Chapter 1

My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, conjure with it at your own risk. I've been in some sticky situations before part of being a wizard, one of the real ones. Fallen Angels, Demons, Outsiders, and Warlocks, I've faced them all. Most of the time they leave worse for wear, and my city is a little safer.

This one takes the cake.

0:33 is what the stopwatch strapped to a huge hunk of high-explosives reads. According to my impeccable sense of time it has been sitting on that number for about a minute and a half. Everyone else around me is as frozen as that second hand on the stopwatch.

I had to wonder if I was hallucinating all of this, or if my mind, faced with imminent death, had broken and made up this dream world where I could exist forever between the ticks of a clock.

"Not exactly my host." Lasciel or as I like to call her, Lash, speaks within my mind. "Time doesn't exist, not the way you mortals perceive it, for those of us powerful enough. Even though the shade of myself that was in your mind wasn't strong enough to do this for you, she was strong enough to contact me, and allow me to do it for her so we can have this talk."

I blink, or rather try to blink. My eyelids are as frozen as the stopwatch. Still it is likely that Lasciel, the one imprisoned in the Blackened Denarian, is going to make an offer I can't refuse.

"Indeed I am." Lasciel, thankfully, blanked my vision and I am confronted with her seated before my own wood oven. She had even taken my favorite chair.

She wasn't alone either.

The man that lounged in my couch next to her looked remarkably like me, enough to be my brother in fact. He was close to my height, his hair was cut in the same style and was the same color. His face bore many of the same facial features, and even the way he relaxed was similar. The eyes were a piercing green though, seemingly lit from behind, but they held the same world weariness that I saw every time I looked in the mirror.

"Hello Harry. I hate to do this, but I really don't have any choice." Those green eyes continued to bore into mine, even as he continued to speak. "It is the only way I have a chance to save my world, my loves. It is also the only way you have to save yours."

"Oh, indeed it is my host." Lasciel spoke her voice temptation personified. I was good at resisting temptation, but had her shadow been anywhere near as good as she really was, I would have been sunk. "Even if you chose now to take up the coin, it would be too little, too late. There is not much that I can do alone against an Outsider, but with a willing host things are different. They are more different when that host has evocation magic that can actually harm such a being."

"So you struck up a deal with..." I motioned at the green eyed figure that reminded me of me. I was a little put out by the fact that I didn't know who he was, but just a little. I was a little put out by the fact that Lasciel had decided to trade me in on the new and improved model. I'd gotten to like Lash, even if she was just a pale shadow of the fallen angel, and it hurt to know I could be cast aside that easily. That just goes to show you how fucked up I am. "Decided to trade me in on the new model."

"Not so much the new model, as the willing one." Lasciel purred, she turned towards the other guy, and her hand trailed down and over his jaw, across his chin. "He was so much easier to corrupt. You took only as much of my power as you had to, no more, but Harry Potter here, he reached for everything he could get. He had to in order to get what he wished done."

Well at least now I had a name for the green eyed stranger. I wished he would have given it to me himself. If he had given his full name, willingly, I could have done something about it, maybe. As it was I had it second hand, and I couldn't do much with that.

"Just what, did you want done?" I asked Harry Potter. I tried meeting his eyes directly, trying for a soul gaze, but it didn't seem to work here. Either it was because we only existed in my mind, or because he didn't have a soul to gaze. I wasn't sure which concerned me the most.

"To put it in a phrasing you'd understand the most, I wanted to walk against the stream of time." Potter said. His hand reached up and rubbed the lighting bolt scar on his forehead in what was a nervous action. "I was prophesied to be the one that had to destroy the Dark Lord that threatened my world. I wasn't ever able to do so. He was always one step ahead of me and my friends. He was always willing to do whatever it took, kill whoever stepped in his way during his quest for power. How was I supposed to stop him? I was just a kid and not even done with my schooling, bloody hell I wasn't even a good student."

