handgun from somewhere I didn't want to think about and started firing. He blew the head off a hobgoblin that was only a few feet away. Its companions trampled the body.

The truck bounced on the rough road, but Lara kept us going straight. The Alphas ran easily kept up, and kept our sides clear, which was nice. Molly and I tossed fire and ice, Elaine threw a lightning bolt or two. Thomas kept firing. In all, it was a pretty spectacular running firefight.

Until the earthquake.

At first, I thought it was just another bump in the road, and the truck shifted, my right side was pushed up. But before it came back down, my left foot was moving up. Then I was rolling forward and twisting, my feet barely touching the bed of the truck.

The truck's nose was tilting up. Thomas' hand was reaching for me. I was falling. He was knocked off balance when the driver's side tire hit the ground again, and his hand missed the hem of my duster by less than an inch.

I saw all of this later, when I asked Lash what the hell had happened. At the time, it took less than two full seconds.

I was falling through the air, watching my friends and family speed away. I hit the ground, hard, and rolled, fast. My staff and rod slid with me. My left arm was numb, my ribs and other limbs hurt like… well, I don't really have a simile, they just hurt a lot. I couldn't breathe.

I skidded to a stop after a few seconds, coming to rest on my back. Ahead, the truck screeched to a stop, too. Thomas and Molly were both out and running towards me, about 50 yards away.

I turned my head. The swarm, even much reduced in number, was still coming, determined as ever, and now I could make out Sidhe, vampires, hobgoblins, a pair of gruffs, some brownies… jeez, even the brownies? Those guys used to clean my apartment…

Okay, brain obviously scrambled. I pointed my right arm, the one that was still listening to me, at the nasty bunch and started triggering the rest of my rings. A few of them went down, a few barely noticed.

I still couldn't get my left arm to move, so I reached for my staff with my right. The sound of growling, screaming, shouting, magic and gunfire overwhelmed me. In a moment, I'd be crushed underfoot. A second of pure fear gave me mindlock.

Then I heard Demonreach's voice in my mind again, saying my name, drowning out all the other sounds. This time it wasn't demanding, or tentative, or curious.

It was afraid. For me. Dresden!

The ground shook again, then I was weightless. I looked up, and saw Thomas reaching for me. Wait, he should be below me if I'm flying…

I wasn't flying. The ground had opened up directly beneath me. I was falling.

It was like going down the world's worst waterslide; the rubble and stones were the current. I was pulled along on a sharp angle, slowly flattening out. The hole above me vanished with the angle, maybe closing up completely as I was swept away from it.

I didn't have the breath to cry out, or I would have been yelling all the way down.

I hit something resembling level ground feet first and kind of crumpled into a flip, landing on my back in a very undignified way. My staff followed me, and landed on my stomach, driving the breath out of my lungs again and leaving me to curse creatively without saying anything out loud.

I started coughing as soon as I tried to pull in a breath, and had to stuff my face into my own armpit to get clean air. Ironic, no?

Disoriented, hurt, more than a little stunned, and feeling hopelessly out of my depth, I rolled onto my back and looked up at Lash as she blinked into existence. Despite the dark, I saw her perfectly.

"Harry?" she asked tentatively.

"I… feel… terrible," I gasped out.

She tilted her head. "If you can reference Star Wars, you should be fine."

I groaned. "You sound like Murphy." I thought for a second. "And Elaine." I thought again. "And Molly." I turned my head. "How's my arm?"

"Not broken. The nerve was pinched, leading to numbness. That should have passed, now."

"Yup. Now it hurts like hell." I wiggled the fingers, and they responded. I made a fist. So far, so good. I blinked a few times, then slowly worked my way into a sitting position, trying to keep my head from spinning. I glanced around. There was almost no light, save for a dim glow around a bend in the cave I was in. I stood, limped my way back over to my entrance by touch, and looked up. I saw nothing at all.

