“They tough?”

“Certifiable nightmares,” I said. “A lot of them have been alive long enough to develop some serious talent for magic, too.”

“Huh,” Thomas said. “The one who came through the door didn’t seem like such a badass. Ugly, sure, but he wasn’t Superman.”

“Maybe you got lucky,” I said. “As long as they have the coins, ‘hard to kill’ doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“Ah,” Thomas said. “That explains it, then.”

“What?” I asked.

Thomas reached into his pants pocket and drew out a silver coin a little larger than a nickel, blackened with age, except for the shape of a single sigil, shining cleanly through the tarnish. “When I gutted Captain Ugly, this went flying out.”

“Hell’s bells!” I spat, and flinched away from the coin.

Thomas twitched in surprise, and the Hummer went into a slow slide on the snow. He turned into it and regained control of the vehicle without ever taking his eyes off me. “Whoa, Harry. What?”

I pressed my side up against the door of the Hummer, getting as far as I physically could from the thing. “Look, just…just don’t move, all right?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Ooookay. Why not?”

“Because if that thing touches your skin, you’re screwed,” I said. “Shut up a second and let me think.”

The gloves. Thomas had been wearing gloves earlier, when fingering Justine’s scarf. He hadn’t touched the coin with his skin, or he’d already know how much trouble he was in. Good. But the coin was a menace, and I strongly suspected that the entity trapped inside it might be able to influence the physical world around it in subtle ways—enough to go rolling away from its former owner, for example, or to somehow manipulate Thomas into dropping or misplacing it.

Containment. It had to be contained. I fumbled at my pockets. The only container I was carrying was an old Crown Royal whiskey bag, the one that held my little set of gaming dice. I dumped them out into my pocket and opened the bag.

I already had a glove on my left hand. My paw had recovered significantly from the horrible burns it had gotten several years before, but it still wasn’t what you’d call pretty. I kept it covered out of courtesy to everyone who might glance at it. I held the little bag open with two fingers of my left hand and said, “Put it in here. And for God’s sake, don’t drop it or touch me with it.”

Thomas’s eyes widened further. He bit his lower lip and moved his hand very carefully, until he could drop the inoffensive little disk into the Crown Royal bag.

I jerked the drawstrings tight the second the coin was in, and tied the bag shut. Then I slapped open the Hummer’s ashtray, stuffed the bag inside, and slammed it closed again.

Only then did I draw a slow breath and sag back down into my seat.

“Jesus,” Thomas said quietly. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Harry…is it really that bad?”