Title: Harbinger
Rating: R for pretty much the same stuff that'd show up in any Dresden Files novel.
Pairings: Canon Dresden/Susan at the start, but beyond that, I've no intent to write any shipping. Part of my challenge to myself with this fic.
Summary: Dresden wakes up from a nightmare that he can't shake and his day just keeps on getting stranger. Add to that his sometimes apprentice coming to him for help with high questionable magic, and werewolves rampaging through Chicago and it looks to be a busy week.
A/n: This is my non-shippy time-travel (with a twist) AU. This first story starts just before the beginning of Fool Moon and I plan to do several of the future books as well, going increasingly AU along the way. If you have any thoughts on alternate paths characters of Dresden Files might've ended up on due to a single choice happening differently at some point, feel free to share.
***
The world was on fire… And it was all my fault.
Have you ever had a dream that stuck with you even after you wake up? A dream where the borders between sleep and waking were so horribly muddled that each bled into the other and you couldn't tell which was which? A thing of such stark, agonizing clarity that you would swear on your life that it had all been real.
Yeah… not my best morning ever.
I shot out of bed, half tangling in sweat-soaked sheets, and stumbled into the adjoined cupboard of a bathroom. There, I fell to my knees on the cold linoleum and threw up violently into the toilet bowl.
Even with my eyes open, the visions swam before me. Darkness. A living, breathing, slithering darkness, its oily tendrils ever encroaching upon our world. Rivers of blood, spilling over their banks and running down the streets. Death. So much death that I couldn't separate each pale, lifeless face that flashed before me.
I threw up until there wasn't anything left, spitting bile into the bowl and clutching at the porcelain to stay upright. I felt too weak to rise, so once I was done, I just lay there curled up into a ball, shivering.
"Jesus Christ, Harry," said a voice behind me. It was a familiar woman's voice, soft and smoky, though the shock suffusing the words made them come out high and sharp.
I wiped at my mouth, got up on my knees, and flushed the toilet, slowly turning around and finding Susan Rodriguez standing in the doorway, her brown eyes wide and worried.
For a single, horrible instant, I saw her laid out underneath me, tears flowing from eyes turning into a tarry pitch black as an older, rougher-looking version of myself brandished a jagged obsidian knife and slashed her throat. I flinched as I felt the hot droplets of scarlet splash across my face, turned back to the toilet and gagged as my stomach twisted and turned around inside of me.
"Are you okay?" Susan wondered, settling beside me.
I flinched when she draped an arm around my shoulders and she seemed to take the hint, moving back half a step.
"No," I said, spitting into the bowl and rising slowly. "Maybe I'm pregnant."
"Harry-"
"I mean, I haven't had a period in 28 years."
Susan scowled at me. "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."
"I have seen a ghost," I told her. "Granted, it was a while ago, but-"
"For fuck's sake, Harry!"
Susan knew me well enough to know why I was being a smartass as well as I did. I was scared. I didn't want her to know that, though, so I brushed past her.
"Just a nightmare, Susan," I murmured.
I walked over to my sink and rinsed my mouth with cold water, splashing my face in hopes of clearing the cobwebs of sleep from my mind.
Susan sidled up next to me carefully and wrapped an arm around me. "I've seen you have nightmares," she said. "That was not a nightmare. That was something else."
She wasn't wrong. It sure felt like something different. I tried not to let any of the concern show as I faced her.
"I'll live."
She rolled her eyes at me. "Spare me the macho bullshit, please."
"Hell no," I said, grabbing my toothbrush and applying a healthy dollop of toothpaste onto it. "Next thing I'll be peeing sitting down and enjoying Nicholas Sparks' books. It's a slippery slope Susan and I, for one, refuse to go down it."
She smiled wearily. "You'll tell me when you feel ready, right?"
"I promise." It wasn't a lie. I just wasn't sure I'd ever be ready. I could still feel the blood on my face, hot and sticky and reeking of copper.
She watched me as I brushed my teeth and didn't say anything. I could all but hear the creaking of gears turning, though. Susan Rodriguez was not one to leave a mystery unsolved. So I adopted a tactic long used by wizards in the face of an unwinnable fight – I skedaddled.
"I'm going to wash up," I told her. "I'm meeting Kim later."
"Fine," Susan muttered. "I'll let you brood on your own. Call me?"
"Yep. Will do."
She sounded a little bit hurt, which sucked, but I couldn't think of a way of talking this out with her. Not before I'd figured what the fuck was going on – and believe you me – something was going on.
