May include spoilers through White Night for the Dresden Files and 3x8 "A Very Supernatural Christmas" for Supernatural.

I don't own any of these boys, more's the pity, and if I did I'd be nicer to them.

"I've finally got it," Thomas said with no preamble. His voice was low but taut with excitement. "I've tracked the sucker to its lair."

I felt myself sit up straight in my office chair. "The black-eyed thing?" I demanded.

"Got it in one," my brother said. "Write down the address and get here as soon as you can."

I scrabbled for a piece of paper and a pen, propping the phone between my ear and my shoulder. "OK, go," I said. He recited the address, verified I had it right, and hung up without another word.

I spent just a few seconds wallowing in a feeling of triumph. We'd been having trouble with the thing, whatever it was, on and off for literally years. It would show up, hurt or kill a few people, and then vanish again, and when it was gone it was gone—not a rumor, not a hint, not even a feeling. I thought perhaps it lived in the Nevernever and only came out to hunt; Thomas thought it hibernated between feedings. All we had to go on was theory and what little we could get out of the couple witnesses it had left, because no one had any clue what it was; even Bob had admitted ignorance, and Bob almost literally knew everything. It looked human, except that its eyes went solid black when it wanted to frighten someone. It liked to hurt people before it killed them. Sometimes it seemed to be able to move between places instantly, though never with any evidence of a portal into the Nevernever to account for it. Murphy's people had it down as a serial killer, of course, which was technically accurate if not entirely complete.

And now, at last, we had a bead on it.

I sped through collecting my gear. Fortunately morning rush hour was petering out, so it didn't take forever to get to the address Thomas had given me. I was kind of surprised at the area; mostly critters picking a spot to hole up went for the parts of town where everyone minded their own business, but this one had picked the kind of neighborhood where they still had block parties. My car stuck out like a crow at a bluebird convention among the minivans and station wagons—though I had to admit, there weren't many places where an ancient Volkswagen Beetle in all the colors of the automotive rainbow looked at home. Not that Thomas's huge, shiny SUV fit in much better. I pulled up behind the monstrosity, almost forgetting to set the parking brake in my eagerness to get to Thomas.

The address was a tidy house that reminded me of Murphy's place, though it was larger. I felt out of place as I hiked up the neat sidewalk, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I'd just put my foot on the first of the porch steps when the front door opened and my brother beckoned me inside. A woman stood behind him, looking way too excited and just a little nervous.

"Harry," Thomas said. "You made good time. Janet, this is my partner Harry Dresden." I nodded at the woman, feeling the need to have a hat to tip at her. I raised an eyebrow at Thomas, but it was pretty clear where he was going with our cover.

"I'm assuming the guy's not holed up in this house," I said.

"Next street over," Thomas said. "I decided it'd be better to not have you pulling up across the street. Your car's...distinctive." In the pause I clearly heard "a piece of crap", but I decided to ignore it, just this once.

I switched my attention to Janet, who was practically vibrating with interest. "Ma'am, I'm sorry we intruded on your home," I said. "We've been looking for this person for a long time. We won't be here long."

"Oh, no, it's fine!" she said, sounding worryingly enthusiastic. "It's kind of exciting, really. I mean, my house, being used as a stakeout. This is the kind of thing you see in the movies." I had a feeling that wasn't all there was to it, given the way she kept stealing glances at Thomas as she spoke.

My half-brother looks a little like me, in the sense that we could both be described as tall, pale, dark-haired and in good shape, but Thomas has the kind of looks models envy-and a bit of an unfair advantage. He's a vampire of the White Court, and they don't feed off blood but emotion; specifically, they eat lust. Thomas is literally supernaturally sexy. He can't turn it off, which can make things a little inconvenient, but sometimes it's useful. For example, it can help him talk a woman into letting two strangers use her house as a stakeout point.

*...*...*

We didn't stay long. Janet had told us that she didn't know much about the person who lived in our target house; they were a close-knit neighborhood, but amazingly willing to let the quiet keep to themselves. She'd never even seen our target, only heard what little gossip there was, which amounted to nothing of practical use. So we thanked her and left her house by the front door again to circle into the narrow alley that led between the back yards.

As we approached the property, I began to feel something just a little off. It was hard to describe, a tingle of a power that felt familiar and strange at the same time. I glanced at Thomas to ask if he felt it too, and discovered I didn't have to; he looked unsettled.

"There's something not right here," he muttered.

"No kidding."

"It feels familiar."

"Yeah, me too," I said. We reached the wooden fence that enclosed the backyard. I spent a few moments feeling for active guardian spells, but found nothing to explain the itch of power.

"I'm not getting anything," I said.

"Then what is this?" Thomas asked.

I sighed. "I'll take a better look. Could you stand behind me?" I love Thomas, and it's not his fault that he's a vampire. But things you see with your Sight, you never forget, and I didn't really want to know what my brother looked like when nothing was hidden. It was possible he'd look just like himself, of course, which didn't bear thinking about.

Once he was out of my line of sight, I concentrated enough to let my Sight open. Most things looked the same, though now I could See the currents of power that run through the world anywhere people live and some places they don't. The tendrils of power the neighborhood generated were less chaotic than usual, because they were drawn to the steady thrum of a ley line that ran through the house. It was a minor line at best, though it'd be handy for anything that used magic—like, say, me—if things got exciting. But that wasn't the interesting part.

