Next morning's breakfast was slightly more tense than usual, in Dresden's mind.

Ruby had woken up early, anticipating the coming day, and a final end to the boredom of sitting around the apartment and taking occasional walks with Mouse, while Dresden and Yang explored and went around the city. She was, by nature, adventurous, and wasn't content to simply lay about like a couch potato.

Dresden, for his part, was thinking about what to do with the coming day. He had no leads, besides the mysterious flute, and he doubted that Yu and his cronies would be so stupid as to keep that warehouse open as a base.

He didn't have many options: and he doubted many others in the area would have heard of the sudden appearance of the Jade Court, if he hadn't. Except, of course, for one.

He wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of seeing him, but he might have no other choice.

Dresden and Ruby finished their breakfast, and got ready to leave. Dresden took his staff and rod, while Ruby got dressed in her clothes.

Dresden looked at the tiny Huntress, frowning. "Those are the same clothes you had when you came here." He said, eyeing up the dress critically.

Ruby looked down at herself, holding up her red frilled skirt. "Yeah?"

"You haven't changed?"

"No." Ruby admitted. "I didn't exactly have a lot on me when I came through that portal."

Dresden shook his head. "I'm not sitting in a car with you with three-day old clothes on."

"Well, what else am I supposed to wear?"

Dresden thought a moment, looking Ruby up and down. He thought about his options, then snapped his fingers. "I've got an idea." He said.

He led Ruby to his room, rummaging through his drawers. He drew out a simple shirt and pair of jeans, throwing them onto the bed. Taking a pair of scissors, he cut them to what he thought was Ruby's length.

"Try that." He said.

Ruby looked at the clothes skeptically, taking note of their age and worn look.

Though, she did admit, they smelled a bit better than her current clothes, and less dirty.

She went into Dresden's bathroom and changed, coming out a few minutes later. She wore a dark grey shirt, which hung down to slightly below her hips. Her worn blue jeans were baggy, but they were held by a dark belt, also supplied by Dresden. Finally, she wore a leather coat, which Dresden had intended to give to his apprentice, Molly, after she had left it at his house, but never getting around to it.

She looked at herself in the mirror, scowling. "I don't like it." She said, picking at the jeans. "It's way too roomy. I feel like I'll blow away in the wind!"

Dresden ruffled her hair, causing her scowl to deepen even further as she tried to fix it. "Relax, kid, you'll get used to it." He teased.

And not to mention it makes you look like a generic inner city kid, rather than somebody from an alternate dimension. He thought. That's less of a target on my back.

At this moment, Yang had come in, finished cleaning the dishes. She looked at her transformed younger sister, nodding. "Lookin' good, sis!" she encouraged, giving the teenager a sincere, radiant smile. "Glad to see you expanding your horizons a bit."

Ruby grumbled, picking at loose strands in the jeans. "I don't know how you walk in this stuff." She mumbled.

Dresden, for his part, put Ruby's clothes in the laundry basket, except for one. When he got to the scarlet cloak, Ruby spun around, quick as a viper, and snatched it out of his hand.

"Not that one." She snapped. "That stays with me."

Dresden arched an eyebrow, looking at Ruby, which caused her to look away, embarrassed.

"Sorry." She said. "It's just…it's sentimental, you know?"

Dresden was briefly reminded of the pendant under his shirt.

"It's alright." He said, and pushed no further.

After that, he and Ruby left through the door, with Yang staying back.

"I'll hold down the home fort." She said, leaning in the doorway. "Make sure none of those creeps you told me about come walking in."

Dresden would've asked if she could handle it, but at this point, she would be better prepared then he would. So, with a simple goodbye, he and Ruby left, heading to the Blue Beetle.

"So, what's first, partner?" Ruby asked, her cheerful and curious demeanor returned full-force.

Dresden was silent for a moment, waiting for the Blue Beetle to start up.

"We need to go find somebody who's in touch with the various vampire courts of the city. Since the Red Court…isn't an option, and I don't like talking to people whose breathe smells like week-old corpse, I need to contact the White Court."

"White Court?"

"Emotion vampires." Dresden explained. "Rage, Fear, though the most common one is Lust."

"So, instead of taking blood, they eat emotions?"

"Basically? Yeah."

"Weird. So, who are we seeing?"

"A good friend of mine. Name's Thomas. He'll probably be able to give us some of the info we need."

The rest of the trip passed in relative silence, with Ruby looking out the window at the various sights of Chicago. Sometimes, she would silently whisper something to herself, or give a muffled "Woah" but other than that, she made no other noises.

