The Third Man
I've taken the position that the "third man" Donny Wise saw in the Sells lake house the night he took his pictures was Sells's mentor. It was the first time he threw the big heart-exploding curse - it makes total sense his mentor would be on hand to advise.
It seems to be a common belief that instead it was Gimpy Lawrence. But, not only is that entirely boring, it also makes no sense at all. Marcone told Harry that to the extent he'd been able to catch any of the people working with Sells, they'd seen only "Shadows." Sells clearly contacted them with that projection spell he used to have that first talk with Harry.
So, how likely is it that he would get one of Marcone's close allies to turn traitor, and then invite him to his house and base of manufacturing operations? That's right - it's not likely at all. No way, man - that would have been a massive security breach. It was have put Gimpy in the perfect position to go to Marcone and reveal that he'd had an opportunity to out Marcone's enemy and it had paid off - he'd reap enormous rewards from Marcone.
I think that's all we need to just completely put that idea to bed - it's simply not a risk Sells would have taken, careful as he was being.
Oh, and it would be boring - it doesn't advance the story at all. On the other hand, Harry has suspected a "sponsor" behind the folks like Sells, Denton, and Kravos, and that point has been touched on several times.
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Maybe Cowl?
KipIngram [OP] 20 points · Nov 2025
Yes, that's absolutely what I think. I think Cowl mentored Sells, gave the wolf belts to Denton, and mentored Leonid Kravos. I don't think any of those players were really important to Cowl - I think they were pawns he used, primarily as part of a long-term program of "Harry manipulation."
I'll briefly lay out my whole theory. I think that when the White Council went to take Kemmler down in 1961, he dodged his fate by body jacking Justin Dumorne, and Dumorne's spirit died in Kemmler's body. Kemmler went on posing as Dumorne. He adopted Harry and Elaine in hopes of acquiring a Starborn wizard for his later end-game. Harry was Starborn - Elaine was not. But she could still serve as a good resource.
Eventually he sought to enthrall them, and succeeded with Elaine. But Harry slipped through his fingers. That was a problem, because if Harry came into contact with the Council he could out "Dumorne" as a bad guy. So either Harry had to die, or he had to give up the Dumorne cover. He wasn't willing to kill the only Starborn wizard he knew about, so he chose the latter. He staged the duel and threw it, creating the external impression that Dumorne had died. Then he went into hiding. Whenever he believes he will come into contact with people that would recognize Dumorne, he adopts the Cowl disguise.
But not always, and he didn't need that disguise when dealing with Sells. So that film Harry burned up would have shown him that "Dumorne" was alive and well. Ironic.
Anyway, he's still working on his long term plans, and that plan still involves Harry. So he's continuously manipulating Harry, setting him up for the role he needs him to play in the end (which I think is simple - he wants to use Outsiders as weapons, but he needs to be sure they can be "re-contained" in the end, and that calls for a Starborn wizard). Meanwhile, he's got his fingers in everyone's pies. He allied with the Red Court, and provided them with information on how to get into Archangel (which he knew by recovering his "Dumorne memories"). He used his relationship with Bianca to vector nfection into the Winter Court, and probably also was at least trying to nfect Ferrovax. He sent Elaine (still his thrall) into Summer to carry nfection to Aurora. He formed an alliance with Lord Raith of the White Court, and introduced him to He Who Walks Behind.
Harry has been causing problems for him the whole way, but Harry is too important to sacrifice, so Cowl's taking those losses and carrying on. The Gatekeeper said it well - practically Harry's every action has been "a thumb in the enemy's eye." And that's what led to his remark (to himself, mostly) at the end of "Fugitive": "Harry, sometimes you really are a pain in my ass." Note that he said "Harry" - not "Dresden." That right there is a huge bit of evidence that Cowl is someone with a close personal association with Harry, and there just aren't many wizards that qualify for that. Harry's Dumorne certainly would.
Ok, finally, I've got to include the preemptive rebuttal. Certainly if Cowl is Kemmler he would not have needed The Word or Bob in order to do the Darkhallow. But he is hiding his identity, and it would have looked suspicious for "just Cowl" to know the ritual without aid. So he faked the need for the book, and that's also why he made the remark to Harry about having "nothing but disdain for the madman Kemmler." This seems so obvious and simple to me that I feel like it shouldn't even need to be said out loud, but this is always the very first objection to the whole theory that gets thrown out, almost every time it comes up. So most of the time I try to put it to rest in advance. Of course he didn't "really" need any help, but he's pretending to be someone who would need help, and given how close the Council came to taking him out in 1961 he's being extremely careful this time. That included not revealing to Bob who he really was, most likely. I think we often overrate Bob - I don't accept it as obvious at all that Bob would "just know." Bob has enormous knowledge, but he's still subject to limitations. In fact, we don't necessarily even know Bob's real story - all we know about him comes from Harry, and all he knew came from Bob. It may or may not all be correct, and for all we know Bob is under some sort of a manipulation spell himself. So he could be Cowl's agent, and he might be aware of it or he might not be aware of it.
