Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,24

there. The local Fae forces are there.”

They were spread out in three defensive positions along Lake Shore Drive so that they’d be able to respond to the enemy wherever they came ashore. Two large blue circles marked the map inland of them—one here, atop the castle, and the second hovering over the svartalf embassy.

“Our reserve positions,” Vadderung noted. “Heavy response forces have been positioned at each of these points, and they both stand as defensive positions.”

“You need to mark a couple more defensive emplacements,” I said. I pointed them out on the map. “There. St. Mary of the Angels.”

“A church?” the Erlking asked skeptically.

“The church,” I said. “At least here in Chicago. There’s real faith there. Believe it. If we need to fall back to it, they’ll open the doors.”

“And the second?” Vadderung asked.

I put my finger on the map. “Michael Carpenter’s house. The Knights of Hope and Faith are there. Both of them.”

“Two doughty foes,” the Erlking noted. “And armed with fell blades. But only two.”

“There’s a dozen guardian angels on duty there at any given time,” I said. “Part of Sir Michael’s retirement package.”

“We will not plan to use them,” Vadderung said in a tone of absolute certainty. “Not the angels, and not the Knights. Not in any way. The being you call Mister Sunshine would be quite annoyed at the intrusion.”

I arched an eyebrow at Vadderung. I was pretty sure I hadn’t ever mentioned my nickname for Uriel to him.

Vadderung gave me a very bland look. “We have lunch once a year.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well. If some bad guys just happened to walk a little too close, I’m pretty sure they’re going to get incinerated. Course, Mister Sunshine thinks a lot of the Accorded folks are bad guys, too.” And I agreed with him. And might have been one of them. I glowered in the direction of the ghouls. “But if we need to move people in a direction, we can send them that way and be pretty sure that the frogs are going to be real slow to chase them.”

Vadderung looked up at me sharply. A small, grim smile hit his face for an instant and was gone. “The frogs?”

“Fomor, whatever,” I said. “I mean, we can stop being diplomatic with these assholes now, right?”

The other men at the table huffed out low, nervous laughs.

“Frogs,” Ebenezar agreed.

“Frogs,” echoed the Erlking.

Vadderung’s eye gleamed. He shook his head but muttered something and touched the edge of the map, and blue circles blossomed around both indicated positions.

“Our main problem,” he noted, “is Ethniu. While she is not the only problem, so long as she stands, no victory is possible.”

“She wears Titanic bronze,” the Erlking said in a tone that suggested he had said it several times in the past couple of hours.

I held up a hand. “Question from the classroom floor. What is that, exactly?”

“A unique alloy of Olympian bronze and mordite,” Vadderung replied. “Kinetic weapons will be of very little use against her. Elemental energies will do little more. It will take a being of divine status to physically penetrate the armor.”

“Divine status,” I said. “Meaning what?”

“Your Knights, perhaps,” the Erlking mused. “Their power would seem to be of the proper origins.”

“Those angels you mentioned could do it,” Ebenezar said. “Mordite is condensed from the darkest, most evil stuff of the Outside. Once it’s alloyed, instead of devouring life it devours energy. Heat, force, lightning, what have you, all backed by the will of the being wearing it. Getting through that takes more than simple power.”

“It has to come from the proper source,” Vadderung agreed. “And be used for the proper reasons.”

Mab glided up to the table. “Sufficiently infernal power could manage the task as well,” she murmured. “I daresay Nicodemus Archleone might strike through Titanic bronze.”

“Assuming she just stands there and lets any of those beings attack her,” the Erlking pointed out. “In the first place, those assets are not under our command. In the second place, she won’t. She’ll do battle, and most likely kill them.”

Vadderung scowled up at the Erlking for a full five seconds before he said, “You’re gloomy.”

“Merely realistic,” the Erlking said.

“You’re saying that to get to her, we’d need a sponsor,” I said. “And that basically no one around here is strong enough or on the right frequency enough to sponsor that kind of thing.”

“Precisely,” Mab said.

Gulp.

“So we don’t have a tool that can break the armor,” I said.

“Probably not,” Ebenezar said. “This has to be done the hard way.”

Mab nodded. “We

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