One day I will write the rest of this fic...

[akelios]

I was feeling pretty good about this one. I'd been hired by the mother of a teenage pyromancer. The talent ran in the family so he had plenty of training, but random fires were still popping up in his neighborhood and school and the authorities were eyeing him as a budding pyromaniac.

 

Turns out the kiddo had attracted a little flock of firebirds. They were pretty, but tended to set things that they roosted on for too long on fire. I'd caught and released most of them back into the Nevernever, but there was one large one that had escaped my first trap. Using a feather I'd yanked out of his tail I'd tracked him down to the Field Museum and cornered him and trapped him. He was trilling out a very unhappy song in the cage but, as is the way with birds, it was still pretty. Sure, a few corners of the room were blackened - firebirds, as you might guess by their name, can spew out little balls of fire kind of like a miniature dragon. But the building was not on fire and everyone was unharmed. All in all the case had gone really well.

 

There was a soft almost-sound behind me and I turned, half-expecting the rumored night-security guard to have finally caught me.

 

John Marcone stood leaning against one side of the door. It was a pose meant to look casual but I knew better. Marcone was always alert. The half-grin did look real though.

 

"I should have known. Where there's smoke, there's you." He pushed off of the wall and moved toward me. I sighed and picked up the cage, shaking it gently in his general direction.

 

"Why does everyone always assume that I'm setting things on fire? I've only burned down two buildings. The smoke's from the damn bird."

 

"Yes, yes. I'm certain. I would like to point out, if I may, that your two burnt down buildings are still two more than the average citizen can claim. And you've set fire to a great many more things that didn't have the poor luck to be entirely engulfed."

 

"Whatever. I didn't burn down anything tonight. We'll call that a win." I glanced around the room, checking for anything I might have dropped that could clue people in to my late night museum visit. "Hey, what're you doing here anyway?" I turned my gaze back to Marcone, focusing on his green eyes. It was nice, if such a word could be applied to anything having to do with a mob boss, to be able to meet someones gaze straight on.

 

"I have a key." He'd walked past me and was examining something that looked like a lump of rock to me but was under glass so I assumed it was at least an important lump of rock.

 

"Oh, of course. Of course you have a key. Why the hell do you have a key to a museum? A lot of arms deals go down in the pre-Etruscan exhibit do they?" Marcone sighed and straightened up, turning to face me.

 

"Harry," in that chiding voice he had, "the museum doesn't have a pre-Etruscan exhibit. You really should spend some time here. It's very educational."

 

"Don't call me Harry." But it was more automatic than anything else. "Fine. I still want to know why the hell you're here in the middle of the night."

 

"For culture." And his tone said, 'of course'. "I am a major donor to this facility and in return they are very understanding about my strange hours and the difficulties involved in my getting here during normal hours."

 

"You bought yourself a museum. I- I'm not even surprised." I shook my head and turned to walk out the door. The firebird, which had been still, chose that moment to fling itself against the magically reinforced bars of the cage. It was only the size of a chicken, but it was *strong*. Strong enough to pull me off balance. Surprise flickered through me and I tried to correct and wound up leaning too far in the other direction. I went down in a tangle of limbs, the cage slipped out of my hand and my head thumped into something much softer than the floor.

 

I closed my eyes and wished that I was somewhere else.

 

"Harry. I would appreciate it if you could get off of me." Marcone's voice was dry and empty. He was either laughing at me or pissed. I wasn't sure which option was worse.

 

I sighed and got my arms and legs under me, pushing up so I was crouched over Marcone. Feeling ridiculous at keeping my eyes shut, like some kid hiding from the monster in his closet, I pried them open. Marcone was sprawled on the floor, eyes hooded and staring up at the ceiling past my shoulder. Shit.

 

"Sorry." I muttered and pushed back, kneeling and then standing between his sprawled legs. Manners got the best of embarrassment and I reached down to help Marcone up off the floor. He took my arm without hesitation and rose, compact and graceful even from flat on his ass. It just wasn't fair.

