Chapter Five
Harry Dresden
The next morning, I called up Michael and asked him to pick me up while Murphy checked the Paranet for any updates. No luck on that. No one seems to know who Sam Singer was and no one came forward as being this guy either. Well, there were Sam Singers, but none were in Chicago. I might have to talk with Thomas later.
I dressed in some blue jeans I had at Murphy's and a black Spider-man t-shirt. I had pulled on my black leather duster and grabbed my wooden wizard staff when Michael pulled up. After Michael picked me up, we went to Saint Mary of the Angels together. Michael told me how someone warned Father Forthill that a possible Outsider might try and take one of the coins. Forthill was going to look into it and meeting up this afternoon.
"From what I can find out," Forthill told us after we got there, "there doesn't seem to be anymore missing coins than the ones that went missing two years ago."
"Hell's bells," I said softly. I saw the look that Father Forthill gave me. "Sorry. And we still don't know how many went missing?"
"Sadly, no," he confirmed. "I did receive Namshiel's coin last year." I looked at him, suspiciously. "Don't worry. It's locked up here."
"Won't that put a target on this church, Father?" Michael asked.
"It's better than them walking out of the vaults," Forthill said.
Wow, Father Forthill was pissed at the Church also about this whole thing. If he doesn't trust the Church with the coins, this was a serious deal. Apparently, someone else knew about it too.
"So, who was this guy asking about the coins?" I asked.
"Not sure who he was," he said. "He never gave me a name. He said his brother might be after one of them."
Pieces started to click together. "Was this an older man in a brown suit, white hair and beard, carried a cane?" I asked.
"Yes, actually," he confirmed.
"He came into the pub last night asking Mac for information," I said. "And I think he was attacked by a Fomor last night too. His name's Sam Singer."
"Never heard of him," Forthill said. "But whoever he is, he's suppose to be here soon."
He never showed. While we waited, I called my brother to get a description of the man involved. It was the same man. Whoever this guy was, he was involved in this somehow. I called Murphy to see if she got anything else from the Paranet, but nothing. I told her to expand the search with the description of the guy.
Since he never showed, and I was getting hungry, Michael and I hit up a Burger King before we headed back to his place. It was there that my day was going to get more interesting.
We walked into Michael's house to find his wife Charity standing at the foot of the stairs looking up at a young dark skin woman around maybe her early 20’s. The black shirt she wore had a Splattercon logo on it and the blue jeans had a few holes in them. I recognized the clothes as their eldest daughter's clothes. Apparently, she just took a shower and changed clothes since her dark hair was all wet. I couldn't tell if her hair was black or a dark purple since it was wet, but there was a pink stripe that ran through her hair.
"Good evening," Michael said. "You a friend of Amanda or something? I'm her father, Michael Carpenter." He started to go up the stairs to shake her hand.
I tighten my grip on my wooden staff as I looked over her. I could feel her inspecting each of us, and I could almost feel an odd power from her. I looked at Charity. "What's going on?" I asked.
"She said her name was Twilight Sparkle," Charity said, not taking her eyes off the woman. "I caught her sneaking around outside the house when we got home." She looked at me. "Mouse seems to like her, Mr. Dresden. Do you know her?"
I looked from Charity to the girl. I've never seen this girl in my life, and, as far as I knew, neither did Mouse. Mouse was my dog before my apartment burnt down. After I brought Maggie here, I had Mouse stay with her to protect her. I jokingly say that Mouse is a tiny dinosaur. He was in fact a Temple Dog, or a Foo Dog. Whatever you want to call him, he was special. He could sense danger and when he needs to he could put up a good fight. He could even keep up with a fast moving car or wake up the entirety of an apartment building with a single bark, and make everyone fully awake and alert. If he growled at someone, they were dangerous. If not, they weren't.
"No idea," I said. "Mouse." I called out to him. My large gray dog came out from the kitchen followed by a young girl, not quite in her teens yet. My daughter. "Stay there, Maggie. I need to borrow Mouse for a moment."
"Okay, daddy," she said with a smile. I wanted to give her a smile, but I kept the serious look on my face. I watched as Mouse walked over to me.
"Mouse? Do you know this woman?" I asked. Mouse gave a soft sneeze as he shook his head. A no. "Is she safe?" The dog gave a doggie grin. A yes. I looked back at the girl, studying her again.
"Look, I must go. I really need to find my friends," she said.
I walked up the steps. Even though I stopped a few steps before her, I was still taller than her. I had a theory, and I wanted to test it. I held out my hand to her. I saw she was looking at my eyes, but I avoided hers. I didn't want to get into a Soul Gaze with her...if I could Soul Gaze her.
What was odd was her behavior. She seemed to not know what a handshake was. She looked down at my hand for a moment before she held out hers. I took her hand and shook it softly. I felt the tingle of power. It wasn't a minor magical power some folks had. It was like I was shaking hands with someone from the White Council of Wizards. She had power.
"Magic," she said suddenly, sounding relief. "Oh, thank Celestia, there's magic here."
That...that threw me off balance. She didn't knew there was magic here? And what’s a Celestia? I stared at her as I heard the phone ring from the other room.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Or should I ask, 'what' are you?" She started to stutter, but she didn't get to answer. Charity called me from the kitchen. I growled as I turned and went back down the stairs. I stopped by Michael and lowered my voice. "She has power, but I don't think she's a danger to us. She might even know what's going on here."
With that, I went to the kitchen to take the phone. I put a hand on Maggie's head, giving her a soft smile as I walked passed her. I took the phone from Charity, telling me it was Molly. "Ya."
"Hey, Harry," came Molly’s voice from over the line, though it was crackling a bit.
"You just get here?" I asked.
"Ya, I just got into town,” she said. “Listen, I kind of have a situation."