"So what," I snarked back, "you just decided to ring up a powerful, corrupt, fallen angel take what she told you at face value, and come screw me over?"

"No," Harry collasped forwards, face into hands, elbows on knees. "This wasn't my first choice, or even my hundreth, but it was the only one with a chance at working. Walking against the stream of time is pretty hairy business. Trying to create a paradox while your doing it, well the last wizard we knew that successfully did that ended up living his life backwards and we're not even sure he actually managed to change anything. The only way that I could come up with that didn't involve ending the world was to sidestep the issue."

"Thus me." I could follow with that. Hell I had thought of doing it myself a few times. Perhaps I could have changed things with Justin, maybe not, but in the end bending slash breaking another of the Seven Laws and more specifically the one that would draw the attention of the Gatekeeper wasn't something I'd really wanted to do. "You step outside your own timeline, grab enough power, and shove me into the spot you think I could do the most good. Hopefully the distance from your timeline and the power, in this case Lasciel, keeps everything from falling apart in one big paradox explosion."

"As I have said before, mortal, for the sufficiently powerful time does not exist as you know it." Lasciel smirked and titled her head to the side. "Truly you cannot believe that I have not done such a thing in the past."

"The Big Guy would likely stop anything like that." I shot back. I wasn't sure I believed in the Big G, or that I even wanted to believe in him. Still I knew that he, or something a lot like him, took part in this world through the Knights of the Cross.

"Only if he had one of his warriors here, and only if you were willing to let him." Lasciel waved her hand as if discarding the idea. "He only has as much power in your life as you allow him Harry, and you have allowed him very little."

Damn, I had been hoping it wasn't something like that. I knew stepping in directly cost him big, and that he, unlike the other side liked working behind the scenes instead. In fact I wasn't quite sure he wasn't taking a hand in this now. I knew I had nothing going to take down that outsider, and I might be able to hex the bomb, but it was just as likely that an attempt would kill us all.

"So what do I get out of this?" I asked, trying to buy time to think about my options.

"I'll do everything I can to keep Karrin and everyone else alive and well." Harry stated, finally looking up from his hands. "I just want the same for my friends."

"What if I say no?" I had to know. I got the feeling that it wasn't going to be good.

"I am afraid that I cannot allow that my host." Lasciel said after a moment.

"That wasn't..." Harry started, and I had half opened my mouth to say something along those lines as well when Lasciel stopped being the nice little Fallen.

"SILENCE!" She roared, and there was, but for the pounding in my head. "We have a deal Harry Potter, a thrice sworn deal, you are not able to back out of that now. As for you Harry Dresden, surely you did not think that the power, the knowledge you received from my shadow's presence was free? Everything has a price, and though I could not take you over directly, that price has given me enough leverage to do this."

Things went black then, and I heard the faint tick tick of a stopwatch before everything erupted into pain.

I woke with a start and a cry of pain. Every muscle in my body was throbbing with agony, and my bones had that deep ache remembered from childhood when nothing seemed to stop the pain of growth. It didn't help that I could feel the legs of the pants I wore pulled up around my knees.

What the hell had happened?

Everything from before had become a pain filled dream. It didn't seem real, it couldn't be real. I pushed up from the desk, hell when did I get a desk? There was something not right here, something not right at all. My head spun, and I gripped the desk that I didn't know I had while I waited for it to stop. A small bed filled the corner of the room, small because it was only six or so feet in length. There was a wand on the desk, a stick of wood eleven inches or so long. A trunk sat at the foot of the bed, scarred a bit, but with the gleam that said it was still fairly new. The bedclothes, and for that matter the bed, and the clothes on the floor were old and used. Hand me downs if I had ever seen any.

It was the rustle of parchment on the desk as I pushed myself straight slowly, anticipating more pain, that drew my attention.

