The gunshots would bring people running. I needed to buy a little time. I leaned up, fished a hand into Valmont's jacket pocket, and drew out a small box of black plastic that looked vaguely like a remote control to a VCR. I held up the transmitter, put my thumb on it as if I knew what I was doing, and said to the man in the trench coat, "Hey, Bogart. You and the wonder twins back off or the bed sheet gets it."

The man lifted his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

I waggled the remote. "Click. Boom. No more Shroud."

The snakeman hissed, body twisting in restless, lithe motion, and the demon-girl parted her lips in a snarl. The man between them stared at me for a moment, his eyes flat and empty, before he said, "You're bluffing."

"Like the bed sheet matters to me," I said.

The man stared at me without moving. But his shadow did. It writhed and undulated, and the motion made me feel vaguely carsick. His eyes went from me to Valmont to the courier's message tube on the floor. "A remote detonator, I take it. You do realize you are standing next to the device?"

I realized it. I had no idea how big the incendiary was. But that was all right, since I had no idea which button to push to set it off, either. "Yup."

"You would kill yourself rather than surrender the Shroud?"

"Rather than letting you kill me."

"Who said I would kill anyone?"

I glared at him and at the demon-girl and said, "Francisca Garcia mentioned it."

The man's shadow boiled but he watched me with flat, calculating eyes. "Perhaps we can reach an arrangement."

"Which would be?"

He drew a heavy-caliber handgun from his pocket and pointed it at Anna Valmont. "Give me the remote and I won't kill this young woman."

"The demon groupie headman uses a gun? You've got to be kidding me," I said.

"Call me Nicodemus." He glanced at the revolver. "Trendy, I know, but one can only watch so many dismemberments before they become predictable." He pointed the gun at the terror-stricken Valmont and said, "Shall I count to three?"

I threw on a puppet's Transylvanian accent. "Count as high as you vant, but you von't get one, one detonator, ah, ah, ah."

"One," Nicodemus said.

"Do you expect me to hand it over on reflex or something?"

"You've done such things repeatedly when there was a woman in danger, Harry Dresden. Two."

This Nicodemus knew me. And he'd picked a pressure tactic that wasn't going to take long, however it turned out, so he knew I was stalling for time. Crap. I wasn't going to be able to bluff him. "Hold on," I said.

He thumbed back the hammer of the revolver and aimed at Valmont's head. "Thr-"

So much for cleverness. "All right," I snapped, and I tossed the remote to him underhand. "Here you go."