Invisible Hand

by Sunshine Temple

A side story to the Return

Naturally, I own neither Sailor Moon nor Ranma nor the Dresden Files. So here's the disclaimer:

Ranma 1/2 and its characters and settings belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, Koudansha, TV Asahi, and Toei Douga, and DIC. And the Dresden Files is owned by Jim Butcher.

Other works can be found at my fanfiction website.

http://jtemple.florestica.com/

Temporary Backup Site.

http://www.fukufics.com/fic/

Other website Temple of Ranma's Senshi Seifuku

http://fukufics.com

C&C as always is wanted.

This takes place after Blood Debts (book 5) but before Bonding Allure (book 6)

Chapter 3: Smokescreen

Miss Mikki Saito may have run off, but I had my ways. My skill with thaumaturgy was, for my age, exceptional. My tracking spell was the bread and butter of my detective business. Most of my mundane jobs were finding lost items and the like.

However, I did not need magic to find Saito's house. All I needed was a friend in the CPD. Stallings was able to get her address with a few clicks on the police-issue laptop in his unmarked car.

However, he and Balducci stayed back with his sister, brother-in-law and niece and nephew. See, cops had all sorts of arcane rules when it came to entering someone's house without permission. And they were going to track down other leads. Ones that were a bit less... felonious.

So, it was really best to not have the head of Special Investigations... witnessing anything. As for Balducci... I doubted he was a good second story man.

Either way, since he, as a licensed counselor, had credentials that gave him an in with the medical community. Thus, the legwork he was doing was to look into naughty nurse Saito's background and that of a few other people.

Which left me standing alone in front of a house on the southern edge of Bucktown. Almost in Wicker Park, it was a stout two-story, peach brick building with double doors under a fanned green awing. There were trees between the sidewalk and road and the street was full of similar houses and square two story apartment buildings.

It was squatter and far less cute than Murphy's little gingerbread style house, but there was a clean precise neatness to the place. It also did not give off any vibes of major bad mojo.

Which meant that if Saito was doing dark rituals here, she was able to keep it on the down-low. Similarly, I was pretty sure there was no one in the house, but... it was not like my surveillance had been overly long, and there were ways for people to hide or even sneak in.

It's not like I had access to several anonymous vans full of spooks in business casual, who could act as my flunkies. Not that I was jealous of my older sisters or anything.

I openly approached the house. As of yet, there had been no indication of activity within, which was a good sign, given the timetable.

There was a pair of trashcans on the curb. From the amount of stuff, either Saito had missed last week's pickup or she did not live alone, which confirmed the, disquieting, records Stallings had pulled up.

If I had time, I would have gone through them. Laugh all you want, but dumpster-diving is a great way to get clues about people's habits, purchases, and routines. Sure, a sloppy person might toss out a receipt for an ill-gotten item, a note of a meeting, or some obvious clue.

But all but the most paranoid will leave something in their garbage that can be used against them. Again, not to reference certain family members, but I knew a blonde who had all of her family's trash secured, shredded, burned, and scattered.

Now, given that a skilled wizard could use various items as thaumaturgy components, tracking spells were the start of the fun a wizard could do if, say, she found a bandage covered in someone's fresh blood or hairs or fingernail clippings. Such paranoia was not exactly unwarranted.

That was why nurse Saito freaked out when I pretended to grab a strand of her hair. She knew that with one of those it would be hard for her to hide from me.

There were countermeasures: she could shave her head, use the right amulet, hide behind a ward, and so on.

The wood doors were neat and clean.

Holding my staff, I eyed the keyhole. Saito had invested in good locks and not the junk the hardware store sold, that anyone with a bit of wire and an instructional video could open. Locks, by and large, are very easy to defeat. Hells Bells, even I had a set of picks and could open most basic locks.

Though, in my experience, most security was illusionary and worked more by the collective belief of people involved.

Here's an easy example: get a reflective vest, a confident, but overworked, attitude, and a clipboard, and you can go just about anywhere. Add some tools and a ladder and the world is your oyster.

Back to Saito... she had sprung for the good locks and had a set of those little security cameras above the door and the other entrances. Those were a known risk and had been a part of my entrance plan.

Giving a wry smile, I knocked on the door.

And a busty auburn-haired werewolf unlocked and opened the door. Andi was still adjusting her dress and had a few leaves in her hair from a tree near a ground floor bathroom window. It was too narrow for an adult human to fit through, but a fluffy wolf could squeeze in, after a wizard had used a bit of kinetomancy to jimmy the lock.

"This is the last time I play the greaseman," Andi said as she stepped back from the Threshold.

I exhaled. That was what I had expected. This house was protected by a Threshold. It was surprisingly strong, which meant either an emotional bond to the location or a strong bond between the residents. Either way, this building was a home.

And thus had magical protection.

It turns out that cops are not the only people who had arcane rules about entering houses uninvited.

Mortal wizards, which included succubae wizards, thank you very much, are not physically bared by Thresholds. There are some beings, like ghosts or certain types of vampires who can't enter without being invited.

The beings of faerie can enter, but are under certain obligations that limit their actions. And the fae really hated such obligations, so they often don't bother.

