Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 5

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The Nevernever has perceptibly different vibes from the real word, not quite a physical sensation, but  palpable all the same. The ghost dust, which was already heavier than it looked, starts to feel as though it weighs 30 or 40 lbs. Based on Harry's description of the ingredients, I think ghost dust is technically a potion. He describes depleted uranium as the "base ingredient" and says it also contains cold iron, basil, and dung, although from what we aren't told - Michael interrupts him, saying he doesn't want to know. 

Agatha Hagglethorn's demesne looks like her memories of Chicago, all made of wood, and wavering on the transition from gas lamps to the very earliest electric lights. The life forces of the infants are perceptible through the veil as glowing spots. Agatha herself, unfortunately, is not so readily apparent. Harry explains to Michael that he'd like a proper look at her, unimpeded by an active fight for survival, to see if he can figure out what's causing all the ghost activity. He's on the point of suggesting they split up to look for her when she explodes out of the sidewalk, sending splinters everywhere. I have no idea what she was doing down there, but it's a striking visual, especially since Agatha's recent injury is still reflected in her form here. Her arm is missing at the shoulder, not the wrist, and there's blood on her dress. She's screaming about her babies, hair undone, and generally both having and causing a bad time. 

Michael tries to attack her, and she blocks with her remaining arm, sending him flying. This is an excellent illustration of what Harry meant when he said she's be "stronger" on this side - it's not abstract. She as the physical power to bat them around light cat toys, and the metaphysical weight to overload Harry's shield, although the backlash from the latter at least slows her down a little, giving Michael and Harry both a chance to get back on their feet. It also bruises the shit out of Harry's hand, a foreshock, almost, of the various stranger things that will happen to it as the series progresses. 

Harry says he has good news and bad news, and Michael says "I've always been partial to the Good News". This, it cannot be overemphasized, is a joke, and it might be the only one he makes in the entire series. I feel like it gets overshadowed, because almost immediately after, Michael draws Harry's attention to the approaching sounds of Lea's hunt, and we get the "holy shit, heckhounds" thing. 

Michael offers to take on Agatha alone long enough to let Harry escape back through the rift. I don't know if he has his own way out of the Nevernever (unlikely, given later events), hasn't thought through the fact that he'd be stranding himself in the demesne of an angry ghost, or is really that eager to do the self-sacrifice thing. It's also possible, I suppose, that he Has Faith that God will provide him with a way out. Given who's around, that probably means Lea, and I'm genuinely curious how that would have gone. She doesn't have any preexisting beef with Michael, or the Knights, as far as I know, but she's likely to be pissed that he helped Harry escape her, and she's literally incapable of helping someone for free. She wants the sword, but there's a 0% chance of Michael trading it for something as insignificant as his own survival. I'm curious what he'd bargain her down to. Mab wants Molly, and Lea is still fully loyal to her at this point, but Michael is even less like to trade his kids than he is the sword. What might he be able to offer her? The elimination of some nasty critter that's making Lea's life difficult? Building a 100% iron-free house for a vassal of winter? Taking custody of a changeling child? Yeah, okay, I would read any of those short stories. But the eventuality does not come to pass, because Harry doesn't leave friends behind. 

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Michael engages Agatha, trying to buy Harry the time he needs to do his thing. Harry starts charging up his blasting rod, but she senses the energy building at the last second and physically tackles him just as he fires off the spell, causing the shot to go wild and set a couple buildings on fire. The ghost disarms him, bits his arm, and gets her hand on his throat. Michael once again saves Harry's butt, stabbing her through the back with his holy sword. In addition to killing(?) her and setting her on fire, this tears open the back of her shirt, revealing the twisting barbed wire of the torture spell. Harry immediately catches that this is what's been provoking the ghosts to violence all over the city, and that it means they're dealing with a person, not a monster or (super)natural phenomenon. I feel like this should also have tipped him off to the fact that they're dealing with a human, or something that thinks like one, and not, as he later supposes, the ghost of a demon. I don't think demons really know about barbed wire. If I remember correctly, there's some barbed wire in the portion of the Nevernever controlled by "evil Bob" in Ghost Story, but a) it's mostly aesthetic, not functional, b) Bob is half human, sort of, and c) Bob was made by (sort of) humans and has spent most of his existence in close proximity to them. But it's a small enough thing, and Dresden's reasons for the "ghost of a demon" notion may be stronger than I'm remembering at present. 

