Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17)

by Jim Butcher

Apocalypses always kick off at the witching hour. That’s something you know now.

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 had to give it to him—Butters was never going to be a powerhouse, but the little guy didn’t have an atom of quit anywhere in him.

Lightning struck, a hawk cried in fury, and then a goddamned grizzly bear fell out of the night sky and onto Ethniu’s head. Don’t care how Titanic you are. No one expects an orbital-drop grizzly.

Back at the car, Michael said, “That looked grim. What happened?” “Rest of the White Council was pretty nervous about the guy who soloed a Titan, I guess,” I said. “They voted. I’m an outlaw. Like the old days.” Michael considered that for a moment. Then he said, quietly and firmly, “Those fuckers.” I stumbled on the slippery grass in the rain and fell on my ass. And it didn’t stop there. Michael swore. My friend cursed a blue streak like a dozen sailors picking a dozen fights. He swore profanities that would have made a fallen angel blush. He swore in three different languages that I recognized, and in a dozen I didn’t. He swore like a man with a forty-year pent-up hurricane of ranting profanity in his chest that had been looking for a way to come out. When he was finished he looked up at the rain and said, “I’ll be happy to do penance, Lord. But some things need to be said.” Then he turned to me, extended his hand, and said, firmly, “You are always welcome in my house, Harry Dresden. In fact, Charity told me to invite you and Maggie over for Christmas Eve and morning with us. It’s hard for us to think of Christmas without her. And you’re still coming for Sunday dinner, aren’t you? The place is still pretty cut up from where those lunatics came in the house, but I think a couple of weeks of work should set it right. . . .” I took my friend’s hand. There was rain in my eyes.

Thunder rumbled on the horizon. “More rain coming,” Maggie said. “When it gets here, we’ll run out and dance in it,” I said. “Why?” Maggie asked. “If we don’t, life has just as much rain,” I said, “but way less dancing.”