by Jim Butcher
Sanya’s scowl returned.
“Doesn’t that strike you as monumentally stupid?”
His glare darkened for maybe a minute before he took a deep breath and nodded. “Perhaps some could argue that I am agnostic.”
“Agnostic?”
“One who does not commit himself to the certain belief in a divine power,” he said.
“I know what it means,” I said. “What shocks me is that you think it applies to you. You’ve met more than one divine power. Hell, one of them broke your arm not half an hour ago.”
“Many things can break an arm. You yourself said that you do not need a god or goddess to define your beliefs about the supernatural.”
“Yeah, but I’m not agnostic. Just nonpartisan. Theological Switzerland, that’s me.”
Sanya said, “Semantics. I do not understand your point.”
I took a deep breath, still holding back the threat of giggles, and said, “Sanya. My point is that you have got to be more than a little thick to stand where you are, having seen what you’ve seen, and claim that you aren’t sure whether or not there’s a God.”
He lifted his chin and said, “Not necessarily. It is possible that I am mad, and all of this is a hallucination.”
That’s when I started laughing. I just couldn’t help it. I was too tired and too stressed to do anything else. I laughed and enjoyed it thoroughly while Sanya sat on his cot and scowled at me, careful not to move his wounded arm.
Shiro appeared at the door, bearing a platter of sandwiches and deli vegetables. He blinked through his owlish glasses at Sanya and then at me. He said something to Sanya in what I took to be Russian. The younger Knight transferred his scowl to Shiro, but nodded his head in a gesture deep enough to be part bow, before he rose, claimed two sandwiches in one large hand, and walked out.
Shiro waited until Sanya was gone before he set the platter down on a card table. My stomach went berserk at the sight of the sandwiches. Heavy exertion coupled with insane fear does that to me. Shiro gestured at the plate and pulled up a couple of folding chairs. I sat down, nabbed a sandwich of my own, and started eating. Turkey and cheese. Heaven.
The old Knight took a sandwich of his own, and ate with what appeared to be a similar appetite. We munched for a while in contented silence before he said, “Sanya told you about his beliefs.”
I felt the corners of my mouth start to twinge as another smile threatened. “Yeah.”
Shiro let out a pleased snort. “Sanya is a good man.”
“I just don’t get why he’d be recruited as a Knight of the Cross.”
Shiro looked at me over the glasses, chewing. After a while, he said, “Man sees faces. Sees skin. Flags. Membership lists. Files.” He took another large bite, ate it, and said, “God sees hearts.”
“If you say so,” I said.
He didn’t answer. Right about the time I finished my sandwich, Shiro said, “You are looking for the Shroud.”
“That’s confidential,” I said.
“If you say so,” he said, using my own inflection on the words. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you looking for it?” he asked, chewing.
“If I am—and I’m not saying that I am—I’m doing it because I’ve been hired to look for it.”
“Your job,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You do it for money,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Hmph,” he said, and pushed his glasses up with his pinky. “Do you love money then, Mister Dresden?”
I picked up a napkin from one side of the platter, and wiped my mouth. “I used to think I loved it. But now I realize that it’s just dependency.”
Shiro let out an explosive bark of laughter, and rose, chortling. “Sandwich okay?”
“Super.”
Michael came in a few minutes later, his face troubled. There wasn’t a clock in the room, but it had to have been well after midnight. I supposed if I had called Charity Carpenter that late, I’d be troubled after the conversation, too. She was ferocious where her husband’s safety was concerned—especially when she heard that I was around. Okay, admittedly Michael had gotten pretty thoroughly battered whenever he came along on a case with me, but all the same I didn’t think it was fair of her. It wasn’t like I did it on purpose.
“Charity wasn’t happy?” I asked.
Michael shook his head. “She’s worried. Is there a sandwich left?”
There were a couple. Michael took one and I took a second one, just to keep him company. While we ate, Shiro got out his sword and a cleaning kit, and started wiping down the blade with a soft cloth and some kind of oil.
