Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,21

She shook her head. “Be comforted, my Knight: I chose you for times precisely such as these, when an elemental of destruction is what is most needed.”

“What?” I said.

Mab did something more frightening than most monsters could.

She smiled.

It was genuine.

“Harry,” she said, her voice almost warm. “From the first time I laid eyes upon you, I saw a being who had the potential for true greatness.” She laid a slim, cool hand on my forearm, and pride joined the smile already on her face. “It is almost time for you to begin to understand it yourself. And once you do, once you understand, we will do great things together.”

The old man stepped between us, between the Queen of Air and Darkness and me. And he said, in a voice like granite, “He is not your weapon, Mab.”

Mab’s smile gained a hungry, wolfish edge. “He is exactly my weapon,” she hissed. “By his own choice. Which is more than your people ever gave him. And they call the Sidhe wicked and deceitful.”

I blinked and shot a glance at Ebenezar.

The old man wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Mab laughed, low and amused. She stepped around Ebenezar, running a hand along my shoulder as one might the fender of a car one was particularly proud to possess. “Do what you can to stay within sight during the battle, my Knight. And be what you are. Ethniu will be what she is. She has no other alternative.” She nodded to Ebenezar and said, “Br—”

There was a harsh buzzing sound that started faintly and grew louder in a rush. I moved without thinking. I swept my right arm out and shoved Mab behind me as my left came up, my will coalescing into a shield aimed primarily at the sky. I barely got the shield together in time for something behind a veil, diving at approximately peregrine falcon speeds, to splatter itself across a good three-foot-radius area of invisible force.

Even as I watched, maybe six or seven pounds of . . . meat, mostly, kind of appeared from behind a shattered veil and slid slowly down the sphere-shaped plane of my shield. It landed on the ground with a wet, slapping sound. I stared down at the remnants of the thing. It looked like some kind of mix of a bat, a lizard, and a squid, all rubbery and leathery and grey and pink, like ground beef left out too long. It smelled absolutely foul, as if some kind of venom bladder had been ruptured. Parts of some yellowish mucus were actively dissolving the flesh of the creature as it died, and its tentacles were thrashing, sliming more of the stuff onto the castle’s roof, where it sparked and sputtered against the warded stone.

I lowered the shield warily and rose from my crouch. “What the hell was that?”

Suddenly I became acutely aware that the Queen of Air and Darkness was pressed against my back, and I was holding her there with one arm in a fashion that could accurately be described as undignified. I moved my hand hurriedly and glanced back at the monarch of the Sidhe. “Are you all right?”

Mab met my gaze, her eyes all but glowing. I looked away quickly. Her eyes shifted to Ebenezar, something triumphant in them, and she murmured, “Yes. Well done, my Knight.”

“I mean, you’re immortal, right?” I said. “Why would you need a bodyguard anyway?”

She nodded toward the yellowish mucus sputtering on the stones. “Something meant to weaken or incapacitate me for the coming battle, doubtless,” she said. “Immortality offers a significant advantage, but it is no substitute for intelligence. Remember that, young wizard.”

Ebenezar scowled and opened his mouth.

“Should it for some bizarre reason ever be necessary,” Mab said smoothly, before he could speak.

I stared back and forth between the pair of them for a second.

Yeah. Time for things to change. Just as soon as we dealt with Ethniu and the Fomor.

“I find Corb’s assassins wearying,” Mab said calmly. She narrowed her eyes in thought for a few seconds before nodding firmly. “Very well, fishman. Have it your way.” She snapped her fingers, and over by Molly, the Redcap whipped his head around as if Mab had called his name. The Sidhe warrior, tall and lean and good-looking in that wickedly youthful, long-haired way, the jerk, approached immediately and bowed, sweeping off his Washington Nationals baseball cap.

“Loose the malks,” Mab said.

Holy crap.

Malks were . . . not so much cats as nightmares that happened to be shaped like cats.