“I guess I’ll go talk to them.” I sighed.
I hurried down from the roof toward the front gate. It was one thing to stand around being hostile toward a stone castle that you knew was full of armed guards and potentially hostile magical weirdos. It was quite another to have some real live human targets only a few feet away who were specifically there to vex you—and some of these same protesters had already been enjoying bullying Bock’s people around during the winter.
A difficult situation had just turned into a powder keg.
Bear and Will stayed with me as I emerged from the castle, which excited the protesters almost immediately. I stomped toward Bock.
“What the hell, Artemis?” I demanded.
He nodded at me. “Dresden. We’ve been worried about the direction this is going. We wanted them to know that you weren’t alone.” He looked a little sheepish. “And…you know. For you to know it, too.”
I tried to scowl at him but…
…but I couldn’t.
It…it felt really good that they’d shown up to support me.
“Dammit.” I sighed. “Look, man. I can look out for myself just fine. Been doing it for a while.”
He traded a handshake with Will, listening to me. “I know, I know. But this is bigger than just you. You know?” He looked across the street as his people formed a couple of ranks across the sidewalk, holding their signs. “I haven’t seen open persecution of supernatural folk like this, ever. You’re their first target, but if we don’t stand together, it’s going to spread. There’s been people watching my store. Lurking around outside McAnally’s.”
Oh.
They were scared, too.
It’s easier to be scared together with those like you. Easier to bear when you have someone standing beside you. Easier to bear when you were doing something to take action, instead of just waiting around for bad things to happen.
Which…was kind of the whole problem. Not just with Chicago, here, today, but with humanity in general.
Sitting with fear and not letting it get to you, letting it make you do things you wouldn’t do otherwise, is damned difficult.
“Bock,” I said gently, “this could get ugly. The police don’t have the manpower to get very involved. And I don’t know if I can protect you and your people fast enough if something happens.”
He nodded grimly. “I know. I know. But we have to stand together on this. We can’t just…just wait for them to work themselves up more and more. That is only going to invite them to start actual violence.”
“He’s not wrong,” Bear noted.
“Yes,” I said tightly to Bear, “thank you. I have so much help I hardly know what to do with it all.”
She lifted her hands and looked nonplussed.
“Argh,” I said, putting a hand to my head. “I don’t suppose I could just get you all to leave?”
“You didn’t leave us to the Wardens,” Bock said stubbornly. “And this is a public sidewalk. We have as much right to be here as they do.”
“Harry,” Will said quietly. “Look.”
He gestured across the street.
The protesters had indeed backed off. Not a lot, but they weren’t aggressively standing on the edge of the street and screaming. They seemed to be talking mostly among themselves, casting dark and uncertain glances across the asphalt.
“I don’t think it’s going to last,” I noted.
“No, but…I mean, they’re backing off a little,” Will said. “At least for the moment.”
“Bock,” I said quietly. “Look. If I can’t get you to leave, I need to know you and your people aren’t going to start anything.”
He blinked and looked a little startled. “No. No, of course not. Harry, we don’t want anything bad to happen. We just want to show them that our community isn’t going to just wait around to be bullied again. That there’s more than a few of us and we’re standing together.”
