Vs outsiders

We had arrived at Demonreach—and the island was under attack.
The first thing I saw was the curtain wall around the island’s shoreline. It was nothing but a flicker of opalescent light, like a dense aurora borealis, stretching from the water’s edge up into the October sky. It cast an eerie glow over the trees of the island, steeping them in menacing black shadow, and its reflection in the waters of the lake was three or four times bigger and more colorful than it should have been.
As the Hunt rushed closer, I could make out other details, too. There was a small fleet of boats surrounding the island—it looked like something out of WWII’s Pacific theater. Some of the boats were modest recreational models, several at least the size of the Water Beetle, and three looked like tugboat-barge units, the kind that could ferry twenty loaded train cars around the lake.
I could see motion in the waters around the shore. Things were swarming up out of the lake, hideous and fascinating—hundreds of them. They smashed into Demonreach’s curtain wall. Light pulsed in liquid concentric circles where they touched it, and shrieks of alien agony stretched the air toward a breaking point. The waters within twenty feet of the shore bubbled and thrashed in a demonic frenzy.
I felt a pulse of power stir in the air, and a bolt of sickly green energy lashed across the waters and slammed into the curtain wall. The entire wall dimmed for a second, but then resurged as the island resisted the attack. I tracked the bolt back to the barge and saw a figure in a weird, writhing cloak standing on the deck, facing the island—Sharkface.
As I watched, I saw a Zodiac boat carrying a team of eight men in dark clothing rush in toward the shore. The man in the nose of the boat lifted something to his shoulder, there was a loud foomp, and a fire blossomed in the brush, burning with an eye-searing chemical brilliance. Then the Zodiac whirled and rushed back out again, as if to escape a counterstrike—or maybe they just didn’t want to stay anywhere close to waters full of piranhalike frenzied Outsiders while sitting in a rubber boat. Half a dozen other boats were doing the same thing, and several other similar craft were sitting still, full of armed men waiting silently for the chance to land onshore.
I stared in shock. The recent rain meant that the island wasn’t likely to burst into flame anytime soon, but I had utterly underestimated the scope of tonight’s conflict, ye gods and little fishes. This wasn’t just a ritual spell.
This was an all-out amphibious assault, my very own miniature war.

Cold Days Chapter 42, Page 409-410


Demonreach was meant to keep things in, not out, but I didn’t want to blab about that in front of mixed company. “It encourages everyone to stay away, and turns up the heat slowly for anyone who doesn’t,” I said back. “But that’s when it isn’t being attacked by an army of cultists and a horde of howling freaks from beyond reality. It was busy making sure none of the Outsiders could come up onto shore—and none of them could. It just outmuscled an army led by something that could go toe-to-toe with Mab. Everything has its limits.” I checked with my intellectus and realized that Mac and Sarissa were bringing up the rear. That wouldn’t do. I still didn’t know the role they were playing in this game. “Mouse,” I called. “Take rear guard, in case those hounds circle around and try to sneak up on us.”

Cold Days Chapter 46, Page 445