Dresden Files (TV'verse) - Auld Lang Syne (2/2)
Title: Auld Lang Syne
Fandom: The Dresden Files TV'verse
Disclaimer: They belong to Jim Butcher, Robert Hewitt Wolfe and the Sci-Fi Channel.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For the whole series up through 1x13 'Second City.'
Prompt: Bob, Harry and Murphy interaction for beth666ann.
Summary: A series of disturbing phone calls just before the holidays spells trouble for both Harry and Murphy.

Previous Parts:
Part One



PART TWO


“Connie Murphy, Hrothbert of Bainbridge. Bob, meet Murphy.”

Bob sketched a formal little bow. “A pleasure.”

Murphy did not entirely look like a gasping fish, but not for lack of trying. “This is a – you're a -”

“Ghost, yeah.”

“I prefer the term 'living impaired,' if you don't mind.”

“A ghost,” Murphy said. “A real, honest-to-god ghost.”

“Murph, you okay?”

“Yeah. I'm just going to – um.” She leaned over between her knees and started taking deep, measured breaths. Harry sat beside her and rubbed her back.

“A little much to take in, huh?”

She held up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart to illustrate her agreement.

Bob rolled his eyes. “I think she took it better the first time.”

That got Murphy looking back up again. “First time?”

“Not you you,” Harry said. “Dragon disguised as you. It's kind of a long story.”

“Dragon?”

“You know what, it's not important. Forget I said anything. What is important is Bob here is going to be serving as your decoy.”

“He is?” Murphy said.

“I am?” Bob said.

“Yes and yes,” Harry said to both of them. “Bob's got a trick he can do.” When Bob continued to stare at him with an incredulous expression, Harry jerked his head in Murphy's direction. “Come on. Show her.”

Bob crossed his arms. “I've said it before, Harry: I am not a trained poodle. And I don't do tricks on command.”

“What trick?” Murphy said, standing. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Look, there's this – no, okay, never mind. Bob's going to be with you tomorrow.”

“Oh, am I.”

“Yes,” Harry said, staring down the shorter ghost. “You are. I need you to look after Murphy.”

“Excuse me? Look after?” Now Murphy was glaring at him, too, which he thought was just a touch unwarranted. “First, what makes you think you get to make this decision for me? And second, how much use is a guy who can't touch anything going to be? No offense,” she offered to Bob.

“None taken. And the lady does raise a good point, Harry. I'm sure she's quite capable of defending herself.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“Murphy, I know that, okay? That's not the point.”

“Then what is the point? You deciding what's best for me again?”

“That's unfair.”

“Really? Because I'm starting to see a pattern here.”

“He does have a bit of chivalrous streak,” Bob told Murphy.

“I think the word you're looking for is 'chauvinistic.'”

“So, what the hell else am I supposed to do?!”

Judging by the looks he received, he was having volume control problems again. Harry hung his head in his hands and pretended he didn't want to cry.

“I'm out of ideas,” he said quietly.

He felt the cushion sink slightly as Murphy sat next to him. She stayed quiet for a moment, then said, “Is it really that bad?”

Harry laughed a little and leaned back, meeting her brown eyes with his own. “It's kind of always this bad.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Murphy sighed, running a hand through her hair and frowning at the tangles she found there. “So, why Bob?”

“Hmm?”

“I mean, this bodyguard thing. Why him and not you?”

Bob raised an eyebrow at the question but let Harry answer. “I need to put some things together physically. I'm not sure what we're dealing with, so I want to stock up.”

“And Bob?”

“If he's with you, I can track you, just in case Steve doesn't get back to me.”

“Always be prepared.”

“Yeah.”

“You're a regular boy scout, there.”

“You know, I can totally picture you as a Brownie.”

“I wasn't.”

“Little Costanza Murphy in pigtails, selling cookies.”

“Don't make me hurt you, Dresden.”

***

On Christmas Eve, the only reason the phone didn't ring was that it still lay on pieces at the bottom of the dumpster at the end of the block.

Not that mattered. Harry didn't sleep anyway.

***

When Bob abruptly manifested in the passenger seat of her car, Murphy almost drove off the road.

“Don't do that!” she said.

“I apologize,” Bob said. “But I'm afraid it was getting unaccountably cramped in that bag of yours.”

“You don't have a body. You can't cramp up.”

“That doesn't mean I like small, dark spaces.”

“Great. I get the one ghost with claustrophobia.”

Bob sniffed. “There's no need to be snippy.”

Murphy sighed and wondered just when her life had turned into an episode of The Twilight Zone. She glanced at Bob. He sat stiffly in the seat next to her and appeared intent on brushing imaginary dust off his impeccably pressed jacket.

