Death Masks

I grabbed my staff, blasting rod, and Shiro's cane, and made a note to get myself a freaking golf bag. We took the cab to McAnnally's. The Blue Beetle was still in the nearby lot, and it hadn't been stolen, vaporized, or otherwise mishandled.

"What happened to your back window?" Susan asked.

"One of Marcone's goons winged a few shots at me outside the Larry Fowler studio."

Susan's mouth twitched. "You went on Larry Fowler again?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Uh- huh. And what about the hood?"

"Little holes are from Marcone's thug. Big dent was a chlorofiend," I said.

"A what?"

"Plant monster."

"Oh. Why don't you just say 'plant monster'?"

"I have my pride."

"Your poor car."

I got out my keys, but Susan put her hand on mine, and walked a circle around the car. She crouched down and looked beneath it a couple of times, then said, "Okay."

I got in. "Thank you, double oh seven, but no one bombs a Volkswagen. They're too cute."

Susan got in the passenger door and said, "Cute confetti if you aren't careful, Harry."

I grunted, revved up the car, and puttered to Michael's place.

The morning was cold and clear. Winter hadn't yet given up its grip on the Great Lakes, and where Lake Michigan went, Chicago went too. Susan got out and looked around the front lawn, frowning from behind black sunglasses. "How does he manage to make this place so nice, run his own business, and fight demons on the side?"

"He probably watches a lot of those home-and-garden shows," I said.

She frowned. "The grass is green. It's February and his grass is green. Doesn't that strike you as strange?"

"Sod works in mysterious ways."

She made a disgusted sound, and then followed me up the walk to the door.

I knocked. A moment later Father Forthill said, "Who's there?"

"Donny and Marie," I responded. "Salt-N-Pepa asked us to fill in for them."

He opened the door, smiling from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. He was the same short, stocky, balding old Forthill, but he looked strained and tired. The lines of his face had grown deeper than I remembered. "Hello, Harry."

"Father," I said. "You know Susan?"

He looked at her thoughtfully. "By reputation," he said. "Come in, come in."

We did, and as I came in, Forthill set a Louisville Slugger baseball bat down in the corner. I raised my eyebrows, traded a look with Susan, and then put my staff and Shiro's cane beside the bat. We followed Forthill into the kitchen.

"Where's Charity?" I asked.

"Taking the children to her mother's house," Forthill said. "She should be back soon."

I let out a breath of relief. "Anna Valmont?"

"Guest room. Sleeping."

"I need to call Martin," Susan said. "Excuse me." She stepped aside into the small study.

"Coffee, doughnut?" Father Forthill asked.

I sat down at the table. "Father, you've never been closer to converting me."

He laughed. "The Fantastic Forthill, saving souls one Danish at a time." He produced the nectar of the gods themselves in Dunkin Donuts paper sacks and Styrofoam cups, taking some for himself as well. "I've always admired your ability to make jokes when faced with adversity. Matters are grave."

"I sort of noticed," I said through a mouthful of glazed doughnut. "Where's Michael?"

"He and Sanya went to St. Louis to investigate possible Denarian activity. They were both arrested by the local police."

"They what? What for?"

"No charges were filed," Forthill said. "They were arrested, held for twenty-four hours, and released."

"Sand trap," I said. "Someone wanted them out of the way."

Forthill nodded. "So it would seem. I spoke to them about two hours ago. They're on their way back now and should be here soon."

"Then as soon as they get here, we have to go get Shiro back."

Forthill frowned and nodded. "What happened to you last night?"

I told him the short version-all about the art auction and the Denarians, but I elided over the details afterward, which were none of his chaste business. And which would have embarrassed me to tell. I'm not particularly religious, but come on, the man was a priest.

When I finished, Forthill took off his glasses and stared hard at me. He had eyes the color of robin's eggs, and they could be disturbingly intense. "Nicodemus," he said quietly. "Are you sure that is what he called himself?"

"Yeah."

"Without a doubt?"

"Yeah. We had a nice chat."

Forthill folded his hands and exhaled slowly. "Mother of God. Harry, could you describe him for me?"

