I looked at Bock. “What happened?”
“Roger and Bess run a little bakery in the bazaar outside Mac’s,” Bock said. “They had stayed open a little late, and it was after dark when they were packing up.”
I eyed the couple. “That so?”
“They said they wanted to buy some food,” Roger said. His voice was surprisingly deep for his build. “When Bess opened up her basket, they just took it.”
“Roger tried to get the food back,” Bess said. “I mean…we’re trading for everything right now. We can’t afford to lose stock. It’s how we’re getting along.”
“Sure,” I said, frowning. “What happened?”
“They, uh.” Roger swallowed.
Fitz showed up just then with a tray of steaming paper cups. He gave one to me and started passing them out to the guests. Roger and Bess gripped theirs with both hands, as if they needed the warmth. I took a sip of mine. Cider. Excellent. The ladies from the Ordo Lebes had gone out of their way for me and the others in the castle since the battle.
“Take your time,” I said to them.
“They called us freaks,” Bess said quietly. “And then they beat us with broom handles.” She held up one of her arms to show me purple stripes.
I exhaled slowly. “Hell’s bells. Do you know them?”
The young couple shook their heads. “And it was dark when they got there. You know how it is at night now.”
“We’ve been getting a lot of that kind of attention,” Bock said quietly. “Outside Mac’s. At my store. Normies throwing things. Calling people names. Like playground bullies. But it hadn’t ever gone to something like this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to the young couple. I looked up at Bock. “You go to the police?”
Bock rolled his eyes. “Some of them give us the same kind of looks. You know?”
Chicago had been given a very rude awakening when Ethniu had shown up and begun mowing down skyscrapers, and when monsters from a dozen different mythoses (mythoi?) had shown up and begunhunting down the city’s residents. A lot of people had moved out in a massive human wave—some because the town had been wrecked, and some because they had seen horrible things out of make-believe come to life. Those who had stayed had done so because they were tougher than most, or poorer than most, which in many ways was the same thing.
I had been fearing this. People, afraid, tend to band together—draw into tribes. One of the glues that hold tribes together is fear of other tribes. And there was plenty of reason to fear the supernatural and those connected to it these days.
I looked at the wounded kids. If the cops didn’t have time to hunt down murdering ghouls, they wouldn’t have time to deal with roving bands of bullies, either.
“Look, Dresden,” Bock said quietly. “We aren’t really here looking for help. We’re here because you need to understand why we’re going to do what we’re about to do.”
I frowned at Bock and the committee behind him. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to take steps,” he said in a quiet, firm voice. “Nothing deadly. But we’re not going to just let ourselves get beaten, either.”
“You mean to use magic,” I said quietly.
He nodded.
“The Wardens won’t like that,” I said.
“They aren’t going to know,” he said.
“Aren’t they?”
He smiled without mirth. “Not from you, at least. Or we’ll tell them about Fitz.”
Fitz, now standing behind me, made a quiet sound that could have been a growl.
Bock spread his hands. “I’m not looking for trouble with you,” he said. “Honestly. But we’ve all been through too much. What happened to Roger and Bess is going to happen to other people, too, unless we do something about it.”
I drummed my fingers on the tabletop twice and then took a long, slow sip of cider, using the time to think.
