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Christmas Morning
After Kringle left, the excitement over his visit and putting together my daughter’s first bike faded quickly, leaving me exhausted from staying up most of the night. I fell asleep on the couch, Maggie snuggled into the crook of my arm, a crocheted blanket in shades of brown and beige draped over us both. And I dreamt of warmth and family, of happiness and joy and laughter.
Until a cool hand brushed my forehead.
Danger. Threat. Predator.
I found myself crouched behind the couch, a blue-white shield shimmering and slightly distorting the air in front of me.
“Harry?” It was Molly, hands raised in a non-threatening gesture. “Everything all right?”
“I, uh…” I glanced at the shield, snuffed out the spell with a sheepish shrug. “Sorry.”
She frowned at me, and in her Molly glamour looked like the woman I remembered. But that touch of skin-on-skin reminded me that this appearance was just a glamour, and Molly had changed. She’d become a predator, and my heart ached for the little girl she’d been, the apprentice she’d become.
I had seen last night how much it hurt her to be home, surrounded by friends and family and love. Oh, she hid it, almost too well, but I’d looked into her soul and she into mine. I knew how difficult it could be to keep up appearances for the people you care most about.
That same hurt had flickered through her eyes, so very briefly, when my shield had stood between us.
I was mortal, once. Spoken by Mab, after her daughter died. Molly, too, had been mortal, once. How long would it take to erase her humanity completely?
I closed the gap and pulled her into a hug. “Come here.” Stiff at first, all it took was a few moments before she relaxed against me. “I’ve been a little on edge lately.”
Molly snorted softly. “Nice try, but that’s not all this was.”
Pushing her back a bit, enough to see her face, she tilted her head quizzically at me. “You’re right.” I glanced into the dining room and the kitchen beyond. The rest of the Carpenters and Maggie were busily arranging breakfast and no one had bothered to notice my reaction to Molly’s entrance. I wasn’t even sure they knew Molly was home.
“Sit with me for a minute.” I dropped back onto one end of the couch, and Molly settled next to me.
“Nice bike,” she said, gesturing to Maggie’s gift. “You did a good job.” It was bright red, because Maggie insisted red bikes go faster. I puffed my chest out a little.
“Thanks.” She looked back at me, and waited. “You remember River Shoulders? I’m apprenticing with him.” One eyebrow shot up, but she didn’t interrupt. “He’s been teaching me how to tap into my magical senses in a different way. It’s almost like… like using the Sight without having to subject myself to images that might drive me insane.” I picked up her cool, slender hand in my much larger one, preparing myself for the jolt that accompanied it.
“It happens when I touch someone, or they touch me. I get a feeling of their inner self. Will, for example, I can tell he’s a werewolf, even though he’s not a wolf at all but a practitioner who’s learned to change himself into a wolf. With you, it’s much more primal. Predatory. Fierce. Shark teeth.”
Both eyebrows shot up this time. “Shark teeth?”
I blew out a breath. “Yeah, that’s how you feel to me. It’s mostly impressions my brain has to translate into something I understand. When you touched me while I was asleep, my instincts told me I was in danger and needed to protect myself.”
Molly smiled, and it was on the predatory side. “Well, you’re not wrong.”
I put an arm around her shoulders. “Doesn’t mean I was right. Sorry, Molls. I’m glad you’re here.”
She leaned against me, but only for a moment before straightening and I let my arm fall away. “Your gargoyles brawled with a group of ogres last night,” Molly said in a completely conversational tone, as if we were discussing the weather.
I blinked at her, unsure I’d heard her right. “They did what? Wait a minute, how do you know about my gargoyles?”
“I went out to deliver presents, and I guess the ogres got a little too close to your house. The gargoyles decided they were a threat, and the fight… well… there might’ve been a teeny bit of property damage.”
I sat up, alarmed. “Whose property? Not my front door again. I just got it replaced!” Then my brain caught up to what she’d said. “Wait, presents? You were delivering presents? Why?”
“You are my vassal, Harry, and the residents of Chicago yours. You were owed, they were owed, and I needed to balance the scales.”
I was stunned. “You did that… for me?”