I did, while the old priest listened. "Oh, and he was always wearing a rope around his neck. Not like a ship's hawser, a thin rope, like clothesline. I thought it was a string tie at first."

Forthill's fingers reached up to touch the crucifix at his throat. "Tied in a noose?"

"Yeah."

"What did you think of him?" he asked.

I looked down at my half-eaten doughnut. "He scared the hell out of me. He's - bad, I guess. Wrong."

"The word you are looking for is 'evil,' Harry."

I shrugged, ate the rest of the doughnut, and didn't argue.

"Nicodemus is an ancient foe of the Knights of the Cross," Forthill said quietly. "Our information about him is limited. He has made it a point to find and destroy our archives every other century or so, so we cannot be sure who he is or how long he has been alive. He may even have walked the earth when the Savior was crucified."

"Didn't look a day over five hundred," I mumbled. "How come some Knight hasn't gone and parted his hair for him?"

"They've tried," Forthill said.

"He's gotten away?"

Forthill's eyes and voice stayed steady. "He's killed them. He's killed all of them. More than a hundred Knights. More than a thousand priests, nuns, monks. Three thousand men, women, children. And those are only the ones listed in the pages recovered from the destroyed archives. Only two Knights have ever faced him and survived."

I had a flash of insight. "Shiro is one of them. That's why Nicodemus was willing to trade me for him."

Forthill nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. "Likely. Though the Denarians grow in power by inflicting pain and suffering on others. They become better able to use the strength the Fallen give them. And they gain the most from hurting those meant to counter them."

"He's torturing Shiro," I said.

Forthill put his hand on mine for a moment, his voice quiet, calming. "We must have faith. We may be in time to help him."

"I thought the whole point of the Knights was to deal out justice," I said. "The Fists of God and all that. So why is it that Nicodemus can slaughter them wholesale?"

"For much the same reason any man can kill another," Forthill said. "He is intelligent. Cautious. Skilled. Ruthless. Like his patron fallen angel."

I guessed at the name. "Badassiel?"

Forthill almost smiled. "Anduriel. He was a captain of Lucifer's, after the Fall. Anduriel leads the thirty Fallen who inhabit the coins. Nicodemus wasn't seduced into Anduriel's domination. It's a partnership. Nicodemus works with Fallen as a near-equal and of his free will. No one of the priesthood, of any of the Knightly Orders, of the Knights of the Cross, has so much as scratched him."

"The noose," I guessed. "The rope. It's like the Shroud, isn't it? It has power."

Forthill nodded. "We think so, yes. The same rope the betrayer used in Jerusalem."

"How many Denarians are working with him? I take it that they probably don't get along with each other."

"You are correct, thank God. Nicodemus rarely has more than five or six other Denarians working with him, according to our information. Usually, he keeps three others nearby."

"Snakeboy, demon-girl, and Ursiel."

"Yes."

"How many coins are running around the world?"

"Only nine are accounted for at this time. Ten, with Ursiel's coin."

"So Nicodemus could theoretically have nineteen other Fallen working with him. Plus a side order of goons."

"Goons?"

"Goons. Normal hired hands, they looked like."

"Ah. They aren't normal," Forthill said. "From what we have been able to tell, they are almost a small nation unto themselves. Fanatics. Their service is hereditary, passed on from father to son, mother to daughter."

"This gets better and better," I said.

"Harry," Forthill said. "I know of no tactful way to ask this, so I will simply ask. Did he give you one of the coins?"

"He tried," I said. "I turned him down."

Forthill's eyes stayed on my face for a moment before he let out a breath. "I see. Do you remember the sigil upon it?"

I grunted in affirmation, picked up a chocolate-covered jelly, and drew the symbol in the chocolate with a forefinger.

Forthill tilted his head, frowning. "Lasciel," he murmured.

"Lasciel?" I said. It came out muffled, since I was licking chocolate off my finger.

"The Seducer," Forthill murmured. He smeared his finger over the chocolate, erasing the sigil. "Lasciel is also called the Webweaver and the Temptress," he said, between licks. "Though it seems odd that Nicodemus would want to free her. Typically, she does not follow Anduriel's lead."

"A rebel angel among rebel angels?"

