Little Chicago projection

Fear rattled around inside me. I tried to calm it, but I couldn't regain my earlier detachment-not until I thought of young Daniel, mangled beneath my wizard Sight, wounded defending his family from something I had sent after them.
I thought of Molly's brothers and sisters. I thought of her mother, her father. I thought of the laughter, the sheer, joyous, rowdy life of Michael's family.
Then I pinked my fingertip with my ritual knife, touched the lock of baby hair to it, and laid it down within Little Chicago. I used a second drop of blood and an effort of will to touch the circle on the tabletop, closing it up and beginning the spell. I closed my eyes, focusing, murmuring a stream of faux Latin as I reached out to the model and brought it to life.
My senses blurred, and suddenly I was standing on the tabletop, at the model of my own boardinghouse. I thought the silver-colored model had grown to life size at first, then realized that the inverse was more accurate. I had shrunk to scale with Little Chicago, my awareness now within the spell rather than in my own body, which stood over the table like Godzilla, murmuring the words of the spell.
I closed my eyes and thought of Molly, my blood touched upon her lock of hair, and to my utter surprise I shot off down the street with no more effort than it took to peddle a bicycle. The streets beneath me and the buildings around me glowed with white energy, the whole of the place humming like high-power tension lines.
Stars and stones, Little Chicago worked. It worked well. A surge of jubilation went through me, and my speed increased in proportion. I flashed through the streets, seeing faint images of people, like ghosts, the unsteady reflections of those now moving through the real Chicago around me. But then the spell wavered, and I found myself moving in a circle like a baffled hound trying to pick up a scent trail.
It didn't work.
I made an effort and stood back in my own body, staring down at Little Chicago, badly fatigued.
Exhausted, I reached for my backpack, sat down, and fumbled Bob into my lap.
His eyes lit up at once and he said, "Don't get me wrong, big guy, I like you. But not that way."
"Shut up," I growled at him. "Just tried to use Little Chicago to find Molly's trail. It fizzled."
Bob blinked. "It worked? The model actually worked? It didn't explode?"
"Obviously," I said. "It worked fine. But I used a simple tracking spell, and it couldn't pick up her trail. So what's wrong with the damned thing?"
"Put me on the table," Bob said.
I reached up and did so. He was quiet for a minute before he said, "It's fine, Harry. I mean, it's working just fine."
"Like hell," I growled. "I've done that tracking spell hundreds of times. It must be the model."
"I'm telling you, it's perfect," Bob said. "I'm looking at the darn thing. If it wasn't your spell, and it wasn't the model... Hey, what did you use to focus the tracking spell?"
"Lock of her hair."
"That's baby hair, Harry."
"So?"
Bob let out a disgusted sound. "So it won't work. Harry, babies are like one big enormous blank slate. Molly has changed quite a bit since that lock was taken. She doesn't have much to do with the person it got snipped from. Naturally the spell couldn't track her."


Proven Guilty Chapter 33, Page 266-267