Jim Butcher - Dresden files:Side jobs

Houses are surrounded by a barrier of energy. Dresden always called it the threshold. It's all murky magic stuff to me, but the general guideline is that anything that's too hideously supernatural can't come in without being invited. A threshold will stop spirits, ghosts, some vampires (but not others), and will generally ward away things that intend to eat your face.

Not everything. Not hardly. But a lot of things.

"No," I said, and put my gun away. "But it's a start." I nodded to a chair in the living room. "Sit down."

She did, and she sat looking down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

Will followed Marcy in and gave me a look that meant, in Martian, What the hell do you think you're doing?

I ignored him.

"Marcy," I said, "why didn't you respond to Will when he tried to contact you earlier?"

"I tried," she said. "I called back as soon as I got the message, but I didn't have Will's cell number. Only Georgia's."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Um," she said, "I just got back into town. And Georgia doesn't need any stress. And he's married. I mean, you don't just go asking for a husband's phone number. You know?"

Which was reasonable, put that way. I nodded, neither approving nor disapproving.

"I left messages on the answering machine at the apartment," Marcy said. "It was all I could do."

"And I checked the messages after I'd run your errands," Will said. "I called her back and had her come over. She swept for scents, and then we came here."

"Will," I said, firmly, "please let me handle this?"

He clenched his jaw and subsided, leaning against a wall.

I turned back to where Marcy sat and continued towering over her, a posture of parental-style authority. "Tell me about your relationship to Georgia."

"We're friends," Marcy said. "Close friends, really. I think of her as a close friend, I mean. She was very kind to me when Andi broke it off with me. And we were friends for years before that."

I nodded. "Did Will explain what was going on?"

She nodded. "Georgia and Andi have been taken."

"How do you know it was Andi with Georgia?"

"Because I was there," Marcy said. "I mean, not last night, but the night before last. Will was out of town and we had a girls' night."

"Girls' night?"

"We hung out and made fondue and watched movies and lied about how we all looked better now than when we first met. Well, except that Andi actually does." She shook her head. "Um, anyway, we stayed up late talking, and Andi slept in the guest bed and I slept on the couch." She glanced up at my eyes for the first time. "That was when we had the nightmares."

"Nightmares?"

She shuddered. "I… I don't want to think about it. But all three of us had an almost identical nightmare. It was the worst for Georgia. She was…" She looked at Will. "It was as if she hadn't quite woken up out of the dream. She kept jerking and twitching." She gave me a weak smile. "Took two cups of cocoa to snap her out of it."

I kept my face neutral and gave her nothing. "Go on."

"Me and Andi talked about it and decided that one of us should stay with her. We were going to trade off, like, until Will came home."

"The first night was Andi, I take it?"

Marcy nodded, biting her lip. "Yes."

"Sounds reasonable," I said. Reasonable, logical-and impossible to verify.

And the kid was shaking.

Jesus Christ, Karrin, said a gentler voice inside me. What are you doing? She's scared to death.

I tried to make my tone a little warmer. "What do you know about their abduction, specifically, Marcy? Can you tell me anything at all that might point toward the identity of the kidnappers?"

She shook her head. "I can't think of anything that I picked up beforehand. But I'm certain it was Andi and Georgia who were taken."

"How can you be sure?" I asked.

Will cleared his throat and spoke quietly. "Marcy's got a nose. She's better with scents than any of the rest of us."

I eyed Marcy. "Could you pick up their trail?"

"They were taken downstairs and loaded into the back of a car," Marcy said promptly. "An older model, burning too much oil. But I couldn't follow them after that. I think I'll be able to recognize the scent of their captors, though, if I run into it."

I nodded. She'd gotten a ton more out of the scene than Will had. Such a talent could be damn useful.

All the same, I wasn't sure. She sounded sincere to me, and I'm pretty good at knowing when someone isn't. But there's always a better liar out there. I just wasn't sure.

But… you have to trust someone, sometime. Even when it seems risky, when lives are on the line.

Maybe even especially then.

"Okay," I said calmly, and took a seat in another chair. "Will," I asked, "what did you find out?"

"There are half a dozen other folks who have gone missing in the past day and a half," Will said. "At least, that's how many Bock and McAnally know about. Word about the kidnappings is out on the Paranet, and has been spreading since yesterday morning. People are moving places in groups of three and four, at least. McAnally's is packed. The community knows something is up. They're scared."

Marcy nodded. "It isn't just Chicago. It's happening all over the country. Group leaders are keeping everyone informed, asking after their people, reporting them missing to the local cops, for whatever good that might do…" Her voice trailed off into a little squeak as she looked at me. "Um. Sorry."

I ignored her. Martian for This is easier for all of us if we just pretend I didn't hear it. "Will, did you turn up anything we can use?"

He shook his head. "No one has seen or heard anything at any of the disappearances. But there are rumors that someone found a gang of Red Court vampires torn apart in a basement across town. Maybe that has something to do with what's going on."

"It doesn't," I said, firmly. "Not directly, at least. Dresden killed the Red Court."

Will blinked. "You mean… those vampires in the basement?"

"I mean the Red Court," I said. "All of them."

Will let out a quiet whistle. "Uh. Wow. That's pretty big magic, I guess."

"Yeah," I said.

Marcy's face was twisted up in a frown of concentration. "Was… was this the night before last, by any chance?"

I glanced aside at her and nodded once.

"If there was a really big surge of magic… maybe that explains the dreams," she said. "It wasn't just the three of us. The night before last, a lot of people-Paranet people, I mean-had nightmares, too. Some of them were bad enough that people haven't slept since. A couple of folks wound up in the hospital." She blinked at Will. "That's what happened with you, Will."

"What do you mean?" Will said.

"When Georgia called you. She'd had the nightmare twice, during the day, when she tried to sleep. She must have had it again and tried to call you."

"There's no point in speculation for now." I looked at Will. "In short, more people missing, bad dreams, everyone is gathering in defensive herds. That about it?"

"More or less," Will said. "What did you get?"

"I sent an e-mail to the address Marcone gave us. Told them I had a talent in need of placement. I got a public phone location. I'm supposed to be there to answer a call at nine tonight."

Will frowned. "So they can get a look at you first, right?"

"Probably."

"You shouldn't look like you," Marcy blurted. Her face colored slightly. "I mean, like, you're the supernatural cop in Chicago. Everyone knows that. And it makes sense that anyone planning something here wouldn't have much trouble finding out who might actually get in their way."

"Unfortunately," I said, "I don't have a different look."

Will looked at Marcy, frowning, and then said, "Ah. Makeover."

"We have a little time," Marcy said, nodding.