Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,69
windows of broken buildings, staring in silent accusation. I knew it wasn’t a rational position, and it didn’t matter.
I had been given strength. A good man would use that strength to protect those who could not protect themselves.
Too many innocents had not been protected when they needed it most. I had failed them.
I saw Murphy’s head track to one side as we passed that crib. I saw her face.
She felt exactly the same.
We were both wrong to feel that way. And it didn’t make a damned bit of difference.
I looked around me. Butters walked with tears making grey streaks down his dusty face. The wolves slunk along, heads low, alert and miserable. Only Sanya, remote and calm, seemed to bear up under the horror with stoicism—but even Russians have limits. His face was tight with pain.
And we all felt it.
That we’d failed.
Winter called to me, the whole time. The cold would numb pain, swallow my sickness, leave everything calm and sharp-edged and rational and clear. I could lean into that power. Forget this pain, at least for a time.
But somewhere deep down inside my guts, there emerged a solid, unalterable realization of truth:
Some things should hurt.
Some things should leave you with scars.
Some things should haunt your nightmares.
Some things should be burned into memory.
Because that was the only way to make sure that they would be fought. It was the only way to face them. It was the only way to cast down the future agents of death and havoc before they could bring things to this.
The words never again mean more to some people than others.
So I rode behind Murphy and held Winter’s cold comfort at arm’s length. I knew that what I bore witness to would hurt me, permanently. I knew it would leave me scarred. Knew it would burn things into me that would never change.
I let it.
I faced it.
I remembered.
And wrath gathered around us.
I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. Wrath became something real, a tangible presence in the air, as real and as observable as music, as the sharp, clean scent of ozone. The men and women we passed looked upon us and knew that we were on the way to deliver retribution upon those who had come to our city.
And those who felt it followed.
I looked back and saw a silent, grim, determined host of men and women. Some of them were cops. I saw a couple of military uniforms, donned in the emergency. Some were obviously from the rough side of the tracks. But most were just . . . people. Just folks.
Folks who’d had enough.
Folks who’d decided to take up arms and fight.
And above us, around us, the Little Folk marched behind my psychic banner. Always hidden, always flickers of motion in the corner of your eye, flittering shadows and whispers of sound—and the glitter of tiny weapons.
And there were other things out there in the night. The Winter Court included a vast array of nightmares and boogeymen and predators, any of whom might be roaming the underbelly of Chicago on a given evening. I could feel them responding to the banner of my will, feel them ghosting along the rooftops and alleys, gathering around the power of the Winter Knight, matching themselves to my thoughts and my purpose.
My allies began to take note as well. They saw the numbers gathering behind us. They saw the Little Folk, heard the occasionally manic, terrifying giggle that floated up from the shadows. They sensed the presence of horrible things, leashed to my will.
Will and the Alphas avoided making eye contact with me. Butters stared at me in awe and something like fear. Murphy looked at our forces, then at me, tensed her jaw, and gave me a single harsh nod before turning back to face the front.
This was what it was to be the Winter Knight. This was the purpose for which the office had been made.
“Bob,” I said, and my voice sounded absolutely sepulchral. “What’re we hearing on the radio bands?”
“Not much from in town,” Bob replied in a meek tone. “The Eye keeps blowing out the field units. Scouts are having to observe and then report back to the command centers for any of this information to go out, and I’m not sure how many people are receiving it. Um. We’re going to need new skyline pictures for the tourist postcards: Ethniu is apparently moving down Lake Shore Drive and mowing down buildings along the way.”