by Jim Butcher
“I can have five hundred here in the next few hours,” Vadderung said.
Marcone nodded. “Etri?”
The King of the Svartalves folded his fingers into a steeple. “My people are artisans, not warriors. We will fight—but our assistance in establishing defenses and providing appropriate equipment will prove a greater boon. Our armories are open to you, Baron.”
Marcone nodded and regarded Ferrovax. “Sir?”
“My contribution to the defenses must be subtle,” Ferrovax said. “To do otherwise would be to risk destroying more of the city than I save.” He nodded thoughtfully. “With Etri’s counsel and consent, I will close the underworld to them, prevent them from moving through or beneath the earth. One-Eye?”
Vadderung nodded slowly, evidently tracking Ferrovax’s line of thought. “I will close all the Ways to them within the city itself. Given who they are, that will leave them only one viable avenue of approach.”
“The water?” Marcone asked.
“Aye,” Vadderung said. “Their power is greater beneath the water. They’ll be able to bore through the defenses beneath the lake.”
“Then we’ll be able to deploy our forces against an attack from the lake,” Marcone said. “I will bring the full strength of my own organization here.”
There was a polite cough. Or it would have been a polite cough if a human had been making it. Considering it came out of River Shoulders’s chest, it sounded more like a small cannon going off. The Sasquatch straightened his bow tie, stepped forward, and pushed his wire-rim spectacles up higher on his broad nose. “My people,” he rumbled, “are not signatories of the Accords. Not yet. But if I understand things correctly, what is happening here has the potential to bring them harm. I will stand with you.”
“Hah,” said Listens-to-Wind. His worn teeth showed in a broad smile. “Be good to work with you again, River.”
River Shoulders looked toward Listens-to-Wind and winked. I was impressed. River wasn’t the kind to rush into things—and offhand, I couldn’t remember going up against anything more dangerous than one of the Forest People who meant business.
“What of the White Court?” Ebenezar asked. “Where is Ms. Raith?”
At that, there was a murmur of confusion and then all eyes fell onto the White Court’s sitting area, where only Riley was there to speak. “Ms. Raith had matters of state to attend to,” he said, his voice steady. “I’ll need her authorization before engaging, but I’ve already sent a runner with orders to bring her local forces to combat readiness—a hundred guns, plus whichever members of the house are in residence at the château.”
“Communications, transportation,” Marcone said. “If that hex Ethniu threw was anything like what I’ve seen from others, and is as effective at destroying technology, we’re going to have difficulty reaching everyone and bringing them together in the proper place.”
There was a cough from the far end of the hall, where the Summer Lady had been sitting quietly with her security team, including the Summer Knight, gathered around her. Sarissa’s hair had become a cloud of silken white tresses over a dress that had been leaf green before I had drunk the blending potion. She … looked a scary amount like Molly, honestly. Or maybe Molly looked more like her.
Sarissa rose, looking intensely uncomfortable, and said, “I can help with communications. The Little Folk are well suited for such tasks. I would recommend the roof of this castle, I think, for a command center, for easy access.”
There was a rustle and then Molly slid out of the hole behind the high seat. “I’ve been handling transport for Winter troops for some time now. I can bring more of them in, as long as I know where they will be needed.”
“Excellent,” Marcone said. “Communications are, I think, the place to begin.”
“As well as a centralized collection of our military assets,” came a ragged voice.
Mab came out of the hole in the wall. She was … broken. Literally. Half her body had been crushed and mangled as if in some kind of industrial accident. She came through the hole in the wall with jerky, too-quick motions, once more the queen in purple and white, though coated with stone dust, her skin dimpled in dozens of places, as if it had been made of some kind of mostly rigid material that showed some hail damage. As I watched, there was a hideous crackling sound, and her broken shoulder snapped unnaturally in its socket and then resolved into its normal pale perfection.
She looked around the room, slowly. LaChaise avoided her gaze and looked as if he wanted to sink into the floor.
