Jim Butcher - Side Jobs

“Well,” I said. “Yeah.”

Butters looked at me over his spectacles. “So,” he said, “who knew you had the swords?”

“Plenty knew I had Shiro’s sword,” I said. “But this guy tried to get to me through Michael. And the only ones who knew about Amoracchius were me, a couple of archangels, Michael, Sanya, and ...”

Butters tilted his head, looking at me, waiting.

“And the Church,” I growled.

ST. MARY OF the Angels is just about as big and impressive as churches get. In a city known for its architecture, St. Mary’s more than holds its own. It takes up most of a city block. It’s massive, stone, and as Gothic as black frosting on a birthday cake.

I’d watched my back all the way there and was sure no one was following me. I parked behind the church and marched up to the delivery door. Twenty seconds of pounding brought a tall, rather befuddled-looking old priest to the door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I’m here to see Father Forthill,” I said.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“’S okay, Padre,” I told him, clapping his shoulder and moving him aside less than gently. “I’ll find him.”

“Now, see here, young man—”

He might have said something else, but I didn’t pay much attention. I walked past him, into the halls of the church, and headed for Forthill’s room. I rapped twice on the door, opened it, and walked in on a priest in his underwear.

Father Forthill was a stocky man of medium height, with a fringe of white hair around his head, and his eyes were the color of robins’ eggs. He wore boxers, a tank top, and black socks. A towel hung around his neck, and what hair he had left was wet and stuck to his head.

A lot of people would have reacted with outrage to my entrance. Forthill considered me gravely and said, “Ah. Hello, Harry.”

I had come in with phasers set on snark, but even though I’m not particularly religious, I do have some sense of what is and isn’t appropriate. Seeing a priest in his undies just isn’t, especially when you’ve barged into his private chamber. “Uh,” I said, deflating. “Oh.”

Forthill shook his head, smiling. “Yes, priests bathe. We eat. We sleep. Occasionally, we even have to go to the bathroom.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Um. Yeah.”

“I do rather need to get dressed,” he said gently. “I’m saying Mass tonight.”

“Mass?”

Forthill actually let out a short belly laugh. “Harry, you didn’t think that I just sit around in this old barn awaiting my chance to make you sandwiches, bandage wounds, and offer advice?” He nodded to where a set of vestments was hung up on the wall. “On weeknights they let the junior varsity have the ball.”

“We’ve got to talk,” I said. “It’s about the swords.”

He nodded and gave me a quick smile. “Perhaps I’ll put some pants on first?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry.” I backed out of the room and shut the door.

The other priest showed up and gave me a gimlet eye a minute later, but Forthill arrived in time to rescue me, dressed in his usual black attire with a white collar. “It’s all right, Paulo,” he told the other priest. “I’ll talk to him.”

Father Paulo harrumphed and gave me another glare, but he turned and left.

“You look terrible,” Forthill said. “What happened?”

I gave it to him unvarnished.

“Merciful God,” he said when I’d finished. But it wasn’t in an “Oh, no!” tone of voice. It was a slower, wearier inflection.

He knew what was going on.

“I can’t protect the swords if I don’t know what I’m dealing with,” I said. “Talk to me, Anthony.”

Forthill shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Don’t give me that,” I said with quiet heat. “I need to know.”

“I’m sworn not to speak of it. To anyone. For any reason.” He faced me, jaw outthrust. “I keep my promises.”

“So you’re just going to stand there,” I snapped, “and do nothing.”

“I didn’t say that,” Forthill replied. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Oh, sure,” I said.

“I will,” he said. “You have my word. You’re going to have to trust me.”

“That might come easier if you’d explain yourself.”

His eyes narrowed. “Son, I’m not a fool. Don’t tell me you’ve never been behind this particular eight ball before.”

I looked for something appropriately sarcastic and edgy to say in response, but all I came up with was, “Touché.”

He ran a hand over his mostly bald scalp, and I suddenly saw how much older Forthill looked than he had when I met him. His hair was even more sparse and brittle looking, his hands more weathered with time. “I’m sorry, Harry,” he said, and he sounded sincere. “If I could . . . Is there anything else I could do for you?”

“You can hurry,” I said quietly. “At the rate we’re going, someone is going to get killed.”

At the rate we’d been going, probably me.

I APPROACHED THE park with intense caution. It took me more than half an hour to be reasonably sure that Buzz wasn’t there, somewhere, lurking with another .50-caliber salutation for me. Of course, he could have been watching from the window of one of the nearby buildings—but none of them were hotels or apartments, and none of the pictures taken in the park had been shot from elevation. Besides, if I avoided every place where a maniac with a high-powered rifle might possibly shoot me, I’d live the rest of my life hiding under my bed.

Still, there was no harm in exercising caution. Rather than walking across the open ground of the park to the softball field, I took the circuitous route around the outside of the park—and heard quiet little sobs coming from the shade beneath the bleachers opposite the ones where I’d sat with Michael.

Slowing my steps as I approached, I peered under the bleachers.

A girl in shorts, sneakers, and a powder blue team jersey was huddled up with her arms wrapped around her knees, crying quietly. She had stringy red hair and was skinny, even for someone her age. It took me a minute to recognize her as Alicia’s teammate, the second basem—person.

“Hey, there,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice gentle. “You all right?”

The girl looked up, her eyes wide, and immediately began wiping at her eyes and nose. “Oh. Oh, yes. I’m fine. I’m just fine, sir.”

“Right, right. Next you’ll tell me you’ve got allergies,” I said.

She looked up at me with a shaky little smile, huffed out a breath in the ghost of a laugh—and it transformed into another sob on her. Her face twisted up into an agonized grimace. She shuddered and wept harder, bowing her head.

I can be such a sucker. I ducked down under the bleachers and sat down beside her, a couple of feet away. The girl cried for a couple more minutes, until she began quieting down.

“I know you,” she said a minute later, between sniffles. “You were talking to Coach Carpenter yesterday. A-Alicia said you were a friend of the family.”

“I’d like to think so,” I agreed. “I’m Harry.”

“Kelly,” she said.

I nodded. “Shouldn’t you be practicing with the team, Kelly?”

She shrugged her skinny shoulders. “It doesn’t help.”

“Help?”

“I’m hopeless,” she said. “Whatever it is I’m doing, I just screw it up.”

“Well, that’s not true,” I said with assurance. “Nobody can be bad at everything . There’s no such thing as a perfect screwup.”

“I am,” she said. “We’ve only lost two games all year, and both of them were because I screwed up. We go to the finals next week, and everyone’s counting on me, but I’m just going to let them down.”