Wizards, meanwhile, have to leave the bulk of their power outside. It was a lesser reason why I was loath to go into a place uninvited. The bigger reason was that it was simply rude.

Laugh it up. I can be very polite about the important things. And to those who deserved it. A spooky ninja who pretended to be a caregiver so she could experiment on children did not deserve it.

I stepped into her house. The Threshold pulled at me like a wall of Jello. I felt much of my magic go distant.

Inside, I felt... well a bit hungry. As I sniffed the air, Andi closed the door behind me.

I could still feel my magic bit it was... huh. A bit of flame licked around my fingers before I crushed it with an act of will. It was not my vibrant orange and red wizard's fire, but the pale blue-white demonic fire I got as a succubus.

The house was clean, almost obsessively so. The smell of bleach and cleaners scratched my nose as I sauntered around the stark, pale living room. There was also a burnt scent coming from the kitchen. Andi prowled next to me.

"You find anything interesting?"

"Between squeezing through a window and changing in the bathroom?" She gave me a toothy grin but pointed to the dining room. Beyond that there was that smell of charred paper and strong kitchen cleaners.

I swayed into the room. It was tempting to let my tail and horns out. I mean, it was just the two of us, unless some of the residents in the house were hiding... but they should probably see the real me.

The dining room was a bit less... staged than the living room. The oval oak table showed signs of use, like a tossed paperback book and the remains of a snack: grapefruit juice, dumplings, and a blood sausage. They had all settled to room temperature.

The chairs were padded and looked comfortable. There was a sideboard filled with plants, some more books and knickknacks, and the hardwood floor had shown obvious care.

Looking over some lovingly tended bonsai trees and orchids, I was drawn to the photographs on the wall. In the center was a group shot. Miss Saito with her blonde hair and green eyes was in the middle of a collection of other women. They were pale, mostly petite and Asian. I think they were all Japanese but could, honestly, not tell.

Their hair colors and eye colors were all different, and their faces and heights had some variation. But something about them... maybe it was the way their eyes glinted at the camera or the matching set of their jaws.

I was reminded of a picture of myself with my siblings. I did not look very much like my sisters, or my brother, but we had enough similarities. The other pictures were of the same group, in various subsets, doing fun activities: camping, bowling, fishing, going to one of those "bake your own pottery" events, and other bits of normality.

Floral and earthy scents from the plants wafted up as I eyed the five faces. Stalling's information was right. Saito was not alone. Five other people lived here, all of whom worked with children or in the healthcare industry, specifically pediatrics. The lone exception was the one who worked as a secretary for a laboratory testing company.

Anger flared, I could feel my glamour wavering as a cold presence ran down my spine and the length of my tail. The acrid burnt-paper smell grew... sharper as my senses recovered.

I still had some of the gauzy blanking that came with leaving behind a portion of my wizard's power, but I had lost the muffing that came with hiding my horns.

Stomping into the kitchen, I wanted to gouge up Saito's precious polished floors with my hooves, but I had some self control.

A small metal brazier had been dropped onto the stovetop. It was full of ashen grey papers and forms. I carefully stepped up and eyed them. Most were piles of burnt flakes, but the upper-most layer was delicate, insanely-fragile wisps.

Medical records, logbooks, charts. One sheet had a list of serial numbers and attached information, weights, hair color, blood type, and ages. The cold rage flowed down me from the tips of my horns to the ends of my hooves. "They were experimenting. On children," I growled.

"Why?" Andi asked halfway in the kitchen. She had a worried, apprehensive look.

The ugly thoughts raging within me abated as I flicked my tail. That was an excellent question. I decided to tell Andi a bit more of what I had seen. "I checked out three of the kids. They all had minor powers. They're too young for it to awakened yet, and they might not even have as much as you, but I don't like those odds. It can't be a coincidence that this bad nurse was doing black magic on them.

"They're being cautious, this isn't about killing them..." As far as I knew, Butters wasn't dealing with a mass of anemic, drained dead kids. He was dealing with something else however.

Empty Night, if he had seen bodies like that, he'd have hatted up with his light saber and have been out here chopping. Saito and her... sisters were doing something subtle, something that used humans as lab rats.

I frowned.

Five or six years ago, a bunch of White Court vamps had started their own eugenics pilot program. In short, they were proving that vampires could eliminate vast numbers of humans with minor magical talents, and thus, over the generations, greatly reduce the number of humans with major magical talents, critically damaging the capability of the White Council of Wizards.

As plans go, it was monstrous, patient, but ultimately... effective. Not all wizards had parents with magical capabilities but most did. Humans were shorter-lived than vampires, and it would take only a few generations for the plan to bear fruit.

House Skavis, who fed on despair, and House Malvora, who fed on fear, were in a pissing match to claim credit. Meanwhile, House Raith, who did the succubus and incubus thing, was against the idea, officially.

But then, a pair of Wardens of the White Council decided to toss the gauntlet and formally challenge the killers under the UnSeelie Accords, during a big White Court shindig. That battle in the Raith Deeps was the second time I had seen Carlos in a fight.

