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I first met Harry Dresden up on North Avenue.
I’d originally been up there to help cordon off a gang shooting. One of the patrols had found the body after reports of a shootout had come in and they needed more bodies to secure the evidence and the scene. Basically, I was on glorified babysitter duty, keeping the civilians out of the alley.
Not that any of them actually seemed more interested in the scene beyond noting that CPD was already all over it. North Avenue was just that kind of neighborhood, where the Law cleaned up the messes, but rarely prevented them, and the locals closed their eyes to the violence in hopes that they weren’t next.
Which is why he stood out. He had stopped to stare a bit upon noticing the police cordon and it marked him as not from the area. The locals would have noticed the flashing lights, then moved along as quick as they could without looking guilty. The fact that he was ridiculously tall did not help his case. The flashing lights of the squad cars highlighted the sharp angles of his face as he stood there, saying something to the little girl in his arms.
A tall man with a little girl rang some bells in my head and I tried to recall why that felt important. Maybe if I talked to him, it would jog my memory. Or maybe he saw something that could help with this case.
Except he chose that moment to turn around and walk away. After a moment’s debate, I headed after him, calling out. He didn’t even break stride, causing worry to swell up in my gut.
“Hey!” I called out, upping my pace in an attempt to catch up with those long stork legs. He just started moving a little faster, which meant I had to break into a jog to even have a chance to keep up. Sometimes I really do hate being five foot nothing.
I continued following the direction the beanpole of a man had been originally headed in, but didn’t even catch of a glimpse of him. Somehow, I had lost what had to be nearly seven feet of suspicious looking man. I suppose the stupid cowboy coat he was wearing served some purpose in helping him blend into the night, even if it did make him conspicuous as hell. Seriously, that looming height with a coat like that just screamed shady things.
Seeing as I had obviously lost the beanpole carrying the little girl, I backtracked in hopes that there would be some clue as to which way they went.
To be honest, I hadn’t expected to find anything, until I heard a little girl’s scream, that is. I followed the sound back past the alley where the shooting had taken place, legs pumping. Beanpole was stealthy, he must have hidden somewhere, let me sweep past, then backtracked himself for some reason. But he hadn’t counted on the kid screaming in hearing range of a cop already following him.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize that the bridge on North Avenue had gone dark when the lights had been shining bright less than an hour ago. However, the darkness of the bridge only highlighted the flash of pink light coming from the other side.
The scene it illuminated was not what I had been expecting.
Beanpole was gathering his feet beneath himself while an absolute behemoth of a man, for he was a head or two taller than the beanpole and decidedly thicker, was between me and him with an oversized cleaver fit comfortably into his paw. It took me a heart-stopping moment to locate the girl on the far side of the bridge, illuminated by the headlights of a car charging towards the bridge.
I threw myself into my best sprint as Beanpole ran from Giant toward the far side of the bridge. Giant didn’t hesitate to take chase and swing his cleaver at Beanpole. Once, twice, then Beanpole lost his footing and was staring up at Giant as he raised the cleaver and bellowed, “Wizard!”
Lucky for Beanpole, before Giant could swing the cleaver down, I let loose my own war cry as I jumped the giant, getting my nightstick locked across his throat. A practiced twist, one I’d done hundreds of times in training, put the pressure on the giant, causing him to drop the cleaver. I leaned back, bowing the man’s back to limit his movement against me, yet he writhed in a way I’d never seen before, slipping a grip I’d used countless times.
When Giant roared at me, I realized what I was facing wasn’t human.
It was a bellow no human could produce, the teeth on display were predatory and had never seen a dentist, its breath fetid with the scent of blood and flesh. My hind brain was screaming at me to run for all I was worth, to get away, but all I managed was a stumbling backpedal as it slammed a large fist into the pavement, sending out spiderwebbing cracks. Some scattered part of my mind gibbered Hulk, smash! as its other fist was pulled back to crack me open too.
“Hey, ugly!” a baritone voice trumpeted.
My attention, and the monster’s, was drawn away to Beanpole, who had picked up the cleaver. He had already begun swinging it at the monster’s side before calling out, so it had no time to get out of the way.
I had expected the cleaver to hamper the monster, strike it with a meaty thud. The reality was more like hitting one of those pregnant spiders that turns into a carpet of little spiders. The monster yowled as the gash opened wider, spilling out far too many miniature versions of it, squealing as they fell out of what now seemed to be some sort of giant costume. The original monster was deflating like a popped inflatable mascot and I had no words for how wrong it was, nor how grateful I was that all of the humans involved seemed to have made it out alive.
I barely even noticed as the little creatures fled the car’s headlights and the driver, another man, approached us, or how the little girl came up and hugged the waist of the ridiculously tall Beanpole, babbling about what just happened.
