Death Masks

I started to deny his words. But I couldn’t. He was right, or at least not wholly wrong. My voice came out subdued. "Everyone has thoughts like that sometimes."

"No," Nicodemus said, "they don’t. Most people never consider such actions. It never crosses their minds. The average mortal would have no sure way of taking that kind of power. But for you, it’s different. You may pretend you are like them. But you are not."

"That’s not true," I replied.

"Of course it is," Nicodemus said. "You might not like to admit it, but that makes it no less true. It’s denial. There are a number of ways you express it in your life. You don’t want to see what you are, so you have very few pictures of yourself. No mirrors, either."

I ground my teeth. "I’m not different in any way that matters. I’m not any better than anyone else. We all put our pants on one leg at a time."

"Granted," Nicodemus said. "But a century from now, your mortal associates will be rotting in the earth, whereas, barring amputation or radical shifts in fashion, you will still be putting your pants on one leg at a time. All these allies and friends you have made will be withered and gone, while you are just beginning to come into your full strength. You look like a mortal, Dresden. But make no mistake. You aren’t one."

"Oh, shut up."

"You are different. You are a freak. In a city of millions, you are all but alone."

"Which explains my dating life," I said, but I couldn’t put much zing in the words. Something in my throat felt heavy.

Nicodemus had the valet pour coffee for Deirdre, but he spooned sugar into it himself. "You’re afraid, but you don’t have to be. You’re above them, Dresden. There’s an entire world waiting for you. Uncounted paths you could take. Allies who would stand with you over the years. Who would accept you instead of scorning you. You could discover what happened to your parents. Avenge them. Find your family. Find a place where you truly belonged."

He’d chosen to use words that struck hard on the oldest wound in me, a child’s pain that had never fully healed. It hurt to hear those words. It stirred up a senseless old hope, a yearning. It made me feel lost. Empty.

Alone.

"Harry," Nicodemus said, his voice almost compassionate. "I used to be much as you are now. You are trapped. You are lying to yourself. You pretend to be like any other mortal because you are too terrified to admit that you aren’t."

I didn’t have an answer for that. The silver coin gleamed, still offered out to me.

Nicodemus laid one hand on the knife again. "I’m afraid I must ask you for an immediate decision."

Deirdre looked at the knife and then at me, eyes hot. She licked some spilled sugar off the rim of her coffee cup, and remained silent.

What if I did take the coin? If Nicodemus was on the level, I could at least live to fight another day. I had no doubts that Nicodemus would kill me, as he had Gaston LaRouche, Francisca Garcia, and that poor bastard Butters had cut into. There was nothing stopping him, and with the water still running over me, I doubted that even my death curse would be at one hundred percent.

I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what it would feel like to bleed to death, there under the cold water. A hot, burning line on my throat. Dizziness and cold. Weakness fading into warmth that became perfect, endless darkness. Death.

God help me, I didn’t want to die.

But I’d seen the poor bastard Ursiel had enslaved and driven mad. What he’d suffered was worse than death. And chances were that if I took the coin, the demon that came with it might coerce or corrupt me into the same thing. I’m not a saint. I’m not even particularly sterling, morally speaking. I’ve had dark urges before. I’ve been fascinated by them. Attracted to them. And more than once, I’ve given in to them.

It was a weakness that the demon in the ancient coin could exploit. I wasn’t immune to temptation. The demon, the Fallen, would drown me in it. It’s what the Fallen do.

I made my decision.

Nicodemus watched me, eyes steady, his knife hand perfectly still.

"Lead us not into temptation," I said. "But deliver us from evil. Isn’t that how it goes?"

Deirdre licked her lips. The goon shut the box and stepped back.

"Are you certain, Dresden?" Nicodemus said in a quiet voice. "This is your very last chance."

I slumped weakly. There didn’t seem to be much of a point to bravado anymore. I’d made the call, and that was that. "I’m certain. Fuck off, Nick."

Nicodemus stared at me impassively for a moment. Then he stood up with the knife and said, "I suppose I’ve had enough breakfast."

Chapter Twenty-two

Nicodemus walked over to me, his expression somewhat distracted. I realized with a chill that he looked like a man planning his activities for the day. To Nicodemus, I wasn’t a person anymore. I was an item on his checklist, a note in his appointment book. He would feel no differently about cutting my throat than he would about putting down a check mark.

When he got within arm’s reach, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to get away from him. I thrashed at the ropes, hanging on to the desperate hope that one of them might break and give me a chance to fight, to run, to live. The ropes didn’t break. I didn’t get loose. Nicodemus watched me until I’d exhausted myself again.

Then he took a handful of my hair and pulled my chin up and back, twisting my head to my right. I tried to stop him, but I was immobilized and exhausted.

"Be still," he said. "I’ll make it clean."

"Do you want the bowl, Father?" Deirdre asked.

Nicodemus’s expression flickered with annoyance. His voice came out tight and impatient. "Where is my mind today? Porter, bring it to me."

The grey- haired valet opened the door and left the room.

A heartbeat later there was a wheezing grunt, and Porter flew back through the doorway and landed on his back. He let out a pained croak and curled into a fetal position.

Nicodemus sighed, turning. "Bother. What now?" Nicodemus had looked bored when Anna Valmont emptied her gun into him. When I’d blasted a Nicodemus-shaped dent in the drywall of the hotel, he’d come through it without a ruffled hair. But when he saw the valet laying on the ground before the open door, Nicodemus’s face went pale, his eyes widened, and he took a pair of quick steps to stand behind me, his knife at my throat. Even his shadow recoiled, rolling back away from the open door.

"The Jap," Nicodemus snarled. "Kill him." There was a second of startled silence, and then the goons went for their guns. The one nearest the door didn’t get his weapon out of its holster. Shiro, still in the outfit he’d worn at McAnnally’s, came through the opening in a flash of black and white and red, his cane in his hand. He drove the end of the cane into Goon A’s neck, and the thug dropped to the ground.