Chapter Five
McAnally's is a pub a few blocks from my office. I go there when I'm feeling stressed, or when I have a few extra bucks to spend on a nice dinner. A lot of us fringe types do. Mac, the pub's owner, is used to wizards and all the problems that come along with us. There aren't any video games at McAnally's. There are no televisions or expensive computer trivia games. There isn't even a jukebox. Mac keeps a player piano instead. It's less likely to go haywire around us.
I say pub in all the best senses of the word. When you walk in, you take several steps down into a room with a deadly combination of a low clearance and ceiling fans. If you're tall, like me, you walk carefully in McAnally's. There are thirteen stools at the bar and thirteen tables in the room. Thirteen windows, set up high in the wall in order to be above ground level, let some light from the street into the place. Thirteen mirrors on the walls cast back reflections of the patrons in dim detail, and give the illusion of more space. Thirteen wooden columns, carved with likenesses from folktales and legends of the Old World, make it difficult to walk around the place without weaving a circuitous route—they also quite intentionally break up the flow of random energies, dispelling to one degree or another the auras that gather around broody, grumpy wizards and keeping them from manifesting in unintentional and colorful ways. The colors are all muted, earth browns and sea greens. The first time I entered McAnally's, I felt like a wolf returning to an old, favorite den. Mac makes his own beer, ale really, and it's the best stuff in the city. His food is cooked on a wood-burning stove. And you can damn well walk your own self over to the bar to pick up your order when it's ready, according to Mac. It's my sort of place.
Since the calls to the morgues had turned up nothing, I kept a few bills out of Monica Sells's retainer and took myself to McAnally's. After the kind of day I'd had, I deserved some of Mac's ale and someone else's cooking. It was going to be a long night, too, once I went home and started trying to figure out how whoever it was had pulled off the death spell used on Johnny Marcone's hatchet man, Tommy Tomm, and his girlfriend, Jennifer Stanton.
"Dresden," Mac greeted me, when I sat down at the bar. The dim, comfortable room was empty, but for a pair of men I recognized by sight at a back table, playing chess. Mac is a tall, almost gangly man of indeterminate age, though there's a sense to him that speaks of enough wisdom and strength that I wouldn't venture that he was less than fifty. He has squinty eyes and a smile that is rare and mischievous when it manifests. Mac never says much, but when he does it's almost always worth listening to.
"Hey there, Mac," I hailed him. "Been one hell of a day. Give me a steak sandwich, fries, ale."
"Ungh," Mac said. He opened a bottle of his ale and began to pour it warm, staring past me, into the middle distance. He does that with everyone. Considering his clientele, I don't blame him. I wouldn't chance looking them in the face, either.
"You hear about what happened at the Madison?"
"Ungh," he confirmed.
"Nasty business."
Such an inane comment apparently didn't merit even a grunted reply. Mac set my drink out and turned to the stove behind the bar, checking the wood and raking it back and forth to provide even heating for it.
I picked up a prethumbed newspaper nearby and scanned the headlines. "Hey, look at this. Another ThreeEye rampage. Jesus, this stuff is worse than crack." The article detailed the virtual demolition of a neighborhood grocery store by a pair of ThreeEye junkies who were convinced that the place was destined to explode and wanted to beat destiny to the punch.
"Ungh."
"You ever seen anything like this?"
Mac shook his head.
"They say the stuff gives you the third sight," I said, reading the article. Both junkies had been admitted to the hospital and were in critical condition, after collapsing at the scene. "But you know what?"
Mac looked back at me from the stove, while he cooked.
"I don't think that's possible. What a bunch of crap. Trying to sell these poor kids on the idea that they can do magic."
Mac nodded at me.
"If it was serious stuff, the department would have already called me by now."
Mac shrugged, turning back to the stove. Then he squinted up and peered into the dim reflection of the mirror behind the bar.
"Harry," he said, "you were followed."
I had been too tense for too much of the day to avoid feeling my shoulders constrict in a sudden twinge. I put both hands around my mug and brought a few phrases of quasi-Latin to mind. It never hurt to be ready to defend myself, in case someone was intending to hurt me. I watched someone approach, a dim shape in the reflection cast by the ancient, worn mirror. Mac went on with cooking, unperturbed. Nothing much perturbed Mac.