“Queen Mab,” Marcone said. “It would be good to know what forces the Winter Court intends to commit to the city’s defense.”
Mab stared at Marcone for a moment in silence, before she said, “I am informed by my second that as of one hour past, all of the forces of Winter are urgently required elsewhere. The Gates are under intense attack.”
I felt my stomach lurch at that. The Outer Gates were … the ultimate boundaries of reality, way out in the far reaches of the Nevernever. Beyond them was elemental chaos, the Outside of creation, filled with the beings known as Outsiders, who eternally hungered to break in and devour all of reality, mortal and otherwise. If the Outer Gates were suddenly being attacked, it meant that there was no way the timing of Ethniu’s actions could be a coincidence.
It meant that the Last Titan was in league with the Outsiders.
It meant that more than a few powerful entities had evidently decided that the Accorded nations had to go, and they were making their intentions known in no uncertain terms.
Not everyone in the room got what was happening, but I could see who had the information to translate what Mab had said, very clearly. One-Eye and Ferrovax, the Senior Council, River Shoulders, Etri, and a few others suddenly went as pale as I felt. They understood just as well as I did what would happen if that battle was lost.
Mab looked across the hall at Fix, the Summer Knight, a wiry little guy with a shock of white hair, the knobby hands of a mechanic, and hard eyes that were green whenever I wasn’t viewing the world in monochrome. “Sir Knight. I believe Queen Titania should be informed of the situation immediately.”
“Then why don’t you do it?” Fix asked in a very polite, mild tone. “Your Majesty.”
“She is unwilling to … take my calls,” Mab said. “She will do as she will—but she should be informed. It is her right.”
Fix frowned, but Sarissa lifted a finger and said, “She’s right. Go now.” The Summer Knight nodded, bowed to her, and immediately withdrew. I was impressed with that. He’d been unwilling to expose the previous Summer Lady to danger, to a paranoid degree. Sarissa had evidently established a different dynamic to their relationship.
“Queen Mab,” came Ebenezar’s voice. The old man sounded calm but respectful. Mab didn’t react well to aggression, and even worse to weakness. “If I may ask … where is the Winter Knight?”
“He was last seen consorting with Ms. Raith,” Mab said in an offhand voice. She glanced in my direction, and her eyes suddenly became bright green and very cold. “Rest assured he will participate in the defense of the city as soon as he has concluded his business.”
Ebenezar’s jaw hardened. “Ma’am, with respect. I will need to coordinate with him. The sooner the better.”
“I will send him to you,” Mab said, turning a cool gaze to the old man.
Ebenezar met her eyes for a moment and then nodded a stiff-necked acceptance.
Great. Now I had this to explain.
“Very well, then,” Marcone said. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you could each send someone with executive decision-making capability with me, we will establish a command center for the city’s defense… .”
The room stirred, generally speaking, voices rising as people started moving, and I took Mab’s hint. I also had business to conclude. The evening had gone completely sideways, sure—but whatever the result of the battle, if Etri was still around afterward, he’d be after my brother. Right now, the onl
y thing keeping him from hunting down and killing Thomas was Ethniu’s major distraction, and the fact that no one had yet realized that Thomas had escaped. It had just become even more urgent that I get him clear.
There was only one place that I could do that, and there was little time to do it in. Mab’s instructions had been crystalline, even to me—get it done and get back.
I headed for the door through a sea of worried monochrome faces, and hit the night running.
31
Being the Winter Knight mostly sucks, but it comes with a few perks that can be damned handy.
First, I’m strong. Not like Spider-Man strong, but I’m about as strong as someone built like me can be, and I’m not exactly a tiny guy. I’d gotten myself mostly dead as part of the deal, and by the time I’d gotten back to the world of the living, my body had wasted down to nothing. Part of recovery had been physical training—a whole hell of a lot of it. And since the constant primal pressure of the mantle could be safely eased through intense exercise, I’d kept it up.