"Hell's Bells." I cursed softly, running my hand back through my hair. That meeting in my mind was indeed real. It was parchment with my name in an untidy scrawl on the 'to' line. I picked up the paper, absently noting that I still had my bracelet, which drew my attention to the heavy presence of the pendant around my neck. My rings, my blasting rod, and my staff were all gone, but I wasn't completely hopeless here, just almost.

"Bob?" I croaked out hopefully, only to be answered by the mournful hoot of an owl. It had arrived sometime, and was sitting on the windowsill in all its snow white glory. It blinked at me. "You're not Bob."

The owl hooted in affirmation still looking at me with its golden gaze. I decided to ignore its presence for now, and turned my attention back to the letter before me.

Harry Dresden,

I am uncertain how much I will be able to tell you when we meet in your mind with Lasciel. I have used other means to ensure this letter arrives when you do, perhaps it will explain some of what I cannot. I guess I should start by telling you who I am, and who you are now, at least in the eyes of this world. My name is Harry James Potter, and I am the boy-who-lived, or more recently the man-who-failed. I was the soul survivor of the attack on my family by a Dark Wizard by the self styled moniker Voldemort, and the only person to ever survive the killing curse, Avadra Kedavra.

I scratched my chin lightly as I pondered that one. Killing Curse? Stars and Stones this was getting even more involved. I had suspected warlocks, but I had been hoping for something that I would be able to understand even in the smallest part. Dark Wizards I could handle, magic of a type I hadn't heard before? I hadn't a chance.

Surviving his curse, I somehow killed him as a child. However he was not destroyed, only torn from his mortal body. He survived through the use of Dark Magic, by forming Horcruxes, five of them in fact with the night of my attempted murder being his sixth attempt to create one. These objects hold a splinter of his soul, and thus held him bound to the mortal world.

This was something right up Kemmler's alley. The Warlock had been big into Necromancy, and splitting your soul to gain immortality or a quasi form of it would have been right up his alley. I'd never fought Kemmler, but I had taken on a bunch of his apprentices while they were attempting the Dark Hallow. I'd managed to kick all their asses while doing it too, which had been a bit of a surprise. Saved the world that day. The Dark Hallow and these Horcruxes were things best left forgotten.

After his resurrection, which happened my fourth year at Hogwarts (see the textbooks in my trunk) he made another Horcrux. I spent ten years fighting Voldemort and have never come close to defeating him. His final Horcrux has always and forever been beyond my reach. Time was the only answer to that problem, and time travel into your own past is fraught with peril. So I have dropped you here, during the summer before my fourth year in the hope that you will succeed where I had not. The location of the Horcruxes are included below. I only hope that you will forgive me, and protect my friends from Voldemort as I will protect your friends. I fear, I fear that I once again am the one that must defeat him, and since I will no longer be here, it shall be to you this necessity falls to.

Sincerely

Harry Potter

P.S. Please take care of Hedwig, my owl.

P.P.S. The guys in the masks and dark cloaks are the bad guys.

I had a name for the presence on the windowsill now, Hedwig. Unfortunately the letter just created more questions than it answered.

Goddamn it this wasn't my home, and I just wanted to get back to my cat, my dog, and my little place in the middle of Chicago.

None of that mattered right now though, mainly because the wards around the house suddenly failed in a wrench of magic. There were a series of gunfire pops a second later that sent me diving to the floor. I glared up at the where the owl, Hedwig, had been before she had suddenly taken flight into the night. I made my way over to the opening to look out at the street below, and suddenly wished I hadn't. Four figures with wands, white masks, and black cloaks were slowly making their way down the street, blowing out streetlights in the direction I could see. They were moving with a purpose, and you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out cloaked and hooded figures weren't good for your health.

You just had to know about the KKK.

"Hell's Bells." I cursed and scrambled back over to the desk to take up Harry Potter's wand. I doubted it would work for me, but maybe, just maybe it would and if nothing else I could stab it into someone's eye. I took up the wand, shoving the parchment on the desk down into the pocket of my too short jeans. It took a moment to wonder just how big this Harry kid was that the damned things would be loose on me in the waist, but be a good six inches short in length. With a negligent wave of the wand, and a pair of half heard vocal incantations the trunk shrunk to a matchbook size, and lightened enough that I could stuff it in my pocket after.

