The streets of Chicago are teeming with baddies, and it’s once again up to Harry Dresden to save the day.  But time is running out.  Halloween is swiftly drawing near, and if Harry can’t solve the case in time…

Well, expect doom.

Proceed with caution:

Last time, Harry received a voice message from Sheila, Bock’s assistant from the bookstore.  She sounded terrified, so naturally it was Harry Dresden to the rescue.

He showed up at Bock’s shop, which was very close to Billy’s apartment. He walked in the door and was greeted with some interesting news: He was no longer allowed in that store.  Since trouble seems to follow Harry wherever he goes, Bock decided it would be better for him to not return to the shop.

Harry then went into the back room to talk to Sheila.  She was freaking out, because she sensed someone watching her.  She knew the room was empty but couldn’t shake the feeling of another presence.  Harry told her to trust her instincts on this and if she felt it again, to call the cops and draw attention to the fact she could sense them.

Sheila apparently found all of Harry’s heroics attractive.  She asked him out on a date.

But of course, something has to ruin the moment.  Alicia and Li showed up at the store and were grilling Bock about his clients.  They wanted to know who he sold the copies of Erlking to.

Instead of endangering Bock any longer, Harry stepped out of the back room and in the most epic manner, admitted to owning one of the copies.

After a little banter, Alicia powered up her magic.  Instead of filling the room with her energy, it made the room feel empty. She called herself a Capiocorpus (taker of corpses) and freely used mental magic.  She wanted Harry to hand over Erlking and the Word or else.  She ended up invading his mind, despite his best efforts to keep her out of his mind.

Sadly, Li relieved Harry of his copy of Erlking and was about ready to kill him when Marcone’s boys showed up.

Miss Gard was among them.  As it turns out, Harry was supposed to die in that back alley. Of course, Marcone believes it’s fun to shake up destiny.  Marcone gave Harry a lead to follow which had to do with the indicator on Wacker. One of Marcone’s boys was shot and killed there.

They dropped Harry off at the hospital so he could get the shuriken out of his leg and hopefully talk to one of the EMTs who responded to the Wacker incident.

He managed to talk to one of them, Lamar.  Just as Marcone said, the victim died while he and Simmons were trying to stabilize him. Out of nowhere, this woman in black robes (probably Kumori) came over to the victim’s body.  She leaned over him and surprisingly he came back to life.

So there’s a potential that these “bad guys” who use sketchy magic may not actually be bad.

That was a fun thought for Harry to process.

Exhausted, Harry went home.  Butters was still adjusting to the new information.  Thomas was pretty sure it would break the poor scientist. Harry was hopeful that he’d come around eventually, but there were more pressing things to deal with.  He used Thomas as a soundboard as he tried his best to find the next step.  The book was about a wyldfae who was in charge of running the Wild Hunt, where predatory faeries get together and kill anything in their path.  Since this had to do with faeries, Harry thought it would be a good idea to talk to his godmother.  He left Thomas in charge of figuring out a cypher and brought Mouse along with him.

Will Leanansidhe help her godchild without causing more trouble? Find out next time!