Butters vs Lasciel

"Harry?" called a voice.
I blinked and looked around.
"Harry!" he called again, and I recognized Butters's voice. There was a curious quality to the acoustics of his voice-as if he were standing in an empty room, with no furniture or carpeting to absorb any sound.
Shiela froze, looking toward her door, and then said, "Dammit."
I blinked at her. "What?"
"I didn't want this to distract you," she said, and her tone was enigmatic.
I frowned at her for a moment and then opened the door to the apartment. Butters stood in the hall. He'd improvised a lead for Mouse out of what looked like the torn hem of his scrubs tunic, and my big shaggy dog headed for me, nose to the ground, pulling Butters along the way. Butters, for his part, stumbled along uncertainly, as if he'd had a little too much to drink and couldn't get his balance.
"Butters?" I said. "What's up?"
"The car died," he said. "And there were some guys who looked like they didn't like me on the street, so I came to find you."
Butters stopped, or tried to. Mouse chuffed out a breath in greeting and headed straight for me. I leaned down to scratch at Mouse's ears. "Hey, Mouse. Shiela, this is my dog, Mouse. And this is Waldo Butters. He's a friend of mine."
Shiela blinked her eyes closed slowly and looked away.
Butters peered and squinted, looking around him. "What?"
I frowned at him and touched his arm. "Are you okay?"
He flinched a little when I touched him, then clapped a hand down on my arm as if using it to orient on me. "Harry?" he asked. "Don't you have a light?"
I lifted my eyebrows at him and lifted my pentacle, willing it to light. "Here," I said. "Shiela, I hope you don't mind if they come in?"
Butters peered up at me and then around him.
"Harry?" he asked.
"Yeah?"
"Um, who are you talking to?"
I stared at him for a silent second.
And then a few details floated together in my mind, and the bottom dropped all the way out of my stomach.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and opened my inner vision, my wizard's Sight, and turned to face Shiela.
The little apartment simply dissolved, sliding away like paint being washed away by a stream of falling water. In its place I could see a dimly lit, gutted building. Studs stood naked where the drywall had been removed. There were piles of scrap wiring, half-rotted-looking ducts, and similar refuse, which had been removed from the building and thrown aside into refuse piles. The place had been prepared for renovation-but it was empty. The only window I could see was broken. Thunder rumbled, the sound slightly different than it had been a moment before. The driving rain gained a couple of notches of volume, beating hollowly on the old apartment building.
I stared at Shiela with my Sight, and she stood there unchanged- except that I could see a faint tint of light around her, subtle but definite. It meant that she was either a noncorporeal presence or an illusion of thought and energy rather than a reality. But if she'd been an illusion, she should have faded away entirely, as the apartment had done.
I released my Sight again. My stomach twisted on itself, a burning, bitter feeling. "Shiela," I said quietly. "Stars and stones, it's all but your real name, isn't it? Lasciel."
"It's close," Shiela agreed quietly.

Dead Beat Chapter 35, Page 312


He looked at me for a moment and then nodded. "Okay."
"Good thing you came along when you did," I said. "You tipped the demon's hand when you came up here. There was no way it could fit you into the illusion."
"I helped?" he said.
"Big- time," I said. "I think I'm just too used to knowing more than most people about magic. The demon was using some of my expectations against me. It knew exactly how to hide things from a wizard."
An idle thought flicked through my brain at the words. And suddenly I froze with my mouth open.

Dead Beat Chapter 35, Page 318