riveth3ad 4 points · Nov 2025
I think on the whole, this is soundly reasoned, and I agree with most of it...but I have a couple of concerns:
I don't believe someone as careful and long-term thinking as Cowl would risk a direct...intimate...contact with a shallow, blunt tool like Sells. Also, if it was Cowl/Kemmler, Helen Beckett is still breathing and occasionally vertical and could identify him (although you could make the argument that she's a thrall or willing ally too and is now a mole for Marcone...keep your enemies close kind of thing; but that could also be achieved without him being the third man in the flesh pit). Or maybe he just grew a distracting mustache.
Wouldn't it be just as easy for someone of Kemmler and/or Cowl's skills to suborn a rando just to have a strong cutout if things went south. Not to mention Dresden described the storm magic is described as risky (granted, at the point he said that, he hadn't become the mover and shaker he currently is) and it could have backfired on those involved in the ritual...although the presence of a heavyweight could be reasoned that's why the ritual didn't backfire...
But if he had a cutout, he'd gain all the benefit with significantly less risk.
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If Kemmler is Cowl and is staging a ruse about the Darkhallow, why would he wait? I could be wrong, but I can't recall anything special about that specific Halloween night. If it wasn't a once-in-a-hundred-years-star-alignment night, he could have ascended without competition or Dresden's involvement on any number of Halloweens...even while Harry was still a kid learning to dodge baseballs and didn't represent the level of threat that he does currently. If Kemmler did that, he's got all the capital-p Power and a starborn apprentice too ignorant--Harry didn't even know about the council or the laws of magic--to worry about/meddle with his design and he can move forward more actively.
On the other hand, you could make the argument that he was waiting for Harry to be strong enough to take out his parasitic acolytes Grevane and Corpsetaker? That making a show of it brings them both on the same stage and he's rid of them because they know too much of his plans? Maybe if he killed one himself it would have tipped the other to go into defensive mode, so he uses Harry? that could work, but it doesn't hold a lot of water for me...
Last thought on this specific point...if Darkhallow Ritual can be conducted on any given Halloween and you know how to do it...why not do it at a remote nexus near Siberian labor camps? You'd be away from the attention of anyone who can stop you and would have a good chunk of the millions of ghosts who died in them to feed from.
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I've talked at too much length about how I could see it happening, but I will be disappointed in Butcher if Elaine is Kumori. My fingers remain crossed.
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Regardless...this is a great, thought inspiring thread, thanks.
KipIngram [OP] 5 points · Nov 2025
You make some good points, and I'm afraid I'm going to respond to them primarily by noting that Jim has to get a story told, so it's likely not going to be perfectly consistent. It does seem highly likely that Cowl would have eliminated Helen Beckitt, after the fact, for example. I guess I see these as small details that are easy enough to sweep under the rug.
Regarding the Darkhallow, I don't think Cowl really intended to finish the Darkhallow. He more or less guaranteed that Harry would "show up" when he left him alive at Murphy's - I think he wanted him to show up. In any case, if he'd completed the ritual, it would have killed Harry once he was present.
It has occurred to me that we don't really necessarily know everything about the Darkhallow. We've heard mostly about it's payoff - what if there's a downside to it too? Maybe Cowl didn't want to do it himself - maybe the whole plan was to let Harry stop him and then have Harry finish it and bear that downside. Of course Harry didn't, but Harry's still alive and operating and can still accomplish what Cowl needs him for later.
I don't think Cowl necessarily has to control Harry to get what he wants - Harry's primary purpose in the scheme is to put the Outsiders back in their box when Cowl's done using them as weapons later. He's primarily maneuvering to "power Harry up" so he'll be ready to do that when the time comes, and Harry's going to do it anyway - it doesn't have to be in response to a command from Cowl.
I don't claim to have all this perfect, and there's a ton of stuff we don't know. I think it was arranged for Harry to be drawn into the Dead Beat situation - since Mavra was the tool used to do that, it probably means Drakul was involved. I figure Cowl and Drakul are "frenemies" who collaborate to some degree but both of whom intend to backstab the other and come out on top in the end. But I figure Cowl asked Drakul to send Mavra on that errand.
Mostly I just think that there are more little things scattered around the series that support this idea than there are things that negate it, though in fairness most of those support the Cowl = Dumorne part more so than the Kemmler angle.
I definitely recognize that the whole program could be partially or totally wrong - we'll just have to wait and see.