Little Chicago was a scale model of Chicago itself, or at least of the heart of the town, which I'd expanded from its original design to include everything within about four miles of Burnham Harbor. Every building, every street, every tree was represented by a custom-made scale model of pewter. Each contained a tiny piece of the reality it represented - bark chipped from trees, tiny pieces of asphalt gouged from the streets, flakes of brick broken from the buildings with a hammer. The model would let me use my magic in new and interesting ways, and should enable me to find out a lot more about Grey Cloak than I would have been able to do in the past.
Or... it might blow up. You know. One of the two.
I was still a young wizard, and Little Chicago was a complex toy containing an enormous amount of magical energy. I had to work hard to keep it up-to-date, matched to the real Chicago, or it wouldn't function correctly - i.e., it would fail, possibly in a spectacular fashion. Releasing all that energy in the relatively cramped confines of the lab would most likely render me extra crispy. It was an elaborate and expensive tool, and I never would have so much as considered creating it if I didn't have an expert consultant.
I took the matchbox from my pocket and set it on the edge of the table, glanced up at the skull on its shelf, and said, "Bob, up and at em."
The skull quivered a little on its wooden shelf, and tiny, nebulous orange lights appeared in its empty eyes. There was a sound like a human yawn, and then the skull turned slightly toward me and asked, "What's up, boss?"
"Evil's afoot."
"Well, sure," Bob said, "because it refuses to learn the metric system. Otherwise it'd be up to a meter by now."
"You're in a mood," I noted.
"I'm excited. I get to meet the cookie now, right?"
I gave the skull a very firm look. "She is not a cookie. Neither is she a biscuit, a Pop-Tart, SweetTART, apple tart, or any other kind of pastry. She is my apprentice."
"Whatever," Bob said. "I get to meet her now, yeah?"
"No," I said firmly.
"Oh," Bob said, his tone as disappointed and petulant as a six-year-old child who has just been told that it is bedtime. "Why not ?"
"Because she still hasn't got a very good idea of how to handle power wisely," I said.
"I could help her!" Bob said. "She could do a lot more if I was helping."
"Exactly," I said. "You're under the radar until I say otherwise. Do not draw attention to yourself. Do not reveal any of your nature to her. When Molly's around, you're an inanimate knickknack until I say otherwise."
"Hmph," Bob said. "At this rate, I'm never gonna get to see her naked in time."
I snorted. "In time for what?"
"In time to behold her in her full, springy, nubile, youthful glory! By the time you let me talk to her, she'll have started to droop!"
"I'm almost certain you'll survive the trauma," I said.
"Life is about more than just survival, Harry."
"True," I said. "There's also work."
Bob rolled his eyelights in the skull's empty sockets. "Brother. You're keeping her cloistered and working me like a dog, too. That's not fair."
I started getting out the stuff I'd need to fire up Little Chicago. "Dog, right. Something odd happened tonight." I told Bob about Mouse and his barking. "What do you know about Temple Dogs?"
"More than you," Bob said. "But not much. Most of what I got is collected hearsay and folklore."
"Any of it likely true?"
"A bit," he said. "There are a few points of confluence where multiple sources agree."
"Hit me."
"Well, they're not entirely mortal," Bob said. "They're the scions of a celestial being called a Foo Dog and a mortal canine. They're very intelligent, very loyal, tough, and can seriously kick ass if they need to do it. But mostly, they're sentinels. They keep an eye out for dark spirits or dark energy, guard the people or places they're supposed to guard, and alert others to the presence of danger."
"Explains why Ancient Mai made those Temple Dog statues to assist the Wardens in maintaining security, I suppose." I got out a short-handled duster made of a rowan wand and a bundle of owl feathers, and began to carefully clean the dust from the model city. "What about the barking thing?"
"Their bark has some kind of spiritual power," Bob said. "A lot of stories say that they can make themselves be heard from fifty or sixty miles away. It isn't just a physical thing, either. It carries over into the Nevernever, and can be heard clearly by noncorporeal entities. It startles them, drives most of them away - and if any of them stick around, Mouse could take his teeth to them, even though they're spirits. I figure that this alarm-clock bark he did was a part of that protective power, alerting others to danger."
I grunted. "Superdog."
"But not bulletproof. They can be killed just like anything else."
There was a thought. I wondered if I could find someone to make Mouse a Kevlar vest. "Okay, Bob," I said. "Get it fired up and give it a once-over."
"Right, boss. I hope you will note that I am doing this without once complaining how unfair it is that you've seen the cupcake nekkid and I haven't."
"So noted." I picked up the skull and set it down on the sheet of translucent, rubbery blue plastic that represented Lake Michigan. "Check it out while I get my spell face on."
The skull spun around to face the city while I settled down on the floor, legs crossed, hands resting lightly on my knees, and closed my eyes, focusing on drawing my thoughts to stillness, my heart to a slow, slow beat. I breathed slowly, deeply, systematically walling out worries, emotions, everything but purpose.
One time, when we'd been discussing martial arts, Murphy told me that eventually, no one can teach you anything more about them. Once you reach that state of knowledge, the only way to keep learning and increasing your own skill is to teach what you know to others. That's why she teaches a children's class and a rape-defense course every spring and fall at one of her neighborhood's community centers.
It sounded kind of flaky-Zen to me at the time, but Hell's bells, she'd been right. Once upon a time, it would have taken me an hour, if not more, to attain the proper frame of mind. In the course of teaching Molly to meditate, though, I had found myself going over the basics again for the first time in years, and understanding them with a deeper and richer perspective than I'd had when I was her age. I'd been getting almost as much insight and new understanding of my knowledge from teaching Molly as she'd been learning from me.