Small Favor(67)

Outside the circle they had chained a number of those hideous hunting beasts, hairless creatures that resembled nothing in the animal kingdom but fell somewhere between a big panther and a wolf. The creatures looked hungry, and stared intently at the floating morsel. One of them snarled and threw itself to the end of its chain in an effort to snap its fanged maw closed upon the girl's vulnerable flesh. It couldn't reach her, but Ivy twitched and let out a thready whimper.
As she spun and twirled-a deliberate echo of what she'd done to Magog at the Aquarium, I felt certain-the motion revealed dozens of tiny scratches and bruises, evidence of a small legion of petty cruelties. They would, however, seem nightmarish enough to a child who had never experienced real pain of her own. All of this-the pain, the helplessness, the indignity, all of it-would be that much more horrific and terrifying to Ivy for its novelty. Say what I would about pain being a part of the human condition, when it comes to seeing it inflicted on children, I'm as hypocritical as the day is long.
Some things just shouldn't happen.
"There, you see?" the lord of the Denarians said. "Safe and sound, as agreed."
I turned my gaze back to Nicodemus, who was about ten seconds from an ass kicking-
- and caught a little glimmer of something approximating satisfaction in his eyes that made my combat-readying reflexes cool off almost instantly.
Ivy's treatment hadn't been only about putting her in the proper frame of mind to manipulate her.
It had also been about manipulating me. It wasn't even all that tough to understand why. After all, I'd been in a situation something like this before.
It wasn't enough for the Denarians to simply acquire the Sword. They couldn't break or smash or melt Fidelacchius, any more than the Church could smash or melt the thirty silver coins. The power of the Sword was more than merely physical, and as long as it was wielded by those of pure heart and intent, it would take more than mere physical means to undo it.
Of course, if you handed the Sword to, for example, a wizard who was known for playing it shady once in a while, and who was known for having a bad temper, and who was known for occasionally losing it, and maybe for burning down a building or two when he got angry, that could change the situation entirely. Put him in an intense situation, give him a really good reason to be angry, give him a mighty magical weapon near at hand, and he might well seize it and use it out of sheer outrage-despite the fact that he wouldn't exactly be acting from entirely pure motives by doing so. After all, I had come here, ostensibly in peace, to offer up the Sword as a sacrifice for the life of a child. If I then took up that same weapon and used it to strike at Nicodemus and company instead, I, its rightful bearer, would be employing Fidelacchius, the Sword of Faith, in an act of treachery.
Once I'd done that, then the Sword would just be a sword, an object of steel and wood. Once I'd done that, then Nicodemus and his insane little family could destroy the weapon. They needed someone to make that mistake, someone to make that choice, in order to unmake the weapon, just as any bearer of a coin had to make the choice to give it up to be free of the Fallen inside. They needed someone with a right to the Sword to choose to abuse that right.
I'd made that mistake once already, on a stormy night much like this one, when Michael had asked me to carry Amoracchius for him. I'd used the Sword of Love to try to save my ass from the consequences of my own bad decisions and nearly gotten it destroyed as a result. It would have been unmade, in fact, if not for the intervention of my brother-even if I hadn't known about our kinship at the time. Thomas had. He'd been looking out for his little brother even then.
Don't get me wrong: At times I can be a little thick-particularly when there's a woman involved. There's just no way I'm stupid enough to make a mistake quite that enormous twice.
But …
Nicodemus didn't know that I'd made it even once, now, did he?
Oh, he knew me pretty well. He knew how angry his actions had made me, how I would react to the sight of what they'd done to Ivy-and he was counting on me to react according to my nature, in order to help him unmake Fidelacchius.
This was going to be a dangerous game, going up against an opponent who had been around as long as Nick had, but I couldn't win if I didn't play-and I needed to buy a little more time and make sure that both of our prizes were on hand before we started the fireworks.
So I gave him what he wanted.
I slammed the end of my staff down onto the ground with my left hand, reached up to seize the hilt of Fidelacchius with my right, and snarled, "Get her the hell out of that thing, Nicodemus. Right now."
They laughed at me, all of them together, relaxed and insulting. It would have sounded rehearsed if it were any less well coordinated. Instead, it came off like something they'd done so often over the years that it simply came naturally now. "Look at his face," Tessa murmured, a little-girl giggle in her voice. "It's all red."