Which was why, when the rest of the day rolled on by without a single weird thing happening, I got increasingly paranoid. My spider-sense was tingling but nothing was jumping out of the shadows going "Boogidy boo!"
By the time I arrived at Mcanally's, with dusk setting in, I was considering if the rigors of my wizardly life were just getting to me and driving me loopy. The place calmed me down a little with its familiarity, the scent of grilled meat and potatoes wafting my way, the dim light, the hand carved pillars and furniture.
Then a young woman with shiny black hair turned around in her chair and for an instant I could see her head toppling off her shoulders, rolling across a floor that wasn't Mac's, and settling with her green eyes, cold and filmy, staring up at me in silent accusation.
I had to hold on to one of the hand-carved pillars just to stay standing. I panted, blinking my eyes and straightening once more. The vision had disappeared as soon as it had come, but I had a lingering feeling the conversation Kim wanted to have with me wasn't going to be something I'd enjoy. As if the day could get any worse.
Kim was already sipping on a beer and I vaguely recalled her promising me a hot meal and a drink if I wanted them in exchange for a chat about something. After a long day of soul-searching and stray cases, all of them resulting in a sum total of fuck-all, it was a bargain I would happily make.
"Mac," I said. "Whisky, beer and a steak sandwich, please."
Mac, the tall, spare bartender raised an eyebrow at me. I waved him off. I've never been much of a drinker, especially not of the hard stuff… But it had been one hell of a long day and for some reason this felt like the appropriate response.
"What he said," Kim Delaney added. "And another round of the same for me."
Mac shrugged and grabbed two bottles of beer, setting them on the counter. He grabbed an old dusty unlabeled bottle and poured two fingers of scotch into two glasses, then promptly ignored us both as he focused on the food. I picked up the drinks at the bar – Mac was of the firm opinion that if you wanted the drinks, or the food, you could damn well grab it yourself – and returned with each to Kim.
She chuckled. "Going big tonight, huh?"
I'd worried a little that the scotch might've edged towards being presumptive with her generosity, but apparently not. Kim raised her glass, sniffed it, and nodded in approval as she held it out toward mine. We clinked glasses. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that with whisky, but I'm American, what do I know? The drink burned my throat going down and I relished the feeling.
"I've had a rough day," I told her.
She watched me, frowning. I'd taught Kim for a while now and though she didn't quite have the talent to make it into the White Council, her powers weren't anything to scoff at, either. She knew a little bit about the things that lurked in the shadows of our city, and the things I'd faced. Her eyes burned with curiosity, but she didn't press. I appreciated that.
"Looks like," she said, running a finger along the neck of her bottle of beer in a nervous gesture before catching herself and folding her hands in her lap instead.
"Yeah, well… I'll live and that's not why you wanted to meet up," I said. "Ask away."
Kim hesitated for a moment. Then she reached into her coat and fished out a piece of paper with a drawing on it that nearly had me choking on my second sip of scotch.
It looked innocent enough at first glance: Three circles of scrawling, spidery design, each outside the other, each with its own clear purpose. A ward against flesh, a ward against spirit, and a ward against something that was both and neither… But as I stared at the crude drawing, I could see, as clear as daylight, a full-size replica on fine hardwood floors, disturbed by an uncaring hand to the ultimate detriment of a young woman laying headless in a pool of blood beside it.
"Where did you get this?"
Kim blinked in surprise. "That's not – I saw it in a book and copied it down."
I wasn't sure if she was lying to me… But I was sure she wasn't telling me everything.
"You don't need to know what this is, Kim," I said. "You don't even want to know."
"Oh come on, Harry. I'm not some helpless kid you need to protect."
In magical terms, she was, but I felt that would've been counter-productive to point out. Go go gadget diplomatic skills. As my sort-of apprentice, I had responsibilities toward her. Talking to non-members of the White Council about some of the things Kim seemed to be taking an interest in was a big no-no.
"Look, Harry. I'm not going to use it for any big evil summoning. I just want to find out what it does."
I considered stonewalling her for a second, just like the Council would've done… But the Council were a bunch of assholes and I'd be damned if I risked my friend's health because of their collective lack of testicular fortitude.
"It's a greater circle," I told her. "The kind you'd use to trap things you're nowhere near ready to deal with yet."
"Oh. So what're these?" She pointed at a couple of squiggly lines and I squinted at them.
"Those are the key symbols that connect the whole thing… Listen to me, Kim. This is not stuff you want to mess with."
"I'm not going to-"
I glared at her and it must've looked more wizardly than expected because Kim stopped talking.
"Listen to me," I repeated, my voice cold and hard in a way that felt and sounded alien to me.