Molly’s face filled with compassion. “You care. You care a whole hell of a lot. How can I do any less? There are still so many in need, so many lost and frightened. It was only right I reminded them that someone is listening, and someone does care, on the one night of the year that Winter can care. We’re not usually known for our compassion.
“And your castle’s fine, by the way. But, um, some of your neighbors’ cars and front yards aren’t in the best of shape. I managed to stop the fight before it got out of hand, but your gargoyles still managed to take down half a dozen ogres. I had to conscript the gargoyles’ into helping finish the route.”
The alarm was back. Had Molly taken control of my golems, forced them to obey her orders instead of mine? I hadn’t thought it was possible, but then again, Molly was the freaking Winter Lady, both my boss and far more powerful. If stronger magical beings could simply take over the gargoyles, I wouldn’t risk keeping them animated. Not if they could be turned against me.
Molly squeezed my arm. She’d seen my worried expression. “Relax, Harry. I didn’t take over your gargoyles. Not even I could do that, not when you’ve imbued them with a sliver of your soul.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t intended for that to happen, hadn’t even known I’d done it. But it did explain how each had developed its own unique personality, and how I could tell them apart so easily.
And why Leonardo was such a wise ass.
“I asked them to help, since they’d made the mistake, because several of my ogres couldn’t walk. You should’ve seen them, dropping presents down chimneys as they flew over.”
I pictured it, then pictured a man I’d badly frightened. “Do you know if they left anything for a house down the street from mine, single-story, white with brown trim?”
“They did your entire block, every house.”
I put my head in my hands. Hell’s bells. As if Phil needed any more fodder for his conspiracy theories. Presents randomly dropping down his chimney had probably scared the piss out of him. Again.
“So what’d you name them?” I looked up to find Molly grinning. “Your gargoyles,” she clarified. “No, wait. Let me guess.” She narrowed her eyes, studying me, then held up a finger. “Ninja Turtles?”
“Ninja Turtles,” I confirmed with a chuckle.
“Hah! I knew it!”
*
All things considered, I didn’t do too badly in the presents department. Several new shirts, my favorite being a picture of a kitten held in the palm of a hand with words below reading, “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” The kitten in question even looked like Clementine.
“It’s a meme,” Harry told me, his grin widening at my blank look. Though he went by Hank, I still thought of him as Harry. As he thought of me as ‘Mr. Dresden,’ we didn’t have the problem everyone else did when faced with two Harrys.
“A meme is a computer joke,” Hope explained, “but one that becomes really popular. Someone takes a picture and adds text to it, just like your shirt.”
“It’s from an adventure game called The Legend of Zelda,” Harry added.
“I see,” I said, though I really didn’t.
Maggie patted my hand. “It’s okay, Dad. We know you’re old.”
Ouch.
Snickers echoed around the room from the younger Carpenters.
I received a cozy blue and white blanket crocheted by Charity. I’d admired her blankets for years, having fallen asleep on the couch countless times underneath one. There was something so comforting sleeping under a blanket that had been made with such love and care.
Molly gave me The Hobbit. But this wasn’t my dog-eared worn paperback. This was a large leatherbound special edition, filled with full-page black and white illustrations, gold leaf embossing on the front cover and spine, on the page edges, and the chapter headings inside.
It was truly a work of art, one I would cherish for a long, long time.
“Where did you get this?” I asked her, fingertips brushing over the pages. Maggie scooted next to me and leaned over to get a better look.
Molly smirked. “I know a guy who owed me a favor. That is a one-of-a-kind ‘Harry Dresden’ edition, so no dog-earing the pages.”
“No, ma’am,” I replied, closing it and returning it to its equally stunning matching black and gold slipcase. Then I waved her over to give her a hug. “Thanks, grasshopper.”
The small gifts I’d given each of them were mostly Michael’s suggestions, as he knew his kids better than I did, though Alicia’s gift had been my idea alone. Based on the recent success of Maggie’s leather-bound journal, I had one made for Alicia as well, figuring creative writers needed a journal handy in case creativity showed up unexpectedly. Also like Maggie, I included a fountain pen, but Alicia’s used ink cartridges rather than bottled ink as I thought it’d be easier for her to replace.
And Molly loved her Princess Leia action figure.
