It is never easy to be a mage. Never been, never is, never will be. Simple lesson, and simple truth. The hard truth, too. Painful.

It is never easy to be a warden. The warden. Blood-stained cloak, that never actually carry any blood; silver sword and blazing glory. No, not really. Mostly, death. Sometimes pride.

It comes before the fall or so goes the saying, and it is right. Kinda. Sometimes — not always — but it is, now.

It is never easy to die. Not a complicated process, mind you, but tiring. Bloody and painful. Sickening. Awful. Always scary. Every time feels like the first.

To be a wizard is a lot like to live under a death sentence with an open date. It is written, it is neatly packed in the corner of the table, and you never know when someone will sign it. Never. Even if you are the best fortuneteller in the world.

It sucks, in a way.

Silver sword slid through my throat easily, leaving a clean cut. Work of a true professional. Not a work of art, but can find a nice place in a case book for junior wardens.

Man, who is stepping over my body, is wearing a nice three-button suit. It is black, too. Very suitable for a funeral.

Morgan is nice like that.

When I wake up I feel like I shouldn't have bothered. The throat is sore — no, not sore, not really. It is the wrong word. My throat feels like it was cut in two. Burning, with blood trying to get out of it and with a strange, cold feeling deep in the brain.

One out of ten experience, definitely would not recommend.

I try to stand up and walk — well, mostly crawl — my way into the shower. Cold water is nice. Fresh, clean and disturbs magic, too. All things I strongly appreciate.

Beer and ale, vodka and sake — every vision is similar and yet disturbingly different. They are almost the same but have nothing in common. Time, distance, longevity, mood — I have no control over them. Visions just come whenever they wish to, tear my had apart and are gone like nothing had ever happened.

It fills a lot like I am sitting in front of a broken radio and try to figure out the whole picture from thousands of pieces.

Why would my teacher and life-long superior kill me? Or, to be more precise, when?

It can happen tomorrow, in twenty years or never. All with equal chances. Besides, I had not seen myself in the vision — thus, no idea about my age relative to today. Sometimes you can see certain marks, like tattoos on skin, or date in a newspaper or something akin to that. Still, it is never a guarantee. Newspaper in a glimpse of future can be old or intentionally misleading, you can get yourself tattoo exactly because you saw it in the vision, and self-fulfilling prophecies are notoriously hard to deal with. Cronus, Oedipus, and Paris would agree.

Prophetic visions are many things, but useful they are almost certainly not.

The phone vibrated, loudly, demanding my attention. Someone needed me, urgently. A sound made my head itch from pain, and damned thing burst aflame with a loud squee sound.

?Damn you!?

I almost shouted, but words had not left the throat. Words have power, you see. It is not a good idea to damn something — anything — if you don't really mean it. Especially when your magic is disturbed after a BDSM fuckfest codenamed ?visions?.

I am whining, aren't I?

I picked up a second phone — stationery, old, with a rotary dial. It was made in ninety sixties, and still worked, if barely. I found it in the Edinburgh flea market almost three years ago and it was working as well as you might expect. Still, it was better than nothing.

?Edward Carpenter speaking.?

?Good.? The teacher's voice was cold, calm and not a little bit tired. I have no idea when he had slept last time with all that black court thing going on, but it wasn't working out for him. ?I need you in Rosehill Cemetery in four hours.?

I smirked.

?They are hiding in a graveyard? Really??

Blacks have many weaknesses, churches and blessed land — one of them. To hide anywhere close to cemetery and corpses was… an option, I guess. If their big boss was good in necromancy or at least knew what he is doing. Not so bright otherwise.

With how badly black court was wrecked in the last century, chances were that he did. Dumb and feisty do not survive that long in the after-Stoker world.

?Had your talent brought something of use??

?You sliced my throat with your sword. Do with it what you want.?

Morgan grunted.

?I will prepare a counter to mind-altering spells.?

?Or any other spells, really. I can give you ten mutually exclusive reasons for this happening.?

Beeping met me instead of an answer. Morgan, for some strange reason, was sure that my visions actually were useful. I had no such delusions but had no problems with indulging his curiosity.

If a man wants to know one of the thousands of versions of our fucked up future he can be my guest.

I finally gathered myself and put pants, shirt, and jacket on. No tie needed, thank god. I hate those nooses since school.

Morgan loved classy suits, ties, and cufflinks. He also believed that stern look and formal suit ofter work better than the most powerful veil and in our line of work it meant a lot. Besides, if we really are going to the cemetery, the black suit is truly for the best.

