Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

“Keep your eyes on the money,” Ascher said.

“That’s right,” Binder said. “Don’t take things personal, don’t get emotional. We’re professionals, love. Do the job, get paid, get gone.”

“There could be more than money at stake here,” I said quietly.

“Nick and his cup?” Binder asked. “Been a lot of bad men and a lot of powerful artifacts since this ball started spinning. It’ll spin on.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. Nicodemus is connected like few others. What if I could make you an offer?”

“Cash?” Binder asked.

I grimaced. “Well. Not as such.”

He made a tsking sound and glanced at Ascher. “What’s Uncle Binder’s Rule Number One?”

“Money or nothing,” she said. “Anything else costs too much.”

He nodded. “So don’t offer me favors, wizard, or lenience from the White Council, or power from a Faerie Queen. Those things aren’t payment. They’re pretty, pretty things with strings attached, and sooner or later you’re all wrapped up like a bug in a web. Money or nothing.”

“What about freedom?” I asked him. “The cops are going to have this place surrounded by the time we get back. Do you think you’re going to fight your way out past an army of CPD?”

Binder let out a low belly laugh. “Look at you, Dresden. Damn, but you’re a Boy Scout. This is a mob bank, belongs to your local robber baron. Eight minutes since the silent alarm went off, and where are the sirens? Where are the uniforms?”

I grimaced. I’d noticed that, too.

“You really think the alarms call the gendarmes?” He shook his head. “Twenty to one, it’ll go to his people first. Then they can decide if they want to call in the coppers or handle the matter themselves.”

Yeah. Marcone’s people.

Gulp.

Binder busied himself making sure the groaning, stirring guards had been thoroughly disarmed and relieved of their handcuff keys. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, odds are good if this Marcone of yours is so savvy, someone will start playing circle games with me. I’ll need to be ready to counter them.” He pointed a finger at Ascher.

“For the hundredth time, the red ones,” Ascher said, quirking a slight smile.

“I’ll buy us a nice tropical island with a nice beach, and get you a new swimsuit,” he said, winking.

“You should be so lucky,” Ascher said back.

“I’ll hold the door for you lot. Don’t be too long.” Binder went up the stairs, his beady eyes sparkling, fairly bristling with energy.

“Huh,” I said.

“What?” Ascher asked.

“You and Binder . . . not a thing?”

Ascher’s mouth turned up bitterly at the corners. “Not for lack of trying.”

“Well,” I said, “kinda hard to blame him. You’re damned attractive.”

“Not him, trying,” she said. “Me. He’s turned me down.” She looked up the stairs for a moment and sighed. “Rule Number One. He’s not into entanglements.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to imagine Ascher coming on to Binder and getting turned down. Granted, I’d turned her down too. Which . . . now that I thought about it, just couldn’t have been awesome for her self-image.

Doesn’t matter how pretty you are. What’s important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear “no” often enough.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but you would not believe how many times I’ve had pretty girls who would have eaten me alive, like, literally, make a pass at me. Makes a guy a little tense about it.”

Ascher scratched at her nose with one finger, making the manacles jingle. She grimaced as the thorns dug at her wrists. “Wait a minute. You’re saying I’m too pretty to be attractive.”

“To a guy in my business, maybe,” I said. “Someone as alluring as you, there’s a high twitch factor. Binder strikes me as the type to have the same kind of wariness.”

Her voice turned thoughtful. “So if I’d been a little older and a little dumpier, maybe I’d have had some luck with you—like Murphy.”

I scowled. “Murphy’s made of muscle. You just can’t see it under the suit and the body armor,” I said. “And she hasn’t gotten lucky with me either.”

Ascher stared at me for a second and blinked slowly. “You’re . . . serious, aren’t you?”

“We’re complicated,” I said.

“Because you’re twitchy?”

“And she’s had a couple of divorces. And her ex-boyfriend kind of shot me.”

“What?”

“I asked him to,” I said hurriedly.

“What?”

My mouth just kept running. “Plus there was this whole initiation rite with Mab, except I think that only happened in my brain or something. Traumatic—like getting it on with a hurricane. I think it’s kind of put me off sex in general.”

Ascher stared at me for a second more, then shook her head and turned away. “Man,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Dresden, but thanks for turning me down. Kinda dodged a bullet on that one.”

“Hey,” I protested.

“Seriously,” she said. “Way too much drama there for anyone sane.”

“We’re not dramatic,” I said. “Just—”

“Complicated?” she asked. She shook her head. “It isn’t complicated. You just open up and let someone in. And whatever comes after that, you face it together.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“The hell it isn’t. You had a chance for that and you turned it down? You’re a fucking idiot. I’m not making the same mistake.”

Footsteps came from the hallway beyond the security door and Michael appeared, Amoracchius in hand. The Sword was glowing with a faint, angry light.

“Harry,” he said. “Trouble.”

“What’s happening?”

“Nicodemus is about to kill Anna Valmont.”

“And you’re here?”

“Four of them and one of me,” he said.

I got out the key to my manacles and made sure it was handy.

“Dresden,” Ascher said, her voice tense, “if you blow out the electronics, you’ll blow the whole job!”

“I love it when a posh bird talks dirty!” called Binder merrily, from upstairs.

I ground my teeth, took my staff in my right hand, and said to Michael, “Come on.”

And then I took off down the hallway.

Thirty-five

The hallway beyond the first security door ran for a bit less than a hundred feet, and I found the mental shields against my various pains fluttering as I put more demand on my body. I ground my teeth and got through it, while Michael moved with effortless, well, grace at my side, even steadying me once when I wobbled.

At the end of the hall was another security door with a hole scorched through the wall beside it—and again I was treated to the stench of burned Genoskwa hair.

I ducked and went through the hole with Michael right behind me, and found myself in a room that was walled on two sides with what at first glance looked like lockers and which I realized a second later were security-deposit boxes. Minimum security, I guessed, where people stored copies of their important paperwork and such, from the size of them.

The third wall was made of obdurate, unjointed steel, broken only by a large steel door with a relatively small, unobtrusive control panel in its center. The panel didn’t look like cutting-edge tech to me. It was simply a keypad, a large combination wheel, and a small LED display.

Anna Valmont stood in front of the control panel with her tool roll splayed out on the floor beside her feet, all her equipment at the ready. She had what looked like a small flashlight in her hand. She was facing not the door, but Nicodemus.

The leader of the Denaria

ns stood off to one side, his little automatic in his hand, pointing it steadily at Valmont. Deirdre stood on his right, and Grey on his left. The Genoskwa was a giant blur against the wall behind them and a stench in the air.

“I still don’t see the problem,” Nicodemus said.