Georgia fights Faeries

I knocked. The door rattled and fell off the lower hinge. It swung open a few inches, drunkenly, upper hinges squealing. Splits and cracks, invisible until the door moved, appeared in the wood, and the dead bolt rattled dully against the inside of the door, loose in its setting.
I stopped there for a long second, waiting and listening. Other than the whirring of a window fan at the end of the hall and someone playing an easy-listening station on the floor above me, there was nothing. I closed my eyes for a moment and extended my wizard’s senses, testing the air nearby for any touch of magic upon it.
I felt nothing but the subtle energy that surrounded any home, a form of naturally occurring protective magic called the threshold. Billy and Georgia’s apartment was the nominal headquarters of the Werewolves, and members came and went at all hours. It was never intended to be a permanent home—but there had been a lot of living in the little apartment, and its threshold was stronger than most. I slowly pushed the door open with my right hand.
The apartment had been torn to pieces.
A futon lay on its side, its metal frame twisted like a pretzel. The entertainment center had been pulled down from the wall, shattering equipment, scattering CDs and DVDs and vintage Star Wars action figures everywhere. The wooden table had been broken in two precisely at its center. One of the half-dozen chairs survived. The others were kindling. The microwave protruded from the drywall of an interior wall. The door of the fridge had taken out the bookcase across the room. Everything in the kitchen had been pulled down and scattered.
I moved in as quietly as I could—which was pretty damn quiet. I had done a lot of sneaking around. The bathroom looked like someone had taken a chain saw to it and followed up with explosives. The bedroom used to house computers and electronic stuff looked like the site of an airplane crash.
Billy and Georgia’s bedroom was the worst of all of them.
There was blood on the floor and one wall. Whatever had happened, I had missed it.
Dammit. I wanted to kill something, I wanted to scream in frustration, and I wanted to throw up in fear for Georgia.

Side Jobs, Something Borrowed, Page 36-37


“Bob,” I said, “take a look around. Tell me what did this.”
The skull spun obediently and promptly said, “Something strong.”
Murphy gave me an oblique look.
“Oh, bite me,” I told her. “Bob, I need to know if you can sense any residual magic.”
“Ungawa, bwana,” Bob said. He did another turnaround, this one slower, and the orange eyelights narrowed.
“Residual magic?” Murphy asked.
“Anytime you use magic, it can leave a kind of mark on the area around you. Mostly it’s so faint that sunrise wipes it away every morning. I can’t always sense it.”
“But he can?” Murphy asked.
“But he can!” Bob agreed. “Though not with all this chatter. I’m working over here.”
I shook my head and picked up the phone again.
“Yes,” said Billy. He sounded harried, and there was an enormous amount of background noise.
“I’m at your apartment,” I said. “I came here looking for Georgia.”
“What?” he said. “Your apartment,” I said louder.
“Oh, Harry,” Billy said. “Sorry—this phone is giving me fits. Eve just talked to Georgia. She’s here at the resort.”
I frowned. “What? Is she all right?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Billy said. Someone started shrieking in the background. “Crap, this battery’s dying. Problem solved; come on up. I brought your tux.”
“Billy, wait.” He hung up. I called him back and got nothing but voice mail.
“Aha!” Bob said. “Someone used that wolf spell the naked chick taught to Billy and the Werewolves, back over there by the bedroom,” he reported. “And there were faeries here.”
I frowned. “Faeries. You sure?”
“One hundred percent, boss. They tried to cover their tracks, but the threshold must have taken the zing out of their illusion.”
I nodded and exhaled. “Dammit.” Then I strode into the bathroom and hunkered down, pawing through the rubble.

Side Jobs, Something Borrowed, Page 39-40