Building Faith

By Ellf

Fools Rush In 1

Disclaimer: Jim Butcher owns the Dresden Files, any other works of fiction mentioned are not owned by me.

There were better things I could have been doing than standing out in the cold on a Friday evening in the middle of January. I could have been down at the card shop, polishing off the latest addition to my deck and getting ready for the Friday night tournament that either I or my sister would end up winning. I could have been down in the lab, brewing a potion or two, purely as practice, of course. Practice I felt that I sorely needed sometimes. I could also have been at home, spending some time with Mom and the jawas, maybe even watching some TV. Unfortunately, I had to be standing outside this apartment building just before sunset because the person inside wouldn't come to answer the door.

At least I wasn't out here alone.

Molly knocked on the door again, before turning to me and Drew. "I don't think anyone's home."

"That can't be right," I said. "We were told that Mr. Maroni should have been home."

"And," Drew added. "That Lexus in the parking lot looked like the one that you described."

Drew was a decently tall young man, about a two and a half years older than myself and Molly. Sure, some people might find it strange that two identical blonde girls were out with a boy of Drew's… complexion, but fuck them. Drew stood about a shade under six and a half feet tall, and he had broad muscular shoulders that had thickened in the past year and ten months. Tonight he wore a leather jacket over a black tactical turtleneck and blue jeans. He wore a pair of leather gloves to keep himself warm.

"Quiet down for a sec, I'm going to try something," I said, and I leaned forward, placing my ear on the door. I blocked out everything for a second and Listened.

I might have mentioned it before, but Listening isn't really any sort of magic. It's just really a concentration exercise in paying attention to what your senses are telling you. You block out all the unnecessary noise and focus on what you're specifically trying to listen to. You know you've done it right when the sounds of the world fall away and all you can hear is what specifically is in your target area. In this case, my target area was beyond this door.

Through the door, I heard the tell-tale hum of electricity running through various appliances. Refrigerator, television, washer, drier… Maroni must have had some decent equipment. What I didn't hear was any breathing, no animal movement, no conversations. I heard nothing going on beyond the door other than what sounded like a leaky faucet.

Stopping my listening, I turned back to my sister. Like me, she had her blonde hair cut at her shoulders. She wore a black headband that held her hair back today, and she had on some light make-up that even Mom would approve of, even if she really didn't want us wearing make-up right now. For this outing, she wore a fur-lined coat with a hood, along with pants and some snow boots, nearly matching my own outfit. I, on the other hand, had my hair tied back in a braid today, and while my outfit was similar to Molly's, I had some slight differences, including my gloves.

"Sounds like nobody's home." I tried the doorknob lightly, and it turned. I gave a slight push and the door opened, but no alarm went off. "Well, isn't that interesting?"

"Maybe he stepped out?" Molly asked.

"Maybe." I held out a hand, and I frowned. "Molly, feel that?"

Molly held out her hand and frowned, nodding. No Threshold.

"Guy must not really live here, or if he does, he must not consider it home," I said.

"How can you tell?" Drew asked.

"Threshold," I said.

"There isn't one," Molly continued.

"But that doesn't mean what we're after isn't here. The source is usually pretty good," I said.

Molly nodded. "So do we?"

I peered into the darkened apartment. I wasn't entirely sure where to look there, but I was pretty certain I could narrow it down if I needed to.

"You two wait in the car," I said. "I'll go in and see if it's in there. If it is, I'll get rid of it, and we can go, otherwise, I'll be out in ten minutes, twenty tops."

"Fai, I really should be going in with you."

"Moll, I need you out with Drew so you can relay messages."

"Then I should be going in and you can be the Drew relay."

"Moll…" I glanced inside. I think I should do it. Please, Molly.

Molly blew out a sigh. Fine. If you don't come out in fifteen minutes, I'm coming in to get you.

"Okay, now that that's settled," I said, smiling.

"Fai, I don't think you should go in alone," Drew said. "But if Molly's fine with it, I'll play getaway driver."

"Thanks, Drew." I smiled at my friend. He'd… adjusted… over the past year and a half. It hadn't been easy, I was certain, but he'd managed to come through. Maybe it was due to his forcible induction into the Venatori as well, or perhaps just his inability to rationalize away what he saw. Ivy had a chance to erase his memories of events completely, but he chose to keep them and that choice was respected.

My sister and friend went off to the parking lot, and I turned toward the empty apartment with no threshold. The item in question was a small book that was sold as a part of a lot of occult-related books. It was small, nondescript, supposedly with a red cover, and in theory it could do what Cecelia nearly managed to do if it got into the wrong hands.

I stepped into the apartment, and I shut the door behind me. I reached up to my neck and undid the clasp of my necklace, holding up the pentacle my mentor had given me. Next to it on the chain was my crucifix, something I refused to give up even with magic. An effort of will allowed me to channel some power into both, lighting each up to make it easier to see. Better than flashlights.

The apartment was a mess. Pizza boxes were strewn about the floor, along with empty two-liter bottles. I wrinkled my nose as a bit of the apartment's smell hit me. Gah, it was like something died in here. Sweat, bodily fluids of all sorts, rotting vegetables, mold, I really didn't want to think about what could be causing the smell, and what must have been the bathroom didn't smell much better as I passed by it. Thankful for my gloves, I resisted the urge to pick everything up and start putting it away as I slowly made my way through the apartment. I was thankful that I didn't see any needles among the detritus that lined the floor so he wasn't an addict, but God, this guy was a worse slob than I'd ever been in my past life.

