Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

I clenched my fists. He was right. I knew that. That didn’t mean I had to like it.

“I hate it, Hoss,” he said in a very quiet voice.

I turned toward him and listened.

“Seeing you like this, all the time. In the worst of the cross fire. It was like this with your mother. Getting more and more isolated from other wizards.” He glowered at Lara and Mab. “Getting caught up with a bad crowd. And I didn’t know what the hell to do. What to say to her. Either.” He coughed and blinked his eyes. “Dammit, Hoss. You keep getting hurt. And I can’t stop it.”

I might have blinked my eyes once or twice, too. Then I leaned on the merlon beside him and said, “Well. Could be that I get myself involved in things sometimes.”

His eyes wrinkled at the corners. “You don’t know how to sit things out, and that’s a fact.”

“Maybe I should have had a better teacher.”

He puffed out a breath and glowered at me briefly. “Wiseass.”

I sighed. “You think I’ve made the wrong calls.”

“I think I don’t know anyone who gets into bed with Mab without regretting it,” the old man said, without any heat. “You’re keeping real dangerous company, Hoss.”

“She’s played it pretty straight with me so far,” I said.

“Aye. And it’s making you lower your guard. Like it’s supposed to.” He shook his head. “She’s immortal. She can take her time. Entangle you one strand of web at a time. You and your apprentice, too.”

I thought about Molly’s eyes. Or maybe not-Molly’s eyes, cat-pupiled and alien.

“It’s dangerous,” I said. “I know that. I went in with my eyes open. If Mab compromises my free will, she loses what makes me an effective weapon. It’s still me, sir.”

The old man glanced at me from under his shaggy silver brows. His voice softened slightly.

“You’re betting an awful lot on that,” he said.

“Am I wrong?” I asked.

His jaw muscles tensed and relaxed several times. “There’s falling from grace,” he said, finally. “And there’s being pushed. And you’re standing pretty far out on a ledge, Hoss.”

“My choice,” I said. “Eyes open.”

The old man snorted. “Aye. Don’t mean I got to like it.”

“Neither do I,” I said candidly. “But it’s what I’ve got.”

His eyes glittered brightly behind his spectacles as he stared at Mab. “You should get out.”

“Not without Molly,” I said.

He sighed. “Why do you think Mab roped her in, boy?”

“Not without Molly,” I said, in exactly the same tone.

“Dammit,” he said. But he stopped pressing. “Her next move will be to start putting the nails in. Get you pegged down the way she wants.”

“Like what?”

“God Almighty knows, boy. Responsibility, maybe. God knows you collect enough of that. She would use wealth to weigh you down, if you cared about that kind of thing much. Power, maybe, influence. Maybe she’ll throw some honey on top. But whatever it is, it’ll look good at first glance, and it’ll put you on a tighter leash.”

“Sir,” I said, “how well does history suggest that leashes will work out with me? For anybody at all.”

He snorted quietly. “Mab ain’t a high school gym teacher, Hoss. Or a batch of worried, cautious old fools.” He coughed. “Or a worn-out farmer who cares too much about you.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

He nodded at me.

“You understand,” he said. “I’m going to do what I think is right for you, Hoss. I have to. How can I do any less?”

“You are a stubborn old pain in the ass, sir,” I said, warmly and sadly. “Who ought to know better.”

“Well. I was never much good at learning my own lessons,” he said.

Another explosion happened, only to the other side, farther north. This one was softer and broader, somehow. It didn’t go kapow so much as it went whoomph. Light flared out and showed us the shadows of buildings in a city block for a quarter of a minute, though we couldn’t see the source of the light.

My stomach quivered again, uneasiness going through me. Fire. Gunshots continued.

We weren’t close enough to hear any screams.

Not yet.

My heart started beating faster.

“Gas tank went up, maybe,” I said. My throat felt tight. My voice came out scratchy.

“Aye,” agreed the old man. He eyed me. Then, without a word, reached a hand into his overall pocket and came out with a flask. He offered it to me.

I opened it and sniffed, then sipped. Water. I wetted my whistle gratefully. “That came from up by the svartalf embassy,” I said.

He grunted. “Etri and his svartalves are set up in that area. He and the Archive are commanding from there.”

“Ivy, huh?” I asked. “I thought she was neutral.”

“She was, until Ethniu included her in her threat with the rest of us,” Ebenezar said. “The Archive realizes the need for self-preservation—and if the Titan truly wishes to subjugate humanity, she must destroy literacy as part of the process.”

“Huh. It’s not so much that, I think,” I said thoughtfully.

The old man looked at me.

I shrugged. “Ivy . . . she’s on our side. On the side of people. On a fundamental level.”

“How do you figure?”

“She’s made to record and preserve knowledge,” I said. “No people, no knowledge. Nothing to record and preserve, and no reason to record or preserve it. Her existential purpose requires . . . us.”

“Wouldn’t get my hopes up too far about that one,” Ebenezar said. “But you might be onto something.”

The Redcap must have vanished from the rooftop for a while, because I saw him come back up from below with a big black nylon equipment bag. He took it over to Molly, who looked up, waved away several of the Little Folk playing messenger around her, and rose to her feet. She took the bag from him, carried it over to us, and tossed it down at my feet.

“There,” she said. She eyed me. “I’m just not feeling the suit for this kind of work. Go change.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. Then I leaned down and opened the bag.