"I'm impressed, Dresden," Nicodemus said. "I expected the Hellhound to make a good showing, of course, but you surprised me. Your skills are developing quite rapidly. Tessa is furious with you."
"I'm tired," I replied. "Do you want to talk deal or not?"
"I wouldn't have called, otherwise," Nicodemus replied. "But let's keep this a bit simpler, shall we? Just you and me. I have no desire to drag Chicago's underworld or the rest of the White Council into this ugly little affair. Mutually guaranteed safe passage, of course."
"We did that once," I said.
"And despite the fact that you betrayed the neutrality of the meeting well before I or any of my people took action-which I take as a highly promising act on your part-I am willing to extend my trust to you once more."
I bit out a little laugh. "Yeah. You're a saint."
"One day," Nicodemus said. "One day. But for now, let's say a face-to-face meeting. A talk. Just you and I."
"So you and your posse can jump me alone? No, thanks."
"Come now. As you say, I do do want to talk deal. If you're willing to extend your word of safe passage, we can even have it on your own ground." want to talk deal. If you're willing to extend your word of safe passage, we can even have it on your own ground."
"Oh?" I asked. "And where would that be?"
"It doesn't matter to me, as long as I don't have to be seen with you while you're wearing that ridiculous borrowed ensemble."
The hairs on the back of my neck started crawling up into my hairline. I turned my head around very slightly. The windows to the Carpenters' backyard had blinds and curtains, but neither was wholly drawn. The kitchen lights made the windows into mirrors. I couldn't see beyond them.
"What is it going to be, Dresden?" Nicodemus asked. "Will you give me your word of safe passage for our talk? Or shall I have my men open fire on that lovely young lady at the kitchen sink?"
I glanced over my shoulder to where Molly was drying dishes. She watched me out of the corner of her eye, clearly interested in the discussion, but trying not to look like it.
I couldn't possibly warn anyone before Nick's men could open fire-and I believed that he had them there. Probably up in the tree house. It had a reasonably good view of the kitchen.
"All right," I said, speaking so that everyone there could hear me. "I'm giving you my word of safe passage. For ten minutes."
"And hope to die?" Nicodemus prompted.
I gritted my teeth. "At the rate we're going, someone will."
He laughed again. "Keep the subject matter of this conversation between you and I, and it won't have to be anyone in the kitchen."
The phone disconnected.
A beat later someone knocked at the front door.
Mouse's growl rumbled through the whole house, even though he'd remained in the front room.
"Harry?" Michael asked.
I found my shoes and stuffed my bare feet into them. "I'm going out to talk to him. Keep an eye on us, but don't do anything if he doesn't start it. And watch your back. The last chat with him was a distraction." I stood up, pulled on my duster, and picked up my staff. I met Michael's eyes and said, "Watch your back."
Michael's head tilted slightly. Then he looked past me, to the windows to the backyard. "Be careful."
I took my shield bracelet out of my duster pocket and fastened it on, wincing as it went over the mild burns on my wrist. "You know me, Michael. I'm always careful."
I walked to the front door and looked out the window.
The lights on the street were all out, except for the streetlight in front of Michael's house. Nicodemus stood in the center of the street outside. His shadow stretched out long and dark to one side of him-the side opposite the one it should have been on, given the position of the light.
Mouse came to my side and planted himself there firmly.
I rested my hand on my dog's thick neck for a moment, searching the darkness outside for anything or anyone else. I saw nothing-which meant nothing, really. Anything could be out there in the dark.
But the only thing I knew knew was out there was a scared little girl. was out there was a scared little girl.
"Let's go," I said to Mouse, and stalked out into the snow.
Chapter Thirty-seven
It was snowing again. Five or six inches had fallen since the last time anyone cleared the Carpenters' front walk. My footsteps crunched through the silent winter air. You could have heard them a block away.
Nicodemus waited for me, stylishly casual in a deep green silk shirt and black trousers. He watched me come with a neutral expression, his eyes narrowed.
