Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except me and Mouse.

I sat in the middle of a lopsided circle of parts that spread out before me in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc, glowering at an instruction manual. “Why do they bother putting the assembly instructions in twenty different languages,” I all but screamed, “and then just have a drawing with numbers and letters and arrows!?”

“Woof,” Mouse said, commiserating. He was more than two hundred pounds of patient grey floof and was better with people than I was.

I went back to trying to assemble the stupid bicycle. Maggie needed to learn to ride a bike. A lot of little girls would have wanted the pink-and-purple bike. But Maggie’s favorite color was red. She insisted that the red ones go faster.

“You need a degree and a NASCAR pit crew to do this!” I muttered darkly.

Mouse sighed. Then he nudged my hand with his nose until I dropped the part I was trying to assemble. Then he picked up a different part in his huge, patient jaws and handed it to me.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I demanded. “Other than wipe your drool off, you moose.”

Mouse chuffed and nudged my other hand with his nose.

“I know you want to help,” I said. “But these two parts don’t—”

The parts clicked together and locked, easily.

Mouse’s tail went thump, thump against the floor.

“Nobody likes a wiseass,” I said darkly.

Mouse’s tail went thumpthumpthumpthump and he grinned a doggy grin at me.

“Are you laughing at me?” I demanded.

Mouse sneezed.

I sighed and ruffled his ears. “Fine. If you can’t beat them, join them.” I held up the paper so Mouse could peer at it. “Which one is next?”

Mouse selected the next part, and I started bumbling around with it until I got it right. Then we did the next one. The fire in the fireplace crackled and popped. It was the only light.

There were quiet footsteps and then Michael Carpenter appeared, a large man in his fifties with a thick, powerful build. He wore a comfortable robe belted over his pajamas, and carried a coffee mug in his hand. He paused in the doorway to his own living room and regarded me struggling, smiling quietly.

“Maggie and Hank crashed about an hour ago,” he said. “So you have the rest of the night to get it done.”

“Just say it,” I muttered.

“I wouldn’t dream,” he replied. He took a sip of eggnog from his mug. His wife, Charity, made wicked-potent nog. “It just wouldn’t be fair.”

“You must have done a million of these things,” I said.

“Or two,” he said, nodding.

I spread my hands over the parts in exasperation. “Well?”

“Oh,” he said, his voice serious—but his eyes were twinkling. “Harry, I wouldn’t dream of taking this joy away from you. This is what being a father is all about.”

“Staying up all night cutting myself while I try to figure out this stupid thing?” I demanded.

“Don’t forget being woken at the crack of dawn by excited children,” he said.

I groaned.

Michael smiled faintly. “Don’t moan about it, Harry. I got pretty used to my Molly showing up at my bedside at five a.m. with a cup of burnt coffee she made herself.” Something sad and tired touched the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “It’s the most annoying thing you’ll ever miss once it’s gone.”

I sighed.

I looked up at him.

“Most of my memories of my dad are of Christmas mornings,” I said. I swallowed and looked down at the potential bike. So much thought had to go into preparing it. Getting it ready for the world. “I just don’t want to screw it up.”

Sympathetic pain flickered on his face. “Harry,” he said, “what do you remember most?”

“Coffee,” I said instantly. “My dad would let me drink coffee on Christmas morning.” I smiled, remembering. “I mean, it was more like a cup of milk and sugar with a little coffee thrown into it, but I thought I was pretty big stuff. We’d make breakfast together and then he’d sit with me and open my presents and we’d spend the day playing with them.”

Michael took a sip of nog and nodded thoughtfully. Then he smiled at me and said, “I think you’ll do just fine.” He cocked his head slightly, as if listening to a comment coming from an earbug. He let out a little snort and shook his head.

“What?” I asked him warily. I looked around the room at any potential unseen angelic presences and demanded, “What?”

“Spoilers,” the ex-Knight murmured. “Merry Christmas, Harry.” And he limped silently from the room.

I squinted at him, feeling very much as if I had somehow been bamboozled. Then I muttered something dark about the duplicity of paladins, retired or not, and went back to trying to figure out the bike. I got into it, focusing with as much intensity as I would spend on any spell. This was a mere child’s bicycle. It was no match for the intellect of the Wizard of Chicago.

Plus I had Mouse to help.

I’d been going along for a goodly while when there was a sudden gust of wind outside so cold that it came flooding down the chimney, so intense that it made the flames flicker and gutter before they sprang up again. I looked up sharply, as my wizard’s senses told me that power was in motion. The flames in the fireplace guttered again, leaving the room in almost absolute blackness. When they sprang back up, the flames were green and blue and purple, dancing merrily.

And the Queen of Air and Darkness stood above me.

Queen Mab was as tall as me tonight—it changed, based upon her mood and her intentions. Her skin was white as frost, her lips as dark as frozen mulberries, and her hair had been made from the first snowflakes to fall through the virgin air. She was stunningly beautiful, immortal, had the power of a demigoddess, was the unquestioned queen of the wicked Fae—and she was my boss.

“My Knight,” she murmured, inclining her head.

I wasn’t sure what protocol dictated for this particular circumstance, so I bowed my head slightly and said, “Good evening.”

“Guardian,” Mab said. She bowed her head rather more deeply to Mouse.

I get no respect, no respect at all.

Mouse regarded Mab solemnly. His tail had stopped wagging. But he thumped a paw twice on the floor in response.

Mab regarded the circle of parts around me, her head tilted. “A conjuring?”