“You know, if you're intangible, how come you aren't floating right out of the car?” she asked.

“Honestly, I try not to think about it too deeply. Physics and magic rarely mix well.” Bob paused, then added somewhat cautiously, “Regardless, I'm tied to my skull anyway. Whither it goes, I must follow.”

“It's a little sad that carrying around that skull is by far the least disturbing aspect of my week.”

“I'll choose to take that as a compliment.”

***

When Harry stuck his head inside the audio department, he caught Steve pouring a substance of unknown origins from a flask into a coffee cup.

“I hope you at least have something with caffeine in there.”

Steve jerked and spilled a thimbleful on his hand. Shaking it out, he said, “C'mon, man. It's Christmas.”

“And I'm sure Lieutenant Murphy would be happy to share the joy.”

“You just here to bust my balls or what?”

“Those malls. You find any of them?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve rummaged through a pile of papers for a moment before handing over a hand-written list that looked like it'd already celebrated both Christmas and New Year's. Maybe even Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, too. “There's a couple places on there. It help at all?”

Harry scanned the names. “Narrows it down. And I need to borrow your cell phone.”

“What? No!” In response, Harry merely pointed at the whiskey flask. Steve sighed and unclipped his phone. “Yours break or something?”

“I don't own one.”

Steve boggled. “You're one strange human being.”

“I get that a lot. When it breaks, I'll buy you a new one.”

“Don't you mean 'if?'”

“Sure, why not? Oh, and Steve?” Harry paused at the door. “Don't drink on the job anymore. Murphy's got enough on her plate and I don't want to have to clean up your mess.”

Steve turned to demand just what it was Harry thought he could do, but the other man was already gone.

***

“So, is every ghost tied to something?” Murphy asked.

Bob tilted his head. “I don't follow.”

“Like with the skull. Is every ghost like that? Forced to move with a body part or an object? Or are you special?”

Bob stayed silent for so long, Murphy wondered if she'd insulted him or made some sort of supernatural faux pas. And when he spoke, his intonation was strangely flat. “No, I have what you might call...special circumstances.”

“Oh. Should I even ask?”

“No.” And then, to her surprise, he added, “Not yet.”

“Fair enough.”

Her cell phone rang before the silence could become awkward.

“This is Murphy.”

Kirmani's voice crackled on the other end. “Our perp got another kid.”

“Hell. Where?”

When he told her, she realized she'd been expecting it. With sinking dread, she gave him her ETA and hung up.

“Lieutenant?” Bob said.

Murphy pulled into the left lane to make a U-turn. “Guess where we're going.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

***

Harry tended to avoid mobile phones when possible since they lasted even less time around him than most electronics. But desperate times and all that.

Murphy picked up on the second ring. “Steve?”

“No, it's me.”

“What are you doing with – no, wait, forget it. Not important. We've got a problem.”

“How big a problem?”

“I just got called into the Atrium. Another abducted kid.”

Harry glanced at his mall list and sighed. “That's the one.”

“Still no clue what this thing is?”

“Not really.”

“Great. Wait, Bob's yelling at me.” A muffled conversation followed, before Murphy said, “Hang on. I'm putting you on speaker.”

Brief scuffling commenced until Bob's overly loud voice came over the line. “HELLO? HARRY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

“Green Bay can hear you, Bob. Dial it down.”

“I'm sorry, I've never done this before. This is rather exciting for me.”

“We're happy for you. What's going on?”

“The missing children. They're connected.”

Harry sighed. “I miss the days when a coincidence was just a coincidence.”

“Don't we all. Harry, I'm almost positive it's one of the Sidhe.”

“You're kidding.”

“I only wish I were. But between the abductions and the backwards calls you've received, it has their grubby prints all over it.”

“So Mai's little trick allowed them slip through.”

“Unfortunately, it looks like it did.”

“Excuse me,” Murphy broke in. “But what's a Sidhe?”

“The Fae,” Bob answered. “The Fair Folk.”

“The – wait, are you saying a fairy is doing all of this? Like Tinkerbell?”

Harry sighed. “They're not like Disney flicks, Murph. They're monsters. Very old-school and very dangerous.”

“Yeah, but – fairies?”

“Lieutenant, I assure you, despite the watered down stories the twentieth century chose to inflict upon you, these are ancient creatures. And for the most part they dislike humans a great deal.”

“Great. So, what do we do?”

“I don't suppose you could convince someone else to meet your team for this case,” Harry said.

“No.”

“Figured. Just whatever you do, don't go into that basement. Wait 'til I get there.”

“Your plan sucks.”

“You got better one?”

“Sadly, no.”