Eventually, Ruby and Dresden pulled into an apartment complex, in up-town Chicago. After a few months of living with Dresden, Thomas had moved into his own place, his own apartment. At first, Dresden had been lonely (not that he'd ever tell Thomas that: to Dresden, Thomas's head was already big enough without him adding more hot air), but he'd adapted, like he always did.

And now, here they were, outside Thomas Raith's apartment, seeking information. How the tables turned, indeed

Dresden shut the Beetle off, and both he and Ruby stepped out of the small car, slamming the doors behind them. The building itself was of high quality, a wealthy complex catering to the upper class and visiting businessmen. It was mostly marble and steel, much more modern than the brick and mortar of downtown.

Normally, it was not a place Dresden would have visited, for the same reason he never stayed in hospitals: most of these places were heavy in electric wiring and tech. And, because of his ability as a walking EMP, Dresden's mere presence caused potential danger, especially if he short-circuited a nearby electrical socket or light fixture.

And besides, Dresden thought ruefully, I couldn't afford a closet here.

The automatic doors to the building stuttered slightly, then opened, albeit slowly. The lobby was every bit as pristine and clean as the outside of the building. Fine wooden board compromised the floor, reflecting the glow of the orange lights into the white walls. A humble desk sat in the middle, in front of a bubbling fountain, and at it sat an elderly valet in a trim red suit.

Dresden and Ruby walked up to the valet, who smiled warmly at them. "Welcome to the Red Lantern hotel and hospitality club." He said. "Would you two like a room?"

"Actually," Dresden replied, keeping his voice as businesslike as possible. "We're looking for one of the guests here. Thomas Raith."

"Raith, Raith…" the valet murmured, flipping through an ancient-looking log book. "Ah, yes. He's in the penthouse suite, floor 13."

He looked up, peering over his monocles. "I assume you're more of his patients?"

"Patients?"

"Mr. Raith had other guests recently. Said they had an appointment with their chiropractor here."

Chiropractor?

"Thank you." Dresden said abruptly, turning on his heels and heading for the stairs. Ruby followed him, almost jogging to keep up with his fast-paced strides. When they reached the door, Dresden opened it, and allowed Ruby to go through first.

"You didn't say your friend was a doctor." She said as Dresden stepped through, shutting the door behind them. He turned to her, grimacing.

"Chiropractor. And he isn't."

Ruby frowned, her dark eyebrows furrowed in thought. "But the valet said…"

"The valet told us what he thought was true." Dresden interrupted, gripping his staff. "And sometimes, what we think is true, really isn't."

"Like that stuff you told me about before? Glimmer?"

"No. This is just somebody lying through their teeth. But you get the idea."

Ruby nodded tersely, reaching behind her cloak and withdrawing her weapon. A small section popped out of the back, shaping into the rough shape of a gun butte, while a scope popped out of the top.

Hell's Bells, I'm glad she brought that along. Dresden though. He felt the familiar weight of his .44 revolver in his jacket, and wondered for a moment if he should've brought anything bigger. He dismissed the idea out of hand: he had his magic. The gun was usually just a formality.

Besides, he didn't want it to look like he was compensating.

Nodding to the short teen next to him, the two ascended to the stairs. Dresden was reasonably fit, but the room was thirteen stories up, and he needed to move quickly.

Thus, he was surprised to find that, when he got to the top, Ruby was already waiting for him, smiling.

He stopped and stared for a moment. He hadn't seen her pass him. How did she…

"Coming?" she asked sweetly, gesturing to the door. As she did, Dresden swore he could see rose petals falling from the slight movement of her cloak.

Ruby opened the door, holding it open for him. "After you." She said, grinning.

I can't be rubbing off on her that quickly. Dresden thought, giving her a half-hearted scowl before walking through the door.

The hall was much like the lobby, save with fewer pieces of furniture. At the far end was a single door. Or what would have been a door, if it wasn't chipped, cracked, and broken in several places, entire sections missing.

Dresden stopped, reaching back into his coat and drawing out his revolver. At the same time, he primed his shield bracelet, and the kinetic runes on his staff.

"Ruby." He whispered. The redhead looked at him, and he jerked his head to the side, to the end of the hallway. Ruby looked to where he was gesturing, and back at him, nodding, her expression shifting to one of seriousness. She ran down the hall, slightly crouched to muffle her footfalls, and then turned, training her sights on the door.