"You've probably figured out by now that we're not the only wizards out there. There are rules for this stuff. There's people enforcing those rules, and they're a bunch of assholes. You don't want to mess around with this stuff."
Kim's eyes widened. I'd always been very selective with what I'd told her and right this moment I couldn't remember why. Hell, better I tell her than let her wade in ignorant and die because of it, right?
I was forgetting something. It itched at the back of my mind but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out just what it was. I was about to press on when I heard Mac clear his throat behind me. I looked and saw two plates with potatoes, green beans, and truly glorious steak awaiting me.
Kim mulled things over while I fetched the food and for a while, we made small talk. Kim was doing some kind of charity thing trying to save the planet and things weren't going great. I told her about one of my sillier cases where I'd had to exorcise the ghost of an old lady who was taking offense at the unmarried upstairs couple and their premarital sex, and was happy to let them know about it.
It wasn't until we'd finished off our beer and our meal that she tried to broach the subject of the circle again.
"So how does it work- technically?"
I looked at me, my mood quickly deteriorating again. "Why do you want to know?"
"It's just a-"
"It's not an academic interest," I said, cutting across her. "If you want to know, that's the price."
She gave me a sulky expression that was at odds with the fact that she was only a year or two younger than I was and her eyes drifted for a moment down to the food. She ran her fingers through dark locks in frustration and a single strand fell to the table. I managed a wry smile.
"I'm not that kind of wizard, Kim. I'm not going to be putting out just because you bought me dinner."
She snorted out a laugh and downed the rest of her scotch. "Fine. I need it to help a friend."
"Uh-huh. And what does he need you to help him with?"
"A protection circle."
The door to Mac's little tavern was flung open and a short blonde came through. Her blue eyes swept the place and locked down on me with all the lethality of a guided missile.
"Dresden," said Karrin Murphy. "Got a moment?"
"Officer Murphy," I said. "You don't call. You don't write. You sure know how to make a wizard feel special."
Murphy's lips thinned. "There's a situation."
She refused to say the words. 'I need your help.' She was too proud. But that was what she meant.
"Yeah. Of course there is." I downed the last of my whisky and washed it down with the beer. "Call me tomorrow, Kim, and we'll talk."
She flicked a nervous glance in Murphy's direction, but nodded. "Okay."
"Make good choices."
I left feeling reasonably sure she'd actually do it, but I snagged the strand of her hair as I walked past her on the way out just in case, wrapping it up in the drawing of her protection circle. At least she wasn't as stubborn an apprentice as… Someone. I shook my head. What was the matter with me today?
***
"So," Murphy said a while later, drumming her fingers along the steering wheel of her car. "Who was your date?"
"She wasn't a date. Just someone I know who wanted my advice."
Murphy had super cop powers and could pretty much always tell when I was lying. So I didn't lie. Not exactly, anyways.
"Advice on what?"
Maybe I was feeling a little bit petty considering how she'd treated me over the past few months. Then again, wizards weren't supposed to talk about magic and even less about the fact that there were a lot of us walking around in the world. Either way, I didn't tell her about who Kim really was.
"No lies this time, Dresden," she said, and her tone carried a note of warning. "No secrets. There's enough shit flying with Internal Investigations and politicians. I don't have time to deal with that from you, too."
I winced. "There's stuff I can't tell you, Murphy. I want to, believe me, but I can't always share every single detail of this stuff."
"You will when we're on the clock."
It hurt to hear the outright hostility in her tone. I'd always considered Murphy a friend but it was clear that the sentiment wasn't something she returned right now.
"It's between Kim and I. If it somehow is relevant to what you need help with, I promise I'll let you know. Is that good enough for you or do you want it signed in blood?"
It might've come out a little bit more bitter and childish than I'd wanted it to.
The silence grew tense and I was glad when we arrived at a building out by Rosemont. There were cops there already, and the building had been sealed off with tape. The Varsity. A moment later, we got close enough to see the sign hanging above the double doors. The Varsity - hang on.
I froze mid-step and shook my head. Huh. Deja vu.
"What's going on, Dresden?" Murphy asked, her voice touched with impatience.
"A glitch in the Matrix," I said, blinking. "It's nothing. Let's go."
I rubbernecked to make sure Agent Smith wasn't about to whack me, and followed her past the cops watching the place, hopping over the tape where she went under it.
The building was still unfinished, a barren husk of concrete, steel and timber. Tools and supplies lay scattered everywhere.
"Marcone's new place, huh?" I said as we walked inside.