I smelled her perfume before I turned around. "Why, Miss Rodriguez," I said. "It's always pleasant to see you."
She came to an abrupt stop a couple of paces from me, apparently disconcerted. One of the advantages of being a wizard is that people always attribute anything you do to magic, if no other immediate explanation leaps to mind. She probably wouldn't think about her perfume giving her identity away when she could assign my mysterious, blind identification of her to my mystical powers.
"Come on," I told her. "Sit down. I'll get you a drink while I refuse to tell you anything."
"Harry," she admonished me, "you don't know I'm here on business." She sat down on the barstool next to me. She was a woman of average height and striking, dark beauty, wearing a crisp business jacket and skirt, hose, pumps. Her dark, straight hair was trimmed in a neat cut that ended at the nape of her neck and was parted off of the dark skin of her forehead, emphasizing the lazy appeal of her dark eyes.
"Susan," I chided her, "you wouldn't be in this place if you weren't. Did you have a good time in Branson?"
Susan Rodriguez was a reporter for the Chicago Arcane, a yellow magazine that covered all sorts of supernatural and paranormal events throughout the Midwest. Usually, the events they covered weren't much better than: "Monkey Man Seen With Elvis's Love Child," or "JFK's Mutant Ghost Abducts Shapeshifting Girl Scout." But once in a great, great while, the Arcane covered something that was real. Like the Unseelie Incursion of 1994, when the entire city of Milwaukee had simply vanished for two hours. Gone. Government satellite photos showed the river valley covered with trees and empty of life or human habitation. All communications ceased. Then, a few hours later, there it was, back again, and no one in the city itself the wiser.
She had also been hanging around my investigation in Branson the previous week. She had been tracking me ever since interviewing me for a feature story, right after I'd opened up my business. I had to hand it to her—she had instincts. And enough curiosity to get her into ten kinds of trouble. She had tricked me into meeting her eyes at the conclusion of our first interview, an eager young reporter investigating an angle on her interviewee. She was the one who had fainted after we'd soulgazed.
She smirked at me. I liked her smirk. It did interesting things to her lips, and hers were already attractive. "You should have stayed around for the show," she said. "It was pretty impressive." She put her purse on the bar and slid up onto the stool beside me.
"No thanks," I told her. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't for me."
"My editor loved the coverage. She's convinced it's going to win an award of some kind."
"I can see it now," I told her. " 'Mysterious Visions Haunt Drug-Using Country Star.' Real hard-hitting paranormal journalism, that." I glanced at her, and she met my eyes without fear. She didn't let me see if my jibe had ruffled her.
"I heard you got called in by the S.I. director today," she told me. She leaned toward me, enough that a glance down would have afforded an interesting angle to the V of her white shirt. "I'd love to hear you tell me about this one, Harry." She quirked a smile at me that promised things.
I almost smiled back at her. "Sorry," I told her. "I have a standard nondisclosure agreement with the city."
"Something off the record, then?" she asked. "Rumor has it that these killings were pretty sensational."
"Can't help you, Susan," I told her. "Wild horses couldn't drag it out of me, et cetera."
"Just a hint," she pressed. "A word of comment. Something shared between two people who are very attracted to one another."
"Which two people would that be?"
She put an elbow on the counter and propped her chin in her hand, studying me through narrowed eyes and thick, long lashes. One of the things that appealed to me about her was that even though she used her charm and femininity relentlessly in pursuit of her stories, she had no concept of just how attractive she really was—I had seen that when I looked within her last year. "Harry Dresden," she said, "you are a thoroughly maddening man." Her eyes narrowed a bit further. "You didn't look down my blouse even once, did you," she accused.
I took a sip of my ale and beckoned Mac to pour her one as well. He did. "Guilty."
"Most men are off-balance by now," she complained. "What does it take with you, anyway, Dresden?"
"I am pure of heart and mind," I told her. "I cannot be corrupted."
