Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

And it wasn’t as if the two of them could stop me, unless Rudolph got lucky with the first shot, and that happens a lot less in real gunfights than you’d think.

Kill them, said a quiet, hard voice inside me.

I closed my eyes for a second. Maybe I should have run instead of taking the bike. The Winter mantle was apparently reacting to the fear in the air, and it sensed a city full of cowering prey to be enjoyed. It paced the length of the cage I’d built for it in my head like a hungry, restless animal.

No, I said back to the voice in my thoughts. Killing your way to answers is never as simple as it seems. The best way to survive is to keep it simple.

I didn’t bother trying to argue about right and wrong. Those are concepts beyond the scope of that kind of magical construct.

Assuming that’s who I was talking to, instead of, you know. Myself. Gulp.

I opened my eyes and kept my hands up. “Rudolph, man, this is so not the time.”

“Shut up!” he shouted. “If your teeth come apart again, I’ll shoot.”

I gritted my teeth and prepared my shield. Crap. If the idiot started shooting, I’d have to take my chances, raise the shield, and run away. There was no way these two could keep pace with me for long. Dammit, I just needed a second or so to get the shield up. I decided to lunge away from Rudolph, over the far side of the bike. In the dark, it might take him a second or two to find me and realign the weapon. I might have time to pull up a shield before he could even start shooting.

I heard the faintest scrape of movement in the shadows.

I looked beyond Rudolph, across the street, and saw the gleam of eyeshine in the darkness. One, two, three, four sets of eyes approached through the night, gleaming, low to the ground, vanishing into the particularly dark patches.

There was a sudden chorus of bubbling, throaty canine growls that came from the night on every side.

Rudolph’s eyes went very, very wide. He took a panicked little step to one side, flicking his eyes left and right. “What was that?”

I made mumbling sounds without opening my mouth or moving my jaw, wobbling my hands a little without lowering them. “Oilcan,” I said. “Oilcan!”

“Goddammit, Dresden!” Rudolph screamed. “Answer me!”

“They’re wolves, Rudy,” I said. “Timber wolves. They were in the neighborhood and they’re friends of mine.”

The growls grew louder. Will and the Alphas had been on the streets a long time. They knew how to survive there, how to fight, how to win, and how to be scary when they needed to be.

Ever heard a pack of wolves growling in anger? It’s less than restful.

“Ever seen what a wolf’s jaws can do to a buffalo bone?” I asked. “It’s impressive. Next to that, human bones are like corn nuts.”

Rudolph was well armored against reality. “There are no wolves in downtown Chicago!” he shrieked. “This is a trick!”

“Technically, you’re right,” I said. “They’re werewolves. But it’s no trick.”

Rudolph made a high-pitched sound, like a door opening on a frozen hinge.

On the ground, Bradley groaned and said, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What the hell are you doing, Rudolph, you idiot?”

Rudolph’s eyes snapped down to Bradley.

That was the opening I needed. I unleashed my will into the shield bracelet on my left wrist, raising it as I murmured, “Defendarius.”

By the time Rudolph’s eyes had come back to me, a glowing quarter dome of translucent force had glittered into existence between us. The distortion of the shield made him a little wider and squatter. The gun in his hand shook. It was a miracle it didn’t go off.

“Goddammit, what is happening!?” Rudolph demanded.

Bradley came to his feet, looking disoriented and annoyed. The first thing he did was stare, agog, at the glowing light of my shield. He shook his head a little. Then he went to Rudolph and, carefully, put his hand on the other man’s forearm and pushed down.

Rudolph tried to shrug him off. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Saving your stupid career,” Bradley said. He kept pushing. The cubic man was stronger than half a dozen Rudolphs. After a brief second of resistance, Rudolph relented and lowered the weapon.

He looked up at me and then out at the dark, where the growls had not stopped bubbling out of the night. “Dresden. Call them off.”

I looked at Bradley and then called, into the dark, “Okay, guys, thanks. I think we’ve got things cleared up.”

The growls vanished. There was no sound, but I was pretty sure the Alphas had cleared out. The only reason I’d seen them coming in the first place was because they’d shown themselves to me intentionally.

Like I said. Good people. But even better wolves.

“Put the piece up,” Bradley said. “Now.”

Rudolph glared at him, but he did it. I lowered my left arm and relaxed, letting the shield wink out. It left us in gloom that made us all into dark outlines while our eyes struggled to adjust.

“I’m writing this up, Bradley,” Rudolph said.

“Go ahead,” Bradley replied, his tone bored. I couldn’t see much of him in the dark yet, but I could feel that he was focused on me. “I got a pen, too. You just drew on a civilian with no cause.”

“Whose side are you on?” Rudolph hissed.

“Dresden has places to be,” Bradley said.

“What?” Rudolph demanded.

Bradley’s voice went flat. “Don’t be stupid. He could have gone through us if he wanted to. You’re lucky you’re still alive. And your trigger discipline sucks.”

Rudolph spat an oath and stalked away.

I watched the good-looking man leave and then turned to Bradley. I offered him my hand. “Thanks. And I’m sorry about that.”

Bradley shuddered and took half a step back from me, turning his head away. “Don’t come anywhere near me,” he said. He jerked his jaw at my bike. “Now go do what you have to do. And stay away from me.”

Like I said. The only mirrors we have are other people.

I didn’t stare at Bradley’s shadowed form in pain for very long. The witching hour was near.

The Titan was near.

I got on the bike and started pedaling.

Chapter

Five

I rolled up to Castle Marcone at half past midnight. It was an enormous, blocky house of stone with a raised tower at each corner. Honest-to-God torches burned in ancient sconces on the battlements. Guards in a mix of modern and classical armor manned the walls. Out front of the building, the useless autos had been rolled onto their sides and rearranged into a couple of concentric barriers in front of the entrance to the castle. You had to start at one end of the first barrier, then walk all the way to the other end in an S-line style to get into the castle—all of it under the gaze of the armed Einherjaren on the walls.