The Dresden Files 1: Storm Front

by Jim Butcher

  "Wait a minute. My academia doesn't just peep—"

  I held up a hand. "Save it. I don't want to hear it."

  He grunted. "You're trivializing what getting out for a bit means to me, Harry. You're insulting my masculinity."

  "Bob," I said, "you're a skull. You don't have any masculinity to insult."

  "Oh yeah?" Bob challenged me. "Pot kettle black, Harry! Have you gotten a date yet? Huh? Most men have something better to do in the middle of the night than play with their chemistry sets."

  "As a matter of fact," I told him, "I'm set up for Saturday night."

  Bob's eyes fluttered from orange to red. "Oooooo," he leered. "Is she pretty?"

  "Dark skin," I said. "Dark hair, dark eyes. Legs to die for. Smart, sexy as hell."

  Bob chortled. "Think she'd like to see the lab?"

  "Get your mind out of the gutter."

  "No, seriously," Bob said. "If she's so great, what's she doing with you? You aren't exactly Sir Gawain, you know."

  It was my turn to get defensive. "She likes me," I said. "Is that such a shock?"

  "Harry," Bob drawled, his eye lights flickering smugly, "what you know about women, I could juggle."

  I stared at Bob for a moment, and realized with a somewhat sinking feeling that the skull was probably right. Not that I would admit that to him, not in a million years, but he was.

  "We're going to make an escape potion," I told him. "I don't want to be all night, so can we get to work? Huh? I can only remember about half the recipe."

  "There's always room to make two if you're making one, Harry. You know that."

  That much was true. The process of mixing up an alchemical potion is largely stirring, simmering, and waiting. You can always get another one going and alternate between them. Sometimes you can even do three, though that's pushing it. "Okay, so, we'll make a copy."

  "Oh, come on," Bob chided me. "That's dull. You should stretch yourself. Try something new."

  "Like what?"

  Bob's eye sockets twinkled cheerfully. "A love potion, Harry! If you won't let me out, at least let me do that! Spirits know you could use it, and—"

  "No," I said, firmly. "No way. No love potion."

  "Fine," he said. "No love potion, no escape potion either."

  "Bob," I said, warningly.

  Bob's eye lights winked out.

  I growled. I was tired and cranky, and under the best of circumstances I am not exactly a type A personality. I stalked over, picked up Bob by the jaws and shook him. "Hey!" I shouted. "Bob! You come out of there! Or I'm going to take this skull and throw it down the deepest well I can find! I swear to you, I'll put you somewhere where no one can ever let you out ever again!"

  Bob's eyes winked on for a moment. "No you won't. I'm far too valuable." Then they winked out again.

  I gritted my teeth and tried not to smash the skull to little pieces on the floor. I took deep breaths, summoning years of wizardly training and control to not throw a tantrum and break the nice spirit to little pieces. Instead, I put the skull back on the shelf and counted slowly to thirty.

  Could I make the potion by myself? I probably could. But I had the sinking feeling that it might not have precisely the effect I wanted. Potions were a tricky business, and a lot more relied upon precise details than upon intent, like in spells. And just because I made a love potion didn't mean I had to use it. Right? It would only be good for a couple of days, in any case—surely not through the weekend. How much trouble could it cause?

  I struggled to rationalize the action. It would appease Bob, and give him some kind of vicarious thrill. Love potions were about the cheapest things in the world to make, so it wouldn't cost me too much. And, I thought, if Susan should ask me for some kind of demonstration of magic (as she always did), I could always—

  No. That would be too much. That would be like admitting I couldn't get a woman to like me on my own, and it would be unfair, taking advantage of the woman. What I wanted was the escape potion. I might need it at Bianca's place, and I could always use it, if worse came to worst, to make a getaway from Morgan and the White Council. I would feel a lot better if I had the escape potion.

  "Okay, Bob. Fine. You win. We'll do them both. All right?"

  Bob's eye lights came up warily. "You're sure? You'll do the love potion, just like I say?"

  "Don't I always make the potions like you say, Bob?"

  "What about that diet potion you tried?"

  "Okay. That one was a mistake."

