In less than a second, the last Huntsman’s throat looked like twenty or thirty pounds of pulled pork soaked in ketchup.

The Elder malk flung himself aside as the Huntsman, not even yet fully grown into the size of the ones we’d had to kill, dropped limply to the ground, gushing blood like a broken water main. Grimalkin landed not ten feet in front of the Harley, flicked each set of claws once, fastidiously, and said, in that utterly unnerving feline voice, “Sir Knight. Elder Grimalkin, reporting for duty.”

“Jesus Mary Mother of God,” Murphy breathed.

Grimalkin flattened his ears and gave Murphy a glower, then turned to me and said, “There are multiple warbands on the adjoining streets. My kin keep them occupied, for now. We are badly outnumbered, Sir Knight. Retreat would be ideal, before—”

The Jotun’s horn blared. In the haze and among the buildings, it was impossible to tell where it was, other than . . .

“Close,” Murphy breathed.

“Before that,” Grimalkin said sourly.

“Well done, Elder,” I said. “But we’re getting those kids out.”

The malk growled. “We cannot contest a Jotun, Sir Knight.”

“Pussy,” Murphy said.

I blinked at her.

She smirked. “Too good, couldn’t resist.”

Grimalkin’s fur bristled and his weight shifted slightly.

Without breaking her smirk, Murphy swept her pistol out and covered the malk as quick as blinking. “Steel-jacketed rounds tonight, friend,” she advised. “Play nice.”

Grimalkin growled at Murphy, eyed me, then relaxed as if nothing had happened. He flexed the claws out of his right forepaw and regarded them idly, ignoring Murphy completely.

She put the gun away and returned the favor. But she never quite let the malk out of her sight.

They’d get on fine.

I swung off the bike. Murphy followed. I beckoned Butters and the Alphas. “We’re getting those kids out first,” I said, walking. “Grimalkin, you and Winter keep a corridor open for us, back to the defenses.”

“We cannot hold it long,” Grimalkin warned me.

“Do it,” I said over my shoulder. “Go.”

The Elder malk made a throaty, ugly sound and vanished before it could even complete turning away.

I came up on the entry to the day-care center stairwwell to find Bradley gripping his spear and standing braced in the doorway, his eyes very, very wide. The spear was already degrading and flaking away. It’d be gone in a few more minutes.

“Hey, Detective Bradley. It’s, uh, me. Harry Dresden. Remember?”

The blocky man stared at me. Then he jerked his head in a nod.

“Murph,” I said.

She stepped past me, her hands out. “Hey, hey. Brian. You with me, buddy?”

Bradley stared at her for a second and then lowered the spear a little. “We aren’t buddies, Sergeant. You kind of hate my guts.”

Murphy looked from the liquefying forms of the slain Huntsmen to Bradley. “That was then. This is now.”

He blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?” He twitched as the wolves and Butters brought up the rear. “What the hell is happening?”

“Hi,” Butters said, and waved.

“Hi?” said Bradley. He blinked. “Doctor Butters?”

“You know all that stuff I told you in closed session that you thought was bullshit?” Murphy asked.

“And all that stuff I told you in closed session that you thought was bullshit?” Butters added brightly.

The blocky detective looked from the dead Huntsmen and the fallen fae back to Murphy and Butters. “Jesus Christ.”

Bradley handled it pretty well. He got a little whiter around the eyes for a couple of seconds, and then he closed them firmly, set his jaw, and adjusted, visibly.

“Fuck it, I’ll lose my mind later,” he said, and when he opened his eyes again, he had his cop face on. “I got six kids, a nice old lady, and a Rudolph up there. How do we get them out?”

“Back to Millennium Park,” I said. “We’re keeping a corridor open. Send them west from there.”

Shrieks and yowls burst out around us, as Winter launched an attack upon enemy forces. Huntsmen howled, and their spears wailed. In the background, but closer, came the thunder of the Eye claiming another building.

“Get the kids out now,” Murphy said.

Bradley tensed his jaw, nodded, dropped the spear, and pounded up the stairway. He paused by the door, flattened himself against a wall, and called, “It’s Bradley,” before he opened it with one hand, staying well clear.

“Bradley?” came Rudolph’s voice. It was panicky.

Rudolph had run into monsters a couple of times. Granted, both of those times had been bad. But he’d been like a lot of people who run into the supernatural—he just couldn’t handle it. Maybe that was a personal shortcoming. Or maybe he’d just been born without the capacity to face that kind of terrifying reality. Either way, it made it harder to like him, especially at times like this.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Dammit, Bradley!” Rudolph screamed.

“It’s me . . . sir . . .” Bradley said, his voice heavy with patience.

“Get in here! Get under cover!”

“We’ve got to get out of here while we can,” Bradley said. “Get the kids—we’ve got to go.”

“Are you crazy?” Rudolph demanded. “It’s a war zone out there!”

I leaned in and shouted up the stairwell, “It’s going be a war zone right in there with you if you don’t get moving, Rudolph!”

“Dresden!?”

“Yes, it’s me, moron,” I said, in my grumpiest wizard voice. “And we’re not going to be able to get out for much longer, you knucklehead, so move it!”

“This is your doing!” Rudolph squealed. “More of your lies!”

Bradley got a peculiar expression on his face. I wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, though you could probably have captioned the photo, How Could I Have Been So Blind?

He held up a finger to me. Then he walked in through the door.

There was a thump, and a clatter.

Bradley emerged from the day care with Rudolph draped limply over one shoulder, and the man’s pistol in his own shoulder holster. He was carrying a small child, maybe two years old, in the other arm.