"Not heading out that way," I said, and the echo effect disturbed me. After a fall like that, I should have been in Undertown. A feeling around at the base of what was basically a garbage chute turned up my blasting rod and staff. I looked around in the dark again. I shook out my shield bracelet (which hurt all the way up to my elbow) and closed my eyes. Then I Listened.

All I got was a dull rumbling and chugging, like from an engine, off in the direction of the light source. "Lash, are we alone down here?"

"I believe so."

"Even though I should be getting swarmed with all sorts of nasty things?"

She looked at me. "As above, so below?"

I looked back. "Cute. That was practically a pop culture reference for you. Your jokes are getting better." She smiled and clasped her hands behind her robe. I looked towards the low light. "All right. Let's get some of this pain masked, then get a move on."

Lash had shown me several techniques for masking, dulling, and even ignoring pain over the years. With her help, the various bruises and cuts faded into insignificance. I started walking towards the glow, using my staff and following Lash's projected self to keep from tripping over anything. She only had my eyes to work with, but she paid far more attention to what I saw than I did.

As I moved closer to the light, the engine sound grew louder, and I was able to pick out more details in the surrounding rock. Lash vanished around a bend in the tunnel.

I rounded the corner, and blinked. There was a series of four bare lightbulbs hanging from a steel beam that had been driven into an uneven layer of concrete in the ceiling. It had probably once been the foundation of a building. A thin cord ran in series through the bulbs' sockets and down to a generator, chugging away. On either side of the low cavern, makeshift walls had been erected. There were five of them; three on the right, two on the left. In the space where a third cubicle should have been on the left, there was a well, and a firepit.

I'd stumbled into an underground hovel. Each of the walls had a door, and after calling out, I poked each one open. No one was home, and I felt no tingles of thresholds. No one was living here – at least, no one human. But each of the spaces felt abandoned. No clothes, no possessions. There was a cot in each space, and that was it.

"A refugee camp?" I asked.

Lash appeared again, walking into sight from nowhere. "Transitional housing?" she offered.

"Maybe. We really are in Undertown. But no normal human being could survive down here. Lycanthropes, maybe?"

"Exiled Sidhe?"

"Could be. Hell's bells, it could be anyone. But they're gone now." I shook my head. "Undertown's empty. I'd bet Luccio's salary that everyone down here cleared out weeks ago when the blanket came down. That's why nothing popped out after the first quake."

"But where have they moved on to?"

"Anywhere." I paused, a sudden thought occurring to me, words lining up. Anyone. Anywhere. Transitional. I felt a smile spreading across my face. It might work.

Lash caught onto my thinking, a half smile on her lips, too. "Left inner pocket," she said. I reached in, dug for a moment, and pulled out a little pouch full of dust. The Black Key.

A few months back (or a few years, depending on how you looked at it) McCoy had given me a gift; a key to a hidden place, outside time and space, yet linked to it. There were two things required to get in: a Key, and a doorway. A crossroads.

Any door linked to no one person, no one place, could function as a crossroads. Anywhere life was fleeting, moving, changing from one moment to the next. Like right here.

I held the pouch, the disintegrated remains of the Key to the Black Hall, in my right hand, my staff in my right, and concentrated on the place that was nowhere and everywhere at once. With the image firmly in mind, I stepped up to one of the doors to the ramshackle rooms, and pushed, stepping through without stopping to look what was on the other side.

I stepped into a long cave, stretching out to my left and right for as far as the eye could see. The floor was worn smooth. Small veins of light criss-crossed the surface of the obsidian. Inexhaustible torches in sconces lined the walls on either side at regular intervals, providing plenty of steady light.

And the doors, set into jambs of pure rock, waited for me, each with a window to another door back in the real world. The door behind me clicked shut. I turned and saw a window set in it, even though there had been no window on the other side. I saw the well and the hearth, disused and waiting.

