Free Cold Days by Jim Butcher Page A

Redcap knew how to kill, but by maneuvering me out of using my magic, he’d tipped some of his hand: He was being cautious about me.
    Sure, he was a predator, but in nature predators generally go after the weak, the sick, the aged, and the isolated. Solitary predators almost exclusively hunt by attacking from surprise, where they have every advantage in their favor. Hell, even great white sharks do that, and they’re just about the biggest, oldest predators on the planet. I’ve seen a lot of things that hunted people in my time, and I regard them as a professional hazard, part of the job. I know how they operate. Predators don’t like to pick fair fights. It runs counter to their nature and robs them of many of their advantages.
    The Redcap had tried to limit what I could do in a bid to scrape together any advantage he could, as any predator does. That told me that he probably wasn’t used to this kind of open confrontation.
    He was nervous.
    I was nervous, too—but I was on familiar psychological ground and he wasn’t. Maybe I could use that.
    I undid the top button of the shirt and shrugged out of the jacket as if nothing at all were about to happen, taking my time. I tossed it at one of the watching Sidhe. He caught it and folded it neatly over one arm, never looking away, while I calmly undid the cuffs of my shirt and rolled up the sleeves. I stowed the cuff links in a pocket.
    I stretched and yawned, which might have been taking the pantomime over the top, but what the hell? In for a penny. I smiled at Maeve, inclined my head very slightly to Mab, and turned to face the Redcap.
    “Ready,” I said.
    “Ready,” the Redcap echoed.
    The music abruptly stopped, and in the silence Mab’s voice came from everywhere. “Begin.”
    I rushed forward faster than I ever could have done before I’d become Mab’s Knight. It was damned close. The Redcap was quicker off the mark, but I had longer arms. He snatched the nearest end of the silk an instant before I grabbed my end. As my fingers closed, he snapped it back out of my grip, and then dropped his weight straight down, his back leg coming forward into a crescent-shaped sweep about six inches off the icy floor.
    I turned my forward stumble into a forward roll. I went over the kick, tucked in tight, and came up to my feet smoothly—but the motion had carried me past him, and I knew that with his speed and grace, he’d already be leaping toward my back.
    I spun to him, one hand at the level of my throat to intercept him if he was already close enough to get the tie around it, and lunged back toward him with my right arm raised to the horizontal, hoping to catch him across the neck in a clothesline.
    I’d misjudged. He was moving so fast that all I got was motion blur, and he hadn’t swept the silk tie at my neck—he’d aimed for my upraised left hand. The silk snaked around my wrist, and I caught it in my hand just in time for him to slip to one side, dragging my arm in close to his body. He used my forward momentum and my trapped arm to rob me of my balance and spin me in a circle, hauling at my arm with all his strength.
    His strength was considerable, and his technique was sound. He suddenly reversed, using my own motion against me, and dislocated my arm from its shoulder socket with a loud pop and a flash of red-hot pain.
    “Harry!” Sarissa screamed, grabbing uselessly at the ogre’s wrist. It was as thick as her own leg, and the ogre didn’t even seem to notice her struggling.
    The Redcap kept hold of my arm, my wrist pulled up against his sternum and still trapped in the tie. He smiled broadly and walked backward in a small circle, the pain and the leverage forcing me to scramble along the floor in front of him. A gale of lovely, cold laughter went up from the Sidhe like a chorus of frozen chimes.
    The Redcap took a miniature, mocking bow to the crowd and spoke to me. “I was worried for a moment, mortal. You’re faster than you look.”
    He kicked me