  "And the antigravity potion, remember that?"

  "We fixed the floor! It was no big deal!"

  "And the—"

  "Fine, fine," I growled. "You don't have to rub it in. Now cough up the recipes."

  Bob did so, in fine humor, and for the next two hours we made potions. Potions are all made pretty much the same way. First you need a base to form the essential liquid content; then something to engage each of the senses, and then something for the mind and something else for the spirit. Eight ingredients, all in all, and they're different for each and every potion, and for each person who makes them. Bob had centuries of experience, and he could extrapolate the most successful components for a given person to make into a potion. He was right about being an invaluable resource—I had never even heard of a spirit with Bob's experience, and I was lucky to have him.

  That didn't mean I didn't want to crack that skull of his from time to time, though.

  The escape potion was made in a base of eight ounces of Jolt cola. We added a drop of motor oil, for the smell of it, and cut a bird's feather into tiny shavings for the tactile value. Three ounces of chocolate-covered espresso beans, ground into powder, went in next. Then a shredded bus ticket I'd never used, for the mind, and a small chain which I broke and then dropped in, for the heart. I unfolded a clean white cloth where I'd had a flickering shadow stored for just such an occasion, and tossed it into the brew, then opened up a glass jar where I kept my mouse scampers and tapped the sound out into the beaker where the potion was brewing …

  "You're sure this is going to work, Bob?" I said.

  "Always. That's a super recipe, there."

  "Smells terrible."

  Bob's lights twinkled. "They usually do."

  "What's it doing? Is this the superspeed one, or the teleportation version?"

  Bob coughed. "A little of both, actually. Drink it, and you'll be the wind for a few minutes."

  "The wind?" I eyed him. "I haven't heard of that one before, Bob."

  "I am an air spirit, after all," Bob told me. "This'll work fine. Trust me."

  I grumbled, and set the first potion to simmering, then started on the next one. I hesitated, after Bob told me the first ingredient.

  "Tequila?" I asked him, skeptically. "Are you sure on that one? I thought the base for a love potion was supposed to be champagne."

  "Champagne, tequila, what's the difference, so long as it'll lower her inhibitions?" Bob said.

  "Uh. I'm thinking it's going to get us a, um, sleazier result."

  "Hey!" Bob protested, "Who's the memory spirit here! Me or you?"

  "Well—"

  "Who's got all the experience with women here? Me or you?"

  "Bob—"

  "Harry," Bob lectured me, "I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing."

  I sighed, too tired to argue with him. "Okay, okay. Sheesh. Tequila." I got down the bottle, measured eight ounces into the beaker, and glanced up at the skull.

  "Right. Now, three ounces of dark chocolate."

  "Chocolate?" I demanded.

  "Chicks are into chocolate, Harry."

  I muttered, more interested in finishing than anything else, and measured out the ingredients. I did the same with a drop of perfume (some name-brand imitation that I liked), an ounce of shredded lace, and the last sigh at the bottom of the glass jar. I added some candlelight to the mix, and it took on a rosy golden glow.

&
nbsp; "Great," Bob said. "That's just right. Okay, now we add the ashes of a passionate love letter."

  I blinked at the skull. "Uh, Bob. I'm fresh out of those."

  Bob snorted. "How did I guess. Look on the shelf behind me."

  I did, and found a pair of romance novels, their covers filled with impossibly delightful flesh. "Hey! Where did you get these?"

  "My last trip out," Bob answered blithely. "Page one seventy-four, the paragraph that starts with, 'Her milky-white breasts.' Tear that page out and burn it and add those ashes in."

  I choked. "That will work?"

  "Hey, women eat these things up. Trust me."

  "Fine," I sighed. "This is the spirit ingredient?"

  "Uh-huh," Bob said. He was rocking back and forth on his jawbones in excitement. "Now, just a teaspoon of powdered diamond, and we're done."

  I rubbed at my eyes. "Diamond. I don't have any diamonds, Bob."

  "I figured. You're cheap, that's why women don't like you. Look, just tear up a fifty into real little pieces and put that in there."

  "A fifty-dollar bill?" I demanded.