“I'll see you, then.”

***

Murphy met her men on the first shopping level. Although the uniforms had all but shut down the building – much to the last-minute shoppers' dismay – the muzak still serenaded them with an instrumental version of 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.' While some gave the large shoulder bag she carried an odd look, a withering glare warded off any brave enough to try and question her on it.

She spoke briefly with the first officer on the scene, called in by mall security after their tapes revealed a figure – indistinct, of course – take off with the boy. She questioned the mother and felt like a sham when she'd already been told exactly what it was that'd taken her kid but adhering to protocol anyway. She ordered a general canvas of the area, made sure the barricade around the mall was secure, turned around and said, “Where's Kirmani?”

“Thought you knew,” McKenzie said. “He took a couple guys downstairs to take a look around.”

Murphy did not curse or in anyway change her expression when she said, “Can you show me how to get down there?”

McKenzie took her into the docking area for truck deliveries, opened the emergency door next to it and directed her down. She thanked him politely and as soon as she was alone, opened up her bag to reveal the human skull lying in it.

“Bob,” she said.

Black mist seeped out to take on Bob's form. He did not look pleased.

“I do believe you were told to stay out of the basement.”

“So I can leave good men to face something they're not ready for? I don't think so.”

“You're very stubborn.”

“How else do you think I put up with Dresden? Now, how do I kill Tinkerbell?”

***

Harry did not believe in karma. This was not so much a philosophical decision as self-preservation; after all, considering his life, and the mistakes he'd made during it, he didn't want to contemplate the idea of some sort of universal payback.

However, if he did believe in any of it, the traffic on Christmas Eve would have suggested he'd been one bad guy in a previous life.

By the time he arrived at the mall, there was no sign of Murphy and the officer at the police perimeter was either very dedicated to his job or had been warned about nuts calling themselves Dresden before. In an act that probably didn't help his karmic balance, he arranged a minor distraction in the form of a small fire twenty yards over. It was, he reassured himself as the gaggle of cops ran off and he slipped inside, only a very small fire that would extinguish itself in approximately ten minutes and he therefore shouldn't be feeling all that guilty.

It should also be noted that Harry's ability to justify morally ambiguous acts in the name expediency had been finely honed over the years.

When McKenzie approached him – coordinating the officers inside and trying to find out what the fuss outside was over the radio – Harry already had his credentials out.

“Murphy called me in,” he said.

McKenzie looked like he wanted to argue that, but another panicked call from his radio was a more pressing concern. Instead he waved Harry on and said, “She went downstairs. Try not to touch anything.”

“Of course she did,” Harry muttered. “Why listen to me? Not like I know what I'm talking about.”

He dug around in his messenger bag until he found a small glass skull. Gripping it in his fist, he concentrated on Bob, visualizing the ghost's skull. The glass slowly grew hotter until, in a near blistering burst of red light and heat, he got a ping on their location.

Yeah. This was going to be bad.

He pulled out his drumstick wand and Steve's cell, then took off for the docking bays.

***

“'A little uncomfortable,' he said,” Murphy said to herself. “Ghost wins the understatement of the year award.”

Still shaking out the arm Bob had phased through, Murphy hugged the cement wall as she approached the corner of the boiler room. Despite the cold winter had brought to Chicago, the basement was uncomfortably hot and bewilderingly large. No wonder Kirmani thought someone could have escaped down here. If she hadn't known better by now, she would have thought the same thing.

She re-gripped her gun and lead around the corner with it. When the corridor proved empty, she let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. Walking forward, she wiped the sweat off her forehead with one jacket sleeve, trying to keep her eyes clear. No way did she die because she couldn't see where she was going.

A bang to her left nearly made her jump, but she brought her gun immediately to bear toward the noise. When Kirmani appeared, she almost shot him out of sheer annoyance.

“Jeez, Murphy, it's just me.”

She lowered her weapon. “Kirmani.”

“You okay? You're looking kind of pale.”

“Fine.” She took a deep breath and straightened. “I need you back upstairs.”

The younger detective frowned. “You sure? We haven't cleared-”

“Don't make me order you, Sid.”

Kirmani stiffened, expression hardening. “Thought you weren't going to pull rank on me anymore.”

“Fine,” Murphy said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “As a favor. It's Christmas Eve, I've got missing kids, a daughter stuck with my ex and I just need you upstairs right now, okay?”

“Yeah, alright.” Kirmani took a step back, paused and said, “You sure you're okay?”

Murphy tried to smile but didn't succeed all that well. “It's been a rough couple days, but I'm fine.”

Kirmani looked like he wanted to argue but just nodded and walked away instead. Her partner and men out of danger, Murphy slumped against the wall.

