Death Masks

I parked at a rental lot outside O'Hare about five minutes after seven. I got out of the car with my staff and rod in hand. There was only one old light burning on the lot, but the moon had risen huge and bright, and I had no trouble seeing Michael coming. His white truck came crunching to a halt on the gravel in front of me. I walked around to the passenger door. Sanya swung it open for me, then slid over. He was wearing blue denim and a big black cowboy hat.

"Harry," Michael said as I got in. "I was getting worried. You won?"

"Not exactly."

"You lost?"

"Not exactly. I had Ortega on the ropes and he cheated. Both of us cleared the benches. I came out of it in one piece. He came out in a couple of pieces but he got away."

"Is Susan all right?"

"She got thrown about twenty-five yards through the air and hit steel and concrete. She'll be fine." Something tickled my nose, and I sniffed. The sharp odor of metal filled the cab of the truck. "Michael, are you wearing the armor?"

"I am wearing the armor," Michael said. "And the cloak."

"Hello, Michael. We're going to an airport. The kind with metal detectors."

"It's all right, Harry. Things will work out."

"Will it sound like alarms going off when they do?" I glanced at the younger Knight and said, "Sanya isn't wearing armor."

Sanya half turned toward me and pulled his denim jacket open, revealing a Kevlar vest beneath it. "I am," he said soberly. "Fifteen layers with ceramic plating over critical areas."

"Well, at least you don't look like a Renaissance festival," I said. "This thing might actually protect you, besides making a slightly less medieval fashion statement. Is this the new stuff or the old stuff?"

"New," Sanya said. "Will stop civilian munitions, even some military rounds."

"But not knives or claws," Michael murmured. "Or arrows."

Sanya buttoned his coat back up, frowning. "Yours will not stop bullets."

Michael said, "My faith protects me."

I exchanged a skeptical look with Sanya and said, "Okeydokey, Michael. Do we have any idea where the bad guys are?"

"The airport," Michael said.

I sat there silently for a second before I said, "Needle, haystack. Where, at the airport?"

Michael shrugged, smiling, and opened his mouth to speak.

I held up my hand. "We must have faith," I said, doing my best to imitate Michael's voice. "How did I guess. Did you bring Fidelacchius?"

"In the tool locker," Michael said.

I nodded. "Shiro's going to need it back."

Michael was quiet for a moment before he said, "Yes, of course."

"We're going to save him."

"I pray it is so, Harry."

"We will," I said. I stared out the window as Michael pulled into the airport proper. "It's not too late."

O'Hare is huge. We drove around in crowded parking lots and auto loading zones for nearly half an hour before Michael abruptly slowed the truck down outside the international concourse, his spine and neck straightening as if he'd heard a warning klaxon.

Sanya glanced aside at Michael and said, "What is it?"

"Do you feel that?" Michael asked him.

"Feel what?"

"Close your eyes," Michael said. "Try to still your thoughts."

I muttered, "I sense a great disturbance in the Force."

"You do?" Michael asked, blinking at me.

I sighed and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. Sanya closed his eyes, and a second later his expression twisted in distaste. "Rot," the Russian reported. "Sour milk. Mildew. The air smells greasy."

"There's a Pizza Hut kiosk about fifty feet away," I pointed out, looking through the windows of the concourse. "But maybe it's just a coincidence."

"No," Michael said. "It's Nicodemus. He leaves a kind of stain everywhere he goes. Arrogance. Ambition. Disregard."

"I only smell rotten things," Sanya said.

"You're sensing him too," Michael said. "Your mind is interpreting it differently. He's here." He started pulling forward, but a cab zipped in front of him and stopped. The cabby got out and began unloading an elderly couple's bags.

I muttered to myself and sniffed. I even reached out with my magical senses, trying to detect what Michael had. I felt nothing but the usual-patternless white noise of thousands of lives moving around us.

I opened my eyes, and found myself staring at the back of Detective Rudolph's head. He had on the usual expensive suit, and stood with a spare, well-coiffed man I recognized from the district attorney's office.

I froze for a second. Then I snatched Sanya's black Stetson and pulled it down over my head. I tugged the brim down over my eyes and slouched down as low as I could.

"What is it?" Michael asked.

"Police," I said. I took a more careful look around. I spotted seven uniformed officers and maybe ten other men who wore suits and casual clothes but walked and stood like cops. "I passed word to them that the Shroud might be on the way out of Chicago through here."

