“Okay,” I said. “No help for it, then.” I took a deep breath and held it as if I were about to jump into deep water. Then I hunched my shoulders and rushed forward.

Anticlimax. As I went through the gate, I was subjected to a swift, intense tingling sensation. Then I was on the other side.

I walked up a little stone path leading to Morty’s front door, but it wasn’t until I had gone over the bridge that I saw the man standing in the shadows on the front porch.

He was huge. Not built like a weight lifter or anything, just a naturally big-boned, brawny man standing almost as tall as I. His dark hair was gathered at the nape of his neck with a bit of ribbon. A long, dark blue coat fell to his calves, its sleeves marked with gold braid. Beneath that, he wore a uniform—a tight-fitting blue jacket, white shirt, white pants, and high black boots. He carried some kind of long-handled ax over one shoulder, and as I came to a halt, he was already drawing a flintlock pistol from his belt with his free hand. He leveled it just a little bit to one side of me and called out, “Halt! Identify yourself, scoundrel, or begone!”

“Scoundrel?” I asked, putting my fingers on my chest as if distressed at the accusation. “That’s a little unfair.”

“Ye’ve the look of a scoundrel!” boomed the man. “And a dandysprat and a ragamuffin. Though I’ll admit, for all that, ye could yet be a congressman.” I could see the white flash of his teeth in the dark as he smiled. “Give me a name, man.”

“Harry Dresden,” I said in a clear tone.

The barrel of the gun wavered a few more degrees away from me. “The wizard?”

“The late wizard,” I replied, then gestured down at myself. “The late Harry Dresden, really.”

“Zounds,” the man said. He frowned for a moment as if in thought.

It didn’t look natural on him.

“If you lie,” he said slowly, “I can see no veritable reason for doing so, and I am inclined to shoot you. Yet if you tell the truth, your presence here draws mischief to my friend’s house, and I am inclined to shoot you repeatedly.” He nodded firmly and settled the gun’s barrel on me. “Either way…”

He was about to shoot. I didn’t know if it would re-kill me or not, but given what I had experienced of the universe, it might. At the very least, I figured, it would probably hurt like a son of a bitch. I had to keep this bozo from bringing the hammer down. Assuming his period outfit was authentic, that might be simple.

“Little rude, isn’t it, to shoot me?” I asked him. “I’m unarmed, and I’ve offered no violence or insult to you. Introduced myself, even. Whereas you haven’t even told me your name.”

The man in the blue coat looked suddenly abashed, and the pistol dropped slightly once more. “Ah yes. Um, please excuse me. Societal graces were imperfectly instilled in me in my youth, and that sad fact tends to be reflected in my more temperate afterlife.” He straightened and literally clicked his heels together, without ever moving the gun far from me, and gave me a slight bow. “The late Captain Sir Stuart Winchester of the Colonial Marines.”