Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 30

Picture from Europeana on Unsplash.

This chapter opens with a description of how in history books and the like tend to present battles as these very orderly things with neat formations acting as cohesive units, and how that's an illusion and real battle is messy and chaotic, how no diagram can convey the noise, the terror, etc. There's some unpacking to do here. Battles are always loud and scary, obviously, and it's true that the blocks-and-arrows diagrams that you apparently see in history lectures (due to a series of hilarious mishaps, I have successfully avoided attending a conventional history class of any kind, and my classes on labor history, Pacific Northwest History, and the counterculture fashions of the 1960s and '70s did not spend a great deal of time on battles, nor, now that I think of it, did they have anything immediately recognizable as textbooks. I did take a world history class, but it was a survey course and didn't get into enough detail about any single conflict for this kind of analysis, and the assigned reading was all primary sources in translation.) do not really convey this. However, in the kind of battles in which formations are likely to feature in the first place, it is not actually natural or inevitable for them to fall apart into a confused melee - especially if you're winning, formations tend to hold together, and the usefulness of the people in them is often contingent on their doing so. Also though, absolutely none of that applies here. We've got five people, one and a half of them noncombatants, with wildly divergent cultural backgrounds, only two of whom have any prior experience fighting together, all of whom variously mistrust most of the others, with wildly mismatched weapons and fighting styles and absolutely no time to prepare. Formations are out of the question on almost every possible level. (They do all speak the same language). They're also in a really, really bad position. 

Thomas does a little show and tell about opening the blood reservoir in the Reds' bellies in order to take them down, which is great information for Harry but almost fatally distracts Michael. Kyle briefly appears with a gun, but Harry uses the sword cane as a channel for a magnetism spell and gets it away from him. I believe this is the first time we see Harry do the magnet thing. Michael creates an opening, which Susan and Justine reinforce by hitting one vampire who tries to advance out of the line with holy water, incapacitating it. Thomas says they need to take out Bianca, which is reasonable in premise, but if she's not actually between them and their objectives (get Lydia, get out) probably isn't worth the extra time and effort. This portion of the fight also makes a point to showcase Thomas's physical capabilities - lifting a vampire straight off the ground while it's biting his arm, swatting a thrown knife out of the air with his sword. I'm not actually sure there comes a point in this book where we need to know about that, but it's a reasonably smooth establishment. 

Up on the dais, Mavra was distracted enough by all the blood that she hasn't gotten around to killing Lydia yet, a stroke of luck that, under the circumstances, I think can very reasonably be attributed to divine intervention. Harry gets Michael's attention, and uses the magnet spell again, dragging Amoracchius, and Mavra, when she refuses to let go of it, into the courtyard below, breaking at least several of the vampire bones in the process, although this doesn't stop her from physically jumping straight back up onto it. (Like, from the side, she doesn't use the steps). Michael does the dagger cross thing again, directly opposing Mavra's weird shadow magic, giving Harry time to check for Bianca and, when he doesn't find her, grab Lydia. Michael is apparently having a great time, but the rest of the team is fairing less well down in the courtyard. Faith magic doesn't work as well on the Red Court as it does on the Black, so Susan isn't able to keep them at bay with a cross. She does managing to take one out by vaporizing a jar of holy water on a spotlight, and then shooting the newly skinless vampire several times in the blood reservoir. 

Photo by Vitaliy Shevchenko on Unsplash

And then Bianca grabs Justine, and licks her, down the side of her neck, incapacitating her with venom. Bianca calls checkmate, but Harry disagrees, pointing out, in essence, that he and his allies shouldn't have been able to accomplish what they already have, not against her entire assembled court, and so it probably isn't a great idea to count on a reasonable assessment of what else they're capable of. He throws in a bit about how vampires can live forever, and do they really want to risk that, and seems to get somewhere in demoralizing them. So Bianca turns her attention to Thomas, offering to let him leave, with Justine, uncontested, if he "gives" Harry, Michael, and Susan to her. Thomas, in what will be the first of many demonstrations that he does not always think very clearly where Justine is concerned, agrees, and pushes Susan into the crowd of vampires. Bianca barely takes another second to gloat before betraying Thomas, telling Kyle and Mavra to kill him. 

And Harry...snaps. He actually blacks out for a second while he's calling his magic up. I honestly don't know if that's related to how drained he is, and how much he's abruptly trying to do, or purely an emotional thing. And then he sets absolutely everything on fire. He also stops his own heart. I had to go back over this bit a couple times, because I initially didn't take "I felt my heart clench in my chest and stop beating." to indicate more than a momentary disruption, but no. I think this conflagration may actually constitute a death curse. Michael starts trying to drag Harry and Lydia out of there, but Harry's actively dying and the air is now full of smoke. Michael directly asks God to show them a way out, and it looks like his prayers are answered - the smoke parts, just for them. Harry collapses, and Michael finally realizes that he doesn't have a heartbeat and stops to do CPR. So we're gonna add "had a heart attack, basically" to the list of things Harry is dealing with for what remains of the book. By some metrics, he was dead for a little bit there. Michael gets his heart going again, and they follow the extremely obvious tube of clear air towards the exit. There's a figure at the other end who really looks like they might be an angel. Harry asks where Susan is, and Michael says he'll go back for her. At the far end of their escape route is Lea, not an angel, and this one's actually harder to easily class as divine intervention than Mavra's critical distraction. Harry and Michael naturally assume they're in for a fight that they absolutely do not have the wherewithal to win, but Lea basically shoos them out, explaining that she wants Harry whole and alive and useful, not drained and battered. Michael leaves Harry and Lydia in the truck and tries to go back for Susan. He returns, without her, but Harry is by this point far too out of it to say anything. Michael starts the car, and Harry falls unconscious. 

Sorry for the short post. This one is mostly action, which doesn't usually give me a lot to work with in terms of analysis. I'm gonna try to get another Dresden post, and maybe something else, up before the end of September, but like, no promises. As always, if you want to increase the ratio of time I spend making blog posts to time I spend doing other things, feel free to become a Patron. The button's up at the top. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!