I gave up the tennis shoes on the floor as being far too small. The door with its multitude of locks might have been a valid barrier for Harry Potter, or the door might have been tied into the wards. I don't know, but I did take it down like a quarterback blitzed by a linebacker. I blew into the hall in a hail of wood splinters, rather surprised by how easily the door went down. A rumble showed that I had gained the attention of the other members of the family.

"Boy! What the hell do you think your..." The great whale of a man quit his wheezing when I shoved him aside at the bottom of the stairs. He had to be Potter's Uncle, and porcine figure of what had to be his son finally explained the presence of the pants belted around my waist. "What...How...Damn you and your unnaturalness!"

The man took a wide, slow swing at me with one ham sized fist. Getting hit by him, even as slow as he was would put me out for the count. Fighting him toe to toe was out as much as I might like to beat the snot out of this man for what his nephew had done to me, I didn't have the time. After all the wizard version of the KKK was right outside.

"Forzare!" I realized as the force of the magic bucked out of the wand that it really wasn't meant for this type of casting. Charms and transfiguration, whatever the hell those were, were more of its tune. Raw evocation and the controlling of force weren't its forte, but they were mine. The wave of pure force flung the four hundred pounds of a man down the small hall and into the wall hard enough to powder plaster and splinter the 2x4s that supported the wall. I ignored his pained groans, and the screams of terror from the aunt and the son. I needed to get out of this house, and the closest exit was also the most dangerous.

Nobody had ever said that I am overly cautious.

I peeked out the spy hole in the door, and noticed that one of the white masked men was getting ready to cast something on the door, while his three companions were hanging back. Well I couldn't very well let that happen. I gathered up my will quickly, forcing power across the wall and the door, building pressure behind it.

"Forzare!" The surge of will and power blew the whole front of the house out at the foursome. It was a trick that I had used when fighting a bunch of the Fallen, while rescuing a Valkyrie. It was rapidly becoming a staple in my magic repretoire.

Unfortunately all but the figure right at the door managed to shield against the explosion of brick and wood that erupted out at them. I stepped up onto the remains of the door, lifting my left hand to shield against a ruddy light shot by one of those still standing figures. I needed to put these three down, fast, and then run like hell. There was no telling if there were more coming, and knowing my luck this was just the first wave of a horde.

"Fuego!" The wand sang in my hand as I called up power with my will and a ravaging column of flame erupted from its tip. Fire, now fire was something that this wand loved even if it was raw evocation, perhaps it was to be expected of a phoenix feather cored wand. Flame lashed out at the farthest right figure, and another shimmering shield intervened between him and the torrent that tore from my wand. It held for a mere moment and then the wave washed over him, and he went down with a scream. It sounded rather feminine, but I pushed that out of my mind for now. I hated fighting women, best if they just stayed a faceless males for now.

"Sectumsempra!"

The spell hit my shield before I really even consciously realized that it had been coming at me. It splashed across the plane of force I held before me and dispersed. I realized that whatever these guys were, and where ever I was, magic worked differently here. Spells were brief bursts of concentrated energy, and their shields seemed to be tailored to fight the same. That gave me an advantage, even if my own pool of fighting spells were fairly limited.

"Give it up Potter, and the Dark Lord might see to give you an easy death." The man who had just cursed me said. He ignored the fact that I had already taken down two of his, men. I wasn't ignoring that fact, but if he wanted to hear the sound of his own voice so much I wasn't against him doing that. It let me edge towards the corner of the house, and from there the safety in flight.