"Then why are you hiding?"

"A witness reported me leaving the scene of a murder. If someone identifies me, I'm going to spend the next day or so getting questioned, and that won't help Shiro."

Michael's brow knitted in concern. "True. Do the police know of the Denarians?"

"Probably not. SI isn't on the case. Probably they've been told they're some kind of terrorists and to be considered dangerous."

The cabby in front of us finally finished up, and Michael pulled away from the loading zone and toward the parking lot. "That isn't good enough. We can't have them there."

"As long as the police are around, it will restrict the Denarians' movements. Make them keep their heads down and play nice."

Michael shook his head. "Most supernatural creatures will hesitate before killing a mortal police officer. But Nicodemus won't. He has nothing but contempt for mortal authorities. If we confront him, he will kill anyone who attempts to stop him, as well as taking hostages to use against us."

Sanya nodded. "Not to mention that if this plague curse is as formidable as you say, it would be dangerous to those nearby."

"It's worse than that," I said.

Michael rolled the steering wheel toward a parking space. "How so?"

"Forthill told me that the Denarians get a power boost from hurting people, right? Causing mayhem and destruction?"

"Yes," Michael said.

"The curse is only going to last a few days, but while it does it's going to make the Black Death look like chicken pox. That's why he's here. It's one of the busiest international terminals on the planet."

"Mother of God," Michael swore.

Sanya whistled. "Flights from here go directly to every major nation in the world. If the Denarians' plague is easily communicable -"

"I think I pretty well summed that up with the Black Death comment, Sanya."

The Russian shrugged. "Sorry. What do we do?"

"We call in a bomb threat. Clear out the people and shut down the planes."

"We need to be inside immediately," Sanya said. "How long would it take the authorities to react?"

"It would only work if I knew who to call to get an immediate reaction."

"Do you?" Sanya asked.

I held out my hand out to Michael. He slapped his cell phone into it. "No," I said. "But I know someone who does."

I called Murphy, trying to remain calm and hoping that the phone didn't explode against my head. When I got the connection, it was cloudy with bursts of static, but I managed to tell her what was going on.

"You're insane, Dresden," Murphy said. "Do you know how incredibly irresponsible-and illegal-it is to falsify a bomb threat?"

"Yeah. Less irresponsible than letting cops and civilians get in these people's way."

Murphy was quiet for a second, and then asked, "How dangerous are they?"

"Worse than the loup-garou," I said.

"I'll make the call."

"Did you get in touch with him?" I asked.

"I think so, yes. Do you need any more muscle?"

"Got plenty," I said. "What I'm short on is time. Please hurry."

"Be careful, Harry."

I hung up the phone and got out of the truck. Michael and Sanya came with me. "Murphy's going to report a bomb threat. The cops will clear everyone out of the building. That will clear out the area for us."

"Leaving the Denarians without anyone to infect, or take hostage," Sanya said.

"That's the idea. After that, they'll call in the bomb squad and backup. We'll have twenty minutes, tops, to take advantage of the confusion."

Michael unlocked the tool locker in the back of the pickup, and drew out Shiro's cane. He tied a strap to it and slung it over his shoulder. While he did, Sanya buckled Esperacchius to his hip, then drew a freaking assault rifle out of the tool locker.

"Kalashnikov, isn't it?" I asked. "That's an extremely Chuck Heston look for the Knights of the Cross."

Sanya slapped a magazine into the weapon, chambered a round, and made sure the gun's safety was on. "I consider myself a progressive."

"Too random for my taste," Michael said. "Too easy to hurt the wrong person."

"Maybe," Sanya said. "But the only people inside should be the Denarians, yes?"

"And Shiro," I said.

"I will not shoot Shiro," Sanya assured me.

Michael buckled Amoracchius onto his hip. "How much longer will it take?"

The buzzing ring of a fire alarm blared from the concourse, and the police got together. A grizzled detective in a bad suit took charge and started directing suits and uniforms around. People started hurrying out of the concourse.

"Ask and ye shall receive," I said. "Let's circle around. Get in through one of the service entrances."

Sanya slipped the assault rifle into an over-the-shoulder sports bag, but kept one hand on the stock. Michael nodded to me, and I took the lead. We circled around the building until we could see some of the planes. Ground crews were rushing around in confusion, and several guys with orange flashlights were waving them at flight crews, directing the wallowing jets away from the ramps to the concourse.

