Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

Butters leaned in to the conversation. “What happens if Mab keeps making things worse on the enemy?”

Bob let out a hysterical little cackle. “They go insane. I mean, obviously. It’s a psychic assault.”

Murphy gave me a sharp look. “So they have to stop her. If they don’t, they can’t meet their objective.”

“Good luck finding her,” I said.

Red light flashed again, staining the air with blood.

And, from the south, a sudden glaring column of blue light, so intense and bright that it could readily be seen even through the haze, erupted cold and defiant into the sultry night.

“Bozhe moi!” Sanya blurted, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. “Is that . . .”

I knew power from the heart of Winter when I saw it. “Mab. Yeah.” I thought furiously. “Crap.”

“What?” Butters asked.

“Murphy’s right,” I said. “They’ve got to shut her down. And she’s just told them where to find her.”

“She’s made herself bait,” Murphy said. “They’ll converge on her. From everywhere.”

“Yeah, they will,” I said, still thinking. “There’s no way they’d pass up a chance to . . .” Mab’s intent suddenly unfolded in my head. “Oh crap. We’ve got to turn south.”

Murphy took a deep breath. “You sure?”

“I’m sure it will be worse if we don’t,” I said. “Follow that skybeam.”

Chapter

Seventeen

We rode through pandemonium.

Pandemonium means “the place where all demons dwell.”

And the demons were out tonight.

After a couple of blocks, someone in my head hit the pause button on whatever VCR recording my memory kept of the event. Things got blurry. Only pieces remained. Cuttings of memory.

. . . buildings were on fire. Black smoke poured out of them. An old woman stood in the street in her nightgown, screaming hysterically.

. . . a group of men had gathered around a policeman and were kicking his guts out. Sanya and Butters plunged into them and scattered them like a flock of chickens. The cop was already dead, but it took his body a minute to catch on. We had to leave his remains there.

. . . a Catholic priest at the door of a packed church, explaining to a crowd that there was only room for children.

. . . a dead neighborhood where the Huntsmen had killed every man, woman, child, and pet. Had burned every plant and building. Destroyed every fire hydrant. Water two inches deep, most of it scarlet with spilled blood. Light and heat.

. . . a furtive group of men gathered around a beaten woman. The smell of propellant from Murphy’s gun. Bloody fangs. Butters vomiting. Sanya, his eyes cold.

. . . a lot of cops, terrified and trying. Fire department guys with hopeless faces. Grim, quiet EMTs doing desperate battle with the Reaper himself. A lot of civilians, hard-faced and armed and determined, standing shoulder to shoulder with officers: the fighters. Veterans. Bikers. Parents. There were fewer people on the street now—those who could flee had already done so. Those who remained were the invalids, those determined to fight—and the dead.

So many dead.

The Fomor had spared no one. Not women. Not the elderly. And not children.

. . . flashes of red light. The roar of destruction that followed. Always, those flashes coloring the whole of the haze and sky in bloody scarlet, but for where that single column of icy defiance remained.

. . . a crib on its side on the street, the interior stained red.

God.

I would have nightmares for years about that one image.

Somewhere, inside my head, I knew that the events now transpiring were of historic proportions. That they were driven by forces and circumstances far beyond the scope or control of any one individual.

But when I asked whose fault this was, I could see only myself in the dim mirrors of the windows of broken buildings, staring in silent accusation. I knew it wasn’t a rational position, and it didn’t matter.

I had been given strength. A good man would use that strength to protect those who could not protect themselves.

Too many innocents had not been protected when they needed it most. I had failed them.

I saw Murphy’s head track to one side as we passed that crib. I saw her face.

She felt exactly the same.

We were both wrong to feel that way. And it didn’t make a damned bit of difference.

I looked around me. Butters walked with tears making grey streaks down his dusty face. The wolves slunk along, heads low, alert and miserable. Only Sanya, remote and calm, seemed to bear up under the horror with stoicism—but even Russians have limits. His face was tight with pain.

And we all felt it.

That we’d failed.

Winter called to me, the whole time. The cold would numb pain, swallow my sickness, leave everything calm and sharp-edged and rational and clear. I could lean into that power. Forget this pain, at least for a time.

But somewhere deep down inside my guts, there emerged a solid, unalterable realization of truth:

Some things should hurt.

Some things should leave you with scars.

Some things should haunt your nightmares.

Some things should be burned into memory.

Because that was the only way to make sure that they would be fought. It was the only way to face them. It was the only way to cast down the future agents of death and havoc before they could bring things to this.

The words never again mean more to some people than others.

So I rode behind Murphy and held Winter’s cold comfort at arm’s length. I knew that what I bore witness to would hurt me, permanently. I knew it would leave me scarred. Knew it would burn things into me that would never change.

I let it.

I faced it.

I remembered.

And wrath gathered around us.

I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. Wrath became something real, a tangible presence in the air, as real and as observable as music, as the sharp, clean scent of ozone. The men and women we passed looked upon us and knew that we were on the way to deliver retribution upon those who had come to our city.

And those who felt it followed.

I looked back and saw a silent, grim, determined host of men and women. Some of them were cops. I saw a couple of military uniforms, donned in the emergency. Some were obviously from the rough side of the tracks. But most were just . . . people. Just folks.