It didn’t turn me into an instant superhero or anything, but you don’t want me punching you in the nose, either.
Second, I can have issues noticing pain and discomfort. Mostly, that means things like cutting myself a lot while shaving. Sometimes when I stand up after reading for a long time, I don’t notice that my leg has gone to sleep and I fall down. I have to really pay attention to notice pain, most of the time. It’s probably been good for me to work on a little more self-awareness, but it isn’t much fun.
On the other hand, when you’re doing something to which pain is a serious obstacle, like running, it can be really convenient.
The average fit young person can manage about sixteen or eighteen miles an hour over a short distance. Top human sprint speed is about twenty-eight miles an hour. I can’t run that fast. But I can run considerably faster than average, maybe twenty-two or twenty-four miles an hour, and I can do it without slowing down for more or less as long as is necessary.
So when I hit the streets, I was really moving. I knew it wouldn’t take me long to reach the waterfront. In fact, my biggest worry was that I would break an ankle and not notice it until I’d kept running and pounded my foot to pulp.
But Chicago’s streets had changed.
Cars had simply come to a halt, dead in their rows. There were no streetlights, no lights in buildings, no signs, no traffic lights. No nothing. People had gotten out of their cars and were standing together in small groups, nervously talking. Everyone was holding a phone in their hands. None of the devices were working. The only human-made illumination came from, here and there, emergency road flares that people had deployed as light sources. If there hadn’t been a waxing moon, it would have been too dark to move as fast as I was.
It was eerily silent. Chicago was a busy place. At any time of the day or night, you could hear any number of the sounds of the modern world: radios blaring, deep bass notes from someone’s tricked-out car stereo, traffic, horns, sirens, construction equipment, public announcements, tests of the emergency broadcast system, what have you.
All of that was gone.
The only sounds were worried voices and my running footsteps.
There weren’t any screams. There wasn’t any smoke.
Not yet.
But it was coming. My God, it was coming. If Ethniu and the Fomor hit the city during the blackout, the resulting chaos could kill tens of thousands independently of whether anyone swung a blade or fired a shot. The sudden blackout had to have killed people in hospitals, in automobile collisions, maybe even in airplanes. I mean, how would I know? I couldn’t see the highways. A plane could have gone down a few blocks away and if I hadn’t seen it happen, and if there weren’t any fires to mark it, I’d never be able to tell from here.
The Accorded nations were preparing for all-out war. Freaking Ferrovax was involved.
I ran for the docks, and as I did, I realized something truly terrifying:
I had no idea what was coming next.
This was out of my experience, beyond what I knew of the world. The supernatural nations might have their issues, and when we fought sometimes there was collateral damage—but for the most part, we kept it among us. Old ruins, jungles, deserts, underground caverns, that was where we did most of our fighting.
Not in cities.
Not in the streets of freaking Chicago.
I mean, my God, she had kicked Mab through walls. Mab. Walls, plural. Ethniu had gone through her as if she didn’t exist.
A creature with power like that might not be impressed by a mere seven or eight billion mortals. She might very well be determined to play this one old-school, and a protogod’s idea of old-school probably checked in around the same weight class as Sodom and Gomorrah.
Before the night was out, the city would fight for its life. My grandfather and my friends and allies on the Council would be in the middle of it. My God, I had to get Thomas clear of it before it got started. I had to warn people. I mean, the supernatural-community grapevine would be spreading this one like wildfire, and everyone would be paying attention because I’d spread the word for everyone to keep their eyes open—but that left the rest of Chicago. Ninety-nine percent and then some of the city’s populace would have no idea what was going on when the attack began.
Like, zero idea.
And being initiated to the supernatural world was difficult even when it happened gently—much less when it rolled up and ripped someone’s face off.
About eight million people would react with panic. With terror. With violence.
And my daughter would be in the middle of it.
The very thought gave my feet wings.