Agatha has been dealt with, and the "city" is on fire, which mean it's very much time to leave. Harry noticed a minute ago that he can no longer hear the hellhounds and hunting horns, but he doesn't really process what that means until about a second before Lea herself steps out of the smoke. She's the first one of the high sidhe described in the series, and I'm struck by the choice of the word "ageless" here, and by her addressing Harry as "my son", rather than "godson" or any of the other things she calls Harry throughout the series. I don't think I have a point here, except that "my son" is how, in Wheel of Time, the Amyrlin Seat addresses most men, unless she's annoyed with them, and that "ageless" is also the typical descriptor for Aes Sedai faces, and that's mildly amusing to me because, well, if you haven't already massively overthought the origins of the phrase "Aes Sedai", try reading the words "Aes Sidhe" out loud as though you don't know how they're pronounced. 

Gonna need to wait for the next episode to find out what Lea's gonna do, because the chapter ends here. As always, my workload has gone back up with the start of the school year, so I can't say with any certainly when the next chapter post will be, but I'm hoping for soon. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread- Grave Peril Chapter 4

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Flashback part 2! Harry takes the girl back into his office, where the lightbulb immediately burns out, and pulls out a chair for her. It actually takes Lydia a few seconds to realize what she's meant to do with it, which I think is meant to be an initial sign of how rough Lydia's life has been, how badly she's been treated, that no one has ever pulled out a chair for her. It's a creditable attempt at subtle characterization, but it doesn't land quite how it's meant - lots of non-shitty guys don't pull chairs out, and even people who've never had it done for them are familiar with the concept, so the effect mostly is to make it look Lydia isn't great at picking up social cues. And impression only reinforced a moment later when Harry says that if she wants his help, he's gonna need a few things from her, and she immediately switches to seduction mode, despite having no real indication that that's what's called for here. Guys? I think Lydia is neurodivergent. I mean, she has a seizure disorder, of course she's neurodivergent, but I think she might be on the autism spectrum or something. That would potentially account for why her emotions often come across a skosh performative, even when she's being sincere. 

Harry's turning down teenage girls game is on point. He rolls his eyes and lectures her about STIs. Considering that teaching baby practitioners is part of his job, he's probably had to do this a lot. He clarifies that he wants information, starting with he name. She very sensibly refuses to give it, but eventually agrees that he can call her Lydia. I mark this part of the interaction only because I have this vague recollection that at the end of this book, he acts like it's news that "Lydia" was never her real name. 

She says she needs a talisman to protect her from a hostile spirit, but still doesn't want to provide details, saying she can't tell Harry what kind of spirit, why it's after her, or even how she knows. That first thing seems kind of important. I don't think Harry's anti-ghost talisman would even work if she had, as Harry idly considers, attracted the wrath of an avenging angel. When Harry presses her, she asks if he knows what Cassandra's Tears is. For the reader's benefit, since Lydia clearly already knows, he explains aloud that it's a prophetic ability, characterized by seizures and visions of the future, accurate ones, but presented in terms that make them sound implausible, frequently misdiagnosed as epilepsy. 

Harry asks if she had a vision warning that there's a spirit after her, and she says no - she had three, which is unprecedented. Even major natural disasters have only gotten two, or at least...look, the only noteworth earthquake on record for Laos prior to like, years after this book was published, was a 4.9 in which "several people" were injured. It wasn't the deadliest or most intense earthquake that week. (2001 was a damn event, seismically speaking). I think it's possible she's referring to the 1988 Lancang-Gengma earthquakes, which were certainly felt in Laos (also Thailand, Vietnam...), I wouldn't really refer to them as "that earthquake in Laos", since that's not where most of the (respectable) number of casualties or (devastating) structural damage occurred - that was mostly in Yunnan Province, China, near the epicenters of the dual quake. Of course, it's also possible that Jim Butcher just made something up, although if so, Laos is...an odd choice. In any case, she has cause to take this very, very seriously. 