“This is from all of us,” Michael said, handing it to me. I’d seen the present in the back, leaning against the wall. I had a good idea what it was; there weren’t many things of that size or shape. Sure enough, pulling off the wrapping paper revealed a guitar case, and I pulled out the acoustic guitar with practiced care. It, like me, was a little worn around the edges, scuffed in places that showed how well-loved it had been. Setting it in my lap reminded me of times I’d played, at first because of Butters’ recommendation, and later because I enjoyed it.
As I plucked at the strings and tuned them, I couldn’t help but smile. Then I started playing a song I wasn’t sure I entirely remembered, and background banter between the Carpenter kids quieted. When I finished, pleased at how lovely the guitar sounded, I startled at the smattering of applause.
Michael caught my eye and returned my grin.
“Thank you,” I told him, then glanced around the room. “All of you. This really means a lot to me.”
“Dad, these last ones are for you,” Maggie said, picking up the remaining two small boxes from under the tree. Both were wrapped in white paper pattered with silver snowflakes. I set the guitar back in its case and took them from her as she sat next to me. “They’re from me, but Mr. Carpenter helped.”
Curious, I put one in my lap and ripped the paper off the other. Lifting the lid revealed a wooden frame holding a picture of Maggie and Mouse. It’d obviously been taken at her school, on a warm sunny day because she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. Her arms were around Mouse, and both were smiling for the camera.
“I love it,” I told her, leaning over for a sideways hug with one arm. As a wizard, I’d rarely been able to operate a camera successfully, which meant I owned very few pictures. I had nothing of my parents, and nothing of Maggie until now. “I’ll put it on the mantle right over the fireplace where I can look at it all the time.”
I let her hold it while I opened the second present, expecting something similar based on the size. This was a black metal frame, but the picture inside…
My eyes filled with tears. It was a close-up of Susan holding a baby swaddled in white, head covered by a fuzzy pink cap. Maggie. It had to have been taken just after her birth; Susan’s smile was both tired and radiant.
I had nothing left to remember Susan by other than our daughter. The few pictures I had were destroyed when my apartment burned to the ground. I’d forgotten how gorgeous that smile of hers was, or how much it hurt to see it.
“You don’t like it?” Maggie asked worriedly. The tears I couldn’t stop slipped down my cheeks, turning everything into a soft blur.
“I love it, punkin,” I managed, sniffling and wiping my face. Then I pulled her into my lap and hugged her, hard. It allowed me to hide my face against her shoulder, where tears continued to flow. Maggie’s arms went tight around my neck, and silent sobs shook my body. “I love it so much,” I whispered.
And then Mouse leaned into me, paw on my thigh, adding comfort in his own way. My family, with me on Christmas Day. Something as an orphan I never thought I’d have.
A large, warm hand squeezed my shoulder gently. “I was able to track down relatives of Maggie’s foster parents. They had kept several boxes of personal items, and inside one was that picture,” Michael said in a quiet voice. “Maggie picked out the frame.”
“Thank you,” I said, choking back another sob.
“I was really small when I was a baby,” Maggie said, and I chuckled through the tears.
“Everyone’s small when they’re a baby. Even me.” My daughter giggled softly. “The pictures are perfect. I love you, Maggie.”
“Love you, Dad.”
*
Two days after Christmas, it snowed. It snowed a lot. So much that we couldn’t see the other side of the street through the front door’s small window when I held Maggie up to check.
“I think it’s a perfect time to go for a walk,” I told her. She looked at me, unsure and biting her lip.
“Really?”
“Absolutely! It’s snowing,” I said emphatically, squeezing her just a little. “You know what that means?”
“That it’s cold out?”
I snorted. “True, but that’s not the best part. The best part is we get to play in the snow at the park!”
“Oh,” she breathed as comprehension flooded in. “Put me down, I need to go get dressed! Come on, Mouse!” They raced up the stairs with the enthusiasm only the young can muster. Meanwhile, I checked my duster pocket for the gift box intended for Maggie, donned my heavy steel-toed boots I picked up two months ago, secured my blasting rod and gripped my staff.
“Bob, we’re heading out for a bit. Lock up after we leave, Imperial Protocol.”
His blue light appeared on the wall next to me. “You got it, boss.”