“That was… was…” I didn’t even know what that was, but I needed to call it something because this was just way too surreal.
“A troll. I know,” Beanpole filled in for me with a playful grin. He stooped way down to pick up my cap, casually dusting it off and dislodging a few more miniature trolls. God, when had I even lost my cap in all of that?
“Hey, thanks for the help, Officer” ─he paused for a moment, staring at my chest, which took my addled brain a moment to interpret as reading my badge and not ogling me─ “Murphy.” Then he gave me a gentle smile, which gave him a boyish charm, and offered my de-trolled hat back to me.
I took it back numbly, trying to kick my brain back into gear.
“Oh, Jesus. I really have lost it,” is what came out of my mouth. It needed to be said because I was seriously taking his word on that thing being a troll. Except trolls only exist in fairy tales, not the mean streets of Chicago. We have enough problems without bedtime stories coming to life.
It was about then that my brain finally reengaged and helpfully informed me why a tall man with sharp features carrying a little girl had rung a bell.
“You. You’re the perp on the Astor kidnapping.” It had only been reported earlier this afternoon on the CPD broadband, but the beanpole and the man from the car fit the two descriptions.
Beanpole opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Ms. Astor.
“Are you kidding? This… buffoon? Kidnap me? He couldn’t bum a cigarette off the Marlboro Man.” The words were delivered with a disdain befitting of the rich high class, however the way the kid turned back toward her ‘kidnapper’ said she didn’t much mean it. Then she offered her wrists to me. “I admit it, Officer. I ran away. Take me to the pokey and throw away the key.”
That Ms. Astor was not the nervous mess I was in the back of my mind spoke to the truth of her confession. Either that or the kid was a very good actor and the perps had done a very good job of scaring her into behaving for them. I rearmed myself with my nightstick, glad I didn’t have to clear any mini-trolls from it, then gave Ms. Astor a closer inspection. Finding nothing more incriminating on her than skinned knees and the beginnings of a bruise around her sock-and-shoe-less ankle that fit with the troll’s previous hand size, I turned to the men on the scene for inspection.
“Hoo boy,” the man from the car said, making a statement in standing next to Beanpole. Whatever my next move, the two men would handle it together, and I didn’t much like the thought of fighting them both. Beanpole had enough natural reach on me to be plenty wary, and Car-man had a stocky solidness to him that said he could handle himself in a scrap. At least I had the comfort that neither was particularly confrontational. Ready to take a hit, yes, but take the first swing, no. And if it came to it, I could fight back with the experience provided to me by earning a couple blackbelts.
“Here it comes. You get the top bunk, stilts, but I’m not going to pick up your soap in the shower.”
I had to box up a laugh, keep it from even entering my eyes, at that. Most perps aren’t nearly so calm about the thought of jail time, nor so willing to be dragged in in the first place unless they think they have an out. Given the Astors’ influence, the kidnappers were not going to get out easy. If they were actually kidnappers.
One of the things seeing those men stand side-by-side with a child before them did was bring up another memory. One of a newspaper from a few months ago. As my eyes were drawn back to the garbage bag-like lump on the asphalt, I thought that that identification suited this situation much better than a pair of kidnappers.
“Aren’t you two the ones who run Ragged Angel, the agency that looks for lost kids?”
“I run it. He works for me,” Car-man, something Christianson if I remember the article right, replied. His tone implied that he thought it more likely I would make them out as scam artists, kidnapping kids so they could solve the case.
“Yeah, what he said,” Beanpole threw in, like he expected his belligerence to take any blame from his boss.
With that theory confirmed, I turned back to Ms. Astor. “Are you all right, honey?”
She smiled at me and replied, “A little hungry, and I could use something to clean up these scrapes. But other than that, I’m quite well.”
Tough kid, really, holding it together so well in the face of such weirdness. “And these two didn’t kidnap you?”
“Please,” she snorted, rolling her eyes in that way kids do to convey the sheer absurdity of an idea.
That settled that. It was time to close the Astor ‘kidnapping.’ I pointed at the investigators with my nightstick, “I’ve got to call this in. You two vanish before my partner gets here.” Having explained how this was going to go down, I shared a friendly wink with Ms. Astor to let her know her rescuers were going to walk if I had my way. She just gave me a big sunny grin in response.
I took her hand and headed back towards the other officers I’d left behind, asking her about how exactly she’d gotten entangled with the well-meaning investigators that her parents tried to screw over.
When we reached the far end of the bridge, Faith insisted on stopping to wave goodbye to the boys. That her ring lit up with that pink glow was a surprise. I guess kids like things that light up and chase away the dark.
The idea of monsters, literal monsters, waiting in the dark, hunting the civilians of Chicago I was sworn to protect was terrifying. But not a hopeless proposition, as the beanpole of Ragged Angel had shown me. A light in the dark in his own way.