Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 29

Photo by Galal Garwan on Unsplash

Harry reflects on the nature of being alone, and the difference between working alone on purpose and unexpectedly losing your backup. He thinks about how the word "alone" is too small for the idea it conveys, like the words "fear" or "trust". Those are interesting comparitors. People almost always go to "love" in these kinds of discussions. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, beyond the fact that it matches where his head it at right now. Trust is Harry's biggest barrier to working with other people, like Tera and the Alphas, and to being with other people, like Susan. Fear is in some sense, in some contexts, its opposite. This is also where we find out that Harry is probably in the top 100 most powerful wizards in the world. It was established quite a while ago, back in his conversation with Kim at the beginning of this book, that he's strong for his age and level of training, but this is a new level of context. Technically, we're told that he's "usually" at that level, reminding us how depleted Harry currently is, but also more or less establishing that since he was able to hex down the camera, we can expect that his magic will come all the way back eventually. 

Harry notes that the smart thing to do, were he physically up to it, would be to go back over the wall, get in the can, and ask Susan to drive somewhere far away. But he's not comfortable walking away from a challenge he issued, nor leaving his new allies to their fate - and in any case, he can't get over the wall. So he sneaks to the wedge of the "woods", to where he can see the rest of the estate. We get like, a sentence of description of the house, and considerably more on the lawn and gardens, which makes sense since that's where the final confrontation is gonna go down. 

Harry sees Billy come running out of the trees, but before he can react, the dot from a laser sight appears on Billy's flank, and a second later he's hit with a tranquilizer dart. Harry can only watch as he collapses, and Denton's team emerges from the trees. Harry notes that, based on the way he's moving, Denton's restraint is gone. But he continues to keep the rest of his team under control, easily breaking up a fight between Harris and Wilson as they count the fallen Alphas. Harris isn't doing so good without his belt, and Wilson called him an idiot for having lost it in the first place. When they've confirmed six wolves down, Marcone and Hendricks come out from behind the Decorative Fake Ruins, revealing that Marcone was the one who shot the Alphas, and that he doesn't know the hexenwulfen are here to kill him. 

Marcone tells them about the camera that went down, and that it almost certainly means Dresden is here, even though they haven't seen him yet. Denton is, for reasons I don't fully understand, very sure that they've caught everyone, and that if Dresden isn't one of the unconscious wolves on the lawn, he isn't here at all. Denton is about as dismissive as he can get away with. Benn, meanwhile, wants to kill the Alphas now, while they're helpless, and when Marcone tells her now, that they need to wait for MacFinn to show up and let him take them out, to make things look right for the medical examiner, her control slips and she reaches for her wolf belt. Denton calms her down, but it's a near thing, and her snarled insults likely tip Marcone off to the fact that they're not on his side, if he didn't already know. I notice that if things had gone to plan for our antagonists in this book, Butters's career would have gotten complicated a whole book earlier. Although of course, if that had happened, neither Dresden nor we would ever have known about it, since everyone would have died. 

Photo by Cosmin Gurau on Unsplash

Marcone tells the hexenwulfen to find Dresden, and reminds them that he wants Harry taken alive. He directs them to search the woods, pointing the laser dot from his gun almost exactly at Harry's position. 

This is yet another short, interstitial chapter with a lot of tension and very little action. If I remember right, it was less frustrating when I was actually reading this book, rather than going through it at a rate of slightly less than one chapter a week. This post is 4 days later than it ought to have been, because Laptop Switchy Day didn't quite go to plan. (Yes, I'm still on library laptops. If you want the greater consistency that would come from my actually owning my own computer, you can help us get there faster by supporting me on Patreon.) I'll follow up with Chapter 30 just as soon as I can, now that I don't have a giant paper looming. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things! 

Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 28

Photo by cheng feng on Unsplash

This is an entire chapter about getting over a wall, and it pretty much works. 

Jim butcher once again shows his experience with tabletop games, establishing the spooky mood with a few clear visuals, and laying out the tactics of the immediate objective at the same time. They're behind Marcone's estate, and they need to get over this wall. It's tall, and smooth, and there are no tree branches or other convenient features to help. 

While Tera goes looking for another spot where they can get through, we flash back to a few minutes ago, with the Alphas engaging in a little public nudity as they tumble out of the van and shift into their wolf forms. When Harry asks if they really have to get naked in the middle of the street, Billy makes the point by shifting with his robe still on, getting tangled in it for several seconds, which is adorable. We also get our first look at curvy, red-haired Andy, although she isn't named. 

Back in the here and now, Billy is getting bored and restless waiting for Tera. After a disagreement with Georgia, carried out entirely by means of lupine body language, he makes to head off on his own, and several of the other boys start to follow him. Dresden reminds them that the Alphas' presence is contingent on following his orders, and before it can turn into even more of a power struggle, he has them gather around so they can go over tactics. 

Dresden's ability to interact with magical young people apparently leveled up as soon as they found Kim Delaney's body, because there's no weirdness or condescension here, and he's clearly considering how these early experiences, and the example set for them by more experienced practitioners, will affect what they go on to do with the limited power they've been given. So he tells them how the hexenwulfen are basically just people - people who got in over their heads with something they don't understand and could never hope to control, and which is now controlling them. He tells them to avoid killing if they can, to go for the belts, and that maybe once they're off, it will be possible to reason with them. That's...optimistic, I think, but it creates the right mindset, and provides a direct counterbalance to Tera's insistence that they destroy anyone who hurts one of the pack. Harry wants them thinking of human adversaries as people first and enemies second, to consider the nuances of situations with victims on more than one side, and to make killing a last resort. 

Tera returns having found a place where the wall is crumbled. I don't think we ever get a reasonable explanation for this - Marcone wouldn't leave this kind of extremely literal hole in his defenses for longer than he had to, and I can scarcely imagine how he would have failed to be aware of it. That suggests to me that this is probably the result of deliberate, recent sabotage, but I don't think we're ever told who was responsible, and there are several plausible candidates. However it came to be, the crumbled place is a ways from their location (the estate occupies an entire city block) and they'll have to run if they want to get there in time. Harry absolutely cannot do that and be in any shape to fight. He's not sure he can do it at all without collapsing. He's going over the wall here, or not at all. 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Hexing down the security cameras is more work than it ought to be, and it physically hurts, and ache that starts in his head and quickly spreads to the rest of his body. But he can do it, and he's less relieved by that and he's less relieved than he probably ought to be, given that just a few chapters ago, he was worried his magic might be gone forever. When he's worked up the energy, he throws it at the cameras, shorting them out. He describes himself doing this "like a grade school girl throwing a baseball wrong-handed", and I have no idea why that needed to be gendered. Ugh. 

Anyway, Tera helps him climb up, and he makes it down the other side in one piece. He's supposed to wait where he lands until the others catch up with him. He gets out his gun, and his unspecified "ace in the hole", which I don't remember what it is, and then basically sits there in the dark and the rain meditating, until he realizes that too much time has passed without even hearing anything from his allies. Something has gone wrong. 

I keep having impulses to write short, non-reread posts, and then running out of enthusiasm a few paragraphs in. I don't know if any of them will eventually come to anything, but for the time being, take any claim that I'm planning an advice post with a grain of salt. I think I am finally close to ready for another Wheel of Time reread post, but the next post after this one will almost certainly be Chapter 29. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things.