Harry is...acutely cognizant that Cassandra's Tears is virtually impossible to verify, and that it's been used to scam people before. And that he knows she can act, because of how quickly she transitioned in and out of sex mode when she thought that was what he wanted. He also, unfortunately, thinks that her willingness to pay in sex, and the fact that she's clearly done so before, further calls her honesty into question. So, y'know, that's gross and misogynistic. 

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The details of the vision are pretty vague. Fire, wind, dark things, her own impending death, and Harry  somehow at the center of it, uniquely situated to change the course of events. 

Harry dismisses her vision as "corny", privately decides that her emphasis on his importance to whatever's going on is evidence that she's trying to con him, and tells her she's overreacting. Lydia just...deflates, apologizes for wasting his time, and gets up to leave. This prompts Harry to realize that he's being an asshole, and give her the anti-ghost bracelet he's been using in his own recent adventures. He also gives her the rundown on when ghosts are most dangerous (sunset, midnight, just before dawn), and tells her that faith magic is the best defense, instructing her, if she's scared or in trouble, to go to St. Mary of the Angels and ask for Father Forthill, the first time either has been mentioned. 

As an aside, Lydia makes multiple references throughout this conversation to how "they" said Harry could help her, and I find it extremely strange that Harry doesn't make even a cursory effort to find out who "they" is, or even wonder about it internally. If he took her at face value, that would be understandable, but he suspects, especially after she leaves with the bracelet, that she might have been sent - specifically to get it away from him, and yet he never asks by whom. 

No sooner has Lydia left, than the antique radio (not previously established) turns on - Harry modified it so Bob can use it to reach him, and the spirit is calling in to report that someone stirred up Agatha Hagglethorn, and fill Harry in on the details. Harry almost physically runs into Michael outside his office. Harry is understandably surprised, and Michael says something about God arranging for him to be where he's needed, introducing the whole Divine Coincidence thing, but also that Harry's called him every night for a week, so he figured he's just show up and save Providence that trouble. 

And that brings us all the way back around, so we should be coming out of the flashback and picking up in the Nevernever in the next chapter, which I will be writing about in just a few days. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 3

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We're not going to see the Nevernever quite yet - this is a flashback chapter. It's the first one in the series, which means it's starting to lay the groundwork for the "wayback machine" chapter in Skin Game. 

Harry had most of a pretty normal day at the office. We get a description of that office, and the building it's in, with rather more detail than we got in the first book. This is where Harry's table of ridiculous pamphlets is first introduced. I love the pamphlets, and they're very effective tone setting for the rest of the chapter, which finally, three boos in, establishes what "normal" looks like for Harry - what he does in a day when he isn't coping with either a dire emergency or a total lack of business. 

He starts his day by putting coffee on, and I have such questions about this. The coffee machine (and it does say "machine") is described only as "old", and a paragraph later there's a reference to doing other things while the coffee "percolates". Now, the first patent for a coffee percolator was filed...sometime in the 19th century. Sources give dates anywhere between the 1820s and 1889, depending largely on how you define "percolator". These early models were meant to be used over a fire, which Harry doesn't have in his office, although stovetop versions, which could likely be used with a hot plate, or even a bunson burner, emerged by the 1870s, and by 1933 we had both the French press and the moka pot, both of which are in the percolator family of coffee makers.We can rule out any design in which already-heated water is added to coffee grounds, because were that the case, Harry would have started doing things like checking the mail while the water boiled, not while the coffee percolated. This firmly excludes the French press, at least. 

