I closed my eyes for a moment. I didn’t feel like explaining to Ascher about how the Winter Knight was built to be a killing machine, one that moved and struck and never paused to think. I didn’t feel like explaining what could have happened if I’d let that particular genie out of the bottle in the middle of one of Chicago’s premier hotels. Karrin was right. I’d burned down buildings like they were going out of style in the past. A fire in the Peninsula could have killed hundreds. If I’d lost control of the instincts forced upon me by the Winter mantle, I might have killed even more.

What I did want to do, in the wake of the life-and-death struggle, was rip her party dress off and see what happened next. But that was the Winter in me talking. Mostly. And I wasn’t going to let that out, either.

“We weren’t there to kill Fomor,” I said. “We went to get Valmont. We got her. That’s all.”

“If I hadn’t been there,” Ascher said, “that thing would have torn you apart.”

“Good thing you were there then,” I said. “You’ve got some game. I’ll give you that. Fire magic is tricky to use that well. You’ve got a talent.”

“Okay,” Ascher said, seemingly mollified. “You’ve got no idea how many guys I’ve worked with that don’t want to admit they got saved by a girl.”

“Gosh,” I said, glancing at Karrin. “It’s such a new experience for me.”

Karrin snorted, and pulled the car over. We’d made it back to the slaughterhouse.

“Tell Nicodemus we’ll be back at sunrise,” I said.

Valmont said nothing. But she took off the slightly too large shoes and passed them back to Ascher.

“Sure,” Ascher said. “Don’t bleed to death or anything. This is too interesting.”

“Meh,” I said.

She flashed me another smile, took her shoes, and slid out of the limo. Karrin didn’t pause to watch her reenter the building, but pulled out again at once.

I looked back over my shoulder at Valmont. “You okay?”

She took off the sunglasses and gave me a very small smile. “Nicodemus. He’s really back there?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you’re going to burn him?”

“If I can,” I said.

“Then I’m good,” she said. She turned her eyes back to the night outside. “I’m good.”

Karrin stared at Valmont in the mirror for a moment, frowning. Then she set her jaw and turned her eyes back to the road.

“Where?” I asked her quietly.

“My place,” she said. “I called Butters the minute the alarms started going off at the hotel. He’ll be waiting for us.”

“I don’t want anyone else tangled up in this,” I said.

“Youwant to take on the Knights of the Blackened Denarius,” Karrin said. “Do you really think you can do it alone?”

I grunted, tiredly, and closed my eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

The limo’s tires whispered on the city streets, and I stopped paying attention to anything else.

Twelve

Karrin’s house is a modest place in Bucktown that looks like it should belong to a little old lady—mainly because it did, and Karrin never seemed to have the time or heart to change the exterior much from the way her grandmother had it painted, decorated, and landscaped. When we pulled up, there were already cars on the street outside. She slid the town car into the drive and around to the back of the house.

Before she had settled the car into park, I turned to Valmont and asked, “What’s in the file?”

“A profile of a local businessman,” Valmont replied at once.

“Anyone I know?”

She shrugged, reached into her purse, and passed me the file, which she had rolled up into a tube. I took it, unrolled it, and squinted at it until Karrin flicked on a reading light. It was on for about five seconds before it stuttered and went out.

“Nothing’s ever easy around you, is it?” she said.

I stuck my tongue out at her, tugged my mother’s silver pentacle amulet out of my shirt, and sent a gentle current of my will down into it. The silver began to glow with blue-white wizard light, enough to let me scan over the file.

“Harvey Morrison,” I read aloud. “Fifty-seven, he’s an investment banker, financial adviser, and economic securities consultant.” I blinked at Karrin. “What’s that?”

“He handles rich people’s money,” she said.

I grunted and went back to reading. “He goes sailing in the summer, golfing when the weather is nice, and takes a long weekend in Vegas twice a year. No wife, no kids.” There was a picture. I held it up. “Good-looking guy. Sort of like Clooney, but with a receding hairline. Lists his favorite movies, books, music. Got a biography of him—grew up in the area, went to some nice schools, parents died when he was in college.”

“Why him?” Karrin asked me.

I looked back at Valmont.

She shrugged her shoulders. “He looked pretty unremarkable to me. No obvious graft or embezzling, which is a given for someone operating at his level.”

“Honest men?” I asked, with minimal cynicism.

“Smart crooks, when they steal,” she said. “He’s a trusted functionary like hundreds of others in this town.”

“Gambling problem?”

She shrugged. “Not an obvious one, from his records. The Fomor don’t rate him as a particularly vulnerable target for manipulation.”