Reaching out with my senses, I tried to see if anything twigged me as magical or close enough. Harry'd turned an Easter Egg hunt into a teaching experience last year, where each egg had been lightly enchanted with a different enchantment, and we were to not only find each one but identify what the candy inside was going to be by the enchantment upon it. If we got it right, we got to eat the candy. If we got it wrong, the candy got put in a pile for the jawas.

Mom wasn't exactly happy with that lesson. Hope and Amanda get really hyper if you give them too much chocolate, and Harry tended to go for the peanut butter. Thank God my youngest brother doesn't have any sort of peanut allergy. Danny, Mattie and Allie had more than enough candy as well. They're just old enough that they can act normally with it.

There was something... a little faint… wait… Ah-ha. There! Felt like…. Okay, more like it tasted like a… Oh, that was nasty. It was here alright, and whatever it was, I wanted to get rid of it. I walked through, around what must have been a nice leather sofa once, and to a desk which had a box on it. The feeling wasn't coming from within the box, though I did give a glance inside. The box had some books, but none that matched the description of what I was after. No, what I was after was in the wall… behind a… was that a poster of a… Okay, that was a signed poster of "Lara Romany."

At least Maroni had some taste. Lara was tastefully nude on this poster, and he was using it to hide… what? I lightly pulled at the framed poster, because of course it was framed, and behind the poster was an electronic safe. Really now? Electronic safe, keypad and everything. Visible blinking light on it too.

"Oh, Maroni, just what are you hiding here?" I held out my right hand, and the runes around the circle I'd sewn into my glove lit up. I gathered up my will and balled up a small amount of energy. I didn't really want to do too much, but I couldn't do too little either. See magic and technology? It doesn't like to mix. Using magic around most relatively complex electronics can cause them to fail. Something something public perception, something… I kinda tuned Harry out when he effectively told me I couldn't use a computer anymore, but he did teach us something about weaponizing the effect. Just taking a batch of raw magic and unleashing it in all of its techbane glory. Harry's incantation for this was hexus, but that reminded me too much of Fern Gully and Tim Curry for my liking so I used a bit of a different incantation. "Entropga…"

What can I say? Once a gamer, always a gamer. I unleashed my little ball of techbane entropy into the safe, and the screen scrambled. After a few seconds, the safe popped open, and then the screen powered off completely. Sitting within the safe were two books, a stack of bills, and two bricks of… Wow, Maroni was into some serious shit. One of the books in the safe was the one I needed, but the other looked interesting. I'd take it out and look at it after I dealt with the book at hand.

This one shouldn't have had any sort of magical protection, I was told. So all I needed to do was just destroy it by whatever means I had available. I was a wizard-in-training, I had some serious means available to me.

Fai, how's it coming in there? Molly interrupted my train of thought for a second. Things are getting a little weird out here.

Found the book. Getting ready to destroy it. I sent back, and I laid the book flat on my right hand. What I was about to do was nowhere near as efficient as what Ivy'd done to that one book, but it should have been able to be handled.

Well, hurry up and get finished. You might want to... Molly faded out. That meant that something caught her attention over in the car with Drew. Multitasking was still a thing we were working on for the distance version of our speech, but if she was busy, I didn't want to distract her.

Glancing down, I saw that Maroni had a metal wastebasket near the desk. Perfect. I dumped the trash out on the already trashy floor and prepared myself. My glove's runes started glowing red as I went through my mental mnemonic for the spell I was about to cast. "Ignicus."

A fireball formed above my hand, exactly where the top of the book was, and I tossed both it and the book into the metal trashcan, where my fireball ignited the book with a small boom. I hadn't put too much power behind that as I didn't want to actually blow anything up. After verifying that yes, the book was burning, I went over to the safe to look at the other book.

Die Lied der Erlking was the title of the second book within the safe, which roughly translated to "The Song of the Erlking." Of course, it was terrible German, and it probably should have been something like "Das Lieds der Erlkonig" or the "Songs of the Erlking." I wasn't even sure if that would have been correct either, but either way, I couldn't just leave this book here either. What I could do, however, is leave a small stack of cash on the desk, which is what I would have paid for the book if Maroni had actually been here.

I started to make my way out of the apartment, when I heard a thump from within what I thought had been the bathroom on the way in. I made my way through the living room to the door, still holding my pentacle and crucifix high, and I pulled it open. Well. That explained why nobody was home and why I heard nobody breathing. It even explained the leaky faucet sound.

Propped up against the cabinet under the sink was what had been a young Italian-American man. He'd looked sort of thuggish with slicked-back hair that you'd expect on a member of the mob. He'd been wearing khaki slacks and what probably had been a white dress shirt and maybe a black tie. I couldn't really tell with the blood running down his front.

Molly, get Drew to call the police. I sent to my sister. This wasn't something that I wanted to get involved with at all if I could help it.

Fai, that's what I wanted to— I heard a door further into the apartment burst open, loudly. Before I could even tell what was happening, two uniformed officers in SWAT body armor and holding assault rifles with flashlights attached stepped into the living room, their lights reflecting off the bathroom mirror into my eyes. Once they saw me, they immediately pointed their guns at me.

"Freeze! Hands on your head, and down on the ground!" I quickly pondered just running, but I wasn't sure I could get my spell off before they fired the gun. I complied with their request instantly, letting my pentacle fade as their flashlights shone on me.

I heard the front door slam open as someone kicked it in. "Clear!"

One of the officers came over to me with some handcuffs. Moll, we might have a bit of a problem.

As he clicked the handcuffs onto my wrist, the officer said, "You're under arrest."

He then started to read me my rights. Oh, what a day. What a lovely day.

Author's note:

I'm actually glad about the response this fic has gotten both here and elsewhere. This is the beginning of the Second Book, which will be longer than the first. I'll be trying to do a chapter post a day here, and there are 44 chapters for this one, each about this length.