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Early that day, a note that a mysterious shadow slid under his door asked him to go to a certain restaurant at a certain time. Having recognized the handwriting and having detected no malicious magic impregnating the paper, he figured it would be safe to go, so he went. Besides, it was his birthday and, as of late, he had been surrounded by people who liked to remember it more than he did.
Nothing bad happened on the way. This was just a normal stroll, the kind that he would normally take whenever he went from his home to the venue. However, after spending so long being hunted down and badmouthed both behind his back and to his face, even though he looked carefree and with a spring in his step, he kept his guard high.
Moments later, a quick peek through a window showed him his loved ones sitting around a large table, all smiles and vibrant excitement. That was enough to make him lower his guard, which had disappeared by the time he opened the door.
Which was why he only noticed the anomaly when he went through it.
When he crossed the threshold, it felt like he would never stop doing it, not even when his foot touched the floor again. Or even when his other foot joined the first. Suddenly, he wasn’t at the restaurant. Or on the street. He was somewhere else, a place different from the reality he knew with no idea of how or why or a way to get back; the door behind him had disappeared.
Endless-looking hallways stretched in front of him. Also behind him—and to the right and to the left. Every few meters, there was either an entrance or a door that seemed to lead to even more and more corridors with their own doors. The corridors were covered with beige carpet, both the floor and the walls, and the ceilings were painted white. The light seemed to come from everywhere at the same time, making the place look so dull it got creepy.
Or, at least, to any other than his seasoned self, it would have looked creepy. For him, who had so much experience with the supernatural under his belt, it went back to dull again.
Either way, he was wasting time. He could have been eating something tasty instead of looking at this drab. A solution and a culprit must be found and dealt with. The sooner, the better.
Before he could start cursing, though, another man dressed up in weird clothes appeared in front of him. They both looked so confused that it took them a couple of seconds to decide that they were just as lost as that other individual in front of them. That, of course, didn’t rule out that one could turn against the other in the blink of an eye and for any reason, but a little betrayal between strangers had never hurt anyone, right? Besides, they had to find a way out of there…
“…because I need to go back to my birthday party!” they said at the same time.
They stared at each other with an even greater intensity and then they started to laugh. Out of nervousness, out of how ridiculous the situation was, neither of them knew.
“Hell’s bells! What are the odds,” Harry Dresden commented, scratching his chin, “of being trapped in an alternate reality…?”
“With someone you share your birthday with?” Wei Wuxian finished with a grin.
Harry looked at him straight in the eye, not at all put off by the nonchalant tone.
“Exactly,” he replied, deadpan. “On the other hand, it does sound like something that should have happened to me earlier in my career.”
Wei Wuxian snickered.
“Really? What do you do?”
Harry shrugged one shoulder.
“Vanquish evil, undo wrongs. That kinda thing.”
“Ah! My husband and the kids do that too. I just go along giving them advice here and there.”
Well, look at that. Clues kept piling up. What a wonderful time to be a detective.
“Matching birthdays, matching activities… Therefore, obviously…”
Before Harry could finish that phrase, a rustling sound came from down one of the hallways. At the beginning, it was like the wind on the trees—except that there was no sign of vegetable life in this place. As the noise grew louder and whatever it was approached, it began to sound like countless footsteps.
And lo and behold, there were countless feet doing those countless footsteps. But that wasn’t the worst part. Of course not. The worst part was that the owners of those feet belonged in the category of the undead.
“Zombies!” Harry yelled as he took a step to get between Wei Wuxian and the approaching horde. “And of the fast moving kind!”
“Fierce corpses!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed at the same time while he tried to cover Harry. “Fast-moving…? Is there any other kind?”
“The kind that moves slowly?” Harry ventured.
Even though there was no time to lose, both men exchanged looks feeling touched and confused at the same time by the other’s intention to protect them.
Either way, Harry took advantage of the fraction of a second it took Wei Wuxian to chuckle at the quip to make the first move and raise a thick wall of ice in front of them.
The zombies crashed against it with their full force and it barely even shook. This didn’t discourage them, though. They punched it with their fists—those that still had fists—or with their full bodies. But it would take a while before they even make a crack on it.
Harry swallowed a sigh of relief. It was nice to see the Winter Knight mantle still working here in full capacity.
“Nice!” Wei Wuxian said when he got closer to poke the wall with a finger, finding it nice and solid. He turned to Harry for a second to wink at him before he got a black flute from his sash. “Now check this out,” he said, and he began to play.
The music had an ancient feeling to it, and magic oozed from it, embedded in every note. Harry could tell even without extending his senses. And the effect it had on the undead was… interesting, to say the least.
The first row of walking corpses stopped what they were doing and turned against each other, ripping apart the ones that came behind them. Then, the second row, and the third. Soon, they became a second line of defense that protected the two living men against their fellow zombies. Even better, they continued doing it after the music stopped.
Harry stared at Wei Wuxian for a moment.