For reasons passing my understanding, disagreement exists about the date of the first electric coffee percolator, with many sources insisting it was 1954. This is the worst possible timeframe for Harry's purposes. An electronic device from the '50s will take Harry's magic longer to break than, say, a cell phone, but it will break, leaving him needing to repair or replace and old, obscure piece of technology every few years at least. Too expensive - he'd be better off buying a cheap contemporary model, even if it needed to re replaced every few months, and we know he's not doing that because he describes it as "old". The most practical option, if he can find one, would be one of the actual first electric percolators: a Westinghouse, or imitator thereof, from the 1920s or 1930s. This would need an adapter suitable to vintage small appliances (especially since I'm fairly sure these things are meant to use direct current), but those exist and aren't that hard to replace, especially in the '90s and aughties, when there was still Radio Shack. So the thing can be done. What I'm having a harder time working out is why. Why go to the bother of tracking down an antique percolator, assembling a suppression spell, going to Radio Shack to buy an adapter, and then repeating those last two steps every time the adapter goes out (this being considerably more recent tech, than the coffee maker itself). Why not just use a moka pot or something with a burner, or a french press, a burner, and a kettle? I see two possibilities. 1. The lease on the office allows coffee makers but not burners or hot plates. 2. The coffee maker was a gift or payment from a long-lived nonhuman client who just kinda happened to have one, and was familiar with wizards' issues with technology. (It could conceivably be Svartalf make, but Harry doesn't have an in with them at this stage, and buying one would be ridiculously expensive). 

Harry checks the mail, which includes a thank you letter for dealing with a recent ghost problem, and a check from the city for helping with CPD with a sorcerer. This is some very good laying of groundwork. The thank you note reinforces that things have been very, very ghosty lately, and the check starts the process of establishing the Kravos case. We don't get a lot of particularly here, but we find out that Michael was involved, and that it was "nasty", including a demon and human sacrifice. 

He's getting ready to call Michael and ask if he wants to split the payment, but Susan calls before he can pick up the phone. They flirt, extensively, although she's pretty annoyed because he stood her up last night. He was dealing with another ghost, and gives her the details, both to make it up to her and to verify that he was doing something important enough to justify skipping their date. I'd be bothered by how transactional this is, but they both seem to be having a good time with it. They arrange to meet at his place around 9. Susan seems like she's about to say something (presumably 'I love you'), but then she doesn't. There's also some discussion in here to establish that the increased ghost activity isn't Halloween related.

Most of the rest of the day passes in summary, with Harry doing the kind of work too routine to warrant even a short story. He finds a wedding ring, refuses to cast a love spell, refers a client to a mundane private investigator, and meets with a baby practitioner whom he's helping learn to control their power. Very normal. He's getting ready to close up for the night when a girl shows up and says he's the only one who can help her. Harry tries to brush her off, because a lot of people decide magic is the only way to solve their problems, but then she grabs his hand, revealing herself to be a practitioner. Harry freaks out, takes a big step back, shields his mind, and then asks if she wants basic lessons like the kid he met with earlier. She says no. She says that she's in danger. She needs protection, and without it, she might not survive the night. 

See? Faster! I wish I didn't know that the plotting falls apart towards the end of this novel, 'cause there is so much solid structure here. The foreshadowing, the doling out of information, the use of a flashback like this, all absolutely spot on.  Mildly frantic progress continues, so expect the next chapter in just a couple days. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!

Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 2

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They take the stairs up to the fourth floor, and by the time they get up there, Harry is breathing hard, although in a rare fit of unselfconsciousness, there's no comment in the narration about Harry being out of shape.

The corridor into which they emerge has gone spooky. The lights are flickering, and it's totally silent - no people, no hum or whine of electronics. Harry notes the absence of sound from televisions or air conditions, although of course this is not actually the result of ghost activity - even in 2001, the old Cook County Hospital Building had neither. Harry moves his blasting rod to the same hand as his staff (coulda done that in the first place, my dude, you didn't need to be stressing your teeth like that, especially when I know you can't afford proper dental care), and lights a candle. This is a solid call, because the next hallway the turn into, the lights are out. A few steps later, the candle flame goes small and blue, showing that they are in the presence of a ghost. 

Michael draws his sword, but Harry tells him to stay back. Amoracchius (although it hasn't been named at this point) will immediately tip her off that something is up, and she's powerful enough to make that very dangerous. Michael is to wait until Harry can hit her with the dust in the sack. So Harry enters the nursery alone. There are two nurses here, slumped over asleep, and Harry can hear a beautiful voice singing "hush little baby". The song carries the sleep spell, and it almost gets Harry before he realizes what she's doing. Interestingly, we see almost this exact same situation play out with the "dinner bell" spell in Ghost Story, the other ghost-heavy book in that series, although in that case the song is not named.   

