I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re talking about the Black Council.”

He tilted his head slightly to one side. Then his mouth twitched at a corner and he nodded his head very slightly. “They move in shadows, manipulate puppets. Some of them may be on your Council, yes. As good a name as any.”

“Stop playing innocent,” I spat at him. “I saw the leftovers of the Black Council attack on Arctis Tor. I know what Hellfire smells like. One of yours was in on it.”

Nicodemus.

Blinked.

Then he surged forward—fast. So fast that by the time I’d registered that he was moving, my back had already hit the wall that had been twenty feet behind me. He hadn’t been trying to hurt me. If he had, the back of my head would have splattered open. He just pinned me there against the wall with one hand on my throat, tighter and harder than a steel vise.

“What?” he demanded, his voice still a whisper. His eyes, though, were very wide. Both sets of them. A second set, these glowing faintly green, had opened just above his eyebrows—Anduriel’s, I presumed.

“Ack,” I said. “Glarghk.”

His arm quivered for a second, and then he lowered his eyelids until they were almost closed. A moment later he very, very slowly relaxed his arm, allowing me to breathe again. My throat burned, but air came in, and I wheezed for a second or two while he stepped back from me.

I glared up at him and debated slamming him through one of those Corinthian columns by way of objecting to being manhandled. But I decided that I didn’t want to piss him off.

Nicodemus’s lips moved, but an entirely different voice issued from them—something musical, lyrical, and androgynous. “At least it has some survival instinct.”

Nicodemus shook his head as if buzzed by a mosquito and said, “Dresden, speak.”

“I’m not your friend,” I said, my voice rough. “I’m not your damned dog, either. Conversation over.” I took a few steps to one side so that I could move around him without taking my eyes off him, and started to leave.

“Dresden,” Nicodemus said. “Stop.”

I kept walking.

I was almost out of the room before he spoke again, resignation in his tone. “Please.”

I paused, without turning around.

“I…reacted inappropriately. Especially for this venue. I apologize.”

“Huh,” I said, and looked over my shoulder. “Now I wish I had brought Michael. He’d have fainted.”

“Your friend and his brethren are tools of an organization with its own agenda, and they always have been,” Nicodemus said. “But that’s not the issue here.”

“No,” I said. “The issue is Marcone.”

Nicodemus waved a hand. “Marcone is an immediate matter. There are long-term issues in play.”

I turned to face him and sighed. “I think you’re probably full of crap. But okay, I’ll bite. What long-term issues?”

“Those surrounding the activities of your Black Council,” Nicodemus said. “Are you certain you saw evidence of Hellfire in use at the site of the attack on Arctis Tor?”