Jim Butcher: Dresden files:Side jobs

The second I was distracted with answering her question, the kid bent her head and bit my hand.

I yelled something I probably shouldn't have around a kid and jerked my hand away. The kid dropped to the ground, agile as a monkey, and took off toward the bridge. I shook my hand, growled at myself, and took off after her. She was fast, her pigtails flying out behind her, her shoes and stained kneesocks flashing.

She got to the bridge first. It was an ancient, two-lane affair that arched over the Chicago River. She hurled herself out onto it.

"Wait!" I shouted after her. "Don't!" She didn't know this town like I did.

"Sucker," she called back, her voice merry. She kept on running.

That is, until a great rubbery, hairy arm slithered out from beneath a manhole cover at the apex of the bridge and wrapped its greasy fingers around one of her ankles. The kid screamed in sudden terror, pitching forward onto the asphalt and raking the skin from both knees. She turned and twisted, kicking at her attacker. Blood was a dark stain on her socks in the glow of the few functioning streetlights.

I cursed beneath my breath and raced toward her along the bridge, my lungs laboring. The hand tightened its grip and started dragging her toward the manhole. I could hear deep, growling laughter coming from the darkness in the hole that led down to the understructure of the bridge.

She screamed, "What is it? What is it? Make it let go!"

"Kid!" I shouted. I ran toward the manhole, jumped, and came down as hard as I could on the hairy arm, right at the wrist, the heels of both hiking boots thumping down onto the grimy flesh.

A bellow erupted from the manhole, and the fingers loosened. The girl twisted her leg, and though it cost her one of her expensive oxfords and one kneesock, she dragged herself free of its grasp, sobbing. I gathered her up and backpedaled away, turning so that I wasn't leaving my back to the manhole.

The troll shouldn't have been able to squeeze his way out of a hole that small, but he did. First came that grimy arm, followed by a lumpy shoulder, and then his malformed head and hideous face. He looked at me and growled, jerking his way out of the hole with rubbery ease, until he stood in the middle of the bridge between me and the far side of the river, like some professional wrestler who had fallen victim to a correspondence course for plastic surgeons. In one hand, he held a meat cleaver approximately two feet long, with a bone handle and suspicious-looking stains of dark brown on it.

"Harry Dresden," the troll rumbled. "Wizard deprive Gogoth of his lawful prey." He whipped the cleaver left and right. It made a little whistling sound.

I lifted my chin and set my jaw. It's never smart to let a troll see that you're afraid of him. "What are you talking about, Gogoth? You know as well as I do that mortals aren't all fair game anymore. The Unseelie Accords settled that."

The troll's face split into a truly disgusting leer. "Naughty children," he rumbled. "Naughty children still mine." He narrowed his eyes, and they started burning with malicious hunger. "Give! Now!" The troll rolled toward me a few paces, gathering momentum.

I lifted my right hand, forced out a little will, and the silver ring upon my third finger abruptly shone with a clear, cool light, brighter than the illumination around us.

"Law of the jungle, Gogoth," I said, keeping my voice calm. "Survival of the fittest. You take another step and you're going to land smack in the 'too stupid to live' category."

The troll growled, not slowing, and raised one meaty fist.

"Think about it, darkspawn," I snarled. The light pouring from my ring took on a hellish, almost nuclear tone. "One more step and you're vapor."

The troll came to a lumbering halt, and his rubber-slime lips drew back from fetid fangs. "No," he snarled. Drool slithered down his fangs and spattered on the asphalt as he stared at the girl. "She is mine. Wizard cannot interfere in this."

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Watch me." And with that, I lowered my hand (and with it the fierce silver light), gave the troll my best sneer, and turned in a flare of my dark duster to walk back to North Avenue with long, confident strides. The girl stared over my shoulder, her eyes wide.

"Is he coming after us?" I asked quietly.

She blinked back at the troll, and then at me. "Uh, no. He's just staring at you."

"Okay. If he starts this way, let me know."

"So you can vapor him?" she asked, her voice unsteady.

"Hell, no. So we can run."

"But what about…?" She touched the ring on my hand.

"I lied, kid."

"What!?"

"I lied," I repeated. "I'm not a good liar, but trolls aren't too bright. It was just a light show, but he fell for it, and that's all that counts."

"I thought you said you were a wizard," she accused me.

"I am," I replied, annoyed. "A wizard who was at a seance-slash-exorcism before breakfast. Then I had to find two wedding rings and a set of car keys, and then I spent the rest of my day running after you. I'm pooped."

"You couldn't blow that… that thing up?"

"It's a troll. Sure I could," I said cheerfully. "If I weren't so worn-out, and if I were able to focus enough to keep from blowing myself up along with him. My aim's bad when I'm this tired."

We reached the edge of the bridge, and, I hoped, Gogoth's territory. I started to swing the girl down. She was too big to be carrying. Then I saw her one bare foot dangling and the blood forming into dark scabs on her knees. I sighed and started walking along North Avenue. If I could go down the long city block to the next bridge, cross it, and make my way back down the other block within half an hour, I could still meet Nick on the other side.

"How's your leg?" I asked.

She shrugged, though her face was pained. "Okay, I guess. Was that thing for real?"

"You bet," I said.

"But it was… It wasn't…"

"Human," I said. "No. But hell, kid. A lot of people I know aren't really human. Look around us. Bundy, Manson, those other animals. Right here in Chicago, you've got the Vargassis working out of Little Italy, the Jamaican posses, others. Animals. World's full of them."

The girl sniffed. I glanced at her face. She looked sad, and too wise for her years. My heart softened.

"I know," she said. "My parents are like that, a little. They don't think about anyone else, really. Just themselves. Not even each other-except what they can do for each other. And I'm just some toy that should get stuck in the closet and dragged out when people come over, so I can be prettier and more perfect than their toys. The rest of the time, I'm in their way."

"Hey, come on," I said. "It's not that bad, is it?"

She glanced at me, and then away. "I'm not going back to them," she said. "I don't care who you are or what you can do. You can't make me go back to them."

"There's where you're wrong," I said. "I'm not going to leave you down here."

"I heard you talking to your friend," she said. "My parents are trying to screw you over. Why are you still doing this?"

"I have another six months to work for a licensed investigator before I can get a license of my own. And I got this stupid thing about leaving kids in the middle of big, mean cities after dark."

"At least down here, no one tries to lie and tell me that they care, mister. I see all these Disney shows about how much parents love their kids. How there's some sort of magical bond of love. But it's a lie. Like you and that troll." She laid her head against my shoulder, and I could feel the exhaustion in her body as she sagged against me. "There's no magic."

I fell silent for several paces as I carried her. It was hard to hear that from a kid. A ten-year-old girl's world should be full of music and giggling and notes and dolls and dreams-not harsh, barren, jaded reality. If there was no light in the heart of a child, a little girl like this, then what hope did any of us have?