I came to, my head pounding worse than an overzealous drum major. I was tied to some kind of wide pipe by thick cords of frayed rope, my bare feet freezing as I stood on a cold concrete floor. The distant sounds of rumbling machinery and rushing water cut through my subconscious as I came to terms with my singular situation.

It was a familiar one, I'm loath to point out. If I had a nickel for every time I woke up in a position similar to this one, I just might have been able to pay off this month's rent. At least my t-shirt was still on this time.

Experimentally, I opened my eyes, mentally prepared for whatever else was occupying the room with me, up to and including the stabbing pain of sudden exposure to a light source. It didn't come - the darkened room was shrouded in shadow, crisscrossed with pipes and valves, real steampunk-like, and illuminated only by gray werelight filtering down from above, from a bank of industrial windows that I couldn't see from my position.

I'd caught a few tonfa strikes to the midsection at Navy Pier, and my whole body ached as I attempted to get a better read on my situation. I twisted in the bindings, only to find that I was pretty well tied up. More water rushed in overhead, through the pipe I was tied to, which made a neat 90 degree angle three feet or so above my head and continued off into the inky blackness before me. Lovely. Grounded again.

I froze.

I wasn't alone in the room. Even with my more esoteric senses deadened by the continuous flow of water above me, I could feel someone watching me from the shadows. Maybe two or three someones. It was the feeling you get when you're a child who somehow got left alone in a school at night, or the feeling that sends chills down our spines when we look up at the ruined façade of a building in which something really, really bad happened once upon a bygone time. An intangible feeling of dread, that you're not alone and you're not supposed to be there.

But, I'd faced worse before. Much worse.

I straightened up to my full impressive height as much as my bonds allowed, and recalled my conversation with Bob all those months ago. It was a good place to start, at least.

"I know you're out there," I called into the darkness. "I'm not afraid of you - just really, really ticked off. Show yourself!"

There was nothing, for a while at least. Then, deep in the darkness about twenty feet away, a tiny flame snapped into being. A lighter's flame. It rose to about head height, as if to light a cigarette, and illuminated a blank, faceless mien.

The lighter was on for just long enough for me to steel myself further - I couldn't cede any ground in the upcoming battle of wits - then, as quickly as it had ignited, it was gone. My view of the room beyond returned to abyssal blackness.

Suddenly, the Question stepped in out of my right peripheral, close enough to spit on, as if he'd been there the whole time. He was still wearing that gross-looking trenchcoat, trilby hat, and the tacky, stained suit, and he was smoking - despite not having a mouth to do it with. The smothering scent of tobacco smoke followed him like some kind of loyal pet as he approached me, face to horrible non-face, and exhaled. His entire head erupted in a wispy white cloud that curled, serpent-like, under the brim of his hat and soon invaded my own nostrils en masse.

My eyes and lungs burned. My head pounded. But I stood my ground and fought the human urge to cough for all I was worth.

After what seemed like an eternity, the Faceless Man nodded slowly and turned away, heading into the darkness. It was only then that I hazarded a small cough or two, just to get the crap out of my lungs. I'd tried that life before and found it lacking in more ways than one every time I attempted it.

A television flickered on ten feet away from me, on the edge of werelight and oblivion. I had to squint to see it, but its content was clear and the volume was loud enough that I could understand every word.

The camera swept over scenes of complete devastation, like a Midwestern tornado had wheeled through a Spirit Halloween and a nature preserve at the same time before dumping the results on your average college campus. Windswept kids with nasty-looking wounds limped along in their ruined costumes, quickly being escorted home by parents who looked just as bewildered and injured as their children.

"-search and recovery teams are still finding victims in the rubble this morning following last night's freak windstorm," a GBS newscaster narrated over the harrowing visuals. "Meteorologists were stunned this Halloween night, when what seems to be an extremely late-season EF4 tornado unexpectedly swept through Lincoln Park in the wake of Sunday's citywide blackout, destroying everything in its wake. Initial casualties are estimated at approximately twenty-five, but are expected to rise dramatically as the debris is cleared up. Preliminary reports indicate that over a third of the casualties are children-"

Pause. Rewind, slower this time. The increasingly slower speed caused the newscaster's voice to devolve into a deeper, slurring mockery of human speech.

