Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files

by Jim Butcher

  Check that. She withdrew a Sword.

  It was a Japanese-style katana blade, set into a wooden cane sheath, in the same style as that of the apocryphal Zatoichi. Even as the false rocket launcher casing fell to the ground, the Sword’s blade sprang free of its sheath, and as it did, Fidelacchius, the Sword of Faith, blazed with furious white light.

  But more important, the presence of the Sword suddenly filled the night, a nearly subaudible thrumming like the after-vibration of a bass guitar string. It wasn’t something that could be heard, precisely, or seen, or felt on the skin—but its presence was absolute, unquestionable, filling the sleet-streaked air. It was power, bone-deep, earth solid, and terrible in its resolution.

  I think it was that power that wiped the smirk from Nicodemus’s face.

  His eyes widened in dismay. Even his shadow abruptly went statue-still.

  Karrin’s bid to narrow the distance between them as she had been speaking meant that she was only a few strides away. She closed in, her feet sure, barely seeming to touch the icy ground, and he barely lifted his blade to a defensive counter in time. The swords met in a clash of steel and a blaze of furious light, and she carried her momentum into him with a full-body check against his center of gravity.

  “Watch the big guy,” I hissed to Butters, and took a step toward Nicodemus and Karrin—then froze in place.

  Nicodemus slipped on the treacherous ground as Karrin slammed into him, but he swept a leg back, dropped one knee to the ground, and prevented himself from falling. She pressed her advantage, their swords locked, each blade exerting lethal pressure against the other.

  I didn’t dare intervene. The least slip or mistake in balance from either of them would mean that the two razor-sharp blades would slice like scalpels into unprotected flesh.

  I watched them strain silently against each other, strength against strength. Karrin wasn’t relying on upper-body strength to get it done. Her arms were locked in tight against her body, her weight and her legs pressing forward against Nicodemus, and her two-handed grip on Fidelacchius gave her a significant leverage advantage against his one-handed grip. The edge of her sword pressed closer to his face with each straining heartbeat, until a thin, bright ribbon of scarlet appeared on Nicodemus’s cheek.

  He showed her his teeth, and the strain on his arm quivered through his entire body as he pushed the Sword back a precious half inch from his skin. “So,” he hissed, “the burnout thinks she has found her new calling.”

  She didn’t say anything back. Karrin’s never been a big one for backtalking the bad guys without a damned good reason. It’s not her fault. She’s a practical soul. She took a slow, contained breath, and kept up the pressure, veering the blades, altering the direction slightly, so that the locked swords began a slow descent toward Nicodemus’s throat.

  “And you think you deserve to join the ranks of real Knights of the Sword,” Nicodemus said, his voice smooth and confident. “You battered, scarred, broken thing. In my centuries I’ve learned exactly what is needed in a real Knight. You haven’t got what it takes. And you know that. Or you’d have taken up the Sword before now.”

  Her eyes blazed, bright blue in her pale, frightened face, and she leaned forward, pressing the Sword closer to his neck, and the beating artery there. I’d seen how sharp the katana’s blade was. It would take a feather’s pressure and the movement of a blade of grass to open Nicodemus’s neck once that steel reached his skin.

  “You’ve never done this before,” he said. “Been this close, this tense, this still—not in earnest. Do you know how many times I’ve talked to novices exactly like you, in situations almost exactly like this? I’ve forgotten more about real sword fighting than this pale modern world knows.”

  Karrin ignored him. She shifted her hips the barest fraction, seeking a slightly different angle of pressure. The blazing Sword dipped another fraction of an inch closer.

  “Dresden,” Nicodemus said, “I’m giving you ample chance to call off your dog before I put her down.” His eyes flicked to me. “End the little doctor and come back to headquarters. There’s no reason I should have to kill all three of you.”

  I ground my teeth. Getting myself killed defending Butters was one thing. Taking Karrin with me was something else. But I knew her. I knew what choice she would make, without needing to talk to her about it.

  Karrin didn’t let the monsters take her people, either.

  But there just wasn’t a good option open to me. The Genoskwa wasn’t far from us, and the damned thing was fast. Even if Butters ran for the safety of Michael’s place right now, he’d never get there before it caught him—and I couldn’t slow the huge thing down with magic, either.

