Cold Days

I lost track of what Eldest Gruff was saying, because my mouth was falling open.

The second man noticed my expression and let out a low, rumbling chuckle. It wasn't one of those ironic snickers. It was a rolling, full-throated sound of amusement, and it made his stomach shake like . . . dare I say it?

Like a bowl full of jelly.

"And this," Eldest Gruff said, "is Mab's new Knight."

"Uh," I said. "Sorry. I . . . uh. Hi." I stuck my hand out. "Harry Dresden."

His hand engulfed mine as he continued to chortle. His fingers could have crushed my bones. "I know who you are, Dresden," he rumbled. "Call me Kringle."

"Wow, seriously? 'Cause . . . wow."

"Oh, my God, that's adorable," Sarissa said, smiling. "You are such a fanboy, Dresden."

"Yeah, I've just . . . I hadn't really expected this kind of thing."

Kringle let out another rumbling laugh. It absolutely filled the air around him. "Surely you knew that I made my home among the beings of Faerie. Did you think I would be a vassal of Summer, lad?"

"Honestly?" I asked. "I haven't ever really stopped to think it through."

"Few do," he said. "How does your new line of work suit you?"

"Doesn't," I said.

"Then why did you agree to it?"

"Seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

Kringle smiled at me. "Ah. I didn't much care for your predecessor."

"Ditto," I said. "So do you come to all of these?"

"It's customary," Kringle replied. "I get to visit folk I rarely see elsewhere." He nodded toward the Erlking and Eldest Gruff. "We take a few moments to catch up."

"And hunt," the Erlking said, showing sharp-looking teeth when he smiled.

"And hunt," Kringle said. He eyed Eldest Gruff. "Would you care to accompany us this year?"

Gruff somehow managed to smile. "You always ask."

"You always say no."

Eldest Gruff shrugged and said nothing.

"Wait," I said to Kringle. "You're going hunting?" I pointed at the Erlking. "With him? You?"

Kringle let out another guffaw and, I swear to God, rested his hands on his belly while he did it. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Dude," I said. "Dude. You're . . . freaking Santa Claus."

"Not until after Halloween," he said. "Enough is enough. I'm drawing a line."

"Hah," I said, "but I'm kinda not joking here."

He grunted, and the smile faded from his features. "Lad, let me tell you something here and now. None of us is what we once were. Everyone has a history. Everyone comes from somewhere. Each moves toward a destination. And in a lifetime as long as mine, the road can run far and take strange windings-something I judge you know something about."

I frowned. "Meaning?"

He gestured at himself. "This became the tale with which you are familiar only in fairly recent times. There are wizards enough alive today who knew of no such person when they were children awaiting the winter holiday."

I nodded thoughtfully. "You became something different."

He gave me a wink of his eye.

"So what were you before?"

Kringle smiled, apparently content to say nothing.

I turned to Sarissa, asking, "You seem to know these guys, mostly. What . . . ?"

She wasn't there.

I looked around the immediate area, but didn't see her. I moved my eyes back to Kringle and the Erlking. The two of them looked at me calmly, without expression. I darted a glance to Eldest Gruff, whose long, floppy right ear twitched once.

I glanced to my left, following the motion, and spotted Sarissa being led onto the dance floor underneath the replica of my original Star Wars poster. The poster was the size of a skyscraper mural now, the dance floor beneath it the size of a parking lot. For the most part, the Sidhe were dancing, all fantastic grace and whirling color, with the occasional glitter of jewellike feline eyes sparkling as they turned and swayed.

A young male Sidhe was leading her by the wrist, and from the set of her shoulders she was in pain. You couldn't have guessed it from her expression. The young Sidhe wore a black leather jacket and a Cincinnati ball cap, but I didn't get a look at his face.

"A fresh challenge, it would seem," the Erlking murmured.

"Yeah," I said. "Gentlemen, if you would excuse me."

"You know Mab's law at court, aye?" Kringle asked. "You know the price of breaking it?"

"Yep."

"What do you mean to do, lad?"

"Seems that what we have here is a failure to communicate," I said. "Think I'll go open up a dialogue."

Chapter Six

Moving onto a dance floor full of Sidhe is like dropping acid.

Partly it's because they're just so damned pretty. The Sidhe maidens there were all in Maeve's league in terms of sheer physical attractiveness, and some of them were just about as barely dressed as she was, only in what must have been the latest trends in the Chicago club scene for the fashionably provocative. And, yeah, the boys were pretty, too, and tarting it up just as much as the girls, but they weren't nearly as much of a distraction to me.

Partly it's because of their grace. The Sidhe aren't human, even though they look like close relatives. When you see an Olympic gymnast or ice skater or a professional dancer performing a routine, you can't help but be impressed with the sheer, casual grace with which they move, as if their bodies are lighter than air. The clumsiest of the Sidhe operate at about that same level, and the exceptional leave the mortals eating dust behind them. It's hard to describe because it's hard for the brain to process-there's no frame of reference for what I saw, the motion, the balance, the power, the effortless subtlety. It was like suddenly discovering an entirely new sense with an enormous amount of input: I kept seeing things that made my brain scream at me to stop and watch so that it could catalog and process them properly.

And partly it's because of their magic. The Sidhe use magic the way the rest of us breathe, instinctively and without thinking about it. I'd fought them before, and their power was largely invoked through simple gestures, as if the spells had been hardwired into their motor reflexes. For them, movement was magic, and at no time so much as when they danced.

Their power didn't come after me, specifically-it was more like I had plunged into it, as if it were a pool of water occupying the same space as the dance floor. It subsumed my mind almost at once, and it was all I could do to grit my teeth and hang on. Ribbons of colored light flared in the air around the dancing Sidhe. Their feet struck the floor and their hands struck upon bodies, their own or otherwise, adding rippling layers of syncopated rhythm to the music. Gasps and cries joined with the beat and the melody, primal and fierce, echoing and challenging one another from all quarters, as if they'd practiced it. They hadn't. It was just what they were.