"Preliminary reports indicate that over a third of the casualties are children."

The images faded into static as a distinctive silhouette fell in front of the TV screen - the shape of my captor's head and shoulders, hat and all. He didn't move, just stood there for a few moments until the TV shut off, leaving the flickering ember of a tiny orange circle as the only source of light in the darkness.

"Now, I'll be the first one to speak up against whatever the lying legacy media's peddling this week," the raspy voice whispered. "But this time, I'll make an exception. I was there, Dresden. I saw the aftermath of whatever happened in Evanston that night. Aside from the death toll, the projected costs of rebuilding, the solid numbers that not even they can fake, I don't believe a word of what they're saying on the networks. And you're gonna fill in all those blanks."

"Stars and stones, it's gonna be one of these days," I groaned, slamming the back of my head against the pipe. It didn't help my various aches and pains, but it helped get my dander up. "Fine, I'll bite. What if I don't wanna? What if I've got places to be, people to see, premade appointments to make-"

"Children to slaughter?" the Question interrupted. "Come on, Dresden. I've been tailing you for the past month and a half, ever since I learned what an illustrious week you had around the neighborhood - right before that windstorm just happened to blow in on Halloween night. Aside from doing enough small jobs to keep the lights on, you haven't even been to that weird little hop shop downtown on your off time. Staying out of the public eye like a man with something big to hide. Admit it - you're laying low, because you're expecting pushback."

"From who?!" I cried indignantly. "What, are you saying I traipsed around Chicago setting up a network of like-minded evildoers, summoned a tornado in some esoteric way for some esoteric reason, then melted away into the night cackling like a madman and twirling my mustache? Get your head out of the pulp novels, man!"

"You bill yourself as a wizard. You carry an oaken staff and a wand around the city. And when we fought in that hippie microbrewery earlier? I suppose that little gust of wind you cooked up was just an air cannon, huh?"

A gloved fist slammed into the pipe right next to my head, and suddenly he was right there in front of me, reeking of cigarette smoke and growling like a feral animal.

"I don't know much, wizard, I'll be the first to admit that too. Modern man and his arrogant, ignorant ways, refusing to see the truth that's right in front of him. It takes a radical to get people to think critically these days, in this age of blind-faith and American complacency. That's what I do. I ask the Questions everyone else won't, and force the corrupt, evil criminals I take down to answer for their crimes. There are so many lies in this world, so many cover-ups and media scams . . . honestly, I don't doubt that there are forces at work here that us Muggles can't even begin to fathom. My suspicions about them - all of them - were justified earlier today, Dresden, thanks to you. Do you have any idea how that feels?"

My mouth ran dry. This guy was certifiable, and he had an agenda. Not a good combination. "I've got some experience in the matter. Doesn't count, though. I've got no idea why you think I'm responsible for all this."

The Question pulled back a little bit and nodded. "Yeah, yeah, sure. I get it. I get it."

I gasped all of a sudden, my back straightening as much as it could under the circumstances. The end of a t-baton was digging into the assorted bruises just under my floating ribs - gently at first, but there was potential for a lot of force pent up behind such a relatively small area. I attempted to squirm away, but my bonds held me too tight for comfort.

"Here's the deal, Dresden. I'm gonna ask you a couple questions, real simple ones. If I hear something I don't like, I'm gonna start pushing. You keep lying to me, and I'll bring out the other baton, too. Scream all you like, try casting a spell all you want. I've taken precautions."

Despite the discomfort, I cracked a wolfish smile. "What, this water pipe over my head? Tell me, what makes you think I'll need magic to retort?"

A moment of hesitation. "Funny. We'll see what happens first - you tell me what I need to know and accept whatever comes afterward, or I impale you below the ribcage. Now,

first question: you were sighted outside Bock's Ordered Books in Hyde Park on October 29th, a Saturday. Minutes later, the entire block was torn apart by fire and force. Media said it was a sewer gas explosion. What really happened?"

"Criminy, man, that's what you start out with? I was just there to browse a few titles-"

"Which ones? No way you were getting your yearly Patterson fix. I know the satanic New Age dreck Bock pushes."

"Not everything he sells is the freaking Necronomicon. I was looking for some old college textbooks to brush up on my art history. Wrong place, wrong time - just like my life for the past month and a half, really."

