Hard to argue with that. But I tried. “Doesn’t mean you have to run everything exactly the way he wants you to do it,” I said.
She let out a harsh laugh. “But I do want to do it,” she said. “I’ve been looking forward to it. Every time you looked at me, flirted with me, spoke with me.”
“As have I,” said Lasciel’s voice, from the same mouth. “No one’s ever turned me down before, Harry. Not once. And to think that I liked you.”
“We wouldn’t have worked out, babe,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps not. In any case, be assured that I may have one of the few accurate perspectives in the universe when I say that ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.’”
Ah. So that’s what my subconscious had been trying to warn me about. That Lasciel was right there in front of me, and itching for payback.
“Meaning what?” I asked her.
“Meaning that since a whisper in your ear that should have killed you seems to have failed, I intend to skip the subtlety, rip your head apart, and collect our child. She’s far too valuable a resource to be allowed to die with you.”
My eyes widened. “You, uh, you know about that.”
“Child?” Michael said, baffled.
“Complicated,” I said through clenched teeth.
Well. At least now I knew which side Ascher was taking.
“I’d tell you to give me the knife, Dresden,” Nicodemus said, still smiling. “But unlike your friend, I don’t do second chances. And you won’t have any need for it in a moment.”
Ursiel made a sound that I normally only associate with tractor-trailer rigs, and which might have been a hungry growl. Then he stepped over the four-foot block with no particular difficulty and padded in near silence to my left. Lasciel took up station a bit to my right, with Nicodemus making the third point of a lopsided triangle surrounding us.
This day was going bad a little more rapidly than I had anticipated. It had, in fact, sprayed gravel on the windshield of my worst-case scenario as it went rocketing past.
And then footsteps sounded, and Grey sauntered into the amphitheater, casually carrying Anna Valmont’s pack over one shoulder.
There was blood on it, and on Grey’s fingers.
“Ah, Grey,” Nicodemus said. He was enjoying getting a little of his own back after the theater I’d thrown into his face. “And?”
“Valmont’s dead, as ordered,” Grey said calmly. He surveyed the scene on the stage as he approached, his eyes lingering on Lasciel appreciatively. “We about done here?”
“A few final details to tie up,” Nicodemus said. “Have you considered my offer?”
“The Coin thing?” Grey asked. He shrugged and glanced at Lasciel again. “It’s got possibilities. I’ve got questions. Let’s finish the job and talk about them over dinner.”
“Excellent,” Nicodemus said. “Would you mind?”
I tracked Grey, staring hard at him as he took up position at the fourth corner of the square centered on me and Michael, watching him as he set the pack of diamonds and artifacts to one side and cracked his knuckles, smiling.
“I never pretended to be anything but a villain,” he said to me, as if baffled by my glare. “Should have seen this one coming, wizard.”
“You really killed her?” I asked.
“No particular reason not to. It was quick.”
“You are a treacherous son of a bitch,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should have been the one to hire me, then.”
His response made me grind my teeth.
There weren’t going to be any temptations offered this time, no bargains to think twice about, and no cavalry was about to ride over the horizon. Nicodemus meant to kill us.
Michael and I could not win this fight.
I heard him take a deep breath and murmur a low, steady prayer. He set his feet and raised his sword to the high guard.
I gripped my staff mostly in my right hand, holding it across my body with a few fingers of my damaged left arm, and called forth my will and Winter, readying for a hopeless battle.
Lasciel turned her hands palms up, and searing points of violet light appeared in them. Waves of heat shimmered around Hannah Ascher’s body.
Anduriel seethed up around Nicodemus like a dark cloak made from a breaking wave, foaming around the slender man as he raised his sword and started forward.
Ursiel let out a subsonic rumble that shook my chest, and the Genoskwa’s beady eyes stared hate from the face of the prehistoric demon-bear.
Grey tensed and crouched slightly, his bland features relaxed and amused.
And I stopped being able to fight back the maniac’s grin that had been struggling to get loose as I played my hole card and said, “Game over, man. Game over.”