Fire Work, A Building Faith Side Job
By Ellf
Chapter Nine


Disclaimer: Jim Butcher owns the Dresden Files, any other works of fiction mentioned are not owned by me.


I'm honestly not sure how long Molly and I stood there, maintaining the circle around the goblin named Sam. We'd split our attention between the burning building, the firemen that were now putting out the building, and the goblin itself. The firemen seemed to be doing a good job of putting out the building; they'd end up saving the structure itself, even if the contents within were all ruined. Of course, given the number of fireworks containers that likely remained in that warehouse with two days until the Fourth, it was entirely possible that the fire took out whatever remaining stock the owner had illegally stored there. I really didn't want to think about who might be the one doing the storage as ultimately it didn't matter. The building was surviving. The fireworks had all exploded, and the sounds of which hadn't even caused our prisoner to stir within the circle.

After all, the sleep spell that we cast still held strong. Neither Molly nor I really were certain whether the spell would work, but we got a little lucky. The trappings of Uncle Sam seemed to be fading from the goblin. The beard he'd had crumbled away to ectoplasmic goo, and his clothing had reverted to the leathers that I'd first spotted him in. I almost felt bad for him. I didn't know how he managed to acquire the hat. Maybe the goblin stole it. Maybe he found it. Ultimately it didn't really matter how the goblin had acquired it though, just that he had. It also mattered that we managed to retrieve the hat, and we intended on getting it back to Uncle Sam as soon as he managed to get to us.

Molly hip-checked me when she noticed where my attention was. Maybe I'd been focusing too much on the goblin, but I just had no answers to the questions that dwelt within my mind. What's eating at you?

This didn't happen in my memories, I sent to my sister. Mentioning my memories of a past life out loud in a public area didn't seem like it would have been the brightest thing to do. Especially when it was entirely possible that the goblin would wake up.

Well, you don't have a perfect memory. Molly squeezed my waist, and I leaned on her a little more. Maybe this or something like it did happen and you can't remember.

I shrugged. Molly, as per usual, tended to have a point. Regardless of whether something like this happened in what I remembered or not, it happened now. Today had been a novel experience, and it was something that despite everything, I enjoyed. I could even use the words magical for it. I could, but that'd be really cheesy.

We didn't really have to wait much longer before Harry came back to the lot. His long legs and runner's build meant that Harry could move swiftly when he wanted to, and it also meant that he tended to walk faster than the average person. That he took as much time as he did likely meant that he had been a while on the phone, waiting for Uncle Sam to pick up.

Sure enough, Harry wasn't alone while returning to the lot. Uncle Sam followed him, his starry eyes gleaming in the sunlight overhead. I still held the hat with my free hand; I didn't exactly trust it to stay in place if I were to put it somewhere on the ground. I didn't want the hat to somehow get attracted to our goblin prisoner.

As I looked over the approaching men, I frowned. Neither one of them had any bags whatsoever with them, and I doubted either of them carried a safety pin, which I could have used to keep everything held up, if not together.

"There they are, just like I told you," Harry said, gesturing at my sister and I. "Along with the being that had your hat."

"Good job, Mister Dresden, to you and your apprentices." Uncle Sam approached the two of us. "I see your reputation is accurate. You hunted down my hat admirably."

"Well, I try," Harry said, glancing at each of us.

Something occurred to me at that point, and I frowned. Something about what Uncle Sam had said at the beginning, when he'd hired us. He wanted us to "find [the] top hat, before it's too late." We found the top hat, but we never got an elaboration on the why beyond that he lost it somehow. Then, I looked at the goblin in the circle, and back to Uncle Sam, and it clicked.

"Too late," I said. "You wanted us to find it before the mantle passed to someone else. Before you were no longer Uncle Sam."

"Well done, Miss Carpenter," Uncle Sam said, and then he glanced at the goblin. A frown played itself on his face. "I had hoped that I simply lost the hat rather than have it stolen, but I am happy for its safe return."

I still held the hat. This had been what we were paid to do, but something caused me to hesitate. I wasn't entirely certain what it was, but something about the hat and the man in front of me just gave me pause. I felt like maybe the hat shouldn't be going to him. Maybe I should have held the hat a little more.

"My hat, if you please," Uncle Sam held out his hand, and I gave a little grimace. The hat was his, after all, but I almost didn't want to hand it over at all. I didn't need to give it over. I just had to… I just needed to…

"Faith." Harry's voice contained a tone of warning, and I blinked.

God, what was I thinking? I released the power I had been gathering and I offered the hat to Uncle Sam. "Here… sorry about that."

"It's no trouble, Miss Carpenter." Uncle Sam wrapped his fingers around the brim of the hat, and I blinked. For a second, he looked different as I released my hold on the hat. He seemed more muscular, athletic, with a sense of savagery about him. As he dipped his head down to place the hat upon it, his face became obscured in a veil of darkness. Not a single feature of his face could be made out save for a pair of burning red eyes, shining like the flames of a torch. Then, he raised his head, and his features were of the older man I'd seen before. The simmering bits of power seemed to have calmed, and I needed to focus to be able to tell the man before me was anything other than a human. "Thank you, the three of you."