We walked to the park, Mouse plowing ahead excitedly only to stop, turn around, and wag his tail furiously until we caught up. The snow had lessened, so we weren’t walking through a blizzard. Not that it would’ve affected me much, other than the inability to see, but Maggie would chill quickly and I wanted to make sure she had enough time to enjoy her gift.
The sidewalk hadn’t been cleared, so it took us a little longer than in the summer months. When we arrived, I steered us towards a small grassy field. Well, I was sure the grass was down there somewhere, under all that snow. Now it was a pristine blanket of white, our footprints the first to mar its surface.
“I know it’s a little after Christmas, but I have one more gift for you,” I told her, retrieving the small box from my pocket. “This,” I said, handing it to Maggie, “is from the Winter Queen.”
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head, they grew so wide. “The Queen? For me?” she breathed, pulling off her gloves to take the box with small, careful hands. She flipped up the lid, revealing an opalescent silver ring, shimmering even in the dim light. “Oh, wow,” she said, picking it up. “It’s cold! And there’s music…” She drew in a soft breath. “From Frozen!”
“It’s magic,” I told her, going down on one knee in front of her. “It’s a very special magic. The Queen designed it to give you powers over ice and snow, just like Elsa.”
Maggie nearly dropped the ring in surprise. “Really?”
“Really. But like any magic, it can also be dangerous. That’s why I brought us out here to the park by ourselves.”
She nodded solemnly. “To prevent collateral damage.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you hear that?”
“In pottery class,” she said with a soft giggle. “Mrs. Bremerton says that all the time when we’re making pots.”
“Well, um, yes, something like that,” I agreed, then plucked the ring from the palm of her hand, shivering slightly at the magic held within. Winter’s magic. “Want to try it out?”
Maggie nodded.
I slid the ring onto the third finger of her right hand. It fit perfectly.
“Now what?”
I stood up. “Now, hold out your hand, like this.” I demonstrated and she copied me, palm up. “Imagine the snow swirling in the palm of your hand.” I focused a bit of power and said, “Ventas cyclis.” Snowflakes gathered and whirled in a slow circle.
Maggie squinted in concentration. “Ventas cyclis,” she echoed, then drew in a sharp breath as her own palm filled with whirling snow. It began moving faster and faster in response to her excitement.
“Careful,” I told her. “Ease off on the power. You don’t want it to get away from you.” Mab’s gift contained enough power for Maggie to summon a monster snow cyclone if she tried. I’d be able to bleed off the magic if I had to, but didn’t want her hurt accidentally.
Maggie held her breath, and the snow slowed. “Oh, wow,” she said softly. “Is this what it feels like to be a wizard?”
“This is exactly what it feels like,” I replied, giving her a huge grin. “Now, try this.” I focused, and a miniature snownado formed, standing about six inches tall.
She scrunched up her face, staring at her hand. I felt the tingle of Mab’s magic, then a close copy of my snownado took shape. Unlike my magic, Maggie’s ring didn’t require constant focus to keep the spell running; while power still flowed from the ring, Maggie’s expression relaxed. “That is so cool!”
We spent hours in the park, going from swirling snow in our hands to bubbling snow around us like a snow globe. Then we worked on creating ice sculptures from the frost in the air, hanging icicles and ornaments on bare tree branches.
We created an army of tiny snowmen and animated them, Mouse pouncing eagerly to destroy their ranks. That was more Maggie than me; her ring had endless power, while mine was finite. By that time, I was exhausting myself and my magic, though surprisingly Maggie hadn’t said a word about the cold.
And then a song, that song, flooded my brain, reminding me that Elsa was never bothered by the cold. Why would Maggie’s ring be any different?
When Mouse sat in the center of the demolished snowmen, tongue lolling in a doggy smile, I told Maggie, “Let’s head home. I’ll make us some hot chocolate. Give me your hand.” I removed her glove and tried tugging off the ring, but it refused to budge. Oh, crap. Twisting didn’t help, and touching it lightly with magic gave me a nasty shock.
Figures. It belonged to Maggie until noon tomorrow, and no one would be able to remove it.
“Well, looks like the ring is enchanted so it can’t be removed until its time is up. Be careful with it, okay? It contains a lot of magic, and a careless thought could cause it to do something you don’t expect.”
Maggie looked at me and nodded. “Okay.”
