Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 26

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Tera's hitherto unnamed driver turns out to be none other than Susan Rodriguez. With her red jacket and ponytail, this is our first glimpse of the beginnings of action vampire Susan from the middle books. Apparently, she was the only human in the group old enough to rent a car, and I don't think Tera has ID. Once Susan has had a chance to fuss over Harry a little, he takes a nap in the back, surrounded by mercifully bathrobe-clad Alphas, until they stop at Burger King. 

Even the injured werewolves start snarfing down burgers, the way physically active young people do, and Tera observes to Harry that they're "puppies", which is enough of an ice breaker for him to finally ask why he found her blood at Marcone's restaurant, rather than continuing to suspect her because he doesn't know. Tera, unsurprisingly, had worked out that the Hexenwulfen were targeting Marcone, more impressively determined that they would be there, specifically, on the full moon, and met them there in hopes that she could stop them making problems for MacFinn. Harry asks where they're going, and Tera says vaguely that they're going somewhere safe where they can plan and prepare before the showdown at Marcone's house. Harry, for some reason, insists that Tera isn't coming. At this point I...don't get that. She's proven herself to be a trustworthy ally and a capable combatant, and like, yeah, she's still keeping more secrets than he's comfortable with, including she hasn't told him her species, but that really shouldn't weigh equally with what an absolutely terrible idea it is to undertake this fight without any backup, and we don't get any additional reasons from Harry's first-person narration. Fortunately, Tera carries the point through the power of intense eye contact, much as Harry did in the previous chapter on the subject of whether to stick around and kill Harris. 

We get to Georgia's parents' ridiculously nice house, and the injured Alphas, Cindy and Alex, neither of whom are ever mentioned again so far as I can recall, are carried inside, while Billy lingers at the door to have a conversation with Dresden. The gist of it is that he, also, is going with Harry to the thing tonight. This is exactly the kind of basis of comparison I was looking for on how Harry treats women. Billy isn't quite a vanilla mortal, but he's also like 19. Harry brings out basically all the same concerns he invokes when Susan or Murphy wants to get involved with something, but he's a fair sight more upfront about it, voicing his objections and giving Billy a chance to respond. Which he does - with statistics, giving Dresden the numbers on what sure looks like a substantial increase in violent supernatural activity. Harry also lets the fact that he really needs the help enter into the equation, in a way he never would if he were talking to, say, Georgia instead. This is also the first time in the series that "the world is getting darker", in those words, appears on the page. 

Georgia herself comes outside a moment later, and expresses her excitement at being allowed to come as only a college girl can, yelling and hugging Dresden hard enough to make his injured shoulder flare up. She and bill start talking about the intra-alpha logistics of the mission - and making googly eyes at each other - while Harry asks Got not to let him get these kids killed. 

This is one of those short, logistical chapters, hence the short post. Next post will likely be either Chapter 27, or a thing about how to get unstuck in your writing, but we'll see how it shakes out. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!