“Harry,” Michael said finally. “I have to ask you for something. It’s very difficult. And it’s something that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t even consider doing.”
“Name it,” I said between chews. At the time, I meant it literally. Michael had risked his life for me more than once. His family had been endangered the last time around, and I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t ask something unreasonable. “Just name it. I owe you.”
Michael nodded. Then looked at me steadily and said, “Get out of this business, Harry. Get out of town for a few days. Or stay home. But get out of it, please.”
I blinked at him. “You mean, you don’t want my help?”
“I want your safety,” Michael said. “You are in great danger.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said. “Michael, I know how to handle myself. You should know that by now.”
“Handle yourself,” Michael said. “Like you did tonight? Harry, if we hadn’t been there—”
“What?” I snapped. “I’d have been dead. It isn’t like it isn’t going to happen sooner or later. There are enough bad guys after me that one of them is eventually going to get lucky. So what else is new.”
“You don’t understand,” Michael said.
“I understand all right,” I said. “One more wacky B-horror-movie reject tried to kill me. It’s happened before. It’ll probably happen again.”
Shiro said, without looking up from his sword, “Ursiel did not come to kill you, Mister Dresden.”
I considered that in another pregnant silence. The lamps buzzed a little. Shiro’s cleaning cloth whispered over the steel of his sword.
I watched Michael’s face and asked, “Why was he there then? I’d have put down money that it was a demon, but it was just a shapechange. There was a mortal inside it. Who was he?”
Michael’s gaze never wavered. “His name was Rasmussen. Ursiel took him in eighteen forty-nine, on his way to California.”
“I saw him, Michael. I looked in his eyes.”
Michael winced. “I didn’t know that.”
“He was a prisoner in his own soul, Michael. Something was holding him. Something big. Ursiel, I guess. He’s one of the Fallen, isn’t he?”
Michael nodded.
“How the hell does that happen? I thought the Fallen aren’t allowed to take away free will.”
“They aren’t,” Michael said. “But they are allowed to tempt. And the Denarians have more to offer than most.”
“Denarians?” I asked.
“The Order of the Blackened Denarius,” Michael said. “They see an opportunity in this matter. A chance to do great harm.”
“Silver coins.” I took a deep breath. “Like the one you wrapped up in blessed cloth. Thirty pieces of silver, eh?”
He nodded. “Whoever touches the coins is tainted by the Fallen within. Tempted. Given power. The Fallen leads the mortal deeper and deeper into its influence. Never forcing them. Just offering. Until eventually they have surrendered enough of themselves and—”
“The thing gets control of them,” I finished.
Michael nodded. “Like Rasmussen. We try to help them. Sometimes the person realizes what is happening. Wants to escape their influence. When we face them, we try to wear the
demon down. Give the person taken the chance to escape.”
“That’s why you kept talking to it. Until its voice changed. But Rasmussen didn’t want to be free, did he?”
Michael shook his head.
“Believe it or not, Michael, I’ve been tempted once or twice. I can handle it.”
“No,” Michael said. “You can’t. Against the Denarians, few mortals can. The Fallen know our weaknesses. Our flaws. How to undermine. Even warned and aware of them, they have destroyed men and women for thousands of years.”
“I said I’ll be fine,” I growled.
Shiro grunted. “Pride before fall.”
I gave him a sour glance.
Michael leaned forward and said, “Harry, please. I know that your life has not been an easy one. You’re a good man. But you are as vulnerable as anyone. These enemies don’t want you dead.” He looked down at his hands. “They want you.”
Which scared me. Really scared me. Maybe because it seemed to disturb Michael so much, and very little disturbs him. Maybe because I had seen Rasmussen, and would always be able to see him there, trapped, wildly laughing.
Or maybe it was because part of me wondered if it would be so impossible to find a way to use the power the coin obviously offered. If it had made some random schmuck on the way to pan for gold into a killing machine that it took all three Knights of the Cross to handle, what could someone like me do with it?