Just giving advice, his ass.
On the other hand, necromancy tended to be heavily frowned upon, and Harry himself had… dabbled. Ish. It had been an epic dabble, but the point was that he was no one to judge.
“I really miss Sue right now,” he murmured.
“Sorry?” Wei Wuxian asked.
Harry waved his hand.
“Nothing.” He sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know if we’re anywhere close to solving this mystery.”
Wei Wuxian tapped his chin with his flute.
“Me neither. I vote we keep moving. We have to arrive somewhere at some point.”
“Yeah. It’s boring enough as it is.”
Thus, they resumed walking down the corridor, going the opposite side from the undead, of course.
“So, is your husband a detective of the supernatural? Like, does he investigate and solve mysteries and stuff?”
“Not often. Most of the time, the problem is right there in the open, ready and waiting for him to strike it down with his sword or vanquish it with his guqin.”
“I see,” Harry replied, although he had no idea what a guqin was. But he got the rest. “That sounds like an ideal day for me. Smash first, ask never.”
Wei Wuxian laughed before asking, “Is that what you do? Solving mysteries? ”
“Yes. Where I’m from, a lot of people don’t know or don’t understand what’s haunting them. A lot of the time they go through different professionals before they get to me, and by then…”
“By then, things look pretty bad?” Wei Wuxian offered.
“Yeah. You wouldn’t believe the kind of things that would get solved quick and easy if everyone communicated their needs clearly when they needed help.”
“Oh, I do believe it,” Wei Wuxian said with a laugh that had more than a hint of bittersweetness behind it.
Realizing that they didn’t know each other well enough to ask, Harry decided to redirect his curiosity toward more productive endeavors. After all, his comment had also been a passive-aggressive commentary directed to whoever—or whatever—had brought them here.
By then, they had been walking for a long time, taking random turns at random times, and they continued to find hallway after hallway, all of them in the same dull, beige conditions.
“Alright. Hear me out: I vote we push our luck.”
Wei Wuxian’s grin intensified.
“Sounds like the only way to live.”
Harry grinned right back and created an icicle that made a big hole on one of the walls.
Immediately, the icicle disappeared and the wall repaired itself.
So, Harry did it again.
And again.
And again and again. Not only against that one wall or just one icicle at a time. At some point, he summoned six icicles simultaneously, a couple of which hit the ceiling, breaking it into little pieces that rained into the middle of the corridor. However, even then, and just like other other times before, the walls and ceiling repaired themselves, with the holes becoming smaller and smaller, like a circle at the end of a cartoon.
Yet, when Harry spread his arms to do it again, another zombie horde came in running from their left, forcing him to redirect the icicles to pierce through their attackers. He hit as many zombies as he could on their heads, making them fall on the ground like a sack of potatoes. As for the rest, most of them jumped over the fallen, which meant that Harry’s strategy had worked to delay them only a fraction of a second.
That’s when Wei Wuxian came in. Swiftly, he brought his black flute to his lips and began playing again. Once more, he didn’t have problems taking hold of the minds and bodies of the undead, having them fight against each other.
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, Harry thought, and created another ice wall in front of them.
Then, he folded his arms and observed the carnage on the other side the time it took Wei Wuxian to finish his melody. It was a nice tune too, not too festive but not to somber either, and it was played with skill. Harry clapped when it was over, to which Wei Wuxian responded by taking a bow.
“Thank you! Thank you! I’ll be here whenever they come rushing in!”
“So, how much of a coincidence do you think that was?” Harry asked.
“Not much. But to have enough power to repair walls and ceilings so quickly and manipulate fierce corpses like that at the same time… We could be talking about an entire cultivation sect here.”
“I’m going to assume that’s the way you refer to a witch coven and call it a day. However, I’m not sure that we’re dealing with a group. I feel like we are dealing with a genius loci,a place so ancient and powerful that…”
“That it cultivated self-awareness!” Wei Wuxian finished for him, eyes wide open as he hit the open palm of one hand with his other one closed in a fist. He also sported the biggest grin on his face, the kind any smart person would have when encountering a brand new, exciting, and shiny thing.
At least someone was having fun.
“So,” Harry said, to no one in particular, but to the whole place itself, “are we correct?”
When he said that, a small girl with long and braided dark hair took a peek from one of the doors, and made a very soft and very shy affirmative noise. She disappeared as soon as the two men turned in that direction.
But they weren’t willing to leave it there. In unison, and without even exchanging a look, both men ran toward that door. They caught a hint of the girl’s dress turning around a couple of doors ahead, so they dashed over there. Then, they saw only a shoe, then an arm, and they kept chasing and chasing until they ran out of breath.
Harry was the first one to concede defeat when he let his back slide down the wall to the floor as he held his stomach and panted. Wei Wuxian didn’t fall down, but he bent over, holding his weight against the wall with his hand.
“I’m—I’m not as young as I used to be,” Harry gasped.
