Free Side Jobs by Jim Butcher Page B

haven’t given family presents much. And your brother doesn’t exactly have a ton of people bringing him presents on his birthday, does he?”
    I just looked at her for a second. Molly was growing up into a person I thought I was going to like.
    “No,” I said quietly. “I haven’t, and he doesn’t.”
    “Well, then,” she said, smiling. “Let’s go give him one.”
     
     
    I FROWNED AT the intercom outside Thomas’s apartment building and said, “I don’t get it. He’s always home this time of night.”
    “Maybe he’s out to dinner,” Molly said, shivering in the cold—after all, her backup clothing had been summer wear.
    I shook my head. “He limits himself pretty drastically when it comes to exposing himself to the public.”
    “Why?”
    “He’s a White Court vampire, an incubus,” I said. “Pretty much every woman who looks at him gets ideas.”
    Molly coughed delicately. “Oh. It’s not just me, then.”
    “No. I followed him around town once. It was like watching one of those campy cologne commercials.”
    “But he does go out, right?”
    “Sure.”
    She nodded and immediately started digging into her backpack. “Then maybe we could use a tracking spell and run him down. I think I’ve got some materials we can use.”
    “Me, too,” I said, and produced two quarters from my pocket, holding them up between my fingers with slow, ominous flair, like David Blaine.
    Then I took two steps to the pay phone next to the apartment building’s entrance, plugged the coins in, and called Thomas’s cell phone.
    Molly gave me a level look and folded her arms.
    “Hey,” I told her as it rang. “We’re wizards, kid. We have trouble using technology. Doesn’t mean we can’t be smart about it.”
    Molly rolled her eyes and muttered to herself, and I paid attention to the phone call.
    “’Allo,” Thomas answered, the word thick with the French accent he used in his public persona.
    “Hello, France?” I responded. “I found a dead mouse in my can of French roast coffee, and I’ve called to complain. I’m an American, and I refuse to stand for that kind of thing from you people.”
    My half brother sighed. “A moment, please,” he said in his accent. I could hear music playing and people talking behind him. A party? A door clicked shut and he said, without any accent, “Hey, Harry.”
    “I’m standing outside your apartment in the freaking snow with your birthday present.”
    “That won’t do you much good,” he said. “I’m not there.”
    “Being a professional detective, I had deduced that much,” I said.
    “A birthday present, huh?” he said.
    “I get much colder and I’m going to burn it for warmth.”
    He laughed. “I’m at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg.”
    I glanced at my watch. “This late?”
    “Uh-huh. I’m doing a favor for one of my employees. I’ll be here until midnight or so. Look, just come back tomorrow evening.”
    “No,” I said stubbornly. “Your birthday is today. I’ll drive there.”
    “Uh,” Thomas said. “Yeah. I guess, uh. Okay.”
    I frowned. “What are you doing out there?”
    “Gotta go.” He hung up on me.
    I traded a look with Molly. “Huh.”
    She tilted her head. “What’s going on?”
    I turned and headed back for the car. “Let’s find out.”
     
     
    WOODFIELD MALL IS the largest such establishment in the state, but its parking lots were all but entirely empty. The mall had been closed for more than an hour.
    “How are we supposed to find him?” Molly asked.
    I drove my car, the beat-up old Volkswagen Bug I had dubbed the Blue Beetle , around for a few minutes. “There,” I said, nodding at a white sedan parked among a dozen other vehicles, the largest concentration of such transport left at the mall. “That’s his car.” I started to say something else but stopped myself before I wasted an opportunity to Yoda the trainee. “Molly, tell me what you see.”
    She scrunched up her nose, frowning, as I drove