Side Jobs Part 2

"I run it," Nick said, his voice resigned. "He works for me."

"Yeah, what he said," I threw in, just to let Nick know he wasn't going to the big house alone.

Murphy nodded and eyed the girl. "Are you all right, honey?"

Faith sniffed and smiled up at Murphy. "A little hungry, and I could use something to clean up these sc.r.a.pes. But other than that, I'm quite well."

"And these two didn't kidnap you?"

Faith snorted. "Please."

Murphy nodded and then jabbed her nightstick at Nick and me. "I've got to call this in. You two vanish before my partner gets here." She glanced down at Faith and winked. Faith grinned up at her in return.

Murphy took the girl back toward the far side of the bridge and the other police units. Nick and I ambled back toward his car. Nick's broad, honest face was set in an expression of nervous glee. "I can't believe it," he said. "I can't believe that happened. Was that the troll, what's-his-name?"

"That was Gogoth," I said cheerfully. "Nothing bigger than a breadcrumb is going to be bothered by trolls on this bridge for a long, long time."

"I can't believe it," Nick said again. "I thought we were so dead. I can't believe it."

I glanced back over the bridge. On the far side, the girl was standing up on her tiptoes, waving. Soft pink light flowed from the ring on her right thumb. I could see the smile on her face. The cop was watching me, too, her expression thoughtful. It turned into a smile.

Modern living might suck. And the world we've made can be a dark place. But at least I don't have to be there alone.

I put an arm around Nick's shoulders and grinned at him. "It's like I keep telling you, man. You've got to have faith."

VIGNETTE.

Takes place between Death Masks Death Masks and and Blood Rites Blood Rites This was a very short piece I wrote at the request of my editor, Jennifer Heddle, who needed it for some kind of promotional thing-one of those free sampler booklets they sometimes hand out at conventions, I believe. I lost track of it in the clutter of life, then realized the deadline was the following morning.

It probably would have been helpful to have remembered at seven or eight, instead of at two a.m.

I'm not even sure I can claim to be the author of this piece, since it was almost entirely written by a coalition of caffeine molecules and exhausted twitches.

I sat on a stool in the cluttered laboratory beneath my bas.e.m.e.nt apartment. It was chilly enough to make me wear a robe, but the dozen or so candles burning around the room made it look warm. The phone book lay on the table in front of me. sat on a stool in the cluttered laboratory beneath my bas.e.m.e.nt apartment. It was chilly enough to make me wear a robe, but the dozen or so candles burning around the room made it look warm. The phone book lay on the table in front of me.

I stared at my ad in the Yellow Pages: HARRY DRESDEN-WIZARDLost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations.

Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.

No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment I looked up at the skull on the shelf above my lab table and said, "I don't get it."

"Flat, Harry," said Bob the Skull. Flickering orange lights danced in the skull's eye sockets. "It's flat."

I flipped through several pages. "Yeah, well. Most of them are. I don't think they offer raised lettering."

Bob rolled his eyelights. "Not literally flat, dimwit. Flat in the aesthetic sense. It has no panache. No moxy. No chutzpah."

"No what?"

Bob's skull turned to one side and banged what would have been its forehead against a heavy bronze candleholder. After several thumps, it turned back toward me and said, "It's boring."

"Oh," I said. I rubbed at my jaw. "You think I should have gone four-color?"

Bob stared at me for a second and said, "I have nightmares about h.e.l.l, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you."

I glowered up at the skull and nodded. "Okay, fine. You think it needs more drama."

"More anything. Drama would do. Or b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

I sighed and saw where that line of thought was going. "I am not going to hire a leggy secretary, Bob. Get over it."

"I didn't say anything about legs. But as long as we're on the subject . . ."

I set the Yellow Pages aside and picked up my pencil again. "I'm doing formulas here, Bob."

"It's formulae, O Maestro of Latin, and if you don't drum up some business, you aren't going to need those new spells for much of anything. Unless you're working on a spell to help you shoplift groceries."

I set the pencil down hard enough that the tip broke, and I stared at Bob in annoyance. "So what do you think it should say?"

Bob's eyelights brightened. "Talk about monsters. Monsters are good."

"Give me a break."

"I'm serious, Harry! Instead of that line about consulting and finding things, put, 'Fiends foiled, monsters mangled, vampires vanquished, demons demolished.'"

"Oh yeah," I said. "That kind of alliteration will bring in the business."

"It will!"

"It will bring in the nutso business," I said. "Bob, I don't know if anyone's told you this, but most people don't believe that monsters and fiends and whatnot even exist."

"Most people don't believe in love potions, either, but you've got that in there."

I held on to a flash of bad temper. "The point," I told Bob, "is to have an advertis.e.m.e.nt that looks solid, professional, and reliable."

"Yeah. Advertising is all about lying," Bob said.

"Hey!"

"You suck at lying, Harry. You really do. You should trust me on this one."

"No monsters," I insisted.

"Fine, fine," Bob said. "How about we do a positive-side spin, then? Something like, 'Maidens rescued, enchantments broken, villains unmasked, unicorns protected.'"

"Unicorns?"

"Chicks are into unicorns."

I rolled my eyes. "It's an ad for my investigative business, not a dating service. Besides, the only unicorn I ever saw tried to skewer me."

"You're sort of missing the entire 'Advertising is lying' concept, Harry."

"No unicorns," I said firmly. "It's fine the way it is."

"No style at all," Bob complained.

I put on a mentally challenged accent. "Style is as style does."