I clenched my jaw as hard as I could. It wasn't much of a stretch to keep pretending to be angry, but I tried to go all Method actor on them. Eat your heart out, Sir Ian. I jerked the Sword a couple of inches from its sheath. "I'm warning you," I said, trying to get a good look around. "Let the girl go before this gets ugly."
I must have been doing a pretty good job with the acting. Michael's voice, high-pitched with alarm, came from behind me. "Harry," he said, urgently, "wait."
I took two steps forward, ignoring Michael, and drew the Sword from its sheath. Fidelacchius was a classic, chisel-tipped katana, encased in what looked like an old wooden walking cane. I'd kept the blade clean and oiled while it was in my care. It came free of its casing without a sound and gleamed coldly in the violet light of the fire. "I brought the Sword," I told Nicodemus, throwing some taunt into my tone. "See? You wanted this, right? In exchange for the girl?"
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the blade, and I noticed, for the first time, that he wore a sword of his own at his hip-as did Tessa, for that matter. Super. I made a mental note not to try fencing any of them. I'm tall and quick, and I've got a lunge that can hit from halfway across the county, but when it comes to deadly swordplay, I'm a piker compared to the serious swordsmen, like Michael-and Michael considered himself barely more than a mild challenge to Nicodemus.
"What on earth makes you think he's going to go through with the deal, wizard?" Tessa asked me, her voice a purr. "Now that you're here, the Sword is here, the coins are here?"
"Maybe it escaped your notice, bitch," I snarled, "but the Sword is here. And the other two are as well. Maybe you want to think twice before making a fight of it."
Thorned Namshiel let out a croaking laugh. "You think six of us fear facing two Knights?"
"I think there's about five and a half of you, stumpy," I shot back, taking another step toward them. I could see a little more of the tower's interior from there. "And for all you know, you're facing three Knights."
Nicodemus smiled, showing teeth. "And for all Michael and Sanya know, Dresden, the two of them are facing seven Denarians, not six. You did lead them here, after all."
"Harry," Michael said again, his tone tense.
"Shut up!" I half screamed at Nicodemus, taking several steps closer. Almost.
Magog let out a snorting rumble and shuffled a yard closer to me, scraping at the ground with his feet and knuckles, shaking his shaggy, horned head threateningly.
I hefted the Sword and bared my teeth in a snarl. "Oh, you want some of this, Magilla?" I taunted, taking two more steps forward. "Come get some; I'll show you what keeps happening to Kong."
There! At the base of the tower wall, a crumpled human form, bloodied, bruised, half-frozen, but alive. He lifted his face as I came into sight and I met the gaze of Gentleman Johnnie Marcone.
They'd tied him to the wall with ropes-something of a mercy, since metal chains would probably have killed him, given the weather over the past few days. One side of his face was puffy with bruises, but both eyes were open. He had a lot of blood on one side of his head. In fact …
Hell's bells. Something had ripped off the top half of his left ear. Not neatly, either. The flesh had been raggedly torn. The knuckles of his right hand were thickly crusted with blood. Marcone had torn them open on something before he'd been bound. He'd fought them.
I stopped talking trash and started backpedaling toward Michael and Sanya immediately.
Magog froze, his head tilted comically to one side, his expression confused.
Nicodemus sat up in place on the throne, sensing that the plan he'd thought was going along so swimmingly had begun to fall apart.
"Michael!" I said, and tossed Fidelacchius into the air behind me.
"Kill them!" Nicodemus snapped, his voice ringing over the hilltop. "Kill them now!"
Tessa let out a scream that sounded almost orgasmic, and sections of scarlet-and-black chitin seemed to simply rip their way out of her flesh, her body stretching and distending into her mantis shape. Deirdre hissed and arched her back in a kinetic echo of her mother, her hair lengthening into steely blades, her skin darkening. Rosanna howled, and called fire-specifically Hellfire-into her spread hands, while Thorned Namshiel lifted his hand into the air and gathered flickers of green lightning between his fingertips.
Magog simply bellowed and charged, and with howls of hunger and rage a dozen hairless beasts bounded from the shadows all around us and flung themselves at us with bloodthirsty disregard for their own lives. And, as if all of that weren't enough, half a dozen points of brilliant red light, the emanations of laser sights of hidden gunmen, flashed at us through the mist and sleet.