Beat the living snot out of Duke Paolo Ortega. That’s for sure.
I blinked, refocusing my eyes. Michael watched me, his expression pained, and I knew that he’d guessed at my thoughts. I closed my eyes, shame making my stomach uneasy.
“You’re in danger, Harry,” Michael said. “Leave the case alone.”
“If I was in so much danger,” I responded, “why did Father Vincent come and hire me?”
“Forthill asked him not to,” Michael said. “Father Vincent…disagrees with Forthill on how supernatural matters are to be handled.”
I stood up and said, “Michael, I’m tired. I’m really damned tired.”
“Harry,” Michael chided me.
“Darned,” I mumbled. “Darned tired. Darn me unto heck.” I headed for the door and said, “I’m heading home to get some sleep. I’ll think about it.”
Michael stood up, and Shiro with him, both of them facing me. “Harry,” Michael said. “You are my friend. You’ve saved my life. I’ve named a child for you. But stay out of this business. For my sake, if not for your own.”
“And if I don’t?” I asked.
“Then I’ll have protect you from yourself. In the name of God, Harry, please don’t push this.”
I turned and left without saying good-bye.
In this corner, one missing Shroud, one impossibly and thoroughly dead corpse, one dedicated and deadly vampire warlord, three holy knights, twenty-nine fallen angels, and a partridge in a pear tree.
And in the opposite corner, one tired, bruised, underpaid professional wizard, threatened by his allies and about to get dumped by his would-be girlfriend for John Q. Humdrum.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely bedtime.
Chapter Eight
I fumed and brooded all the way back to my apartment, the Beetle’s engine sputtering nervously the whole time. Mister was sitting at the top of the steps, and let out a plaintive meow as I shut and locked up my car. Though I kept my blasting rod and shield bracelet ready in case any vanilla goons were waiting around with more silenced guns, I was fairly confident no preternasties were hanging around in ambush. Mister tended to make lots of noise and then leave whenever supernatural danger was around.
Which just goes to show that my cat has considerably more sense than me.
Mister slammed his shoulder against my legs, and didn’t quite manage to trip me into falling down the stairs. I didn’t waste any time getting inside and locked up behind me.
I lit a candle, got out some cat food and fresh water for Mister’s bowls, and spent a couple minutes pacing back and forth. I glanced at my bed and wrote it off as a useless idea. I was too worked up to sleep, even tired as I was. I was already chin deep in alligators and sinking fast.
“Right, then, Harry,” I mumbled. “Might as well do some work.”
I grabbed a heavy, warm robe off its hook, shoved aside one of my rugs, and opened the trapdoor leading down to the subbasement. A folding ladder-staircase led down to the damp stone chamber beneath, where I kept my lab, and I padded down it, my robe’s hem dragging against the wooden steps.
I started lighting candles. My lab, barring a brief bout of insanity, generally reflects the state of my own mind—cluttered, messy, unorganized, but basically functional. The room isn’t large. Three worktables line three of the walls in a U shape, and a fourth table runs down the center of the U, leaving a narrow walk-way around it. Wire utility shelves line the walls above the tables. Piled on the shelves and tables are a vast array of magical ingredients, plus that sort of miscellaneous domestic clutter that in households of more substance always winds up in a big drawer in the kitchen. Books, notebooks, journals, and papers line the shelves, together with containers and boxes and pouches full of all sorts of herbs, roots, and magical ingredients, from a bottle of snake hisses to a vial of milk-thistle extract.
At the far end of the room there was a patch of floor kept completely clear of all clutter. A copper ring set into the stone of the floor, my summoning circle, resided there. Experience had shown me that you never can tell when you might need a ritual circle to defend yourself from magical attack, or for its other most obvious use—keeping a denizen of the Nevernever a temporary prisoner.
