Timelines= Castle: takes place before the season 1 finale. Dresden Files: takes place before Turn Coat. Also takes place before my other Dresden fic "A Whale of a Time".

Disclaimers= Standard, I own none of these characters, except for Joe and James Tasch and Daniel Kazicky.

They Came From Chicago

"Castle, tell me you've got her," Detective Beckett shouted across the police station to her unwelcomed shadow. She was forced to put up with him following her around so that he could get information and ideas for a new line of books that he was going to be writing based on her. In all honesty she was starting to get used to him being around, but she would never let him know.

The case that they were working on was very similar to the Buonsi murder from about a month ago. The victim was found dead inside a spiritualistic circle, his throat was cut and his own had been used to make the circle. The problem was, while it did have elements of Vodun to it, it also had what were identified as Egyptian, Chinese, Vietnamese and astrological symbols. They had been working on this for four days with nothing. There were no fingerprints at the scene but there were at least four different shoe prints. The victim was identified as Joe Tasch. According to his I.D. he was from Arizona, after several calls it turns out that his parents were dead and his only living relative was his brother James. He was on vacation in New York for the week. They had no luck reaching his brother. One year ago he moved away to Tibet to live in a monastery. They had to confirm that from four different people before anyone believed that.

"Who does that?" Ryan had asked.

"I don't know. I'd only be so lucky if Castle would decide to do that though," she had said. The remark got laughs from Ryan and Esposito and predictable complaints from Castle himself.

Then they got a call from the Chicago Police Department saying that their case was almost identical to one that the CPD had been looking into for over a week. The CPD had some people in Indiana that they were going to send over to help with their investigation. That was yesterday morning. They were supposed to arrive sometime today, there was no exact time because they were driving here.

"Sorry Katie, she's still not answering her phone. I hope she's-----Ahhh! Apples! Applesapplesapplesapples!" When he had gotten close enough Beckett had grabbed him by the ear and twisted.

"What is my name?" she asked directly into the ear she was twisting.

"Ok Ok Ok. OUCH! It's Detective Beckett!" Castle shouted in pain.

"Good." And with that she released his ear and went back to working on her computer.

"Ouch. May I ask you, Detective Beckett, what you have against my ear?" Castle sat down at "his" chair-as it was now called-at the side of her desk, rubbing his ear.

"Nothing. It's the mouth that comes with it that I have the problem with." She never looked away from her computer screen, but she knew that Castle had that smirk on his face.

"Hey, that's pretty good. I'm using that." He began to scribble quickly into his little notebook that he always has on hand. Beckett just rolled her eyes.

"You were saying?" she asked after he had finished scribbling.

"Huh? Oh! Right. I was just saying, before I was attacked, that I hope that Michelle isn't in any trouble." Castle had been trying to get in touch with Michelle Peterson, his source for Vodun information for his books, since they had found the body, but she had neither answered her phone nor been at her apartment.

"I'm sure she's fine. She's probably just out of town." Beckett continued to look through the case on her computer searching for something that she might have overlooked. This was her third time going over the case.

Castle saw that she was pretty upset and decided to try to lighten the mood up. After all, he was smart, handsome, clever and hilarious. With a smirk on his face, he tapped Beckett on the shoulder. With a sigh she turned to him and gave him a glare.

"You know, I've been working on this Christopher Walkin impression-"Castle was cut off as Esposito shouted from his desk.

"Beckett! The guys from the CPD are here."

"Thanks. C'mon Castle, let's go meet the new thorns in my side." She got up and started walking towards the front of the station; Castle fell into step beside Beckett.

"What've you got against the CPD?"

"What? Oh nothing, it's just that they're going to try to run this thing just because this started in their town. This is my town. I'm in charge here."

"Oh. I like that. I'm writing that also. You are in muse mode today. Excellent!"

As much as Beckett would have liked to remind Castle why he should never call her 'his Muse' ever again they had arrived at the guest area of the precinct.

