Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

There was a harsh buzzing sound that started faintly and grew louder in a rush. I moved without thinking. I swept my right arm out and shoved Mab behind me as my left came up, my will coalescing into a shield aimed primarily at the sky. I barely got the shield together in time for something behind a veil, diving at approximately peregrine falcon speeds, to splatter itself across a good three-foot-radius area of invisible force.

Even as I watched, maybe six or seven pounds of . . . meat, mostly, kind of appeared from behind a shattered veil and slid slowly down the sphere-shaped plane of my shield. It landed on the ground with a wet, slapping sound. I stared down at the remnants of the thing. It looked like some kind of mix of a bat, a lizard, and a squid, all rubbery and leathery and grey and pink, like ground beef left out too long. It smelled absolutely foul, as if some kind of venom bladder had been ruptured. Parts of some yellowish mucus were actively dissolving the flesh of the creature as it died, and its tentacles were thrashing, sliming more of the stuff onto the castle’s roof, where it sparked and sputtered against the warded stone.

I lowered the shield warily and rose from my crouch. “What the hell was that?”

Suddenly I became acutely aware that the Queen of Air and Darkness was pressed against my back, and I was holding her there with one arm in a fashion that could accurately be described as undignified. I moved my hand hurriedly and glanced back at the monarch of the Sidhe. “Are you all right?”

Mab met my gaze, her eyes all but glowing. I looked away quickly. Her eyes shifted to Ebenezar, something triumphant in them, and she murmured, “Yes. Well done, my Knight.”

“I mean, you’re immortal, right?” I said. “Why would you need a bodyguard anyway?”

She nodded toward the yellowish mucus sputtering on the stones. “Something meant to weaken or incapacitate me for the coming battle, doubtless,” she said. “Immortality offers a significant advantage, but it is no substitute for intelligence. Remember that, young wizard.”

Ebenezar scowled and opened his mouth.

“Should it for some bizarre reason ever be necessary,” Mab said smoothly, before he could speak.

I stared back and forth between the pair of them for a second.

Yeah. Time for things to change. Just as soon as we dealt with Ethniu and the Fomor.

“I find Corb’s assassins wearying,” Mab said calmly. She narrowed her eyes in thought for a few seconds before nodding firmly. “Very well, fishman. Have it your way.” She snapped her fingers, and over by Molly, the Redcap whipped his head around as if Mab had called his name. The Sidhe warrior, tall and lean and good-looking in that wickedly youthful, long-haired way, the jerk, approached immediately and bowed, sweeping off his Washington Nationals baseball cap.

“Loose the malks,” Mab said.

Holy crap.

Malks were . . . not so much cats as nightmares that happened to be shaped like cats. Imagine a lynx, only a little taller and thicker, weighing in at about fifty pounds, with human intelligence and a serial killer’s bloodlust. Whatever you’re imagining, unless you’ve been up to some damned peculiar things, the real deal is worse. Malks had claws that could shred through stone and some metals, were supernaturally stealthy and approximately as strong as a chimpanzee, and they resented taking orders, even from the Queen of Air and Darkness herself.

They might get the job done. But they’d hurt a lot of other people on the way, just for kicks. It was in their nature. If Mab turned a pack of those little psychos loose on Chicago, it would be a bloodbath, and they wouldn’t care who got slashed to ribbons.

“Wait!” I said.

Mab’s eyes turned to me like gun turrets.

The Redcap stared at me with wide eyes and shifted his weight slightly away from me, as if he was getting ready to dive for cover.

Even Ebenezar gave me a look that doubted my mental capacity.

“Uh, please,” I added hurriedly. “There’s a better way.”

Mab’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“You’re irritated with Corb, and that might have had an effect on your judgment,” I said.

The air grew several degrees colder in the immediate area. Mab didn’t move.

“Save the malks for something more important,” I said. “You want these . . . squidwards dealt with? Let me handle it. Until Ethniu is put down, Corb can only be a diversion of your resources. Right?”

Mab narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. Then she said, her lips stiff, “From the mouths of babes.” A gesture toward the Redcap was apparently enough to convey the order to stand the malks down, at least for the time being.

“For the sake of your health and happiness, my Knight, it is an excellent thing that you are necessary to my design. But there will be more of these attacks. See to the matter your way, or I will do so in mine.” Then she stepped back and inclined her head slightly to Ebenezar. “Excuse me. I must coordinate with my sister’s forces. Brief him on the plan, if you please.”

The old man clenched his jaw, but he gave Mab a respectful nod nonetheless. The Queen of Winter turned away from us as though we were of no more concern, and approached a table where Vadderung and one of Mab’s highest vassals, the Faerie huntsman known as the Erlking, lord of the goblins and master of the Wild Hunt, were poring over a map of Chicago.

The Erlking wore his helmet, and its shadows hid his face, but he was taller than human and lean in his hunting leathers and mail. Vadderung looked like an ancient seafaring pirate gone corporate, with his scarred, lean face and his roguish black eyepatch paired with his excellent double-breasted suit. Both were there to fight.

I swallowed and looked around the roof. River Shoulders came swarming up the outside of the castle wall and flipped himself onto the roof. The Sasquatch must have weighed a thousand pounds, but he landed with hardly a thump. His Victorian-era tuxedo had taken a bit of a beating during the climb—his calves had flexed and split the lower legs of his trousers at the seams. The Forest Person straightened, lifting his shovel-sized hands to carefully straighten the little spectacles he wore across his nose, and nodded down to Listens-to-Wind. The old Native American’s hair looked a little more rumpled than usual in its long braid—the old man was the most skilled shapeshifter on the White Council, and he’d probably been out and about while I’d run to the island and back.

The Sasquatch dropped casually to his haunches near the shaman and the two began speaking in quiet, earnest tones while Wild Bill drew back an apprehensive step from River’s sheer mass.

Even as I watched, a troop of svartalves simply melded out of the stones of the castle’s roof, carrying tools and poles and spools of wire. They began setting down their burdens, looking up at the sky and muttering darkly as they began measuring out distances on the roof, displacing high nobility and supernatural royalty alike without apology as they worked—and all of them, Mab included, moved when necessary without complaint.