Battle Ground

by Jim Butcher

  Later, there would be time to feel it. All of it.

  But I’d lost people before. That’s the thing about being an orphan. Grief is a known quantity. Loss is your family. Sure, it was going to hurt. It was going to tear me up. The empty place where she had been would make me its bitch for a while.

  But that was for later.

  First I was going to finish what we’d set out to do: protect the city.

  And I was going to provide Murph with a fitting escort to what came after while I did it.

  Butters walked over to me with my staff. He passed it to me.

  I nodded at him. I didn’t know where Rudolph was, or what Butters and Sanya had done with him. I didn’t want to know. Rudolph wasn’t my problem. He couldn’t be. I had too much responsibility to the city, to my friends—to my family.

  I slammed one end of my staff onto the asphalt and shoved myself back to my feet. I think someone was trying to talk to me on the way. I didn’t listen. And without a word I walked back to Murph’s body.

  It really was so tiny.

  Now that she was gone, it seemed even smaller.

  I picked Murph up. She weighed almost nothing.

  I cradled her body against my chest and then walked, briskly, my arm throbbing, through the blocks back to Millennium Park, where Mab still waited behind her cohort of warrior Sidhe—but instead of facing the oncoming threat, her gaze was waiting to find me as I emerged from the haze.

  She gave no visible signal, but the unicorn moved, nudging its way through the Sidhe as the Queen of Air and Darkness rode out to face me.

  She regarded Murph’s pale face, my bloody form, and said only, “You have returned.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s a Jotunslayer. She deserves to be laid with dignity.”

  “And so she does,” Mab agreed.

  She turned and pointed a finger at one of the blocks of waiting Sidhe warriors. Half a dozen of them peeled off from the formation instantly, in unison, and marched over to us.

  “See that this warrior is laid in state,” she said, and moved her head in a curt gesture toward the Bean. “She has shared our enemies and earned our respect, and so shall it be known amongst my vassals and to the furthest reaches of my kingdom.”

  The Sidhe saluted, fists to heart, their weird faemetal armor ringing with tones like bells or wind chimes where it was struck. One of them offered up a long, narrow shield, and they took position on either side of it.

  She wasn’t heavy.

  But I couldn’t carry her and do what we’d set out to do.

  I put her down on the shield, as gently as I could. I composed her as best I could. The grey, somehow shrunken remains weren’t Murph. But they deserved more respect, more grace, than I could offer.

  I put my hand on her head one more time. Touched her hair one more time.

  Then I said, “Okay.”

  The Sidhe carried Murphy’s body. I went with them, enough to make sure they behaved.

  They did. Could be it was the bloodied, bruised, angry Winter Knight standing over them that inspired it. Could be that it was real respect. The Winter Court and death are distant relatives. The only times I’d seen Winter volunteer something like humanity was when someone had died.

  Maybe it was all they had left.

  My left arm throbbed and burned as they laid Murphy down atop a bier made of the cases the weapons had been stored in.

  The warrior Sidhe saluted the body. Then they filed out.

  It was only then I noticed that they were all female.

  I looked at Murphy’s body lying on the crates. Except for all the blood, and the grey skin, she might have been asleep.

  But she wasn’t asleep.

  “I gotta go,” I said quietly. I wasn’t sure whom I was talking to. I suppose her death could have left a shade of some kind, but that wasn’t it. It took a little time for a shade to condense. After I had briefly participated in it, the whole afterlife thing had become even more confusing to me, not less. “Ethniu is almost here. Mab’s ready to make her play. I have to be there.”

  One of her curls had fallen over her eye. I moved the curl back. It promptly fell over her eye again.

  I smiled, through tears.

  Even dead, I couldn’t make her do a damned thing.

  I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

  “I already miss you so much,” I said quietly. “Goodbye, Murph.”

  I rose to leave and almost bumped into Mab, she was standing so close behind me.

  I wavered and didn’t. One does not bump into the Queen of Air and Darkness. It simply isn’t done.

  Mab stared silently at the body for a breath, her eyes unreadable. Then she looked searchingly up at me. She was at her human-disguise height, a little less than a foot shorter than me. The starlight in her hair was truly beautiful.

  Silently, she reached out and took my left arm. She pushed the sleeve of my duster up, despite my discomfort, and studied the burn for a moment. Then she said, with a slow, quiet, ever so slightly jealous tone, “That must hurt.”

  “It does,” I said.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath.

  When she opened them, it was all business again. “Can you fight?”

  “Watch me.”

  “I shall,” she said. “And you shall see something the world has not seen in many a year.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mab at war,” she said simply. She glanced to one side. “Your little ones have found King Corb. He has come ashore upon the beach east of here and joined Ethniu. It is time.” She looked up at me. “When the moment is right, it must be you who calls out her name.”

  I knew whom she was talking about. There was no need for explanation. “Why me?”

  “She will answer you,” Mab said. “She has before.”

  I exhaled. “Oh. Got it.”

  “Good.” Mab touched my burned arm again and then withdrew her hand. “It is possible that I shall fall this night.”

  “You’re immortal,” I said.