Dresden turned back to the door, creeping down the hallway slowly, keeping to one side. He had a good view of the door, while giving Ruby a clear shot if anything unexpected came out.

When he was within' a foot of the door, he thought he heard a noise inside, and froze.

There was a shuffle and a grunt, and then the door shattered.

Dresden felt splinters slam into his coat, and he grunted, rolling out of the way.

The first thing he noticed about the thing that came through the door, was that it smelled awful. Like, week-old seafood left in the garbage next to a crime scene, awful.

The next thing he noticed was the greened, puffy skin and stiff, thin limbs.

The last thing he noticed was that it was almost directly ontop of him.

Harry cursed, thrusting his staff forward. "Forz…"

He got about as far as the 'a' in Forzare, before the vampire slammed him into another wall, knocking the breath out of him. The beast held him tight, and leaned in, it's glossy eyes staring right at Dresden.

"Wizard." It hissed, it's grin revealing long, sharp teeth stained brown. "You are too late."

Dresden coughed, his torso pounding. "And you're an idiot." He replied, giving the undead monster a returned smile. "But hey, so long as we're stating the obvious."

The vampire frowned. "What do you…"

From down the hallway, there was a sound that distinctly resembled that of a battleship cannon, and Dresden didn't see, so much as feel, the bullet tearing through the vampire, violently bursting through the other side. The vampire went down silently, save for the gasp of the bullet tearing what air remained in his lungs out.

Dresden was flung away as it died, sliding along a few feet of carpet. He was still for a moment, and then a hand was at his shoulder. He felt himself roll over, and he gazed into Ruby's worried, panicked face. And he must have gotten a concussion, because he could swear there were rose petals drifting from her hair.

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed. "Are you alright?!"

Dresden groaned, sitting up. He felt like his head split open. His ears rang, and Ruby sounded muffled, like he was wearing a thick pair of ear muffs.

"Ouch. Yeah, I'm fine, pipsqueak." He assured.

"I'm so, so sorry!" she said again, crestfallen. "I just forgot you didn't have an Aura, and I just wanted to get him off you, and I shot him, and now your ears are bleeding, and-"

Dresden held up a hand, stemming the flow of apologies. " 's alright." He said. "The important thing is, you got the creep off me."

He felt his ears. Indeed, there was a little blood there.

"Just a little tear." He said, trying to calm the tiny huntress. "I have some stuff that can fix it up when we get back."

Ruby nodded, a look of relief on her face. She helped Dresden back up, handing him his staff.

Dresden looked to the vampire, whistling in approval. The thing was indeed very, very dead. The bullet had torn through its torso, and there was now more air than flesh in there.

"Alright, my young padawan." He said. "Let's go see if Thomas is still…"

"Alive?" responded a tired, faux-French voice from the door.

Dresden's head whipped around, to find the tired eyes of Thomas Raith staring right back at him, his shirt torn in several places, ripped and bloody. His long, black hair was slick with sweat, and one eye was already bruising. His sawed-off shotgun was held limp in one hand.

"Thomas." Dresden said, as though he hadn't just gotten thrown at a wall. "You look like shit."

Thomas looked Dresden up and down, raising one eyebrow.

"So do you. But then, that's normal for you, isn't it?"

Yep. Dresden thought. Definitely Thomas.

"So, Harry." Thomas said, dropping the French and jerking a thumb at the corpse. "You must be wondering who these guys are."

"Jade Court." Harry responded, waving it away. "I was hoping you could tell us why."

Thomas frowned, then sighed. "You might want to come in."

….

The interior of Thomas's apartment was completely trashed. Chairs were upended, tables flipped over, and several windows were cracked. In one corner, Dresden saw two other corpses, peppered with bullet holes and stab wounds.

"Friends of the guy your kid killed." Thomas explained. "They thought they had the situation handled."

"Speaking from experience, there's not a person in the world who can handle your situation, Mr. Drama Queen." Dresden said, a tired grin over his face.

"Says the guy who gets involved in a new plot to end the world every week." Thomas shot back.

"Every other week."

"Does it matter?"

"Touché." Dresden said.

The three of them sat at the remains of a table, drinking from glasses of alcohol. Thomas and Dresden took coffee, while Ruby had a chilled glass of skim milk.

They all took sips from their drinks at roughly the same time, and while Ruby and Dresden enjoyed theirs, Thomas began talking.