The first time we had fought side by side I had been a bit distracted by controlling that zombie T-rex I made.

During that duel, it had become apparent why he was the youngest regional commander of the wardens in a century. Carlos had a lot going for him, even now as battered and wounded as he was. Being a Warden was not an easy job.

Also, he Soulgazed Lara, the shadow queen of the White Court. And well... she is a very tempting woman. It came with the whole professional temptress thing. She was good at it.

Meeting her, as I was now, was... challenging. Stupid horns. I idly wondered how she'd stack up against my eldest sister who was... well more on the overt side and less on the "bedroom" skills.

I shouldn't say my big sister was clumsy at being a succubus. She had been at it far longer than me, and she was seducing a radiant, literally, Moon Queen.

Maybe Saito and her sisters were doing some sort of experiment to make humans more pliant for feeding.

Maybe they were seeing if they could augment the magical aptitude of humans.

The Perna twins and their friends had been threaded with some kind of Black Magic. But without seeing what those spells were like when active, I could not be certain what they did.

For obvious reasons, I was loath to activate them myself.

"Harry?" Andi asked in a quiet voice.

"I don't know," I growled. "These... people are doing something bad. This is Black Magic that comes with a death sentence under the Wardens."

"Pretty important?" she asked circling around the kitchen. She had slipped on a pair of gloves and was opening cabinets. Huh, Saito and her sisters ate a lot of soup.

"They're running under the radar," I gestured to the burnt paperwork.

"But in this city? Between the Fomor, the White Court and well..." she gestured at me. "This isn't exactly a quiet place."

My staff creaked in my hand. It took effort to not slice through the runes I had carved on the surface with talons.

I had a brief vision of smashing the brazier off the stove and then battering around the kitchen. My staff was strong, made from stout wood harvested from my very own island lair.

"Yeah, but that's giving them cover... lots of weird stuff happens in this city, a few sick kids, maybe more. That's in the noise."

"And if one or two died..."

My eyes burned with ire. "They could blame it on the White Court, or a ghoul, or the Fomor. Hells Bells, maybe they're here working with one of those factions. The White Court tried crap like this before, and the Fomor modify their human servants all the time. These bitches will pay..."

My own magic could utterly destroy the cozy home these.... creatures had made. Flames licked out as I lifted my staff. With a snarl I spun around. "Come on, let's check out the rest of the house. They can't have scrubbed everything, they didn't have the time."

Andi gave my tail a glance but nodded and we exited the kitchen.

Upstairs was.... clean. An acrid bleach-like smell burned at my nostrils. Andi also seemed ill-at-ease. The bedrooms were neat, but lived-in. There were some personal items but the gaping drawers, scuff marks, and carpet depressions showed that at least one heavy item had been removed from each room. They must have had go-bags at the ready.

Furthering the sense that we were dealing with players was the burnt hair and plastic smell that came from the upstairs bathroom. Another brazier, this one full of brushes, combs, toothbrushes, and other personal effects, had been lit and charred. There was a discarded box of blonde hair dye, but the applicator and brush had also been burned.

In addition to being physically destructive, fire had symbolic, purifying properties. Hair, blood, nail clippings, and other bits were a great way to magically track, and do more, to people.

I checked the sink and shower drains for any hair. But, from the caustic smell and discarded bottles, someone had poured Liquid Plumber down them. Caustic soda and bleach may not be as spiritually purifying as fire, but they broke down organic compounds and I'm sure the popular conception of those chemicals "erasing evidence" would not help my case.

After Saito tossed her smoke bomb, in all my years at being a wizard PI, I was still amazed that someone had actually done that to me, she must have called her sisters. And they must have had a plan to scrub everything, grab their go-bags and... go.

That was a disturbing level of paranoia. Worse, it showed organization and practice.

I stared at my pale reflection, cheeks flushing blue in frustration. I wanted to punch out the mirror. "They could be anywhere."

"Not all of them," Andi said. "It's a workday; they couldn't all have been home. The nurse you confronted wasn't."

I nodded absently, as we split up to investigate the remaining bedrooms. With practiced ease, Andi slipped out of her clothes. I gave her body an idle, somewhat hungry, appraisal before she went fuzzy and the big auburn she-wolf started snuffing around.

I stared at some of the prints of old style landscapes, drawings of flowers, and pictures of fish. There was also a small display of a few fishing lures: little lacquered things that gave off the illusion of being harmless baitfish.

This bedroom was probably Mikki Saito's, or at least it had clothes that were in her size and a couple faux jade hair barrettes that matched the one she wore. I bounced one on my palm.

"This was rushed; they had to have left something, even pros couldn't perfectly clean a place they've been living in for over a year." I formed a fist.

The backing to the barrette bit into my palm. A year. They had been operating when I was still human. Hells Bells, they might have been around when I was still hiding on my spooky island pregnant with my youngest daughter.

I pressed a palm onto Miki's dresser. I could have torn this place down. And honestly, it had been a long time since I had burned down a building in Chicago. The last one was...