I stepped on a nail, but put the pain from my mind as I pulled my foot off it. Pain was an excellent teacher, but there were times that it was better to just ignore that sensory input. That was something that you learned very early with Justin DuMorne, my first master. He had taught me to shield using baseballs and a pitching machine set to Nolan Ryan, learning under pressure like that taught you to ignore things that weren't going to kill you immediately. The corner of the house was now only a few feet away, and that meant safety.

"Sure, an easy death, sounds good, but since when is death hard? I mean all you have to do is die. Besides I'm kinda attached to this life, it is the only one I have after all." There wasn't any reason to string things along any longer, I had reached the corner of the house. "You'll have to excuse me if I don't debate the pros and cons of an easy death with you any longer. Ventas Servitas!"

The wand bucked in my hand again, protesting that I wasn't using fire again. It wasn't nearly as bad as when I had used the Forzare spell, but it was still there. Magic driven wind lashed the debris on the ground, and built into a whirling tornado filled with bricks. The avalanche of material slammed into a hastily shouted spell from the two wizards who remained standing. I didn't stick around to see what the effects of my spell where, but turned tail and did what every good wizard does when he's in over his head.

I ran like hell was on my heels.

There are very few people who would ever expect me to be good in a scrape. Six and a half feet of wiry muscle didn't lend itself to a fighting image. I was good at running though, and I practiced doing it regularly before Harry Potter had Shanghied me to where I was now. I cleared the short fence at the end of the back yard like it was a hurdle, and accelerated out into the street in front of the house behind Number 4.

A staccato series of pops echoed through the night, and spurred me to lengthen my stride. I flew down the street, ignoring the pain from my feet. Asphalt was hard on bare feet, but those wounds would heal with time, death wouldn't and I needed to live if I was going to figure a way out of this mess. I turned the corner to the left after hitting the crossroad, and continued my headlong flight. There were the lights of a train station in the near distance.

"Hey you! Stop! Police! Aurors!" The words were barked out behind me. They weren't cause for pause though, and I ducked down between two more houses to move another street over. Magic washed over my back as a spell just missed me, and a mad chuckle wrenched itself from my lips. The train station, or rather the knowledge that there was one there was a bother. Thinking about it while running through the connecting backyards, and dashing through the streets led me to only one conclusion. I wasn't all Harry Dresden. Potter had left something of an echo behind, maybe an imprint like Lash had been.

It would explain just how the hell I had managed what I did with the trunk earlier.

I skidded into the train station, almost out of breath, and just as the next train was pulling into the station. I slapped money down in front of the drowsy ticket manager, and pointed at the train that was just pulling into the station. "One on that."

Luckily he didn't protest what was going on but just pushed the ticket drowsily across at me, as well as most of the money, and a little change. I risked a glance over my shoulder to note two people moving into the station after me. One was a grizzled old guy in a leather coat and a prominent limp, and the other was Gandalf the Gray, or at least that is what I decided he should be called.

Both pulled up short and looked at me. I grabbed the ticket and the money off the counter, and turned, hurrying towards the train leaving a bloody trail of footprints behind me.

"Harry!" I glanced back at the barking call, and continued on not even pausing in my stride. It was Gandalf who had called out to me, and given his age and the magic I could feel swirling from even here, he probably had some place in whatever magical society slash government there was here.

The White Council had all but put me off on magical governments. They had tried to kill me outright when I had self-defensed Justin DuMorne to death for breaking one of the seven laws of magic, more specifically the 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' one. I had a good reason for doing him in though, he had set an Outsider after me and tried to suborn me to his will. Neither had ingratiated him to me. The actions of the council in reaction to that, and in other encounters since have given me a firm appreciation of having the upper hand when I have to deal with any of the governmental sort.

Swiping the ticket through the reader, I moved through the one way gate onto the stage before the train, and hurriedly ducked into an empty passenger car. Even as the doors were closing I could hear Gandalf calling out. "Harry! Please, wait! We still have time to..."

