Small Favor Part 3

Murphy knew me well enough to see I'd noticed something, and I knew her well enough to see her sudden interest make furrows between her eyebrows as she forced herself to be quiet and let me work.

I got up and went to the far side of the alley. A light coating of snow and dust had coated the wall.

"Watch your eyes," I murmured, squinting my own to slits. Then I raised my right hand, called up my will, and murmured, "Ventas reductas."

The wind I called up wasn't the usual burst I commonly used. It was far more toned-down than that, and it poured steadily from my outstretched hand. All the work I was doing with Molly had allowed me to rethink a lot of my basic evocations, the fast and dirty magic that wizards used in desperate and violent situations. I'd been trying to teach the spell to Molly, but she didn't have the raw strength I had, and it would have practically knocked her unconscious to call up a heavy blast of air. I'd modified my teaching, just to get her comfortable with using a bit of air magic, and we'd accidentally developed a pa.s.sable impersonation of an electric blow-dryer.

I used the dryer spell to gently brush away dust and snow from the wall. It took me about a minute and a half, and when I was finished I caught another scent under the brimstone stench and said, "Double c.r.a.p."

Murphy stepped forward with her flashlight and shone it on the wall.

The sigil had been painted on the wall in something thick and brown that smelled like blood. At first I thought it was a pentacle, but I saw the differences immediately.

"Harry," Murphy said quietly. "Is it human?"

"Most likely," I said. "Mortal blood is the strongest ink you can use for symbols like this in high-energy spells. I don't think anything else could have contained the amounts of energy it would have taken to blow up this building."

"It's a pentacle, right?" Murphy asked. "Like the one you wear."

I shook my head. "Different."

"How so?" Her mouth twitched at one corner. "Other than the blood, I mean."

"A pentacle is a symbol of order," I said quietly. "Five points, five sides. It represents the forces of air, earth, water, fire, and spirit. It's contained within a circle, the points touching the outer ring. It represents the forces of magic bound within human control. Power balanced with restraint." I gestured at the symbol. "See here? The points of the star fall far outside the ring."

She frowned. "What does it mean?"

"I have no idea," I said.

"Gosh," she said. "You're worth the money."

"Ha-ha. Look, even if I'd seen this symbol before, it could mean different things to different people. The Hindus and the n.a.z.is have very different ideas about the swastika, for example."

"Can you make a guess?"

I shrugged. "Off the top of my head? This looks uncomfortably like a combination of the pentacle and the anarchy symbol. Magic unrestrained."

"Anarchist wizards?" Murphy asked.

"It's just a guess," I said. My gut told me it was a good one, though, and I got the impression that Murphy had the same feeling.

"What's the symbol for?" Murphy asked. "What is it meant to do?"

"Reflect power," I said. "My guess is that the energy that drove through the building was reflected from this sigil, which means..." I kayaked down a logic cascade as I spoke. "Which means that the energy had to come in in from somewhere else first." I turned around slowly, trying to judge the angles. "The incoming beam must have gone right through the collapsed part of the building and-" from somewhere else first." I turned around slowly, trying to judge the angles. "The incoming beam must have gone right through the collapsed part of the building and-"

"Beam?"

I pointed at the semicircular hole in the ruined wall. "Yeah. Heat energy, a whole lot of it."

She studied the hole. "It doesn't look like it would be big enough to take down the building."

"It isn't," I said. "Not in an explosion, anyway. This just drilled a hole. Might have started a fire as it went, but it couldn't have sheared off the front of the building like that."

Murphy frowned, tilting her head. "Then what did?"

"Working on it," I mumbled. I judged the angles as best I could and took off down the alley. The firemen were still hard at work on the building, and we had to walk over several hoses as we emerged into the street at the back of the apartment building. I crossed the street and walked down the length of the building there, my hand raised, senses questing for any residual magic. I didn't find any, but I did smell h.e.l.lfire again, and a couple of feet later I found another not-pentacle, identical to the first, also hidden under a light dusting of snow.

I kept going clockwise around the ruined building. I found two more symbols on the undamaged building on its next side, and one more across the street from the front of the ruined apartments, and then I completed the circle, arriving back at our original reflective symbol.

