"You're gonna hurt my feelings, snakeboy. You found out who the Church was sending over. Then you grabbed poor Father Vincent at the airport. You took his place."

"Any infant could reason as much," the Denarian hissed.

I pulled up a chair and sat. "Here's where it gets interesting. Because you decided to hire me on. Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"To keep tabs on the Knights," I said. "Or to distract them by making them try to keep me out of the search. Or maybe you thought I could really turn up the Shroud for you. Probably all three. No sense doing things for one reason when you can fit in a few ulterior motives for free. You even gave me a sample of the Shroud to make it more likely I'd find it." I leaned back in the chair. "That's where I started seeing something wrong. I talked to Marcone about his new thug gunning for me, and he blinked."

"I don't know what you are talking about," the snakeman said.

"Marcone was the buyer."

A cold laugh slithered out of the snakeman's mouth. "A mortal. Nothing more."

"Yeah, well, the mortal figured out that Father Vincent had been replaced, and he sent an assassin to kill you. The new guy wasn't shooting at me outside of Fowler's studio. He was after you."

"Impossible," the snakeman said.

"Pride goeth, legs. Marcone wasn't born yesterday."

"I am sure you have pleased yourself with your cleverness, wizard."

"It gets better," I said brightly. "See, Nicodemus didn't let much drop, other than that he was on a deadline and he needed someone savvy to the supernatural. His daughter did, though. She asked if he didn't want a silver bowl. That's a ceremonial bowl, and if I was guessing, I'd say it was meant to be used to catch lifeblood. Fuel a ritual."

The snakeman's tail lashed around restlessly.

"I think Father Vincent was a warm-up. A test for the ritual. I think he came over here with two samples from the Shroud, and you used one of them as the focus for the plague curse that killed him. Once you knew it would work, you went after the Shroud itself."

"You know nothing, wizard," said the snakeman. The glowing sigil on his forehead throbbed in time with the extra set of eyes. "You are pathetic."

"You're hurting my feelings. Don't make me get the baseball bat," I said. "Nicodemus covered his tracks this morning by burning down the building you'd been in. I suppose he sent you to cover everything up nice and neat with the cops and with me. I think he's got something in mind, and I think it's tonight. So why not make this a comparatively pleasant discussion and tell me all about it."

"Do you think that you frighten me, wizard?" said the Denarian. "I was destroying men more powerful than you before this pathetic nation was born."