“And I should have been working harder on my golden core.” He took a deep breath before saying the next phrase. “A-Yuan was right. He’s not the kind to gloat, so I might even tell him. We really,” another deep breath, “we really raised him well.”
“Happy for you,” Harry said. Since he had recovered, if only a little, he raised his voice and addressed the genius loci again. “If you want us to help you, you have to tell us what you want us to do, you know?”
Some moments later, the little girl appeared again the same way she did before. First, taking a peek, then, showing a little more of herself, then a little more…
Wei Wuxian crouched down and motioned her to get closer. His face looked friendly and non-threatening, as if he were incapable of commanding a zombie army with just a flute instead of a drum and a complex necromantic ritual.
It worked, though. The little girl did get closer, chewing his braids as she did.
“There you are,” Wei Wuxian said. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one,” the girl replied with a whisper.
“Mind if we give you one?” Harry said. He thought for a little and then he said, “How about Macy? You know, short for Maze.”
The little girl blinked and then smiled.
“Macy. I like it,” she said with more confidence.
“So, Macy,” Wei Wuxian said, “what do you need us to do for you?”
“I’m a liminal space, a place of transition, so the people who get lost here and can’t find their way out remain in a limbo. They’re not alive and they’re not dead. They’re… they’re…”
“Annoying?” Harry offered.
“Ugly?” Wei Wuxian said.
“Scary!” Macy said, holding her closed fist against her chest and shaking her head as she stomped her feet where she stood.
“I see,” Wei Wuxian said.
“Understandable,” Harry replied. Finally, he got up. “So, you want us to get rid of them, Macy? Is that why you kept leading them to us?”
Macy nodded.
“As you had been doing it. I heard you’re strong and good with children, so I thought…”
Wei Wuxian placed a hand on Macy’s head and ruffled it as much as her hairdo allowed.
“Alright. We’ll take care of it.”
“Just, next time, we would appreciate it if you asked first,” Harry said. “We won’t say no to a reasonable request.”
Macy hid behind her braids again.
“All—All right.”
“Let’s do this, then,” Wei Wuxian said. His flute was back and he made it twirl in his hand. After a moment, he pointed at the corridor in front of them. “Make them come through there.”
“Yes!”
The body Macy had used to manifest herself disappeared from sight as they prepared themselves, but Harry and Wei Wuxian knew that she was still around.
Literally around.
Soon enough, the zombies came in. It was a bit terrifying that there were so many of them, never mind the idea that Macy never showed them the way out before they died. But they knew better than to resent her; she wasn’t human and therefore she didn’t follow human logic. She was doing enough offering them an opportunity for liberation.
It took a long while—several hours, perhaps—, but Harry and Wei Wuxian managed to take care of everyone who had gotten lost inside of Macy. They were used to fighting for long periods of time, but it still took a toll on them. Thus, they ended, once more, panting on the ground.
Macy showed her physical form again and jumped to hug one after the other.
“Thank you! Oh, thank you! Now that they don’t belong in between two realms, I can throw them out! They won’t be scaring me anymore!”
“I’m glad,” Wei Wuxian said. “Now, about us going back home…”
“We also don’t belong to two realms.”
Macy looked from one to the other.
“I don’t know…” She pointed at Harry. “Between fairies and humans.” Then, she pointed at Wei Wuxian. “The body of one and the soul of another.”
“Hey!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed.
“Let’s not get into thorny details, all right?” Harry said.
Macy giggled.
“Alright.” She extended a hand and the door next to her opened. Wind and sunlight came through it. “There you go. Thank you very much for all your help.”
Harry and Wei Wuxian turned toward each other. The first extended his hand for a handshake but stopped when the second bowed to him. He took it back and bowed as well.
Cultural shock, what cultural shock.
“This was fun,” Wei Wuxian said.
“Indeed. It was nice meeting you. We should do this again.”
“It’s going to be difficult,” Macy said in a thoughtful tone. “You come from different countries and different eras. You don’t even speak the same language. I’m translating for you.”
“Ah. What a powerful spirit you are,” Wei Wuxian said, rustling her hair again.
“Then just try not to pull more people in. They can get zombiefied again.”
Macy shuddered.
“No! I don’t do it! They fall through the cracks and land here.”
Harry decided to risk it.
“Why don’t you try showing them the way out before they die from exhaustion?”
Macy blinked.
“I—hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, now you have,” Wei Wuxian said with a laugh.
Macy nodded with energy.
“Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll open the door for them.”
“That’s a good girl,” Harry said.
Macy beamed and Harry and Wei Wuxian finally went through the door, one after the other, arriving at the same place they had last been when Macy summoned them.
It was as if no time had passed, either. His loved ones stood up from the table and cheerfully welcomed him, congratulating him for his birthday.
There was no point to speak about his adventure at the moment, so he decided that he would focus on celebrating, raising a glass in silence for the two new friends he had made. May they forever be happy and live in peace.