"I don't think he's dead. Not yet. He … he agreed to give himself over to the Denarians in exchange for them letting me go. The head Denarian guy, said his name was Nicodemus, made Shiro promise to not to fight back or escape for twenty-four hours."

"That doesn't sound good."

I shivered. "Yeah. I figure they're archenemies. When Shiro offered himself, Nicodemus looked like a kid on Christmas morning."

Susan sipped at her drink. "How bad are these people?"

I thought of Nicodemus and his knife. Of the sheer helplessness I'd felt as he drew my head back, baring my throat. I thought of sliced and diced corpses. "Bad."

Susan regarded me quietly for a moment, while I stared at my drink.

"Harry," she said finally. "You going to open that or just look at it?"

I shook my head and popped the tab on the can. My wrists felt sore, and the skin around them had been pretty thoroughly abraded. Evidently Nicodemus preferred regular old ropes to special unicorn-mane custom jobs. "Sorry. Got a lot to think about."

"Yeah," she said, her own voice softening. "What's our next move?"

I checked the candles. Three to go. "Barrier will go down in maybe twenty minutes. We'll call a cab, pick up the Beetle at McAnnally's, and head to Michael's place."

"What if the Denarians are waiting outside for us?"

I picked up my blasting rod from the stand in the corner by the door and twirled it around in my fingers. "They'll have to find their own cab."

"And then?"

I picked up my staff and leaned it against the wall by the door. "We tell Michael and Sanya what happened."

"Assuming they're back."

"Uh-huh." I opened the kitchen drawer and got out my gun and its holster. "After that, I ask the nice Denarians to let Shiro go."

Susan nodded. "We ask?"

I flipped open the cylinder on the gun and loaded it. "I'll say pretty please," I said, and snapped the cylinder shut again.

Susan's eyes flashed. "Count me in." She watched me while I put on a shoulder rig and slipped the gun into it. "Harry," she said. "I don't want to break up the righteous-vengeance vibe, but there are a couple of questions that are really bothering me."

"Why do the Denarians want the Shroud, and what are they going to do with it," I said.

"Yeah."