Chapter III: A Witch, A Wizard, A House-wife and a Knight

AN:

Heya Fan-fic-folks!

Long time no see. You'll be delighted to know I spent the last two weeks ever so productively and am pretty close to actually uploading my inkshares stories. If you're interested, here's a brief summary of the two stories I'm currently working on.

Much Ado about Everything:

The story of Etienne Olivier, renowned actor and utter asshole. When his troupe finally gets tired of his dickish behaviour, they fire him and blacklist him in the industry. He loses everything, ending up on the street. He turns to con artistry to eat and turns out to be good at it, but he's always looking for a way back to the stage. One day, he sees a group of people in the marketplace, talking to a crowd about honour and justice and freedom from tyranny and, being the cynical prick he is, immediately concludes it can't be genuine and that they must be actors. He tries to butt in with a pretty stirring speech mostly stolen from various plays he's written or acted in over the years. Turns out, the 'actors' were actually rebels trying to incite the crowd against a tyrannical empire that conquered the city and his little speech turns the tide. He gets caught up in the fight and basically blunders and bluffs his way into being viewed as the hero of the conflict. When they win, the rebels induct him into their leadership. The rest of the story is just him trying to keep the act going, because if they find out, the rebels will kill him and if he leaves, the Empire will kill him. So, what's an actor turned rebel leader to do?

Guardians of Dreamworld:

When you enter the Land of Dreams, all that you believe is real, becomes real. Nightmares are creatures that take the form of the Dreamer's fears in order to feed on them. The Guardians are an ancient order that exist to protect Dreamers from the Nightmares. For a thousand years, there have been no sightings, until Arda comes along. Arda is the great grand-daughter of a legendary Guardian hero and she's the newest initiate. When she is sent into the Dreamworld on her Rite of Bonding to find her first youngling, she finds it being attacked by a nightmare. Through sheer luck, she fends it off and completes the Rite. When she returns, nobody believes her. After all, everyone knows they've been gone for centuries. So, she decides to find proof. The rest of the story is her unravelling the existence of the nightmares and what brought them back.

So, if you like the sound of either story, both links will appear in my profile and in whichever update on here occurs after I post them to inkshares. I know links on here are iffy, but I think I finally have a method that will work.

Oh, on another bright note, after a year of repeating my A-Levels, I finally made it into uni for a BSc in Psychology! That's most of the reason this update is so late. Thursday was mostly spent working out all sorts of Uni stuff, so this kinda fell behind. I'm still putting some finishing touches on The Blackwell Job, so that will be uploaded later tomorrow (Sunday the 21st).

This chapter and the next are mostly just filler until I get to the main chunk of the story. I've got it all planned, I just need a little build-up to get there. When I do, you might find the story somewhat familiar. Hopefully you'll still enjoy it though. I think I've put enough of my own spin on it to be relatively interesting.

So thanks for reading fan-fic-folks and, as always, please review.

Angela3000: Yeah, I guess. Max in the game was a little wishy-washy and vague about the whole move, really, so maybe a more open and direct approach would get a better reaction from Chloe. I don't really know. Like I said, I just couldn't write that scene again.

Lotheon: It sure would. But if you recall, Michael says he keeps everything in his house running by preventative maintenance. I figure if Max doesn't take her phone anywhere too magically active and keeps the maintenance up, it should be able to at least lessen the Murphyistic effects.

Jazz3601: Thanks, I love doing these combined AU things. They're literally my entire planned fic list.

Darquan0: Oh, it will. It so will. Not to be enigmatic or foreboding, of course. :)

Yeah. I'll admit that was a bullshit retcon of mine. When I blend two universes, I just take bits of both and add my own spin on them, plus a bit of everything else I've ever read, seen or played that I think might fit, so don't expect everything to be totally canon. The current standpoint is that 90% of what happened and who lives in Chicago now is just moved to Seattle.

To add just a teensy additional smattering of enigma and foreboding, it will definitely have consequences. This story is one I've gotten planned out pretty precisely. I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of ideas and I'm not going to totally forget a character exists halfway through a chapter again like I did in the first chapter of The Blackwell Job. Lesson definitely learned there. :)

MaxNeverMaxine: Thanks! I'm glad you're liking it thus far. Hopefully you like where I take it. It's going to get a little… hopeless for a while.

When Dresden's beaten up old Beetle pulled up outside my house, I hopped out, hefting my bag onto my back before turning back to him.

"Hey boss, you wanna come in? Mom'll have some of that pie you love so much."

He frowned. "Sorry kid, it's nearly 6:15. I have to be going."

I checked my watch. It was a beautiful thing, sleek and clockwork. A svartalf had built us both one after we'd helped him with a hobbe problem. The boss never wore his. Said he didn't need it. Something about his 'wizardly sense of time-keeping'. Bullshit. The fucker was late to everything.

I rolled my eyes. Wizardly intuition, my ass. "It's 6:47."

He shrugged. "Close enough. Sorry, kid, maybe next time. I have to go meet Sommerset. Remember that book!"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes boss. See you tomorrow."

"Till tomorrow, grasshopper."

I watched him drive off. Turning, I headed up to the porch, sitting down in one the wicker chairs Dad had insisted we need. Between those and the white picket fence, we were one "G'night" away from living in the Walton's house...

Heh. So. Chloe fucking Price. After all these years, I run into her on a fucking job? What are the chances of that? She's so different from how she was before.

I grin and twirl a tuft of my bubblegum pink hair. Like you can talk, Caulfield.

Well, I like the new her. I think she likes the new me, too. I pull out my phone and shoot off a text.