She stared at me in frustration for a moment. Then she tilted back her head to laugh. She had a good laugh, too, throaty and rich. I did look down at her chest when she did that, just for a second. A pure heart and mind only takes you so far—sooner or later the hormones have their say, too. I mean, I'm not a teenager or anything, anymore, but I'm not exactly an expert in things like this, either. Call it an overwhelming interest in my professional career, but I've never had much time for dating or the fair sex in general. And when I have, it hasn't turned out too well.
Susan was a known quantity—she was attractive, bright, appealing, her motivations were clear and simple, and she was honest in pursuing them. She flirted with me because she wanted information as much as because she thought I was attractive. Sometimes she got it. Sometimes she didn't. This one was way too hot for Susan or the Arcane to touch, and if Murphy heard I'd tipped someone off about what had happened, she'd have my heart between two pieces of bread for lunch.
"I'll tell you what, Harry," she said. "How about if I ask some questions, and you just answer them with a yes or a no?"
"No," I said promptly. Dammit. I am a poor liar, and it didn't take a reporter with Susan's brains to tell it.
Her eyes glittered with cheerfully malicious ambition. "Was Tommy Tomm murdered by a paranormal being or means?"
"No," I said again, stubbornly.
"No he wasn't?" Susan asked, "Or no it wasn't a paranormal being."
I glanced at Mac as though to appeal for help. Mac ignored me. Mac doesn't take sides. Mac is wise.
"No, I'm not going to answer questions," I said.
"Do the police have any leads? Any suspects?"
"No."
"Are you a suspect yourself, Harry?"
Disturbing thought. "No," I said, exasperated. "Susan—"
"Would you mind having dinner with me Saturday night?"
"No! I—" I blinked at her. "What?"
She smiled at me, leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek. Her lips, that I'd admired so much, felt very, very nice. "Super," she said. "I'll pick you up at your place. Say around nine?"
"Did I just miss something?" I asked her.
She nodded, dark eyes sparkling with humor. "I'm going to take you to a fantastic dinner. Have you ever eaten at the Pump Room? At the Ambassador East?"
I shook my head.
"Steaks you wouldn't believe," she assured me. "And the most romantic atmosphere. Jackets and ties required. Can you manage?"
"Um. Yes?" I said, carefully. "This is the answer to the question of whether or not I'll go out with you, right?"
"No," Susan said, with a smile. "That was the answer I tricked out of you, so you're stuck, there. I just want to make sure you own something besides jeans and button-down Western shirts."
"Oh. Yes," I said.
"Super," she repeated, and kissed me on the cheek once more as she stood up and gathered her purse. "Saturday, then." She drew back and quirked her smirky little smile at me. It was a killer look, sultry and appealing. "I'll be there. With bells on."
She turned and walked out. I sort of turned to stare after her. My jaw slid off the bar as I did and landed on the floor.
Had I just agreed to a date? Or an interrogation session?
"Probably both," I muttered.
Mac slapped my steak sandwich and fries down in front of me. I put down some money, morosely, and he made change.
"She's going to do nothing but try to trick information out of me that I shouldn't be giving her, Mac," I said.
"Ungh," Mac agreed.
"Why did I say yes?"
Mac shrugged.
"She's pretty," I said. "Smart. Sexy."
"Ungh."
"Any red-blooded man would have done the same thing."
"Hngh," Mac snorted.
"Well. Maybe not you."
Mac smiled a bit, mollified.
"Still. It's going to make trouble for me. I must be crazy to go for someone like that." I picked up my sandwich, and sighed.
"Dumb," Mac said.
"I just said she was smart, Mac."
Mac's face flickered into that smile, and it made him look years younger, almost boyish. "Not her," he said. "You."
I ate my dinner. And had to admit that he was right.
This threw a wrench into my plans. My best idea for poking around the Sells lake house and getting information had to be carried out at night. And I already had tomorrow night slated for a talk with Bianca, since I had a feeling Murphy and Carmichael would fail to turn up any cooperation from the vampiress. That meant I would have to drive out to Lake Providence tonight, since Saturday night was now occupied by the date with Susan—or at least the pre-midnight portion was.
My mouth went dry when I considered that maybe the rest of the night might be occupied, too. One never knew. She had dizzied me and made me look like an idiot, and she was probably going to try every trick she knew to drag more information out of me for the Monday morning release of the Arcane. On the other hand, she was sexy, intelligent, and at least a little attracted to me. That indicated that more might happen than just talk and dinner. Didn't it?