View from the window was rather pretty. Nice studio on the thirty-first floor, high enough, that most people and energy they carried with them were left below. Besides, I had a view on the harbor and park in two minutes distance.

Despite Chicago being my home city, Council treated it like a business trip. Meaning I got all my traveling, food and living expenses covered, in addition to getting a hundred bucks a day as a bonus.

I truly love my job. Sure, it may suck sometimes, but I get to shoot fireballs at people while getting paid handsomely.

Against usual habits, I decided not to put on a cloak yet. It was too much of a symbol to just walk around in it. Call me superstitious, but I believe in the importance of symbols. Of power, of faith — whatever. Crown for royalty, stuff for a senior mage, warden cloak and silver sword for a council law enforcer.

It just seems wrong to show them off while being off duty.

Thus I put grey cloak into the bag, covered sword in the veil and left the apartments, renewing guarding spell on a doorstep. Many would call it stupid, to stay in a rented property without a proper threshold when you have a true home, where you are always welcomed and loved, but…

I have my reasons.

The door closed, leaving only a weak guardian spell and a neat pile of clothes behind.

There still were four hours before the dusk, and I had a meeting to attend to.

It was almost painful to stand before the threshold. Not magically — it was never meant to harm me, and never will be — but physiologically. I left the house ten years ago, and haven't come back ever since.

Almost nothing changed. Same white walls, same colorful garden. The same feeling of something incorruptibly good. It was nostalgic, all of it.

The door easily opened with an old key. Funny, I was sure I lost it.

?Brother!?

Little Matthew was the first to come to the door. He was almost twelve, now. A father's copy, only with blond hair. And, as strange as it was, he remembered me.

I took the gift out of the bag. Nice pair of headphones, going with stereo. I had no idea what he wanted, but I would have loved to have something like that in his age. And if he already had it — well, there was cash inside of the box.

Mother was next. She wore a cooking apron, busy with cooking. She hadn't changed. Ten years passed, and she was the same woman I remembered.

I kept in touch, of course, — to a reasonable degree, through rare phone calls and letters. Paper letters, Council is conservative and I got a habit. Still, it was nice to meet in person.

I picked up a cooking knife and joined her, cutting vegetables. A family of nine ate a lot, and I was glad to take some weight from her.

We talked. Matthew was at home because he was ill. Little Harry and Hope were napping. Others were still at school or on the extracurricular sport of some kind.

Father was stuck on a hunt — as usual, I guess.

When we finished with vegetables, I showed off with my incredible cooking skills. No, really, I was best at cutting meat. Anything else? Well, just cover it in honey or garlic and carrot and put it in the oven with the vegetables.

It was nice.

When someone ringed the doorbell, I was the first to get up. In the middle of the way, I remembered that I raised the shield around myself and gathered power. Reflexes die hard. Especially if it is Morgan who put them in place.

Behind the door stood two men. One was a bit older than me, with black hair, pale skin, and grey eyes. Pretty one, to be honest. Prettier than me. He was wearing some kind of fashion shirt that looked like a spider web. It would have looked stupid on anyone else, but he managed to make it work.

He was not really memorable in contrast to his companion.

Long trench coat, gun under it and staff in hands. He was tall — close to two meters, and had a distinctive look of someone to never fuck with. The amount of raw power he radiated was leading to the same conclusion.

?Harry Dresden, I take it??

Man smirked. He was surprised to see me here. We never met, but I knew his name. He also should have known mine.

?Yes, I am.? He looked embarrassed. ?Excuse me, are you Michael son? Morgan apprentice??

?Yep, it's me. Edward Carpenter. Nice to meet you.? We shook hands. His grip was strong, confident.

If anything Morgan told about him was true, it had reasons to be. ?I feel like I should thank you.?

And honestly, I did feel grateful.

?Why??

?You started the war with reds, aren't you?? I smiled. ?Thank you. Whole warden corps was dreaming about going after those bastards for centuries. Accords or not.?

?Ye… sure. No problem.? Dresden was looking at me strangely. Like I had said something dumb.

And then I felt it. Sticky, sleazy wave inside my brain. Covering feelings, opening emotions… A man close to him was stared into my eyes, sniffing. His eyes weren't grey, as I thought before. They were almost purely white.

Had it happen any other place, at any other time, I would have held myself together and stopped. Not overreacted. But not here, and not today.

Creature's eyes were almost glowing. It was hungry, angry and stressed. Pressured by its inner demon. It was looking for food, for a tasty fucking dinner.

At the house of my family.

