Skin Game

by Jim Butcher

  I watched for another ten minutes, until I was pretty sure I had it, and could see the patterns aligning to give me my string of openings.

  “Harry?” Michael asked, finally.

  I held up my hand to silence him, bouncing my hand slightly to help me keep track, following the pattern. The way through was going to open about . . . now.

  I leapt down to the ground and started running.

  I was five strides onto the ice, and through the opening in the first row of grinders, before I realized that I may have miscounted, and that if I had, I would have no opening through the next-to-last row.

  There was no help for it. The opening behind me was already gone. I’d just have to adjust on the fly.

  I kept moving forward, dashing ahead through a pair of house-sized grinders before they could crash together with me in the middle. I whipped to the diagonal for a couple of rows, and the air got colder and colder as I went ahead. I could stand at the heart of a cavern of ice deep within a glacier, naked and wet from the shower and not shiver, but this cold was beginning to get to me. My breath became a large plume, visible in the air, and the floating chips of ice gathered on my eyelashes, making me fear that if I blinked, they might freeze together.

  On I went, going over a single smaller block like a hurdler, and the cold got deeper and deeper, and while the Winter Knight had nothing to fear from slipping on simple ice, the fine, powdery sleet coating the cavern floor from all the grinding impacts did not make things easy, even for me.

  One hundred and eighty yards or so, and things went relatively well. Then I found out that I had, indeed, miscounted.

  I ran for the place where the opening in the row of spinning, randomly slamming grinders should have been, and realized about a step before I got there that it wasn’t coming.

  So I pointed my staff at the more battered-looking of the blocks in front of me, focused my will and shouted, “Forzare!”

  Unseen force smashed into the block, sending it spinning wildly away from me. The block into which it had been about to smash went spinning after it, as if the two were attracted by mutual gravity. I followed in their wake, as they smashed into a couple of blocks in the next row, and ice shattered into a cloud of mist and flying chips. Something hit my stomach and something else hit my hand. A section of block came tumbling wildly toward me, and I bounded up into a rolling dive that took me a good six feet off the cavern floor, shouting, “Parkour!”

  Then I was through the grinders and into the shelter of the archway.

  The cold there was a living thing, something that abruptly doubled me over, my body beginning to shudder and tingle. It took everything I had to lift an arm, secure a hold on the lever with my bare fingers, and haul it steadily down.

  There was a loud grinding sound, like ancient, ice-encrusted gears beginning to whir together, and an enormous thumping sound that reminded me of explosives going off at a safe distance. The horrible cold faded almost immediately to something merely Antarctic, and I sank to one knee and peered back the way I had come.

  The blocks had ceased their motion, simply dropping to the ground wherever they were moving or spinning or crashing.

  I was through.

  I stood up and waved my still-lit staff left and right in a broad motion. Then I paused to take stock of myself.

  My shirt was bloody and so was my right hand. I lifted my shirt to examine my abdomen and found a small wound there. It took me a minute, but I was able to get my fingers around the end of a splinter of ice approximately the size and shape of a small nail, and I withdrew it in a little squirt of steaming red blood. Ugly, but it hadn’t gone all the way through the muscle and it couldn’t have pierced my abdominal wall. Not dangerous. I checked my right hand. A similar shard of ice had pierced me, but it was smaller and the heat of my blood had evidently melted it away. It wasn’t bad. I’d lost a couple of layers of skin to the frozen metal of the gate’s deactivation lever. That was it.

  But, man, I was glad I didn’t have a mirror to look in right about now.

  By the time the rest of the crew reached me, the air was merely wintry, and I was on my feet again, and I’d used a small fire spell to sear away the blood that was on the little shard of ice, along with the shard itself.

  Michael approached me with his eyes wide and said, “Dear God in Heaven, Harry. That was amazing. I’ve never seen you move so quickly.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “There aren’t many perks to being the Winter Knight, but that’s one of them.”

  “Did you shout ‘Parkour’?” Michael asked.

  “Well, sure,” I said. “That was kinda Parkour-like.”

  Michael fought to keep a smile off his face. “Harry,” he said, “I’m almost certain one doesn’t shout ‘Parkour.’ I believe one is supposed to simply do Parkour.”

  “Do I criticize your Latin battle cries? No, never once.”

  “That is true,” Michael said soberly. He nodded toward my belly. “Are you all right?”

  “Flesh wound,” I said. “I’ll get some Bactine on it when we get back. Or let Charity drag out her bottle of iodine.”

  “She’d like that,” Michael said, nodding.

  “Ugh,” Ascher said, stepping beneath the arch, her arms folded against her stomach. “I hate the cold.”

  “Wear looser clothes,” Valmont suggested in a voice so dry that it defied anyone listening to find any snark in it. “Nice moves, Dresden.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m auditioning for the sequel to Frogger in a week.”

  Nicodemus, Grey, the Genoskwa, and Deirdre entered the archway together a moment later. Which was not even a little suspicious.

  Michael turned to me with a quizzical expression on his face, and had begun to form a question when the Genoskwa lunged, powering toward me with ferocious speed, and simply seized me by the upper body, his thumbs pressing against my chest, his hands wrapping around my arms and pinning them at my side.

