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Michael Carpenter is a good man and is used to seeing the good in others. It's how he was raised and, more importantly, it's just who he is. But he's no fool, so when he insists on a soulgaze with Harry Dresden, wizard, private detective, and all around suspicious character by all accounts, he's prepared to look upon the other man's soul with honesty, knowing that the man in front of him may be, to put it simply, evil.
With all that he's heard, he doesn't expect to see a good man. It's even more of a shock when he sees not a good man, but a great man. He's dirty, like he's just risen from falling in some unknown muck, and he's covered in bruises, his clothes torn and ragged, but somehow radiant despite it all. Behind him trail the corpses of monstrosities; before him is a forest, dark and ominous, and Michael can hear sickly voices beckoning. Dresden draws his gun and holds his staff, blazing, before him, and walks steadily into the forest. Michael doesn't know if he'll come out again, but he knows that if he does, he won't be unscathed.
***
He sees the way that people are drawn to Dresden, the way that he remains absolutely loyal to others until they, as they sometimes have, turn on him. He sees the awesome power that the wizard has at his disposal. Marcone sees, for the first time in a long time, someone who could be his equal.
***
Thomas doesn't know it, but what he sees is remarkably similar to what Harry sees in his own soul. When it starts, he assumes that he's seeing two Harry Dresdens, and with a flash of something like fear wonders if his brother has a personality disorder that he's been hiding all this time. But he looks closer, and he realizes that while the two figures are remarkably similar, they are different.
On the one hand, there's Harry Dresden, wizard, private detective, looking battered and worn but determined at the same time, his staff held before him, blazing with runes of white fire.
On the other hand, there's Harry Dresden, warlock and warlord, a serpent's smirk plastered on his face, his own staff held out in a perfect mirror image of his twin's, blazing and smoldering, the stench of brimstone heavy in the air.
There's a presence at his side, and he turns to find his mother watching the scene before them, a look of love and pity on her soft features.
"We should talk," he says.
"Yes, we should," she replies, and leads him away for a few too brief moments.
***
Fresh and hurting from her ordeal at Arctis Tor, Molly Carpenter looks into the soul of Harry Dresden and sees a man, strong and powerful and defiant, but bound in chains. She knows, without knowing how she knows, that some of them are of his own making. The rest, though, were forged for him by loved ones past. She looks closer and sees cuts and bruises on his skin through torn fabric, souvenirs of battles both recent and long forgotten. His face is bloody but his eyes are clear. In his fist, he holds a shining pentacle amulet, and just outside the ring of light it casts, she can see a shadowy figure. The man in the shadows smiles at her and waves a little wave. Then it's over, and she's left shivering and uncertain in the House of God.
***
Helen sees nothing through her blinding, deadening rage, but she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she hears music.
***
Elaine looks into the eyes of her lover as they lay tangled together, breathing heavily, and she sees herself reflected there, adored and worshipped. She's touched by this in a way that she doesn't really understand, not yet, not for years to come, but she pushes it aside, because she knows Harry by now, knows that there's more there. Beyond her own shining radiance, she finds a modern knight wearing the face of their guardian. The knight radiates warmth that she can feel even from a distance, and she watches as he holds back the dark, formless shapes of monsters. She can almost see familiar faces in the shadows, and she realizes that the monsters are just a symbol, and that they stand for fright, and loneliness, and she feels a tightness in her gut, because she recognizes all these dark emotions from before Justin recognized her for what she was. Then she hears a voice in her ear, soft and melodious and motherly, and it says "This will change all too soon." And then the `gaze is over, and before she can think too deeply on what she had seen, Harry is kissing her lips and her mind becomes otherwise occupied.
***
Justin DuMorne is a man with intentions, a wizard with a Plan. He knows that his fellow wardens can never find out, but he also knows that he is going to need assistance, so he goes after Margaret LeFay. It doesn't take long before he learns that she's been killed. He doesn't particularly care about the hows or the whys, because instead of a willful and stubborn woman, an unbelievably strong wizard in her own right, he finds her sons.
Her first born is useless to him: the boy inherited none of his mother's gifts and is under the watchful eye of both his father and his older sisters. DuMorne has no desire to bring the White Court into this.
The second son, however, is another story. The boy's father is mortal, and easily disposed of when he deems the time appropriate. From there, it's hardly difficult to make sure that the child is placed in just the right set of circumstances. DuMorne wants to break the boy of his innocent view of the world and ensure that his own arrival will be like the first ray of light after a long and terrible storm, not to destroy the boy entirely.
When the day finally comes, he takes the boy aside and kneels before him, an unusually humble gesture for such a great man, and looks deep into the child's eyes.
Unsurprisingly, it is a child's soul he sees, almost identical to all the others he has seen over the years as he searched for untrained and untested wizards-to-be. The boy--he supposes he should start calling him Harry, now that he's seen the boy's innermost soul--is exceptional in one or two ways, however. Not in his ability to trust or to wonder at the world which is almost universal in individuals below a certain age, but in the darkness that lies beneath that. There is so much potential there, so much power, more than his mother had ever had, even in her prime. And speaking of dear Margaret, there she is, at the center of young Harry's soul, holding him close to her side and daring him to come any closer. As if she could keep the boy safe from him. He smiles mirthlessly and ends the soulgaze.
***
She sees it every time he does something so blindingly stupid and noble that she feels the need to beat him about the head with something hard and unyielding. She sees it every time he gets that one look on his face when she brings him to see the next victim of an inexplicable crime. She sees it every time he saves her just in a nick of time, and every time she saves him. Karrin Murphy has never needed a soulgaze to see Harry Dresden's soul.