MAX: Hey Chloe. This is Max. :)

I stow it back in my pocket and lean back in the chair. Damn. What a day.

I feel Mom's presence in the back of my head as she walks out onto the porch with me. "What a day? What happened?"

Ok, so I said that out loud. Woops. Inside voice, Max.

I turn and smile up at her. "I saw Chloe again!"

She smiles, but I get a weird read from her. She was scared. Really scared. I can only pick up strong surface emotions, so Mom must've been seriously terrified. I would've frowned and asked her, but the whole 3rd Law made this empath thing a bit of a grey issue. Also, she was trying to hide it. Kinda impolite to just ask her. "Chloe? Chloe Price?"

"Yep. We were back in Arcadia Bay and we just sort of, ran into her. Kismet, right?"

She nodded, staring off into the distance and sat down limply next to me. "Chloe Price… Quite the blast from the past. How is she?"

I filled her in on most of the deets. I kept some of the swearing and the more graphic of Chloe's stories out. No sense traumatising my Mom anymore than she already seems to be.

She sat back in the chair and stared off again when I'd finished. "Mom…?"

She shook her head, and the negative shit I was getting from her cleared. "That's great Honey. That's just… great."

She got up from the chair and headed over to the door. "Are you coming in? There's leftovers if you're hungry."

I grinned and followed her in. Mom cooking leftovers? Count me in.

About 30 minutes and 2 plates later, Dad walks in, his usual golf bag over his shoulder. I wave at him from my seat in the kitchen and mumble something around my mouthful of food.

I watch him pull Amorrachius out of the golf bag and put it back on the wall mount above the fireplace. I thought it was kinda weird to have a sword on the mantle, if I were a Knight of the Cross, I'd just get an umbrella stand or something. Then again, that's probably a sin or something.

I try saying something again, and lose about half of what I'm eating when it falls out of my mouth and back onto my plate. I growl at the half eaten meat on my plate.

He laughs and wanders over, wrapping one arm over my shoulder and kissing my temple. "Hey there, kiddo. You doing ok?"

I swallow and grin. "Doin' great, Dad! I met up with Chloe again!"

I get the same feeling of fear from him that I got from Mom.

What the hell? Why is Chloe scaring my parents this fucking much? Like, what, did the news broadcast her murdering people and laughing and I just missed it?

They were hiding it pretty well though, so I knew there was no fucking way they were going to tell me. And I can't go into their heads to find out. Damn it. Sometimes being the good guy is really fucking annoying.

"That's great, Max. How is she?"

And so, I told Dad exactly what I told Mom.

"Wow. God moves in mysterious ways."

I grinned. "Pretty awesome ways too. I got her number so we can stay in touch."

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. I took my phone out of my pocket and handed it to him. "Speaking, of… Can you fix this, pops?

He smiled. "Anything for you, kiddo. Do you need it for tomorrow?"

I shrugged. "Whenever's good. I know you're busy right now." I finished off my plate and hopped up from the table. "And so am I. The boss gave me some homework to do. Gonna get it done before bed. Night."

They both echoed me and I headed up to my room. I took the the two long, rosewood and walnut wands from my bag and slotted them in the rack on my wall and hung the long blue metal chain on a hook next to them. The various rings and amulets I had on all went in a jewellery box on my desk.

Foci stored, I sat down at my desk and read a few chapters of the boss's book before going to bed. It was a pretty dull read, so when I finally went to bed, I fell asleep very quickly.

"Max! Dresden is here!"

I got up out of my desk chair, grabbing my foci and heading downstairs. Mom and the Boss were sat around the kitchen table while Dad sat on the couch by the fireplace, sharpening his sword. "Hey Mom, Dad. Hey Boss."

He nodded. "Grasshopper. Sleep well?"

Mom moved over to the toaster and put some bread in, turning the heat up slightly on the cooker. "Eggs, Bacon and Toast for breakfast, honey. That ok?"

I grinned. "Sounds great, Mom."

I sat down at the table. "So, Boss, how was Sommerset?"

He raised his hand. There was a bloody bandage on it. "What the fuck happened?"

"Max! Language!" Both my Mom and Dad called out.

Dresden just laughed. "Faeries. She was a…" He paused, looking over at my parents, then whispered to me. "Fucking faery." He raised his voice again. "One of the big ones, too. Mab."

My jaw dropped. "Mab? Like the Winter Queen Mab?"

Mom slid me a plate over and I dug in.

"Yeah. That's the one. The hand was a… uh… 'proof of identity' thing."

I frowned, then my face cleared. "Oh. Sommer-set. I get it."

He grimaced. "Yeah. I wish I had."

"So, what does she want you to do?"

He shrugged. "Nothing much. Blunder in, tick a few people off, maybe find a killer or two."

I grinned. "Oh, so the usual then. Is she paying?"

He nodded. "In cash. Pretty well, too. This is definitely something important."

I finished my breakfast and went to put my plate in the sink. "So, what do we do?"

"Nothing, for now. I got a call from Murphy. She needs us, ASAP."

"Ignoring the Queen of Air and Darkness for Murphy?" I grinned. "Mab's gonna be pi-issed." I singsonged.

He got up and put his plate next to mine. "Mab can go suck on a nail. I'm still just her employee, not her slave."

Mab had been trying to recruit the boss as her Knight for ages, since before we'd even met. She was always confident he'd come to her in the end, which I think was probably what rattled him the most. Dresden liked his whole controlling his own destiny schtick.

"So, we're off to a crime scene then?"

He nodded and picked up his staff. "Yep. We're off to a crime scene."