"What's that?" I asked, though I had a feeling I knew what she was going to say.
"Well, there's someone here who-” l
"Just kind of showed up?" I asked, cutting her off.
"Ya,” she said. I thought I got a hint of surprise from her.
"Ya, I have that situation here too,” I said. “A Twilight Sparkle. She's looking for her friends. You found one of them?"
"Ya, her name is Rainbow Dash,” she told me.
"Rift?” I asked.
"Ya, I'm near the rift,” she confirmed.
"Wait there, I'll be there soon,” I told her.
"Ok, see you soon,” she said and hung up.
I hung up. As I did, I felt a hot pulse coming from one of my duster's pockets. I started dig into my pocket as the girl entered the room.
“Mrs. Sparkle," I said, pulling out a rock from my pocket. There was power coming from it, making it glow softly. Something was going on at my island, Demonreach. "Do you know a Rainbow Dash?"
She got excited, confirming that she was one of her friends, and told me there were five others. Great. So, there were five more of these girls that had appeared around the city. I tried to think of possible locations that these girls could have appeared in, but as far as I knew, it was random. So I started to formulate a plan. First, pick up Molly and this Rainbow Dash.
By the way, what is up with these names? Who names a child 'Twilight Sparkle' and 'Rainbow Dash'? Then again, there was a very real possibility that they were not from this realm. I knew they weren't fairies, or at least Twilight wasn’t. In fact, the power I felt from Twilight seemed human. There did seem to be something different about her, but I couldn't begin to understand what it was.
Second, was to check out the island. If something was going on there, then I need to check it as soon as I can. By all means, one of her friends might have appeared there. And I didn't have enough things to worry about with this Sam guy running around. Then there was whatever happened at the college. I'm still chopping that up to a prank, but I'm starting to think it was too much of a coincidence to brush off. Then there was the Fomor attack, a possible coin abduction, and, to top it off, Halloween.
I left the house with Twilight, leaving Michael to call my brother for me. I felt bad having to leave my daughter so soon, but she understood that I had a busy life. I opened the car door for the girl, at least I could still be polite. I choose to borrow their minivan. If I'm going to be picking up stranded women all over town, I'll need a larger vehicle than Michael's pickup. Sure, they could all fit in the back, but it's late October in Chicago. I'm not that crawl.
"Seat belt," I told her as I started the car. I buckled my own and looked at her. She looked confused. "Seat belt?" Ya, something was really off about this girl. It took her a while to figure out how to put a damn seat belt on. She was very bizarre.
It wasn't until we got going when I asked her, "You know what's going on, don't you? First some guy pokes around at the pub and church, then you appear, and now something is going on at my island."
She looked at me with interest. "Did this guy look like a mix of different animals? Called himself Discord?" she asked.
"What? No,” I said. “Just some old guy named Sam Singer. You saying that this Discord is a some Frankenstein creature made up of several animal body parts?"
"Frankenstein?" she questioned as if she never heard of the name. If she's never heard of that, especially when Halloween was around the corner, she was definitely not from this world.
"Nevermind,” I said. “So, your friend Discord is made up of several different animals. What is he?"
"He is a Draconequus,” she told me.
I frown, trying to figure out what a Draconequus was. I've never heard of such a thing. Something I'll have to look into later. "Why are you here?" I asked.
"Discord's brother escaped to this land, we believe,” she explained. “His name is Chaogent. He tried to attack us before, but we defeated him with the help of a friend of ours. We turned him into stone but he somehow escaped. Discord came here to try and find him, but he never returned. So, my friends and I were sent to find them."
That made no sense. "Ok, start from the beginning."
She took a deep sigh. "Alright. So, I'm from this land called Equestria. Little more than a hundred moons ago, some, well, guy named Hero appeared.” Wait, Hero? “We were trying to help him get back here when Chaogent attacked us. Hero helped us turn him into stone. But yesterday, Chaogent escaped and it seems he might have came here. Discord came here to look for him, but he never came back. So, my friends and I were sent here to find Discord and stop Chaogent."
"Alright," I said, thinking. I knew Hero. He was someone who I met many years ago. The last time I saw him, he seemed a lot different. He was nicer. It was odd. Did this realm change him. I guess if he helped them out, they must not be too bad. "If you're friends with Hero, I'll help you out."
"Wait, you know Hero?" she asked in excitement.
"I've helped him out a few times and he's done the same for me," I answered.
"Where is he now?” she asked. “He could be helpful."
"Back in his land,” I said. “And I can't contact him directly, so he won't be any help in this."
"Where is his land?” she asked. “Maybe there's a way to go get him?"
I shook my head. "No, I don't know how to get to his land. Besides, he made it sound like he's on the other side of the world. We'll have to do this on our own."
"Oh...Applejack won't like that,” she said, more to herself than to me.
"One of your friends?" I asked her.
"Ya, she and Hero kind of became close while he was in our land,” she told me. “I think she was hoping to see him again while we were here."
I cut the conversation short as I reached the alleyway that the rift between our world and the fairy realm was. I pulled over to the curb and killed the engine. I got out of the car and walked around it to the alley, stopping to look at her as she figured out how to unbuckle the seatbelt and open the door. I guess they didn't have cars in her world.
We walked up to see Molly sitting and talking with a young woman with rainbow colored hair. So her hair is rainbow and her name is Rainbow Dash. If she runs fast, I'm quitting my job. ‘Cause this is some bullshit cliché, and I know clichés. I have been chained up and had to listen to an evil badguy's monologue.
We reached the two of them, the girls hugged and reconnected, but I cut them off before they got too far into talking. The heat of the stone returned. I pulled it out and frowned at the thing. It had to be serious if I was getting more alerts from Demonreach. So I got all of the girls into the car, and made my way to meet my brother at the docks.