The doors started to shut, and the old man gave a peculiar half turn, before appearing up in front of me with a gunfire pop. Gandalf was halfway through an incantation before I even thought to shield against whatever he was doing. My left hand whipped up, and I concentrated on the bracelet around my wrist, recklessly shoving power and will into the shield. As an almost after thought I decided upon the incantation as well, for extra focus.

"Riffletum!" The shield flared brightly under the magical assault from Gandalf's wand, the incantation for the spell had been called out at the same time as my shield, and so I missed it completely. I've taken a lot of hits in my life, but this one put all but Cowl to shame. A look of shock formed on Gandalf's face as his spell bounced and scarred the concrete of the terminal, and a whole bank of the overhead flourescents buzzed and died.

"Harry..." The rest of his words were cut off by the now closed doors, and a second later, the lurch of the train as it pulled away from the station.

I staggered back into a seat, and blew out a heavy breath. Just what had I gotten caught up in here? I needed answers, and right now, the best place I could get them would come after I got to the next stop on this train, and after I found a pair of shoes.

I was a stranger in a strange land. England, for all the fact that people speak English, is just as much a foreign country as say, Spain, would be to me. I had been found by the conductor who had been inspecting for valid tickets barely fifteen minutes after I boarded the train. That I had not been expecting, and I was definitely not expecting the un-Chicagoian response to my bloody feet.

If he had ignored them or simply called the police, I would have expected that. What I had not expected was for him to leave for a bit, come back with a first aid kit, and a pair of shoes and socks from what was obviously the 'lost and found' bin aboard the train. A few words of remorse at seeing me at such odds with my parents were said, and then he had thankfully left me alone. I wondered just how many runaways, or attempted runaways the man saw everyday. The shoes were a decent fit, a bit large, but they had let me get to where I was now.

A park.

Parks, or forested areas are the best places to go to call a Fae, and I had one that I wanted to summon now. Mostly it was one, but if I couldn't get him to come, then I would have to deal with the second. A quickly sketched circle with my wand took care of one requirement, and a small effort of will and power closed it a second later. I gathered my magic and poured it forth as I spoke a name.

True namesames have power if you know them. With knowledge of the name of someone or something you can control them, or you can call them like I was attempting to do right now. Humans are the most resistant to this kind of thing, given that our names will slowly change over time and change even more rapidly after a 'life changing' event. I figured that anyone back home who actually had my full, willingly given name wouldn't find a trace of me on the wind.

Fae, however, never change. They are defined by their name, which was why it was better to call them by their public name, or to make one up to use in conversation with one. A being like Mab, which is short for something I don't even think, Queen of Air and Darkness, wouldn't like it if you named her every time you spoke to her.

Bob, was another that I rarely used his full name for. I knew it, of course, had to to be his master. He looked to me for protection and a home, needing both because of his disagreement with the aforementioned Mab. I said his name a second time, and paused, gathering strength for the final one. I was a bit put out to wonder just how he was going to get his skull through to me as well, I personally didn't want to enchant a new human skull into a home for the spirit of intellect.

The third time is the charm with the Fae and as soon as I said his name, full of roaring power, a small hole opened in front of me. Surprised I had to step back as Mister, my super-thyroid cat, stalked out with the skull in its mouth. The glowing eyes gave away just how Bob had managed to bring through the skull, though I didn't really appreciate him taking advantage of what might have been my familiar in such a way.

"Hey Harry, fine pickle you've found yourself in this time." Bob flowed out of Mister and hung in the air for a short time twinkling. "I've been waiting for your call ever since I figured out something beyond the Outer Gates went and pulled you across."

Hell's Bells, well that was one idea of mine that I'd have much rather have turned out wrong rather than right. Now I had no choice but to stay here and tough it out. The Gatekeeper wouldn't let me back in if I'd passed beyond the Outer Gates.

"I figured you'd want Mister and Mouse, but Mouse decided he'd rather head back to the temple." That bit of information from Bob was unexpected, and wholly unwelcome. "Still, guess I had better get you sorted out. First thing you'll want to do is get rid of that tracking spell on your wand. I don't believe you'll want everyone knowing what magic you do with it."