  "Money," Bob opined, "Very sexy."

  I muttered and got the remaining fifty out of my pocket, shredding it and tossing it in to complete the potion.

  The next step was where the effort came in. Once all the ingredients are mixed together, you have to force enough energy through them to activate them. It isn't the actual physical ingredients that are important—it's the meaning that they carry, too, the significance that they have for the person making the potion, and for those who will be using it.

  The energy from magic comes from a lot of places. It can come from a special place (usually some spectacular natural site, like Mount St. Helens, or Old Faithful), from a focus of some kind (like Stonehenge is, on a large scale), or from inside of people. The best magic comes from the inside. Sometimes it's just pure mental effort, raw willpower. Sometimes it's emotions and feelings. All of them are viable tinder to be used for the proverbial fire.

  I had a lot of worry to use to fuel the magic, and a lot of annoyance and one hell of a lot of stubbornness. I murmured the requisite quasi-Latin litany over the potions, over and over, feeling a kind of resistance building, just out of the range of the physical senses, but there, nonetheless. I gathered up all my worry and anger and stubbornness and threw them all at the resistance in one big ball, shaping them with the strength and tone of my words. The magic left me in a sudden wave, like a pitcher abruptly emptied out.

  "I love this part," Bob said, just as both potions exploded into puffs of greenish smoke and began to froth up over the lips of the beakers.

  I sagged onto a stool, and waited for the potions to fizz down, all the strength gone out of me, the weariness building up like a load of bricks on my shoulders. Once the frothing had settled, I leaned over and poured each potion into its own individual sports bottle with a squeeze-top, then labeled the containers with a permanent Magic Marker—very clearly. I don't take chances in getting potions mixed up anymore, ever since the invisibility/hair tonic incident, from when I was trying to grow out a decent beard.

  "You won't regret this, Harry," Bob assured me. "That's the best potion I've ever made."

  "I made it, not you," I growled. I really was exhausted, now—way too tired to let petty concerns like possible execution keep me from bed.

  "Sure, sure," Bob agreed. "Whatever, Harry."

  I went around the room putting out all the fires and the kerosene heater, then climbed the ladder back to the basement without saying good night. Bob was chortling happily to himself as I did.

  I stumbled to my bed and fell into it. Mister always climbs in and goes to sleep draped over my legs. I waited for him, and a few seconds later he showed up, settling down and purring like a miniature outboard motor.

  I struggled to put together an itinerary for the next couple of days through the haze of exhaustion. Talk to the vampire. Locate missing husband. Avoid the wrath of the White Council. Find the killer.

  Before he found me.

  An unpleasant thought—but I decided that I wasn't going to let that bother me, either, and curled up to go to sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Friday night, I went to see Bianca, the vampiress.

  I didn't just leap out of bed and go see her, of course. You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.

  My breakfast took place around three in the afternoon, when I woke up to hear my phone ringing. I had to get out of bed and pad into the main room to answer it.

  "Mmmrrmmph," I grumbled.

  "Dresden," Murphy said, "what can you tell me?"

  Murphy sounded stressed. Her voice had that distinct edge that she got whenever she was nervous, and it rankled me, like fingernails scraping on bones. The investigation into Tommy Tomm's murder must not be going well. "Nothing yet," I said. Then I lied to her, a little. "I was up most of the night working, but nothing to show yet."

  She answered me with a swear word. "That's not good enough, Harry. I need answers, and I need them yesterday."

  "I'll get to it as quick as I can."

  "Get to it faster," she snarled. She was angry. Not that this was unusual for Murphy, but it told me that something else was going on. Some people panic when things get rough, harried. Some people fall apart. Murphy got pissed.

  "Commissioner riding your back again?" City Police Commissioner Howard Fairweather used Murphy and her team as scapegoats for all sorts of unsolvable crimes that he had dumped in her lap. Fairweather was always lurking around, trying for an opportunity to make Murphy look bad, as though by doing so he could avoid being crucified himself.

