The door suddenly bent on a diagonal on the top half, folding it in as if it had been wax paper. The door didn't quite go down, but I could see dead fingers reaching up through it, trying to rip and tear the weakened section.

"Harry," Thomas said, his voice tight with apprehension. He drew his saber and went to the door. He hacked at dead fingers that appeared in the breach. They spun through the air and landed on the floor, still bending and wriggling like bisected earthworms.

"Make up your mind, Grevane!" I called. "If this goes any further, I'm going to do everything in my power to kill you. I can't beat you. We both know that. But you won't get the information out of me against my will. I'm not a pansy. I can push you hard enough to make you kill me."

"You would have me believe that you would simply commit suicide?" Grevane asked.

"To take you down with me?" I replied. "Oh, hell, yeah. Count on it."

"Don't listen to him," Liver Spots hissed. "Kill him. He knows he's finished. He's desperate."

Which was true, dammit, but the last thing I needed was for someone to point that out to Grevane. A zombie finger flew past my head, and another bounced off my duster and fell to the floor at my feet, still twitching, a long and yellowed fingernail making an unsettling scratching sound against my boot. The pounding on the door got louder, the whole thing rattling in its frame.

And then, just like that, it stopped. Silence fell over the apartment.

"What are your terms?" Grevane asked.

"You release Butters to me," I said. "You let us drive off with your sidekick in the car. Once we're away from here, I give him the numbers and drop him off. Mutual truce until sunrise."

"These numbers," Grevane said. "What do they mean?"

"I don't have a clue," I said. "At least not yet. Neither did Corpsetaker."

"Then what value do they have?" he asked.

"Someone is bound to figure it out. But if you don't deal with me now, it sure as hell won't be you."

There was another long pause, and then Grevane said, "Give me your pledge that you will abide by the terms."

"Only in return for yours," I said.

"You have it," Grevane said. "I swear it by my power."

" No," hissed Liver Spots. "Don't do this."

I lifted my eyebrows and traded a speculative look with Thomas. Oaths and promises have a certain kind of power all their own—that was one reason they were so highly regarded among the beings of the supernatural community. Whenever someone breaks a promise, some of the energy that went into making it feeds back on the promise breaker. For most people that isn't a really big deal. Maybe it shows up as a little bad luck, or a cold or a headache or something.