"You're welcome," Molly and I said in unison, bowing our heads slightly. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd seen, but it didn't hurt to be polite. I inclined my head toward our goblin prisoner, and I frowned. "Now, what about him?"

Uncle Sam stretched slightly. "Ah yes… him. I must apologize to the three of you. Like I had said, I did not believe that the hat had been stolen. Not by that little one there, at least."

The embodiment of American patriotism made his way to the edge of our circle, and he peered within. "Samuel, wake up."

Wait, his name actually was Sam? I didn't know if goblins could lie or not. Were they subject to the same truth telling nature that the Sidhe had? I either couldn't remember or I didn't out right know. I'd need to ask Bob about it when I got the chance.

The goblin stirred within the circle, opening his eyes. He looked up at Uncle Sam, complete with hat on. "Ah! Give hat! Give hat!"

"Samuel," Uncle Sam said, shaking his head. His tone of voice very much reminded me of the one Daddy would take on when he was disappointed in something that we did. It was almost like he was chastising a child. "This hat is mine. We established that before, and Mister Dresden and his apprentices established that again today."

"But hat am… Me am…" The goblin shook its head, and I swear I saw tears coming out of its eyes.

"If you're going to be among humans, Samuel, you can't take my hat." Uncle Sam glanced over at my sister and I. "Would the two of you mind opening this circle? Samuel will behave. Won't you?"

The goblin suddenly stood up straight. "Am good! Me am very good!"

We started to move, but we stopped when Harry held up his hand.

"I'll do it. You two stay back." Harry reached into his duster and pulled out his blasting rod, aiming it at the goblin. The tip of it lit up a bright red, like that of an acetylene torch. "If you don't behave, we'll see how fast you still are. Got it?"

The goblin nodded so fast that it looked like its head would come off, and Harry smirked, seemingly ignoring the annoyed yet bemused expression on Uncle Sam's face. Harry reached out with his foot and smudged the circle, causing it to open and release our prisoner. The moment the circle went down, the goblin ran forward and wrapped its arms around Uncle Sam's leg.

"Me sorry!" I blinked. Wait. That couldn't be right. The goblin's face started to warp, becoming more human and childlike. A head of short, curly brown hair formed on its head and its skin began to turn pink. It remained at around the same height, but he… he appeared human. He did still have a rather nasty looking welt on the back of his head, but as the hair grew in, it became less obvious.

"I will have to talk to your keepers when we get home," Uncle Sam said, running a hand through the former goblin's hair. "But you can spend the rest of the holiday with me."

"Yay! 'Murica!" His voice hadn't changed much, maybe become less annoyingly high pitched and more childlike, but not much of a change. It was then that I had a dawning realization. The goblin was a kid. No wonder he'd been shorter than expected. He was young. The kid appeared to be about Hope's age. Maybe a little older. His eyes still were goblinoid when looking at the pupils, but he looked human otherwise.

"… Did your hat get stolen by your kid?" Molly asked before I could.

"It's… a little more complicated than that, Miss Carpenter, but Samuel is mine," Uncle Sam said, and then he turned to us. "I thank you for not slaying him out of hand. It would have been disappointing to find that he had died."

Harry put his blasting rod away. "Well, uh. You're welcome, I guess. He wasn't really that much a little monster."

"He did, however, destroy our clothes," Molly said, and I nodded. "Mine are fine enough to wear out, but Fai's practically falling out of hers. Harry, why didn't you grab something?"

"I didn't think to," Harry said, and then he started to remove his duster. "Here, you can wear this until we can get you some new clothes, Grasshopper."

"Ah… no need," Uncle Sam said. "I hired Mr. Dresden, and I suspect that replacing your clothing would be a part of the expenses. As such, let me alleviate that expense some."

He clapped his hands twice and whistled a few bars of… what sounded like "America the Beautiful." A gust of wind blew… and in the blink of an eye, I felt a weight on me that was different than before. Where the two of us had been wearing red and white summer dresses before, we now wore what could only be described as patriotic American Flag dresses. The dresses were backless, had striped skirts and the upper part of the dress had the blue with white stars. The straps of the dress wrapped around the backs of our necks, and we still remained in flats.

"There. Now don't the two of you look beautiful?" Uncle Sam asked, and the former goblin, Samuel smiled from his position down below.

"Me like! Hot chicks! Explosions! 'Murica! Yay!"

I resisted the urge to rub the bridge of my nose, but a smile came to my lips. "Thank you, Uncle Sam."

"No, thank you. Now then, I believe that you three had a barbecue to get to. Go on." The spirit of American patriotism seemed to shoo us, and we found ourselves walking. We left him in the lot with the goblin that supposedly was his kid, as we really did have a barbecue to get to, and we'd finished the case.

I was looking forward to the food and family time now that the case was done. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing would happen while we were all there.

Why did it still weird me out that Uncle Sam had a goblin kid?