Okay, the basement apartment that I rented from Mrs. Spunkelcrief was burned to the ground four years ago, but that was due to a pair of crazy Red Court killers. That was also where I had gotten my back broken, which forced me to take Mab's livery...

Which got me sent to another mission where I was injured even worse and ended up joining the horn, hoof, and spade-tipped-tail club.

But if we're going for the last big fire that was my fault in Chicago. Thus, not counting the spot of burgling and arson in Hades' Vault least year. Then that would be when I had the Raith Depths bombed. Which happened after the duel Carlos and I had with those White Court eugenicists went wrong.

Vampires are sore losers.

Like summon a horde of super ghouls and slaughter their extended family sore losers.

Fortunately, I had planed ahead and made a deal with Gentleman Johnny Marcone to provide backup and explosives. All at the low, low cost of adding Chicago's premier mobster to the UnSeelie Accords.

Okay... maybe Carlos had a point to be concerned about me now being part, technically, of the ruling family of a demonic empire. Given I had provided one of the three signatures Gentleman Johnny needed to become Baron Marcone. And that was before I had become my queen's leg-breaker.

That was also the night my Fallen Angel Shadow companion, friend... lover took a psychic bullet for me which resulted in me getting knocked up with our daughter: Bonnie.

That night in the Raith Deeps was about the third worst party in my life. Tying for first was the party at Bianca's where I burned a whole mess of people to death and the end result was Susan, the deceased mother of my other daughter, being turned into a half vampire.

My tail twitched at the idea of having to attend a succubus party. Would it be all 70's orgy style, like with shag carpeting, big hair, and a giant bowl of keys? Or more 80's with slinky too-pale people in latex and masks.

Or would it be some stiff ascetic event of innumerable "artistic" meal courses and chatting about the next season's galleries and fashions while musing on the latest imperialistic conquests, infiltrations, and subterfuge.

I had no idea what kind of obligations Grandma BlackSky would impose on me. At least, I took comfort in the idea that my eldest sister would be even more awkward at such an event, and not just because she was the far more famous demon-chick.

"Harry?" Andi asked, pouting. She then sighed and slapped me across the side of my hip.

I shook my head, and rolled my knees. "Sorry! You think you've got any scents?"

The werewolf adjusted her sleeves and finished putting on the shoes she had kicked off before going fuzzy. "Maybe. They sprayed something up here. I got a bit from their beds but..." She eyed me. "What about you?"

I blinked and inhaled. Right. Demon-chick. "Not sure, I really... I really haven't tried tracking people by scent before."

Andi rolled her eyes.

"But, you're right. The cleaners or whatever..." My nose itched. "Is this how normal harsh cleaning chemicals act?"

"You don't know?"

"I've had these for only two months," I said, gesturing to my... horns.

"Geeze, you are a newb at this." Andi snorted. She looked me over. I knew women had that whole complex rubric of rating other women based on clothes, figure, bearing, status, and dozens of other factors, but I was still getting used to being on the inside of it. "At least you hair's pretty enough."

A... dark part of me wanted to comment about Andi's hair and ask if she bought her hair brushes from the pet department and if her shampoo also killed fleas.

The werewolf smirked. "I guess you're lucky that being a sexy sex demon comes with all the instincts and glam powers."

I had to make sure my blush was pinkish and not my natural color. "Um. That's... more the other side." Yeah, being a succubus came with those powers, but two of my sisters were not exactly up to teaching them.

True, Ranma and Eve were very vain in their own way, and Ranma was fond of dressing up, when it suited her. But, they felt they had "more important" things to teach me. Thinks like how to control my powers and how to use them to beat a Fallen Angel.

Cecilia, our other sister, was more into the "soft" powers that came with being a succubus. And she was good at being the concerned supportive, and only indirectly tempting, sister. Which was part of why I had been wary of her help. Given she had helped me and had been doing so since I became her sister.

She had manipulated me, whispering in my ear as they changed- no, as I changed myself. Cecilia was worried, worried that I was in denial, that I would screw up the change, that I didn't really believe in it.

She was right.

That did not make the nudging she gave me, making me more accepting of what I was... well it might have been necessary, but it was not right. Still, that made me wary. I knew that mind magic was a dark, dark, grey magic in the best of times.

And here I was with a body and powers that excelled at mind bending.

Beyond excelling, it was part and parcel of our reproductive system. Turning new fledgling succubae, guiding broodlings, even with the lightest of touch, there was a mental component that lanced from brood mother to demon daughter.

Like, I had to walk on eggshells enough around people. I was scary enough before I took up Mab's metaphorical coin. Hells Bells, I was scary enough before I took up Lasciel's literal coin.

I swear this was some cosmic irony for not taking my brother's plight seriously. I mean being suave, sexy, strong, always stylish and good with, well..., any sex did not seem like that much of a curse. As long as you ignored the side effects like demonic Hunger and hurting those close to you.

Needless to say, my brother was very amused at his newbie succubus sister's situation.

The complication was not counting my various biological clocks. My brother was an expectant father and I had two daughters, so.... I shook my head.

Andi shot me that curious expression. "Who knew becoming a demon's not all fun and games?" she dryly asked, looking me up and down.