"Jade Court, as you know already." He began. "Real bad news. They practically own Asia, and normally, they're content to stay to their little slice of pie. But something's brought them here."

"Their first act," Thomas said, setting several polaroid photographs in front of them. "Was to blitz the other Courts."

One photo was of a graveyard, thoroughly smashed and wrecked. The other was of a filming studio burning. The last was of a relatively up-scale mansion, in the middle of what looked to be a riot.

"But they're not actually taking any territory." Thomas said. "Which is really fu-"

He looked sidelong at Ruby, who smiled innocently at him.

"Funny." He finished.

Dresden frowned. "So, they come in, but they don't wanna stick around. What could they be doing?"

Thomas shrugged. "I called in some favors when this started going down. Lana says there was supposed to be a big deal goin' on here. A big artifact or something was supposed to be changing hands."

Thomas turned to look at Dresden, his blue eyes accusing. "And then, some hot-shot wizard apparently broke in where it was being stored and took it, right out from under their noses."

Ruby's expression went from curious to surprised, looking from Thomas to Dresden. "Wait, you did that?" she asked, incredulous

Dresden pointedly ignored her, and nodded. "Yeah, I know that part. Question is, what does the Jade want with it?"

Thomas leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. "If I had a guess? It's probably something symbolic. A status symbol, to say "Hey, I'm the biggest guy around". That, or another doomsday artifact or something. Mind if I see?"

Dresden reached into his coat, withdrawing the jade flute from within' it. He set the instrument on the table, and Thomas picked it up, examining the instrument. He hummed to himself, eyeing the jade artifact from all angles. He tapped the metal in several places

"Well?" Ruby asked, after a while. Dresden could see that she was getting impatient, going by the way she tapped her heavy boots on the floor. "What can you see?"

"Not a lot." Thomas admitted. "Looks old, but I can't tell how old. Might be magical, might be mundane. I honestly can't tell. I'm sorry."

Dresden sighed. "Alright, then." He said. "There goes that lead."

The three of them stood up, and Thomas showed them to the door, handing the flute to Dresden.

"Sorry I couldn't solve the case, Harry." Thomas said, his voice genuine.

Harry knew Thomas for a while now, long enough to know he was genuinely disappointed with himself for not being able to help.

"Thanks anyway, Thomas." He said. Harry leaned over, looking at the interior of the apartment. "Sure you don't need help, ah, 'cleaning up'?"

"Nah. This isn't the first time something like this has happened."

"Need me to call Murphy?"

Thomas gave a derisive snort. "Aside from her busting my ass? Nah. I've used some basic spells to sound-proof the place decently."

He looked at Ruby, flashing a grin. "Though I don't know how they work against anti-tank rifles." He joked. "Nice piece."

Ruby blushed, looking down. "Thanks." She said.

Dresden looked between the two of them, then looked at Thomas.

"Well, we'll be leaving." He said, grabbing Ruby and steering her towards the stairs. "Besides, I think it's time she got a cold shower."

….

Ruby followed Dresden back to the car, waiting as he started it all up.

Something about the flute Dresden had found really weirded her out. She couldn't explain it; it was like a nagging feeling in the back of her head, like when she wandered into Grimm territory.

But the more she thought about it, the more it bothered her. She only had feelings like this a few times in her life, and each time, it turned out to be something major. A bomb, a train, an attacking Deathstalker…But this felt like none of those things. That flute felt more sinister.

Dresden saw her staring, and without taking his eyes off the road, asked "Is something wrong?"

Ruby snapped herself out of her thoughts, looking at Dresden. "I don't like this. It smells fishy."

Dresden snorted. "This whole thing is fishy."

"No." Ruby insisted. She sighed, rubbing her forehead. She suddenly head a headache, and her eyelids felt heavy. "This is different. That flute. I think it's evil, or something. I don't know."

Dresden nodded. "Certain objects can take on the traits of their owners. Magic, especially, tends to leave a trace. If the owner was a real piece of work, some of that will rub off."

Ruby nodded. "So, what do we do?"

"I'm going to try and get two birds knocked out with one stone." Dresden said. "You, and your sister, led me to this flute, and the flute led me to the Jade Court. They're connected, somehow. I'm going to see if there's any tracking magic that can help us find anything else. See where to go from there."

"So, little Ms. Rose." Dresden said, pulling into the apartment complex they lived. "It looks like you're the key to this whole case."

Key.

That word resonated with Ruby, somehow. She looked at Dresden's coat, where she knew the flute was.

"Key…" she muttered.