Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files

by Jim Butcher

  My stomach twisted and flipped over. I didn’t let it show.

  Deirdre’s head suddenly snapped forward a little more, and Jordan’s body stiffened. A muffled scream escaped the seal of Deirdre’s lips, but was quickly choked off. I saw Deirdre’s jaws lock, and then she jerked her head away in the sudden, sharp motion of a shark ripping flesh from its prey. Her head fell back in something that looked horribly like ecstasy, and I could see the bloody flesh of Jordan’s tongue gripped between her teeth.

  Blood fountained from the young man’s mouth. He let out a wordless sound and staggered, falling to one knee.

  Deirdre’s head jerked in swallowing motions, like a seabird downing a fish, and she made a quiet gulping sound. Then she shuddered, and opened her burning eyes slowly. She turned to move deliberately to Nicodemus’s side, her purplish lips black with blood, and murmured, “It is done, Father.”

  Nicodemus kissed her on the mouth. And, my God, him doing it with tongue now was even more unsettling than it had been the first time I’d seen it.

  He lifted his mouth from Deirdre’s a moment later and said, “Rise, Squire Jordan.”

  The young man staggered to his feet, the lower half of his face a mass of blood, dripping down over his chin and throat.

  “Get some ice on that and see the medic, Squire,” Nicodemus said. “Congratulations.”

  Jordan’s eyes gleamed again, and his mouth twisted into a macabre smile. Then he turned and hurried away, leaving a dripping trail of blood behind him.

  My stomach twisted. One of these days, I’m going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut. Nicodemus had just casually had a young man maimed solely to make a point to me for teasing him about it. I clenched my jaw and resolved to use the incident to remind me exactly the kind of monster I was dealing with here.

  “There,” Nicodemus said, turning back to Mab. “I apologize for any inconvenience.”

  “Shall we conclude our business?” Mab said. “My time is valuable.”

  “Of course,” Nicodemus said. “You know why I have approached you.”

  “Indeed,” Mab said. “Anduriel once loaned me the services of his . . . associate. I now repay that debt by loaning you the services of mine.”

  “Wait. What?” I said.

  “Excellent,” Nicodemus said. He produced a business card and held it out. “Our little group will meet here at sundown.”

  Mab reached for the card and nodded. “Done.”

  I intercepted her hand, taking the card before she could. “Not done,” I said. “I’m not working with this psychopath.”

  “Sociopath, actually,” Nicodemus said. “Though for practical purposes, the terms are nearly interchangeable.”

  “You’re an ugly piece of work, and I don’t trust you any farther than I can kick you, which I’m tempted to see how far I can do,” I snapped back. I turned to Mab. “Tell me you aren’t serious.”

  “I,” she said in a hard voice, “am perfectly serious. You will go with Archleone. You will render him all aid and assistance until such time as he has completed his objective.”

  “What objective?” I demanded.

  Mab looked at him.

  Nicodemus smiled at me. “Nothing terribly complex. Difficult, to be sure, but not complicated. We’re going to rob a vault.”

  “You don’t need anyone to help you with that,” I said. “You could handle any vault in the world.”

  “True,” Nicodemus said. “But this vault is not of this world. It is in fact, of the Underworld.”

  “Underworld?” I asked.

  I was getting a bad feeling about this.

  Nicodemus gave me a bland smile.

  “Who?” I asked him. “Whose vault are you knocking over?”

  “An ancient being of tremendous power,” he replied in his roughened voice, his smile widening. “You may know him as Hades, the Lord of the Underworld.”

  “Hades,” I said. “The Hades. The Greek god.”

  “The very same.”

  I looked slowly from Nicodemus to Mab.

  Her face was beautiful and absolute. The chill of the little earring that was keeping me alive pulsed steadily against my skin.

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “Oh, Hell’s bells.”

  Four

  My brain shifted into overdrive.

  My back might have been against a wall, but that was hardly anything new. One thing I’d learned in long years of spine-to-brick circumstance was that anything you could do to create a little space, time, or support was worth doing.