I arched an eyebrow at her and motioned for us to go down the stairs. "Rich, coming from someone who became a werewolf practically on a college dare."

Inspecting the ground floor, Andi laughed. "Please, from what Butters says you metaphorically, no you literally begged them, and begged him, to go all succubus." She gave me a visual once over. "Still, not bad."

I rolled my eyes, and I did not preen.

Andi shook her head. "I'll go to the car and power up my phone, see if Stallings and that the party wiz- magician found anything." She smirked at me. "You can stay here and put your face back on."

I was still pondering what she meant by the time she had slipped out of the back door through the kitchen, when I looked around and saw my reflection. My ears were pointed, my cheeks were more shades of blue than pink, my eyes were more sidhe slitted, and even more blatant, my tail was out. At least the hooves were not so obvious given my long skirt.

I sighed and concentrated shifting back to a more human-seeming appearance.

**************

Being a detective is all about leg-work. It's not all the glitz and glamour of breaking and entering. Even stakeouts lose their sparkle when one finds out it involves staying in one spot watching someone, without being spotted.

It gets worse when you realize figuring out what you'll eat and drink while on stakeout are the start of the logistical problems.

More often, there's making phone calls, knocking on doors, asking questions, and sorting through records and paperwork.

There's also computer searches but that's something, for obvious reasons, I don't have much experience in. Computers and wizards do not mix.

Balducci, despite his fancy gloves and top hat, was not above doing the drudgery and scutwork of private investigation.

After we finished burgling Saito's place, Andi had found waiting messages on her phone.

Stallings' investigation had come up empty. The young women living with Saito had clean enough records, but he still had some feelers in with immigration services for the visas a couple had.

Balducci, however, might have found something.

Which was why, we were in a parking lot of a drab office park down the road from an even more drab hospital.

"Cheerful place," I said hopping out of Andi's car.

"It's Probative Laboratory Services; Butters sends some of his toxicology screens to them," Andi murmured.

I frowned at that. Stallings had mentioned sending the kids' bloodwork to this same place. "And according to our magician friend, PLS also does records retention and distribution for hospitals and the like. Is that a business?"

"Do you have any idea the privacy and liability regulations around medical records?" Andi asked as we went to the front door.

I shook my head and gave both of us a look over. I supposed we could have dressed a bit nicer, but we could still pass as business casual. Though skirts as long as mine were a bit unusual, and Andi's top might have been a bit too well-fitted.

Though, me carrying a staff was eccentric. But a tall pretty woman with exotic eyes and "dyed" blue hair and a glossy long coat cut a different impression than a gangly scarred man with darting eyes and a beat-up duster over street-clothes.

The lobby was drab but at least clean. Though some of the potted plants looked a bit sickly. A perky secretary sat at a grey desk.

I eyed the slender strawberry-blonde. She seemed human. But she was a coworker of Yui Rokubungi, Saito's roommate. She was also pretty, and I did feel a bit hungry.

I put on a smile and strode over to her. "Hi, I'm... Halley Dresden, and this is my associate Andi Macklin. I believe Samri Balducci is already waiting for us with Lieutenant Stallings?"

The secretary's eyes widened in a rather amusing way. "Um, the police aren't here yet, what did you say you were here for?"

"I'm a police consultant," I gave a smile that just might have had a dimple. "I'm helping Balducci with his audit."

The woman nodded something and started typing at her computer. I centered myself and took a couple steps back my wedge heels clacking on the floor. Huh.

"Oh, you must be his assistants," the secretary chirped as she started filling out paperwork.

I managed not to glower.

It did not help when Andi whispered under her breath something about me having the body for a sequined leotard.

The door that led deeper into the office building opened and Balducci stepped through. He nodded to the strawberry blonde behind the desk. "Thank you Karen! I'll make sure they won't get into any trouble."

Balducci no longer looked like stage magician, He wore the expensive, but slightly worn, business casual that I had seen some mental health professionals sported. The ones who made a comfortable living but were too busy to get picture perfect work-clothes.

Karen frowned. "I'll need to see some ID for the guest logs."

Balducci gave a gentle laugh. "My dear, Dresden is in the phone book. Right after me." He then gave me a little bow.

I slowly exhaled. Karen looked a bit like my Karrin, just without the whole edge, and combative sharpness. And Karrin no longer wore her hair that long, nor was it the right shade of blonde, and the secretary was a less wiry build. Still she, was a delicious... um pretty woman.

And then, I snatched the little plastic card from Karen and clipped it to my duster. Andi also took her own guest pass. We then followed Balducci into the next room.

"What'd you find?" I asked, once we had gotten a few feet past the door. We were in one of those echo-y open-floor offices full of people working at computers and bustling around paperwork, some of which were on carts.

On the far end were more sets of doors that went to a room that had rows of filing cabinets and another that looked like some sort of shipping and receiving room. To our left side was a bank of elevators with some very sad looking plastic plants. To the opposite was a break room that was little more than a groaning ice machine, a dead-bulb drink machine, a wobbly table, and an out-of-order fridge.

Balducci paused to collect himself. "I can't just go rummaging through medical records."