  I only had one choice.

  “All right,” I croaked. “Dammit, all right.”

  I grabbed Butters and threw him out in front of me, pointing my staff at him and calling forth my will. The runes blazed up with the pale green-white light of the crystals beneath Demonreach, from whence the wood for the staff had come.

  “Sorry about this, Butters,” I said. “Nothing personal.”

  Nicodemus’s eyes widened. Karrin’s gaze flicked toward me for an instant, disbelieving and then resolute.

  “Harry?” Butters asked.

  “Forzare!” I thundered, and unleashed a blast of unseen force from the staff.

  It took Butters full in the chest, hitting him like a charging bull and hurling him through the sleet—and over the little white picket fence into the nearest corner of the Carpenters’ yard.

  Everything happened in the same instant.

  Nicodemus’s left arm blurred and produced a short-barreled pistol from somewhere on his body. He jammed it into Karrin’s belly and pulled the trigger half a dozen times.

  I let out a scream of defiance and drew that monster revolver from my duster even as the Genoskwa came charging toward me. The Winter mantle made me faster than I could ever have been on my own, but even so there was no time for anything but a hip shot. The Genoskwa was maybe three feet away when the gun went off, thundering like a high-powered rifle. Then the huge creature hit me like a freight train, picking me up in its onslaught like a piece of litter being towed along by the breeze, and carried me across the street and into the side of the neighbor’s minivan.

  Metal crashed and crunched. Glass broke. Silver lightning ran through my body without causing me any real pain. The carnivore stench of the Genoskwa filled my nose. My arms slammed against the vehicle, but I hung on to the pistol, shoved it against the creature’s torso, but before I could shoot, it got hold of my wrist, its huge hands wrapping my forearm as if I’d been a toddler, and slammed it against the minivan, pinning the pistol there. Its other hand landed on my head, claws pressing into my skin as the thick fingers tightened on my skull like a nutcracker.

  “Hold!” I heard Nicodemus shout, his voice sharp.

  The Genoskwa let out a low growl. It had to turn its shoulders and twist at the waist to look back at him, a simian gesture—there was just too much muscle on that huge neck to allow it the full range of motion. As a result, I was able to see past it.

  Karrin, apparently unhurt, still stood, and she had Fidelacchius pressed against Nicodemus’s throat.

  I blinked, and felt a sudden surge of ferocious pride.

  She’d beaten him.

  “I may be no true Knight,” Karrin snarled into the sudden silence, her voice tight with pain. “But I’m the only one here. Tell the gorilla to let Dresden go or I take your head off and give the Noose back to the Church along with your Coin.”

  Nicodemus stared at her for a moment. Then he opened his hands, slowly, and the sword and pistol both tumbled to the frozen ground. The sleet rattled down in silence.

  “I surrender,” he said quietly, his voice mocking. He tilted his head slightly toward Butters. “And I relinquish my claim on the blood of the innocent. Have mercy on me, O Knight.”

  “Tell the Genoskwa to let him go,” Karrin said.

&nb
sp; Nicodemus held out his hand. The swarming shadows around him abruptly surged, condensed, flooded toward him. They gathered in his palm, and an instant later, a small silver coin gleamed there, marked with a black smudge in the shape of some kind of sigil. Without looking away from Karrin, he dropped the Coin, and it fell to the icy sidewalk without bouncing, as if it had been made from something far heavier than lead.

  “Let Dresden go,” Karrin said.

  Nicodemus smiled, still, his eyes and hands steady. He reached up and undid the Noose tied about his throat, and let it fall to the ground beside the Coin.

  Karrin bared her teeth. “Let him go. I’m not going to ask again.”

  Nicodemus smiled and smiled, and said, “Crush his skull. Make it hurt.”

  The Genoskwa turned back toward me, his eyes blazing from back beneath his cavernous brow, and his fingers tightened on my skull. I dropped my staff and tried to reach up to pry his hand off my head, but quickly realized that I was hilariously outclassed in the physical strength department. If I strained with my entire body, I might have a chance against one of the Genoskwa’s fingers. I tried that. The vise tightened. My breathing turned harsh as red cracks began to spread through the silvery sensation.