I helped her with her glove, then picked her up and carried her home. She only protested a little, giving in to the exhaustion and snuggling against me as I wrapped my duster around us both.
Even if neither of us truly needed it.
*
A blood-curdling scream had me bolting from bed, blasting rod in hand. Mouse barked several times, then all was silent save for a small child sobbing as if her heart had broken.
“Maggie? Punkin, what is it?” I pushed the partially-open door inward and found my daughter on her bed, clutching Mouse tightly with her face buried in his fur. The only reason I didn’t charge in, blasting rod blazing, was Mouse’s calm demeanor. Had anything dangerous been present, he would’ve been ripping it apart.
A quick visual sweep revealed nothing amiss in her room. But when I extended my senses, the taste of vile magic covered my tongue. And it was everywhere. Alarmed, I strode towards her bed and stopped abruptly when my bare foot came down on a cold, squishy substance. I lifted my foot off and crouched down, touching it with a finger.
Ectoplasm.
My heart, already racing, sped up its tempo. Had a demon breached my defenses?
Maggie was still crying, even as I sat on the bed next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Honey, what happened?”
“It-it-it was…” she began, sniffling and wiping her cheeks. “It was an underhide. It scared me, and… and… and I killed it!” she wailed. Mouse nuzzled her hair and thumped his tail encouragingly.
That scared me more than finding the ectoplasm to begin with. “How, Maggie? How did you kill it?” I asked calmly, all the while panic gripped my gut.
“It froze like an ice statue, and then it exploded.” Her words were punctuated with more sobs. “I didn’t want it to die!”
Ice. The ring. That damned ring I hadn’t been able to refuse. I should’ve realized this might happen. But what I could’ve done about it I had no idea, so hugged her harder. “Maggie, listen to me. It wasn’t your fault. The power in the ring reacted to your fear. I bet you were having a nightmare before you woke up, right?”
“Yeah,” she replied, nodding slowly. “That’s what underhides do. Live under your bed and give you nightmares and eat your fear.”
“It’s not your fault,” I repeated. “And you didn’t kill the underhide.”
“I… I didn’t?” She looked up at me with wide, tearful eyes.
“Nope. You see that gross sticky stuff on Mouse’s fur? That’s ectoplasm. A bunch of creatures from the Nevernever use it to create a body when they visit our world. It’s just a temporary body, and when it’s destroyed, they go back home good as new.”
Maggie squished ectoplasm between her fingers. “It feels like snot. It’s really not the underhide?”
I laughed softly. “It does feel like snot. I promise you it isn’t the underhide. In fact, in a little while the ectoplasm will disappear completely. I’ll sit right here with you and we can wait together.”
She wiped her hand on her comforter with a grimace. “Okay.”
And so we sat and waited.
“This is just like Slimer in Ghostbusters.”
“This is exactly like Slimer in Ghostbusters,” I replied, “and you just busted him.”
Maggie looked around the room once more, then giggled. “I can’t wait to tell Adi that I’m a real Ghostbuster now!”
Another ten minutes and the ectoplasm sublimated, turning to wispy curls of smoke and vanishing.
“Cool,” Maggie whispered, poking at the slightly-damp spot on her comforter. But she was still shaking, just a little, and I couldn’t bear to leave her alone.
“You up for a movie? I was thinking of watching one, and could use a little company if you’re not too tired.”
“The Princess Bride?” she asked hopefully. We’d already seen it twice since she’d been home, but far be it from me to turn down such an excellent movie.
“Absolutely.” I stood and held out my hand. Maggie slipped her tiny one into mine and squeezed tight. I would never tire of this, of being her dad, spending time with her. Michael was right. Some day Maggie would be too grown up to hold my hand, and enjoying these moments now was worth the sleep deprivation.
We headed downstairs, Mouse following behind with an occasional doggie yawn. Clementine, who had been sleeping with Maggie earlier, was curled up on my couch, the one I always laid on to read (or to fall asleep). Maggie collected her, and all four of us settled on the couches we used for movie-watching. I stretched out on one, snuggling my daughter in the crook of my arm, draping the crocheted blanket Charity had made me over us. Mouse took the other, and Clementine waited for him to flop down before jumping up and daintily arranging herself between his massive paws.