"But?"

"But, I can go through the access records. Who checked out the records, who went to the hardcopy archives, and who put notes in the electronic ones. I can't see what Miss Rokubungi saw, or even what changes she made but she's been a very busy woman."

"Do secretaries even have that kind of access?" Andi asked.

"Rokubungi does more than just answer phones for Probative Laboratory Services. She also works in their record integrity section, making sure data is entered properly."

I whistled. "Funny, all the records Stallings found listed her as just a secretary."

Balducci got us moving back towards the secure room with the files. "Oh, she's that too. Plenty of people bend the truth when filling out the part of the form that lists occupation." He gave me a glance.

"And, you think she's doing that with these kids' medical records?"

"I think she's been accessing more records than even the full time auditors, and not just patient records but she's been pulling up paperwork from the toxicology and drug screeners. She's very interested in blood tests."

"If you can't get in to see the actual records Rokubungi was looking through, let along figure out what she was doing to them, why did you call us?" Andi asked.

Balducci looked from me to Andi and then gestured.

"What were we just doing before we came here?" I asked my werewolf companion.

"Looking through Saito and Rokubungi's... Oh." Andi nodded.

Balducci spread his hands. "It's classic misdirection. The magician gets the audience's attention while the beautiful assistants-"

"Do all the work," I grumbled.

"The door is electronic, but I can get inside to the access logs," Balducci said as he slipped me a couple index cards filled with tiny, but neat, writing.

Andi gave me a coy look. And, she was right; I could scramble most electronic locks if I really wanted. And, the bonus was that due to fire codes, electronic locks were set to fail-safe.

They defaulted to open when the power was removed. You wouldn't want to have people trapped inside a burning building just because the power went out.

Now, there might be some exceptions to the rule. Though those were things like bank vaults with mechanical overrides and the like. And, that did get me a bit concerned; maybe medical records were kept on that level of lockdown.

Course.... if the bulk of the records were stored electronically... then me trying to fry a lock might be a bad idea.

"Once we're in you can look at those hardcopies," Balducci said, in a low voice.

"Why these?" I memorized the serial numbers and slipped the notes into a coat pocket. The bulk of wizarding was creating and maintaining mental constructs. When one had the mental training to hold spells that created fire or summon faeries in your mind, keeping track of a couple dozen strings of numbers was easy.

"They were the ones she went to the most frequently; they were also the ones she requested be printed out as backups, that just..." Balducci shrugged

I nodded; sometimes a detective got a gut instinct on a thing.

"Can you get into those cabinets... quietly?"

"How are they locked?" I asked, glancing through the window into the records room. Closer, I could see that there were computer servers, or at least big black racks with blinking lights, to one far end of the room. There were locks on the filing cabinets, but a few were open, at least when the languid staff was pulling out files.

Balducci grinned. "It's an audit; they're not. But we..." he poked a guest badge. "Can't look at those records. And, the staff in there are watching us."

"That's where your distraction comes in?" I eyed him. "What are you going to pull a bouquet out of your sleeve?"

"Not now, I'm not!"

I tilted my head and looked back into the room. One of the staff was moving casually, too... I frowned. Pushing a cart laden with files a coffee carafe and a few boxes, that particular woman had glossy black hair and...

She looked up and her eyes met mine. Green eyes widened for a moment, and she gave a little smirk.

"It's her!"

"Who? Rokubungi?" Andi asked while Balducci caught my eye.

"No, Saito!" I said as we all started running towards the locked door to the records room.

"She wasn't there when I was there," he shouted.

"Duh, she probably waited for you to leave the records room so she could get in," I yelled when we got to the door.

Andi gave my shoes and my skirt a brief, dirty look.

I ignored that and studied the door. There was badge swipe to one side and what looked like a fairly heavy duty electronic lock.

Balducci was already knocking. We did not have time for that.

Saito had stopped the cart she had picked up the silver metal coffee pot.

Right. I reversed grip and slammed my staff onto the lock as if I were spearing it. A wizard's staff is a great multi-purpose focus. While it was not as specialized as, say, my old blasting rod, or the force rings I wore, it could do a lot of things.

Such as... spells that were similar to the ones in my force rings. Spells that stored back a bit of kinetic energy every time they were moved.

Thus, when the end of my staff slammed into the lock, it hit with the force of a jackhammer and the entire lock, strike plate, and part of the frame sheared off and flew across the room.

"So, much for being subtle," Balducci murmured as he somehow managed to be the first one through the door.

Saito, and everyone else in the room, jumped in startled shock. The naughty nurse actually spilled a bit of... clear fluid from her carafe onto the cart.

That was not coffee.

She gave a smile and then dumped the rest onto the pile of papers and boxes. And then struck a lighter.

Hells Bells.

"Forzare!" I cried slipping next to the magician.

The blast of telekinetic force hit Saito and blew her back. This is normally where the villain would slam into a row of computers, or a filing cabinet, or something. Instead she pulled into a somersault and bounded off the wall with inhuman grace.

Right, ninja.

