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 knee sock, 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 its way out of a hole that small, but it did. First came that grimy arm, followed by a lumpy shoulder, and then its malformed head and hideous face. It looked at me and growled, jerking its way out of the hole with a rubbery ease, until it 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 any more. 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 towards 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 its rubber-slime lips drew back from fetid fangs. "No," he snarled. Drool slithered down his fangs and spattered on the asphalt as it 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 wasn't so worn out, and if I was 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 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 one another. 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, just carrying 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 do any of us have?
A few paces later, I realized something that I hadn't been admitting to myself. A quiet, cool little voice had been trying to tell me something that 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, 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.
Heavy thoughts for a guy like me, tired and beaten, my arms heavy 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 a-whirl, 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.