Dresden Files SSC01 - Side Jobs by Jim Butcher

Author:Jim Butcher
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

MICHAEL’S HOME WAS an anomaly so close to the city proper—a fairly large old colonial house, complete with a white picket fence and a yard with trees in it. It had a quiet, solid sort of beauty. It was surrounded by other homes, but they never seemed quite as pleasant, homey, or clean as Michael’s house. I knew he did a lot of work to keep it looking nice. Maybe it was that simple. Maybe it was a side effect of being visited by archangels and the like.

Or maybe it was all in the eye of the beholder.

I’m pretty sure there won’t ever be a place like that for me.

Michael had given a couple of the girls—young women, I suppose—a ride home in his white pickup, so it had taken us a while to get there, and twilight was heavy on the city. I wasn’t making any particular secret about tailing them, but I wasn’t riding his back bumper, either, and I don’t think either of them had noticed my beat-up old VW.

Michael and Alicia got out of the car and went into the house, while I drove a slow lap around their block, keeping my eyes peeled. When I didn’t spot any imminent maniacs or anticipatory fiends about to pounce, I parked a bit down the street and walked toward Michael’s place.

It happened pretty fast. A soccer ball went bouncing by me, a small person came pelting after it, and just as it happened, I heard the crunchy hiss of tires on the street somewhere behind me and very near. I have long arms, and it was a good thing. I grabbed the kid, who must have been seven or eight, about half a second before the oncoming car hit the soccer ball and sent it sailing. Her feet went flying out ahead of her as I swung her up off the ground, and her toes missed hitting the car’s fender by maybe six inches.

The car, one of those fancy new hybrids that run on batteries part of the time, went by in silence, without the sound of the motor to give any warning. The driver, a young man in a suit, was jabbering into a cell phone that he held to his ear with one hand. He never noticed. As he reached the end of the block, he turned on his headlights.

I turned to find the child, a girl with inky black hair and pink skin, staring at me with wide, dark eyes, her mouth open and uncertain. She had a bruise on her cheek a couple of days old.

“Hi,” I said, trying to be as unthreatening as I could. I had limited success. Tall, severe-looking men in long black coats who need a shave are challenged that way. “Are you all right?”

She nodded her head slowly. “Am I in trouble?”

I put her down. “Not from me. But I heard that moms can get kind of worked up about—”

“Courtney!” gasped a woman’s voice, and a woman I presumed to be the child’s mother came hurrying from the nearest house.

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