A lie, of course, but I had no idea who this guy was working for and I really didn't need him to know about the tome I'd truly been looking for that day - one of the last surviving copies of The Word of Kemmler, a book of black magic written by a Nazi necromancer back in the day.

I had a good reason for it, I promise.

Like I said, I didn't know who'd set the Question after me, but at the time, it had seemed like a good idea to obfuscate that detail, at least. The Disciples of Kemmler were probably still kicking around even after the Darkhallow - maybe even employing this guy to tie up tall, dark, and handsome loose ends such as myself. Even if they weren't, the potential harm that some shadowy vigilante's sponsor could wreak on the world with something of that magnitude would be incalculable. And at the time, a little white lie to prevent a big black tragedy seemed like fair trade - even if I was the one who'd reap the consequences of it.

The t-baton dug a quarter inch further into my ribs. I was expecting it, but it still hurt. "Fine, you don't wanna talk about that, we'll revisit it in a moment. How about this: at about midnight that morning, you were captured on no less than eight security cameras knocking around the old Rossi-Fremont housing community - a known hotspot of gang activity. Now, what exactly were you up to there? Meeting a contact? Making a pickup? Answer me!"

I swallowed hard. That was a prickly question too. "I . . . was duped. Doesn't happen often, but apparently I've been off my game this winter. Thought I was meeting someone who could help me out on the case I was working that week. Turns out, I'd been played like a game of Monopoly, tugged around in ways I should have seen coming. I've been kicking myself ever since." I groaned, shifting as far away from the baton as my battered frame and the pipe behind it allowed. "Look, I'm just trying to do the right thing. If you've been trailing me, looking me up, whatever, for as long as I figure you have, you should know that by now. I can't tell you everything, but I'm not guilty of whatever crime you've attributed to me - and I can prove it."

It was truth, and the Question knew it. The pressure on my ribs eased a little bit, but not by much The baton was trembling ever-so-slightly with the vigilante's barely contained rage. "That's not actionable intel, but at least you're telling the truth now, Dresden."

"Glad you're satisfied. Let me out of these ropes right now, I'm not kidding. I'm beginning to get pretty annoyed with this whole performance act."

"I can't do that," he whispered, finally dropping the baton. I quietly gasped for air and relaxed my strained midsection. "People are dying in Chicago, and it's my job to track down the culprit and put an end to his miserable career. I've got leads, Dresden, leads I haven't even begun to quantify yet. The suspicious death of Phil Ziegler, a break-in at the Field Museum, blackouts throughout the entire city, an uptick in ritual killings, fluoride in the city's water system . . . it's all connected somehow. And you seem to be at the center of all of it."

"What can I say? I've had my fair share of strange experiences," I admitted. "In October, I was running back and forth all over the city to put a stop to the same thing you're trying to figure out right now. I was on the case when this whole thing started, and I'll be there to close the book on it as it ends. I don't know anything about the fluoride, though."

"But you do know something," he said, his eyeless gaze snapping up to meet mine. "Like I said, I don't know everything there is to know in this world, but one thing's for certain: there are strange forces at work here in Chicago."

I snorted. "You're telling me. When did you come to this stellar conclusion?"

Nothing changed on the vigilante's face - duh - but I got the impression of an irritated glare. "Shut it. I've seen it myself, things I can't rationally explain, in run-down abandoned warehouses and the lakehouses of the rich and famous alike. I've done my research and brushed up on concepts I'd rather not have done, but nothing can replace the experience of an insider."

My mind was working feverishly to make sense of this whole occasion, fully alert yet still pounding with a slight headache. "So . . . what, you want to hire me as a consultant? Stars and stones, you freaking idiot. You could have just come to my office and we wouldn't have had to fight one another."

The Question scoffed. "Don't you remember Vivian? I tried to hire you, but you flew off the handle and refused her."

"She tried to interrogate me! Wanted me to go on TV and everything!"

"That was just a cover. You were clearly hiding something when you turned her away, and I didn't want to hire you only for you to reveal yourself to be some kind of evil sorcerer and stab me in the back later. I had to get a read on you first."

"How do you know I still won't do that?"

