Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

Sanya had driven a fist like a sledgehammer twice into my belly by the time I caught his blow with my right forearm before a third could land. I stomped down as hard as I could on one of his feet, with mixed results—the Russian had worn steel-toed work boots. He staggered a little, then threw a knee at my groin. I blocked it with one thigh, the one I’d hurt earlier, and the world narrowed to a tunnel for a second before I twisted my head to one side, found his ear, and bit down as hard as I could.

Sanya screamed and his weight shifted back.

I used that change of weight, set my legs, and drove him across the alleyway with the full power of my body and the strength of the Winter Knight. He hit the wall with a vicious impact. I felt it drive the air from his lungs, and I let out a shout of triumph as he bounced off, stunned for maybe all of a second.

I hit him, hard, three times in that second, driving my fist into the side of his neck, into the base of his jaw under the ear, and into his temple, wham, wham, wham.

The Sword fell out of his hand.

The Russian toppled. He hit the ground stunned, making gagging sounds.

“Self-righteous loudmouth,” I snarled down at him. “This is no concern of yours.”

The hate was calling me. I had no time for further distractions, as satisfying as they might have been.

I spat the taste of blood out of my mouth and turned back to Rudolph.

He was on the ground, curled into a ball, gasping with pain, making choking sounds. He’d lost control of his bowels as well, and the stench made me want to tear his arms and legs off, one at a time.

But he wasn’t alone.

Waldo Butters had taken a knee beside him.

The little Knight faced me. He stood up, slowly. I could see that he was shaking, trembling in every limb. His face was pale. The white cloak with its red cross was stained with blood and worse, dirty from the chaos it had been through.

But it fit him.

“Harry,” he said. “I can’t let you.”

“You saw what he did,” I said. My voice sounded like my throat was full of rubble and broken glass. “What he did to her.”

“You have lost it, man,” Butters said. His voice was pleading. “Harry, I can’t let you.”

“You’d protect that thing?” I snarled.

“He’s not the one I’m trying to protect,” he snapped back. Something hard came into his eyes, and the trembling vanished. He rose, the broken hilt of Fidelacchius, the Sword of Faith, in his hands. “I’m trying to protect my friend.”

Again, my clarity was broken. Again, I felt the rage surge through me. I didn’t even bother with the words to a spell. Let it burn. I lifted my hand, and with it my rage, drew upon the wild power in the air, and ripped lightning from nowhere and nothing, sending a thunderbolt at Rudolph with an incoherent scream of rage.

Sudden white light flared, blinding. The confines of the alley were filled with voices louder than thunder, an angry chorus singing a warning note. From the broken hilt of the Sword of Faith came a blaze of light that intercepted that thunderbolt and sent it crashing into the wall above and behind Rudolph.

Which was a fine trick. But I knew the Sword’s secret. I wouldn’t have to incapacitate Butters to get him out of the way.

I strode forward, winding up with my left hand.

“Harry,” Butters said, tears in his eyes. “Don’t.”

I lashed out backhanded, striking at Butters’s face.

He held up the very nonphysical Sword in a parry.

. . .

And my world became pain.

. . .

There was no warning, no anything. The second my arm touched the plane of the blade of light, everything shifted. The power of the mantle wrapped around me vanished like mist before the morning sun. Every injury, every hurt, every ache and scratch and bruise and strain, all came crashing onto me at once. I staggered, my limbs weak, as if I had suddenly gained several hundred pounds.

I felt Rudolph. Felt his terror. His agony. His confusion. His humiliation. His remorse. His sick self-hatred. I felt them all as if they were my own. I saw myself through Rudolph’s eyes, huge and vicious and deadly, implacable as an avalanche.

And Murphy.

Oh God. Oh God, Karrin.

My clarity withered before that light, before the star-bright blaze of pain in my left arm. I had to shield my eyes against the light of the Sword with my right hand, though the mere movement caused me pain enough to threaten the contents of my stomach.

The stench of my own charred flesh filled my nose, somehow laced with the scent of sulfur, brimstone. There was a blazon of blackened flesh along my left forearm, starting just above my shield bracelet and running to my elbow, straight as a ruler.

I fell to my knees.

I dropped to my right elbow, cradling the burned flesh against me.

The scream of pure pain that came out of me wasn’t loud. It was hardly human.

And in its wake, I broke.

I sobbed.

While Sir Waldo, the Knight of Faith, stood over me with that blazing Sword, between me and Rudolph’s curled, helpless form.

“I’m here, Harry,” Butters said, his voice thick with tears. “Harry, I’m here.”

The light dimmed and went out, and I felt him crouch in front of me, felt his arms go around me. “I’m here, man. I’m here.”

Oh, Hell’s bells. Oh God.

What had I done?

I had almost . . .

If not for Butters and Sanya . . .

Murph would have been so ashamed. So terrified for me.

Oh God, Murph.

I leaned against him, sobbing, unable to control myself. Though he was only a little guy, he was wiry and tough. He didn’t waver. Not even when my whole weight leaned against him.

“He took her,” I heard myself say, the words barely understandable. “He took her from me.”

Butters’s arms tightened on me. “He took her from all of us,” he said. “And he’ll answer for it before the law, Harry. But it can’t happen like this. You can’t let it happen like this.” He abruptly hauled me upright to face him, and his expression was intent, hard, though tears ran down his cheeks. “We need you. You, the good man. I can’t let you hurt that man. Too many of us need him. Your daughter needs him.”

It was that last phrase that did it. It hit me like a bucket of cold water.

Maggie.

Despite all the pain, despite the tears, my loss, I could see her there, in my mind’s eye. I could imagine her, awake in bed at Michael’s place, as safe as anywhere in this town, but too wise to believe that everything was all right, holding on to Mouse and waiting in silence to understand events that were well beyond her ability to change.