A wave of pure, concentrated energy hit the creature, throwing it at the fence. Had it been fire, it would have been enough to burn down the whole street. But it was psychic — mind to mind, breaking and entering. Violating both Third and Fourth in one go if used against the mortal.

The fair game against the blasted creature.

I struck right in the center of its conciseness, in the Hunger. Creature shouted, screamed, broke down in pain. Its hands shattered. The silver sword was already in my hands like it was always there — creature managed to sidestep first hit, yet second hit its throat.

Almost hit.

Tip of the sword barely scratched the beast, stoped by the telekinetic field. Tall wizard thew himself between us, stopping me and covering creature with his body.

?Stop!? He shouted into my face, holding unto sword hilt with both hands. ?Thomas isn't an enemy.?

I stopped. The creature was howling in pain, with white glowing eyes. It was hungry and frenzy.

I was livid, too.

?You brought this creature in the house of my family. You dared to bring a hungry vampire to my sister's house!?

He had power, I felt it. A lot of it, held back only by an effort of will.

Well, you know what? I fucking had it too.

?Thomas is not like his family. He never did anything worth killing.? Dresden was looking into my eyes, almost daring to soulgaze. ?He isn't here to harm your family, I swear.?

?It did nothing wrong? Sure, except daily violating the Third and the Fourth. It is at least a hundred years old. A fraction of what this creature had done would've been enough to get an execution order for any wizard.?

?He is not a wizard. His soul is not tainted by it.?

?This creature does not have a soul to begin with.? I was pushing the sword handle, slowly tearing through the barrier charms and Dresden's physical power. ?Tell its victims how innocent and pure their murderer was.?

?I do not kill when feeding!? Whispered creature. ?Never!?

?Right, thus consuming pure life force is considered a good deed now.? I pulled further. ?People die from this shit, Dresden.?

?How the hell I suppose to live, you freak?!?

?You are not supposed to!? I growled. ?Your whole miserable existence is a mistake from our front.?

?Told like a model Morgan pupil.?

Dresden threw his energy into his ring, pulling off a barrier between us. It sent me a step back. Still, it was an old school power against power standoff. Not an all-out shitshow with firestorms and death curses.

?I am warden, Dresden. Not a warlock with the sword of Damocles lifted by a mistake and friends in the Council.? I wasn't angry. It wouldn't even start to describe the condition I was at. I felt more frenzy than a vampire lying in front of me. ?My whole fucking purpose is to find creatures that should not exist and make them share that sentiment!?

?Really?? He smirked. ?Tell me, do you listen to burning vampire sounds before sleep? Just for fun, you know. I heard many psychopaths torture kittens in childhood. Should I ask Michael about that? Is that why you ran from home??

?Step the fuck aside, Dresden.? Sword felt heavy in my hands, reinforcing confidence. ?Your pet vampire assaulted a warden off duty in his family house. It is worth of execution on its own.?

?He had not meant it, you dumb fanatic. He is hungry, that's all. I would have stopped him. Besides, no harm is done.? Dresden looked almost sorry. ?Look, I am sorry for what happened. We were going to ask Michael for help hunting down blampires tonight, and leave. That's all. You can join if you want to.?

I have almost regretted my next words. But the truth is the truth.

?Sorry, but I can not allow this creature to exist in one city with my sister.? I closed my eyes, reinforcing the protective field. Sword burned against staff. Games were over. ?Especially now, with the war going on. Step aside, Dresden. You do not want to go down with it.?

Besides, even if he would kill me, Morgan is in the same city.

And at this very moment, when our powers almost crushed, a gate in the fence opened, allowing a young woman to come through.

She changed, in all those years. She really did.

Tall, now. Almost as tall as I. Clothed in a blue summer dress and low heels sandals. With golden, middle length hair, covering left part of her face.

There was no eye there, I knew.

Scars were almost indistinguishable now, after numerous plastic surgeries over the years. Simple white lines instead of gaping, blooded wounds I remembered.

I felt like I was kicked in the head by a redvamp warlord. Sword faltered, it became hard to breathe, and I felt dizzy. Almost broken. Scared. Ashamed.

I felt like a little boy, crying close to his sister's bloodied body.

I felt guilty.

Rightly, of course. It was my fault, after all. All of it was my fucking fault.

?Ed? Brother, is that you??

Her voice was quiet. Astonished.

I couldn't look at her.

I crushed the beast, tearing through Dresden's field on pure willpower. Not killing, but crushing it down. Breaking bones. Removing danger.

And then I ran. I ran, just like ten years ago, with something burning deep inside. I couldn't face it. Face her.

If was all my fault, and Molly paid for it.