  “Immortal. Not eternal. There is power here of the truly ancient world. It is enough to ensure the deed.” She narrowed her eyes. “Should I fall, I have one last command you would be wise to fulfill.”

  I tilted my head.

  “Kill Molly Carpenter,” she said calmly. “As quickly as possible.”

  “Funny,” I said.

  Mab stared at me.

  Of course. She hadn’t been joking.

  On a normal day, I would have been more upset. Today already hurt so much that I hardly noticed. Mab wanted me to kill someone. She usually did. It was sort of my job description.

  I frowned dully at her. “Why?”

  “As Winter Lady, she shows promise,” Mab said. “But she is not ready to become Mab. The consequences would be . . . unsettling. For both of you. Perhaps for all of Winter.”

  I tried to think of the kind of situation that would unsettle Mab. My mind shied away from it.

  “That’s not going to be an issue,” I said. “Because you aren’t going to get killed tonight. When I bury Murph, she’s going to be holding the shattered key to that Titanic bitch’s cell on Demonreach in her hands.”

  Mab’s face blossomed into a carnivore’s sharp grin. “Not the Eye?”

  “Fuck the Eye,” I said.

  She actually lifted her hand to cover her mouth. But I saw her eyes . . . smile. It was damned eerie. “All upon the field tonight want that weapon. Your own White Council included. It is the primary reason they fight.”

  I blinked.

  I looked out at the ruddy haze outside and spat a curse.

  Of course. That’s why everyone was fighting beside Mab. Not to honor the treaty, at least not for all of them. But to secure a weapon that would give them an enormous ad
vantage over any of the other Accorded nations. One that could be a threat even to immortals like Mab. I could imagine what the Senior Council would be saying about it if I accused them, too. Too dangerous, could cause havoc, can’t let those monsters have it, we’ll be able to lock it away and keep it safe, harrumph, harrumph.

  “Should we be victorious, that will be the real fight, you know,” Mab said. Her gaze, always penetrating, made me squirm. “Who shall possess the Eye?”

  Outside, said Eye filled the night with light and destruction again. I heard the building fall this time, clearly. Hell. It was only a couple of blocks to the north. It might have been the one with Bradley’s day care in it.

  “I can wreck buildings just fine all by myself,” I said, and tapped the center of my forehead. “And I got three eyes already. What the hell do I want with another big ugly one?”

  “What indeed,” Mab said, as if I hadn’t spoken. She closed her eyes and said, “I confess, it has been long since I have taken the field in earnest, my Knight.” She showed me her teeth. “I think this shall be . . . fun.”

  I blinked. “Fun?”

  Mab opened her eyes, and they twinkled. Just twinkled.

  And then she turned in a wave of silken hair and starlight and strode out of the Bean and onto the battlefield.

  “Hell’s bells,” I muttered after her.

  I didn’t hear it, of course. But my mind provided me with a perfect reproduction of Murph’s drily amused chuckle.

  I turned back to Murph’s remains and touched her cheek with the backs of the fingers of my left hand. Then paused.

  Her Sig, her favorite handgun, was still riding in its shoulder holster beneath her coat.

  Heroes are traditionally buried with their arms.

  But this fight was still going.

  I took the gun from its holster, very gently. It wasn’t a large weapon, but it fit my hand nicely enough as a backup.

  “Backup,” I said. “You mind if I borrow her for a while?”

  Murph couldn’t say anything.

  But with a whisper, where I’d moved it to get the gun, her coat fell open a little more, showing the spare magazines she had prepared.

  “Thanks, Murph,” I whispered.

  I took the magazines and Backup.

  And then I stalked out to fight for the city.

  Chapter

  Twenty-five

  I walked out of the Bean and into the soundtrack of a B horror movie: The Fomor forces didn’t use drums to send signals in the haze.

  They used clicks.

  I supposed that made sense. Drums wouldn’t sound like much underwater. But two rocks banged together are two rocks banged together. I just hoped that they weren’t enough like dolphins to be able to see through the haze using the clicks, too. I didn’t think so, since dolphins had an absolutely enormous biological investment in their natural sonar, but I’d had unpleasant surprises before.

  I strode through the ranks of the Sidhe cohort, and this time there were no games. They made a path for me with crisp precision. But I could sense their eagerness as I passed by. The Winter Court makes very little distinction between sex and violence. Their confrontation with me earlier had been foreplay, but now they were ready for the main event.

  Normally, before a big fight, I felt as intensely as they did, if differently. The adrenaline. The fear. The eagerness to get it over with.

  This time I didn’t.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t feel anything. I felt plenty. I just couldn’t care too much about it, in the face of my loss. That was dangerous, both for me and for the people I was protecting. Battles are not graded on a curve, ever. You survive or you don’t. And everyone you’ll ever face in a battle to the death is undefeated.

  I had to get my head into the game.

  I strode across the park to the pavilion, where Sanya and the volunteers waited, and as I went, the scarlet-hazed air filled with eerie clicks that sounded hideously organic. They came echoing through the heavy air, from multiple directions, north and south alike.

