I could almost see the way she arched one eyebrow. "Mr. Dresden. I don't want to threaten you. But you must understand that I am well acquainted with a certain young lady of your company-and that I could see to it that things became very awkward between you."

"I see. But if I shared the story with you-"

"Gave me an exclusive, Mr. Dresden."

"An exclusive," I amended, "then you might see your way clear to avoiding causing problems for me?"

"I'd even put in a good word with her," Susan said, her voice cheerful, then dropping into a lower, smokier register. "Who knows. You might get lucky."

I thought about it for a minute. The ghost Michael and I had nailed last night had been a big, bestial thing lurking in the basement of the University of Chicago library. I didn't have to mention the names of any people involved, and while the university wouldn't like it, I doubted it would be seriously hurt by appearing in a magazine that most people bought along with every other tabloid in the supermarket checkout lines. Besides which, just the thought of Susan's caramel skin and soft, dark hair under my hands … Yum. "That's an offer I can hardly refuse," I told her. "Do you have a pen?"

She did, and I spent the next ten minutes telling her the details. She took them down with a number of sharp, concise questions, and had the whole story out of me in less time than I would have believed. She really was a good reporter, I thought. It was almost a shame that she was spending her time reporting the supernatural, which people had been refusing to believe in for centuries.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Dresden," she said, after she squeezed the last drips of information out of me. "I hope things go well between you and the young lady tonight. At your place. At nine."

"Maybe the young lady would like to discuss the possibilities with me," I drawled.

She let out a throaty laugh. "Maybe she would," Susan agreed. "But this is a business call."

I laughed. "You're terrible, Susan. You never give up, do you?"

"Never, ever," she said.

"Would you really have been mad at me if I hadn't told you?"

"Harry," she said. "You stood me up last night without a word. I don't usually stand for that kind of treatment from any man. If you hadn't had a good story for me, I was going to think that you were out horsing around with your friends."

"Yeah, that Michael." I chuckled. "He's a real party animal."

"You're going to have to give me the story on him sometime. Have you come any closer to working out what's going on with the ghosts? Did you look into the seasonal angle?"