Nicodemus began to breathe faster.

He was thousands of years old. He was a villain who had forgotten more victims than the most wildly successful serial killer ever claimed. I had no doubt that he’d killed men for much less reason than I was currently offering him. He was skilled in every form of the infliction of damage and death that the world had to offer. He was the most personally dangerous foe I’d ever faced.

But somewhere, deep inside the monster, was something that was still almost human. Something that could feel loss. Something that could feel pain.

And because of that, he was furious.

And he was beginning to lose control.

This, I thought, is just about your best plan ever, Harry.

“That must have been really difficult for someone so used to wielding power,” I said. “To realize that as a result of the life you’d led, there was no one who would willingly come with you, willingly let you slaughter them, willingly pull that lever for you after you had. I’ll bet you chewed that problem for years, trying to crack it. Did it hurt when you realized what you were going to have to give up?”

Nicodemus’s chest started heaving, and his eyes got wider.

In my peripheral vision, I could see Michael standing with his sword at port arms, his eyes cast slightly to one side, focused on nothing. The Genoskwa loomed behind him. I saw Michael ripple the fingers of his right hand into a fighting grip on Amoracchius, and take a slow, centering breath.

“The funny part is that bit about her being protected from Hell,” I said. “You brought her here and expected that she wouldn’t get her sentence? Have you read Greek mythology? Do you know the kinds of things Hades sentences people to endure? At least Hell is, by all reports, more or less nondiscriminatory. Down here, they get personal. Did you just try to give her a comforting lie at the last minute? Just to make sure she pulled the lever?”

Nicodemus’s sword sprang into his hand. “Give me the Grail or I’m going to kill you.”

Hell’s bells. I was hurting him.

I considered the Grail and felt bad for what I was doing, and I didn’t hesitate or slow down for a second. There are weapons that have nothing to do with steel or explosions or vast arcane power, and I used mine. “Do you remember?” I asked in a very quiet voice. “The first time you saw her? The first time she looked at you? Do you remember that change? That shift, when the whole universe suddenly tilted? Do you remember looking at her and knowing that you would never, ever be quite the same person? Do you think the cup will do that for you?”

I flicked him the Grail, sending it in a smooth arc through the air.

His eyes widened in surprise, but he caught it adroitly, his whole body shuddering as its power washed over him.

I watched him, his face, his posture, and put every ounce of scorn I had into my voice. “I don’t know how you said it backin the day, but I’ll bet you anything her first word was ‘dada.’”

Something snapped.

His chest stopped heaving.

A single tear appeared.

And he said, in an utterly flat, utterly dead voice, “Kill them.”

And that ended the game, right there.

I win?

Forty-three

With those words, Nicodemus broke his pact with Mab and freed me of any obligation to keep helping him secure the Grail. I had fulfilled every ounce of her promise to him, or at least to well within the obligation as Mab would see it. Hell, I had actually given him the Grail. And if he couldn’t take a little harsh truth, as Mab would see it, then that was Nicodemus’s problem, not hers.

Well. Nicodemus’s problem—and mine. The big downside of the plan to infuriate an emotionally traumatized psychopath into trying to kill me was part two, where the lunatic actually did it.

As spots for a fight went, this was better than most. It was limited to as few people and as few environmental factors as possible. If I’d waited until we were back in Chicago, Nick would have had a virtually unlimited number of civilians to harm and possible hostages to seize. Not only that, but I would have had a virtually unlimited number of collaterals to damage, and I didn’t imagine that any fight with the head of the Denarians was going to be something I wanted to finesse. Additionally, if we’d duked it out in Chicago, I would have had to worry about whose side Binder would throw in on, not to mention a possible strike team of Denarian squires standing by in the wings, and on top of all of that I was pretty sure that Marcone’s troubleshooters would be trying to murder us all.

Here, in the Underworld, I could take the gloves off. The fight would be clean, or as clean as such things got, and I wouldn’t have to worry about innocents being harmed.

Just, you know, Michael and me.

I could think abstract thoughts about the decisions leading up to the fight in the back of my head all I wanted, because the real fight happened almost too fast for any thinking to get involved.

The Genoskwa lunged toward me, making a foolish mistake—he should have gone after Michael.

The Knight of the Cross pivoted on the balls of his feet, and Amoracchius blazed into furious light. He didn’t move with blinding speed. Michael’s attack was all about timing, and his timing was pretty much perfect. As the Genoskwa thundered past him, Michael whirled, cloak flying out, and struck a spinning blow that started at the level of his ankles and swept up until he was holding Amoracchius over his head in both hands. On the way, the Sword cut a line of light into the back of one of the Genoskwa’s thick, hairy knees.

I heard the suddenly parted tendons, thicker than heavy ropes, snap like bowstrings, and the Genoskwa’s leg melted out from underneath it in the middle of its stride.