  The Alphas fell in around me as I came to the volunteers, and Butters appeared from the haze to silently take up a position behind me and to my right, where he could watch my back. Or stab me in it if I went all monstery, I supposed.

  Good.

  “Harry,” Sanya said cheerfully. One of the volunteers, damned if it wasn’t Randy, was busy wrapping a bandage around the big Russian’s head, to secure the pad over his torn and bloodied ear. “You are just in time, da?” He gestured out at the unseen sources of the clicks. “What kind of monster you think we get to kill now?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “If it bleeds, we can kill it. And they all bleed. Let’s go.”

  “Da,” Sanya said firmly, and raised his voice as Randy finished with the bandage. “All right, everyone! Offense, time for us to make them sorry! Defense, stay here and kill anything that comes from the north!”

  Sanya’s chosen officers started calling out to their groups, and they began to spread out in a line, facing east. The officers weren’t being subtle about it. They physically shoved people into position. There were a lot of worried faces on that line. I could feel their fear, the kind that makes your limbs feel hollow and your forehead bead in a cold sweat.

  But through the banner, I could also feel their determination, and the aggression radiating off that hideous unicorn that was seeping into them. They were terrified and furious and ready to spill blood.

  Sanya came up beside me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Sanya snorted.

  “Thanks,” I said. I lowered my voice. “They’re amateurs. If we run into enough trained professionals, like Listen and his people, they’re going to be slaughtered.”

  Sanya gave me the side-eye. “You think they do not know that?” He clapped a hand to my shoulder. “We all must die, Dresden. There is no shame in dying for something worthwhile.”

  “I’d rather the Fomor died for something they thought was worthwhile, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Hah,” he said, grinning. “Da. That is plan. And it is time.”

  I held up a hand, sharply. “Wait.”

  Reports came in from the malks, through my banner. They were once again out ghosting through the haze. I tasted stagnant seawater on my tongue, there was so much of the scent in the air. Malks were not, on the whole, very bright—too much of their brain was devoted to bloodshed. But my scouts’ estimates were not optimistic, and in some cases almost fearful.

  Grimalkin, I thought. I need an accurate assessment of enemy position and numbers.

  The Elder malk’s reply came buzzing through my head in his creepy, creepy voice. They are legion. Between five and seven thousand. They march west through the park.

  Holy crap.

  There was no way for about eight hundred amateurs with shotguns to fight that and win.

  Unless . . .

  “Dammit,” I said. “They’re coming right at us. We have to beat them to Columbus. It’s a double-wide separated roadway, and it’s at ground level, maybe fifteen feet lower than the park. There’s a pedestrian bridge across. The bridge is higher than the park and it will give them a firing position down onto our people, as well as an easy way across Columbus—otherwise, they’ll have to climb straight walls under heavy fire.”

  “Destroy bridge?” Sanya asked.

  “And hold the line for as long as we can, do all the damage we can,” I said.

  Sanya took a deep breath and then looked at the volunteers. “Da,” he said quietly. “Then we must move quickly.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Then we jogged out in front of the volunteers, and I called, “Follow me!”

  And we took off at a trot across the Great Lawn, our northern flank shielded by the defensive positions at the pavilion, with stealthy little monsters moving
in a screen in front of us, serving as my eyes.

  What I had not considered was that eight hundred people running together make a thunder of their own. As we ran, I heard the alien clicking sounds stop—and then resurge in a furious, faster tempo.

  Hah. They hadn’t been expecting something like this. And now that I thought about it, I wouldn’t want to run into eight hundred angry people with shotguns on an average Chicago evening, either.

  The retaining wall on this side of Columbus came into sight, and I poured it on, aiming for the pedestrian bridge. Sanya started screaming orders to his officers, hard to hear over the sound of that many people moving.

  I didn’t see the enemy team holding our end of the bridge through the haze until they popped up from under cloaks like ghillie suits and opened fire. Angry wasps hissed through the air and someone hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat and drove the wind out of me.

  For a second, I couldn’t tell what was happening. Some of my volunteers had raised their weapons and returned fire immediately, but most were confused. I knew the feeling. Getting shot at often confuses the hell out of me, and only training and experience allow you to respond with the kind of instant aggression necessary to counter that kind of surprise attack. I lifted my left arm, and only a lifetime of practice and dedication allowed me to bring up my shield through the pain.

  Pain?

  I looked down at my belly. There was no blood.

  I felt a hit on my shoulder. Another on my cheekbone, even though nothing had touched my shield.

  And then I got it.

  My people were dying. I could feel it. Feel their pain. Their terror. Their confusion.

  The air seethed with magical potential.

  I drew my blasting rod, gathered my will, dropped the shield, and screamed, “FUEGO!”

  Because nothing cuts through bullshit like a proper fireball.

  The lance of energy that emerged from my blasting rod was an order of magnitude more potent than any I had thrown before, thanks to the cloud of terror over the city. The very air boiled and shrieked in protest, and when the blast hit the ground among the enemy fire team, the thermal bloom that erupted was a sphere of white-hot light. The concussion of that expanding heat slapped me in the chest so hard that it rocked me back a step.