We had to climb a fence and drop down a ten-foot retaining wall to get behind the concourse, but in the dark and the confusion no one noticed us. I led us through a ground-crew door and through a room that was part garage and part baggage storage. Emergency lights were on and fire alarms still jangled. I passed a section of wall covered with calendar pinup girls, pictures of trucks, and a map of the concourse.

"Whoa, stop," I said. Sanya bumped into my back. I glowered at him, and then peered at the map.

"Here," I said, pointing at a marked door. "We'll come out on this stairway."

"Midway through," Michael noted. "Which way do we go?"

"Split up," Sanya suggested.

Michael and I said, "Bad idea," at precisely the same time.

"Think," I muttered, mostly to myself. "If I were an arrogant psychotic demon-collaborating terrorist out to trigger an apocalypse, where would I be?"

Sanya leaned over to look at the map and said, "The chapel."

"The chapel," said Michael.

"The chapel," I echoed. "Down this hall, up the stairs, and to the left."

We ran down the hall and up the stairs. I pushed open the door and heard a recorded voice telling me to be calm and proceed to the nearest exit. I checked my right before I did my left, and it saved my life.

A man in nondescript business wear stood watching the door and holding a submachine gun. When he saw me, he lifted the weapon, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and started shooting.

The slight pause was enough to let me reverse my direction. A couple of bullets went right through the steel fire door, but I stumbled back into Sanya. The big man caught me and spun, putting his back between me and the incoming bullets. I felt him jerk and heard him grunt once, and then we hit a wall and sank down.

I knew the gunman would be coming. Right then, he was probably circling out to the far wall across from the door. Once he had a clear line of fire down the stairs, he'd move up and gun us down.

I saw his shadow in the crack under the door, and I struggled to regain my feet. Sanya was doing the same thing, and the two of us managed to do little but keep each other down. The gunman came closer, his shadow moving in the little space beneath the door's edge.

Michael stepped over me and Sanya, Amoracchius in hand, and shouted as he lunged forward, both hands driving the weight of the sword at the closed steel door. The sword went through the door, sinking almost to the hilt.

An erratic burst of gunfire sounded. Michael drew the sword back out of the door. Blood gleamed wet and scarlet along the length of the weapon's blade. Michael put his back against the wall of the stairwell. The gun barked a couple of times more and fell silent. After a minute, blood seeped under the door in a spreading red puddle.

Sanya and I got untangled and got up. "You're hit."

Michael had already moved and stood behind Sanya. He ran his hands over Sanya's back, grunted, and then held up a small, bright piece of metal, presumably the round. "It hit a strike plate. The vest caught it."

"Progressive." Sanya panted, wincing.

"You're lucky the bullet had to go through a steel door before it got to you," I muttered. I readied a shield and pressed the door slowly open.

The gunman lay on the floor. Michael's thrust had taken him just under the floating ribs, and had to have hit an artery to kill him so quickly. His gun lay in his hand, and his finger was limp on the trigger.

Sanya and Michael slipped out of the stairwell. Sanya had his rifle in hand. They stood lookout while I bent down and pried open the dead gunman's mouth. He didn't have a tongue. "One of Nicodemus's boys," I said quietly.

"Something is wrong," Michael said. Blood dripped from the tip of the sword to the floor. "I don't feel him anymore."

"If you can feel him, can he feel you? Could he know if you were getting close to him?"

Michael shrugged. "It seems likely."

"He's cautious," I said, remembering how Nicodemus had reacted when Shiro came through the door. "He doesn't take chances. He wouldn't wait around to start a fight he wasn't sure he could win. He's running." I stood up and headed for the chapel. "Come on."

Just as I got to the chapel's door, it swung open and two more men came out, both of them slapping clips into submachine guns. One of them didn't look up in time to see me, so I checked him in the forehead with a double-handed thrust of my staff, getting my whole weight behind the blow. His head snapped back and he dropped. The other gunman started to bring his weapon up, but I batted the barrel aside with a sweep of my staff, then snapped the end of it hard into his nose. Before he could recover, Sanya stepped into him and slammed the butt of the Kalashnikov against his head. He fell on top of the first guy, tongueless mouth lolled open.

I stepped over them and into the chapel.

It had been a small, modest room. There were two rows of three pews each, a pulpit, a table, and subdued lighting. There were no specific religious trappings to the place. It was simply a room set aside to accommodate the spiritual needs of worldwide travelers of every belief, creed, and faith.

Any one of them would have felt profaned by what had been done to the room.