I shivered when a breath of cold wind touched me, and my weary muscles threatened to go out of control. Dammit, I I was the one working for the Winter Queen. So how come everyone was the one working for the Winter Queen. So how come everyone else else got to be perfectly comfortable in the middle of a blizzard? got to be perfectly comfortable in the middle of a blizzard?
I stopped at the end of Michael's driveway and planted my staff on the ground. Nicodemus stared silently at me for a while. The shadows had shifted to mask his expression, and I couldn't see his face very well.
"What," he said in a low, deadly tone, "is that?"
Mouse stared at Nicodemus, and let out a growl so low that individual snowflakes jumped up off the ground all around him. My dog bared his teeth, showing long white fangs, and his snarl rose in volume.
Hell's bells. I'd never seen Mouse react like that, except in earnest combat.
And it looked like Nicodemus didn't like Mouse much, either.
"Answer my question, Dresden," Nicodemus growled. "What is that that?"
"A precaution against getting stuck in deep snow," I said. "He's training to be a Saint Bernard."
"Excuse me?" Nicodemus said.
I mimed covering one of Mouse's ears with my hand and stage-whispered, "Don't tell him that they don't actually carry kegs of booze on their collars. Break his little heart."
Nicodemus didn't move, but his shadow shifted until it lay in a shapeless little pool between him and Mouse. His face came into view again, and he was smiling. "It's been a little while since anyone was quite that insolent to my face. May I ask you a question?"
"Why not?"
"Do you always retreat into insouciance when you're frightened, Dresden?"
"I don't think of it as retreating. I think of it as an advance to the cheer. May I ask you a question?"
The smile widened. "Oh, why not?"
"How come some of you losers seem to have personal names, and the others just get called after the Fallen in the coin?"
"It isn't complicated," Nicodemus said. "Some of our order are active, willing minds, with strength enough to retain their sense of self. Others are"-he shrugged a shoulder, an elegant, arrogant little motion-"of little consequence. Disposable vessels, and nothing more."
"Like Rasmussen," I muttered.
Nicodemus looked puzzled for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed suddenly, focusing intently upon me. His shadow stirred again, and something made a noise that sounded like a disturbingly serpentine whisper. "Oh, yes, Ursiel's vessel. Precisely." He looked past me to the house. "Have your friends begun whispering behind your back yet?"
They sure as hell had, though I had no idea why. I hung on to my poker face. "Why would they?"
"Try to imagine the Aquarium from their point of view. They enter a building with you, along with someone they would not normally bring along-but you have insisted that the police detective accompany your group. As a result, you walk away to a private conference with just you, me, and the Archive's guard dog. Then the sign goes up, and they can hear a terrible conflict raging. They race to the scene as quickly as possible and find my people dragging you out of the water-to take back the coin you had in your pocket, but your friends had no way of knowing that. They find the Archive gone, her bodyguard wounded or dead, and you being apparently assisted by my people.
"And they never saw what happened they never saw what happened," Nicodemus continued. "To a suspicious mind, you might seem an accomplice to the act."
I swallowed. "I doubt that."
"Oh?" Nicodemus said. "Even though you're about to propose giving me back the coins you took at the Aquarium? Eleven coins, Dresden. Should I recover them, everything you and your people have done during the past few days will mean nothing. I'll be just as strong and possess the power of the Archive to boot. It is hardly a stretch to consider that you would be ideally positioned to betray them at a critical moment-which this is."
I...hadn't thought of it like that.
"'What if he's finally falling to the influence of her shadow?' they're thinking. 'What if he's not wholly in control of his own decisions?' they're thinking. Treachery is a more dangerous weapon than any magic, Dresden. I've had two thousand years to practice arranging it, and your friends the Knights know it."
Suddenly Michael's attitude began to make a lot more sense, and the pot roast fought to come back up. I tried to keep my poker face, but it wouldn't stick.
"Ouch," Nicodemus said, his eyes widening. "After all those years of baseless suspicion and hostility from your own Council, that that must be a painful realization." He smirked at Mouse and then at me. "Your little heart must be breaking." must be a painful realization." He smirked at Mouse and then at me. "Your little heart must be breaking."