Only two things kept me from going to her. First, where she was staying. She was a guest in the house of Michael Carpenter, and under his protection. And that meant that while she was there, she had a mostly retired hero and a squad of literal guardian angels looking out for her. I don’t care how badass you might be, even on the kind of scales I use—you don’t want to tussle with an angel. Those beings are absolute forces of the universe, and they are freaking Old Testament.
Tangling with one would be less like getting into a street fight than like getting into a fight with the street—it’s difficult to picture, you’re almost certain to look incredibly foolish, and however you approach that fight, things are probably not going to go your way. Maggie could hardly be in a safer place in the city than under their protection.
And the second reason was my brother. I had been trying to keep cool while we executed the rescue plan, but I was terrified for him. He was in bad shape. I could … not save him, exactly, but I could keep him alive, on the island. That was the whole point. Out there, I had a lot more say about what happened. Out there, I could keep him shielded from tracking magic, from deadly spells, from hostile sendings, could forbid the presence of the svartalves and enforce it. Out there, he’d have a chance.
With luck, I could save my brother and make it back to town before Ethniu and Corb did. I hated the thought, but the imminent attack ought to provide us with a damned fine distraction. We just had to get him to the island before anyone caught us.
But he wasn’t there yet.
I rounded the last corner at my best pace, feet pounding hard against the concrete, dashed across the street, and made it to the entrance of the docks at Burnham Harbor, where the Water Beetle was moored. I flew through the gates, guided through the dark by the white paint on the stairs and floorboards of the walkway. There was no one else here, no one else trying to get away from the city.
Not yet.
My footsteps on the dock hammered out over the open water, loud and clear, and I didn’t bother trying to be quiet. Speed was everything.
I flew down the last length of dock to the boat and saw green glowing light coming from belowdecks and from the cabin. The Water Beetle was a worn-out little old blue-water fishing trawler, pretty much a twin to the Orca in Jaws. As I slowed, panting, my footsteps
got even louder, and Freydis’s slim form appeared on the deck, holding a green chemical emergency light in her hand. Murphy came limping out of the cabin a second later, her P90 riding on its harness across her chest, holding a second glow light.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Harry,” she breathed. “That blast of light. Was it an EMP?”
“Or a hex,” I said. “Or both. Where’s Lara?”
“She took Thomas below,” Murphy said, her voice tense. “He’s in rough shape.”
I nodded and put a foot on the gangplank. “Okay, then let’s—”
And from behind me came a deep, warbling, throbbing hum, like nothing I’d heard before.
My dad, the illusionist. I slipped the dark opal ring I’d gotten from Molly off my hand and palmed it.
Then I turned.
Hovering maybe twenty feet up, with his feet planted firmly on a stone the size of a Buick, was the Blackstaff, Ebenezar McCoy. One hand was spread out to one side for balance, fingers crooked in a mystic sign, sort of a kinetic shorthand for whatever spell was keeping that boulder in the air.
The other gripped his staff, carved with runes like mine, and they glowed with sullen red-orange energy. His face had twisted into a rictus of cold, hard fury. Flickers of static electricity played along the surface of the stone.
“You fool,” he said. “You damned fool.”
I put my feet back on the dock. Then I knelt down and tied my shoe.
“Boy,” he said. “They’re using you.”
I set the palmed ring down behind my heel, out of sight. Breathed a word in barely a whisper.
There was a moment of dizziness and then I stood up and faced my grandfather. I gathered in my will. The shield bracelet on my left wrist began drizzling a rain of green and gold sparks of light. The runes of my staff began to glow with the same energy.
“Sir,” I said. “What are your intentions?”
“To salvage something out of this mess, boy,” he snapped. “The jaws of the trap are already closing in. I’m going to open your eyes.” His gaze flicked past me to the ship, and a flicker of electricity along the stone made a thrumming crack like a miniature thunderbolt. “The vampire’s in there, isn’t he?”