Dresden Files Reread - Storm Front Chapter 23

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 Harry takes advantage of the slippery ectoplasm and everyone being distracted by the medical emergency to wriggle Murphy's hand out of the handcuffs. This laves him with them still attached, but h has those big boney tall dude wrists, so that cuff isn't coming off him without either a key or a saw. 

He's discouraged and pissed off, and it's started raining again, but he hasn't given up, and after doing some weather math, and trying to tell the EMTs how to do their jobs, he's ready to do this thing. Unfortunately, the bad guys are all the way out in the suburbs, his car is still in the shop, and the...Studebaker? he borrowed from Mike the Mechanic is still at SI headquarters, which is not exactly a safe place to visit right now. So he heads over to Mac's pub, where virtually the entire magical community of Chicago is taking shelter. 

Apparently everyone already knows that Harry has gotten into a conflict with a dark practitioner. I feel like this raises some questions about how much they already knew about what was going on, and if the answer is any, why no one talked to him about it. In White Night, Harry says the less powerful members of the magical community come to him about things. Either that didn't start until after this book, which would make some sense, or it was never really that much of a thing. Apparently the stuff at the pub that helps break up Cranky Wizard Energy is also better than nothing for staying safe from the fallout of this kind of magical conflict. I can't imagine that it's better than a threshold - in fact, Dresden pretty much says it's not in Dead Beat, so their presence here seems to suggest a socioeconomic aspect to the term "have-nots of the magical community". A lot of these people rent, which isn't that unusual in a major city, or by itself an indicator or financial problems, but still. A lot of them live alone. A lot of them move too frequently to establish a decent threshold, for any given place to really feel like home. That's significant, but it doesn't get a lot of tim or attention here, and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. Dresden can't rely on the limited protection of Mac's creative interior decorating, since he's the actual target of the spell. He brings up, and then discards, the possibility of hiding in the Nevernever, which is a valid thing to both consider and not do under the circumstances, but he never considers putting himself in a circle. I do not understand this. He said in Turn Coat that this would work. Why? Obviously it wouldn't stop the problem in a long-term way, but he could ride this storm out and have the big showdown when he's not racing the clock to avoid having his heart ripped out. 

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He gets the keys from Mac, whose reaction time with the keys suggests he may have seen this coming,
and then Morgan walks in. He's worked out that the killer is using the storms, or more likely Luccio figured it out on the way over from Edinburgh, and called Morgan as soon as she arrived in Chicago, but he still thinks Dresden is the bad guy, so he's gonna try and keep him here until the storm passes. This is a pretty solid plan, although it doesn't really take into account Dresden's willingness to use physical violence, despite having received a demonstration in like Chapter 7. Harry has basically three choices here although he only considers one of them. He could say "Sure, sure, and you should probably put me in a circle first, just to be safe!", enjoy a steak sandwich, and head back out after the storm. Morgan could make no reasonable objection to this, and it would be So. Much. Safer. Than going out now. While it would be less likely to work h could also have tried "Look, you can watch me just as good on the road to Lake Providence, and it's not like I can do a big act of thaumaturgy while I'm driving. Come with me. If I'm the bad guy, you lose nothing, and if I'm telling the truth, I'm taking the hand of the Councils justice directly to the real killer." It might not have worked, but he wouldn't have lost much on the attempt. 

Instead, he does the Dresden thing, acts for half a second like he's gonna go along, and then hits Morgan over the head with a wooden chair and lives his unconscious body lying on the floor. I like that immediately before this, there was a whole thing about how, when real wizards get into it, the psychics and hedge witches and whatever all else stay as far out of the way as they possibly can. At the moment, that's not very far, since they're literally in the same room as Harry and Morgan, but it tidily explains the total noninvolvement by this large crowd of people in what is essentially a bar fight, shortly before that explanation becomes necessary. 

Mac confirms that Morgan is alive, and hands Harry the keys, which he dropped during the scuffle, so now, finally, Harry and go face Victor Sells. 

Speaking of finally, I could have sworn I already posted this, and wrote the post for Chapter 24 before I sat down to discover the unfinished draft of this one. The combination of several other projects and my freelance work picking up hit me kind of sideways in the past week. Chapter 24 is already ready to go, so be looking for that on Saturday, along with an update to the progress bars on the right-hand side. The reading list has already been updated so until Saturday, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things.