Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher Page 0,141

just clammed up.

We are? We’re not?

I kept a straight face while my inner Neanderthal spluttered and then went on a mental rampage through a hypothetical produce section, knocking over shelves and splattering fruit everywhere in sheer frustration, screaming, “JUST TELL ME WHOSE SKULL TO CRACK WITH MY CLUB, DAMMIT!”

Flippin’ faeries. They will be the death of me.

“In the spirit of balanced scales,” I said, “would it be all right if I asked you a question, ma’am?”

“I welcome the question. I make no promises as to the answer.”

I nodded. “Who are you, really?”

Mother Summer stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. Her eyebrows slowly lifted. “That is a very significant question.”

“I know,” I said. “Blame it on Halloween.”

“Why should I do that?”

I shrugged, and we began walking again. “It’s just got me thinking: masks. I know of one figure from ancient tales who is alive and well and incognito. Why shouldn’t there be more?”

Mother Summer inclined her head, more a gesture of acknowledgment or admission than agreement. “Things change,” she said. “Immortals deal poorly with change. But it comes to everyone.”

“I called Mother Winter by the names Athropos and Skuld because they seemed to fit her,” I said. “I mean, she likes her sharp implements, apparently.”

Mother Summer’s smile appeared for a moment, dazzling me, and then was gone again. “It was not an imbecilic guess,” she said. “And, yes, she has been known by such names before. But you’ve only guessed the name of one of her masks—not our most powerful name.”

“Our?” I said. “Wait. I’m confused.”

“I know,” she said. “Here we are.”

We stopped in the middle of a forest path that didn’t look any different from anything around it. Mother Summer stopped and frowned at me. “You really aren’t dressed for the climate.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I can handle cold.”

She let go of my arm, looked me up and down, then put a hand on the handle of the basket she carried over one arm and said, “Something a little less . . . informal would be appropriate, I think.”

I’ve played Ken doll to a faerie fashion adviser before, so I wasn’t entirely shocked when my clothing began to writhe and simply change. When the Leanansidhe had done it, I’d sat in the car for half an hour suffering through one fanciful and undignified outfit after another. Not this time.

My clothes transformed from cloth into custom-fitted steel. Well, probably not steel, but whatever the equivalent was that the Sidhe used in their armor. The armor was plain and functional with no ornaments on it—a breastplate, vambraces, and large pauldrons for my shoulders. Heavy tassets hung from the bottom of the breastplate, protecting my thighs. My lower legs were covered with greaves, front and back. The armor was black and gleaming, and where light fell directly on it, you could see shades of deep purple and dark blue.

I realized that I was holding a helmet under my left arm, and I took it in both hands to look at it. It was a Corinthian helm, like they wore in that movie about the Spartans, only without the fancy tail. It was padded on the inside. I slipped it on, and it fit perfectly.

“Much better,” said Mother Summer. “Stay near me at all times.”

I looked around the perfectly serene forest. It was a bit of an effort, since the helmet kept me from turning my head very smoothly. I looked up, too. I’m sure the armor made me look goofy. “Uh, okay.”

Mother Summer smiled, took my arm again, and stretched out one foot. She used it to brush a layer of dirt and fallen leaves from the pitted surface of a flat stone, like a paving stone, maybe three feet square. She tapped it three times with her foot, whispered a word, and drew me along with her as she stepped onto it.

No drama ensued. The landscape simply changed, as swiftly and drastically as when you turn on a light while in a darkened room. One second we stood in an autumnal megaforest. The next . . .

I’ve seen movies and newsreels about World War I. They didn’t cover it as thoroughly in my schools, because America didn’t have a leading role in it, and because the entire stupid, avoidable mess was a Continental clusterfuck that killed millions and settled nothing but the teams for the next world war. But what they did show me I remembered. Miles and miles of trenches. A smoke-haunted no-man’s-land strung with