"Hello I'm Detective Kate Beckett and I'm in charge of the investigation here." She wanted to cement her authority right off the bat with these people. She took a moment to look at the two visitors. The first one was a female with short blonde hair not an inch over five feet tall. She didn't look like much, but everything about her screamed "COP" to Beckett. She was dressed in black dress pants with a light blue collared shirt under a black sport coat and wore her badge and her gun on her belt-line. The other was male with dark unkempt hair and was over six and a half feet tall. He wore black jeans, a solid green t-shirt and a long black leather duster. He also carried a staff that had what appeared to be ruins carved on it. Why do I always get the weird ones, she thought to herself. He was definitely not a cop. She also got a strange vibe from him; she couldn't quite place it so she made a note of it and dismissed it for the time being.

The woman stood up and offered out her hand to Beckett. "Detective Beckett, I'm Sergeant Karrin Murphy of the Chicago Police Department. This," she motioned to the tall man beside her, "is Mr. Dresden. He's a private investigator and a consultant to the CPD in cases of this nature. We look forward to working with you and hope that we can help."

Castle noticed two things about Sergeant Murphy. 1) She was pretty cute. 2) She had delivered her greeting in a very practiced political fashion. He wouldn't have been surprised if she used to be in charge of a unit of some sort back in Chicago, though she obviously wasn't anymore: the boss doesn't get sent out on things like this. Regarding Mr. Dresden, a name that for some reason seemed familiar to him, he knew right away that there was a very interesting story to this guy. He couldn't wait to find out.

Stepping forward he put on his 'hello' smile and extended his hand. "Hi! I'm Richard Castle and I'm with….her," he finished lamely by pointing across his body at Beckett.

Sergeant Murphy looked surprised as she shook his hand. "Richard Castle? The author?"

Stepping his smile up a notch he nodded his head. "One and the same." Facing Mr. Dresden he extended his hand. "Richard Castle."

"Harry Dresden," came the strong voiced reply along with a strong and manly hand shake. The first name connected two dots in Castle's head.

"Oh! The wizard! I knew your name sounded familiar." Receiving confused looks from everybody Castle decided to clarify. "I wanted to interview you a couple years back for information for one of my books! Unholy Storm. I wanted your take on some pagan ritual practices."

Dresden nodded his head. "Ah. I remember. I wasn't able to make it out to New York but I gave you a local source. I think it was a Michelle?"

"That's right. Michelle Peterson. She's an absolute expert on the Vodun practices."

Looking slightly impressed, Dresden started rubbing his chin. "Vodun? Not very main stream, but very interesting stuff. How'd that book of yours work out for you?"

That knocked Castle's smile down a notch or two. He took solace in the 'are you kidding me?' look that Sergeant Murphy shot Dresden. "Um. It was on the New York Times best seller list for a month."

Patting Castle on the back, and moving him slightly out of the way of the officer that was leading a very mean-looking person past them, Dresden gave him a smile. "Really? Well, good for you."

It was somewhere around that moment that the very big and mean-looking person being lead past them elbowed the officer escorting him in the face, grabbed Murphy's gun from her holster, pointed it at her head, grabbed her around her throat from behind and pulled her in front of him.

Addressing everybody around him he bellowed out, "Anybody moves and she gets a lobotomy!"

A/N: Whooo! First Castle/Dresden crossover fanfiction ever!! For Dresden fans: don't worry, this chapter is mostly a big set up chapter. I decided to have this from the Castle point of view. But there will be plenty of magic and such. For Castle fans: I didn't know / couldn't find what Michelle's last name was so I made one up. I'm not sure if they gave her one in the show, so if you know what it is please PM it to me and I will edit it. Reviews are ALWAYS appreciated and welcomed.

P.S. I now have a BETA!!! Thanks you sooooo much to Rosethorn for your awesome and speedy job at editing my fic. You get 2 gold stars.