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Michael exhaled through his nose. Then he nodded and said, “Good enough for me. Miss Valmont?”
Anna considered me and then nodded once. “Agreed.”
“Better you than me, mate,” Binder chimed in. “Just you try to get some kind of warning to us if he kills you when you go to talk to him.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” I said, and took a second box. Valmont claimed the last one.
We were all quiet for a moment.
Then Binder rose and said, “Ladies, gents, what a treat it’s been scraping out of a mess by the skin of our teeth with you. Godspeed.” And he headed for the door.
Valmont rose, too, smiling quietly. She came over to me and gave me a hug.
I eyed her. Then I made a bit of a show of checking my pockets for missing items.
That made her laugh, and she hugged me again, a little longer. Then she stood up on tiptoe to kiss my cheek and said, “I left your things in the closet of the room you were sleeping in.”
I nodded, very slightly.
She withdrew then, smiled at Charity, and said, “Give me three days.Then call me at the number I gave you.”
“I will,” Charity said. “Thank you.”
Anna smiled at her, nodded to Michael, and left.
Michael idly unlocked his box and opened it. Light spilled off of the diamonds heaped inside.
“My, my, my,” Michael said.
Charity picked up a stone carefully and shook her head, bemused. “My, my, my.”
“Watch my loot for me?” I asked. “I need to go speak to Grey.”
* * *
I found Grey standing on the sidewalk outside the house, leaning against the streetlight with his arms folded over his chest and his head bowed. He looked up as I came out of the house and shuffled down the front walk to the gate.
“Dresden,” he said.
“Grey. You really came through for me.”
“What you hired me to do,” Grey said, as if I might be a bit thick.
“I guess I did, didn’t I?” I said. “You could have bailed. You could have taken Nick’s money.”
He looked at me as if I had begun speaking in tongues.
“Guess Vadderung was right about you.”
Something not quite a smile touched Grey’s mouth. “Heh,” he said. “He’s one who would know, isn’t he?”
“So how come you won’t come in the yard?” I asked, stepping through the broken gate to join him.
Grey stared at me, his eyes opaque. He turned his head to the Carpenters’ home, and looked up and around the yard, as if noting the position of invisible sentries. Then he looked back at me.
And his body language shifted, relaxing slightly. His eyes flickered and changed, from brown orbs with that odd golden sheen to them to something brighter gold, almost yellow, the color spreading too wide for human eyes, the pupils slit vertically like a cat’s. I had seen eyes exactly like them once before.
My heart leapt up into my throat and I slammed the gate shut. “Hell’s bells,” I stammered. “A naagloshii? You’re a freaking naagloshii?”
Grey’s eyes narrowed and changed back to mostly human brown again. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “You didn’t choose to be the son of Margaret LeFay. You didn’t choose the legacy she left you with her blood. And she was a piece of work, kid. I knew her.”
I frowned at him, and said nothing.
“I didn’t choose my father, either,” Grey said. “And he was a piece of work, too. But I do choose how I live my life. So pay up.”
I nodded, slowly, and said, “What’s it going to cost me?”
He told me.
“What?” I said. “That much?”
“Cash only,” he said. “Now.”
“I don’t have that much on me,” I said.
He snorted and said, “I believe you. We going to have a problem?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll go get it.”
“Sure,” he said, and bowed his head again, as if prepared to wait from now until Judgment Day.
And I shambled back into the house, went in to Michael and asked, “Can you loan me a dollar?”
* * *
I watched Grey depart, walking down the sidewalk, turning the corner, and continuing on his way. The day had warmed up enough to melt the ice, and the evening was misty, cool, and humid. The streets gleamed. It was very quiet. For a moment, I stood there alone.
“If you have a minute,” I said to the air.
Uriel suddenly stood next to me.
“Look at you,” I said. “Got your jet plane back.”
“Undamaged,” he said. “Michael is a good man.”
“Best I know,” I said. “Would you really have nuked Grey if he’d come in the yard?”
Uriel considered the statement for a moment. Then he said, “Let’s just say that I’m relieved that he didn’t make the attempt. It would have been awkward.”
“I think I’m starting to see the picture now,” I said. “Who was really moving this whole mess.”
“I thought you might,” he said.
“But I don’t get your role in it,” I said. “What was your angle?”
“Redemption,” he said.
“For Nicodemus?” I asked him. “You risked that much—your grace, the Sword, Michael, me—for that clown?”
“Not only for him,” Uriel said.
I thought about that for a second and then said, “Jordan.”
“And the other squires, yes,” Uriel said.
“Why?” I asked. “They made their choices, too, didn’t they?”
Uriel seemed to consider the question for a moment. “Some men fall from grace,” he said slowly. “Some are pushed.”
I grunted. Then I said, “Butters.”
Uriel smiled.
“When Cassius Snakeboy was about to gut me, I remember thinking that no Knight of the Cross was going to show up and save me.”
“Cassius was a former Knight of the Blackened Denarius,” Uriel said. “It seems appropriate that he should be countered by an incipient Knight of the Cross. Don’t you think?”
“And the Sword breaking?” I asked. “Did you plan that, too?”
“I don’t plan anything,” Uriel said. “I don’t really do anything. Not unless one of the Fallen crosses the line.”
“No? What is your job, then?”
“I make it possible for mortals to make a choice,” he said. “Ms. Murphy chose to act in a way that would shatter the Sword. Mr. Butters chose to act with a selflessness and courage that proved him worthy to be a true Knight. And you chose to believe that a ruined, broken sword could make a difference. The sum of those acts created a Sword that is, in some ways, greater than what was broken.”
“I didn’t choose for it to do that,” I said. “Seriously. There might be some kind of copyright infringement going on here.”
Uriel smiled again. “I must admit,” he said, “I never foresaw that particular form of faith being expressed under my purview.”
“Belief in a freaking movie?” I asked him.
“Belief in a story,” Uriel said, “of good confronting evil, of light overcoming darkness, of love transcending hate.” He tilted his head. “Isn’t that where all faith begins?”
I grunted and thought about it. “Huh.”
Uriel smiled.
“Lot of Star Wars fans out there,” I noted. “Maybe more Star Wars fans than Catholics.”