  I met Mab’s implacable gaze and said, “It is necessary to set one condition.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What condition?”

  “Backup,” I said. “I want an extra pair of eyes along. Someone of my choosing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Nicodemus is a murderous murdering murderer,” I said. “And if he’s picking a crew, they’re going to be just as bad. I want another set of eyes along to make sure one of them doesn’t shoot me in the back the second I’m not looking—you’re loaning out the Winter Knight, after all. You’re not throwing him away.”

  Mab arched an eyebrow. “Mmmm.”

  “Out of the question, I fear,” Nicodemus said. “Plans have already been made and there is no room for extraneous personnel.”

  Mab turned her head very slowly to Nicodemus. “As I remember it,” she said, her tone arctic, “when you loaned me your service, you brought your spawn with you. I believe this request exhibits symmetry.”

  Nicodemus narrowed his eyes. Then he inhaled deeply and inclined his head very slightly in agreement. “I do not have explicit authority over everyone involved. I can make no promises as to the safety of either your Knight or his . . . additional associate.”

  Mab almost smiled. “And I can make none as to yours, Sir Archleone, should you betray an arrangement made in good faith. Shall we agree to an explicit truce until such time as your mission is complete?”

  Nicodemus considered that for a moment before nodding his head. “Agreed.”

  “Done, then,” Mab said, and plucked the card from my fingers. “Shall we go, my Knight?”

  I stared hard at Nicodemus and his bloody-mouthed daughter for a moment. Deirdre’s hair rasped and rustled, slithering against itself like long, curling strips of sheet metal.

  Like hell was I gonna help that lunatic.

  But this was not the time or place to make that stand.

  “Yeah,” I said through clenched teeth. “Okay.”

  And without ever quite turning my back on the Denarians, I followed Mab back to the elevator.

  * * *

  At the bottom of the elevator ride, I turned to Mab’s bodyguards and said, “Time for you guys to get out and bring the car around.” When none of them moved, I said, “Okay. You guys filled out some kind of paperwork for how you want your remains disposed of, right?”

  At that, the Sidhe blinked. They looked at Mab.

  Mab stared ahead. I’d seen statues that indicated their desires more strongly.

  They got out.

  I waited until the elevator doors closed behind them, flicked a finger, and muttered, “Hexus,” unleashing a minor effort of will as I did. Mortal wizards and technology don’t blend. Just being in proximity to a wizard actively using magic is enough to blow out a lot of electronics. When a wizard is actually trying to blow out tech, not much is safe.

  The elevator’s control panel let out a shower of sparks and went dark. The lightbulbs went out with little pops, along with the emergency lights, and the elevator’s interior was suddenly plunged into darkness lit only by a bit of daylight seeping in beneath the door.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I demanded of Mab.

  Quietly.

  There was just enough light to show me the glitter of her eyes as she turned them to me.

  “I am not going to help that dick,” I snarled.

  “You will perform precisely as instructed.”

  “I will no
t,” I said. “I know how he works. Whatever he’s doing, it’s nothing but bad news. People are going to get hurt—and I’m not going to be a part of that. I’m not going to help him.”

  “It is obvious to me that you did not listen to me very carefully,” Mab said.

  “It is obvious to me that you just don’t get it,” I replied. “There are things you just don’t do, Mab. Helping a monster like that get what he wants is one of them.”

  “Even if refusing costs you your life?” she asked.

  I sighed. “Have you even been paying attention, the past couple of years? Do you have any doubt that I would rather die than become part of something like that?”

  Her teeth made a white gleam in the dark. “And yet, here you are.”

  “Do you really want to push this?” I asked. “Do you want to lose your shiny new Knight already?”

  “Hardly a loss if he will not fulfill a simple command,” Mab said.

  “I’ll fulfill commands. I’ve done it before.”

  “In your own inept way, yes,” Mab said.