Five reflection points, which had guided a truly freaking frightening amount of energy through the building, forming one single, enormous shape as they did.

"It's a pentagram," I said quietly.

Murphy frowned. "What?"

I touched the round, smooth bore mark on the destroyed building's wall. "The beam of energy that ripped through the building right here was one of five sides of a pentagram. A five-pointed star."

Murphy regarded me blankly.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of chalk. "Okay, look. Everyone learns to draw this in grade school, right?" I quickly sketched out a star on a clear bit of brick wall-five strokes of the chalk, forming five points. "Right?"

"Right," Murphy said. "You get them from the teacher when you get an A."

"Another example of symbols having disparate meanings," I said. "But look here, in the middle." I filled in the closed shape in the center of the star. "That's a pentagon shape, see? The center of the pentagram. That's where you contain whatever it is you're trying to contain."

"What do you mean, contain?"

"A pentagram like this one is a symbol of power," I said. "It's got a lot of uses, depending on how you employ it. But most often you use it to isolate or contain an ent.i.ty."

"You mean like summoning a demon," Murphy said.

"Sure," I said. "But you can use it to trap other things too, if you do it right. Remember the circle of power at Harley MacFinn's place? Five candles formed the pentagram on that one."

Murphy shuddered. "I remember. But it wasn't this big."

"No," I admitted. "And the bigger you make it, the more juice it takes to keep it going. I've never, ever heard of one that would take this much energy to activate."

I drew little X shapes at the points of the star and drew the chalk from one to the next, thickening the lines of the example pentagram. "Get it? The beam streamed from one reflector to the next, melting holes through the building as it went. The reflectors formed the beam into one huge pentagram at ground level, more or less."

Murphy frowned and squinted at the simple diagram. "The center of that shape couldn't have covered the whole building."

"No," I said. "I'd need a good map to be sure, but I think the center of the pentagram must have been about twenty feet back from the front door. Which is why only the front half of the building collapsed."

"The explosion came from inside this pentagon thing? Magical TNT?"

I shrugged. "The explosion came from inside the pentagram's center, but not necessarily from from the pentagram. I mean, it could have been a normal device of some kind." the pentagram. I mean, it could have been a normal device of some kind."

"Square in the middle of the giant, scary pentagram?" Murphy asked.

"Maybe," I said, nodding. "It depends on what the pentagram was being employed for. And to know that, I'd have to know which way was its north." I circled the topmost point of the chalk pentacle. "The direction of the first line, I mean."

"Does it make a difference?"

"Yeah," I said. "Most everybody draws those stars just like I did. Bottom left to the topmost point as the first stroke. That's how you draw it when you want to defend something, ward something away from a location, or banish a spiritual ent.i.ty."

"So this could have been a banis.h.i.+ng spell?" Murphy asked.

"It's possible. But you can do a lot of other things with it, if you draw it differently."

"Like build a cage for things," Murphy said.

"Yeah." I frowned, troubled. "Or open a doorway for something."

"Which, judging by your face, would be bad."

"I..." I shook my head. I didn't even want to know what kind of terror would need a pentagram that huge in order to squeeze into our world. "I think if something sized to fit this pentagram had come through it, there would probably be more than one building on fire."

"Oh," Murphy said quietly.

"Look, until I know what the pentagram's purpose was, all I can do is speculate. And there's something else weird here, too."

"What's that?"

"There's not a trace of residual magic, and there should be. h.e.l.l, with this much power being tossed around, the whole area should practically be glowing. It isn't."

Murphy nodded slowly. "You're saying they wiped their prints."

I grimaced. "Exactly, and I have no idea how to do it. h.e.l.l's bells, I didn't know it was possible possible."

I sipped at my coffee in the silence and pretended the s.h.i.+ver that went down my spine was from the cold. I pa.s.sed the cup to Murphy, who took a sip from the opposite side and pa.s.sed it back to me.

"So," she said, "we're left with questions. What is a major-league supernatural hitter doing placing a huge pentagram under an empty apartment building? What was his goal in creating it?"

