Dresden Files Rearead - Summer Knight Chapter 19

Photo by Bálint Szabó on Unsplash

As they try to find a way out of the store, Harry explains to Murphy that he thinks what they're dealing with is a mind fog, and roughly what it does. This is a nasty piece of spellwork, and what we know about how magic works, I think even at this point in the series, suggests that it's also a pretty substantial outlay of power. Presumably this kind of thing is easier with thaumaturgy, but at that point I think you'd have to get a circle up around an entire walmart supercenter, and that sounds both time consuming and impractical. He also says he's not sure, because he's never seen one before, since they're illegal. Murphy says he never mentioned anything about magical law, which is a bit puzzling if he actually told her the whole situation he's dealing with, since his own status as a former warlock is sort of central to why the White Council is treating him this way. 

Murphy tries the fire alarm, which doesn't work. Neither does trying to go out the back, indicating that whoever's behind this is not just trying to force Harry out an exit of their choosing, and likely means to kill or capture him right there in the Walmart. There's a little bit of discussion and banter here about Murphy's Colt 1911, how it's better in a magic-heavy environment than something newer, but Harry still thinks revolvers are more reliable. This gear comparison, people explaining the virtues of their loadout, criticizing other people's, happens a lot in Dresden Files, and either that's evidence that the series draws from a genre or medium I don't spend a lot of time with, or it's specific to Jim Butcher's work, because I don't think I've seen it anywhere else. Literarilly, it's a good tool - it gives the reader a picture of what resources everyone has ready to hand before they come into play, telegraphs that an action scene is coming up, can often tell us something about the nature of the setting or the particular threat they're up against, and establishes everyone involved in the conversation as equals who respect each other (most of the time - like when it happens in Blood Rites, it's actually partly about establishing that Kincaid has a lot more experience with this kind of fight than Harry or Murphy). Sometimes it also builds, introduces, or reinforces other aspects of the dynamic between the characters, but that's just the nature of dialogue. They retreat to the automotive section, decently far from the mist, and Harry uses the stolen salt shakers to put up a circle. He makes a protective charm for Murphy using some of her hair and a thread from his own shirt, string around her finger so she won't forget. I notice that a lot of Harry's best and most reliable magic is based on these little ingrained cultural ideas: follow your noise, flicum bicus, string around your finger so you won't forget, pocket full of sunshine. I'm curious if wizards from other cultures have similar results with different culturally significant images, ideas, and metaphors, or if this is specifically a Harry thing. He wraps his pentacle around his hand, preparing to use that for his own protection. Murphy is visibly kind of freaked out here, due primarily to her trauma at the hands of the Nightmare, although honestly this is the first time she's really seen Harry properly doing magic, and I think that might be kind of unsettling either way. She's pretty open with Harry about it when he asks, and when she expresses concern that she won't fully recover, he says that if she doesn't he'll make fun of her and...put aprons on her car? and call he a sissy girl in front of her coworker every day. This seems to calm her down. 

Harry drops the circle, and they step into the mist. Their protections hold, although Harry's takes some active upkeep, and they head for the garden center. Why they chose this over an exit that would take them more directly out of the store I genuinely have no idea. It's possible they just got turned around in the low visibility, but I kind of thought Harry had a better sense of direction than that. They stop briefly so Harry can help an old man sit down, because Harry has an affinity for old people and we have to be reminded about this every couple of books. They've just made it through to the garden center when a woman whom they mistook for an employee caught by the fog reveals herself to be the Tigress and attacks Harry with a pair of gardening shears. This causes Harry to fall and hit his head on the floor, "complete with a burst of phantom light", bringing this book's concussion count to 2. When we get closer to the wrap-up post for this one, I'm gonna do a quick reread of the first two books and count the head injuries there too so I can make a graph. When this doesn't immediately kill him, the Tigress pulls a gun, but Murphy gets her in a grapple and either breaks or dislocates her wrist, causing her to drop the gun. This is mildly interesting inasmuch as it suggests that while they're considerably stronger than humans, ghouls don't have much sturdier connective tissue than we do. If I remember correctly, they do have some pretty serious accelerated healing, so they may just rely on that to compensate for being strong enough to pull their own skeletons apart. Or maybe there's a magic thing related to their transformation abilities that protects their joints and tendons from being damaged by their own movements, but not by external forces. Murphy tries to arrest the Tigress, whom she likely doesn't realize is anything other than a hostile human, but the ghoul changes shape and Murphy panics and freezes. Unfortunately the Tigress decides to tease Murphy a little before going in for the kill, which is frankly surprising behavior in a contact killer, giving Murphy time to recover and empty an entire clip into the Tigress. As an aside, Harry confidently asserts that bullets rip through a human body "like lead weights through cheesecloth", and I find that a little puzzling because most of the cheesecloth I've personally interacted with has been pretty sturdy for how thin it is. Maybe if you, I don't know, dropped a lead weight on a taught piece of cheesecloth from high up it would go through, but that isn't specified, so I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be picturing here. Jim Butcher is just not at the top of his descriptive game these last couple of chapters. 

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Murphy reloads and seems to be considering putting a whole second clip into the Tigress since the first one failed to kill her, but Grum the Ogre, armed with a hoe and a gardening shovel, interrupts them. Harry taunts Grum and tries to lead in further into the garden center, away from Murphy. This is when he tries the thing with the marbles, which doesn't work at all because Grum simply crushes them. Murphy, meanwhile, has new problems of her own, because someone is covering the exit with a rifle. Exactly which exit, at this point I'm honestly not sure - maybe back from the garden center into the main body of the store? Again, Butcher isn't doing his best description here. Harry gets out into the open air area where they sell baby trees and thing, getting a substantial lead on Grum in the process, but Grum has twisted the latch out of shape so it can't be opened. He asks why Grum is doing this, but Grum just does this "guess you'll die not knowing" bit. Escaping into the Nevernever is a dubious option at best (I certainly wouldn't want to visit whatever's across the Veil from a Walmart garden center on a summer night, although Harry is more concerned about time distortion), so he forms the notion of piling stuff up to get over the fence. I have serious questions about how quickly he can really do this when Grum is "several yards away", but sure. He tells Murphy he thinks he has a way out, and to get herself to safety if she can, but she refuses to leave without him. He's just starting to actually climb the fence when the saplings and mulch he piled up physically grab him, as they start coming together into the chlorofiend. 

I never have as much to say as I'd like about these action-heavy chapters. Maybe if I can find anyone, I'll try to get a guest blogger to come in and talk about what works and doesn't about the way Butcher writes fight scenes, because it's honestly a little out of my wheelhouse. As always, I'm gonna try to be faster going forward, but I still can't give this blog the kind of time it really deserves and still make enough money to eat and live indoors. Until next time, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!