Mouse pressed his shoulder against my leg and snarled savagely at Nicodemus, taking a step forward.
Nicodemus ignored him, his focus all on me. "It's a tempting offer," he said. "Exchanging the coins for the Archive? Presenting me with an opportunity to walk away with every jewel in the vault? It's something I can hardly ignore. Well-done."
"So?" I said. "Where do you want to set it up?"
He shook his head. "I don't," he said quietly. "This is endgame, Dresden, even if you and yours can't accept it. Once I have the Archive, the rest is simply an exercise. Losing the coins will hurt, true, but I don't need them. Thorned Namshiel is of no real use to me in his current condition, and I haven't worked for two thousand years only to take a gamble at the last second. No deal."
I swallowed. "Then why are you here?"
"To give you a chance to reconsider," Nicodemus said. "I think you and I are not so very different. Both of us are creatures of will. Both of us live our lives for ideals, not material things. Both of us are willing to sacrifice to attain our goals."
"Maybe we should wear matching outfits."
He spread his hands. "I could be an ally far more effective and dangerous than any you have now. I'm willing to compromise with you, and make some of your goals my own. I can provide you with support beyond anything your own Council has ever done for you. The material gain of such a partnership is a passing matter, ultimately, but wouldn't you enjoy living in something other than a musty basement? Don't you get tired of coming home to cold showers, cheap food, and an empty bed?"
I just stared at him.
"A great deal of work needs to be done, and not all of it is repugnant to you. In fact, I should imagine that some of it would prove to be quite satisfying to your personal sense of right and wrong."
To hell with the poker face. I sneered at him. "Like what?"
"The Red Court is one example," Nicodemus said. "They're large, well organized, dangerous to my plans, a plague upon mankind, and aesthetically repugnant. They're parasites who are inconvenient in the short term, dangerous in the middle distance, and fatal to any long-range plan. They need to be destroyed at some point, in any case. I should have no objection to giving my assistance to you, and through you to the White Council in their efforts to do so."
"Make the Council into cat's-paws to wipe out the Red Court?" I asked.
"As if you have not been made into their tool on many occasions."
"The Council doesn't need my help to be a bunch of tools," I muttered.
"And yet the reversal appeals to your sense of justice, as does the notion of visiting destruction upon the Red Court. Especially given what they did to Susan Rodriguez." He tilted his head to one side. "It may be possible to help her, you know. If anyone might know of a means to free her of her condition, it is the Fallen."
"Why not just offer me floating castles and world peace while you're at it, Nick?"
He spread his hands. "I only suggest possibilities. Here is what is concrete: You and I share a great many foes. I am willing to help you fight them."
"Let me get this straight," I said. "You're telling me that you want me to work with you, and that I still get to keep being one of the good guys."
"Good and evil are relative. You know that by now. But I would never ask you to work against your conscience. I have no need to do so in order to make use of your talents. Consider how many people you could help with the power I'm offering you."
"Yeah. You seem like a real philanthropist."
"As I said, I'm willing to work with you, and I am quite sincere." He met my eyes. "Look upon my soul, Dresden. See for yourself."
My heart ripped out about a thousand beats in two seconds, and I jerked my eyes away from him, terrified. I didn't want to see what was behind Nicodemus's dark, calm, ancient eyes. It could have been something monstrous, his soul, something that ripped away my sanity and left a stain of itself on my own like a smear of grease.
Or it could be even worse.
What if he was telling the truth?
I glanced back at the Carpenter house, feeling very cold and very tired. Tired of everything. Tired of all of it. I looked down at my borrowed clothes and my bare ankles, covered with snow just like my shoes.
"I don't have anything against you personally, Dresden," he said. "I respect your integrity. I would enjoy working with you. But make no mistake: If you stand in my way, I'll mow you down beside everyone else."
Silence reigned.
I thought about what I knew of Nicodemus.
I thought about my friends and those whispers behind my back. I thought about the awkward silences.
I thought about what the world might become if Nicodemus turned Ivy.
I thought about how scared the little girl must be right now.
And I thought about a little old man from Okinawa who had literally laid down his life for my own.