Dresden Files Reread - Summer Knight Chapter 21

Photo by Yasin Arıbuğa on Unsplash

 Hi, everyone! Sorry I kind of fell of the map for two months there. It has been a Time over here at Mint and Brambles, and unfortunately I can't get into hardly any of the details. Broke my phone, bird covered in motor oil, all kinds of other nonsense. Anyway. 

Harry and Murphy leave the Walmart through the back door, and run into Grum. Murphy, covered in a blanket, screams and pretends to trip and fall trying to run away, while Harry distracts Grum with some theatrics, allowing her to pull out a chainsaw and cut one of Grum's legs most of the way off. I think this is our first proper look at what steel can do to the fae if it's deliberately wielded against them, as opposed to, for example, the Chlorofiend crashing into a metal shelving unit. I don't think it's every explicitly established that intent matters here, the way it does with so many other magical things, but the infected-looking dark patches that Grum's leg gets here hardly ever show up except when someone intentionally uses steel or cold iron as a weapon. Grum is still upsettingly formidable without the ability to stand, and almost gets Murphy, whose leg is genuinely in pretty bad shape after the run-in with Harry's marbles, but Harry sprays him down with a squirt gun full of gasoline, and then ignites it using a can of Sterno. I had a whole thing here questioning where they got the gasoline, but this is actually addressed almost immediately in the next chapter. I do, however, still doubt that they could have managed to get to the backup generators for the freezers, filled the squirt gun and fueled the chainsaw, and gotten out the door, in the three minutes we're told it's been since the end of the previous chapter, even supposing that they backup generators and their fuel supply were reasonably near the back exit. 

In any event, setting Grum on fire works well enough to discorporate him, but Murphy's injury was exacerbated in the fight, and she can't really walk. Harry settles her against the wall and goes to get the car, to bring it around to her. She pretty well insists on his taking her gun, pointing out that if the monsters come for her, it won't be much help anyway, but there was someone with a rifle earlier, and Harry doesn't have "most of [his] magic stuff". Using magic to kill a human, even one who's trying to shoot him, would also violate the laws of magic, but she doesn't know that yet. When Harry expresses concern about leaving her unarmed, she pulls out another, smaller gun - the one she keeps in her ankle holster. Honestly passing gear around this way also feels to me like something more likely in a tabletop game than a novel, but I don't know if I'd read it that way without some of the stuff that's already happened. Harry also reminds her to confirm that what comes back for her is actually him, since some monsters can change their faces. I uh, don't think she needed the reminder on that one.

Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash

As Harry starts walking around the building, he gets a physical shield ready, which has to share focus, and use of his left hand, with his protections against the Mind Fog. This means he'll have to do any shooting using only his right hand, which is awkward since he's not a great shot anyway. I believe that's the first time we hear about that. The Chlorofiend seems to have torn its way through the chain-link fence around the garden center, and isn't anywhere in sight. Given that the car is apparently closer to the garden center than to the door they went out, I feel I must once again point out that they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble but just using the bolt cutters to go through the fence their own damn selves. Ah well. The fence was apparently frozen, then shattered, rather than melted or simply torn, implying that winter is involved here. Harry says that "wasn't much of a stretch", but I do hope he takes the time to think about it later. Nothing we know about Maeve at this point really suggests the kind of attention span necessary to try to kill him here, so either she didn't do this or we have a new clue, and it would be immensely informative if Mab had done so. Additionally, the Chlorofiend itself really has the feel of a summer thing, and if Summer and Winter are working together here, that's also something Harry should be very interested to know about. It takes him a bit to find his car, and he eventually tracks it down by following a coolant leak. At some point it's probably worth a more detailed exploration of what kinds of things Harry does and doesn't have trouble keeping track of, because you'd really think the kind of focus and memory required to do Wizard thing would lend itself to being able to remember where he left his car, at least if he made any real effort to do so, and yet. On the other hand, we're two concussions in at this point, one of which was between parking and now, so maybe Harry usually does know where his car is. 

Harry's going back past the garden center when the car is abruptly covered in frost. He sticks his head out the window in time to see the Chlorofiend slam its first down on the hood of the Beetle. Fortunately, it's a Volkswagen bug, so what's under the hood is mostly empty space - the car doesn't flip, and none of its important internal bits are disabled. Harry, in response, hits the Chlorofiend with his car. Twice. This leaves it in pretty bad shape, and he has time to get back to Murphy and get out to open the passenger side door for her before it pulls itself together enough to attack again. Unfortunately he's a lot more vulnerable outside the car, and the Chlorofiend manages to grab him. The specific phrase used here is "It got me.", harkening back to "The monsters got me." in the previous book. Murphy's not the only one having some PTSD about the events of Grave Peril, nor, I suspect, the only one whose confidence in their ability to deal with the things that go bump in the night has been somewhat shaken. The Chlorofiend, or whatever's driving it, calls him a "meddler" and tells him he doesn't know what's at stake. That's true, of course, he doesn't know what's actually going on yet, but he doesn't really have a choice about meddling. Incidentally, we who have read this book before know that it's Aurora sending Grum and the Chlorofiend after Harry, but how did she find him? In Small Favor, she's tracking him using the oak leaf pin (and his fire magic), but there isn't anything like that here, and I don't remember if it's ever explained. In any event, Harry tries to defend himself magically, but he's being squished and squeezed in all manner of uncomfortable ways, and then the Chlorofiend breaks his shield bracelet. Worse, his concentration on the spell protecting him from the Mind Fog wavers, so his brain starts turning to mush. 

Photo by Michael Fenton on Unsplash

Murphy, however, is protected by a charm, temporary but not directly dependent on Harry's ability to focus. And she's still got the chainsaw. I have questions about why she still has the chainsaw - it doesn't seem like carrying it when she's too injured to walk unassisted would be a good use of anyone's hands or energy - but I feel like I've poked at logic and continuity enough for one chapter. She dismantles the plant monster quite handily while Harry mostly stares off into space. Adding to the list of stuff to keep an eye on, I think the first book might be the only one where Harry isn't physically rescued by a woman at least once. No sooner has she finished taking it apart than someone starts shooting at them, so she prods Harry into the car. I'm pretty sure you shouldn't drive while under the effects of a Mind Fog, but he manages to get them out of there. 

So that's what we have for this week. Honestly I am hoping I'll have a little more motivation to post now what we're out of this damned Walmart. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!