Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17)

by Jim Butcher

“Here’s how it is, people. The wolf is at the door. So if you’ve been meaning to take a martial arts class, or you thought maybe you should learn to shoot a gun, it’s too late. You’ve only got three choices now.”

I’d find something useful to do. But I couldn’t do it here. I couldn’t watch over my friends. I couldn’t be the one to protect them. I had to trust that what they’d learned from me, and from the community I’d helped to build, would see them through.

“When horrors begin to tear apart the people of this city,” Mab said calmly, “when its women and children cry out for help, I should find amusement in seeing you attempt to restrain him.” I lifted a hand and said to Mab, respectfully, “He’s right. If I’m the play, then I’ve got to be ready when it’s time.” Mab gave me a look with something in it that was almost like pity. Or possibly contempt. “As if you could restrain yourself any more ably than he could.” She shook her head. “Be comforted, my Knight: I chose you for times precisely such as these, when an elemental of destruction is what is most needed.”

“We will not plan to use them,” Vadderung said in a tone of absolute certainty. “Not the angels, and not the Knights. Not in any way. The being you call Mister Sunshine would be quite annoyed at the intrusion.” I arched an eyebrow at Vadderung. I was pretty sure I hadn’t ever mentioned my nickname for Uriel to him. Vadderung gave me a very bland look. “We have lunch once a year.”

He stared hard at me for a second before lowering the gun, and then my only actual vassal arrived.

Both pixies fluttered back a dozen feet before the sound was done leaving his mouth. “Dresden,” the Redcap said, a touch plaintively. “Major General,” I said, “Lacuna, stand down. Tonight, he is the enemy of my enemy.” Toot gasped and gripped his spear more tightly. “A double enemy!” Lacuna buzzed over to hover near Toot. “No, idiot. It means he is an ally right now.”

“Oh no!” Toot wailed. He buzzed in a vertical circle. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” “That will definitely be better for your teeth,” Lacuna said. “The stars take my teeth, woman!” Toot bellowed. Lacuna gasped, shocked.

Another scream came down the street. This time there was no mistaking it. It was a child’s voice, a single high-pitched note. “Hoss,” said Ebenezar warningly. I couldn’t see. My vision was narrowing to a tunnel. My chest heaved. I looked to my left. In the tunnel of my vision, Mab was a slender, pale white light, her eyes bright, feline, narrowed. She watched me. “We have to help them,” I said, louder and harder. Mab’s teeth showed.

River Shoulders looked mournful. “I lost my glasses in the fighting.”

And the goddamned madmen roared their excitement and began their own war song in answer. The Jotnar focused on the parking garage and bellowed pure rage at the sound of that song. Then they started sprinting right at us.

Mab tilted her head to one side. “You did not embrace the cold.” “No,” I said. My voice felt rough. Her chin lifted, and her hard, cold eyes flickered in naked, unconcealed pride. “Never once in your life, my Knight, have you taken the easy road. I chose well.”

I looked back at the city behind us. If more is required of me, so be it. I offered my hand to Mab, plain soldier. She took it.

He heaved a breath. Then set his jaw, nodded, and said, “Got it.” “Good man,” I said. “You’re handling this well.” “I am not,” Bradley said without slowing his steps. “I am not.” “Then you are freaking out in the most useful way possible,” I said. “Keep it up.”

“We all must die, Dresden. There is no shame in dying for something worthwhile.”

There was a second of stunned silence, and then one of the volunteers, damned if it wasn’t Randy, shouted, “We’ve got a goddamned wizard! Fuck those guys!”

“Wow,” Butters said quietly. His voice was flattened, numbed. “Sure are a lot of them.” “It only looks like that because they’re all in the same place, standing close together,” I said. Butters eyed me. “Yeah. That’s probably it.”

I do not know what power she had won, what knowledge she had gained, what experience she had suffered, or what sacrifices she had made that enabled Mab to defy the absolute force of the Titan’s will. But though her shoulders bowed as if under enormous weight, though the Winter unicorn staggered beneath her, Mab was Mab. She steadied the beast, and her expression locked into a cold, steady mask. She drew in a breath, barely visible as a blur in the air compressed by the Titan’s will, and said, simply, “No.”

In that withering light and fury, she was a being of distilled intellect and will, pure determination and cold defiance. In that fury, she was a shadow, an outline, dark and terrible and undeniable, standing against the tide unmoving. In that moment, I saw with my own eyes why she was called the Queen of Air and Darkness.

Titania’s voice rang into the night like a silver bell. “Clever of you, Ethniu, to attack my sister at midsummer, when she is at her weakest.” A growl of thunder added punctuation to the end of her sentence. “But it was shortsighted to assume she would stand alone.”

But the fool, the Knight of Faith, held his ground. And it turned out that I was wrong, and the fool was right. Sometimes that’s all faith is. Sometimes that’s enough.

At the same time, the Summer Lady threw back her head and let out a scream that was a single vibrating note, and a column of glorious golden light suddenly burned a hole in the haze and the cloud cover, turning the few remaining raindrops to spectrum-shattered mist and steam. From the desperate clash of battle came an answering shriek—and a column of cold, defiant blue light rose into the night, centered on the darting, tireless form of the Winter Lady. Movement stirred around the truck at ground level. And the Baron of Chicago led the way.

