Jim Butcher: Dresden files:Side jobs

A few paces later, I realized something I hadn't been admitting to myself. A quiet, cool little voice had been trying to tell me something I hadn't been willing to listen to. I was in the business of wizardry to try to help people; to try to make things better. But no matter how many evil spirits I confronted, no matter how many would-be black magicians I tracked down, there was always something else-something worse-waiting for me in the dark. No matter how many lost children I found, there would always be ten times as many who disappeared for good.

No matter how much I did, how much trash I cleaned up, it was only a drop in the ocean.

Pretty heavy thoughts for a tired and beaten guy like me, my arms burdened with the girl's weight.

Flashing lights made me look up. The mouth to one of the alleys between the buildings had been sealed off with police tape, and four cars, blue bulbs awhirl, were parked on the street around the alley. A couple of EMTs were toting a covered shape out of the alley on a stretcher. The flashing strobes of cameras lit the alleyway in bursts of white.

I came to a stop, hesitant.

"What?" the girl murmured.

"Police. Maybe I should hand you over."

I felt her weary shrug. "They're only going to take me home. I don't care." She sagged against me again.

I swallowed. The Astors were Chicago's elite crowd. They carried enough clout around the old town to get a bum would-be private investigator put away for a good long time. And they could afford the best of lawyers.

It's a lousy world, Dresden, the cool little voice told me. And the good guys don't win unless they have an expensive attorney, too. You'd be in jail before you could blink.

My mouth twisted into a bitter smile as one of the uniform cops, a woman, noticed me and cast a long frown in my direction. I turned around and started walking the other way.

"Hey," the cop said. I kept walking. "Hey!" she said again, and I heard brisk footsteps on the sidewalk.

I hurried along into the dark and stepped into the first alley. The shadows behind a pile of crates created an ideal refuge, and I carried the girl into it with me. I crouched there in the darkness and waited while the cop's footsteps came near and then passed on by.

I waited in the dark, feeling all the heaviness and darkness settle into my skin, into my flesh. The girl just shivered and lay against me, unmoving.

"Just leave me," she said, finally. "Go over the bridge. The troll will let you cross the bridge if I'm not with you."

"Yes," I said.

"So go on. I'll walk up to the police after you're gone. Or something."

She was lying. I'm not sure how I could tell, but I could.

She would go to the bridge.

I'm told that bravery is doing what you need to do, even when you're afraid. But sometimes I wonder if courage isn't a lot more complicated than that. Sometimes, I think, courage is pulling yourself up off the ground one more time. Doing one more set of paperwork, even when you don't want to. Maybe that's just plain stubbornness; I don't know.

It didn't matter. Not to me. I'm a wizard. I don't really belong here. Our world sucks. It might suit the trolls and the vampires and all those nasty, leering things that haunt our nightmares (while we clutch our physics books to our chests and reassure ourselves that they cannot exist), but I'm not a part of it. I won't be a part of it.

I took a breath, in the dark, and asked, "What's your name?"

She was silent for a moment and then said, in a very uncertain voice, "Faith."

"Faith," I said. I smiled, so that she could hear it. "My name's Harry Dresden."

"Hi," she said, her voice a whisper.

"Hi. Have you ever seen something like this?" I cupped my hand, summoned some of the last dregs of my power, and cast a warm, glowing light into the ring on my right hand. It lit Faith's face, and I could see on her smooth cheeks the streaks of the tears I had not heard.

She shook her head.

"Here," I said, and took the ring from my finger. I slipped it onto hers, over her right thumb, where it hung a bit loose. The light died away as I did it, leaving us in the dark again. "Let me show you something."

"Battery went out," she mumbled. "I don't have money for another one."

"Faith? Do you remember the very best day of your life?"

She was quiet for a minute. Then she said, her voice a bare whisper, "Yes. A Christmas. When Gremma was still alive. Gremma was nice to me."

"Tell me about it," I urged quietly, covering her hand with my own.

I felt her shrug. "Gremma came over Christmas Eve. We played games. She would play with me. And we stayed up, on the floor by the Christmas tree, waiting for Santa Claus. She let me open just one present, for Christmas Eve. It was one she'd gotten me."

Faith took a shuddering breath. "It was a dolly. A real baby dolly. Mother and Father had gotten me Barbie stuff, the whole line for that year. They said that if I left them all in the original boxes, they would be worth a lot of money later. But Gremma listened to what I really wanted." Then I heard it, the tiny smile in her voice. "Gremma cared about me."

I moved my hand, and a soft, pinkish light flowed up out of the ring around her thumb, a loving, gentle warmth. I heard Faith draw in a little gasp of surprise, and then a delighted smile spread over her mouth.

"But how?" she whispered.

I gave her a smile. "Magic," I said. "The best kind. A little light in the dark."

She looked up at me, studying my face, my eyes. I shied away from the perception of that gaze. "I need to go back, don't I?" she asked.

I brushed a stray bit of hair from her forehead. "There are people who love you, Faith. Or who one day will. Even if you can't see them beside you, right here, right now, they're out there. But if you let the dark get into your eyes, you might never find them. So it's best to keep a little light with you, along the way. Do you think you can remember that?"

She nodded up at me, her face lit by the light from the ring.

"Whenever it gets too dark, think of the good things you have, the good times you've had. It will help. I promise."

She leaned against me and gave me a simple, trusting hug. I felt my cheeks warm up as she did. Aw, shucks.

"We need to go," I told her. "We've got to get across the bridge and meet my friend Nick."

She chewed on her lip, her expression immediately worried. "But the troll."

I winked. "Leave him to me."

The girl didn't feel anywhere near so heavy as when I carried her back. I studied the bridge as we approached. Maybe, if I was lucky, I'd be able to sprint across without the troll being able to stop me.

Yeah. And maybe one day I'd go to an art museum and become well-rounded.

Bridges are a troll's specialty; either because of some magic or just because of aptitude, you never get across the bridge without facing the troll. That's life, I guess.

I set the girl down on the ground next to me and stepped out onto the bridge. "All right, Faith," I said. "Whatever happens, you run across that bridge. My friend Nick is going to pull up on the far side any minute now."

"What about you?"

I gave her a casual roll of my neck. "I'm a wizard," I said. "I can handle him."

Faith gave me another look of supreme skepticism and fumbled to hold my hand. Her fingers felt very small and very warm inside of mine, and a fierce surge of determination coursed through me. No matter what happened, I would let no harm come to this child.

We walked out onto the bridge. The few lights that had been burning brightly earlier were gone-Gogoth's work, doubtless. Night reigned over the bridge, and the Chicago River gurgled by, smooth and cold and black below us.

"I'm scared," Faith whispered.

"He's just a big bully," I told her. "Face him down and he'll back off." I hoped very much that was true. We kept walking and skirted wide around the manhole at the apex of the bridge; I kept my body between Faith and the entrance to the troll's lair.