Cassius stared at me for a moment more, and then leaned his bat on the floor. "It was the result of losing my coin to you and your friends," he said, voice creaking. "While I held my coin, Saluriel prevented age from ravaging my body. Now nature is collecting her due from me. Plus interest." He waved his stiff-fingered right hand, wrinkled, spotted, swollen with what looked like bad arthritis. "If she has her way, I will be dead within the year."

"Why?" I asked him. "Isn't your new demon stopping the clock for you?"

His eyes narrowed, unsteady and cold. "I have no Denarius now," he said, his voice low and very polite. "When I eventually left the hospital and rejoined Nicodemus, he had no coin being held as a spare." Mad fire flickered through his gaze. "You see, he'd given it to you."

I swallowed. "That's what you were looking for, outside my apartment. You wanted the Denarius."

"Lasciel wouldn't be my first choice, but I must be content with what is available."

"Uh-huh. So where's Nicodemus? He's helping you, I take it."

Cassius's eyes closed almost all the way. "Nicodemus cast me out. He said that if I was too much a fool to keep possession of my coin that I deserved whatever befell me."

"What a guy."

Cassius shrugged. "He is a man of power, with no tolerance for fools. Once you are dead and Lasciel's coin is mine, he will take me back."

"You sound pretty confident there," I said.

"Is there some reason I should not be?" He moved stiffly over to his duffel bag. "You should make this simpler for both of us. I'm willing to make you an offer. Give it to me now, and I will make your death quick."

"I don't have it," I told him.

He let out a rough cackle. "There are only so many places one can hide it," he said. "If you are holding it as part of you, enough pain will make you drop it." He drew out a slender little coping saw from the bag and set it on the floor. "I once knew a man who swallowed his Denarius, and would swallow it again when it came through."

"Yuck," I said.

Cassius put a standard-head screwdriver down next to the saw. "And one who cut himself open and placed the coin in his abdominal cavity." He drew a vicious-looking hooked linoleum knife from the bag and held it thoughtfully. "If you tell me, I'll take your throat."

"And if I don't?" I asked.

He pared a yellowed fingernail with the knife. "I go on a treasure hunt."

I studied him for a minute, then said, "I don't have it with me. That's the truth. I bound Lasciel and buried the coin."