Death Masks characters

Appears from the start

Chicago's professional wizard, still carrying the White Council's war with the Red Court on his shoulders. Hired to recover a stolen holy relic and simultaneously challenged to a formal duel that could end the war - with his own life as the stake - Harry spends the book squeezed between the vampires, a cabal of fallen angels, and the return of the woman he loves. His stubborn refusal to hand any fight to someone else, and his instinct to shield everyone near him, drive both his victories and his costliest choices.

First appears in chapter 2

A Red Court warlord, courtly and disciplined, who arrives in Chicago with a formal proposal: a duel to the death with Harry under the Accords, the supernatural world's code of law, to end the war between the Red Court and the White Council. Ortega presents himself as a soldier seeking to stop a ruinous conflict, and unlike most of his kind he keeps a veneer of honor - but he is a centuries-old predator, and the duel is not as clean an offer as it seems.

First appears in chapter 4

Harry's former girlfriend, the reporter left half-turned by the Red Court, returned to Chicago after more than a year away. Susan has learned to control her thirst with the help of the Fellowship of St. Giles, an organization of the half-turned who fight the Red Court, and she has become faster, stronger, and far more dangerous. Her reunion with Harry is charged with everything unresolved between them - love, guilt, and the hard fact that a moment of lost control could destroy them both.

First appears in chapter 5

Knight of the Cross and Harry's steadfast friend, bearer of the sword Amoracchius. Michael and his fellow Knights come to Chicago on the trail of the stolen Shroud of Turin and the monsters hunting it, and he once again stands between Harry and the worst of what follows. His faith, his family, and his patience with Harry's recklessness are all tested by an enemy older and crueler than any they have faced together.

First appears in chapter 6

The eldest of the three Knights of the Cross: a small, elderly Japanese man of unassuming warmth who carries Fidelacchius, a holy blade hidden in a cane. A onetime blues-loving convert with a lifetime of battles behind him, Shiro is deceptively gentle in manner and devastating in a fight. He takes a particular, quiet interest in Harry, and his choices in this case leave a mark on Harry that lasts for years.

First appears in chapter 6

The youngest Knight of the Cross: a towering, cheerful Russian who wields the sword Esperacchius and, despite his office, professes to be an agnostic - he fights for what the swords do, not for certainty about who sends them. A former Denarian host who was freed and chose the other side, Sanya brings good humor, an assault rifle's pragmatism, and firsthand knowledge of the enemy.

First appears in chapter 11

The leader of the Order of the Blackened Denarius: fallen angels bound into ancient silver coins, each granting its human host monstrous power in exchange for the demon's growing control. Nicodemus has held his coin for two thousand years and remains fully himself - which makes him worse than any of his possessed followers, a genial, cultured man who plans in centuries and kills without hesitation. He wears an ancient noose at his throat, comes to Chicago for the Shroud of Turin, and takes a connoisseur's interest in breaking Harry Dresden.

Also known as Ivy

First appears in chapter 14

The Archive: the living repository of all human knowledge ever written, an office passed down a single bloodline - currently vested, unsettlingly, in a solemn little girl. Bound to perfect neutrality, she serves as emissary and arbiter for the duel between Harry and Ortega. Harry, unable to treat her as an institution, calls her Ivy, and the small kindness registers. Her composure conceals power on a scale that gives even wizards pause.

First appears in chapter 14

The Archive's bodyguard and driver: a laconic, lethally competent mercenary who handles supernatural threats with mortal weapons and total professionalism. Kincaid is friendly enough off the clock and utterly without sentiment on it, and there are persistent hints that he is something more than human. He and Harry develop a wary mutual respect over the course of the duel arrangements.

First appears in chapter 16

Chicago's crime lord, who inserts himself into the hunt for the stolen Shroud with his usual cold efficiency. Marcone's interest in the relic is intense, personal, and unexplained, and as ever he is willing to cooperate with Harry exactly as far as it serves his own ends. His performance under fire in this case shows again why he rules the city's underworld.

First appears in chapter 9

A professional thief, one of a three-person crew called the Churchmice who stole the Shroud of Turin from Turin's cathedral. Cool-headed and skilled, Anna Valmont finds the score of a lifetime turning into a death sentence as buyers and monsters converge on the relic, and her surviving the sale becomes entangled with Harry's job of recovering it.