I pointed at the army and said, “Cut me a way through there.” Butters looked at me. Then at the armies clashing. Then at me again. “Yeah,” he said. “Why not?” We didn’t charge into the fray so much as aggressively shamble. But into the fray we went.

And for the first time in millennia, mortals heard a Titan scream in pain.

“I’m not asking,” I said. “My fealty is a two-way street. I have gone above and beyond my duty to Winter, right in front of God and everybody, by doing what no one else could. Now Winter will respond in kind, by helping as no one else can. You will help them. Every one of them. Do it in secret, no connections. We’ve interfered in their lives enough. This will happen.” The Winter Lady gave me a very long, very intent stare. And then she shivered and bowed her head. “Already you have bound a Titan. And now a Queen. Sometimes,” Molly whispered, “I’m very proud to be your friend, Harry. And sometimes you frighten me.”

“Apocalypse isn’t an event,” Nemesis murmured. “It is a frame of mind.”

“Einherjar,” I said. “Murph didn’t ‘die well.’” Gard’s eyes flashed. “She died slaying a Jotun,” she said roughly. “She did it to protect you. And she got results. She died a warrior’s death. One without personal glory. The one that happened because she was doing what was necessary.” I tilted my head at her. She waved a hand vaguely at her temple. “It’s a limited intellectus, of the honored dead, of their deeds. I know who she was now, Dresden. Don’t you dare cheapen her death by suggesting it was less than the culmination of a life of habitual valor.” Well. There wasn’t much I could say to that.

I said, a low thunder growling its way into my quiet words. “You tell Odin that Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden says, upon his Name, that if he doesn’t treat Murph better than I would myself, I’m going to kick down his door, pluck his fucking ravens, knock him down, kick his guts out, drag him to the island, and lock him up in a cell with Ethniu.” Gard blinked at me.

“Excellent,” said Mab from behind us. “Lady Lara, upon due consideration, your third favor is granted. You have my permission to court my Knight. The wedding will commence at sundown.” “Uh,” I said, “what?” Lara arched an eyebrow. “What?” “WHAT!!??” sputtered Molly.

Which made me blink.

Mab glanced at me wearily. “You know what it is,” she said, “to sell pieces of your soul so that someone who will never know your name will have another chance at life.” I didn’t have a response for that.

“I always figured,” I said, “that when you sold your soul, it went all at once.” She smiled faintly. Click, click, click. “You didn’t even understand who would be receiving it,” she said. “Honestly, why you children keep making such bargains with old serpents like me, I shall never understand.”

She stared up at the light, ignoring me. Click, click, click. “Thank you,” I said. “You fought for my city. My people. Thank you.” She looked at me in sudden confusion. “Thank you,” I said, for the third time. Three repetitions separate the random from the intentional. Repeat something three times, and you make it more real. Mab shivered at my gratitude. She closed her eyes. And for a second, raindrops fell through the hole in the roof. Then they went click, click, click again. And Mab opened her eyes. “Child,” she said. “You are welcome.”

“The Eye,” I said. “It was made of pure hate. I felt that.” “Yes.” “It destroyed everything it touched,” I said. “Except you. Even Titania didn’t touch it when she faced it. But you could. Why?” Mab’s mouth turned up into a faint smile. “Everyone,” she said, “thinks that hate and love are somehow opposite forces. They are not. They are the same force, facing opposite directions.” She glanced aside at me. “Love is a fire, my Knight. Love turned the wrong way has killed as many as hate. Reason, young wizard, is the opposite of hate, not love. Ethniu could not destroy me with a single blast of the Eye. I was quite certain of it. I ran the numbers.” I stared at her for a moment. Then I nodded.

“That isn’t how it works,” I said. “People aren’t machine parts. You can’t just plug them in wherever. They aren’t game pieces. You can’t just pick them up and move them around the board, wherever you want them to go.” “Yet the machine still must function. The game must be played,” she said, her voice implacable, stating facts, not angry. “Do not test me. There is no margin here for you to dance within. Bend, wizard. Or I will break you.” I drew in a breath and let it out again. “I guess we’ll see,” I said. Her eyes glinted. But she looked like someone who had heard what she expected to hear. She inclined her head to me in an opponent’s acknowledgment. “We will see.”

The silver shouldn’t be a problem for you, should it?” Molly blinked several more times, then smiled slowly and carefully at her father and said, “That will be fine, Dad.” “Good, because your mother says you’re not getting out of helping in the kitchen just because you’re a faerie princess now. She got you those long kitchen gloves so that you can still wash dishes.” Molly blinked several more times.

later. For now, I’m just glad that you’re home to see us. And you still eat meat, don’t you? Your mother found this fancy flavored salt for the roast and it really is quite good.”

And right now, I was about to have a nice meal with people who cared about me, and about one another. There are a lot of ways to get ready for trouble. You get ready to fight. That’s one of them. But it’s even more important that you build something worth fighting for.