She wondered how Harry managed to do this for a living. No wonder he constantly looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The ring of her cell phone almost gave her a heart attack. Cursing both at her jumpiness and the stupidity of leaving the ring on, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the caller ID.

“Dresden?”

The answer came back in a series of static consonants. She pressed the phone in closer, but that didn't help the volume much. “Dresden, is that you?”

She heard something that sounded like it might have been a question. She decided to go ahead and give what information she could. “Listen, I'm already in the basement, about dozen yards to the left of the main door. Just keep following the yellow pipeline.”

Another squawk of protest and she heard, “...stay...I'm in...” before it dropped again.

“Dammit,” she muttered, then louder, “Where are you?” When no answer came, she asked, “Can you even hear me?”

The phone remained stubbornly silent. She was just debating the merits of throttling it when a growl interrupted her. Feeling like a doomed fool, she turned.

“Oh my god.”

***

“Murphy? Can you hear me? Murphy!”

Three gunshots and scream answered him. The phone then promptly died with an electric whine and spark of blue magic.

Running through every curse he knew and making up a few more as he went, Harry took off at a dead sprint. Two lefts, a vague sense of Bob's skull to the right and he skidded to a halt at another junction. His heart dropped.

The thing that stood in front of him was human only in the sense that it had two arms, two legs and stood upright. But the face was a bloody mass of stripped flesh and the hulking figure stood so high its head almost brushed the ceiling. When it caught sight of Harry, it peeled back its lips to reveal a mouth full of far too many teeth, still red from its last meal.

Harry didn't hesitate. He called up a fire spell and channeled as much energy as possible through his wand and straight on to the thing's chest. It flew backwards hard enough to hit the back wall and crack the cement.

Harry immediately ran forward, pressing the advantage. He pushed all the rage he could into his magic, reaching for wind and fire and anything else that would follow his call, keeping the thought of Murphy front and center. Because he couldn't save her and that left vengeance and that was the only thing that was going to give him enough power to stop this.

The wand finally gave out when he was a yard or two away, the smaller weapon unable to handle the charge he'd been maintaining. It didn't matter. He threw the twisted, smoking piece of wood aside and reached back into his bag, pulling out a glass jar full of thin metal shavings.

He stopped a few feet away, allowed himself to relish the moment. It wasn't going to bring Murphy back, wasn't going to save all those kids, but it was a start.

Unfortunately, the monster had other ideas.

It seized his leg, pulling forward. Harry landed on his back, bad enough to knock the wind out of him and the jar out of his hand. The monster reared back, leaving Harry just enough room to bring his shield bracelet up before his face was torn off by the thing's claws. Even through the shield, he could feel the force of the blow, feel his will buckle. He'd expended too much too quickly and now it was only matter of time before the monster broke through. He was going to die in a mall on Christmas Eve. He tried not to find that a little funny.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the karma he didn't believe in kicked back into high gear.

A gunshot heralded a bullet to the monster's shoulder. It shrieked and pulled back, but was hit twice more, deadly accurate shots to the head and heart. Harry scrambled away and turned.

Murphy stood behind him. Her jacket was torn and bloodied, she had an abrasion on her cheek and wide, dilated eyes, but she was alive.

As she continued to empty her clip, she said, quite calmly, “I'm about to run out of bullets here, Dresden. You might want to do something.”

Harry skirted back, allowing her an unobstructed view and scrambled for his abandoned jar. He unscrewed the top just as he heard the dry clicks of Murphy's gun on an empty chamber. When he looked back up, the monster was already staggering to its feet again, but before it could get further he tossed the entire contents of the jar at its head.

There was a pause.

Then the monster screamed.

The iron, harmless to humans but deadly to the Sidhe, started to burn into the monster's face with sizzling, crackling efficiency. It scratched at itself, trying to dig out the metal with its claws as its screams became wet and gurgling. Murphy turned and Harry joined her, standing with one arm around her shoulder and keeping her close. They waited until silence finally descended into the room once more before looking.

There wasn't much left. A couple of misshapen bones sat in a foul-smelling, bloody but ultimately harmless puddle. And standing next to it, examining it with clinical detachment, was a second Murphy.

“You know, I do believe that was a Tommy Rawhead,” she said with Murphy's voice but Bob's inflection. “Great, nasty beasts, difficult to kill. Well done, Harry.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Harry actually felt himself relax. “You had me worried when Murphy screamed.”

The Murphy in his arms snorted and the fake Murphy looked vaguely embarrassed.