  “Just not this one.”

  “You will do precisely as instructed,” Mab said. She took a very small step closer to me. “Or there will be consequences.”

  I swallowed.

  The last Knight to anger Mab had wound up begging me to end his life. The poor bastard had been grateful.

  “What consequences?” I asked.

  “The parasite,” Mab said. “When it kills you and emerges, it will seek out everyone you know. Everyone you love. And it will utterly destroy them—starting with one child in particular.”

  Gooseflesh erupted along my arms. She was talking about Maggie. My daughter.

  “She’s out of this,” I said in a whisper. “She’s protected.”

  “Not from this,” Mab said, her tone remote. “Not from a being created of your own essence, just as she is. Your death will bring a deadly creature into the world, my Knight—one who knows all that you know of your allies. Lovers. Family.”

  “No, it won’t,” I said. “I’ll go back to the island. I’ll instruct Alfred to imprison it the moment it breaks free.”

  Mab’s smile turned genuine. It was considerably scarier than her glare. “Oh, sweet child.” She shook her head. “What makes you think I shall allow you to return?”

  I clenched my fists along with my teeth. “You . . . you bitch.”

  Mab slapped me.

  Okay, that doesn’t convey what happened very well. Her arm moved. Her palm hit my left cheekbone, and an instant later the right side of my skull smashed into the elevator door. My head bounced off it like a Ping-Pong ball, my legs went rubbery, and I got a really, really good look at the marble tile floor of the elevator. The metal rang like a gong, and was still reverberating a couple of minutes later, when I slowly sat up. Or maybe that was just me.

  “I welcome your suggestions, questions, thoughts, and arguments, my Knight,” Mab said in a calm voice. She moved one foot, gracefully, and rested the tip of her high heel against my throat. She put a very little bit of her weight behind it, and it hurt like hell. “But I am Mab, mortal. It is not your place to judge me. Do you understand?”

  I couldn’t talk, with her heel nudging my voice box. I jerked my head in a short nod.

  “Defy me if you will,” she said. “I cannot prevent you from doing so—if you are willing to pay the price for it.”

  And with that, she removed her foot from my throat.

  I sat up and rubbed at it. “This is not a smart way to maintain a good professional relationship with me,” I croaked.

  “Do I seem stupid to you, my Knight?” she asked. “Think.”

  I eyed her. Mab’s voice was perfectly calm. After what I’d said to her, the defiance I’d offered her, I hadn’t expected that. She had never been shy about showing her outrage when she felt it had been earned. This perfect poise was . . . not out of character, precisely, but I had expected a good deal more intensity than she was displaying. My defiance endangered her plans, and that never left her in a good mood.

  Unless . . .

  I closed my eyes and ran back through her words in my head.

  “Your precise instructions,” I said slowly, “were to go with Nicodemus and help him until such time as he completed his objective.”

  “Indeed,” Mab said. “Which he stated was to remove the contents of a vault.” She leaned down, took a fistful of my shirt in her hand, and hauled me back to my feet as easily as she might heft a Chihuahua. “I never said what you would do after.”

  I blinked at that. Several times. “You . . .” I dropped my voice. “You want me to double-cross him?”

  “I expect you to repay my debt by fulfilling my instructions,” Mab replied. “After that . . .” Her smile returned, smug in the shadows. “I expect you to be yourself.”

  “Whatever Nicodemus has going this time . . . you want to stop him, too,” I breathed.

  She tilted her head, very slightly.

  “You know he’s not going to honor the truce,” I said quietly. “He’s going to try to take me out somewhere along the line. He’s going to betray me.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I expect superior, more creative treachery on your part.”

  “While still keeping your word and helping him?” I demanded.

  Her smile sharpened. “Is it not quite the game?” she asked. “In my younger days, I would have relished such a novel challenge.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Gee. Thanks.”