"And why blow up the building afterward?" I frowned and thought of an even better question. "Why this this building?" I turned to Murphy. "Who owns it?" building?" I turned to Murphy. "Who owns it?"

"Lake Michigan Ventures," Murphy replied, "a subsidiary of Mitigation Unlimited, whose CEO is-"

"Triple c.r.a.p," I spat. "Gentleman Johnnie Marcone."

Chapter Five.

I tried to collect some of the blood in the reflective symbols and use it in a tracking spell to follow it back to its original owner, but it was a bust. Either the blood was already too dry to use or else the person who had donated it was dead. I had a bad feeling it wasn't the winter air that made the spell fail. tried to collect some of the blood in the reflective symbols and use it in a tracking spell to follow it back to its original owner, but it was a bust. Either the blood was already too dry to use or else the person who had donated it was dead. I had a bad feeling it wasn't the winter air that made the spell fail.

Typical. Nothing was ever simple when Marcone was involved.

Gentleman Johnnie Marcone was the robber baron of the streets of Chicago, and the undisputed lord of its criminal underworld. Though he'd long been under legal siege, the bastions of paperwork defended by legions of lawyers had never been conquered, and his power base had grown steadily and quietly. They probably could have tried harder to take him down, but the heartless fact of the matter was that Marcone's management style was a better alternative than most. He'd put the civil civil back in back in civil offender civil offender, harshly cutting down on violence against civilians and law enforcement alike. It didn't make his business any less ugly, just tidier, but it could have been worse, as far as the city's authorities were concerned.

Of course, the authorities didn't know that it was was worse. Marcone had begun expanding his power base into the supernatural world as well, signing on to the Unseelie Accords as a freeholding lord. It made him, in the eyes of the authorities of the supernatural world, a kind of small, neutral state, a recognizable power, and I had no doubt that he'd begun using that new power to do what he always did-create more of the same. worse. Marcone had begun expanding his power base into the supernatural world as well, signing on to the Unseelie Accords as a freeholding lord. It made him, in the eyes of the authorities of the supernatural world, a kind of small, neutral state, a recognizable power, and I had no doubt that he'd begun using that new power to do what he always did-create more of the same.

All of which had been made possible by Harry Dresden. And the truly galling thing about the entire situation was that it had been the least evil of the options that had been available to me at the time.

I looked up from the circle I'd chalked on the concrete beneath a sheltered overhang in the alley and shook my head. "Sorry. Can't get anything. Maybe the blood is too dry. Maybe the donor is dead."

Murphy nodded. "I'll keep an eye on the morgues, then."

I broke the circle with a swipe of my hand and rose from my knees.

"Can I ask you something?" Murphy said.

"Sure."

"Why don't you ever use pentagrams? All I ever see you draw is circles."

I shrugged. "PR mostly. Run around making lots of five-pointed stars in this country and people start screaming about Satan. Including the satanists. I've got enough problems. If I need a pentagram, I usually just imagine it."

"You can do that?"

"Magic's in your head, mostly. Building an image in your mind and holding it there. Theoretically you could do everything without any chalk or symbols or anything else."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because it's a pointlessly difficult effort for identical results." I squinted up at the still-falling snow. "You're a cop. I need a doughnut."

She snorted as we left the alley. "Stereotype much, Dresden?"

"Cops do a lot of running around in their cars, and they don't always get to control their hours, Murph. Lots of times they can't leave a crime scene to hit a drive-through. So they need food that can sit in a car for hours and hours without tasting foul or giving them food poisoning. Doughnuts are good for that."

"So are granola bars."

"Is Rawlins a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, too?"

Murphy casually b.u.mped her shoulder against my arm when I was between steps, making me wobble, and I grinned. We emerged onto the mostly empty street. The firemen had been wrapping up their job when I arrived, and every truck but one had departed. Once the flames were out the show was over, and there were no rubberneckers anymore. Only a few cops were in sight, most of them in their cars.

"So what happened to your face?" Murphy asked.

I told her.

She concealed a smile. "'The Three Billy Goats Gruff '?"

"Hey. They're tough, all right? They kill trolls."

"I saw you do that once. How hard could it be?"