I activated my Sight with a burst of concentration and a slow blink immediately upon hearing that, and cursed silently as I looked at the weave of power around the wand. It was completely foreign to me, and the incredibly bright pulsing from the feather inside all but blinded me. I quickly dropped the Sight, and looked away.

Power had been wrapped around the wand in a pulsating sheen of almost light. Greens and warm browns signified the wood, and reds, golds, oranges were the indicators of the feather inside. Over it all was the silver gray pulse of a tracking spell, not one I recognized, but it didn't really matter.

Magic is for the most part an exercise of the mind and will. If you think something is possible, it usually is. I knew it was possible to transfer the spell from the wand to something else, it was just a mental exercise to figure out how to do it. The park offered many possibilities, but the tree behind me was the best.

It only took a bit of time to make another circle, and start the chant that began linking the tree and the wand together. The chant was mostly meaningless Latin, meant to focus the mind on what was to come. My feet added a bit of blood and with that vital fluid a bit of magic to tie the wand with the tree. With a burst of intent, and breaking the circle I was done. The tree was now for all intents and purposes my wand as far as the tracking spell was concerned, and instead of being attached to Holly and Phoenix Feather, eleven inches, it was now stuck to a tree, Holly, and eleven feet tall.

"You're getting better at that." Bob remarked, floating around the wand and obviously observing what had been done. It was a pretty basic piece of work, but not one I'm called on to do often. Sympathetic magic like that works great for finding lost items, but is rarely needed to transfer enchantments.

"Don't have much call for it Bob." I remarked as I picked the wand back up and shoved it down a back pocket. "Now what can you tell me about all of this?"

There was silence, which was more than a little strange. Bob was the incarnation of knowledge, a spirit of intellect. In Fae terms he wasn't very strong, but he was smart. Bob knew a little about everything. He was my encyclopedia of magic, and for the most part he never missed a step.

"Not much. This is way beyond the Outer Gates Harry, and things like this are why the Seven Laws were written. You're impinging on something beyond mortal knowledge, and truthfully the Fae, outside of a few Summer creatures, avoid this world completely."

Hell, the Fae could travel beyond the Outer Gates? That made things even more complicated. The fact that Bob knew about this world, at least a little, meant that he'd heard it from another like him, or someplace else. It also meant that Mab would be after me still, and I didn't have anything in this world to keep me from her grasp.

"Before you ask, yes you still owe Mab a favor." Bob said, the motes of light that composed him whirling around and then jetting into his skull. "She might not come here to get it though; the wizards in this world have some funky magic, magic that can destroy the Fae, and that is why we don't come here often."

"Oh." It was all I could think to say. There were many meanings to that. I knew that the Fae could die, could be killed, but it was a very rare occurrence and they mostly stayed as far away from cold iron, their one weakness, as they could.

"I wouldn't be here myself, but you knew my name Harry, and that is enough to carry me across the boundary." Bob sounded a bit put out by that, and I knew I had to give him something in order to keep him here.

"Bob, I give you permission to take your skull to Billy, and command you to tell him your name if anything should happen to me."

That perked Bob up a bit, and now we needed to make plans.

"You should get moving Harry, there are people on your trail, and you left enough blood behind that they can find you unless you can get some wards up." Bob made a very good sort of sense there. I didn't want Gandalf, or the guy with the bad limp to find me unless it was really impossible to prevent. Even better was staying away from the guys that had attacked earlier that night, the ones that gave me the surrender and die option. "Once you get this figured out Harry, I want out, two hours at least."

The lights went dim in the skull. It left the night silent and very, very dark. There wasn't any reason not to get a move on things now. I hefted the skull, wishing for the moment that Bob had done something as simple as bring a bag. There was that strange ability to do magic that I didn't know, but I couldn't really trust that, not right now.