The house was covered in symbols that glowed in my Sight with a cool blue-white light. Like the power I felt, they were both familiar and strange; it was like listening to a rock song being played by a string quartet, like meeting the fraternal twin of someone I knew well. They all seemed to be sigils of warding, but not against mundane threats.

And behind them, in the heart of the house, there was darkness.

I let my Sight close. "This is seriously freaky," I said. "There's no threshold, so it's not technically living in there. The house is warded like nobody's business, all right, but it's not going to be a problem for us." Thomas made an inquiring sound. "The warding...I'm not positive, but it looks to me like it's warded against angels."

Thomas looked deeply skeptical. I shrugged at him. "OK," he said. "Is there an alarm system?"

"If there is, it won't last through first contact with me," I said.

"Point," Thomas said.

We eased the gate open. The yard had no cover, so we shrugged and just crossed it, quickly. The back door was naturally locked, but the lock was nothing special and it took only a few moments of fiddling to pop it.

Thomas had his gun out, held to his side to keep it out of casual view just in case. I went through the door first, my blasting rod held out. The door opened into a kitchen; I stepped to the side so Thomas could come level with me. As he did, however, he let out a grunt and doubled over as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

"Agh," he said clearly, and fell forward. I dropped my staff and tried to catch him, and he got his hands out in time to keep from breaking his nose on the floor. I dragged him away from the door and swung it shut to keep out prying eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He opened his eyes, and I gulped. They were silver, allover silver with no visible pupils, which meant that something was encouraging his vampire nature. But even as I watched they faded to white, then further towards normal. "Nothing, now," he said. "Something got me, right at the door there." I looked, but there didn't seem to be anything except a doormat. Thomas's fall had disarranged it, but I could make out a subtle pattern on it. A pattern that looked familiar in much the same way the sigils on the outside of the house had, now that I took a closer look. I made sure my brother was propped up and reached over to spread the mat out.

The design was a five-pointed star in a circle, with extra squiggles spaced around inside the figure. "What the hell is that supposed to do?" Thomas asked, sounding mildly curious.

"You got me," I said. "If I had to guess, I'd go for warding against demons."

"Which is why it hit me," Thomas said. I just nodded. He didn't like to be reminded of the thing that lived inside him-it made him stronger, but as far as he was concerned it also made him a monster. I disagreed. "Not very useful, though," he continued after a moment. "I feel fine now."

"Maybe it's meant for the kind of demon that walks around in its own body," I said, and turned to help Thomas to his feet. "Yours is a little shielded by, well, you."

"What a lovely thought," Thomas said. "I think we can assume it's not in here right now," he continued, dropping the subject of his personal demon with an audible thud. "It would have heard us."

"We should still be careful," I said. "Who knows what other fun it's got set up in here?" We took a moment to look around the kitchen. It seemed normal-all the usual appliances in place-but as far as I could tell none of them were plugged in; there were no glowing lights, no digital clock on the microwave, and no humming from the refrigerator. The kitchen was set up to escape casual curiosity, but not to be functional.

We swept through the house cautiously, but found nothing else except living room furniture in the same camouflage vein as the kitchen and bare rooms upstairs. I was standing contemplating the trapdoor to the attic when Thomas sighed. "You know it's not up there," he said gloomily. "I can feel it. It's in the basement."

"I hate evil basements," I said. My apartment is in the basement, and my lab's below that, so I can't hate basements in general.

"Me too," he said.

We trooped down the stairs and found the basement door with no trouble. I aimed my blasting rod at it while Thomas pulled it open from the side so neither of us was silhouetted. Nothing happened. It was dark down there. The light switch was close by, so I flicked it. Again, nothing happened. "Great," I said. I pulled my pentacle amulet out from under my shirt and over my head, wound the chain in the hand that held my staff, and sent a trickle of will flowing through it. It began to glow, with a light that was almost the same color as the angel-sigils on the outside of the house. "OK, dark evil basement, here we come," I muttered.

We went down slowly and cautiously. The light from my pentacle showed nothing much at first, just the stairs leading down with a right angle turn halfway. Once we made that turn, though, we could see the whole thing.

It was a finished basement, or had been. Now, the carpet and walls were covered in dark brown splotches and there were pieces of equipment whose exact nature I was queasily sure I didn't want to know. I was pretty sure most of them incorporated shackles, for one thing. A few items were covered with canvas dropcloths, two table- or cabinet-like things and something thin leaning against one wall whose cover was actually on a curtain rod.

"Great. We found where it kills people," I said. "Once we get it we'll have to point Murphy's crew at this address." I was trying hard to hold on to my breakfast. The smell was subtle, but undeniable, and the feeling was worse. This was where the darkness was coming from.

"We should check and make sure it doesn't have a tunnel into the wall," Thomas said. "That could be where it hides."

"Yeah, I'm not seeing anything that looks like a recent portal into the Nevernever," I agreed. Thomas strode over to the curtain on the wall and swept it aside.

Behind it was something that looked like every science-fiction movie's version of a forcefield ever. It was greenish, and glowed softly, and the surface rippled a bit.

And as we stood there, wondering what to do now, someone on the other side of it began to scream.