“Bob. Bob! Wake up.”
A blue light appeared on the far wall. “What, Harry? I was having the most delicious dream, a scantily-clad -“
“Bob,” I interrupted sternly before he could get carried away. “Not now. Put on The Princess Bride, would you?”
He sighed. “What do you think I am, Netflix? Fine, whatever. Not like I have anything better to do than to provide you free home entertainment.” Maggie giggled as Bob disappeared, the movie appearing in his place.
The first twenty minutes passed in silence. “You know why I like this movie so much?” Maggie asked sleepily, stifling a yawn.
I had wondered, as it had both boys and kissing, two things Maggie hadn’t expressed any interest in. But she was eleven, and puberty wasn’t far off, so perhaps her interests were changing. I briefly contemplated the idea of Maggie dating, then decided I wanted to preserve my sanity and dropped it.
I kissed the top of her head. “Why’s that, punkin?”
“Because you read the book to me,” she mumbled, exhausting the last of her energy. She was asleep almost as soon as the words left her mouth.
I let that warm, fuzzy feeling that meant love and Maggie grow and grow, until I could barely breathe from the strength of it. Then I pulled the blanket up, just a little more, and tucked it around my daughter.
*
The rest of the night passed without incident. After a breakfast of waffles - Maggie operating the waffle maker while I kept an eye on her from the table - we bundled up and went to the roof to use up the last few hours of Maggie’s magic. Mouse barely lifted his head off the couch as we walked by.
“Lazybones,” I told him. His tail thumped in response as he watched us climb the stairs.
This time, I let Maggie’s imagination take the lead. She started by creating rings of whirling snow in mid-air for the gargoyles to race through. Her power was different than yesterday, more controlled and better focused. While I regretted her initial pain and shock over the underhide, it had taught her a valuable lesson on the dangers of magic. And unlike many of my own painfully learned lessons, it hadn’t resulted in physical injury or actual deaths.
It also confirmed what I’d suspected of creeps; they were summoned beings, pulled from the Nevernever by children’s imagination.
Maggie next built us a snow fort, hardening the outside into a thick layer of ice, and we armed ourselves with a stockpile of snowballs to do battle with the gargoyles. They quickly caught on to the game, and gave us wide, toothy grins as they pelted us from above. My daughter’s laughter, her ruddy cheeks and sparkling eyes, this was something I’d always treasure.
“Hey!” I exclaimed as Leonardo dumped clawfuls of snow over my head. He zoomed away, hissing with glee. “Oh, it’s on now.” I lined up snowballs along the wall, gathered a bit of power and launched them rapid-fire with a mumbled word. The kinetic force was weak; I didn’t want to knock any of them out of the sky, or worse, shatter them accidentally.
Only two hit targets, neither of which was Leonardo. He hissed again - his approximation of laughter - and spiraled up.
“I’ll get him, Dad,” Maggie told me, throwing one snowball in each hand. Leonardo could’ve easily avoided them, but I saw his last-second course correction that took him right into the flight path of one of the snowballs. It splattered him in the face. “Yeah!” she exclaimed. “Dresden Family five, Red Squadron three!”
I gave him a thumbs-up gesture when Maggie wasn’t looking.
The snow fort abruptly collapsed just as Maggie let out a shocked, “Oh!”
“Ring’s gone?” I guessed, and she removed her glove to show me.
“Yep.”
“Maggie Dresden, Wizard For A Day,” I said, lifting her to my shoulders. “How’d you like it?”
“It was fun, but scary, too. I don’t know if I’d like being a wizard full-time.”
I didn’t know if I would like her being a wizard, either. It’d make her a bigger target than she already was, but… But. She’d be better able to defend herself, should it come to that. And she, like me, would have a lifespan measured in centuries rather than decades. So much time we’d have to spend together. So much time I’d have to teach her.
If I survived the end of the world.
I pushed morbid thoughts away; they’d keep, and I would have plenty of time to dwell on them once Maggie was back at school.
“I declare that all wizards, permanent and temporary, are to be rewarded with hot chocolate immediately, if not sooner.”
“Yes!” Maggie exclaimed, raising her arms above her head. I set her back down on the roof, where she looked up at me hopefully. “And a movie?”
