Dresden Files Reread - Summer Knight Chapter 11

Photo by Carrie Beth Williams on Unsplash

Harry enters Reuel's building disguised as a flower deliveryman. The first time I read Summer Knight, I had never previously encountered the name FTD, and didn't know what Harry was pretending to deliver until more than halfway through the chapter, when Grum said he didn't smell flowers. Founded in 1910, FTD was the first floral wire service, which is sort of like Doordash for flowers, originally handled by telegram, although the process was a little inelegant compared to modern food delivery brokerages (partly due to the necessity of having physical locations from which customers could place orders). FTD originated as a member-owned cooperate of florists, but was sold to a hedge fund in 1994, after which it operated as a for-profit company. When the organization was founded, FTD stood for Florists Telegraph Delivery, but in 1965 the name was changed to Florists' Transworld Delivery. Harry observes that a hat, a package, and a confident stride can get you into a lot of places. 

He's looking for residual energy or other signs that magic was involved in Reuel's death, but doesn't find any, indicating that either magic wasn't used or it was cleaned up very thoroughly. It's my vague, misty recollection that while it wasn't done by a human, Reuel really was just pushed down the stairs, and Summer Mantle or no, he's old. Kind of a Hound of the Baskervilles situation - the dog wasn't some kind of hellhound, just a regular dog with some phosphorus smeared on, but it scared the old guy into having a heart attack. Actually, come to think of it, iirc that entire thing was also some sort of complicated inheritance scheme. Might need to reread it so I'm better equipped to catch further references. 

He hears something, and stops to Listen, and we're briefly told what Listening is, which is mildly interesting inasmuch as it was referenced earlier without explanation. To be clear, not explaining during the conversation with the Gatekeeper was the right call, it would have badly broken up the tension of the scene, but it does lead me to wonder if there was some editing weirdness. He hears someone muttering curses down the hall, pulls his blasting rod out of the box, and goes to find Reuel's apartment very directly and physically broken into, and a very large man in a bowler hat going though the papers on his desk. Harry's immediate thought is that this means Reuel was hiding evidence, which like, I don't disagree that it indicates he was in possession of evidence, but "hiding" feels like an odd word to use at this stage. We also get a description of the apartment, which is overdone and Victorian, looking like it could have been imported from "429-B Baker Street". I assume Butcher means 221 and just forgot the actual number, and the Light alone knows the editing on these early books was minimal enough that it could have gotten missed, but it's possible this is referencing some specific story in which Doyle or a subsequent author got Holmes's address wrong. The more overt Sherlock Holmes reference is also making me think there might actually be something to my Hound of the Baskervilles notion, but I haven't read it in like 20 years. 

Harry, who got a proper night's sleep pretty recently and hasn't been hit on the head even once this book, stops to consider his options. Grum - Harry does not yet know his name - isn't gonna just let him look at the papers, and a fight in such tight quarters isn't a great idea. Harry, by his own accounting, isn't very good at evocation, although I wish we had a better sense by this point of what being good at evocation really looks like. He's got the fuego thing and then I think two wind spells all of which seem to work just fine for him, so I guess the issue is one of repertoire and flexibility. I know he nearly has a panic attack in Proven Guilty just at the thought of trying to use fuego in an unusual way. He considers a more physical confrontation, but then Grum picks up a very heavy couch one handed, so obviously that's not a good idea. So he walks in, asks Grum to sign for the flowers, and steals what he thinks might be an index card out of the bag Grum is using to hold Reuel's papers.

The ruse falls apart almost immediately, because Grum doesn't smell flowers and, more to the
point, does smell magic. He picks Harry up by the neck, but Harry pulls an iron nail out of his pocket and stabs Grum in the arm. Grum throws him all the way out of Reuel's living room, where Harry actually lands on the bed. Twice, since he initially bounces off it and hits the wall, but still. Grum drops the human disguise, apparently revealing himself as a twelve-foot tall ogre, although of course rereaders will know he's actually a Sidhe knight or something. I don't remember that guy's name or title. Harry uses ventas servitas to get his blasting rod back, and then tries to set Grum on fire, but the magic just...doesn't take. He shrugs it off like it's not even there. Harry narrowly avoids having his bones ground to make Grum's bread because someone down the hall asks what the racket is, and says she's already called the police. Grum tells Harry he got lucky, and leaves, just as they start to hear sirens. 

Harry takes a moment to look at what he took from Grum, it's not an index card but a photograph of Reuel at one of the Disney parks, along with the four young people whom we will later learn are Meryl, Lily, Ace, and Fix. Interestingly, Harry doesn't even sort of suspect that they might be changelings, instead figuring Meryl and Lilly's green hair for a dye job, and Fix's near-white for bleach. Harry doesn't want to get arrested by the mortal police either, and leaves the building, wondering what would have made Grum want to remove this picture from Reuel's apartment. 

I'm sorry this one took so long. My partner, who I think I have mentioned is a game designer, was getting his first publicly released game ready for open beta for two of the past three weeks, so I was doing editing and page layout for that, making the website, setting up the itch.io page, the patreon, the Discord server, y'know, etc. Shadows From Another World is a social deduction game, sorta One Night Werewolf (or Mafia, if you're old fashioned) meets The Thing. The open beta is free, and the materials to play the game are available at literally all of those links, so you should go check it out. Until next time, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!