"Perhaps," Forthill said. "It is something better not discussed, for now."

Susan stepped out of the little office, a wireless phone to her ear. "All right," she said to the phone, and walked past us, jerking one hand at us to tell us to follow her. Father Forthill lifted his eyebrows, and we went out to the Carpenter family's living room.

It was a fairly huge room divided into several clumps of furniture. The television was in the smallest clump, and still looked about three sizes too small. Susan marched over to it, flicked it on, and flipped through stations.

She stopped on a local station, a news report, that showed a helicopter angle of a building being consumed by a raging fire. About a dozen yellow-and-red fire trucks circled around it, but it was obvious that they were only containing the fire. The building was lost.

"What's this?" Forthill asked.

"Dammit," I snarled, and turned away from the television, pacing.

"It's the building Shiro took us to last night," Susan said. "The Denarians were in some tunnels beneath it."

"Not anymore," I snapped. "They've left and covered their tracks. Hell, they've had what? Six hours? They could be a couple of states away by now."

"Nicodemus," Forthill said. "It's his style."

"We'll find them," Susan said quietly.

"How?" I asked.

She pressed her lips together and turned away from me. She spoke quietly into the phone. I couldn't hear what she said, but it had that end-of-conversation tone to it. She turned the handset off a moment later. "What can we do?"

"I can go to the underworld," I said. "Call up some answers from there. But I can't do it until the sun sets."

Forthill said quietly, "You mustn't do that. It's far too dangerous. None of the Knights would want-"

I slashed my hand through the air, cutting him off. "We need information or Shiro is going to die. Not only that, but if we don't run down Nicodemus, he gets to do whatever badness he's getting ready to do with the Shroud. If I have to go to Downbelow for answers, then that's where I go."

"What about Michael?" Susan asked. "Couldn't he find Shiro the way Shiro found Harry?"

Forthill shook his head. "Not necessarily. It isn't something he can control. At times, the Knights are given that kind of discernment, but they can't call it up at will."

I checked my watch, figuring up distances. "Michael and Sanya should be back here in what? An hour or so?"

"Barring further difficulties," Forthill said.

"Fine. We'll see if the side of the angels wants to pitch in. If they don't, I'm calling Chauncy up as soon as the sun goes down." I took the phone from Susan and walked out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Susan asked.

"To talk to Anna Valmont. And after that, I'm going to call my client. On the off chance I survive, I want to look like I at least tried to be professional."

Charity kept a guest room that had slowly been engulfed in a jungle of fabric. Clear boxes full of the stuff in every imaginable color stood stacked against one wall, and a small sewing machine sat on a table, barely visible among neatly folded stacks of more. More boxes of fabric had been stacked into a rampart around a single bed, which was occupied by a lump buried underneath several quilts.

I turned on a small lamp on the sewing table and hoped that the room wouldn't burst into flame. "Anna. Wake up."

The lump made a mumbling sound and stirred before settling again.

I turned the phone on and let the dial tone sound in the room's silence. "I know you're awake, Miss Valmont. And you know that I saved your ass back at the Marriott. So if you don't sit up and talk to me right now, I'm calling the cops to come pick you up."

She didn't move. I punched in a number and let the phone start to ring.

"Bastard," she muttered. With the British accent, it came out bah-stuhd. She sat up, her expression wary, holding the covers to her front. Her shoulders were bare. "Very well. What do you want?"

"My coat, for starters," I said. "But since I doubt you're palming it, I'll settle for the name of your buyer."

She stared at me for a moment before she said, "If I tell you that, it could kill me."

"If you don't, I'm turning you over to the police."

She shrugged. "Which, while unpleasant, won't kill me. Besides, you intend to turn me over in any case."

I scowled at her. "I saved your life. Twice."

"I am aware of that," she said. She stared through me for a moment before she said, "It's so hard to believe. Even though it happened to me. It seems - mad. Like a dream."

"You aren't crazy," I said. "Or at least, you aren't hallucinating or anything."

She half laughed. "I know. Cisca is dead. Gaston is dead. It happened to them. My friends." Her voice broke, and she started blinking very quickly. "I just wanted to finish it. So that they didn't die for nothing at all. I owed it to them."