We get a redescription of Harry's pentacle, with the addition of how battered it is now, after he want and launched it into a werewolf's sternum, like that was a reasonable things to do. Then he pulls it out and empowers it, giving him better light than the candle, and some protection against the song. 

And then we see Agatha Hagglethorn herself, walking among the bassinets (Dresden calls them 'tiny glass cribs') of the nursery, singing her lullaby. She's pretty, one-handed, semi-transparent, and put-together, in a 19th century sort of way. As Harry watches, she leans in close over a bassinet, and the baby in it stops breathing. Needless to say, this moves up the timeline considerably, and pretty well precludes the slow, cautious approach Harry had in mind. 

The ghost facts are pretty well interspersed with the action here (personally, I love a good exposition dump, but I recognize that this is generally regarded as better technique), and now we get our first one: it's very hard to interact with ghosts unless you can get their attention first, and that isn't easy to do. The most reliable approach is to say their full name, and to infuse it with magic. Harry does this, and Agatha asks what he's doing in her nursery. 

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Harry starts readying the ghost dust, and distracts her by explaining that she's dead. Agatha, naturally, looks sad and confused, and that's when Harry gets stupid. Ghost fact 2: they're not real people, not the lingering souls of the departed. They're an imprint, like a fossil, left behind by the emotions of the dead. But powerful ghosts, like Agatha, can seem very, very persony, and Harry...has issues about women. So he lowers the arm he was getting ready to throw the dust, and starts trying to reason with her, sharing her backstory with us in the process. (Ghost fact 3: if you can get them to accept their condition, they'll dissipate). I'm gonna give the briefest possible summary, because it's awful. Her shitty husband was responsible for the death of their infant daughter, so she killed him with an axe, and then cut off her own hand. Since she's dead too, presumably she bled out shortly thereafter. 

Agatha does not take this news, or the traumatic memories it revives, at all well, and I can't say I blame her, but it's a problem. She gets bigger, fills the room with the scent of blood and metal, and kicks up a violent wind, making it impossible to use the dust. The baby's still not breathing. Harry rushes her, and makes a grab for the baby while Agatha wails about her fate. He succeeds, and slaps the baby's but to get her breathing again. Unfortunately, as babies are wont to do, she immediately starts crying, and it freaks Agatha right the hell out. She hits Harry with her left arm, the one that's missing a hand, throwing him into a wall, and then shoves it into the baby's mouth, smothering her. Harry's gearing up to just force the whole bag of dust into her ectoplasmic body, when she manifets a fucking axe and goes for his head with it. Michael intercepts the blow with his sword, buying Harry the necessary time to apply ghost dust to her arm. Agatha just, pulls the rest of herself away from the immobilized arm, leaving it, and the axe, behind, and vanishes. 

For a little bit there, it looks like they might have won. Harry strokes the baby's cheek, and she sucks on his finger, which is adorable, although Michael tells him not to let her do that because his hands are dirty. But then they hear Agatha's lullaby, apparently sourceless now, and all the babies go silent again. She's gone, but she's continuing her attack from the other side. If they want to stop her, and they'll need to stop her to save the kids, they have to follow her through. Harry...does not want to do that. She'll be stronger in the spirit world, on account of she's a spirit, and we're informer that Harry's godmother (about whom we know almost nothing at this stage), is in there too and will make problems if she finds them. 

Michael says that he's not leaving the babies to die, and neither is Harry, that there's too much good in him for that. Like I said when we talked about Chapter 1, Michael insisted the soulgaze as soon as they met, so he knows what he's talking about. Michael's soul, unsurprisingly, was beautiful. And indeed, Harry gathers up his staff and rod, and says "apparturum", opening a Way into the Nevernever for the first time in the series. 

I apologize for the lengthy delay here. Due to an error in my spreadsheet, I spent much of last week reading the core rulebook for Legend of the Five Rings 4th Edition, which I wish weren't so good on a mechanical level, because it's pretty much Orientalism: The TTRPG. I've also been hard at work on my Wheel of Time fanfiction, trying to get on track to catch up to the end of Season 1 by the time Season 2 comes out in November. It shouldn't take so long for the next one. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!