The question was, did I really want that to happen?
I had been a miserable failure in relationships, ever since my first love went sour. I mean, a lot of teenage guys fail in their first relationships.
Not many of them murder the girl involved.
I shied away from that line of thought, lest it bring up too many old memories.
I left McAnally's, after Mac had handed me a doggy bag with a grunt of "Mister," by way of explanation. The chess game in the corner was still in progress, both players puffing up a sweet-smelling smog cloud from their pipes. I tried to figure out how to deal with Susan, while I walked out to my car. Did I need to clean up my apartment? Did I have all the ingredients for the spell I would cast at the lake house later tonight? Would Murphy go through the roof when I talked to Bianca?
I could still feel Susan's kiss lingering on my cheek as I got in the car.
I shook my head, bewildered. They say we wizards are subtle. But believe you me, we've got nothing, nothing at all, on women.
Chapter Six
Mister was nowhere to be seen when I got home, but I left the food in his dish anyway. He would eventually forgive me for getting home late. I collected the things I would need from my kitchen—fresh-baked bread with no preservatives, honey, milk, a fresh apple, a sharp silver penknife, and a tiny dinner set of a plate, bowl, and cup that I had carved myself from a block of teakwood.
I went back out to my car. The Beetle isn't really blue anymore, since both doors have been replaced, one with a green clone, one with a white one, and the hood of the storage trunk in front had to be replaced with a red duplicate, but the name stuck anyway. Mike is a super mechanic. He never asked questions about the burns that slagged a hole in the front hatch or the claw marks that ruined both the doors. You can't pay for service like that.
I revved up the Beetle and drove down I-94, around the shore of Lake Michigan, crossing through Indiana, briefly, and then crossing over the state line into Michigan itself. Lake Providence is an expensive, high-class community with big houses and sprawling estates. It isn't cheap to own land there. Victor Sells must have been doing well in his former position at SilverCo to afford a place out that way.
The lakeshore drive wound in and out among thick, tall trees and rolling hills down to the shore. The properties were well spread out, several hundred yards between them. Most of them were fenced in and had gates on the right side of the road, away from the lake as I drove north. The Sells house was the only one I saw on the lake side of the drive.
A smooth gravel lane, lined by trees, led back from the lakeshore drive to the Sells house. A peninsula jutted out into the lake, leaving enough room for the house and a small dock, at which no boats were moored. The house was not a large one, by the standards of the rest of the Lake Providence community. Built on two levels, it was a very modern dwelling—a lot of glass and wood that was made to look like something more synthetic than wood by the way it had been smoothed and cut and polished. The drive curved around to the back of the house, where a driveway big enough to host a five-on-five game of basketball around a backboard erected to one side was overlooked by a wooden deck leading off the second level of the house.
I drove the Blue Beetle around to the back of the house and parked there. My ingredients were in a black-nylon backpack, and I picked that up and brought it with me as I got out of the car and stretched my legs. The breeze coming up from the lake was cool enough to make me shiver a little, and I drew my mantled duster closed across my belly.
First impressions are important, and I wanted to listen to what my instincts said about the house. I stopped for a long moment and just stared up at it.
My instincts must have been holding out for another bottle of Mac's ale. They had little to say, other than that the place looked like a pricey little dwelling that had hosted a family through many a vacation weekend. Well, where instinct fails, intellect must venture. Almost everything was fairly new. The grass around the house had not grown long enough, this winter, to require a cutting. The basketball net was stretched out and loose enough to show that it had been used fairly often. The curtains were all drawn.
On the grass beneath the deck something red gleamed, and I went beneath the deck to retrieve it. It was a plastic film canister, red with a grey cap, the kind you keep a roll of film in when you send it in to the processors. Film canisters were good for holding various ingredients I used, sometimes. I tucked it in my duster's pocket and continued my inspection.
The place didn't look much like a family dwelling, really. It looked like a rich man's love nest, a secluded little getaway nestled back in the trees of the peninsula and safe from spying eyes. Or an ideal location for a novice sorcerer to come to try out his fledgling abilities, safe from interruptions. A good place for Victor Sells to set up shop and practice.