I turned right at random, and started walking, Lash falling into step with me. As it had been explained to me, the Black Hall was a creation of both Queens, Mab and Titania, a place neither would ever step foot, its neutrality enforced by each other. While I couldn't really trust Titania anymore, Mab would violently destroy anyone who tried to step on her toes.

So, I walked along, peeking through windows at empty warrens and hovels and caves. "You know," I said, just to kill the silence, "I really hate the way things have been lately."

"What do you mean?" Lash asked.

"I mean…" What did I mean? I had just slipped out. Well, pick a word and run with it. "Well, for example, never having all the information I need. About the Circle, about Cowl, the Faerie Queens. Always being a step behind. And now they're in my town, which is in shambles." I heard my voice getting harder, and louder, and let it. "How many have died? Just in the last two days? Vampires, fae, undead. Traitors!"

"You're angry."

"Yeah! Yeah I am! Stars and stones, I haven't had time to be angry all day, have I? No, it's been rush-rush-rush! Crazy shit happening all around me, signs of the apocalypse, pretty much every person I know in town and in danger." I paused. "Am I having a nervous breakdown?"

"I think this is called 'venting'."

"Right. Blowing off steam." I stopped walking and took a few deep breaths. Then a few more. I had time to think, time to consider. Time to breath. Time to relax.

I opened my eyes after a little while. "All right. I'm better now." She looked concerned, but didn't say anything.

I turned to a door. The caves had given way to dark, empty streets. "Finally," I said, putting my hand to the knob. Looking through the window, I froze.

The trees I could see out there, across the street, were moving. They were swaying with the wind.

I looked down at my watch, but the glass was broken. I had no idea when that had happened, but between the fall through the Earth, the car accident and the various smackings-around I had taken today, I wasn't all that surprised. I shoved the door open, emerging into a motel parking lot. I glanced around; I vaguely recognised it as the place Sumi Kitoro, the Jade Court vampire, had used when she'd stayed in town.

"Time was moving while I was in there."

Yes, Lash said behind my eyes.

"What the hell is going on?"

It appears that the usual rules governing the interaction of the Nevernever and Earth are… breaking down. It may be possible that time passed more quickly while you were in the Hall.

"Oh, super. Really. That's just fucking great." I oriented myself and started off for St. Mary's, to the west, at a light jog. "All right; if you see an older model car, I'll hotwire it. Just how late do you think it could - "

The sound of hunting horns broke my concentration.

And they were loud. Like, right in my ear loud. I dropped my staff and fell to my knees, hands over my ears. The noisy blast faded away.

Lash, what the hell?

Harry, look up.

I did. The fires we'd been racing, the Hellfire walls encircling the city, completed themselves as I watched. Flame erupted into the sky, enclosing most of Chicago in a magical barrier. Now complete, the fires all around began reaching higher, and curving in towards each other. Chicago was slowly being enveloped in a dome.

Of course, Lash whispered.

Of course? Of course, what? What the hell do you know?

I curse myself for not understanding sooner, but the memory was faint. I have seen it twice before, however.

Seen what?

Harry, can you not feel it? The movement in the air? The reason the Nevernever has been impossible to access, the reason the Black Hall was behaving incorrectly?

What are you talking about?

As with Milwaukee, as with Babylon.

Oh. Oh, no.

In 1994, the City of Milwaukee had been pulled into the Lands of Winter. The entire city. For two hours. No one in the city itself had kept a memory of the event, and the media hadn't said a damn thing. But the White Council knew. To this day, no one was entirely sure how Mab had managed it.

All of a sudden, I had a inkling.

"The entire city," I mumbled. "The entire city is in Transit?"

Lash stepped out of my peripheral vision and joined me. "Yes," she said simply.

"Transit to where? Summer?"

She shook her head, slowly, looking at me. "No. There is only one place this city is going," she said. "Only one place it has been going for a long time…"

She looked up again. Her voice was small, breathless. "I can feel it. Like returning to a home you swore you could never go back to…"

I looked up as the sky began to turn red. "Ah, Hell."