  “Petulance does not become the Winter Knight,” Mab said. She turned to the elevator doors, which had an enormous dent in them the same shape as a wizard’s noggin. They swept open with a groan of protesting metal. “Do this for me, and I shall ensure the safe removal of the parasite when the task is completed.”

  “Nicodemus, his daughter, and God knows what else is in his crew,” I said. “I’m working with my hands tied, and you expect me to survive this game?”

  “If you want to live, if you want your friends and family to live, I expect you to do more than survive it,” Mab said, sweeping out. “I expect you to skin them alive.”

  Five

  “To Mab’s credit,” Karrin Murphy said, “she is sort of asking you to do what you’re good at.”

  I blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You have a tendency to weasel out of these bargains you get yourself into, Harry,” she said. “You have a history.”

  “Like I shouldn’t fight them?” I demanded.

  “You probably should focus more on not getting into them in the first place,” she said, “but that’s just one humble ex-cop’s opinion.”

  We were sitting in Karrin’s living room, in the little house with the rose garden she’d inherited from her grandmother. She was sipping tea, her spring-muscle body coiled up into a lazy-looking ball at one end of the couch. I sat in the chair across from her. My big grey cat, Mister, was sprawled in my lap, luxuriating and purring while I rubbed his fur.

  “You’ve taken good care of him,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “He’s good company,” she said. “Though I wonder if he wouldn’t like it better with you.”

  I moved from Mister’s back to rubbing behind his ears exactly the way he liked best. His purr sounded like a miniature motorboat. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the little furball until he’d come running up and thrown his shoulder against my shins. Mister weighed the next best thing to thirty pounds. I wondered how the diminutive Karrin had managed to keep from being knocked down by his affection every time she came home. Maybe she had applied some principle of Aikido out of self-defense.

  “He might,” I said. “I’m . . . sort of settled now. And there’s nothing on the island big enough to take him. But it’s cold out there in the winter, and he’s getting older.”

  “We’re all getting older,” Karrin said. “Besides. Look at him.”

  Mister rolled onto his back and chewed happily at my fingertips, pawing a
t my arms and hands with his limbs without extending his claws. Granted, he was a battle-scarred old tomcat with a stub tail and a notched ear, but damn if it wasn’t cute, and I suddenly felt my eyes threaten to get blurry.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s kind of my buddy, isn’t he?”

  Karrin’s blue eyes smiled at me over the rim of her teacup. Only attitude kept her from being an itty-bitty person. Her golden brown hair was longer than it had been since I could remember offhand, tied back into a ponytail. She wore yoga pants, a tank top, and a flannel shirt and had been practicing martial arts forms of some kind when I arrived.

  “Of course,” she said, “you could do it the other way, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You could live here,” she said. Then added, a beat too quickly, “In Chicago. You could, you know. Move back to town.”

  I frowned, still playing with my cat. “I don’t . . . Look, when the next freak burns down my place, maybe I won’t get as lucky as I did last time.”

  “Last time you wound up with a broken back and working for a monster,” Karrin said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “And it was only because of literal divine intervention that none of my neighbors died.” I shook my head. “The island isn’t a kind place, but no one is going to come looking for trouble there.”

  “Except you,” she said gently. “I worry about what will happen to you if you stay out there alone too long. That kind of isolation isn’t good for you, Harry.”

  “It’s necessary,” I said. “It’s safer for me. It’s safer for everyone around me.”

  “What a load of crap,” she said, without heat. “You’re just scared.”

  “You’re damned right,” I said. “Scared that some bug-eyed freak is going to come calling and kill innocent people because they happen to be in my havoc radius.”

  “No,” she said. “That isn’t what scares you.” She waved a hand. “You don’t want it to happen, and you’ll fight it if it does, but that isn’t what scares you.”

  I frowned down at Mister. “I’m . . . really not comfortable talking about this.”

  “Get over it,” Karrin said, even more gently. “Harry, when the vampires grabbed Maggie . . . they kind of dismantled your life. They took away all the familiar things. Your office. Your home. Even that ridiculous old clown car.”