Chapter 14
Arthur had spent most of six years looking for a troll. He drove to dusty local parishes and spoke to their priests about
disappearances and tragedies and local bogeymen. He plundered little local libraries for stories of unsolved deaths, tales
of massacred goats and sheep. Spent who knew how many hours in the basements of historical societies, brushing aside cobwebs
to get at water-stained cardboard boxes full of diaries and regional legends. He poked around and got his feet cold and wet
under ancient bridges, leading to at least one case of pneumonia. Six years without finding his troll.
Colin’s custom search engine only needed six weeks. And it didn’t stop when it produced an 87.3 percent likelihood of a troll
working in the area of Camelford, down by the river. It read emails and text messages and examined social media posts made
from IP addresses in the area and soon concluded the troll was online.
Svangur had his favorite searches: “goat butthole,” “proof the holocaust was faked,” “lickable fat children,” “do vaccines make people fags.” He had some rudimentary HTML skills and liked to deface message boards for synagogues, replacing pictures of the happy congregations with photos of uncircumcised penises.
He liked to hang out on message boards to argue that racial integration had been a mistake, that Columbine was a false-flag operation to eliminate gun rights, and that George Soros was head of a cabal of Jewish bankers trying to create a one-world nation.
Anything to get a reaction. Colin could not help but notice a certain overlap between the things Finger posted to spread panic and confusion, and some of what Donna McBride actually believed.
She had never heard a single awful thing about George Soros that she didn’t suspect was true.
Svangur wasn’t even the first troll Colin had found. It surprised Colin when Arthur told him the Russians farmed trolls on
the steppes . . . because, in fact, Colin already knew this to be true. They harvested at least a few hundred a year. Maybe
a few thousand, if they had puzzled out how to grow them hydroponically. They were teaching them to fire rocket launchers—trolls
loved rocket launchers—and how to code.
Arthur had known so much, just none of the things that mattered. In October, Colin sent Stu Finger an email. By late November,
they had a deal. Finger didn’t give a damn about enchanted swords or vials of holy blood, but he was sick to death of slow
web page loading times.
Colin took the rough brown robe—it was itchy and unpleasant, but then it would be, it was woven from human hair—and folded
it around the vial. He zipped the bundle into his pack. Colin left the sword. He could imagine circumstances in which he might
want a robe that could protect him from both a dragon’s gaze and a dragon’s flame, but he didn’t need a magic sword. He had
a dragon.
Besides. The sword hadn’t liked him. He knew it the moment he touched it.
He patted Arthur’s pockets and found the Glass. He liked to think Arthur would’ve wanted him to have it, would’ve been hurt
if he left it with the troll. Then Colin took Arthur by the hands and Svangur gripped him by the ankles, and they heaved him
into the stone coffin. Colin arranged him carefully. He lifted the hood of Arthur’s parka up and his old friend was once again
the learned monk of loneliness. He took another pass at Arthur’s pockets and was not entirely surprised to discover, among
his spare change, a Welsh pound with a dragon passant stamped into it. Another had a Celtic cross on the obverse side, almost
identical to the cross engraved on the coffin lid. He placed them on Arthur’s eyes . . . and then flinched. The effect was
far from soothing. Arthur had the blind silver eyes of an angel now and seemed to be gazing back at Colin with a sort of impassive
judgment.
Svangur lifted the limestone lid alone, though it had to weigh nearly three hundred pounds, and set it down with a clank.
“Want to say a few words over the dearly departed?” Svangur said.
“May God bless my friend Arthur Oakes,” Colin said. “He had good intentions.”
“We know where those gets you.” Svangur leered and waggled his tongue. His breath was terrible.