Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,150
was a kind touch,” Mab said finally. “There were a number of fires it checked.”
“You understand what has happened,” Titania replied quietly. “What it means.”
“I expect you to do your duty,” Mab said.
Titania’s expression flickered in pain. “When have I not?”
Mab nodded. Titania matched the gesture. Then a warm southern wind blew a curtain of gentle rain around her and the Summer unicorn, and when it faded they were gone.
Mab walked over to me, moving as if her bones were made of fragile porcelain. She stood staring down at me for a moment.
“And so. The man who has bound a Titan. What will you do with her, I wonder.”
I squinted up at Mab. Then snorted. “Leave her buried. Bury her deeper if I can.”
Mab stared at me. “The creature is bound to you, Warden. Your will can compel her now. The power of a Titan, at your beck and call.”
Which was true enough, in its way. Ethniu was my prisoner. I could . . . extract service from her. It would be tricky and treacherous as hell, but wizards had done it before, with beings of tremendous supernatural power. It was possible.
Just . . . massively, massively unwise.
“My will causes enough trouble,” I said wearily. “Until I get the sense to use it wisely, why don’t we just let sleeping gods lie.”
I shoved myself to my feet as sturdily as I could.
“Easy, my Knight,” Mab said quietly, glancing around. “You show weakness.”
“National Guard is going to be here soon,” I said. “I don’t want to leave Murphy here for them.”
Mab lifted a hand and physically stopped me from taking a step. “The honored dead will be cared for,” she said. “You have my word on that.”
Which settled that. When Mab gives her word, it is good. Period.
“And there is another matter which must be settled ere we are through,” she said.
I glanced back and saw Lara Raith coming toward me.
Behind her, in a circle of empty space maybe ten feet across, were Justine and Goodman Grey. The man looked like thirty miles of bad road. His clothes were in rags, and he was covered with bruises that had gone to school and graduated as contusions. One of his eyes was completely shot with red, his nose was broken, and when he snarled at someone who stepped a little too close, he was missing some teeth.
But no one was getting within an arm’s length of Justine, either.
“Dresden,” Goodman Grey demanded. “Deed done. Contract over. Here. Delivered, one female, cute, no damage.”
He gave Justine what could have been a rough push but wasn’t, and she crossed the space to stand beside me, her expression dismayed. “Harry, my God, what have they done to you?”
“Explain this, Dresden,” Lara Raith snapped. “This lunatic put half a dozen of the security team I had watching her in the hospital.”
“What?” I said to Grey. “I didn’t hire you for that.”
“You hired me to make sure she was all right,” Grey spat. “And when the lights went out a bunch of goons went rushing at her apartment.”
“To get her to safety,” Lara insisted.
“I didn’t know that!” Grey protested. “Just be glad you’ve still got them. I didn’t have to settle for broken bones, you know.”
“This creature is your hireling?” Lara demanded of me.
I fumbled in my pocket and found the envelope with the crumpled, baked dollar. I passed it over to Grey. “I mean. Barely.”
He snatched the envelope, muttering darkly. “. . . running all over the damned city, fighting every damned thing that popped up, all for a pretty face . . .” He gave me a dark glower, then one for Lara, turned with a limp, nodded politely to Justine, and stalked lopsidedly away.
Lara was giving me a furious look. “How dare you interfere with the protection of one of my own.”
“Yeah, well, Thomas wanted me to,” I said. “And she’s one of mine, too. What was I supposed to do?”
Lara threw her hands in the air and said, as if the word held terrible significance, “Communicate?”
I spun my finger around at the general everything. “Been a little busy, right?”
“Oh,” Lara said, glaring at Mab.
“I did warn you,” Mab said. “He is independently minded. Did he repay you as I ordered?”
“I mean, barely,” Lara said, imitating my voice but making it sound a lot dumber.
“Time flies from us,” Mab said. Her gaze shifted to the south. “Mortal armsmen approach.”
Lara nodded and squared off in front of me, glaring. “I have a request.”