Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

But neither the Genoskwa nor the Fallen angel sensed what was plummeting soundlessly toward them.

A block of ice the size of a building came down like the hammer of God Almighty, and crushed the Genoskwa like a beer can.

I rolled to a stop and flopped on the stone cavern floor, utterly exhausted, breathing like a steam engine. But I had enough energy to turn my head to the gruesome remains being tossed about like a rag doll among the last row of grinders.

“Parkour,” I panted. “Bitch.”

Then I just breathed for a minute.

Footsteps approached a moment later, and I felt hands hauling me up. Michael had sheathed Amoracchius again, and he steadied me as I rose. Grey stood and watched the grinders grind for a moment before he shook his head and said, “Yuck.”

“Right?” I said.

Anna Valmont shuddered, her face pale, and turned to me. “Are you all right, Harry?”

“Nothing two months asleep in a good bed won’t cure,” I said.

A chorus of moaning wails suddenly came toward us, as though the shades that had begun flooding the vault had reached some kind of critical mass and were now surging forward. I still hadn’t seen them, and I didn’t want to see them. I had this vague image of the scrubbing bubbles of undeadness from that Lord of the Rings movie in my brain, and I was sure that would serve fine for imagining the threat drawing quickly nearer.

“What was that?” Anna asked.

“Bouncers,” I said. “We don’t want to be around when they get here. Let’s get clear of the first gate, people.”

And we did, hurrying down the tunnel to the location of the original Way. I took a deep breath and steadied myself for what I hoped would be the last serious effort of the day.

“Michael,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I figure Nicodemus had Lasciel and Ascher as his backup Way home,” I said. Ascher had been throwing Hellfire around. With a couple of weeks’ training from a good teacher, say a Fallen angel who could provide her with images and communicate directly in thought, she might have enough talent to learn how to manage a Way—but probably not from inside several hundred tons of molten rock. “Maybe the Genoskwa could have done it. But they’re out. That leaves one way for him to get back.”

Michael grunted and drew his sword, and Grey frowned and looked warier than he had a moment before.

“We’re not in much shape for a fight, Harry,” Michael said.

“Neither is he,” I said. “Eyes open. Get through the Way as quick as we can, and I’ll zip it closed behind us. Nick can find his own way home.” Then I focused my will, drew a line in the air with my staff and said, “Aparturum.”

Once more, a line of light split the air and widened, and from where I stood, I could see the inside of the vault back at Marcone’s bank.

I leaned heavily on my staff, and felt fairly proud of myself for not falling over and going to sleep right there.

“Michael,” I said. “Go.”

Michael drew his sword and went through first, his eyes wary for any danger.

“Anna,” I said.

Valmont went through, still carrying her backpack, I noted. It was one of the identical ones that Nicodemus had provided for everyone and that I had ignored. Grey had used a duplicate as his decoy, back at the amphitheater.

“My God,” Grey said, looking at me. “You didn’t get any loot? How the hell are you going to pay me?”

“Think of something,” I said.

Grey smirked. “I know we’re in a hurry, but there’s something you need to realize.”

“What?”

“No one got Binder’s share,” he said. “We’re all worn pretty ragged—and he’s got an army of demons he can jump us with. Food for thought.” Then he went through the Way.

“Oh,” I said. “Crap.”

I just wanted to go have a nice lie-down somewhere. Why was nothing ever simple?

I stepped through the Way and back into the mortal world, and almost instantly I felt better, lighter, more free. Gravity change. I wrenched my head back into the moment, because I had to focus. Nicodemus might be rushing the Way even now—as might a few million furious shades. I didn’t think Hades would allow his prisoners to come flooding into the mortal world, but on the other hand, you never know with those types.

At least wrecking the weaving of a spell was easier work than creating it.

“Michael,” I said. “Cover me.”

He came to my side, Sword in hand. I turned to the Way, tired to my bones, lifted my staff and muttered, “Disperd—”

And a black shadow hurtled through the Way, hitting me like a truck.

I was watching for trouble and ready. Michael was ready. Either we were both wearier than we realized, or the shadow moved with such speed that neither of us had a chance to react. Or both.

The impact spun me around in a circle and dumped me on the ground with my everything hurting and my elbows tangled with my scapulae.

I jerked my head up blearily, raising my arms in a defensive gesture, to see that the streak of shadow had whooshed to the far end of Marcone’s vault, to its main door.

Nicodemus rose up out of the swirl of shadow. He looked pale and awful, his eyes sunken with pain, but he held himself straight. His sword was sheathed again, and he still carried the Holy Grail negligently in one hand. Moving with obvious stiffness and pain, he twisted a handle that opened the main door of the vault from the inside. The door swung open when he pushed.

Then he looked directly at me and quite calmly snapped the handle off at its base.

“Dresden,” Nicodemus said. There was something furious and horrible in his eyes—I could see it, even from there. “From one father to another,” he called. “Well played.”

I felt my eyes widen. “Stop him!” I blurted and flung myself to my feet.

Michael started running. Grey blurred toward the far end of the vault, moving at speeds one normally associates with low-flying aircraft.

None of us got there in time to stop Nicodemus from letting out a harsh, bitter laugh, and slamming the huge door closed.

I ran to the other end of the vault anyway, or mostly ran, breathing hard. Anna Valmont stayed beside me, still carrying her tool roll.

“God!” I said. I tried what was left of the handle, but couldn’t get a grip on it. The vault door had locked, shutting us in. I slammed a shoulder against the door, but it wasn’t moving, and I wasn’t sure I could have blasted it open even if I’d been fresh. “Michael, did you hear what he said?”

“I heard,” Michael said grimly.

“How could he know?”

“You told him,” Michael replied quietly. “When you taunted him about Deirdre. You said things only another father would know to say.”

I let out a groan, because Michael was right. Once Nicodemus had realized that I was a father, it was not too much of a stretch to identify the dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl who had suddenly appeared at Michael’s house, a place that I knew damned well Nicodemus would surveil, even if he couldn’t use his pet shadow to do it. And she had appeared there immediately after my insane assault on the Red Court and my apparent death, to boot. It wasn’t hard to figure.

Nicodemus might not be able to walk onto Michael’s property—but he had an entire dysfunctional posse of squires with assault rifles and shotguns who could, and he was filled with the pain of losing his daughter.

Maggie was there. So were Michael’s children. So was a defenseless archangel.

“He’s going to your house,” I breathed. “He’s going after our families.”

Forty-eight

“Get back,” Anna Valmont said sharply, and knelt to flick her tool roll open on the ground in front of the broken handle. “Dresden, get out of my way.”

I moved aside and said, “Hur

ry, hurry, hurry.”

She started jerking tools out of the roll. “I know.”

“Hurry.”

“I know.”

“Can’t you just cut it open?”

“It’s a vault door, Dresden, not a bicycle chain,” Valmont snapped. She gave Michael an exasperated look and jerked her head toward me.

Michael looked like he wanted to tell her to hurry, too, but he said, “Let her work, Harry.”

“Won’t be long,” she promised.

“Dammit,” I said, dancing from one foot to the next.

“Dresden?” Grey asked.

“What?”