The walls had been covered in sigils, somewhat similar to those I had seen on the Denarians so far. They were painted in blood, and still wet. The pulpit had been leaned against the back wall, and the heavy table laid along it, so that it lay at an angle to the floor. On either side of the table was a chair covered in bits of bone, a few candles. On one of the chairs was a carved silver bowl, almost entirely covered in fresh blood. The room smelled sickly sweet, and whatever was in those candles made the air thick, languid, and hazy. Maybe opium. It had probably accounted for the slowed reaction of the second two gunmen. The candles shed muted light over the table's surface.

What was left of Shiro lay on it.

He was on his back, and shirtless. Torn flesh and dark, savage bruises, some of them in the clear outline of chains, lapped around from his back. His hands and feet were grotesquely swollen. They'd been broken so badly and in so many places that they looked more like sausages than human limbs. His belly and chest had been sliced up as I'd seen before, on the real Father Vincent and on Gaston LaRouche's corpse as well.

"There's so much blood," I whispered.

I felt Michael enter the room behind me. He made a soft, choking sound.

I stepped closer to Shiro's remains, noting clinical details. His face had been left more or less untouched. There were several items scattered around him on the floor-ritual implements. Whatever they had intended him for, they'd already done it. There were sores on his skin, fever blisters, I thought, and his throat was swollen. The damage to his skin probably hid many other such marks of pestilence.

"We're too late," Michael said quietly. "Have they already worked the spell?"

"Yeah," I said. I sat down on the first pew.

"Harry?" Michael said.

"There's so much blood," I said. "He wasn't a very big person. You wouldn't think there could be so much blood."

"Harry, there's nothing else we can do here."

"I knew him, and he wasn't very big. You wouldn't think there would be enough for all the painting. The ritual."

"We should go," Michael said.

"And do what? The plague has already started. Odds are we have it. If we carry it out, we only spread it. Nicodemus has the Shroud and he's probably out looking for a full school bus or something. He's gone. We missed."

"Harry," Michael said quietly. "We must-"

Anger and frustration suddenly burned hot and bright behind my eyes. "If you talk to me about faith I'll kill you."

"You don't mean that," Michael said. "I know you too well."

"Shut up, Michael."

He stepped up next to me and leaned Shiro's cane against my knee. Then, without a word, he drew back to the wall and waited.

I picked up the cane and drew the wooden handle of the old man's sword out enough to see five or six inches of clean, gleaming metal. I slapped it shut again, stepped up to Shiro, and composed him as best I could. Then I rested the sword beside him.

When he coughed and wheezed, I almost screamed.

I wouldn't have thought that anyone could survive that much abuse. But Shiro drew in a ragged breath, and blinked open one eye. The other had been put out, and his eyelid looked sunken and strange.

"Hell's bells," I stammered. "Michael!"

Michael and I both rushed down beside him. It took him a moment to focus his eye on us. "Ah, good," he rasped. "Was getting tired waiting for you."

"We've got to get him to a hospital," I said.

The old man twitched his head in a negative gesture. "Too late. Would do no good. The noose. The Barabbus curse."

"What is he talking about?" I asked Michael.

"The noose Nicodemus wears. So long as he bears it, he apparently cannot die. We believe the noose is the one used by Judas," Michael said quietly.

"So what's this Barabbus curse?"

"Just as the Romans put it within the power of the Jews to choose one condemned prisoner each year to be pardoned and given life, the noose allows Nicodemus to mandate a death that cannot be avoided. Barabbus was the prisoner the Jews chose, though Pilate wanted to free the Savior. The curse is named for him."

"And Nicodemus used it on Shiro?"

Shiro twitched his head again, and a faint smile touched his mouth. "No, boy. On you. He was angry that you escaped him despite his treachery."

Hell's bells. The entropy curse that had nearly killed both me, and Susan with me. I stared at Shiro for a second, and then at Michael.

Michael nodded. "We cannot stop the curse," he said. "But we can take the place of its subject, if we choose to do it. That's why we wanted you to stay away, Harry. We were afraid Nicodemus would target you."

I stared at him and then at Shiro. My vision blurred. "It should be me lying there," I said. "Dammit."

"No," Shiro said. "There is much you do not yet understand." He coughed, and pain flashed over his face. "You will. You will." He twitched the arm nearest the sword. "Take it. Take it, boy."

"No," I said. "I'm not like you. Like any of you. I never will be."

