I didn’t even know what those things were, or why they had all gathered in one place. Morgan had said something about ‘Hollows’ as he drew his sword, but by then they’d been on us and we'd had no more time to talk since then. “Fuego!” I snarled, hitting one of them with a blast of fire it didn’t appreciate.

Morgan, strangely enough, wasn’t bothering to use magic; he was lashing out with the Almighty Sword of Compensation and cutting clean through the masked... entities, all in one stroke. No matter how much I didn't like him, he was good, and though I would never admit this to him, I was glad that he was there to fight those things with me.

There was something about them that made me want to run home in terror and sob in my mother's arms, regardless of the fact that mine was dead. Unfortunately for them, I'd faced down plenty of things even more terrifying, like the fetches; I could easily ignore the fear they inspired in me.

Morgan didn't even seem to notice; there was a near-primal fury about him as he led the masked entities in a dance of death, wielding his insanely huge sword as though it weighed no more than a feather. Perhaps to him it did; I'd read in some Japanese comic book where one of the characters' sword was insanely heavy to any but the girl to whom it belonged.

"Pay attention, Dresden!" snarled Morgan, cutting another of the things in two.

Startled, I threw the thing that had gotten uncomfortably close to me away with a wind spell that only seemed to draw more attention to me. Come to think of it, the creatures were focusing primarily on me, not on Morgan. How is that fair?

The answer came to me in a flash of insight, specifically regarding our respective combat styles for the moment. I was using magic, Morgan was not. Those things had attacked two very powerful Wardens.

Could they somehow detect wizardry?

Before I could shout to Morgan what I'd learned, he took a hard hit from one of the larger masked things and flew back into a brick wall; from there he slumped to the ground, knocked unconscious by the impact.

Hell's bells.

I shifted my grip on my staff and turned to the things, sidestepping to stand between Morgan and the things. I didn't like him any more than he liked me, but hell, he'd saved my life once, and he was still badly needed for the war against the vampires. Focusing my magic, I prepared to send the things flying--

And from behind me, Morgan shouted, "Shake the earth, Hildegard!"

A flare of power caught me unprepared, and I nearly dropped my staff as rocks and boulders flew past me to impact against the creatures. With each impact, one of the masked things was destroyed, and then there were none left to fight. Startled, I turned to look at Morgan and, presumably, Hildegard - and stared.

Morgan stood alone, but he had somehow found the time to run home, get ready for a Renaissance Faire, and return in time to help me against the things -- rather than his usual clothing, he was clad in black (leggings, shirt, boots, tunic) with white trimmings (both on the tunic and the belt around it). He'd even traded in the Almighty Sword of Compensation for an ordinary broadsword, which he held lightly in one hand.

Behind him lay another Morgan, still unconscious, and still in his Warden garb.

The conscious Morgan looked incredibly annoyed as his sword shimmered and grew, once more becoming the Almighty Sword of Compensation.

All I could do was gape. What the hell had just happened?

Maybe one of the masked things got to me. I was out cold, and that was nothing more than an incredibly vivid hallucination.

Then Morgan spoke again. "Judging by that stupefied expression on your face, you can see me, Dresden," he said.

What the hell was he talking about? Of course I could see him. Both of him. Before I could tell him as much, he went on, "I'm not surprised, since you could see the Hollows, too."

"What the hell is a Hollow?" I demanded.

"Malevolent ghosts," Morgan replied, an undercurrent of anger in his voice. "Corrupted spirits that feast on the souls of the living and the dead and are attracted to high amounts of spiritual energy."

So he'd known why we had been attacked. No wonder he hadn't been using magic.

I opened my mouth to reply, but a child's voice shrieked, "DONNY-KUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!" The next thing I knew, a blur of pink and black had arrived out of nowhere and jumped onto Morgan's back, where it became evident that the blur was, in fact, a very little girl with pink hair.

To my surprise, Morgan reacted calmly to this assault on his person: "You're late, lieutenant."

Definitely shouldn't have eaten that salad before I met Morgan today. I thought those mushrooms looked suspicious.

The girl babbled at him in a language I didn't understand but that Morgan apparently did, for he listened gravely to her and then replied dryly, "You may tell Zaraki that I am grateful for his interest, but the day I join his squad is the day the Red King peaceably surrenders, makes reparations, apologises for the war personally, and retires to a small island somewhere to write poetry."

More babbling, to which he said, "If the general wishes me to take up shinigami duties, he'll just have to wait until I die."

Cheery babble; "Yes. I know." And here hell froze over, because Morgan smiled.

The smile faded somewhat as she chattered at him, and he sighed in vexation, then glanced at me. "Take care of my body, Dresden," he ordered. "It would seem as though General Yamamoto-Genryūsai wants me to report."

"Your body?" I certainly did not squeak. Squeaking is not manly, therefore I did not squeak.

"Yes, Dresden," Morgan replied. "You're looking at my soul right now. I'll explain later; for the time being, make sure nothing happens to it." The undercurrent in his voice hinted that I would face quite a few hauntings as well as the wrath of his girlfriend if something did happen to his body.

And I wasn't sure which was worse.

I nodded, and Morgan turned back to the little girl hanging off his shoulder. "Open the gate, Lieutenant Kusajishi," he said, and somehow I could tell it wasn't an order. Hell's bells, Morgan respected an eight-year-old girl more than he did me.

Then I remembered Ivy and wondered if, perhaps, this Kusajishi was somehow similar to the Archive.

A gate opened before Morgan and Kusajishi, and Morgan walked inside with the little girl hanging off of his shoulder; then it vanished, leaving me to drag Morgan's unconscious body somewhere relatively safe.

That bastard.