I sighed. "Look, I'll make this easy for you. Was it Marcone?"

She shrugged without focusing her eyes. "We went through an intermediary, so I can't be sure."

"But was it Marcone?"

Valmont nodded. "If I had to guess, I would say it was. The buyer was someone with a great deal of money and local influence."

"Does he know that you know?"

"One doesn't mention to the buyer that you know who he is when he is taking precautions to prevent it. It's impolite."

"If you know anything about Marcone, you know that he isn't going to pay you off and let you walk away without delivering," I said.

She rubbed at her eyes. "I'll offer to return it."

"Good idea. Assuming he doesn't kill you before you finish offering."

She glared at me for a second, angry and crying. "What do you want from me?"

I picked up a box of tissues from behind a bunch of yellow cotton on the table and offered it to her. "Information. I want to know everything. It's possible you've heard or seen something that might help me recover the Shroud. Help me out, and I might be able to buy you some time to leave town."

She took the box and blotted her eyes on a tissue. "How do I know you will deliver on that promise?"

"Earth to Larceny Spice, come in Larceny Spice. I've saved your life twice. I think you can safely assume goodwill."

She looked down, biting her lip. "I - I don't know."

"This is a limited-time offer."

She drew in a shaking breath. "All right. All right, let me clean up a little. Get dressed. I'll tell you what I know."

"Fine," I said. "Come on. There's a shower in the bathroom at the end of the hall. I'll get you towels and stuff."

"Is this your house?"

"Friends'. But I've stayed here before."

She nodded and fished around until she came up with the black shirt she'd been wearing the night before. She slipped into it and rose. She had long, pretty, and bruised legs, and as she stepped onto her right leg she let out a pained cry and fell forward. I caught her before she could hit the ground, and she leaned into me, lifting her right foot from the floor.

"Bloody hell," she wheezed. "I must have twisted my ankle last night." She shot me a hard-eyed glance. "Hands."

I jerked my hand off something pleasantly smooth and firm. "Sorry. Accident. Can you manage?"

She shook her head, balanced on one leg. "I don't think so. Lend me your arm a moment."

I helped her hobble down the hall and into the bathroom. I dug some more towels out of the linen closet, then passed them into her through a mostly closed door. She locked it behind her and started the shower.

I shook my head and went back down the hall, dialing Father Vincent's phone number. On the fifth ring, he answered, his voice sounding tired and strained. "Vincent."

"It's Harry Dresden," I said. "I know where the Shroud came into Chicago and who was buying. It got intercepted by a third party and they have it now."

"You're certain?" Vincent demanded.

"Yeah."

"Do you know where it is?"

"Not exactly, but I'm going to find out. I should know by this evening, maybe sooner."

"Why will it take until this evening?" Vincent asked.

"Well, uh. It's a little hard to explain," I said.

"Perhaps the police should handle the rest of the investigation."

"I'd advise against it."

"Why?"

"I have some information that indicates your mistrust may not have been misplaced."

"Oh," Vincent said. His voice sounded worried. "I think we should meet and talk, Mister Dresden. I'd rather not discuss this over the phone. Two o'clock, at the room we spoke in last?"

"I can probably do that," I said.

"Until then," said Vincent, and hung up.

I paced back into the living room and found Susan sitting and reading the morning paper with coffee and a doughnut. One of the sliding glass doors that had previously led to the back patio was open, and on the other side was a lot of bare wood and plastic-the addition Michael was building. The rasping of a saw came through the open door.

I stepped out and found Father Forthill at work. He'd taken off his coat and collar. He had a short-sleeved black shirt underneath. He wore leather work gloves and safety glasses. He finished sawing a beam, and blew dust off the cut before rising. "How is Father Vincent?"

"Sounds tired," I said. "I'm going to talk to him later, assuming we don't have something going on first."

"I worry for him," Forthill said. He held up the beam to the top of what would eventually be a window. "Here, hold this for me."

I did. Forthill started driving in a few nails, clenching several in his teeth. "And Miss Valmont?"

"Taking a shower. She's going to cooperate with us."

