Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

“It did, but not like this.” My fingers still tingled from touching the cloth. “Besides, we’re talking about the power of faith, here,” I said. “Enough people believe that the fake is really the Shroud, maybe that’s enough to make it powerful all by itself.”

“Seems like a cheat.”

“Don’t knock it,” I said.

Her head snapped up, and her eyes widened. “Dresden,” Anna hissed.

I heard footsteps approaching a couple of seconds later. My heart thudded in my chest. I managed to get the knife and slip it up the sleeve of my duster, then quietly slid the cup into the exact center of the altar. Even that brief contact was like touching a live wire. Tingles flew up my arm and set every hair of my body on end.

I fought to suppress a full-body shudder, and about half a second later, Nicodemus appeared, trailing Michael, Hannah Ascher, and the Genoskwa. Ascher carried my staff in one hand, the lights of its runes gradually growing dimmer. She looked tired but smug, wearing one backpack that sagged with wealth and lugging a second like a too-heavy carry-on bag at the airport.

“There,” Michael said when he spotted me. He looked relieved, and he hadn’t, as far as I could tell, picked up anything. “Thank God.”

I waved a hand at the group, using the gesture to let the knife fall a little deeper into my sleeve. “Over here. Found it.”

They all came down to the stage with me. Nicodemus’s eyes were narrow with suspicion as he walked. “Dresden. You’ve found the Grail?”

“I just had Valmont check this altar for traps, and she says it’s clear,” I said, not quite lying. “I just got done examining it myself.”

“Why did you leave your staff back there?” Nicodemus asked, his rough voice harsh. “A distraction?”

“Figured you guys could use it as a waypoint to find us,” I lied blatantly. I stepped aside with a little Vanna White gesture, revealing the cup, and said, “Ta-da.”

Nicodemus stared at me hard for a second, then at the cup on the marble altar. I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he thought. Michael’s eyes went to it as well, widening.

“That’s it?” Michael asked. “That’s really it?”

“Thing makes my teeth buzz it’s so powerful,” I said. “Yeah, I think that’s it.” I looked at Nicodemus and said, “You’ve got your damned cup. Let’s pack up, get Grey his share, and get the hell out of here.”

Nicodemus walked a slow circle around the altar, examining it. His shadow twisted and writhed with eagerness where it fell on the floor around him. I took a step to one side to avoid letting it fall on me, because ick.

“I know you’ve been aching to have your hands on my staff,” I said to Ascher, as Nicodemus examined the altar for himself. I held out my hand. “But I’d rather be the one fondling my tool. Wizards are weird like that.”

“Wow,” she said, and flashed me a grin, her face flushed, excited. “You left me nowhere to go with that one. I have nothing to add.”

“I’m just that good,” I said.

She tossed the staff back to me, imprecisely, and I fumbled it for a second and nearly dropped it. I had a hell of a time both catching it in my right hand and keeping my left arm bent enough to keep the knife from slipping out of my sleeve.

And the brass hilt of the knife clicked against the aluminum splint still on my left arm.

Nicodemus looked up sharply at the sound.

His eyes stayed on me, dark and opaque for a moment.

“Miss Valmont,” he said quietly. “Go back to the entrance. Stand watch there and tell Grey he’s free to collect his share.”

Valmont hesitated, looking at me.

She was a liability here. If I could get her clear, it would be harder for Nicodemus to use her against me. Also, the more I could spread these artifacts out, the better.

I nodded, and Valmont vanished silently toward the entrance to the vault.

Michael came to stand next to me, and abruptly tilted his head, looking up at the statues. “Harry,” he asked, “does that statue look like Molly to you?”

Oh, crap. I so didn’t need this kind of thing distracting either of us right now.

“Pffffft,” I said. “What? No. That’s absurd. Maybe a little. Some people might think so. She’s got, uh, one of those faces.”

He pursed his lips and eyed me.

“Would you get your head in the game?” I said. “Trapped in the Underworld, possible epic Greek menace all around us? Focus, please.”

Michael eyed me.

Dammit, I so didn’t need this right now. Anna had, by now, gotten well out of the way. For the next few moments, Grey might be distracted with collecting his share, leaving Nick and the Genoskwa against me and Michael.

I’d take that fight.

But where would Hannah Ascher come down? Whichever side she chose would have the advantage, and that was that. Ascher liked me, on the one hand. But on the other, Nicodemus had saved her life against the Salamander, and she had signed on to be a part of his crew, not mine. If she held to Binder’s mercenary code, she’d back Nick’s play and not mine. I racked my brains for anything I could do to get her to come down on my side, at this point. But I had nothing.

Man.

Maybe I shouldn’t have rejected her advances. Especially not if she’d already been feeling the rejection from Binder. Maybe that would have made a serious difference.

On the other hand, who knows? It had been a while for me. Maybe that would have hurt my chances even more.

Something nagged at the back of my brain, an instinct that was attached to Ascher but too vague to make any sense out of.

The moment was passing, when Nicodemus was at the height of his tension and uncertainty. If I didn’t hurry, I was going to lose it. Time to start pushing.

“Would you hurry it up?” I said to Nicodemus. “I don’t want to get eaten by a three-headed dog or maybe bump into the shade of Medusa because you went into gloat-mode like every Evil Overlord shouldn’t. I told you we already checked it.”

“If you don’t mind,” Nicodemus said, going back to his examination, “I’m going to make certain for myself.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you can’t be serious,” I said. “Mab is a tricksy bitch, but she’s good to her word. She gave you her word that I would help you secure the cup and bring it back as long as you didn’t get up to any shenanigans, and that’s what I’m going to do. It’s safe. Stick a needle in my eye.”

Nicodemus continued in his slow circle.

“You get all cautious now?” I asked him. And I shifted my staff into the crook of my left arm and plucked up the Grail.

Nicodemus’s hand went to his sword, and his eyes narrowed, but I just held it speculatively, bouncing it in my hand. “See? No traps. It’s not an Indiana Jones movie, man.”

Nicodemus remained there, frozen—but his shadow exploded back across the amphitheater stage and climbed halfway up the rear arch of the seating, its edges flaring out wildly, like a monstrous cobra. As tells go, that seemed like a pretty damned big one.

My stomach turned as I began to speak, but I didn’t let that show in my voice. “This is what you came for, right?” I said quietly. “What your daughter died to give you. Hey, if I dropped it, do you think it would break?”

“Dresden,” Nicodemus said. There was no silk in his voice now—only rasp.

“Gravity seems a little higher here,” I said. “You notice? Maybe exactly high enough to break something like this if it fell. And then she’d have died for nothing.”

“Give me the Grail,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Now.”

“Sure. Come get it,” I said.

He started stalking around the altar toward me, and I casually mirrored him, keeping it between us. “Deirdre talked to me about your relationship yesterday,” I said. “Did you know that?”