I made a quick circuit of the house, tried the front and rear doors, and even the door up on the deck that led, presumably, to a kitchen. All were locked. Locks really weren't an obstacle, but Monica Sells hadn't invited me actually to take a look inside the house, just around it. It's bad juju to go tromping into people's houses uninvited. One of the reasons vampires, as a rule, don't do it—they have enough trouble just holding themselves together, outside of the Nevernever. It isn't harmful to a human wizard, like me, but it can really impair anything you try to do with magic. Also, it just isn't polite. Like I said, I'm an old-fashioned sort of guy.
Of course, the TekTronic Securities control panel that I could see through the front window had some say in my decision—not that I couldn't hex it down to a useless bundle of plastic and wires, but a lot of security systems will cause an alarm with their contact company if they abruptly stop working without notice. It would be a useless exercise, in any case—the real information was to be had elsewhere.
Still, something nagged at me, a sense of not-quite-emptiness to the house. On a hunch, I knocked on the front door, several times. I even rang the bell. No one came to answer the door, and no lights were on, inside. I shrugged and walked back to the rear of the house, passing a number of empty trash cans as I did.
Now that was a bit odd. I mean, I would expect a little something in the trash, even if someone hadn't been there in a while. Did the garbage truck come all the way down the drive to pick up the trash cans? That didn't seem likely. If the Sellses came out to the house for the weekend and wanted the trash emptied, it would stand to reason that they'd have to leave it out by the drive near the road as they left. Which would seem to imply that the garbage men would leave the empty trash cans out by the road. Someone must have brought them back to the house.
Of course, it needn't have been Victor Sells. It could have been a neighbor, or something. Or maybe he tipped the garbagemen to carry the cans back away from the road. But it was something to go on, a little hint that maybe the house hadn't been empty all week.
I left the house behind me and walked out toward the lake. The night was breezy but clear, and a bit cool. The tall old trees creaked and groaned beneath the wind. It was still early for the mosquitoes to be too bad. The moon was waxing toward full overhead, with the occasional cloud slipping past her like a gauzy veil.
It was a perfect night for catching faeries.
I swept an area of dirt not far from the lakeshore clear of leaves and sticks, and took the silver knife from the backpack. Using the handle, I drew a circle in the earth, then covered it up with leaves and sticks again, marking the location of the circle's perimeter in my head. I was careful to focus in concentration on the circle, without actually letting any power slip into it and spoil the trap. Then, working carefully, I prepared the bait by setting out the little cup and bowl. I poured a thimbleful of milk into the cup and daubed the bowl full of honey from the little plastic bear in my backpack.
Then I tore a piece of bread from the loaf I had brought with me and pricked my thumb with the knife. In the silver light of the moon, a bit of dark blood welled up against the skin, and I touched it daintily to the underside of the coarse bread, letting it absorb the blood. Then I set the bread, bloody side down, on the tiny plate.
My trap was set. I gathered up my equipment and retreated to the cover of the trees.
There are two parts of magic you have to understand to catch a faery. One of them is the concept of true names. Everything in the whole world has its own name. Names are unique sounds and cadences of words that are attached to one specific individual—sort of like a kind of theme music. If you know something's name, you can associate yourself with it in a magical sense, almost in the same way a wizard can reach out and touch someone if he possesses a lock of their hair, or fingernail clippings, or blood. If you know something's name, you can create a magical link to it, just as you can call someone up and talk to them if you know their phone number. Just knowing the name isn't good enough, though: You have to know exactly how to say it. Ask two John Franklin Smiths to say their names for you, and you'll get subtle differences in tone and pronunciation, each one unique to its owner. Wizards tend to collect names of creatures, spirits, and people like some kind of huge Rolodex. You never know when it will come in handy.
The other part of magic you need to know is magic-circle theory. Most magic involves a circle of one kind or another. Drawing a circle sets a local limit on what a wizard is trying to do. It helps him refine his magic, focus and direct it more clearly. It does this by creating a sort of screen, defined by the perimeter of the circle, that keeps random magical energy from going past it, containing it within the circle so that it can be used. To make a circle, you draw it out on the ground, or close hands with a bunch of people, or walk about spreading incense, or any of a number of other methods, while focusing on your purpose in drawing it. Then, you invest it with a little spark of energy to close the circuit, and it's ready.
