Old Friends and Old Business

[Harry Dresden]

The flight from Dalaran back to Edinburgh passed quickly, though Harry would still have preferred a Way. Once the prospect of travelling by the realms of Fae had terrified him, but now he found it familiar and comfortable, and missed the option when it was taken from him. Perhaps that said something about the way he'd been living his life the past few years, before this Omniverse thing. Still, right now, he needed to acquaint himself with the information from Inlumia about the way the Omniverse worked. The griffon touched down outside Edinburgh, and Harry set the beast free, watching it fly away before walking underground and calling light from his pentacle amulet. He held the notebook in one hand and navigated the tunnels almost absentmindedly; he was intimately familiar with their workings.

As he approached the Halls themselves, he shut the book, a passage on summoning still fresh in his mind. He hadn't summoned this building from Earth, that was certain, though how he knew that he wasn't sure. But he could summon beings directly from home, or copies of those beings at least. He could think of one entity he didn't want to leave alone in the hands of the Leanansidhe, if only because Mab had a personal grudge against him and Lea might open the bag and find him, if she hadn't already. Though no fault of her own, Lea was beholden to Mab, and it stood to reason she'd share the Winter Queen's grudge against Bob.

That thought in mind, Harry opened the door with a few precise taps from his staff and set off towards his lab, which was under his apartment, which was under the ostentatory, which most people simply called a great hall or meeting hall. He found his familiar flannel robe waiting on a hook inside, along with most of the normal contents of his lab. Even the map of the Paranetters was there, despite its uselessness in this new locale. It was missing one thing, though; there was normally a skull on that shelf of romance novels.

The skull was the home of a spirit of intellect named Bob. There was only one thing that kept Harry from stating that Bob had forgotten more about magic than Harry knew. Bob never forgot anything. Ever. And he was loyal to whoever held his skull, which meant he was dangerous to have in circulation. It wasn't that Harry didn't trust his friends. He just didn't trust the Leanansidhe as far as he could throw her, and he couldn't throw her far at all. So he crossed over to the circle inlaid on the ground, closed it with an infusion of will, and funneled Omnilium into the rings of intertwined metal. He let the energy build up like he had for creating the Halls, and, after a few minutes had passed, spoke. "Bob, spirit of Intellect. Bob, spirit of Air. Bob, I summon thee!"

There was a flash of bright light from the Omnilium before it resolved into a shape. Specifically, a human skull carved with spidery black runes. Two flames burned in the skull's eye sockets, and its jaw moved up and down as it spoke. "What the hell was that, Boss? One minute I'm staring at the Swords and a box of depleted Uranium, next I'm here in your lab and it's like nobody ever touched it!" The skull turned in place a couple times before speaking again. "And why am I in a sealed circle?"