"Okay, fine. Suppose we throw intelligence to the winds and print only the truth. 'Vampire slayer, ghost remover, faerie fighter, werewolf exterminator, police consultant, foe of the foot soldiers of h.e.l.l.'"

I thought about it for a minute, then got a fresh piece of paper and wrote it down. I stared at the words.

"See?" Bob said. "That would look really hot, attract notice, and it would be the truth. What have you got to lose?"

"This week's gas money," I said, finally. "Too many letters. Besides, Lieutenant Murphy would kill me if I went around blowing trumpets about how I help the cops."

"You're hopeless," Bob said.

I shook my head. "No. I'm not in this for the money."

"Then what are you in it for, Harry? h.e.l.l, in the past few years you've been all but killed about a million times. Why do you do it?"

I squinted up at the skull. "Because someone has to."

"Hopeless," Bob repeated.

I smiled, picked up a fresh pencil, and went back to my formulas-formulae. "Pretty much."

Bob sighed and fell quiet. My pencil scratched over clean white paper while the candles burned warm and steady.

SOMETHING BORROWED.

-from My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding, edited by P. N. Elrod My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding, edited by P. N. Elrod Takes place between Dead Beat Dead Beat and and Proven Guilty Proven Guilty I wrote this for the very first anthology in which I'd ever been invited to partic.i.p.ate. I'd met Pat Elrod at a convention and thought she was quite a cool person, and when she asked me to take part in her anthology, I was more than happy to do so.

When I wrote this story, I was thinking that the Alphas hadn't gotten nearly enough stage time in the series thus far, and it seemed like a good opportunity to give them some more attention, while at the same time showing the progression of their lives since their college days, which I felt was best demonstrated by Billy and Georgia's wedding.

Inane trivia: While I was in school writing the first three books of the Dresden Files, my wife, Shannon, watched Ally McBeal Ally McBeal in the evenings, often while I was plunking away at a keyboard. I didn't pay too much attention to the show, and it took me years to realize I had unconsciously named Billy and Georgia after those characters in in the evenings, often while I was plunking away at a keyboard. I didn't pay too much attention to the show, and it took me years to realize I had unconsciously named Billy and Georgia after those characters in Ally McBeal Ally McBeal.

Who knew? TV really does does rot your brain! rot your brain!

Steel pierced my leg and my body went rigid with pain, but I could not allow myself to move. "Billy," I growled through my teeth, "kill him." pierced my leg and my body went rigid with pain, but I could not allow myself to move. "Billy," I growled through my teeth, "kill him."

Billy the Werewolf squinted up at me from his seat and said, "That might be a little extreme."

"This is torture," I said.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Dresden," Billy said, his tone amused. "He's just fitting the tux."

Yanof the tailor, a squat, st.u.r.dy little guy who had recently immigrated to Chicago from Outer Sloboviakastan or somewhere, glared up at me, with another dozen pins clutched between his lips and resentment in his eyes. I'm better than six and a half feet tall. It can't be fun to be told you've got to fit a tux to someone my height only a few hours before the wedding.

"It ought to be Kirby standing here," I said.

"Yeah. But it would be harder to fit the tux around the body cast and all those traction cables."

"I keep telling you guys," I said. "Werewolves or not, you've got to be more careful."

Ordinarily, I would not have mentioned Billy's talent for shapes.h.i.+fting into a wolf in front of a stranger, but Yanof didn't speak a word of English. Evidently, his skills with needle and thread were such that he had no pressing need to learn. As Chicago's resident wizard, I'd worked with Billy on several occasions, and we were friends.

His bachelor party the night before had gotten interesting on the walk back to Billy's place, when we happened across a ghoul terrorizing an old woman in a parking lot.

It hadn't been a pretty fight. Mostly because we'd all had too many stripper-induced Jell-O shots.

Billy's injuries had all been bruises and all to the body. They wouldn't spoil the wedding. Alex had a nasty set of gashes on his throat from the ghoul's clawlike nails, but he could probably pa.s.s them off as particularly enthusiastic hickeys. Mitch.e.l.l had broken two teeth when he'd charged the ghoul but hit a wall instead. He was going to be a dedicated disciple of Anbesol until he got to the dentist.

All I had to remember the evening by was a splitting headache, and not from the fight. Jell-O shots are far more dangerous, if you ask me.

Billy's best man, Kirby, had gotten unlucky. The ghoul slammed him into a brick wall so hard that it broke both his legs and cracked a vertebra.

"We handled him, didn't we?" Billy asked.

"Let's ask Kirby," I said. "Look, there isn't always going to be a broken metal fence post sticking up out of the ground like that, Billy. We got lucky."

Billy's eyes went flat and he abruptly stood up. "All right," he said, his voice hard. "I've had just about enough of you telling me what I should and should not do, Harry. You aren't my father."

"No," I said, "but-"

"In fact," he continued, "if I remember correctly, the other Alphas and I have saved your life twice now."

"Yes," I said. "But-"

His face turned red with anger. Billy wasn't tall, but he was built like an armored truck. "But what what? You don't want to share the spotlight with any of us mere one-trick wonders? Don't you dare dare belittle what Kirby did, what the others have done and sacrificed." belittle what Kirby did, what the others have done and sacrificed."

I am a trained investigator. Instincts honed by years of observation warned me that Billy might be angry. "Great hostility I sense in you," I said in a Muppety voice.

Billy's steady glower continued for a few more seconds, and then it broke. He shook his head and looked away. "I'm sorry. For my tone."

Yanof jabbed me again, but I ignored it. "You didn't sleep last night."

He shook his head again. "No excuse. But between the fight and Kirby and"-he waved a vague hand-"today. I mean, today. today."