One other thing such a circle does: It keeps magical creatures, like faeries, or even demons, from getting past it. Neat, huh? Usually, this is used to keep them out. It's a bit trickier to set up a circle to keep them in. That's where the blood comes into play. With blood comes power. If you take in some of someone else's blood, there is a metaphysical significance to it, a sort of energy. It's minuscule if you aren't really trying to get energy that way (the way vampires do), but it's enough to close a circle.
Now you know how it's done. But I don't recommend that you try it at home. You don't know what to do when something goes wrong.
I retreated to the trees and called the name of the particular faery I wanted. It was a rolling series of syllables, quite beautiful, really—especially since the faery went by the name of Toot-toot every time I'd encountered him before. I pushed my will out along with the name, just made it a call, something that would be subtle enough to make him wander this way of his own accord. Or at least, that was the theory.
What was his name? Please, do you think wizards just give information like that away? You don't know what I went through to get it.
About ten minutes later, Toot came flickering in over the water of Lake Michigan. At first I mistook him for a reflection of the moon on the side of the softly rolling waves of the lake. Toot was maybe six inches tall. He had silver dragonfly's wings sprouting from his back and the pale, beautiful, tiny humanoid form that echoed the splendor of the fae lords. A silver nimbus of ambient light surrounded him. His hair was a shaggy, silken little mane, like a bird of paradise's plumes, and was a pale magenta.
Toot loved bread and milk and honey—a common vice of the lesser fae. They aren't usually willing to take on a nest of bees to get to the honey, and there's been a real dearth of milk in the Nevernever since hi-tech dairy farms took over most of the industry. Needless to say, they don't grow their own wheat, harvest it, thresh it, and then mill it into flour to make bread, either.
Toot alighted on the ground with caution, scanning around the trees. He didn't see me. I saw him wipe at his mouth and walk in a slow circle around the miniature dining set, one hand rubbing greedily at his stomach. Once he took the bread and closed the circle, I'd be able to bargain information for his release. Toot was a lesser spirit in the area, sort of a dockworker of the Nevernever. If anyone had seen anything of Victor Sells, Toot would have, or would know someone who had.
Toot dithered for a while, fluttering back and forth around the meal, but slowly getting closer. Faeries and honey. Moths and flame. Toot had fallen for this several times before, and it wasn't in the nature of the fae to keep memories for very long, or to change their essential natures. All the same, I held my breath.
The faery finally hunkered down, picked up the bread, dipped it in the honey, then greedily gobbled it down. The circle closed with a little snap that occurred just at the edge of my hearing.
Its effect on Toot was immediate. He screamed a shrill little scream, like a trapped rabbit, and took off toward the lake in a buzzing flurry of wings. At the perimeter of the circle, he smacked into something as solid as a brick wall, and a little puff of silver motes exploded out from him in a cloud. Toot grunted and fell onto his little faery a** on the earth.
"I should have known!" he exclaimed, as I approached from the trees. His voice was high-pitched, but more like a little kid's than the exaggerated kind of faery voices I'd heard in cartoons. "Now I remember where I've seen those plates before! You ugly, sneaky, hamhanded, big-nosed, flat-footed mortal worm!"
"Hiya, Toot," I told him. "Do you remember our deal from last time, or do we need to go over it again?"
Toot glared defiantly up at me and stomped his foot on the ground. More silver faery dust puffed out from the impact. "Release me!" he demanded. "Or I will tell the Queen!"
"If I don't release you," I pointed out, "you can't tell the Queen. And you know just as well as I do what she would say about any dewdrop faery who was silly enough to get himself caught with a lure of bread and milk and honey."
Toot crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. "I warn you, mortal. Release me now, or you will feel the awful, terrible, irresistible might of the faery magic! I will rot your teeth from your head! Take your eyes from their sockets! Fill your mouth with dung and your ears with worms!"