  “But I’ve surrendered,” Nicodemus assured Karrin. “It’s very clear, what you must do.” His smile had returned, and his voice dripped contempt. “Save me, O Knight.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Karrin snarled. Her breath had begun to come in gulps. “You son of a bitch.”

  Pain finally began to hammer through the mantle of Winter. I heard myself make an animal sound as the Genoskwa’s grip tightened. His breathing was getting faster and harsher, too. He was enjoying this.

  My groan shook Karrin, visibly, her body reacting to the sound.

  I saw it coming, what Nicodemus was doing. I tried to warn her, but as I began to speak, the Genoskwa rapped my head back against the minivan and nothing came out.

  “Save me,” Nicodemus said again, “and watch him die.”

  “Damn you!” Karrin snarled.

  Her hips and shoulders twisted, to deliver the lethal slash.

  The light of the blade died away as abruptly as that of an unplugged lamp. The thrum of power that resonated through the very air vanished.

  Nicodemus rolled, moving like a snake, anticipating her perfectly and flowing away from the Sword with a sinuous motion of spine and shoulder. Karrin was thrown slightly off-balance by the lack of resistance, and his hands swept up and seized her wrists.

  The pair of them struggled for a second, and then Fidelacchius swept up high, over Karrin’s head. Her expression whitened in horror as she saw the Sword, now gleaming with nothing more than ordinary light.

  Then, guided by Nicodemus’s hands, the ancient Sword came smashing down onto the concrete of the sidewalk, the flat of the blade striking the frozen stone.

  It shattered with a rising shriek of protesting metal, shards flickering in the streetlights. Pieces of the blade went spinning in every direction, sparkling reflected light through the darkness. Karrin stared at it with unbelieving eyes.

  “Ah,” Nicodemus said. The wordless sigh was a slow, deep expression of utter satisfaction.

  Awful silence fell.

  The Sword of Faith was no more.

  Thirty

  Sleet rattled down.

  A dog howled, somewhere a few blocks away, a lost and lonely sound.

  Karrin’s breath exploded from her in a sob, her blue eyes wide and fixed on the shattered pieces of the blade.

  “Judge not, lest ye be judged, Miss Murphy,” Nicodemus purred. And then he slammed his head into hers.

  She reeled back from the blow, and was brought up short by Nicodemus’s grip on her arm.

  “It is not the place of a Knight to decide whether or not to take the life given to another,” Nicodemus continued. Before she could recover, he struck her savagely, the heel of his hand cracking into her jaw with an audible crunching sound. “Not your place to condemn or consign.”

  Karrin seemed to gather herself together. She flicked a quick blow at Nicodemus’s face, forcing him to duck, and then their hands engaged in a complex and swift-moving series of motions that ended with Karrin’s left arm held out straight, while she was forced down to her knees on the freezing sidewalk.

  I’d never seen her lose when it came to grappling for a lock. Never.

  “I’m not sure what would have happened if you’d simply struck, without that condemnation,” Nicodemus continued, “but it would seem that in the moment of truth, your intent was not pure.” He twisted his shoulders in a sudden, sharp motion.

  Karrin screamed, briefly, breathlessly.

  I struggled against the Genoskwa’s crushing grip. I might as well have been a puppy, for all the effect my best efforts had on the thing. I gathered my will and flung a half-formed working of power against him, but again, the energy grounded itself harmlessly into the earth as it struck him.

  I could do nothing.

  Nicodemus twisted Karrin, tilted his head to one side, and then drove his heel against her knee with crushing strength.

  I heard bones and tendons parting at the blow.

  Karrin choked out another sound of pain, and crumpled to the ground, broken.

  “I was afraid, for a time, that you actually would leave the Sword out of it,” Nicodemus said. He bent and recovered the Noose calmly, fastening it around his neck as casually as a businessman putting on his tie. “Survivors of Chichén Itzá—and there were more than a few, in part thanks to your efforts—describe your contribution to that conflict as impressive. You were obviously ready and in the right, that night. But you were never meant for more. Most Knights of the Cross serve for less than three days. Did you know that? They aren’t always killed—they simply fulfill their purpose and go their way.” He leaned down closer to her and said, “You should have had the grace to do the same. What drove you to take up the Sword, when you knew you weren’t worthy to bear it? Was it pride?”

