“Like Luther.”
“Like Luther. But this guy did. He didn’t go after a transient sleeping in an abandoned building, or someone wandering down a dark alley to buy some drugs, a prostitute, any of the usual targets. He went with something dicier. He’s going to do that, he’s going to cut down on every random factor he can.”
“You think he stalked her.”
I nodded. “Stalked her, learned her pattern, and was waiting for her.”
Will squinted up and down the alley. “Why do you think that?”
“It’s how something from Winter would do it,” I said. “How I would take someone in a busy part of town, if I had to.”
“Well. That’s not creepy or anything, Harry.”
I showed my teeth. “Not much difference between wolves and sheepdogs, Will. You should know.”
He nodded. “So we wait here and see if she’s still going by?”
“Figure if she still goes by here, she’ll do it fast and she’ll be worried. Should make her stand out.”
“You know what else stands out on a busy Chicago street? A timber wolf.”
“Thought of that,” I said, and produced a roll of fabric from my duster’s large pockets.
“You’re kidding,” Will said.
I smiled.
“And what’s in the guitar case?”
I smiled wider.
A few minutes later, I was sitting on the sidewalk with my back against a building, with an old secondhand guitar in my lap, the case open beside me with a handful of a change and an old wadded dollar bill in it. Will settled down beside me, wearing a service dog’s jacket, resting his chin on his front paws. He made a little groaning sound.
“It’ll be fine, boy.”
Will narrowed his eyes.
“Just keep your nose open,” I said, and started playing.
I started with the Johnny Cash version of “Hurt,” which was pretty simple. I sang along with it. I’m not good, but I can hit the notes and keep the rhythm going, so it more or less worked out. I followed it up with “Behind Blue Eyes,” which gets a little harder, and then “Only Happy When It Rains.” Then I followed it up with “House of the Rising Sun,” and completely mangled “Stairway to Heaven.”
There wasn’t a ton of foot traffic on a weekday evening on this street, not in a fairly brisk late March, but nobody really looked at me twice. I made about two and a half bucks in change the first hour. The life of a musician is not easy. A patrol car went by, and a cop gave me the stink-eye, but he didn’t stop and roust me. Maybe he had things to do.
The light started fading from the sky, and I was repeating my limited set for the fifth or sixth time when I started to think about giving up. The girl, if she was still following the same pattern, definitely wouldn’t be running around town alone after it became fully dark.
I was singing about how you’d get the message by the time I’m through when Will suddenly lifted his head, his eyes focused.
I followed the direction of his gaze and spotted a girl of about the right age getting off of a bus. She started walking right away, down the street, though she stayed on the other side, directly toward the El station a block away.
“There we go,” I said. “Kid walking a regular route alone gets jumped in Chicago, kid’s probably using public transit, running on a schedule. Makes her real predictable. Perfect mark for a predator.”
Will made a low growling sound.
“I think I’m kinda smart, yeah,” I said to him. “Get her scent?”
Will nudged me with his shoulder and growled again.
I frowned and looked around until I spotted a rather large and rough looking man descending from the bus at the last second before it left for the next stop. He started down the sidewalk, in pursuit of the girl. He wasn’t maniacally focused on her or anything, but he wasn’t moving like someone coming home tired after a day of work, either. I recognized his pace, his stance, his tension, just as Will had. He was a predator in covert pursuit of his prey.
Worse, he had a smart phone. His thumbs were rapping over it as he walked after the girl.
“Damn,” I said. “Whoever Black was, he was connected. I’m on the creep. You stick with the girl.”
Will gave me one brief, incredulous look.
“I’m six-nine and scarred, you’re furry and cute. She’s eleven, she’s going to like you.”
Will gave me a flat look, his gold eyes utterly unamused. On a wolf, that’s unsettling.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Wag your tail and paw your nose or something. Go!”
I’ll give Will this much, he knows when actions matter more than questions. He took off at once, vanishing into the oncoming evening.
Meanwhile, I put my guitar in the case, set it back into the alley, rose, and focused my will and my attention on the thug. Wizards and modern technology don’t get on well, and nothing dies as fast as cell phones when a wizard means to shut them down. I gathered up enough power to get the job done without taking out the lights on the whole block, flicked a finger at the man pacing the girl, and murmured, “Hexus.”
A wave of disruptive energy washed out across the street and over the man and his smart phone. There was a little flash of light and a shower of sparks from the phone, and the man flinched and dropped the device. Most people would have stared at it or looked wildly around. This guy did neither. He sank into a defensive crouch and started scanning his surroundings with wide eyes.
He knew he was being threatened, which meant he had some kind of idea that a wizard might be about. That meant he was no mere thug. He was clued in enough to the supernatural world to know the players and how they might operate. That meant he was elite muscle, and there were only so many players who he might be working for.
I checked the street, hurried through an opening in traffic, and went straight for him. He spotted me in under a second and ran without hesitation, both of which impressed me with his judgment—but he took off after the girl, which meant that he wasn’t giving up, either. I swerved to pursue him, leaped and pulled my knees up to my chin in the air, hitting the hood of a blue Buick with my hands as I flew over it, and came down still running.
We rounded a corner, and I understood what was happening.
The thug I was pursuing wasn’t the grabber. He was just riding drag, making sure the girl didn’t bolt back the way she came. I saw the girl ahead, being hurried into a doorway by three more men, and my guy poured it on when he saw them.
I slowed down a little, taking stock. The goons ahead had seen me coming behind their buddy, and hands were going into coats. I flung myself into the doorway of an office supply store, now closed for the evening, and the thugs all hustled through their own door, without producing guns on the street.
Suited me. I had been hoping to get them somewhere out of the way anyhow.
I waited until they were inside, gave them a five count, and then paced down the street. The door they’d gone through belonged to a small nightclub. A sign, hanging up on the door, read “Closed for Remodeling.”
The door was locked.
It was also made of glass.
I smiled.
I huffed and I puffed and I blew the door in with a pretty standard blast of telekinetic force. I tugged my sleeve up to reveal the shield bracelet I’d thrown together out of a strip of craft copper and carefully covered with the appropriate defensive runes and sigils. I channeled some of my will down into the bracelet, and the runes hissed to life, spilling out green-gold energy and the occasional random spark.
“All right, people!” I called into the club as I stepped through the door. “You know who I am. I’m here for the girl. Let her go, or so help me God I will bring this building down around your ears.” I wouldn’t, not while the girl was still in here, but they didn’t know that.