"Hit me with your best shot," I told him. "After that, we can talk about what you need to do to get out of the circle."
I had called his bluff. I always did, but he probably wouldn't remember the details very well. If you live a few hundred years, you tend to forget the little things. Toot sulked and kicked up a little spray of dirt with one tiny foot. "You could at least pretend to be afraid, Harry."
"Sorry, Toot. I don't have the time."
"Time, time," Toot complained. "Is that all you mortals can ever think about? Everyone's complaining about time! The whole city rushes left and right screaming about being late and honking horns! You people used to have it right, you know."
I bore the lecture with good nature. Toot could never keep his mind on the same subject long enough to be really trying, in any case.
"Why, I remember the folk who lived here before you pale, wheezy guys came in. And they never complained about ulcers or—" Toot's eyes wandered to the bread and milk and honey again, and glinted. He sauntered that way, then snatched the remaining bread, sopping up all the honey with it and eating it with greedy, birdlike motions.
"This is good stuff, Harry. None of that funny stuff in it that we get sometimes."
"Preservatives," I said.
"Whatever." Toot drank down the milk, too, in a long pull, then promptly fell down on his back, patting at his rounded tummy. "All right," he said. "Now, let me out."
"Not yet, Toot. I need something first."
Toot scowled up at me. "You wizards. Always needing something. I really could do the thing with the dung, you know." He stood up and folded his arms haughtily over his chest, looking up at me as though I weren't a dozen times taller than he. "Very well," he said, his tone lofty. "I have deigned to grant you a single request of some small nature, for the generous gift of your cuisine."
I worked to keep a straight face. "That's very kind of you."
Toot sniffed and somehow managed to look down his little pug nose at me. "It is my nature to be both benevolent and wise."
I nodded, as though this were a very great wisdom. "Uh-huh. Look, Toot. I need to know if you were around this place for the past few nights, or know someone who was. I'm looking for someone, and maybe he came here."
"And if I tell you," Toot said, "I take it you will disassemble this circle which has, by some odd coincidence no doubt, made its way around me?"
"It would be only reasonable," I said, all seriousness.
Toot seemed to consider it, as though he might be inclined not to cooperate, then nodded. "Very well. You will have the information you wish. Release me."
I narrowed my eyes. "Are you sure? Do you promise?"
Toot stamped his foot again, scattering more silver dust motes. "Harry! You're ruining the drama!"
I folded my arms. "I want to hear you promise."
Toot threw up his hands. "Fine, fine, fine! I promise, I promise, I promise! I'll dig up what you want to know!" He started to buzz about the circle in great agitation, wings lifting him easily into the air. "Let me out! Let me out!"
A promise thrice made is as close to absolute truth as you can get from a faery. I went quickly to the circle and scuffed over the line drawn in the dirt with my foot, willing the circle to part. It did, with a little hiss of released energy.
Toot streaked out over Lake Michigan's waters again, a miniature silver comet, and vanished in a twinkling, just like Santa Claus. Though I should say that Santa is a much bigger and more powerful faery than Toot, and I don't know his true name anyway. You'd never see me trying to nab Saint Nick in a magic circle, even if I did. I don't think anyone has stones that big.
I waited around, walking about to keep from falling asleep. If I did that, Toot would be perfectly within his rights as a faery to fulfill his promise by telling me the information while I was sleeping. And, given that I had just now captured and humiliated him, he'd probably do something to even the scales—two weeks from now he wouldn't even remember it, but if I let him have a free shot at me tonight, I might wake up with an a**'s head, and I didn't think that would be good for business.
So I paced, and I waited. Toot usually took about half an hour to round up whatever it was I wanted to know.
Sure enough, half an hour later he came sparkling back in and buzzed around my head, drizzling faery dust from his blurring wings at my eyes. "Hah, Harry!" he said. "I did it!"
"What did you find out, Toot?"
"Guess!"
I snorted. "No."
"Aw, come on. Just a little guess?"
I scowled, tired and irritated, but tried not to let it show. Toot couldn't help being what he was. "Toot, it's late. You promised to tell me."
"No fun at all," he complained. "No wonder you can't get a date unless someone wants to know something from you."
