Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,109
guy stood, put his boot on Mab’s forehead, grabbed the rebar with both hands, and strained to tear it out of her neck.
Mab’s thin body arched in silent agony.
The rebar began to slide, slowly at first, as Butters threw his whole weight into it, and then suddenly tore free. Butters went sprawling to one side.
Mab’s lips moved, and her voice sounded clearly inside my head, even though I couldn’t hear anything else. “Finally.”
She rose, just levitated the hell up, stiff as a board, like in the old vampire movies, her hair and battle mail covered in blood, and as she did, she lifted her left hand—and suddenly squeezed it into a fist.
The surge of magic that came out of her was so dense, so intense, that it sent several pieces of stray Styrofoam fill nearby spiraling into the air on what looked like a helical sine wave around her. I looked back at the FSC. The Fomor sorcerer on the left end of the line . . . just sort of . . .
Did you ever squeeze a handful of red Play-Doh?
It was like that.
The Fomor sorcerer hovered suspended, maybe a foot above the sudden large splatter of blood on the ground.
Mab turned her head to the next sorcerer in the row and flicked her wrist.
The remains of the first Fomor went flying at the next sorcerer in the line at maybe five hundred meters per second. The impact was . . . really, really messy. And confusing.
Mab turned to the next Fomor sorcerer, her eyes cold.
The FSC turned out to be smart enough to know when they were outclassed. And they were outclassed. Mab’s magic had crushed their defenses like empty beer cans. They turned to run, vanishing behind veils as they went.
Mab watched them flee. Then she turned, still cold, and stalked over to Butters.
The little guy popped up to his feet and gave me a beseeching look.
“It would appear that we are in your debt, Sir Doctor Butters,” Mab said. Her voice came to me dimly now. It was ragged and rough, though it grew smoother by the word. The wound on her neck was already nothing more than an angry scar, lightening even as I observed it. The tread of Butters’s boot stood out in blood on her forehead. “Should we both survive the battle, in need you may call our name. We will answer.”
Her hands flashed out and seized Butters’s white cloak.
The Knight stiffened. Judging by his hair, he was about two breaths away from panic.
Mab calmly lifted the cloak to the hem and tore off two large squares.
Butters looked at me with wide eyes. I made a “go easy” gesture toward him with one hand and with the other put my forefinger over my lips.
The little guy swallowed and nodded.
Hey, Butters has got way more guts than sense. But he wasn’t crazy. Mab offering you a favor was an even scarier concept than Mab herself was, generally.
“Do you find it acceptable repayment?” Mab asked.
Butters gave her a jerky nod, without speaking.
“Excellent. Done.” Mab turned to the fallen Winter unicorn and, using the fabric torn from Butters’s cloak like potholders, began drawing rebar spears from the creature’s broken body. There was nothing tentative about her motions: They were workmanlike, and she removed the impaling steel with superhuman ease. To my shock, the creature started thrashing and screaming again after a few of the lengths of steel came out, and upon the last one being removed, it heaved its way to its feet, shaking its head and trumpeting in outrage.
So the scary horse was immortal, too. Check.
Mab vaulted to the unicorn’s back with about as much effort as I used to fall into bed, and said, “ ’Ware,” before snapping her fingers.
All of her blood that had been scattered around, and the unicorn’s, too, abruptly went up into heat and light like flash paper. It left my face and part of my neck seared as if by a sunburn. Butters very briefly managed a Human Torch impersonation and whirled on Mab in shock, the skin of his forehead and cheeks and hands as red as if he’d had them soaking in hot water. “What? Why?”
“I warned you,” Mab said calmly.
“She can’t leave her blood lying around,” I said. “Corb and his people use magic. If they get their hands on it, it’d be bad.”
Butters frowned. He knew a lot more about how magic worked than most people. He was something of a neophyte at sorcery himself,