  "Like a winged monkey from The Wizard of Oz. Kind of makes you wonder who's leaning on him to get things done." Her voice was sour as ripe lemons. I heard her drop an Alka-Seltzer into a glass of liquid. "I'm serious, Harry. You get me those answers I need, and you get them to me fast. I need to know if this was sorcery, and, if so, how it was done and who could have done it. Names, places—I need to know everything."

  "It isn't that simple, Mur—"

  "Then make it simple. How long before you can tell me? I need an estimate for the Commissioner's investigative committee in fifteen minutes or I might as well turn in my badge today."

  I grimaced. If I was able to get something out of Bianca, I might be able to help Murph on the investigation—but if it proved fruitless, I was going to have spent the entire evening doing nothing productive, and Murphy needed her answers now. Maybe I should have made a stay-awake potion. "Does the committee work weekends?"

  Murphy snorted. "Are you kidding?"

  "We'll have something by Monday, then."

  "You can have it figured out by then?" she asked.

  "I don't know how much good it will do you, even if I can puzzle it out. I hope you've got more to go on than this."

  I heard her sigh into the phone and drink the fizzy drink. "Don't let me down, Harry."

  Time to change the subject, before she pinned me down and smelled me lying. I had no intention of doing the forbidden research if I could find a way out of doing it. "No luck with Bianca?"

  Another swear word. "That bitch won't talk to us. Just smiles and nods and blows smoke, makes small talk, and crosses her legs. You should have seen Carmichael drooling."

  "Well. Tough to blame him, maybe. I hear she's cute. Listen, Murph. What if I just—"

  "No, Harry. Absolutely not. You will not go over to the Velvet Room, you will not talk to that woman, and you will not get involved in this."

  "Lieutenant Murphy," I drawled. "A little jealous, are we?"

  "Don't flatter yourself. You're a civilian, Dresden, even if you do have your investigator's license. If you get your ass laid out in the hospital or the morgue, it'll be me that suffers for it."

  "Murph, I'm touched."

  "I'll touch your head to a brick wall a few times if you cross me on this, Harry." Her voice was sharp, vehement.r />
  "Hey, wind down, Murph. If you don't want me to go, no problem." Whups. A lie. She'd be all over that like a troll on a billy goat.

  "You're a lousy liar, Harry. Godammit, I ought to take you down to lockup just to keep you from—"

  "What?" I said, loudly, into the receiver. "Murph, you're breaking up. I can't hear you. Damn phone again. Call me back." Then I hung up on her.

  Mister padded over to me and batted at my leg. He watched me with serious green eyes as I leaned down and unplugged the phone as it started to ring again.

  "Okay, Mister. You hungry?"

  I got us breakfast. Leftover steak sandwich for him, SpaghettiOs heated up on the wood stove for me. I rationed out my last can of Coke, which Mister craves at least as badly as I do, and by the time I was done eating and drinking and petting, I was awake and thinking again—and getting ready for sundown.

  Daylight savings time hadn't cut in yet, and dark would fall around six. I had about two hours to get set to go.

  You might think you know a thing or two about vampires. Maybe some of the stuff you've heard is accurate. Likely, it's not. Either way, I wasn't looking forward to the prospect of going into Bianca's lair to demand information from her. I was going to assume that things were going to get ugly before all was said and done, just to make sure I didn't get caught with my staff down.

  Wizardry is all about thinking ahead, about being prepared. Wizards aren't really superhuman. We just have a leg up on seeing things more clearly than other people, and being able to use the extra information we have for our benefit. Hell, the word wizard comes from the same root as wise. We know things. We aren't any stronger or faster than anyone else. We don't even have all that much more going in the mental department. But we're god-awful sneaky, and if we get the chance to get set for something, we can do some impressive things.

  As a wizard, if you're ready to address a problem, then it's likely that you'll be able to come up with something that will let you deal with it. So, I got together all the things I thought I might need: I made sure my cane was polished and ready. I put my silver knife in a sheath that hung just under my left arm. I put the escape potion in its plastic squeeze-bottle into my duster's pocket. I put on my favorite talisman, a silver pentacle on a silver chain—it had been my mother's. My father had passed it down to me. And I put a small, folded piece of white cloth into my pocket.