of his frothy white lace shirt. The other four . . . Well, they looked like something.
They were all wearing mostly black, and mostly Gothware, which meant a lot of velvet with a little leather, rubber, and PVC to spice things up. Three women, two men, all of them fairly young. All of them carried wands and staves and crystals dangling from chains, and all of them had deadly serious expressions on their faces.
I parked the car, never looking directly at them, and then got out of it, stuck my hands in my duster pockets, and stood there waiting.
“You’re Harry Dresden,” said the tallest one there, a young man with long black hair and a matching goatee.
I squinted at nothing, like Clint Eastwood would do, and said nothing, like Chow Yun-Fat would do.
“You’re the one who came to New Orleans last week.” He said it, “Nawlins,” even though the rest of his accent was Midwest standard. “You’re the one who desecrated my works.”
I blinked at him. “Whoa, wait a minute. There actually was a curse on that nice lady?”
He sneered at me. “She had earned my wrath.”
“How about that,” I said. “I figured it for some random bad feng shui.”
His sneer vanished. “What?”
“To tell you the truth, it was so minor that I only did the ritual cleansing to make her feel better and show the Paranetters how to do it for themselves in the future.” I shrugged. “Sorry about your wrath, there, Darth Wannabe.”
He recovered his composure in seconds. “Apologies will do you no good, Wizard. Now!”
He and his posse all raised their various accoutrements, sneering malevolently. “Defend yourself!”
“Okay,” I said, and pulled my .44 out of my pocket.
Darth Wannabe and his posse lost their sneers.
“Wh-what?” said one of the girls, who had a nose ring that I was pretty sure was a clip-on. “What are you doing?”
“I’m a-fixin’ to defend myself,” I drawled, Texas-style. I held the gun negligently, pointing down and to one side and not right at them. I didn’t want to hurt anybody. “Look, kids. You really need to work on your image.”
Darth opened his mouth. It just hung that way for a minute.
“I mean, the van’s a bit overdone. But hell, I can’t throw stones. My VW Bug has a big ‘53’ inside a circle spray-painted on the hood. You’re sort of slipping elsewhere, though.” I nodded at one of the girls, a brunette holding a wand with a crystal on the tip. “Honey, I liked the Harry Potter movies, too, but that doesn’t mean I ran out and got a Dark Mark tattooed onto my left forearm like you did.” I eyed the other male. “And you’re wearing a freakin’ Slytherin scarf. I mean, Christ. How’s anyone supposed to take that seriously?”
“You would dare—” Darth Wannabe began, obviously outraged.
“One more tip, kids. If you had any real talent, the air would practically have been on fire when you got ready to throw down. But you losers don’t have enough magic between you to turn cereal into breakfast.”
“You would dare—”
“I can tell, because I actually am a wizard. I went to school for this stuff.”
“You would—”
“I mean, I know you guys have probably thrown your talents at other people in your weight class, had your little duels, and maybe someone got a nosebleed and someone went home with a migraine and it gave your inner megalomaniac a boner. But this is different.” I nodded at one of the other girls, who had shaved her head clean. “Excuse me, miss. What time is it?”
She blinked at me. “Um. It’s after one . . . ?”
“Thanks.”
The Dim Lord tried for his dramatic dialogue again. “You would dare threaten us with mortal weapons?”
“It’s after midnight,” I told the idiot. “I’m off the clock.”
That killed his momentum again. “What?”
“It’s my day off, and I’ve got plans, so let’s just skip ahead.”
Darth floundered wordlessly. He was really out of his element—and he wasn’t giving me anything to work with at all. If I waited around for him, this was going to take all night.
“All right, kid. You want some magic?” I pointed my gun at the van. “Howsabout I make your windows disappear.”
Darth swallowed. Then he lowered his staff, a cheaply carved thing you could pick up at tourist traps in Acapulco, and said, “This is not over. We are your doom, Dresden.”
“As long as you don’t drag it out too much. Good night, children.”
Darth sneered at me again, pulled the shreds of his dignity about him, and strode