Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,81

around the eyes for a couple of seconds, and then he closed them firmly, set his jaw, and adjusted, visibly.

“Fuck it, I’ll lose my mind later,” he said, and when he opened his eyes again, he had his cop face on. “I got six kids, a nice old lady, and a Rudolph up there. How do we get them out?”

“Back to Millennium Park,” I said. “We’re keeping a corridor open. Send them west from there.”

Shrieks and yowls burst out around us, as Winter launched an attack upon enemy forces. Huntsmen howled, and their spears wailed. In the background, but closer, came the thunder of the Eye claiming another building.

“Get the kids out now,” Murphy said.

Bradley tensed his jaw, nodded, dropped the spear, and pounded up the stairway. He paused by the door, flattened himself against a wall, and called, “It’s Bradley,” before he opened it with one hand, staying well clear.

“Bradley?” came Rudolph’s voice. It was panicky.

Rudolph had run into monsters a couple of times. Granted, both of those times had been bad. But he’d been like a lot of people who run into the supernatural—he just couldn’t handle it. Maybe that was a personal shortcoming. Or maybe he’d just been born without the capacity to face that kind of terrifying reality. Either way, it made it harder to like him, especially at times like this.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Dammit, Bradley!” Rudolph screamed.

“It’s me . . . sir . . .” Bradley said, his voice heavy with patience.

“Get in here! Get under cover!”

“We’ve got to get out of here while we can,” Bradley said. “Get the kids—we’ve got to go.”

“Are you crazy?” Rudolph demanded. “It’s a war zone out there!”

I leaned in and shouted up the stairwell, “It’s going be a war zone right in there with you if you don’t get moving, Rudolph!”

“Dresden!?”

“Yes, it’s me, moron,” I said, in my grumpiest wizard voice. “And we’re not going to be able to get out for much longer, you knucklehead, so move it!”

“This is your doing!” Rudolph squealed. “More of your lies!”

Bradley got a peculiar expression on his face. I wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, though you could probably have captioned the photo, How Could I Have Been So Blind?

He held up a finger to me. Then he walked in through the door.

There was a thump, and a clatter.

Bradley emerged from the day care with Rudolph draped limply over one shoulder, and the man’s pistol in his own shoulder holster. He was carrying a small child, maybe two years old, in the other arm.

Behind him came a woman with steely hair and a grandmother’s clothing. She held an infant in the cradle of one arm and the hand of a small string of larger children who followed her, all holding hands.

Bradley led them down the stairs and onto the street. Butters immediately went to take the infant from the older woman, who surrendered the child with a grateful grimace and a twitch of her shoulder.

The wolves immediately took position around the children, without me telling them to. They wagged their tails and took little happy steps and generally performed the canine equivalent of pinching their cheeks and making a fuss over them. The kids were instantly enchanted by the group of doggies.

Who also did their best to keep their furry bodies between the children’s eyes and the worst of the horrors around us.

They felt like I did. That no one should have to look at that kind of thing. And that those of us who already had? We were glad when we could spare someone else the same invisible wounds.

I fell in beside Bradley, who carried his own weight and that of two other souls without visible effort. “The wolves are great kids. They’ll go with you, get you and the kids out. Two blocks south, to the park. There’re volunteers holding out at the pavilion. Tell them that the wizard sent you to see Sanya. He’s a big black Russian guy. Tell him I want him to give you an escort out.”

“South, pavilion, Sanya, wizard sent me, get the kids out,” Bradley confirmed. He eyed the wolves. “Friendlies?”

“Yeah,” I said.

He heaved a breath. Then set his jaw, nodded, and said, “Got it.”

“Good man,” I said. “You’re handling this well.”

“I am not,” Bradley said without slowing his steps. “I am not.”

“Then you are freaking out in the most useful way possible,” I said. “Keep it up.”

Bradley stared at me for a second. Then he let out a bark of crack-voiced laughter.