Small Favor (The Dresden Files, #10)

by Jim Butcher

The driver-side window rolled down and revealed a young man whom fathers of teenage daughters would shoot on sight.

I arched an eyebrow at that. Typically the vocabulary of thugs holding guns to your head ran a little light on courtesy phrases like please.

And she doesn’t really like me.” “You kill someone’s daughter, that happens,”

“Mister Dresden. What happened to your face?” “It’s always like this,” I said. “I forgot to put on my makeup today.”

Torelli’s features darkened. “Kid. You just made the last mistake of your life.” “God,” I said. “I wish.”

“How do you want to play it if the music starts?” “I’ve got nothing to prove,” I said. “I say we run like little girls.” “Suits me. But don’t let Murphy hear you talking like that.” “Yeah. She gets oversensitive about ‘little.’”

“What’s gone wrong, Harry?” “Hey!” I protested. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to a man, Captain. Just because I’m calling in doesn’t mean that there’s some kind of crisis.” “Technically true, I suppose. Why are you calling?” “Well. There’s a crisis.”

The torches and pitchforks are just as deadly, in their numbers and their simple rage, as they ever were—and

“That’s why they pay you the big bucks, Cap. That keen interpersonal insight.” “That and because I’m quite good at killing things,”

We’re ostriches and the whole world is sand.

“I want five minutes alone with Dresden.” “No offense, Nick,” I said, “but that’s about five minutes longer than I want to spend with you.”

“What would you say if I told you that you and I might have a great many common interests in the future?” “I wouldn’t say much of anything,” I said. “I’d be too busy laughing in your face.”

Charity was like the MacGyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly… Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don’t know how.

“November is not a good time to be sailing on Lake Michigan, Harry.” “The aftermath of a nuclear holocaust isn’t a good time to be sailing there, either.”

Don’t get me wrong: At times I can be a little thick—particularly when there’s a woman involved. There’s just no way I’m stupid enough to make a mistake quite that enormous twice.

I run—and not so that I’ll be skinny and look good, either. I run so that when something that wants to kill me is chasing me, I’ll be good at running.

“Gruff,” I said, “I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what’s in a fae woman’s mind.”

“Kill you!” she snarled. “Kill you for what you did to him!” “Holy crap!” Thomas yelled. “Ack!” I agreed.

“Shut up, Harry.” “Okay,” I said. And I did. For hours. It was glorious.

I laughed, and Sanya and I traded a hug, a manly hug with a lot of back thumping, which he then ruined with one of those Russian kisses on both cheeks.