“Yes, well, I'm afraid that was me.” At Harry's expression, she shrugged. “I was the decoy, remember? Nothing quite so distracting at the right moment as a scream in a Sidhe's ear.” Her figure rippled and was replaced by Bob's normal silver-haired form. He adjusted his sleeves back over the ever-present manacles and added, “I think it was some of my best work, personally.”

Murphy sighed, leaning against Harry more out of exhaustion than any sought comfort. “This is the worst Christmas I've ever had.”

“Sorry,” Harry said.

“And you do this all the time, don't you?”

“Well, not exactly like this, but yeah. More than I like.”

Bob rolled his eyes. “Oh please, don't let's come over all maudlin so soon. I haven't even been able to show off significantly yet.”

Harry frowned. “What are you talking about?”

The ghost smiled.

***

“You see, in lore, Tommy Rawhead ate the children it took. But, quite lucky for us, it was never specified exactly when that was.”

Murphy listened with half an ear as Bob rattled on and Harry muttered what sounded like an incantation over the locked janitorial closet. A spark of something that wasn't electricity leaped from his hand to the lock and the door creaked open.

And for the first time since this whole mess began, Murphy thought she might cry when the dirtied, scared, living faces of a dozen children stared back at her.

***

Six days after Christmas, a scant few minutes before midnight, Harry Dresden opened the door to the roof of his building and allowed Connie Murphy to step through.

She took in the scene with a critical eye. Two deck chairs with plenty of blankets piled up next to them. A small table with a bottle of champagne, two plastic glasses and Bob's skull sitting atop it. Two gas lanterns, lit and hanging from short metal stands, giving everything a soft, cheery glow.

She blinked. “What's this?”

Harry grinned. “The best view in the city. Come on.”

She followed him out and graciously sat in the chair he pulled out for her, figuring she could tease him later about his old-fashioned mannerisms. As she tucked a blanket thankfully around her legs and Harry opened the champagne, Bob seeped out of his skull.

“Oh,” he said. “This again. Well, I suppose I should be thankful you actually have company this time.”

Murphy glanced at Harry. “This time?”

Harry coughed, shuffled his feet and said, “Um, well, been a little...look, it's fine. Hazard of a holiday without a family.”

Murphy, who'd never had that problem, tried to cover up how utterly sad that was by waving her cup at Harry and demanding he pour for her first. He seemed grateful for the distraction, although still worried when he asked, “You sure it's okay you aren't with your daughter for New Year's?”

“She's nine, Dresden. New Year's for her is watching The Little Mermaid for the hundredth time and falling asleep before ten. My mom's over there in case anything happens, so don't worry about it.”

“Sure, okay. Right.”

He sat down in the opposite chair and settled into silence. Murphy took an experimental sip of her drink and decided the champagne was terrible, but that was also an unavoidable New Year's tradition. She used the liquid courage to ask, “So, have you had any more problems with those, um, things?”

“Things?”

“You know. The, uh, fairies.” She still felt like an idiot when saying it, but that was probably something she was going to have to get used to.

“Oh. Not much. But we'll probably be getting more incursions. Once you open a door like that, it's hard to close it all the way again.”

“Are they all as bad as that rawhead thing?”

“No, a lot are more annoyances than dangers.” He paused, grimaced, then said with some reluctance, “Some are much worse.”

“Oh.”

“Would – would you rather have not known?”

There was another question hidden in there and Murphy had to actually think about it. Life without Harry Dresden, without wizards and magic and ugly monsters lurking in the dark, was simpler. But it wasn't any safer. Monsters with human faces still ran free and she'd been fighting against them long enough to know that the truth would always be her first and best weapon.

“No,” she said. “I'd rather know.”

Harry looked strangely happy at the answer and settled back into his chair. “Okay.”

“Good lord, are the two of you going to be like this the rest of the evening?” Bob said. “The subtleties and insecurities of your conversation are enough to drive even a saint to heavy drinking.”

“You don't like it, you can always go back into your skull,” Harry said.

“And miss out on watching the two of you metaphorically tip-toe around each other for the rest of the evening? I have to get my entertainment somehow.” He looked back out to the city and added, “Besides, I've always liked the fireworks.”

“Fireworks?” Murphy said.

And, as if on cue (or was that by magic?), the first dazzling aerial display burst out above them.

She smiled. “Oh my god. Is that the city's show?”

Harry grinned. “Told you it was a hell of a view.”

“Wow. I just – wow.” She looked directly at Harry. “Thank you. This is incredible.”

He held up his glass. “Happy New Year's, Murphy.”

She clinked her own against it.

“You, too. Cheers.”

They sat back in comfortable silence, a tableau of three staring up at the night sky as it showered them with bright, gorgeous color and the old year gave way to new.


FIN