One of the shelves had less on it than the others. At either end rested a candleholder, long since overrun with many colors of melted wax until they were nothing but mounds, like a honeybee Vesuvius. Books, mostly paperback romances, and various small and feminine articles took up the rest of the shelf, but for where a bleached human skull sat in the middle. I picked up a pencil and rapped it against the shelf. “Bob. Bob, wake up. Work to be done.”
Twin points of orange and gold light kindled in the shadows of the skull’s eye sockets, and grew brighter as I went about the room lighting half a dozen candles and a kerosene lamp. The skull rattled a little, and then said, “It’s only a few hours from dawn, and you’re just starting up? What gives?”
I started getting out beakers and vials and a small alcohol burner. “More trouble,” I said. “It’s been one hell of a day.” I told Bob the Skull about the television studio, the vampire’s challenge, the hit man, the missing Shroud, and the plague-filled corpse.
“Wow. You don’t do things halfway, do you, Harry?”
“Advise now; critique later. I’m going to look into things and whip up a potion or two, and you’re going to help.”
“Right,” Bob said. “Where do you want to start?”
“With Ortega. Where is my copy of the Accords?”
“Cardboard box.” Bob said. “Third shelf, on the bottom row, behind the pickling jars.”
I found the box and pawed through it until I had found a vellum scroll tied shut with a white ribbon. I opened it and peered down at the handwritten calligraphy. It started off with the word Insomuch, and the syntax got more opaque from there.
“I can’t make heads or tails of this,” I said. “Where’s the section about duels?”
“Fifth paragraph from the end. You want the Cliff’s Notes version?”
I rolled the scroll shut again. “Hit me.”
“It’s based on Code Duello,” Bob said. “Well, technically it’s based on much older rules that eventually inspired the Code Duello, but that’s just chickens and eggs. Ortega is the challenger, and you’re the challenged.”
“I know that. I get to pick the weapons and the ground, right?”
“Wrong,” Bob said. “You pick the weapons, but he gets to choose the time and location.”
“Damn,” I muttered. “I was going to take high noon ou
t in a park somewhere. But I guess I can just say that we’ll duel with magic.”
“If it’s one of the available choices. It almost always is.”
“Who decides?”
“The vampires and the Council will pick from a list of neutral emissaries. The emissary decides.”
I nodded. “So if I don’t have it as an option I’m screwed, right? I mean, magic, wizard, kind of my bag.”
Bob said. “Yeah, but be careful. It’s got to be a weapon that he can use. If you pick one he can’t, he can refuse it, and force you to take your second choice.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that regardless of what happens, if he doesn’t want to fight you in magic, he won’t have to. Ortega didn’t get to be a warlord without thinking things through, Harry. Odds are that he has a good idea what you can do and has planned accordingly. What do you know about him?”
“Not much. Presumably he’s tough.”
Bob’s eyelights stared at me for a minute. “Well, Napoléon, I’m sure he’ll never overcome that kind of tactical genius.”
I flicked my pencil at the skull in annoyance. It bounced off a nose hole. “Get to the point.”
“The point is that you’d be better off taking something you can predict.”
“I’m better off not fighting to begin with,” I said. “Do I need to get a second?”
“You both do,” Bob said. “The seconds will work out the terms of the duel. His should be getting in touch with yours at some point.”
“Uh. I don’t have one.”
Bob’s skull turned a bit on its shelf and banged its forehead gently into the brick wall a few times. “Then get one, dolt. Obviously.”
I got another pencil and a pad of yellow lined paper and wrote To do across the top, and Ask Michael about duel underneath it. “Okay. And I want you to find out whatever you can about Ortega before dawn.”
“Check,” Bob said. “I have your permission to come out?”
“Not yet. There’s more.”
Bob’s eyelights rolled. “Of course there’s more. My job sucks.”
I got out a jug of distilled water and a can of Coke. I opened the can, took a sip, and said, “That corpse Murphy showed me. Plague curse?”
