I suspect that people like Victor crop up all of the time and the White Council deals with them routinely. Victor was different because he had access to a very powerful killing curse, had a burgeoning drug empire, and had a fairly powerful demon that he barely controlled. I suspect that Nemesis propped him up in order to threaten Dresden and/or Morgan. Both would be positioned to be major threats to any play that Nemesis made against Demonreach so would be good people to eliminate as early as possible.

I've been thinking about this a lot and this makes a lot of sense that this would happen sometimes. Any being sensitive to thoughts may accidentally or purposedly repeat phrases like this as a way to be persuasive. Molly is a very sensitive person so it makes sense that she would be able to do it. While I suppose we could make the same argument about Maeve and Ramirez because they're magic users, I think there's another intriguing possibility: Carlos and Maeve were both infected by Nemesis and did it on accident.

Maeve being Nemfected a strong possibility given that she almost blew up Demonreach and that was the explicit goal of Nemesis in Battle Ground. She was also the very first target of the Starborn Winter Knight.

I think that there's a decent argument for Carlos too. First, we know that Justine was Nemfected and had to be infected by someone. Carlos had a few minutes next to her in White Night while Harry was listening to the WCV debate the merits of the crusade against low talent wizards. This was also around when Justine became close to Lara. Second, we know that Carlos was nearby a Cthulhu cult in Cold Case. He says that he got a report from Elaine to check it out but that's an easy cover story to make up. Third, we know that at least one shadowy organization tasked an attractive, respected, and talented White Council Warden to become close to Dresden in order to keep an eye on him. Would it be strange for another party to do something similar? Fourth, isn't it weird that several experienced Wardens fought Black Court Vampires in Battle Ground and only Harry and Carlos survived? Fifth, isn't it odd that several of the stories he prominently features include Outsiders? War Cry, White Night, Proven Guilty, Cold Case, and Battle Ground/Peace Talks all have Carlos and all have Outsiders. The only one with a lot of Carlos but no obvious Outsider influence is Dead Beat. That one is centered on a conflict with Kemmler's disciples but would it shock you to discover Kemmler made a deal with Outsiders? Maybe one Kemmler's disciples was Nemfected and that's how Carlos got Nemfected. Sixth, he's repeatedly mentioned as the youngest to every reach Warden Commander. It wouldn't be surprising if the Outsider gave him help to accomplish it.

Mab doesn't care.

Hula Hoop.

I think that the Darkhallow was similar to normal energy absorption but scaled up drastically and improved somehow. We've seen Harry do energy absorption a lot including the fight in the aquarium in Small Favor. Based on that fight, the typical way to do it has limits because it literally raised Harry's body temperature. The Darkhallow must have some type of containment mechanism to handle the extra energy. Maybe it's a combination of the ascension spell in "Welcome to the Jungle" along with the normal energy absorption?

Either way, I suspect that what Harry was tempted to do in Storm Front, and what Evil Harry did in Grave Peril, would be a scaled down version of the Darkhallow. It would have just been sucking the ambient emotional energy of a dark place to do destructive things. That would have in turn affected Harry in a bunch of different ways.

Assuming Jim hasn't changed his mind, he's told us what the big choice was. It's at the end of Grave Peril when Harry goes to save Susan. Our Harry summons a bunch of vengeful ghosts to kill the vampires when he could have absorbed their power and lashed out. The other Harry does the later.

Yeah but we know almost nothing about the Grey Council's part of the battle. I just skimmed through the battle chapter and we're told that Eb uses the Black Staff, that someone shouts "Fuego" (potentially a time traveling Harry), and that Odin/Vadderung helped open a Way. Even though there's a dozen figures, there's no description of anyone outside Eb and Odin/Vadderung that I was able to see. I suspect that the Gatekeeper is one of the 12 because Eb says something about traveling being easier with "a carpet to scuff your feet on" and, when Harry sees the Gatekeeper at the Outer Gates, he uses a flying carpet. We also know that the Gatekeeper was familiar with the Ways. That's still 9 figures that we know nothing about so there's plenty of room for Langtry.

I also kinda like the idea that Langtry is on the Grey Council. I could see him having a Snape-like arc in the end. It would go a long way to explain why people like Listens and Eb still support Langtry if they knew he secretly acts like Harry wants him to act while simultaneously keeping the White Council as neutral as possible. Langtry is also intelligent enough to keep his wards hidden from obvious view to give the White Council as much of a cover as possible.