  Michael swore and went for his sword, but Grey suddenly had Valmont by the hair, her head tilted back. Fingers that ended in an eagle’s talons pierced her throat delicately, drawing beads of blood, and he said, “Easy there, sir Knight. We don’t want any needless bloodshed.”

  The Genoskwa leaned down to glower at me and rumbled, “Please. Struggle. I would love some needless bloodshed.”

  “Nicodemus,” Ascher said, her voice sharp. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Nicodemus walked up to the arch arm in arm with Deirdre. “Because we have come to the Gate of Blood, children,” he said. He drew the Bedouin dagger from his belt and its damascene blade glittered in the light of my staff and amulet. “The time has come for one of you to die.”

  Thirty-nine

  Michael’s sword swept out of its sheath, and the silver-white fire of Amoracchius filled the archway. He said nothing. He didn’t need to. He took the Sword in a two-handed grip and settled into a relaxed ready position.

  Deirdre and Nicodemus immediately split apart, so that they forced Michael to divide his attention between them. She dropped into a fighting crouch, while Nicodemus narrowed his eyes and became very still. Grey regarded Michael impassively, while in his grasp, Anna Valmont turned completely pale and held very still. I felt the Genoskwa’s summer-sausage fingers tighten painfully.

  “Now, now, sir Knight,” Nicodemus said, his voice almost a growl. “There’s no need for this to devolve into general mayhem, is there?”

  “I will not allow you to harm them,” Michael said.

  “Lower the Sword,” Nicodemus said. “Or I will order Grey to kill Valmont.”

  “If you do that,” Michael said calmly, “Dresden and I will fight to the death.”

  I felt my eyes get a little bit wider, and my voice might not have been as deep and steady as it usually was, but I managed to say, “Right. We’ll fight you. Not each other. In c
ase that wasn’t clear.”

  “How assured is your victory?” Michael asked Nicodemus. “How many times has Amoracchius foiled your plans over the centuries?”

  “You’ve never beaten me, Knight,” Nicodemus said.

  “Almighty God as my witness, and as He gives me grace,” Michael said, “if you harm that woman, I will strike you down.”

  “Right,” I said. “Me too.”

  Nicodemus gave me an impatient glance and turned his attention back to Michael. “You should have stayed in your little house, quietly retired,” he said. “You didn’t matter there. I didn’t care about you any longer. If you begin a fight here, you will never see your family again.”

  Michael smiled faintly. “That is where you are wrong. With God’s blessing, it will take a good many years. But I will see them again.”

  “Think where you are, sir Knight,” Nicodemus said, his mouth quirking up into a mocking smile. “The Underworld is a prison for souls. Do you think yours is so great as to escape it?”

  “I am not great,” Michael said quietly. “But God is.”

  Nicodemus’s smile was like something you’d see on a shark. “One of the great disappointments in killing a Knight is knowing that he or she does not suffer as a result. But you are in the Underworld, Christian. Here, I think, your eternity will be something entirely different than you have been promised.”

  “On the one hand, I have your word,” Michael said. “On the other, I have my Father’s. I think I know to which voice I should listen.”

  “This is the land of Death,” Nicodemus said. “Death must be part of the offering to let us in. You have been so eager to lay down your life, sir Knight. Perhaps you will do so again, rather than forcing me to slay another.”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so,” he said. “No force compels you but your own ambition, Nicodemus. You could choose to turn back—and I will not let you destroy a life to serve your purposes.”

  “Even if by doing so, you force me to denounce Dresden and his mistress?” Nicodemus asked. “You know the consequences of that, should Mab be shamed by his failure to keep her word—and you are here on his. Should you bring this mission to a halt, Dresden will have broken Mab’s word. I imagine that his death will be a terrible one.”

  Michael was silent for a fairly awful moment.

  “Michael, no,” I said. “You’re carrying enough of a burden already.”

  That made him look at me, his eyes troubled. We had already been standing on some fairly shifty moral ground, and it was only getting muckier as we went forward. Laying down one’s life for a friend was pretty much the definition of a selfless act—but doing it so that a monster could get his hands on a supernatural weapon of tremendous power put it in an entirely different context, and not a flattering one. Especially not for a man carrying an archangel’s grace around like so much priceless china.

  “Wait,” Hannah Ascher said, stepping forward, her hands partly lifted, palms showing. “People, wait. This is not the time for us to turn on one another. We’re close. Your precious cup, Nicodemus. Twenty million each for the rest of us. If you let this explode right now, none of us gets anything except trapped down here. And somehow I don’t think our client will be a kind and gracious host, given what we’ve come here to do.”

  Nicodemus’s eyes flicked to Ascher and back to Michael. He stared at the Knight for a long moment and then said, “Deirdre. Conference.” He looked over his shoulder at Grey and the Genoskwa. “If they start to struggle, kill them.”

  He took a step back from Michael and then turned, walking calmly toward the other end of the archway. Deirdre went with him.

  Ascher let out her breath in an explosive hiss. “What is it with you religious types?”

  “Name like Hannah Ascher and you aren’t Jewish?” I asked.