I blinked at him, and he chortled in glee. "Hah! I love it! We're watching you, Harry Dresden!"
Now that was disconcerting. I had a sudden image of a dozen faery voyeurs lingering around my apartment's windows and peering inside. I'd have to take precautions to make sure they couldn't do that. Not that I was afraid of them, or anything. Just in case.
"Just tell me, Toot," I sighed.
"Incoming!" he shrilled, and I held out my hand, fingers flat and palm up. He alighted in the center of my palm. I could barely feel his weight, but the sense, the aura of him ran through my skin like a tiny electric current. He stared fearlessly at my eyes—the fae have no souls to gaze upon, and they could not fathom a mortal's soul, even if they could see it.
"Okay!" Toot said. "I talked to Blueblossom, who talked to Rednose, who talked to Meg O' Aspens, who said that Goldeneyes said that he was riding the pizza car when it came here last night!" Toot thrust out his chest proudly.
"Pizza car?" I asked, bewildered.
"Pizza!" Toot cried, jubilant. "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" His wings fluttered again, and I tried to blink the damned faery dust out of my eyes before I started sneezing.
"Faeries like pizza?" I asked.
"Oh, Harry," Toot said breathlessly. "Haven't you ever had pizza before?"
"Of course I have," I said.
Toot looked wounded. "And you didn't share?"
I sighed. "Look. Maybe I can bring you guys some pizza sometime soon, to thank you for your help."
Toot leapt about in glee, hopping from one fingertip to the other. "Yes! Yes! Wait until I tell them! We'll see who laughs at Toot-toot next time!"
"Toot," I said, trying to calm him, "did he see anything else?"
Toot tittered, his expression sly and suggestive. "He said that there were mortals sporting and that they needed pizza to regain their strength!"
"Which delivery place, Toot?"
The faery blinked and stared at me as though I were hopelessly stupid. "Harry. The pizza truck." And then he darted off skyward, vanishing into the trees above.
I sighed and nodded. Toot wouldn't know the difference between Domino's and Pizza Hut. He had no frame of reference, and couldn't read—most faeries were studiously averse to print.
So, I had two pieces of information. One, someone had ordered a pizza to be delivered here. That meant two things. First, that someone was here last night. Second, that someone had seen them and talked to them. Maybe I could track down the pizza driver, and ask if he had seen Victor Sells.
The second piece of information had been Toot's reference to sporting. Faeries didn't think too much of mortals' idea of "sporting" unless there was a lot of nudity and lust involved. They had a penchant for shadowing necking teenagers and playing tricks on them. So Victor had been here with a lover of some kind, for there to be any "sport" going on.
I was beginning to think that Monica Sells was in denial. Her husband wasn't wandering around learning to be a sorcerer, spooky scorpion talismans notwithstanding. He was lurking about his love nest with a girlfriend, like any other husband bored with a timid and domestic wife might do under pressure. It wasn't admirable, but I guess I could understand the motivations that could cause it.
The only problem was going to be telling Monica. I had a feeling that she wasn't going to want to listen to what I had found out.
I picked up the little plate and bowl and cup and put them back into my black-nylon backpack, along with the silver knife. My legs ached from too much walking and standing about. I was looking forward to getting home and getting some sleep.
The man with the naked sword in his hands appeared out of the darkness without a warning rustle of sound or whiff of magic to announce his presence. He was tall, like me, but broad and heavy-chested, and he carried his weight with a ponderous sort of dignity. Perhaps fifty years old, his listless brown hair going grey in uneven patches, he wore a long, black coat, a lot like mine but without the mantle, and his jacket and pants, too, were done in dark colors—charcoal and a deep blue. His shirt was crisp, pure white, the color that you usually only see with tuxedos. His eyes were grey, touched with crow's-feet at the corners, and dangerous. Moonlight glinted off those eyes in the same shade it did from the brighter silver of the sword's blade. He began to walk deliberately toward me, speaking in a quiet voice as he did.
"Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Irresponsible use of true names for summoning and binding others to your will violates the Fourth Law of Magic," the man intoned. "I remind you that you are under the Doom of Damocles. No further violations of the Laws will be tolerated. The sentence for further violation is death, by the sword, to be carried out at once."
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