Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

I grimaced. “Carlos. I mean to live my life. You’ve cast me out, and you think that means I’m vulnerable. Maybe you ought to rethink that.”

“Meaning what?”

“Why don’t you ask Ethniu how vulnerable I am?” I said quietly. “We can. If you’d like.”

I let that one hang there, while he stared at me.

“To say nothing about how Mab would react to the death of the Winter Knight,” I continued. “The Winter Lady might not take it kindly, either, and you saw what she’s capable of doing.”

Carlos’s cheek twitched. “Yes. I did.”

I paused and said, “That was a threat, Carlos. I’m going to live here and do what I’ve always done. I want you to leave me in peace. And I’ll do the same in return. The way things are in the world, I don’t think the Council can afford to push things that far. Not for little old me.”

Ramirez exhaled. “You’re taking one hell of a risk, Harry.”

“I don’t like being told what to do,” I said. “I let you push me around, who the hell am I?”

“Yeah,” Ramirez said. “Who the hell are you?”

It was quiet.

“Goodbye,” he said quietly.

And then he left.

Back at the car, Michael said, “That looked grim. What happened?”

“Rest of the White Council was pretty nervous about the guy who soloed a Titan, I guess,” I said. “They voted. I’m an outlaw. Like the old days.”

Michael considered that for a moment. Then he said, quietly and firmly, “Those fuckers.”

I stumbled on the slippery grass in the rain and fell on my ass.

And it didn’t stop there. Michael swore. My friend cursed a blue streak like a dozen sailors picking a dozen fights. He swore profanities that would have made a fallen angel blush. He swore in three different languages that I recognized, and in a dozen I didn’t. He swore like a man with a forty-year pent-up hurricane of ranting profanity in his chest that had been looking for a way to come out.

When he was finished he looked up at the rain and said, “I’ll be happy to do penance, Lord. But some things need to be said.” Then he turned to me, extended his hand, and said, firmly, “You are always welcome in my house, Harry Dresden. In fact, Charity told me to invite you and Maggie over for Christmas Eve and morning with us. It’s hard for us to think of Christmas without her. And you’re still coming for Sunday dinner, aren’t you? The place is still pretty cut up from where those lunatics came in the house, but I think a couple of weeks of work should set it right. . . .”

I took my friend’s hand.

There was rain in my eyes.

* * *

* * *

It took only days for rumors to spread that there were beings in town sniffing around for my trail, bad guys I’d crossed or annoyed at some point in the past. I didn’t have the imprimatur of the White Council anymore. And while Mab would speak very loudly if anyone moved against the Winter Court, if her Winter Knight got himself killed because of his own stupid choices, she wouldn’t lose much sleep, apart from the stress of finding a replacement.

That, combined with my injuries, kept me indoors for a few days. I got my arm set and put in a cast. I was pretty sure my joints had voided their warranties at the very least, but those first few days were full of desperation where medical care was involved, and every church and hospital overflowed with the wounded. It took the broken bone and the fact that I knew Lamar to even rate acknowledgment in triage, in the battle’s immediate aftermath.

Fortunately, I had access to Charity Carpenter, who had been patching up her husband and his idiot friends for years. So, in addition to my cast, I got stitches in several places, a painful shoulder relocation I didn’t know I needed, a bunch of bandages, a shoulder wrap, elbow wraps, wrist wraps, knee wraps, ankle wraps, a couple of two-gallon bags of ice for my knees, and Tiger Balm.

(Which not even the Winter Knight can ignore when it gets in a cut, it turns out, and which is one ingredient and a little will away from being an excellent ointment against fae glamour, if you can keep your eyes open. Seriously, that stuff is borderline magical off the shelf.)

By the time the needs of my body had been seen to as best as possible, I looked and felt like a mummy, wrapped and way too herbal scented, dried out and too stiff to move when I finally crashed into the bed in the Carpenters’ (original) guest room. They had some extras now. I think I slept for about a day. I remember eating ravenously a couple of times. And then I just lay there with my eyes closed for a long time, weeping silently. And I woke up holding a sleeping Maggie, with Mouse curled into his tiniest ball on the bottom two-thirds of the bed, on what I think was the second morning, and felt battered and exhausted and mostly human.

I made my daughter breakfast. And I did a lot of thinking.

Those first few days, when I moved around Chicago at all, I did it careful. Real careful. Like, having four full-grown werewolves with me or nearby at all times careful. I got out, got my bearings, and started moving.

Will and the Alphas came with me to the session of the first-ever Unseelie Accords Executive Ministry meeting. War with the Fomor had been declared by unanimous consent within the Accorded nations, and the Ministry was supposed to determine what to do about it, starting with dealing with the aftermath of the Battle of the Bean.

No one invited me to the Ministry meeting, in a private club in one of the gorgeous old stone buildings in Oldtown, so I did it myself. The place was hidden behind a web of veils and glamours so thick and intricate that it made me a little dizzy just sensing it. If I hadn’t known exactly where I was going and exactly what I was looking for, I’d have wandered right past the place.

When I came in, there was a waiting room where several people came to their feet—a Sidhe warrior from either Court, Miss Gard, a svartalf I didn’t recognize, and Freydis, who was covered with bumps and bruises and still-healing cuts and looked relaxed for the first time since I’d seen her.

“Easy, people,” I said. “I came to talk.”

They all eyed me warily, which was to say down the barrels of their guns. Except for Freydis, who kept reading her magazine and just looked amused.

Well. Granted I looked like ten miles of bad road in my battle-stained black leather duster. And my eyes were watery from the damned hurry-up Tiger Balm antiglamour ointment I’d whipped up to help find the place. And also I had four battle-hardened werewolves with me.

I guess I can see it.

I got out a cloth and wiped the ointment off my cheekbones, blinking more tears out of my eyes, while making uncomfortable noises. It’s difficult to be intimidating when you look ridiculous. By the time I was done and could see properly again, most of the guns were half-lowered.