Takes place between Turn Coat and Changes for The Dresden Files, and for Sherlock between A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville.

...

Of all the lessons Harry Dresden learned in his years, one of the most important was that when someone was knocking on his office door, trouble was almost a certainty. Being the only one in the phone book under 'wizards' had been, for about a decade, one of the more low-key aspects of his life. All the sceptical mockery, deriding comments about a wizard named Harry, and a one-off talk show appearance gone wrong were the least of his problems. In many ways, his office merely branded him as a weirdness magnet, centralizing all the insanity to a single room.

The office that had previously played host to not only a magical scorpion but a fairy queen, was a modest one. Much to his chagrin it had none of the office elements he daydreamed about. No leggy secretary to flirt with in his best Bogart impression, and as a non-smoker, the room was far too clear, the air too breathable, for his taste. Instead, he had informative pamphlets reading off information about magic and safety precautions when dealing with the supernatural. Most people rarely took them, fewer actually paid them any heed. All the furniture was simple and looked sufficiently battered enough to soothe his need for a more film noir office.

His head had been buried in paperwork, filing some information down for the country-wide network he'd set up a few years prior for small-time practitioners, a way to take care of the magical community too weak to take care of themselves. The knock startled him; most people called beforehand. Unless they weren't vanilla, in which case he'd be in for a lot worse than the typical job of finding household objects.

"Come in," he said in a low voice, only realizing halfway through the first word to speak up so he could be heard on the other side of the door. Whereas most opened his door tepidly and unsure of what was inside, there was a stark difference in the day's visitor.

A woman walked in, on the farther end of middle age but looking rather well for it. Everything about her said 'money', from her stance to the conservative purple dress she wore beneath a half-open fur coat, to the string of pearls around her neck. The red handbag was held so close to her body it may well have been stitched to her coat, and sticking out of it rather gracelessly was a thick, beige folder stuffed with papers. Her features were sharp and almost hawkish, yet there was a bit of softness just beyond her mask that reflected a little in her eyes.

He may have been in the book under 'wizard', but at the core Harry was a detective. A shamus of the spooky, but sometimes he found use for his abilities in more practical places than exorcism and vampire slaying. Before she even said a word he had drawn up a rough working of her. He knew that the softness was likely pain, something that had been taught out of her in high society and business. Had she worn a little more jewelry or been missing a few more years off her face, Harry would have braced himself for another visit from Queen Mab, but she may just yet have been sincere.

Only when she was seated in the chair opposite him in front of his desk did she speak. "Good afternoon, Mr. Dresden. My name is Brigid Rutledge." She extended a hand to him, which he accepted slowly. Her voice was stern, speaking with a received pronunciation accent-the 'generic upper-class English accent', it was better known as in the media. It told him she was educated, and likely more than a little old money.

He nodded slowly, fixing his eyes on the bridge of her nose. It was the closest he could come to looking her in the eye without actually making eye contact, something very dangerous for someone of his power. "What can I do for you, Miss Rutledge?"

"I'll be direct, if I may. My sister, Astrid, has been studying at home in London for a few years. Two and a half weeks ago, she and five friends were reported missing. There was little evidence to go by and few leads, but they suspect it to be the work of a serial kidnapper who has been troubling the city for several months now. Most troubling is that two days ago, one of the five friends was found dead in an alley."

She placed the folder down onto the desk, which had been cleared hastily of documents, and opened it. A heavy stack of photographs, copies of police reports, and other papers began to slip out, the topmost being a large picture of six girls in their twenties, all smiling at the camera. By the looks of them, all were students, all from fairly affluent families, but most interesting were the matching necklaces they wore. Gold pentacles, oddly plain for young women with visible wealth. They weren't for decoration, though.

A low worry began to brew in Harry's stomach as he looked back at his potential client. Most people not asking him to save the world came to him with matters of finding objects-his speciality-or the occasional haunting. This wasn't only a kidnapping, though, as he could clearly tell from the necklaces. The pentacle was a symbol that he himself wore on a silver amulet given to him by his mother, though it was currently hidden beneath his shirt. It was a magical symbol, used by some as an object of faith where they lacked a proper religion. The four elements and the spirit bound in a circle of human will. Granted, girls in their rebellious college Wicca phases adopted it more often than wizards, but few had families who would consider hiring wizards.

He played dumb, wondering just how much his client knew. "Why come to me with this? If it's some serial killer and kidnapper, the police are working the case. And there are plenty of London-based detectives who-"

"Are not listed as wizards in the phone book. If you are a hundredth of the man they say you are, Mister Dresden, then you know what those necklaces mean." She leaned inward, arms resting on the desk, hands clasped tightly. "My sister has magical talent. Nothing to your level, but she is the strongest of her coven. A coven that has gone missing, in its entirety."