"You still might. I don't trust you. I don't trust anyone. But," he continued, gesturing at my present state with his baton, "I did beat you in a fair fight."

"'Fair fight?' You slimeball. You grounded out my Power - not even in an effective way - and gassed me before I recovered. I would have wiped the floor with you straight up."

"Like I said, fair fight. If you were some latter-day Saruman, I would have had to beat feet. Any fight you can walk away from was a good fight."

I fixed the Question with a withering, wizardly glare, powerful even despite the fact that I was tied down. "Untie me. Now. Then we'll talk shop."

"And get you out from under that water? Unlikely. I'd like to stay secure where I am-" he began, but was interrupted when a third man stepped out of the darkness behind him.

He was of a height with the Question - a shade over six feet, above average for most men in the US, but almost a full foot shorter than myself. He was dressed semi-formally - a white cotton button-up with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a pair of freshly pressed slacks, green vest that complemented his short white hair. He carried himself with a strength that belied his apparent age, with callused hands and broad arms that suggested a lifetime of hard work - or possibly even fighting. Maybe both. Other than that, he looked like your everyday mature gentleman, equally at home on the streets of the Magnificent Mile as he'd be at a college campus as a favored professor, except for one thing - he didn't have a face, much like the Question himself. Instead, the older man's skin fell loosely all around his head almost to his collarbone, sort of like a long, floppy, face-concealing hood made of featureless tanned facial tissue.

It was a disturbing sight, but I'd seen worse. Also, I suspected that these two weren't anything supernatural on my side of the fence anyhow. But that just brought up a whole host of other questions . . .

He leaned in and whispered something to the Question. My head dropped down, appearing for all the world like I was exhausted from the day's struggles as I closed my eyes and began to Listen. Listening isn't something magical, not like casting a bolt of Hellfire or summoning a wave of force from the aether - anyone can do it, though few ever really do. As such, the ability wasn't hampered by the coursing water flowing through the pipe I was tied to.

The two faceless men glanced at one another, then retreated far into the darkness behind them. I Heard their footsteps echoing off the hard concrete walls and floors and abruptly had a pretty good idea of the room beyond. It was about the length of two basketball courts stitched end to end, with two cavernous, yet symmetrical, wings to the immediate right and left. The ceiling must have gone up a good forty or fifty feet, and it sounded like there were a few tables, boxes, and other objects off in the gloom somewhere. A good-sized vat of something-or-other was bubbling away on a kitchen range somewhere off to the left, and I was pretty sure it wasn't a nice, warm pot of soup.

Just as I was hoping the two men would start a conversation where they figured they couldn't hear me, a heavy metal door opened and shut and their footsteps were silenced. Not great, but at least now I was alone.

I stopped Listening as closely as I had been earlier and repositioned myself as best as I could. During my delightful conversation with the Question, I'd located a good-sized ancient and scratched bolt on the opposite side of the pipe I was tied to and shimmied my bonds over to it. I had to hike my elbows up a little farther than normal and stand straight as a ramrod to reach the thing, but there was a good opening to do so now and I wasn't about to waste it.

And so, I began whittling away at the already frayed rope that bound me to the pipe, intermittently taking breaks to Listen for my captors coming back to the basement. As I worked, I formulated an escape plan based on my preliminary reading of the darkened room ahead of me - not a great one, but it was all I had at the moment.

The second-to-last rope snapped, leaving a single stubborn cord that had been slackened considerably by all the movement of its fellow constraints. I tried wiggling my wrists out, but only got one free. One last pull, one last roll of my left wrist and-

The final rope came off clean as can be, leaving me to stagger forward a few feet. I cackled, my voice echoing into the chasm ahead. "Oh, those amateurs! What's the matter, boys, never kidnapped anyone before?"

Someone cleared their throat behind me. I whirled around and beheld the older gentleman, the professor, casually wearing his gross-looking hood of floppy flesh. He was absently opening and closing a well-used butterfly knife and standing just behind the pipe I'd been tied to moments before. A pile of cordage lay at his feet - most of it the stuff I'd broken apart with ragged, frayed edges, but that last rope boasted a single clean cut, like it had been sliced with, yep, a well-used butterfly knife.

