Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

As that happened, the light in the great vault changed. The fire in the hands of the two triple statues flared into large, dangerous-looking scarlet bonfires, painting everything in shades of sudden blood. I shot a glance up at the statues, and their mouths were moving. No voices were coming out, but the damned things were talking and a raw instinct told me what had happened. The wanton destruction of part of the collection had set off some kind of alarm.

And we were all standing, more or less, in one enormous prison for the shades of the dead.

Michael and Nicodemus, meanwhile, were engaged in a furious exchange of blows. Amoracchius glowed like a beacon, and its humming power filled the air. Nicodemus’s shadow danced and threatened and obscured his form as he moved like some oily and poisonous liquid, sword flickering—but I had seen all of that before.

I had never seen Michael going all out.

Michael was a big guy, built broad and strong, and the contrast between him and Nicodemus was striking. There’s an old truism in fighting that says a good big man will beat a good small man. The advantage gained from having superior height, reach, and greater physical mass and power is undeniable, and for the first time, I saw Michael using it all.

Blow after blow rained down on Nicodemus, a furious attack, and the smaller man had no choice but to give way before the assault, driven step by step backward before the onslaught of the Knight of the Sword. His lighter blade managed to flick out once, then twice, but each time Michael twisted his body to catch the blow on his mail, trusting the armor Charity had forged for him to protect him—and it did. He kept coming forward, and none of his blows was aimed to wound or incapacitate. Amoracchius swept down at Nicodemus’s head, his throat, his belly, his heart, and any one of the strikes could have delivered a mortal wound.

I flicked a glance toward where Ascher was, for all I knew, on fire. I thought about going over and making sure she stayed down and it made me feel sick enough that I decided I wasn’t quite that far gone yet. Besides, dangerous as she was, she didn’t hold a candle to Nicodemus. Michael had him on the ropes. This was our chance to put that monster away.

Michael drove Nicodemus to the edge of the stage, until the Denarian had to twist with a snarl and dive off to the ground below. He tucked into a roll and came back up again, neat as an acrobat.

And I tagged him with another hailstone before he could turn around and see it coming.

I hadn’t had time to get together as much ice as I’d used on the first two, but the hailstone that hit him was the size of a very large apple and moving considerably faster than a major-league fastball. It didn’t break when it hit. Nicodemus did. There was a wet thump of impact when it hit him in the left side, below the ribs, and he went up onto his toes in reaction, his body drawing to one side in a bow of pain. Then he staggered to one side and fell to a knee.

Michael took two steps and leapt from the stage, Sword grasped over his head, and brought it down on Nicodemus like a headsman’s ax. No demonic power or Fallen angel could save Nicodemus from that blow, delivered by that man, with that Sword.

Nick saved himself with pure nerve.

As Amoracchius swept down, Nicodemus, his face twisted in pain, lifted not his sword to block Michael’s—but the Holy Grail.

Michael let out a cry and twisted at the hips, pulling his blade to one side, and the blow swept past Nicodemus without touching him. Michael landed off-balance and fell into a heavy roll. From the ground, Nicodemus thrust his slender blade at Michael’s back, and sank the tip into the back of one of his thighs. Michael cried out in pain, and came up to his feet heavily, favoring his wounded leg.

Nicodemus rose, his dark eyes glittering, holding his left arm in close to his ribs, where the hailstone had hit him, favoring that side, and moving stiffly. He turned to make sure he could see both me and Michael, and had visible trouble shifting his weight. He was hurt.

But not nearly hurt enough to suit me.

I called another hailstone to my staff. I raised it and aimed.

Nicodemus lifted the Grail again, a small smile on his face as he held it between me and him as a hostage. “Careful, Dresden,” he said. “Are you willing to accept such a loss?”

“Yep,” I said, and snarled, “Forzare!” again, sending another hailstone at him.

Nicodemus’s eyes widened, but he turned his body to shield the Grail, and the hailstone struck him in the right shoulder blade. He let out another breathless cry—and then sudden blackness engulfed him and a tide of shadow swept him away.

“Michael,” I said, and hurried to my friend’s side.

Michael’s eyes were busy, roaming left and right, looking for Nicodemus. He turned so that I could see the wound. It was a thrust, narrow but deep. There wasn’t an inordinate amount of blood staining the leg of his jeans, and I didn’t think it had gone into the artery.

“What happened there?” I asked. “Is he gone?”

“I’m . . . I’m not sure . . . ,” Michael said. “I’ve never seen him forced to run before.”

“We should finish him.”

“Agreed,” Michael said. “How? He just flew away.”

“Gimme a minute,” I said, and felt myself baring my teeth in a grin. “How does the leg feel?”

“I’ve had worse,” Michael said, his voice strained. He shifted his weight, testing the leg, and made a hissing sound—but it supported his weight. “Only a flesh wound.”

“Yeah,” I said. “’Tis but a scratch. Come on, ya pansy.”

He blinked and looked at me. “Pansy?”

“Oh,” I said. “You weren’t quoting the movie. Sorry.”

“Movie?”

“Holy Grail?”

“Nicodemus still has it.”

I sighed. “Never mind.”

From the other side of the amphitheater, there was a roar of collapsing stone, and I looked up in time to see a couple of sets of Corinthian columns falling, to the accompaniment of Ursiel’s furious roars.

“So,” Michael said, “to be clear, Grey is on our side?”

“Yeah. I hired him before this started.”

“But he killed Miss Valmont!”

“No, he didn’t,” I said. “He lied to Nicodemus. She must be outside the vault somewhere, waiting for us.”

Michael looked nonplussed. “Oh. Still. I don’t care for the man.”

“Hey, we’re alive right now.”

“True,” he said. He drew a deep breath. “And if he’s kept faith with you, we should help him.”

Just then, Ursiel went up on its hind legs. Grey was still in that same monstrous form, and still hanging on. The Genoskwa’s physical eyes were a bloody ruin, but Ursiel’s glowing green orbs were furious and bright. The giant bear-thing roared, a sound guaranteed to haunt my nightmares, should I live long enough to have any, and toppled over backward, into another Corinthian column, attempting to smash Grey upon it. They went down with another huge crash and a spray of glittering gems. The sound of the impact was . . . just freaking huge. The kind of noise you associate with the demolition of buildings, not with a brawl.

I swallowed. “Yeah. I guess we sh . . .”

I paused, as cold that had nothing to do with the movement of molecules crawled up my spine.

I knew the feeling. I’d gotten the sensation before, when surrounded by hostile specters, back when I’d been mostly dead. It was a creepy, thoroughly nasty sensation that gathered around them like body heat.

Which might not be a big deal in the physical world. Specters often could not interact with the material realm, or could do so only in specific and limited ways. But we weren’t in the physical world. This was the Nevernever, the Underworld, and down here spiritual forms would be every bit as real and as deadly as physical foes—actually, much more so.

In fact, given how many truly horrible monsters the various Gree

k heroes had slain, Hades might have a very, very nasty crew of guardians indeed. The guy might, in fact, be the only one in the universe who could actually give the order “Release the kraken.” But why would they be coming toward us? I mean, the guy had wished me well. Sure, he hadn’t interfered, but . . .

I looked up at the moving lips on the statues and winced. “Oh, crap.”

“What?” Michael asked.

“I think we’ve tripped some kind of automatic fail-safe,” I said. “I think there’s a load of dangerous spirits on their way toward us right now.”