Murphy didn't reply and a moment later I realized why when the stench hit me. For just a moment, time froze and at the same time, sped up. I looked at the two men who lay dead on the floor, eviscerated and mangled, and took in all the details. Glass smashed from outside, now scattered all over the floor. Someone had busted in. Injuries no human being could've managed without some very inventive tools. Two big, bad chicago thugs laying curled up on the floor in a fetal position, trying in vain to protect their vital organs before they were ripped out.
A footprint in the dust of something like a dog, but larger, and with sharper claws. Outside, a full moon hung bright and fat in the sky.
I snapped out of it again and found Murphy staring at me.
"Jesus Christ, Dresden. Are you okay?"
"I don't know," I said. I really didn't.
"What's the matter with you?"
I blinked and, again, I could see her as I had when she'd walked into Mac's pub. Older, scarred, but still straight-backed and ferocious. I bent over and collected a bloody shard of glass, wrapping it lightly in a hankie and putting it in my pocket.
"I really don't know. I woke up this morning and - Never mind. It's not important." I pointed toward the footprint on the floor. "Uh- I think you've got a werewolf problem, Murph."
Murphy winced. "I was really hoping werewolves were just a myth."
I shook my head. "Sorry. They're real. Nothing like the movies, but-"
There was some noise from outside, arguing by the sounds of it, and a moment later the doors banged open and in came the agents. Well, not
those agents, but the FBI IDs were plenty problematic.
"Goddamnit," Murphy said. "How do those assholes get-"
"Everywhere so fast?" I filled in.
Murphy gave me a look and I had a feeling she had a few things to say if she'd had time. She didn't.
The agents moved in unison and with a graceful, confident stride. There were four of them. The leader, a tall fit man in his early forties, a young red-headed kid, a woman in her thirties whose hair had gone prematurely gray, and an overweight man in his early fifties with beady little eyes.
"Secure the scene," said the man obviously in charge. "Lieutenant Murphy, what the hell are you doing on a crime scene out of your jurisdiction?"
"Just taking a look."
I watched the others start securing and checking out the crime scene. There was something off about all of this. They didn't seem surprised by anything that they found and seemed more interested in Murphy than the bodies.
He swept his gaze from Murphy and then to me, his gray eyes calculating. "And who is he?"
"Nobody," Murphy said quickly.
"If Internal Affairs heard about this they would be thrilled." Denton said.
It could've been a threat, but I had a feeling it wasn't. Not really. Murphy seemed to disagree, and she scowled up at Denton.
"This connects to one of my cases. I'm well within my rights to be here."
"Maybe," Denton said, shrugging. "But for your own sake, I think it's best we assume you and your friend simply walked in here by accident. Agent Benn, please escort these two
civilians outside."
The gray-haired woman, Benn, advanced on us and I could feel the potential violence in the air. There was something not quite right about Benn. Something in her eyes. It made my stomach wriggled around uneasily and, again, I didn't snap out of it until there was a sudden flash of movement.
Benn went for Murphy in a grab, but she wasn't fast enough, not by a long shot. Murphy caught the woman's strike and used the momentum to send her hurtling into the wall. Benn gathered her bearing in less than a second and her hand plunged into her jacket. I reacted on instinct.
"Forzare!"
Benn produced her gun and a moment later, the wave of kinetic force slammed into her from below and to one side, catching her gun-hand and pinning it up against the concrete.
"Drop it," I said, keeping my hand leveled and holding my focus on her. "Denton. Let's not have things go completely off the rails here."
I cast a sideways glance at them and saw all three FBI agents staring at me. Oh. I'd just used magic in front of a bunch of muggles. I usually tried not to do that. The reaction was very rarely a good one.
"Denton," I repeated, my voice hard. "Tell her - to drop - the gun."
Benn had her teeth bared and her free left hand was moving toward her jacket again to get another weapon.
"Don't," I warned her.
I could see panic in the red-headed kid's eyes. "Deborah - Don't!"
"Agent Benn," Denton said, his voice carrying implacable authority. "Drop the gun."
She flicked a glance at the older man and some of the tension drained from her.
"It's alright," Denton said, his voice soft and slow. "Nobody's hurt. Drop the gun."
Benn flicked the safety of her gun and let it fall to the floor. She cast me a furious look that unsettled me far more than it should have, and the moment I let go of the spell, she stormed out.
"You must be Harry Dresden," Denton said, as though we hadn't been seconds from a shoot-out. "I've heard of you."
"Cool," I said, making a show of ignoring him. "Murphy. I think we've got everything we need here."
Murphy cast me a long, calculating look, and then nodded. "Yes. I think we have."
"Great," I said, waving a hand to the scene behind me. "Have at it."
