Chapter Sixteen

Harry Dresden leaves Linda Randall’s building devastated by the breach with Karrin Murphy. At a gas station, a limping attacker pummels Harry and snips off a lock of his hair—an instant, terrifying conduit for deadly magic.

Harry recognizes the assailant as Marcone’s limping henchman from earlier. In a desperate struggle, Harry wrenches the man’s knee and grapples for the fist holding his hair, but bystanders separate them and the thug escapes with part of the lock. Furious and frightened, Harry reasons that someone—perhaps tied to Marcone—now has the means to kill him as Stanton, Tomm, and Randall were killed.

Questioning whether Marcone is truly behind the wizardry, Harry judges that the Shadowman is powerful but untrained, reliant on storms. Harry resolves to act before the next strike and decides to trace whoever holds his hair.

Using blood he scraped from under his fingernails from the struggle, Harry draws a circle on the sidewalk and casts a tracking spell keyed by his own nose hairs and the thug’s blood. The magic locks onto the man’s cologne, pointing southwest toward affluent suburbs.

Seizing the moment while the trace lasts, Harry hails his cab, orders a stop at his apartment to collect his staff, rod, talismans, and a fetish, and prepares to confront Marcone’s organization and the unknown wizard to reclaim his hair and end the threat.