 

Marcone started dusting himself off, still not looking at me and I left him to it, going for the stupid bird. The cage had held and the firebird was clucking in agitation, his bid for freedom having failed. True to my luck I'd managed to lose the cage right into one of the displays. There was glass everywhere and the dumb lump of rock Marcone had been checking out earlier was on the floor, cracked.

 

Great. Maybe no one would notice. I picked the cage up and pulled a face at the bird. "If it was up to me you'd be in a pot in an hour. Dumb bird." I leaned down and scooped up the rock.

 

"Well. Now we're more on track for you Harry. You've managed to inflict property damage." Marcone crunched over the shards of glass and reached for the rock. I pulled it out of his reach. Childish and yet still satisfying.

 

"Screw you. It's just a rock and technically the bird broke the case, not me."

 

"As you like." I glared at him. He was definitely laughing at me. I grumped and let him grab the rock this time. The electric shock that shot up my arm and down through my body was sharp and not painful enough to feel anything but good. I had a second to raise my eyes to Marcone's and see a reflection of shocked feeling in them and then the world dissolved into a green haze.

 

~

 

Everything ached.

 

The haze lifted slowly, sensation returning bit by bit but every sensation that came back was achy and tired. It felt like I'd been running or lifting weights or something. Not painful, but I knew I'd been doing some work. Thinking past that, I realized that I was flat on my back, pinned by something warm and comfortably heavy. I grunted and opened my eyes, blinking to clear them.

 

Marcone's salt and pepper hair filled half of my vision. His body was the warm thing pinning me down. It took a second for the implications of that to sink through and then I jumped, which didn't get me far since I was still beneath him. He shifted a little at my jerky movement and muttered, sliding his arm up my side and threading his fingers through my hair, holding me still. It was all very gentle and I realized that Marcone was asleep. Holy hell. I wasn't sure what to freak out about first. That Marcone and I were both very very naked or that Marcone was a snuggler. Or maybe I should be freaking out about Gard and Hendricks who had moved from where ever they'd been standing and were now looming over us.

 

"Uh." Gard's face was impassive, but Hendricks looked pissed. It's hard to tell that from his normal expression, but I was fairly certain he was trying to decide on the quickest way to rip my head off. I could almost see smoke trickling from his ears. Then I blinked and realized that the smoke really was there. "Hey, Cujo, did you know you're on fire?" Thin wisps of smoke were dancing off of his short red hair which did, now that I was paying attention, look a bit singed. There was more smoke coming off of his clothes as well.

 

"Not any longer. We put him out a few moments ago." Ms. Gard reached out a hand and stopped it over something that I couldn't see until her hand got close. Then it lit up in a faintly reddish dome. The barrier was pretty big. Maybe ten feet high and when I turned my head I could see that there was plenty of room between us and the edge of it where it met the floor. "If you could drop the shield, Mr. Dresden?"

 

"That's not me."

 

"I am aware of that. However, you are the only wizard within the circle, so could you kindly attempt to will the circle away? It has withstood our efforts from the outside."

 

Well, that made a little bit of sense. I took a deep breath and pushed out with my will, trying to turn the circle 'off'. Nothing happened. I waited a second and nothing continued to happen. Crap. I reached up and took hold of the hand Marcone had in my hair. His fingers lost the loose hold they had and I pushed his arm back toward him and rolled until we were both on our sides. Marcone huffed, still asleep, and let me extricate myself. Unfortunately he took hold of my duster which had apparently been spread out on the floor under us and rolled in it like it was a blanket. Which left me bare ass and starting to shiver. Perfect.

 

I stood and did my best to ignore my little audience. Gard had stepped back and the dome vanished again until I took a few steps. It flared back into being as I got close to where the edge of it had been, only it wasn't red this time but the same faded green that I'd seen right before the lights went out. I felt around with my own power, trying to get a sense of what was powering this thing and what it might do to me. It didn't feel dangerous or malevolent. Just very solid. I knelt and pressed my hand forward, trying to wipe the circle away like I would with one that I'd drawn in chalk. I moved slowly and smashed my fingers into the very real wall of whatever. However it was done it was a hell of a shield. Fuck.

 

"It's pretty solid from this side. It's not reacting to me at all." I glanced over at Hendricks and then turned to Gard. "What did it do when you guys tried to take it down?"