"Remember. God sees hearts, boy. And now I see yours. Take it. Hold it in trust until you find the one it belongs to."

I reached out and picked up the cane. "How do I know who to give it to?"

"You will know," Shiro said, his voice becoming thinner. "Trust your heart."

Sanya entered the room and padded over to us. "The police heard the gunfire. There's an assault team getting ready to-" He froze, staring at Shiro.

"Sanya," Shiro said. "This is our parting, friend. I am proud of you."

Sanya swallowed and knelt down by the old man. He kissed Shiro's forehead. Blood stained his lips when he straightened.

"Michael," Shiro said. "The fight is yours now. Be wise."

Michael laid his hand on Shiro's bald head and nodded. The big man was crying, though his face was set in a quiet smile.

"Harry," Shiro whispered. "Nicodemus is afraid of you. Afraid that you saw something. I don't know what."

"He should be afraid," I said.

"No," the old man said. "Don't let him unmake you. You must find him. Take the Shroud from him. So long as he touches it, the plague grows. If he loses it, it ends."

"We don't know where he is," I said.

"Train," Shiro whispered. "His backup plan. A train to St. Louis."

"How do you know?" Michael asked.

"Told his daughter. They thought I was gone." Shiro focused on me and said, "Stop them."

My throat clenched. I nodded. I managed to half growl, "Thank you."

"You will understand," Shiro said. "Soon."

Then he sighed, like a man who has just laid down a heavy burden. His eye closed.

Shiro died. There was nothing pretty about it. There was no dignity to it. He'd been brutalized and savagely murdered-and he'd allowed it to happen to him in my place.

But when he died, there was a small, contented smile on his face. Maybe the smile of someone who had run his course without wavering from it. Someone who had served something greater than himself. Who had given up his life willingly, if not gladly.

Sanya said, his voice strained, "We cannot remain here."

I stood up and slung the cane on its strap over my shoulder. I felt cold, and shivered. I put a hand to my forehead, and found it clammy and damp. The plague.

"Yeah," I said, and strode out of the room and back toward the blood-spattered stairs. "Clock's running."

Michael and Sanya kept pace. "Where are we going?"

"The airfield," I said. "He's smart. He'll figure it out. He'll be there."

"Who?" Michael asked.

I didn't answer. I led them back down through the garage area and out onto the airfield tarmac. We hurried down along the concourse, and then out onto the open acres of asphalt that led from the concourses to the landing fields. Once we'd gotten out there, I took off my pentacle amulet and held it aloft, focusing on it in order to cause it to begin to shed a distinctive blue light.

"What are you doing?" Sanya asked.

"Signaling," I said.

"Who?"

"Our ride."

It took maybe forty-five seconds before the sound of a helicopter's blades whirled closer to us. The aircraft, a blue-and-white-painted commercial job, zipped down to hover over us before dropping down for a precise if hurried landing.

"Come on," I said, and headed for the craft. The side door opened, and I climbed in with Michael and Sanya close behind me.

Gentleman Johnny Marcone, dressed in dark fatigues, nodded to me and to the two Knights. "Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Just tell me where to take you."

"Southwest," I said, yelling over the noise of the chopper. "They're going to be on a commercial train heading for St. Louis."

Michael stared at Marcone in shock. "This is the man who ordered the Shroud stolen to begin with," he said. "You don't think he's going to work with us?"

"Sure he will," I said. "If Nicodemus gets away with the Shroud and pulls off this big curse, Marcone's spent all that money for nothing."

"Not to mention that the plague would be bad for business," Marcone added. "I think we can agree to help one another against this Nicodemus. We can discuss the disposition of the Shroud afterward." He turned and thumped the pilot's shoulder a couple of times, and yelled directions. The pilot glanced back at us, and I saw Card's profile against the flight instruments. Hendricks leaned in from the passenger seat, listening to Marcone, and nodded himself.

"Very well then," Marcone called, leaning back into the cabin. He took a large-caliber hunting rifle down from a rack and settled into a seat, buckling up. "Best strap in, gentlemen. Let's go recover the holy Shroud."

I settled in and told Michael, "Now, if only we had a bit of Wagner to send us on our way."

I saw Card's reflection in the chopper's front windows look up at my words. Then she flicked a couple of switches, and "Ride of the Valkyries" started thrumming through the helicopter's cabin.

"Yee- haw," I said as my elbows and knees started a nagging ache. "As long as we're going, we might as well go out in style."