Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files #8) - Jim Butcher Page 0,23
his leash, which hung over the doorknob.
I snorted and said, You aint pretty, furface. But I clipped the leash to his collar, and called for a cab.
* * *
Chapter Eight
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The cabby drove me to the Eighteenth District of the CPD, on Larrabee. The neighborhood around it has seen a couple of better days and thousands of worse ones. The once-infamous Cabrini Green isnt far away, but urban renewal and the efforts of local neighborhood watches, community groups, church congregations from several faiths, and cooperation with the local police department had changed some of Chicagos nastier streets into something resembling actual civilization.
The nasty hadnt left the city, of coursebut it had been driven away from what had once been a stronghold of decay and despair. What was left behind wasnt the prettiest section of town, but it bore the quiet, steady signs of a place that had a passing acquaintance with law and order.
Of course, the cynical would point out that Cabrini Green was only a short walk from the Gold Coast, one of the richest areas of the city, and that it was no coincidence that funds had been sent that way by the powers that be through various municipal programs. The cynical would be right, but it didnt change the fact that the people of the area had worked and fought to reclaim their homes from fear, crime, and chaos. On a good day, the neighborhood made you feel like there was hope for us, as a species; that we could drive back the darkness with enough will and faith and help.
That kind of thinking had taken on whole new dimensions for me in the past year or two.
The police station wasnt new, but it was free of graffiti, litter, and shady characters of any kindat least until I showed up, in jeans and a red T-shirt, bruised and unshaven. I got a weird look from the cabby, who probably didnt get all that many sandalwood-scented fares to drop off there. Mouse presented his head to the cabby while I paid through the drivers window, and got a smile and a polite scratching of the ears in reply.
Mouse has better people skills than me.
I turned to walk up to the station, stubbornly putting my money back in my wallet with my stiff left hand as I walked, and Mouse walked beside me. The hair on the back of my neck suddenly crawled, and I looked up at the reflection in the glass doors as I approached them.
A car had pulled up on the far side of the street behind me, and was stopped directly under a No Parking sign. I saw a vague shadow inside the car, a white sedan I did not recognize and which certainly wasnt the dark grey car that had run me off the road earlier. But my instincts told me I was being tailed by someone. You dont park illegally like that, in front of a police station no less, just because youre bored.
Mouse let out a low rumble of a growl, which made me grow a shade more wary. Mouse rarely made noise at all. When he did, I had begun to think it was because there was some kind of dark presence aroundevil magic, hungry vampires, and deadly necromancers had all earned snarls of warning. But he never made a peep when the mailman came by.
So adding it up, someone from the nasty end of my side of the supernatural street was following me around town. Good grief; at least I usually know who Im pissing off, and why. By the time an investigation gets to the point where Im being followed, theres usually been at least one crime scene and maybe even a corpse or two.
Mouse growled another warning.
I see him, I told Mouse quietly. Easy. Just keep walking.
He fell silent again, and we never broke stride up to the door.
Molly Carpenter appeared and opened the door for us.
The last time Id seen Molly, shed been an awkward adolescent, all skinny legs, bright-eyed interest, and hesitation of movement offset by an appealing personal confidence and frequent smiles and laughter. But that had been years ago.
Since then, Molly had gotten all growed up.
She strongly favored her mother, Charity. Both of them were tall for women, only an inch or two under six feet, both of them blond, fair, blue-eyed, and both of them built like the proverbial brick house, somehow managing to combine strength, grace, and beauty that showed as