A vein pulsed and throbbed at Denton's forehead. Things had not gone as he'd planned, but my display had shaken him enough that he didn't seem to want to push his luck. Good.
Murphy and I didn't talk until we were safely back in her car and on our way out of the driveway to the Varsity.
"What the hell was that, Dresden?"
She may have been pissed. "Magic," I said. "I figured you didn't want the crazy FBI chick ventilating your brains."
"You assaulted a FBI agent."
"With magic. I don't think that'd hold up in a court of law."
"They can still make your life miserable."
I snorted. "Any more than it already is? Doubt it."
"God damn it, Dresden," she muttered, but she was smiling just a little. You had to know her, but it was there.
"Come on," I said. "Did you see the look on Denton's face?"
She actually did smile that time around and I leaned back in my seat, pleased.
"Werewolves. They're actually real? Seriously?"
"Yeah. My mentor never really covered them much, so I'll need to do some research."
She swore under her breath. "Anything else?"
I shrugged. "Got some blood off the floor. I'll need to see where that leads, and there's the goons. They were Marcone's guys."
"Marcone," she said, with more venom than the earlier swearing. "I think I'd rather take the werewolves."
"Me too. Pull over here."
Murphy pulled over into the parking lot of a McDonalds and I managed to pull together a quick tracking spell before too many people started staring at the idiot drawing a chalk circle on the tarmac and smearing some blood over a compass. With the spell complete, I returned to the car and pointed back toward the way we'd come.
"That way."
Murphy heaved a sigh and steered us back toward Chicago. We drove in circles for a while to triangulate on the location my tracking spell was pointing toward, but eventually, we found our way to an abandoned department store.
I took a few long paces to get ahead of Murphy.
"Let me take the lead, and don't shoot unless you've got to. Werewolves are people - most of the time."
Murphy nodded. She already had her gun and flashlight at the ready. I got my own gear ready, blasting rod and shield bracelet in my hands, my mother's pentacle invested with power and emitting light blue wizard's light.
The place was boarded up and seemingly deserted like several venues in this part of town and nobody seemed to have cared enough to lock up. We made our way inside with Murphy just behind me and to my side - enough so that she could shoot if something reared its head and that she'd still be within the protections of my shield.
The area inside was barren, shelves empty, floors covered with dust… Dust that had been disturbed both by the footprints of human feet and paws. I followed my tracking spell to the back of the store where, in a pool of moonlight seeping in from above, a group stood gathered around a lit lantern.
And, oh God, I recognized them all. Billy. Georgia. Marci. Andi. Kirby. Others, whose names I'd forgotten, but how could I have? More importantly, how did I know them at all? We'd never met.
And yet I knew them all. They looked different. Billy was pudgy and awkward-looking. Andi, too. They all wore outfits somewhere in between bikers and goths and it was not a flattering blend.
"I'm telling you," Billy snarled at Georgia, "that we should be out there right now. We can't allow ourselves to rest until we've found them all and torn them apart."
Torn them apart? Who, though?
"I swear, Billy," Georgia said. "You're such a testosterone-laden idiot. If we were out there right now, they might catch on to us."
They kept on snarking like that, all but brimming over with sexual tension. These were our werewolves alright. I could hear Murphy approach from behind me and raised my arm on pure reflex in a tightly clenched fist. She stopped beside me, eyes questioning what the hell I was doing.
"Trust me," I whispered, and stepped out into the light.
"I'm Harry Dresden. I just wanna talk. Everyone stay calm."
They did not stay calm. Every single one of them whipped around in varying states of shock.
"Who are you?" Billy snapped, taking a step to the side to cover Georgia. The tall girl scoffed and pushed past him.
"Harry Dresden: I literally just told you."
Georgia frowned. "The wizard?"
I nodded. "The one and only. This here's my sidekick, Murphy."
"Your what?"
I shushed her and knew that there'd be hell for that to pay later, but Murphy stepped back to let me handle things.
"What're you doing here?" Billy asked with more than a light touch of bravado in his voice.
"I'm looking for werewolves. She's looking for a murderer. I'm pretty sure you're the first and I'm pretty sure you're not the second, but…" I plucked the shard of bloody glass out of my pocket and brandished it. "One of you left blood at the scene, which means you'll know a lot of useful stuff."
At the mention of blood and the reveal of my prop, several of them went pale. They weren't entirely ignorant about the significance of what I held in my hands.
"So," I continued. "I thought we'd sit down and have a nice, peaceful conversation over a cup of coffee. We might not even have to go downtown. What do you say?"
Which, of course, was when the real werewolves attacked.