“Absolutely, punkin. What did you have in mind?” I asked, holding the door open for her.
“Star Wars.”
I laughed. “You are without a doubt my daughter.”
*
New Year’s Eve
Maggie spent the day with me in the lab, helping make a few potions. My lab was the original subbasement of my apartment that somehow managed to avoid being destroyed in the fire. When John Marcone moved the castle and rebuilt it stone by stone on the exact same spot, for reasons known only to him he’d kept the room. Being below ground, it was always cold, doubly so in winter. I didn’t notice the cold any more, but for Maggie’s sake I turned on the kerosene heater Will had left for me.
These were different than the potions I usually made. Not really potions at all, the mixtures were designed to approximate fireworks when a burst of magic was applied, but without the need for black powder and without the resulting smoke.
Chicago’s fireworks were more ground-based than some cities, focusing around the Chicago River. Though my home was a floor taller than the ones surrounding it, we weren’t high enough to see that far into downtown, and with the chaos and smoke, I wasn’t willing to risk taking Maggie into a crowd of strangers.
Not at night. Not when vampires had free reign, and a hell of a lot of motivation to hurt me through my daughter.
Grabbing a myriad of boxes, jars, and plastic containers from my shelves, both Bob and Bonnie rattled off different ingredients depending on the results I wanted. While Maggie mixed everything together, it still took my magic and will to bind them together and store their potential for later use.
We left them on the work table when we were done, spending the next several hours in front of the fireplace. Maggie wanted to work on her journal while I read The Hobbit special edition I’d gotten for Christmas.
And when I deemed it late enough (but not too late), we went up to the roof.
I lined up the beakers on the wall in the order I intended to set them off. Then we retreated to a safe distance, gargoyles included, as I activated the first one. I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen, and readied my shield bracelet in case I had to protect us from shards of flying glass.
Bob said it was safe, but he’d said that about the diet potion, too. And look how that turned out.
“Kapow,” I said, pushing my power and will out, infusing the potion with a measure of magical energy. It frothed, overflowed the rim, then shot upwards in a comet of purple streaked with white. After a few seconds, it exploded in a nimbus of pink hues.
“Cool!” Maggie exclaimed, Mouse woofing agreement.
I activated the next three at the same time, causing white, silver and gold to litter the sky. These came together to form the words “Happy New Year!” before vanishing.
Twenty beakers in all (I’d exhausted my beaker supply and much of my magic throughout the day), I went through them at a measured pace, wanting to make the fireworks last as long as possible.
“And now for the grand finale!” I pointed a finger at the remaining beaker, larger than the rest. “Kapow!” This mixture sparkled and spat, throwing rings of red and gold stars high above us, along with bursts of white. On cue (and maybe with few encouraging gestures on my part), the gargoyles launched into the sky, weaving through the rings as they carried bundles of small sparklers that I lit with a wave of my hand.
The effect was magical.
“What’d you think?” I asked Maggie after the last fireworks faded. The gargoyles landed in a neat line next to us, and she gathered up their used sparklers.
“I loved it! Thank you, Dad.”
“You’re not disappointed we didn’t go downtown?”
She shook her head. “Nah. I went there one year with the Carpenters, and I couldn’t even see anything. This was so much better.”
A speeding bus flattened me from behind. I face-planted into the snow and slush, sliding along the roof until my head smashed into the stone wall surrounding it. I blinked woozily, trying to clear my vision while pain jackhammered my skull relentlessly.
What the hell?
Mouse snarled and snapped, barking furiously, intent on killing something.
Or someone.
“Daddy! Daddy, help! Help me!”
Maggie’s terrified screams reached the primal core of my parental instincts, and the Winter Mantle shrieked in rage. Kill! Destroy! It forced me to my feet, despite the agony in my skull, the dizziness that threatened to topple me, the tears that stung my eyes. I wiped at them frantically and extended my senses outward in a wave born of sheer panic.
The magic caught and shimmered, shifting over an object in the sky. A large, dark shape, barely visible against the low-hanging clouds, flew towards the lake.
Was that… a dragon?
With my daughter clutched in one clawed foot, her cries fading as the distance between us grew.
A gutteral cry escaped my throat, burning and raw. “Maggie!”