  Karrin shot him a fierce glare through eyes hazed with pain and tears, and then looked over at me.

  He straightened, arching an eyebrow. “Ah, of course,” he said, his tone dry—yet somehow filled with venomous undertones. “Love.” Nicodemus shook his head and picked up his sword with one hand, and the Coin with the other. “Love will be the downfall of God Himself.”

  Karrin snarled weakly, and flung the broken hilt of Fidelacchius at Nicodemus’s head. He snapped his sword up, flicking it contemptuously away from him. The wooden handle landed in the Carpenters’ yard.

  Nicodemus stepped closer to Karrin, dropping the point of his sword again, aiming it at her. As he did, blackness slithered down his body again, onto the ground, his shadow spreading out around him like a stain of oil over pure water.

  Karrin fumbled backward, away from him, but she could barely move with only one arm and one leg functioning. The wet sleet plastered her hair to her head, made her ears stick out, made her look smaller and younger.

  I kicked at the Genoskwa through the red haze over my vision. With Winter upon me, I can kick cinder blocks to gravel without thinking twice. It was useless. He was all mass and muscle and rock-hard hide.

  “Face it, Miss Murphy,” Nicodemus said, keeping pace with her. His shadow swarmed all over the ground around her, surrounding her. “Your heart”—the tip of his sword dipped toward it by way of illustration— “simply wasn’t in the right place.”

  He paused there, long enough to give her time to see the sword thrust coming.

  She faced him, her eyes fierce and frightened, her face pale with pain.

  And the front door of the Carpenters’ house opened.

  Nicodemus’s dark eyes flickered up at once, and stayed focused on the front porch.

  Michael stood in the doorway to the house for a brief moment, leaning on his cane, surveying the scene. Then he limped down the steps and out onto the walk leading from the front porch to the mailbox. He moved carefully and s
teadily in the sleet, right up to the gate in the white picket fence.

  He stopped there, maybe three feet from Nicodemus, regarding him steadily.

  Sleet struck and melted into rain on his flannel shirt.

  “Let them go,” Michael said quietly.

  Nicodemus’s mouth turned up at one corner. His dark eyes shone with a dangerous light. “You have no power here, Carpenter. Not any longer.”

  “I know,” Michael said. “But you’re going to let them go.”

  “And why should I do that?”

  “Because if you do,” Michael said, “I’ll walk out this gate.”

  Even where I was, I could almost see the blaze of hatred that flared out of Nicodemus’s eyes. His shadow went insane, flickering from side to side, surging up the white picket fence like an incoming tide chewing at a stone cliff.

  “Freely?” Nicodemus demanded. “Of your own choice and will?”

  A critical point. If Michael willingly divested himself of angelic protection, there would be nothing his bodyguards could do. Angels have terrible power—but not over free will. Michael would be helpless.

  Just like Shiro had been helpless.

  “Michael,” I grated. I was under some pressure. I sprayed a lot more spittle than I thought I would. “Don’t do it.”

  Michael gave me a small smile and said chidingly, “Harry.”

  “There’s no point,” Karrin gasped, her voice thin and breathless, “in you dying too. He’ll just come after us again, later.”

  “You’d both do the same for me,” Michael said, and looked up at Nicodemus with that same quiet smile.

  And then the sleet just . . . stopped.

  I don’t mean it stopped sleeting. I mean that the sleet stopped moving. The half-frozen droplets hung in the air, suspended like millions of tiny jewels. The slight wind vanished. The howling dog’s voice cut off as abruptly as if someone had flipped a switch.

  At the same time, a man appeared, outside the little gate. He was tall and lean with youth, broad-shouldered like a professional swimmer. His features were porcelain-fine. His hair was glossy black and curling, his skin a rich, dark caramel color, and his eyes glittered silver-green. There was no fanfare about his appearance. One moment nothing was there, and the next moment he was.