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McAnally&039;s is a pub a few blocks fro stressed, or when I have a few extra bucks to spend on a nice dinner A lot of us fringe types do Mac, the pub&039;s owner, is used to wizards and all the probleames at McAnally&039;s There are no televisions or expensive coames There isn&039;t even a jukebox Mac keeps a player piano instead It&039;s less likely to go haywire around us

I say pub in all the best senses of the word When you walk in, you take several steps down into a roo fans If you&039;re tall, like me, you walk carefully in McAnally&039;s There are thirteen stools at the bar and thirteen tables in the rooh in the wall in order to be above ground level, let soht from the street into the place Thirteen mirrors on the walls cast back reflections of the patrons in diive the illusion of more space Thirteen wooden coluends of the Old World,a circuitous route - they also quite intentionally break up the flow of randoree or another the auras that gather around broody, gru in unintentional and colorful ways The colors are all reens The first ti to an old, favorite den Mac makes his own beer, ale really, and it&039;s the best stuff in the city His food is cooked on a wood-burning stove And you can damn alk your own self over to the bar to pick up your order when it&039;s ready, according to Mac It&039;s ues had turned up nothing, I kept a few bills out of Monica Sells&039;s retainer and took myself to McAnally&039;s After the kind of day I&039;d had, I deserved sooing to be a long night, too, once I went houre out hohoever it was had pulled off the death spell used on Johnny Marcone&039;s hatchet irlfriend, Jennifer Stanton

"Dresden," Mac greeted me, when I sat down at the bar The dinized by sight at a back table, playing chess Mac is a tall, alh there&039;s a sense to hith that I wouldn&039;t venture that he was less than fifty He has squinty eyes and a smile that is rare and mischievous when it manifests Mac never saysto

"Hey there, Mac," I hailed him "Been one hell of a day Give h," Mac said He opened a bottle of his ale and began to pour it war past me, into thehis clientele, I don&039;t bla them in the face, either

"You hear about what happened at the Madison?"

"Ungh," he confirmed

"Nasty business"

Such an inane corunted reply Mac setthe wood and raking it back and forth to provide even heating for it

I picked up a prethumbed newspaper nearby and scanned the headlines "Hey, look at this Another ThreeEye rae Jesus, this stuff is worse than crack" The article detailed the virtual derocery store by a pair of ThreeEye junkies ere convinced that the place was destined to explode and wanted to beat destiny to the punch

"Ungh"

"You ever seen anything like this?"

Mac shook his head

"They say the stuff gives you the third sight," I said, reading the article Both junkies had been admitted to the hospital and were in critical condition, after collapsing at the scene "But you knohat?"

Mac looked back at me from the stove, while he cooked

"I don&039;t think that&039;s possible What a bunch of crap Trying to sell these poor kids on the idea that they can do ic"

Mac nodded at me

"If it was serious stuff, the department would have already calledback to the stove Then he squinted up and peered into the dim reflection of the mirror behind the bar

"Harry," he said, "you were followed"

I had been too tense for tooe I put both hands around ht a few phrases of quasi-Latin to mind It never hurt to be ready to defendto hurt me I watched someone approach, a dim shape in the reflection cast by the ancient, wornmuch perturbed Mac

I suez," I said "It&039;s always pleasant to see you"

She came to an abrupt stop a couple of paces fro a wizard is that people always attribute anything you do to ic, if no other immediate explanation leaps to iving her identity ahen she could assign my mysterious, blind identification of her to my mystical powers

"Coet you a drink while I refuse to tell you anything"

"Harry," she admonished me, "you don&039;t know I&039;m here on business" She sat down on the barstool next to , dark beauty, wearing a crisp business jacket and skirt, hose, puht hair was trimmed in a neat cut that ended at the nape of her neck and was parted off of the dark skin of her forehead, e the lazy appeal of her dark eyes

"Susan," I chided her, "you wouldn&039;t be in this place if you weren&039;t Did you have a good tiuez was a reporter for the Chicago Arcane, a yellow azine that covered all sorts of supernatural and paranorhout the Midwest Usually, the events they covered weren&039;t much better than: "Monkey Man Seen With Elvis&039;s Love Child," or "JFK&039;s Mutant Ghost Abducts Shapeshifting Girl Scout" But once in a great, great while, the Arcane covered so that was real Like the Unseelie Incursion of 1994, when the entire city of Milwaukee had simply vanished for two hours Gone Government satellite photos showed the river valley covered with trees and empty of life or human habitation All communications ceased Then, a few hours later, there it was, back again, and no one in the city itself the wiser

She had also been hanging around ation in Branson the previous week She had been tracking ht after I&039;d opened up my business I had to hand it to her - she had instincts And enough curiosity to get her into ten kinds of trouble She had trickedher eyes at the conclusion of our first interview, an eager young reporter investigating an angle on her interviewee She was the one who had fainted after we&039;d soulgazed

She ss to her lips, and hers were already attractive "You should have stayed around for the show," she said "It was pretty impressive" She put her purse on the bar and slid up onto the stool beside me

"No thanks," I told her "I&039;m pretty sure it wasn&039;t for e She&039;s convinced it&039;s going to win an award of some kind"

"I can see it now," I told her " &039;Mysterious Visions Haunt Drug-Using Country Star Real hard-hitting paranorlanced at her, and she met my eyes without fear She didn&039;t let ot called in by the SI director today," she told lance doould have afforded an interesting angle to the V of her white shirt "I&039;d love to hear you tell me about this one, Harry" She quirked a ss

I almost smiled back at her "Sorry," I told her "I have a standard nondisclosure agree off the record, then?" she asked "Rus were pretty sensational"

"Can&039;t help you, Susan," I told her "Wild horses couldn&039;t drag it out of me, et cetera"

"Just a hint," she pressed "A word of co shared between two people who are very attracted to one another"

"Which two people would that be?"

She put an elbow on the counter and propped her chin in her hand, studyinglashes One of the things that appealed to h she used her charm and femininity relentlessly in pursuit of her stories, she had no concept of just how attractive she really was - I had seen that when I looked within her last year "Harry Dresden," she said, "you are a thoroughlyman" Her eyes narrowed a bit further "You didn&039;t look down my blouse even once, did you," she accused

I took a sip of my ale and beckoned Mac to pour her one as well He did "Guilty"

"Most men are off-balance by now," she complained "What does it take with you, anyway, Dresden?"

"I am pure of heart and mind," I told her "I cannot be corrupted"

She stared at me in frustration for a ood laugh, too, throaty and rich I did look down at her chest when she did that, just for a second A pure heart and mind only takes you so far - sooner or later the horer or anything, anys like this, either Call it an overwhel interest in my professional career, but I&039;ve never had eneral And when I have, it hasn&039;t turned out too well

Susan was a known quantity - she was attractive, bright, appealing, her motivations were clear and si them She flirted with ht I was attractive Soot it Sometimes she didn&039;t This one ay too hot for Susan or the Arcane to touch, and if Murphy heard I&039;d tipped someone off about what had happened, she&039;d have my heart between two pieces of bread for lunch

"I&039;ll tell you what, Harry," she said "How about if I ask some questions, and you just answer them with a yes or a no?"

"No," I said promptly Dammit I am a poor liar, and it didn&039;t take a reporter with Susan&039;s brains to tell it

Her eyes glittered with cheerfully malicious a or ain, stubbornly

"No he wasn&039;t?" Susan asked, "Or no it wasn&039;t a paranorh to appeal for help Mac ignored me Mac doesn&039;t take sides Mac is wise