Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,22
Imagine a lynx, only a little taller and thicker, weighing in at about fifty pounds, with human intelligence and a serial killer’s bloodlust. Whatever you’re imagining, unless you’ve been up to some damned peculiar things, the real deal is worse. Malks had claws that could shred through stone and some metals, were supernaturally stealthy and approximately as strong as a chimpanzee, and they resented taking orders, even from the Queen of Air and Darkness herself.
They might get the job done. But they’d hurt a lot of other people on the way, just for kicks. It was in their nature. If Mab turned a pack of those little psychos loose on Chicago, it would be a bloodbath, and they wouldn’t care who got slashed to ribbons.
“Wait!” I said.
Mab’s eyes turned to me like gun turrets.
The Redcap stared at me with wide eyes and shifted his weight slightly away from me, as if he was getting ready to dive for cover.
Even Ebenezar gave me a look that doubted my mental capacity.
“Uh, please,” I added hurriedly. “There’s a better way.”
Mab’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
“You’re irritated with Corb, and that might have had an effect on your judgment,” I said.
The air grew several degrees colder in the immediate area. Mab didn’t move.
“Save the malks for something more important,” I said. “You want these . . . squidwards dealt with? Let me handle it. Until Ethniu is put down, Corb can only be a diversion of your resources. Right?”
Mab narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. Then she said, her lips stiff, “From the mouths of babes.” A gesture toward the Redcap was apparently enough to convey the order to stand the malks down, at least for the time being.
“For the sake of your health and happiness, my Knight, it is an excellent thing that you are necessary to my design. But there will be more of these attacks. See to the matter your way, or I will do so in mine.” Then she stepped back and inclined her head slightly to Ebenezar. “Excuse me. I must coordinate with my sister’s forces. Brief him on the plan, if you please.”
The old man clenched his jaw, but he gave Mab a respectful nod nonetheless. The Queen of Winter turned away from us as though we were of no more concern, and approached a table where Vadderung and one of Mab’s highest vassals, the Faerie huntsman known as the Erlking, lord of the goblins and master of the Wild Hunt, were poring over a map of Chicago.
The Erlking wore his helmet, and its shadows hid his face, but he was taller than human and lean in his hunting leathers and mail. Vadderung looked like an ancient seafaring pirate gone corporate, with his scarred, lean face and his roguish black eyepatch paired with his excellent double-breasted suit. Both were there to fight.
I swallowed and looked around the roof. River Shoulders came swarming up the outside of the castle wall and flipped himself onto the roof. The Sasquatch must have weighed a thousand pounds, but he landed with hardly a thump. His Victorian-era tuxedo had taken a bit of a beating during the climb—his calves had flexed and split the lower legs of his trousers at the seams. The Forest Person straightened, lifting his shovel-sized hands to carefully straighten the little spectacles he wore across his nose, and nodded down to Listens-to-Wind. The old Native American’s hair looked a little more rumpled than usual in its long braid—the old man was the most skilled shapeshifter on the White Council, and he’d probably been out and about while I’d run to the island and back.
The Sasquatch dropped casually to his haunches near the shaman and the two began speaking in quiet, earnest tones while Wild Bill drew back an apprehensive step from River’s sheer mass.
Even as I watched, a troop of svartalves simply melded out of the stones of the castle’s roof, carrying tools and poles and spools of wire. They began setting down their burdens, looking up at the sky and muttering darkly as they began measuring out distances on the roof, displacing high nobility and supernatural royalty alike without apology as they worked—and all of them, Mab included, moved when necessary without complaint.
Rapidly and efficiently, metal base plates were screwed into the stone of the roof, poles erected, and razor wire strung overhead in a canopy maybe ten feet high. Ah. The svartalves had recognized the danger of Corb’s flying assassin creatures and were taking steps to limit their