Cold Days (The Dresden Files #14) - Jim Butcher Page 0,177

howl of screeching steel, and, starting at the hole I’d punched in the barge’s hull, a straight line of red-hot metal appeared where his sword had simply sheared through it. Behind him, the next riders struck, their weapons carving steel like soft pine, slashing at the weakened section and tearing the original hole I’d made wider and wider.

I heard a howl of rage, and looked up on the deck of the barge to see Sharkface there, already gathering energy to hurl at the riders of the Hunt.

He didn’t take the hounds into consideration.

Before he could unleash his power, a dozen of the beasts hit him, all together, in a single, psychotic canine wave. Since they were running fast enough to get themselves a speeding ticket in most of Illinois, the impact was formidable. Hounds and Outsider alike flew out over the rails of the barge and vanished into the waters of Lake Michigan—and somehow, I knew, the fight continued beneath its waves.

The Erlking let out a shriek of encouragement, one that was echoed by the other riders as the tail end of the column passed the barge. As the last rider struck, a column of eerie green fire rose up from the glowing edges of the shredded steel hull, and with a groan of strained seams, the barge started to list badly to the right—starboard, I guess—as water rushed in through the hole the Hunt had made.

Karrin had already wheeled the Harley into a snarling turn, one that let us see the deck of the ship as it began to sink. Smart. She’d been thinking farther ahead than me. I could clearly see the dozens of lines and figures that had been painted onto the barge’s deck, along with burning candles, incense, and the small, still remains of animal sacrifices—mostly rabbits, cats, and dogs, it looked like.

Rituals, whatever form they take, always involve the use of a circle, explicit or otherwise—the circle had to be there to contain the energy that they’d been building up with all the sacrifices, if nothing else. This one had been established invisibly, maybe originally set up with incense or something—but as the water lapped over the edge of the circle, it immediately began to disperse the pent-up energy, visible as clouds of fluttering sparks, like static, that danced along the surface of the water.

And for just a second, everything in the night went silent.

Then there was a disturbance in the water, with more ugly green light pouring up from below. Water suddenly rushed up, displaced by something moving beneath the surface, and then Sharkface exploded up from the depths, his freaky rag-cloak spread out around him in an enormous cloud of tentacle-like extrusions. He turned his eyeless face toward me—me, exactly, not Karrin, and not the Erlking—and let out a howl of fury so loud that the water for fifty feet in every direction vibrated and danced in time with it.

And a wave of pure, violent, blinding, nauseating pain blanketed the face of Lake Michigan.

Chapter

Forty-three

Suddenly, I wasn’t on the bitch seat of Karrin’s Harley. I was hanging suspended in midair, and I was in agony.

I opened my eyes and looked wildly around me. Barren, icy earth. Cold grey sky. My arms and legs were stretched out into an X shape, and ice the color of a deep blue sky encased them, holding them stretched out against what felt like an old, knotted tree. Muscles and ligaments from my everywhere were at the trembling breaking point. My own heartbeat was torment. My face burned, exposed to cold so severe that it hurt even me.

I tried to scream, but couldn’t. A slow, gargling moan came out instead, and I coughed blood into the freezing air.

“You knew this was coming,” said a voice, a voice that still made my entire body thrum in response, something simple and elemental that did not care how long she had held me in torment. “You knew this day would come. I am what I am. As are you.”

Mab walked into my vision from the left. I barely had enough strength to keep my eyes focused on her.

“You saw what happened to my last Knight,” she said, and began to take slow steps closer to me. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, but I couldn’t help it—I heard myself make a soft noise, felt myself make a feeble effort to move or escape. It made her wide eyes glint for an instant. “I gave you power for a purpose, and