Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

Author:Jim Butcher [Butcher, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-05-27T04:00:00+00:00

Thirty

Sleet rattled down.

A dog howled, somewhere a few blocks away, a lost and lonely sound.

Karrin’s breath exploded from her in a sob, her blue eyes wide and fixed on the shattered pieces of the blade.

“Judge not, lest ye be judged, Miss Murphy,” Nicodemus purred. And then he slammed his head into hers.

She reeled back from the blow, and was brought up short by Nicodemus’s grip on her arm.

“It is not the place of a Knight to decide whether or not to take the life given to another,” Nicodemus continued. Before she could recover, he struck her savagely, the heel of his hand cracking into her jaw with an audible crunching sound. “Not your place to condemn or consign.”

Karrin seemed to gather herself together. She flicked a quick blow at Nicodemus’s face, forcing him to duck, and then their hands engaged in a complex and swift-moving series of motions that ended with Karrin’s left arm held out straight, while she was forced down to her knees on the freezing sidewalk.

I’d never seen her lose when it came to grappling for a lock. Never.

“I’m not sure what would have happened if you’d simply struck, without that condemnation,” Nicodemus continued, “but it would seem that in the moment of truth, your intent was not pure.” He twisted his shoulders in a sudden, sharp motion.

Karrin screamed, briefly, breathlessly.

I struggled against the Genoskwa’s crushing grip. I might as well have been a puppy, for all the effect my best efforts had on the thing. I gathered my will and flung a half-formed working of power against him, but again, the energy grounded itself harmlessly into the earth as it struck him.

I could do nothing.

Nicodemus twisted Karrin, tilted his head to one side, and then drove his heel against her knee with crushing strength.

I heard bones and tendons parting at the blow.

Karrin choked out another sound of pain, and crumpled to the ground, broken.

“I was afraid, for a time, that you actually would leave the Sword out of it,” Nicodemus said. He bent and recovered the Noose calmly, fastening it around his neck as casually as a businessman putting on his tie. “Survivors of Chichén Itzá—and there were more than a few, in part thanks to your efforts—describe your contribution to that conflict as impressive. You were obviously ready and in the right, that night. But you were never meant for more. Most Knights of the Cross serve for less than three days. Did you know that? They aren’t always killed—they simply fulfill their purpose and go their way.” He leaned down closer to her and said, “You should have had the grace to do the same. What drove you to take up the Sword, when you knew you weren’t worthy to bear it? Was it pride?”

Karrin shot him a fierce glare through eyes hazed with pain and tears, and then looked over at me.

He straightened, arching an eyebrow. “Ah, of course,” he said, his tone dry—yet somehow filled with venomous undertones. “Love.” Nicodemus shook his head and picked up his sword with one hand, and the Coin with the other.

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