Forthill frowned, taking a nail from his lips. "I really wouldn't have expected that from her, from the sense I had of her."

"It's my charming personality," I said. "The ladies can't resist."

"Mmmm," Forthill said, around the nails.

"It's the only decent thing to do. And her back is against a wall, right?"

Forthill drove the nail in and frowned. He looked at me.

I looked back at him for a moment and then said, "I'll just go check on her."

I got about halfway across the living room before I heard a car door shut, immediately followed by a car engine. I ran to the front door and threw it open just in time to see the shattered rear window of the Blue Beetle zipping down the street and out of sight.

I fumbled at my pockets and groaned. My keys were missing. "Son of a bitch," I snarled. I punched the door frame in sheer frustration. I didn't punch it very hard. I was angry, not looking to break my own knuckles. "The old stumble and bump and I fell for it."

Susan stepped up beside me and sighed. "Harry, you idiot. You're a good man. But an idiot where women are concerned."

"First my coat and now my car. That's freaking gratitude for you."

Susan nodded. "No good deed goes unpunished."

I stared at her. "Are you laughing at me?"

She faced me from behind a perfectly straight face. But her voice sounded a little choked. "No."

"You are."

Her face turned pink and she shook her head.

"Laughing at my pain."

She turned and walked back to the living room and picked up her paper. She sat down and held it up so that I couldn't see her face. Choked sounds came out from behind the paper.

I stalked back out to the addition, growling. Forthill looked back at me, his eyebrows raised.

"Give me something to break. Or hit really hard," I told him.

His eyes sparkled. "You'll hurt yourself. Here, hold this for me."

I lifted another cut board into place, while Forthill reached up to hammer it in. As he did, the sleeve of his shirt tugged up, and showed me a pair of green lines.

"Wait," I said, and snapped my hand over to his arm. The board slipped out of my other hand and bonked me on the head on the way down. I scowled at it, wincing, but tugged the sleeve up.

Forthill had a tattoo on the inside of his right arm.

An Eye of Thoth.

"What is this?" I demanded.

Forthill looked around and tugged his sleeve back down. "A tattoo."

"Duh, a tattoo. I know that. What does it mean?"

"It's something I had done when I was younger," he answered. "An organization I belonged to."

I tried to calm down but my voice still sounded harsh. "What organization?"

Forthill blinked mildly at me. "I don't understand why you are so upset, Harry-"

"What organization?"

He continued to look confused. "Just several of us who took our orders together. We were barely more than boys, really. And we'd - well. We'd happened on to some of the stranger events of our day. And records of others. A vampire had killed two people in town, and we stopped it together. No one believed us, of course."

"Of course," I said. "What about the tattoo?"

Forthill pursed his lips, thoughtful. "I haven't thought about it in so long. Well, the next morning we went out and got the tattoos. We swore an oath to be always watchful against the forces of darkness, to help one another whenever we could."

"Then what?"

"After the hangovers faded, we went a very good distance out of our way to make sure none of the senior clergy saw them," Forthill responded, smiling faintly. "We were young."

"And then?"

"And then no other supernatural events presented themselves over the next few years and the five of us drifted apart. Until I heard from Vittorio-from Father Vincent last week, I hadn't spoken to any of them in years."

"Wait. Vincent has a tattoo like this?"

"I suppose he could have had it removed. He might be the sort to do that."

"What about the others in the group?"

"Passed away over the last several years," Forthill said. He stripped off one of the work gloves and regarded his weathered hand. "Back then, I don't think any of us thought we would ever live to be so old."

The wheels spun in my head, and I got it. I understood what was happening, and why. On pure intuition I stalked to the front of the house, gathering up my things on the way. Father Forthill followed me. "Harry?"

I walked past Susan, who set her paper aside and stood up to follow me. "Harry?"

I got to the front door and jerked it open.

The engine of Michael's white pickup rattled to a halt as I did, and he and Sanya got out of the truck. They looked a little rumpled and unshaven, but fine. Michael blinked at me and asked, "Harry? I think I just saw a woman driving your car toward the highway. What's going on?"

"Get anything you need for a fight," I said. "We're going."