"The wizard, the werewolf, and the fraud." Saito rose up. She wore a dark grey blouse and slacks. Her hair was askew and she pulled it off revealing a black wig hiding her blonde hair.

Balducci blinked and gave Andi a glance. About half the workers in the room ran in a disorganized scrum; the other half stayed planted where they were looking confused.

"You really thought you could just waltz in here?" I demanded striding forward.

Saito simply raised an eyebrow.

I bit my lip. Right, we did the same thing. Still she was here; we could capture her and figure out what black magic she and her "sisters" were up to. The witnesses were a problem, someone was bound to have called the police. At least Stallings was on his way.

As I passed the cart, I could smell the acrid scent of diesel fuel and a few other chemicals. "And what... were you going to start a fire? Burn the evidence?"

The blonde nurse grinned while Andi snorted at me.

And that's when someone hurled a frikin' road flare in my direction.

I was about to use another force blast to knock it aside when Balducci caught it, holding the flare like a giant sparkler I turned and saw the willowy form of Yui Rokubungi, also dressed in office wear. She held a couple more lit flares.

Rokubungi rolled her eyes and tossed the other two.

Balducci lunged to one side and caught the other and, for a moment, I thought he was going to juggle the two he held to intercept the third.

Instead, he concentrated and the flare stopped in midair before reversing direction to fling past Rokubungi. Good, the kinetomancer stage magician had the sense to not put the flaming device back into the villain's hand.

Some of the coworkers blinked and started to ask Yui what was going on.

And that's when I decided to once again show Balducci what a real wizard was like. "Forzare!" I cried.

And this time Rokubungi blasted across the room and smacked the wall with a satisfying thud.

"Harry!" Andi shouted as she tried to intercept the blonde.

"Yui!" Saito screamed as she rushed towards me, managing to bound around the redheaded werewolf.

The nurse paused just long enough to drop a lighter on the cart, which went up with an ominous whump as a mantle of merry yellow flames kindled about.

With her other hand, the blonde then pitched a grenade at me.

In that instant, I didn't try to figure out what type it was. It looked a lot like the smoke grenade Saito had used earlier today, but...

Look, I'm not saying Saito would use a frag grenade in a room full of innocent people, but given how she was only dragging her sister Yui away from the room she had just set on fire, clearly her protective instincts were more family-focused

I readied a spell and was about to catch it when Balducci moved his hands in a theatrical way and the grenade dropped straight to the ground.

"Defendarius!" I cried and clamped a small dome of multicolored energy over the grenade. It blew up in a flare of white flame and heat.

Great, fire. That was my thing.

I looked up and saw the cart was still burning. Boxes of papers and boxes of what were probably not papers were starting to join the conflagrations. The fire alarm started to whoop but only a few of the workers were evacuating, most looked with apprehension at the door I smashed and the other door Saito ran through.

Saito and Yui were already running.

"I've got this, go!" Balducci assured me. "Everyone! Can I have your attention." He stated his voice turning stentorian as it carried over the din and noise. Even Andi was drawn a bit to him.

"Everyone, if you could follow me out the front door!" He cried as his suggestion tugged at the scared workers. A bit of sweat beaded on his brow but got worse when the flaming cart shot down the row of filing cabinets in the opposite direction Saito and Yui had fled.

As Balducci got people out the front door of the records room, Andi and I ran to the back door.

Saito and Yui had gotten a lead on us, but fortunately we were both taller than the naughty nurse and her sister. Andi might have given my clothes and footwear a dirty look, but I was concentrated on our prey.

"Time to go fuzzy?" I asked.

Andi gave me a sidelong glance. The problem with turning into a wolf was a logistical one. Clothes, shoes, underwear, wallets, purses, and the like. There was a reason most male werewolves liked sweat pants and loose shirts, and most females liked breezy sundresses.

Andi tossed me her purse, and I was thankful that she carried a small one as I dumped it in a duster pocket.

Then, hardly missing a step, she pulled down her dress. I got a brief look at her form, and a brief pang of jealousy. Butters was a lucky man to have Andi. My stomach also growled.

And then a fluffy auburn wolf appeared. Ears twitching, her nose perked and she went through the doorway like a shot.

I ran after her through a grey hallway that branched out to more cube farms. The fire alarms warbled but were still going on. By the discarded coffee mugs and reams of paperwork and unlocked computers, it looked like the workers in this part had managed to evacuate with speed.

I kept my staff ready. I put it on even odds that Saito would be waiting in ambush, to try and buy time for Yui to escape. I pushed aside the idea of the blonde nurse standing back to allow her little sister escape from the ravenous demoness and her werewolf companion

There was a stairwell with a blazing exit sign above the door. Fifty feet ahead of me, Andi had jumped up at the door's push bar and using her weight behind it managed to barrel through the doorway.

When I caught up to the door, I saw there was the actual door out of the building down a half flight of stairs. That fire door had an alarmed lever in addition to the push bar. It was already blaring adding a screeching buzz that really showed the downside of inhumanly acute hearing.

Glancing back, the wolf gave me an impatient look.

"Right. Forzare!" I shouted and hit the lever with an invisible beam of force while Andi pushed the bar, popping the exit door open.