He began to sift through all of the papers, and they painted a grim picture. Crime scene photos, a couple newspaper clippings, and more information than seemed even remotely reasonable for someone to have. "You suspect there's something deeper?"

"Most definitely. They know how to defend themselves against normal threats; one of them can even work a decent shield against bullets. This is a serious matter unfit for the police."

"This is a lot of information for a civilian to possess. I can't imagine they're letting these things to the public."

"I have ways," she said cryptically, her voice and expression unwavering. "Money can buy a lot of things, and my sister is very dear to me. I will spare no amount of money to see her safe return." She drew back, leaning into the chair with her hands still held tightly together. "Or to avenge her death. I am not magical myself; she inherited her skills from her mother. Father's business gives me my own sorts of resources though, and they are at your disposal."

"I'm not sure what my fee would be wi-"

"I have a bank account with ten thousand pounds, consider it an up-front expense account. Any of the remainder will go toward your fees when the case is completed. Hotel and transport will be separate from that account, and-"

"No transportation. This is all a bit much to accept, but if you think I'm the only one who can do it, then I guess it's worth a try."

"I insist, Mister Dresden, on paying for your trip to-"

"I can't fly. Planes and I don't get along. I have ways of getting there, though."

"Very well." She dug into her bag for another, smaller folder. "This has the details for the bank account, as well as contact information if anything comes up." The folder found its place atop the larger folder, and her hand reached up, offered to him again. "If that is all, I have another appointment."

He shook her hand, nodding slowly. "I'll keep in contact with you."

She promptly walked out, moving with a sudden swiftness that made her heels loudly clack on the ground. The abruptness of her leaving merely deepened his confusion, and his need for silence to figure things out.

"That dame is trouble," he said in his best approximation of a Humphrey Bogart voice, pausing momentarily as he tried to remember if that was even a quote from any of his movies. He shrugged it off, waiting a moment after she left before getting up, shuffling the files clumsily back into their folder and heading out. He grabbed his black leather duster and the large, carved staff by the door. With a flick of the light switch, he headed out to drive home and do some thinking.

Harry was an imposing figure, approaching seven feet tall and walking with a clumsy, withdrawn closeness. His motion was akin to someone walking through a china shop, painfully trying to keep their limbs reigned in to keep from breaking things. There was no scarcity in hallway space or door frame, making him look strange stepping out of the office building. His long coat billowed in the wind, heavy on his shoulders and making him look like he stepped onto the set of an ill-advised western too cheap for proper sets. The staff hit the ground as he set down the short staircase from door to sidewalk, a battered wooden shaft as tall as him. Beneath the abuse of dents, scratches, and scrapes lay a column of runic carvings with just the slightest luminescence to them.

Across the street sat his car, sticking out in the row of cars glaringly. A battered, pre-war Volkswagen was parked. Its original blue had since been mostly replaced with an array of colours he didn't bother to paint over, leading to various greens and browns. His trusty ride, the Blue Beetle, had seen years of abuse, crashes, attacks, gunfire, and mould demons.

It took several attempts to get the old car going, and he was almost about to give up and call his mechanic when it finally gave up and cooperated. Stubborn old machine. He pulled into the traffic lane and set off home. His new client's visit gave him a lot to think about. Practically everything she had said worried him in some way, wrapped up in a big ball of convenience. None of it was good.

The drive home didn't provide him with enough time to fully ponder things. He pulled up in front of his boarding house, and wondered if he was entirely safe. Strange women walking into his office, especially with a story about a missing sister, were the sorts of things that would lead to being attacked by gunmen soon after. His eyes dragged across the area around him as subtly as possible, making great use of his mirrors, and found nothing. One hand gripped the staff tightly, while the other reached into his coat for a shiny revolver. Opening the car door while handling a gun in the same hand was likely on several lists of gun safety violations, but he chose one safety over another.

Air was tense, thick with worry and stillness. It was that intermediate point in the afternoon when people weren't doing much of anything, too early to be back from their days. Mrs. Spunkelcrief, his landlady, was thankfully not looking out her window as he stepped out brandishing a gun. A shield spell was sitting in the forefront of his mind, ready to go the moment anything moved. He kept a brisk pace up to the door of his basement apartment, not too fast to look paranoid, but not slow enough to keep him as a still target. Getting to his door was the easy part, though.

A few years ago, some zombies had thrown themselves at his defences, and the worst lasting damage was what they had done to his door. The replacement wasn't installed properly, being too heavy and too wide. It took several tackles with his large frame just to knock it open enough to worm his way through, which made him a sitting duck. He wondered why he entrusted the job to such a lazy contractor as opposed to a carpenter who was a very close friend of his. On the bright side, if it was so hard for him to get in, it at least served as an extra line of defence Beyond them were his wards, set up to protect his apartment. Any who didn't possess a special talisman couldn't enter, said items given only to family and close friends.