  She sniffed. “That’s different.”

  I snorted, tracking Nicodemus and Deirdre’s movements. They went to the end of the tunnel, where there was another stretch of open cavern and a final stone wall. There was the impression of an archway carved into the stone, but no actual gate there. Shadows hung heavy over it. Nicodemus and his daughter stopped about five feet from the stone wall, and began speaking quietly.

  I could feel the Genoskwa practically quivering with the desire to do violence. I knew that if I showed any sign of physical resistance, he’d start on me. Maybe he wouldn’t kill me—not without having another way home—but he’d be happy to crack some ribs, rip off a couple of fingers, or maybe put out one of my eyes. If things got desperate enough, that might be a price I’d have to pay, but for the time being it made more sense to be still and keep my eyes open.

  “Grey,” I said, “I thought you were a pro.”

  “I am,” Grey said calmly. “You knew something like this was coming, wizard.” His fingers flexed gently on Valmont’s throat, by way of demonstration. “Do you really want everyone to fall apart right now?”

  I thought about it hard for a minute. “Not yet. Look, what I did, I did for insurance,” I said, “but he’s talking about killing one of us . . .”

  Wait a minute.

  If Nicodemus had chosen this moment to turn on us, against all reason, then why the hell was he bothering to negotiate anything? It hadn’t made much sense to move against me in the first place, especially since he would need me to make good his escape. It made even less sense to start it and then hesitate. I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t a waffler. If Nicodemus decided someone needed killing, he killed them, and then he went on to the next chore on his list.

  He was up to something. He had to be. But what?

  Nicodemus was a liar, through and through.

  This was theater. It had to be.

  And I realized his plan in a flash of insight: He hadn’t had Grey and the Genoskwa grab us because he’d been about to turn on us and kill us. He’d done it to force Michael to stay near us if he wanted to intervene—instead of intervening somewhere else.

  Deirdre and Nicodemus stood close together, his hand on her arm. I saw the demonform young woman look up into his eyes, her expression fragile and uncertain, and I focused my thoughts exclusively on my hearing, Listening as hard as I could.

  “. . . wish there was another way,” Nicodemus was saying quietly. “But you’re the only one I can trust.”

  “I know, Father,” Deirdre said. “It’s all right.”

  “You will be safe from the Enemy here.”

  Deirdre lifted her chin, and her eyes were wet. “I have chosen my path. I regret nothing.”

  Nicodemus leaned over and kissed his daughter’s forehead. “I am so proud of you.”

  A tear rolled down Deirdre’s cheek as she smiled, and the demonform faded away, until a blade-thin girl remained, staring up at him. “I love you, Father.”

  Nicodemus’s rough voice cracked a little. “I know,” he said, very gently. “And that is the problem.”

  And he struck with the curved Bedouin dagger.

  It was an angled thrust, up beneath the sternum and directly into the heart. Deirdre never broke eye contact with him, and never moved a muscle. The blade sank in to the hilt, and the only reaction she gave was a slight exhalation. Then she moved, leaning closer to Nicodemus, and kissed his mouth.

  Then her legs buckled and she sank slowly down. Nicodemus went with her, down to his knees, and held her gently, the jeweled hilt of the dagger standing out sharply from her body.

  “Mother of God,” Michael breathed. “He just . . .”

  Nicodemus held her for maybe two minutes, not moving. Then, very carefully, he laid the body down on the cavern floor. He withdrew the knife with equal care. He dipped two fingers into the wound, felt around for a moment, and then withdrew something small and covered with blood and gleaming. A silver coin. He cleaned his daughter’s blood from it and from the dagger wi
th a handkerchief. He pocketed the Coin, sheathed the knife, and rose, calmly, to walk back toward the rest of us. His face was as blank as the stone floor beneath his feet. Everyone stared at him in shock. Even Grey looked surprised.

  “Mother of God, man,” Michael breathed. “What have you done?”

  Nicodemus stared at Michael with steady eyes and spoke with quiet contempt. “Did you think you were the only one in the world willing to die for what he believes, sir Knight?”

  “But you . . .” Michael looked like he might be near tears himself. “She just let you do it. She was your child.”

  “Did your own precious God not ask the same of Abraham? Did he not permit Lucifer to destroy the children of Job? I, at least, have a reason for it.” He gestured curtly at Grey and the Genoskwa and said, “Release them.”

  Grey let go of Valmont at once. The Genoskwa turned me loose only reluctantly, and gave me a little push as he did it that nearly knocked me to the ground.

  Michael’s mouth opened and closed. “I could have talked to her,” he said.

  “If he’d given you the chance,” I said. “That was the whole point of the hostage drama. To make sure you were focused somewhere else.”

  Nicodemus stared at me coldly.

  “He was worried that you might say something, Michael. That in the moments before she knew she was going to die, Deirdre’s faith might have wavered. Particularly if someone like you was there to offer her an alternative.”

  Nicodemus inclined his head to me, very slightly. Then he said, “You have never beaten me, sir Knight. And you never will.”

  “You’re insane,” Michael said quietly, sadly.

  Nicodemus had begun to turn away, but he paused.