 

"Nothing. It rebounds anything solid thrown at it with minimal damage and seems to have simply absorbed the magics I tried."

 

"That looks like a little more than minimal damage." I pointed at Hendricks' still smoking form. "You said he'd been on fire."

 

"Yes." Gard's mouth twitched in a small smile. "Mr. Hendricks thought that perhaps the bird had had something to do with this and tried to remove him from the situation. Your bird, unsurprisingly, is not a very cooperative soul." Hah. "I got the creature back into its cage and we put Mr. Hendricks out." That little smile again. So glad I wasn't the only one who thought this was funny.

 

"If Dresden can't drop the shield from in there, what're we gonna do?" Hendricks was, clearly, trying to change the subject. I smiled at him and he turned away from me. "We gotta get the boss out of there."

 

"I am open to suggestions. Mr. Dresden?"

 

"I don't know. I have no clue what the hell is going on." I paused as a very unpleasant thought slid through my brain. "You two do know I didn't do this, right? I didn't attack Marcone. We were just standing there and suddenly, boom. Naked cuddling on the floor."

 

Gard shook her head. "I believe you. We arrived...shortly after the event. You were most definitely not the aggressor." She grinned, a real baring of her teeth in amusement and Hendricks' ears turned cherry red. Damn. I took a second and really catalogued my body. Sore, tired muscles, a slightly sharper pain on one side of my neck, and a fairly heavy throbbing pain in my ass. It wasn't awful but it was new and unpleasant. Now that I'd noticed it it wormed it's way into my consciousness, little claws digging into my lower back. Great. Just - just great. I made the executive decision to not think about it. "Regardless of how it happened, we do need to get you two out of there."

 

"Oh yeah. I would really, really like to be gone before Marcone wakes up." I hadn't quite closed my mouth and there was a shivering in the air around me. A small 'pop' echoed in my ear, like the air pressure changed and the shield flashed once, briefly and then disappeared. "Really?" I slowly stuck my arm out and through the space where the shield had been before. Nothing. I waved it up and down and side to side. Just air. "Huh. Well, there you go."

 

"Okay. Here's the plan. I'm going to find my pants." Gard picked them up from a display case to her right and tossed them at me. She had all of our clothes except for my duster it looked like. "Perfect. You two can have sleeping beauty over there. I'll take my coat. We'll all just walk away and never speak of this again. Sound good?" Gard rolled her eyes and moved to start extracting Marcone from my coat. Hendricks just nodded vigorously.

 

Marcone never really woke up. I mean Gard and Hendricks got him dressed and on his feet between the two of them, muttering and cursing at them in Italian, but he was not fully conscious. It was worrying and I asked them to wait while I checked him out. I poked and prodded but couldn't find any spells clinging to him - he was just really, really worn out.

 

We exited the museum more or less together. There was a huge black van parked right in front of the doors. A guy appeared from around the far side and slid the door open, revealing an interior that was probably nicer than my apartment. Hendricks let Gard take Marcone and hopped up into the van, causing its body to sink several inches, then reached back and took Marcone again, guiding the half-conscious man into a seat and buckling him in.

 

I wished I had a camera. It would impair the whole, 'never talking about this again' plan, but how many people got to see Marcone being handled like a sleepy toddler? My eyes wandered a little and I noticed that there was a form sitting in the seat to the far side of Marcone. It was hard to see around the boulder that is Cujo but the person looked small, nearly fragile. I caught a glimpse of shoulder length brown hair and wrists that looked like they would shatter in a stiff breeze and then Hendricks shifted and blocked my view entirely. Huh. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

Gard was talking to the random mafia guy as they walked back to the other side of the vehicle. Hendricks loomed over Marcone and slammed the door shut. Which is kind of impressive when it's a sliding door. As he did so I grinned and mimed taking a picture. Weird magical doings were no excuse for not giving Hendricks shit. The mafia-mobile took off and I headed home for a quick shower and then several hours of sleep.

 

 

and now off to finish the scene from 'Stockholm' that has grown so far out of control it's not even funny.