After working his way in and throwing his coat and the files onto the couch, he endeavoured to shut the door. It was just a touch easier, and only when he was done could he relax in the knowledge that nobody tried to kill him. Yet.

"Flickum bickus," he said with the slightest bit of will. All of the candles in the apartment burst into light at once, casting orange glows across the room. The apartment was ungodly clean for a bachelor's basement apartment. Everything was neat, in place, dusted, and polished. The furniture was simple and cheap, not all matching and certainly not exquisite, but it was treated with extreme care and attention. Well, mostly. The sole exception to the care and love was a styrofoam container, laying open on the table with a plastic fork and scraps of food and oily sauce remaining in it.

His eyes drifted to the door leading to the sub-basement, left open and with a faintly unpleasant smell wafting up from it with a puff of smoke. He rolled his eyes, grabbing a flannel bathrobe off the hook and setting on down the stairway. "Maybe giving you lab access when I was out wasn't the best of ideas, grasshopper," he called down as he reached the bottom of his stairs.

His lab was cold, dank, and cramped. Tables crammed with books and strange jars lined the walls, lorded over by row upon row of similarly-stocked shelves. Somehow, a desk had been forced into the small space, which held more ingredients and dishevelled notes. Of note in the monotony was an odd shrine of burned-down candles accumulated upon more burned-down candles, piles of beaten-up romance novels beside them. In the middle of the mess was a bleached human skull with low, almost invisible orange lights idly flickering in the eye holes.

Standing over the centre desk with the source of the smoke and smell, which up close was a thick orange plume that shifted in multiple colours on its way upward, was Harry's apprentice. Molly Carpenter was several juvenile boys' fantasies rolled up into one package. She had the statuesque body of a Scandinavian exchange student, all long, lean limbs and curves where they were most appreciated. Her ever-changing hair was, that afternoon, bright bubblegum pink and teased up into a fringe that took more time to shape than Harry's entire morning routine. Her tights were torn up in the most tasteful of places that revealed the fishnets beneath, and her shirt was much the same way, showing off more than a few otherwise hidden piercings. Of course, all of that was hidden beneath a similar flannel bathrobe.

Harry often had to remind himself that she was his apprentice, and he had known her since she was a preteen, that it was wrong to look. When she was panicked and trying to keep the potion she was brewing from blowing up the lab-and not for the first time-looking was the last thing on his mind.

"I have it under control!" she exclaimed, hands frantically slamming on the desk in search of ingredients, either something to balance it out or something she had forgotten in the process. At any rate, the whole potion was a bust and he had little hope that the next ingredient wouldn't be the combustive element.

"No, you don't," he sighed, grabbing a large towel from the wall and using it to fan the smoke out of his face. "Leave it be, it'll fizz off of its own accord. Now come upstairs, I need a second head for this."

"Something wrong?" she asked, stepping away from the table and heading toward the stairs.

"Are things ever right? And for once, I don't mean your potion troubles." He led her up the stairs, groaning as he tried not to breathe in more of the fumes. On his way to the table, he opened up a window to air the apartment out and grabbed a few cans of cola from his ice box. He slid the files out and spread them on the almost-immaculate coffee table.

"A new case?"

"Maybe. I'm trying to figure out which movie my new client came from."

"Don't you do that on regular days?"

"No, seriously. She came, threw money at me, and made no strange sexual advances."

"Is that a problem?"

"If you've ever seen a detective movie, yes." He spread out all of the papers and set out to explain to Molly not only what she told him, but the information he gleamed from the reports.

The coven's abduction was linked to the disappearance and murder of four others on three occasions. There was no visible connection to them; different ages, genders, and backgrounds. Different areas, affluence, jobs... None of it clicked, save for the supplementary material involved.

Astrid Rutledge. Born in London, in undergraduate courses for English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London. Along with five friends-the other members of her coven, also enrolled in universities across London-she was kidnapped from their shared apartment, which was found destroyed and broken. All of the valuables were reported missing, a long list of insured items. It was the first time the suspect had struck a target with much in the way of money and items were actually reported missing instead of merely broken.

"You don't believe her, then?" Molly asked after he finally ran through the photos and reports with her.

"She has access to files she shouldn't have and was completely upfront about not only paying me, but giving me a large advance for expenses. She's being too helpful to someone whose job it is to dig things up."

"So, what? A trap, a con?"

"I don't know yet."

"So what will we do?"

"Whether or not she's telling the truth, people are in danger. We'll head to London tomorrow night."

"We?"

"Your family is on vacation and you're not allowed lab access anymore. Plus, it'll be lonely there, and you always wanted to travel."