"Most impressive, Mr. Dresden. The last person the Question brought here, some lowlife drug-pusher squarely in the lower middle area of Marcone's payroll, broke his bonds in twelve minutes. You succeeded in only six."

Without another word, he flipped his knife open again, grabbed it by the blade, and threw it past me into the dark room beyond. Immediately, rows of floodlights exploded into being. Reflective Plexiglass walls shot up from hidden slots in the walls and floors, and an unnerving alarm began to wail, filling the entire area with sound.

When all was said and done, the shady area I'd been planning to dart into all sneaky-like was brightly lit and completely surrounded by a smooth-sided plastic labyrinth with no exit. In the center of the room, I could just make out the image of a silhouette target like the kind they use for official firearms training, a butterfly knife calmly waggling back and forth in the exact center of the cutout's heart.

The Professor reached behind an array of pipes nearby and pressed some kind of hidden button. The Plexiglass panels slid back into the ground, the alarm died away, and when the ringing in my ears subsided, I could hear him chuckling heartily.

"I love that bit," he said, shaking his head good-naturedly. This caused his skin hood to bounce and jump around in a nauseating fashion. "Well, I reviewed the evidence we had on you, son, your record with the CPD, eyewitness reports, all of it. In regards to the perp we're tracking, I won't say you're the wrong guy - but you sure as heck aren't the right one, either."

I blinked. "Um . . . thanks, I guess?"

"Don't thank me," he said, suddenly serious. "My student still doesn't trust you and neither do I. But we've talked it over, and neither of us think you're the one responsible for what's been going on in the city since Halloween. We usually don't outsource our work - but we're up against a wall on one side and an ocean of stuff we don't know ahead of us. And so, much as I hate to admit it, we're going to need a guide in order to navigate these waters easier, get to the bottom of all this."

"You keep saying that, 'get to the bottom of all this' and 'what's going on in the city,'" I noted. "Wanna give me some information so I can 'help you' better - that is, assuming I feel like helping you at all after you freaking kidnapped me?!"

The Professor sighed and shook his head again. "I'm sorry about that, honestly. I tried talking my student out of it - leave it all up to Viv and the taxi driver - but he insisted on meeting you in person. And, ah, it's true that he can be . . . overzealous at times."

I scoffed. "Yeah. I gathered that."

"Ain't that the truth. I chewed him out good and proper when he got back here with you in tow and I found him tying you up to that pipe. It would seem that my words finally got through his thick skull. He's one of the good guys, though, even if he doesn't act like it the way he should."

"Oh, I'm sure," I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Let me guess, he had a rough upbringing?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," the Professor replied evenly. "Speaking of him . . . he's waiting for you up on the light. Just take that flight of stairs behind me and keep going until you're outside. You'll find him easy enough."

"And my things?" I demanded.

"Just hear him out first. I've borne the brunt of his irritation already, blunted his edges a little bit. He's unarmed too, so you'll meet on even ground. When you're done, I'll show up and escort you to your personal effects. Leave if you like, help us out if you change your mind. Doesn't matter, we've got plans to spare."

"What if I just bust out, take my things, and leave? I am a wizard, after all, and a powerful one to boot - and I'm very irritated right now. What if I break out of wherever-this-is and come back later with the cops?"

The Professor straightened. "I do believe you will be disinclined to do so. Besides, like I said, we have plans. Contingencies. Failsafes. Aside from that ill-advised scrap at the Pier, neither of us want to fight. We don't want to draw the ire of a wizard any more than my student already has. Just, please, humor us and we'll humor you. You have my word."

In the magical world, giving one's Word is as close to a legally binding agreement as one can get - only more serious if one chooses to break that covenant. I no longer believed that these two were members of the supernatural side of reality, but the meaning behind the Professor's assurance was still more or less the same.

Besides. Something was off in Chicago. I could feel it even before the Question's friends came knocking at my door, and things must have gotten bad for some off-kilter vigilante to pick up on them in such a fashion. I hadn't received any news, either from the Chicago Police Department or from my contacts in the city's supernatural underbelly. This could be a chance for me to stamp out a growing problem before it got any larger than it was - and I've never really been one to skip out on opportunities like that.

"Fine, I'll hear your accomplice out. But don't expect us to be all buddy-buddy afterwards," I relented. "Now - what have you done with my duster?"