tracks better than Gard

THE BACK DOOR OPENED INTO A LONG, NARROW, dirty alley running parallel to Clark. The wind had picked up, which meant that the cold rain was mostly striking the upper portion of one wall of the alley. Good for me. It's tough to get a solid spell put together under even a moderate rain. When it's really coming down, it's all but impossible, even for a relatively simple working—such as a tracking spell.
I'd done this hundreds of times, and by now it was pretty routine. I found a clear spot of concrete in the lee of the sheltering wall and sketched a quick circle around me with a piece of chalk, investing the motion with a deliberate effort of will.
As I completed the circle, I felt the immediate result—a screen of energy that rose up from the circle, enfolding me and warding out any random energy that might skew the spell. I took off my necklace, a silver chain with a battered old silver pentacle hanging from it, murmuring quietly, and tied several of Elizabeth's hairs through the center of the pentacle. After that, I gathered up my will, feeling the energy focused by the circle into something almost tangible, whispered in faux-Latin, and released the gathered magic into the pentacle.
The silver five-pointed star flickered once, a dozen tiny sparks of static electricity fluttering over the metal surface and the hairs bound inside it. I grimaced. I'd been sloppy, to let some of the energy convert itself into static. And I'd been harping on my apprentice about the need for precision for a week.
I broke the circle by smudging the chalk with one foot, and glanced at Mouse, who sat patiently, mouth open in a doggy grin. Mouse had been there for some of those lessons, and he was smarter than the average dog. How much smarter remained to be seen, but I got the distinct impression that he was laughing at me.
"It was the rain," I told him.
Mouse sneezed, tail wagging.
I glowered at him. I'm not sure I could take if it my dog was smarter than me.
The falling rain would wash away the spell on the amulet if I left it out in the open, so I shielded it as carefully as I could with the building and my hand. A hat would have come in handy for that purpose, actually. Maybe I should get one.
I held up the amulet, focusing on the spell. It quivered on the end of its chain, and then swung toward the far end of the alley, a sharp, sudden motion.
I drew my hand and the amulet back up into the sleeve of my duster, whistling. "She came right down this alley. And judging by the strength of the reaction, she was scared bad. Left a really big trail."
At that, Mouse made a chuffing sound and started down the alley, snuffling. The end of his short lead, mostly there for appearance' sake, dragged the ground. I kept pace, and by the time Mouse was twenty yards down the alley, he had begun growling low in his throat.
That was an occasion worth a raised eyebrow. Mouse didn't make noise unless there was Something Bad around. He increased his pace and I lengthened my stride to keep up.
I found myself growling along with him. I'd gotten sick of Bad Things visiting themselves upon people in my town a long time ago.
When we hit the open street, Mouse slowed. Magic wasn't the only thing that a steady rain could screw up. He growled again and looked over his shoulder at me, tail drooping.
"I got your back," I told him. I lifted a section of my long leather duster with my staff, so that I could hold the amulet in the shelter it offered. I looked only moderately ridiculous while doing so.
I'm going to get a hat one of these days. I swear.
The tracking spell held, and the amulet led me down the street, toward Wrigley. The silent stadium loomed in the cold gray rain. Mouse, still snuffling dutifully, abruptly turned down another alley, his steps hurrying to a lope. I propped up my coat again and consulted the amulet again.

Side Jobs, Heorot, Page 117-119


"No," Gard said sharply. "Look, Dresden, forget Marcone. This has nothing to do with Marcone. Today's my day off."
I stared at her for a moment, and only partly because the rain had begun to make the white shirt she wore beneath the suit jacket become transparent. She sounded sincere—which meant nothing. I've learned better than to trust my judgment when there's a blonde involved. Or a brunette. Or a redhead.
"What do you want?" I asked her.
"Almost the same thing you do," she replied. "You want the girl. I want the thing that took her."
"Why?"
"The girl doesn't have enough time for you to play twenty questions, Dresden. We can help each other and save her, or she can die."
I took a deep breath and then nodded once. "I'm listening."
"I lost the trail at the far end of this alley," she said. "Clearly, you haven't."
"Yeah," I said. "Skip to the part where you tell me how you can help me."
Wordlessly, she opened up the duffel bag and drew out—I kid you not—a double-bitted battle-ax that must have weighed fifteen pounds. She rested it on one shoulder. "If you can take me to the grendelkin, I'll deal with it while you get the girl out."
Grendelkin? What the hell was a grendelkin?
Don't get me wrong—I'm a wizard. I know about the supernatural. I could fill up a couple of loose-leaf notebooks with the names of various entities and creatures I recognized. That's the thing about knowledge, though. The more you learn, the more you realize how much there is to learn. The supernatural realms are bigger, far bigger, than the material world, and humanity is grossly outnumbered. I could learn about new beasties until I dropped dead of old age a few centuries from now and still not know a quarter of them.
This one was new on me.
"Dresden, seconds could matter, here," Gard said. Beneath the calm mask of her lovely face, I could sense a shadow of anxiety, of urgency.
As I absorbed that, there was a sharp clicking sound as a piece of broken brick, or a small stone from roofing material fell to the ground farther down the alley.
Gard whirled, dropping instantly into a fighting crouch, both hands on her ax, holding it in a defensive position across the front of her body.
Yikes.
I'd seen Gard square off against a world-class necromancer and her pet ghoul without batting a golden eyelash. What the hell had her so spooked?
She came back out of her stance warily, then shook her head and muttered something under her breath before turning to me again. "What's going to happen to that girl… You have no idea. It shouldn't happen to anyone. So I'm begging you. Please help me."
I sighed.
Well, dammit.
She said please.
 THE RAIN WAS WEAKENING THE TRACKING SPELL ON my amulet and washing away both the scent of the grendelkin and the psychic trail left by the terrified Elizabeth, but between me and Mouse we managed to find where the bad guy had, literally, gone to earth. The trail ended at an old storm-cellar-style door in back of the buildings on the east side of Wrigley Field, under the tracks of the El, near Addison Station. The doors were ancient and looked like they were rusted shut—though they couldn't have been, if the trail went through them. They were surrounded by a gateless metal fence. A sign on the fence declared the area dangerous and to keep out—you know, the usual sound advice that thrill-seeking blockheads and softhearted wizards with nagging headaches always ignore.
"You sure?" I asked Mouse. "It went in there?"
Mouse circled the fence, snuffling at the dry ground protected from the rain by the El track overhead. Then he focused intently on the doors and growled.
The amulet bobbed weakly, less definitely than it had a few minutes before. I grimaced and said, "It went down here, but it traveled north after that."
Gard grunted. "Crap."
"Crap," I concurred.
The grendelkin had fled into Undertown.

Side Jobs Page, Heorot, Page 121-123