Air gusted in and Andi slipped out into a gravelly alleyway.

Following outside, I almost ran into a group of lollygagging workers.

"Hey, you can't bring a dog into the office," a short man with a bow tie and mutton chops sputtered.

I blinked at him for a second. "There's a fire! Get away from the building." I shouted and swept about with my staff. "Go! Get!"

I might not have had Balducci's silver tongue, but I could shoo away a crowd of confused office workers.

Andi took a moment to sniff the gravel and then started loping further down the alleyway.

Once again, she was looking up at another fire door. It was for the building next door to Probative Laboratory Services. From the outside, it was just a blank door. There was a silver handle and a window but no lever to open it or even a visible lock.

"They went through there?" I asked glancing around the ground and pulling at the door.

Andi nodded, and her upright ears swiveled a bit.

"Timmy fall down the well? Or burn down the barn?" Looking inside, I saw another stairwell and no sign of the two fugitives. Right, neither would be silly enough to just stop.

Ears folding back, Andi sniffed out the ground and to one side of the door found a collection of cigarette butts and a worn metal wedge with a few scratches on it.

"What? Lassie was a great dog. Smarter than most of the actors."

As the wolf studiously ignored my reference, I filled in the details.

Someone liked to take smoke breaks and used a makeshift doorstop, so they could get back into the building. Saito came this way, maybe with Yui, maybe to get her sister out.

Either way, she could have setup the door ahead of time, blocking it open in case she needed to escape.

Preparing seemed to be her style. I could imagine her putting down a backpack full of accelerants and bottles of diesel fuel, jamming this door open, sneaking into Yui's office, commandeering a cart, and pulling out all the records they needed to destroy.

Unlike her, I was a wizard and I could use magic to get through a blocked doorway.

Looking into the window, I spotted the push bar and lever that would unlock the fire door. " Forzare," I whispered, again concentrating on the door, this time pushing against the bar.

The door clicked open and swung out, Andi wedged her muzzle in and I pulled open the door all the way.

We shot through the doorway. I followed, trusting the werewolf's nose. My tension grew as we went through a bunch of confused accountants. Fortunately, most of them were glued to the windows, wondering about the smoke starting to churn out of their next door neighbor.

Andi had a strong scent on them as she unnervingly took us up a flight of stairs and past an elevator bank. I was a bit surprised that Saito did not use the elevator to hop onto a random floor to throw off the trail. But then we went over a second story bridge to a... parking garage.

I swore when the werewolf led me straight to an empty parking spot.

"Empty Night," I cried, gritting my teeth. I was getting sick of this naughty nurse being able to just run away from me.

We searched around the entrance of the garage, but there was no obvious sign of the naughty nurse and her covert secretary sister.

By the time we rounded back to Probative Laboratory Services, the fire engines and ambulances were starting to pull up. Stallings was already there, talking to a coughing, soot-covered Balducci.

The detective gave me a baleful gaze. He looked me up and down and pursed his lips at the wolf sitting next to me. "They got away," he surmised.

"Yeah, but I've got other ways to find her."

Stallings was thoughtful.

"We got everyone out," Balducci assured.

"Of the records room?"

"Sure, but the rest of the building too, I might have checked," the magician admitted with a cough.

"Great," Stallings said, but there was no heat. "This is a real mess." A fire engine appeared and disgorged a troop of firefighters, all geared up. Paramedics, who must have been from the nearby hospital, were also on scene coordinating and checking out the milling employees.

"It's definitely arson," I added.

That baleful look returned.

"And not my fault."

"Yeah, blame the disgruntled employee," Balducci suggested with another cough. "The one who an independent auditor just found out was wrongfully accessing and potentially altering records."

Stallings exhaled. "That's what happened?"

"Close enough," I agreed.

He frowned and flagged down one of the senior firemen and quickly explained what had happened. Or a version that would be easy to accept and fit in with subsequent reports. Special Investigations was great at writing fiction.

At the mention of independent auditor, Balducci got up and then nearly stumbled.

Stallings caught him and moved the protesting magician to one of the paramedics.

"Go," I told Balducci. "Smoke inhalation is no joke."

He nodded and Stallings handed him over to the medical staff. The cop turned to me. "I have make sure the fallout... someone trying to burn down an office building, a medical building? I can't leave." The detective held my gaze.

I looked down to his nose to avoid the Soulgaze.

"Can you handle this?" He asked.

"Yeah, I can handle her," I promised.

Stallings nodded once and turned back to the burning building.

I gestured to Andi. There were changes of clothes in her car; part of being a werewolf was having spares. I checked my duster pocket to make sure her purse, and her keys were still in there.

End Chapter 3

And the mystery deepens, but Dresden's starting to get more of an idea what's been going on under her nose.

Thanks to DCG, Ellf, Kevin D Hammel, Henry Stickman, and J.St.C.Patrick for their help with the corrections. And again, I'm posting a bit early before all the corrections are in. (Spoke too soon ^^; as Pat just sent some corrections)

And thanks to Gindjurra for pointing out the hair-in-the-drain and Lassie bits.