History Awesome / DeathMasks

* John Marcone, pulling a drowning Harry out of the river [[spoiler: with ''the freaking Shroud of Turin'']]. And prior to that, Marcone takes on Nicodemus, and actually manages to drive him off with concentrated fire from an AK-47. Immediately afterward, when Harry explains that Nicodemus can't be killed and can probably run faster than the train they're fighting on, Marcone's only response to [[CasualDangerDialogue glance to Sanya and ask for more ammo.]]
** The "drive him off with concentrated fire from an AK-47" bit should be expanded on, as it's especially impressive. From the back of one moving train car to the next, he hits a moving target with three bursts from an AK he's never shot before, [[spoiler: and avoids hitting the Shroud of Turin draped over his target's shoulders in the process.]]

* Someone, [[spoiler: later revealed to be Nicodemus]], casts a continuous entropy curse, [[spoiler: known as Barabba's curse]] at Harry. Harry and Susan manages to escape few accidents and get inside his apartment. The curse splinters like waves on beach against Harry's apartment wards. [[spoiler: Making it even better is that that curse has been killing people ''atleast'' since the time of The Cruxifixation, needeing a Knight of the Cross to perform a HeroicSacrifice in their place, but were worthless against Harry's protective magic. Nicodemus clearly has no idea what White Council's powerful members are capable of when prepared. Michael and the other Knights should have had more faith on him.]]

* Shiro's [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice. He peacefully surrendered himself to his worst enemy, accepting to be viciously tortured, to save another's life. Also, the fact that he survived a torture and infections so bad ''Nicodemus'' thought him to be dead, silently enduring all that pain just to give one last advice to Harry and the others and overhearing details of his enemy's plot to boot.]]

* Someone, [[spoiler: later revealed to be Nicodemus]], casts a continuous entropy curse, [[spoiler: known as Barabba's curse]] at Harry. Harry and Susan manages to escape few accidents and get inside his apartment. The curse splinters like water on rock against Harry's apartment wards. [[spoiler: Making it even better is that that curse has been killing people ''atleast'' since the time of The Cruxifixation, needeing a Knight of the Cross to perform a HeroicSacrifice in their place, but were worthless against Harry's protective magic. Nicodemus clearly has no idea what White Council's powerful members are capable of when prepared. Michael and the other Knights should have had more faith on him.]]

* After Rudolph leaking info on them to other departments and keeps giving them problems, Harry gets the idea to turn itbright on him, and tells Murphy exactly what to tell him. If the info is correct, they save people and are unharmed. If it is wrong, its Rudolph who gets roasted. Win-win.

* Shiro's [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice. He peacefully surrendered himself to his worst enemy, accepting to be viciously tortured, to save another's life. Also, the fact that he survived a torture so bad ''Nicodemus'' thought him to be dead, silently enduring all that pain just to give one last advice to Harry and the others and overhearing details of his enemy's plot to boot.]]

* Someone, apparently Cassius, casts an entropy curse at Harry. Harry and Susan manages to escape few accidents and get inside his apartment. The curse splinters like water on rock against Harry's wards.
* Harry, confronted with [[SmugSnake Cassius]] and his attempt to loophole his way out of being slain by the Knights of the Cross by [[ISurrenderSuckers surrendering and sarcastically promising to repent]], responds to the mockery by [[ShutUpHannibal breaking his kneecaps with a baseball bat.]]

* Harry's duel with Ortega. Ortega was clearly winning and Harry barely holding on. [[BerserkButton Then he threatened Harry's friends.]] Ortega was instantly owned [[spoiler: forcing him to cheat]].
* Ortega [[spoiler: casually owning Susan with one hand [[HandicappedBadass despite having his chest and thigh caved in along with being blinded.]]]] He isn't a warlord for nothing.

* Harry's duel with Ortega. Ortega was clearly winning and Harry barely holding on. [[BerserkButton Then he threatened Harry's friends.]] Ortega was instantly owned [[spoiler: forcing him to cheat]].

** And as explained few books later, if Nicodemus calculated correctly, its a [[XanatosGambit win-win situation]]. [[spoiler: If Harry picks it up and gets possessed, Nicodemus gets the most powerful wizard of the latest generation of White Council. If one of the Carpenter children pick it up, he's got a MachurianAgent in the house of one of the Knights of Cross. The only thing he didn't know and undid his plan was Harry's iron will, and more importantly, his good heart]].

** Cassius literally pisses in fear at that

* Someone, apparently Cassius, casts an entropy curse at Harry. Harry and Susan manages to escaoe few accidents and get inside his apartment. The curse splinters like water on rock against Harry's wards.

* Also, Shiro [[spoiler: breaking into the Denarians' hideout to save Harry.]] With a BigEntrance opened by a goon flying in. The first thing Harry notices is that Nicodemus, who hadn't been impressed by anything so far, is terrified, and likewise for his Fallen. And is proven right to be when [[spoiler: Shiro takes out his goons and his daughter in a matter of seconds.]]

** And not just any Denarian, but ''Deirdre'', probably the most out-and-out lethal fighter they have. Susan ''throws a washer at her.'' Casually.
** Her first scene in the book has her literally punting away a vampire mook trying to sneak into Harry's apartnent. Hell of an EstablishingCharacterMoment for a ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend.

* Also, Shiro [[spoiler: breaking into the Denarians' hideout to save Harry.]] The first thing Harry notices is that Nicodemus, who hadn't been impressed by anything so far, is terrified. And is proven right to be when [[spoiler: Shiro takes out his goons and his daughter in a matter of seconds.]]

* Nicodemus gets one at the end of the book with a BatmanGambit of his own, [[spoiler: as after getting his main plan foiled, he waits in the street behind the backyard of the Carpenter House, and tosses in a Denarian coin where the children are playing, forcing Harry to pick up the coin before they do, to protect them fron being possesed and thus Harry gets infected by a part of the essence of the Fallen Angel within]].

* Shiro's [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice. He peacefully surrendered himself to his worst enemy, accepting to be viciously tortured, to save another's life. Also, the fact that he survived a torture so bad ''Nicodemus'' thought him to be dead, silently enduring all that pain just to give one last advice to Harry and the others.]]

** Shiro also got in a StealthInsult that way without even saying a word. [[spoiler: Nicodemus kept going on about his superiority to humans. By letting someone as versatile as Harry go in order to get at his ArchEnemy, Nicodemus proved that he was no better than any human]].

** And as explained few books later, if Nicodemus calculated correctly, its a [[XanatosGambit win-win situation]]. [[spoiler: If Harry picks it up and gets possessed, he gets the most powerful wizard of the latest generation of White Council. If one of the Carpenter children pick it up, he's got a MachurianAgent in the house of one of the Knights of Cross. The only thing he didn't know and undid his plan was Harry's iron will, and more importantly, his good heart]].

* Nicodemus gets one at the end of the book with a BatmanGambit of his own, [[spoiler: as after getting his main plan foiled, he waits in the street behind the backyard of the Carpenter House, and tosses in a Denarian coin where the children are playing, forcing Harry to pick up the coin before they do, to protect them fron being possesed and thus Harry gets infected by a part of the essence of the Fallen Angel within]].

* Nicodemus gets one at the end of the book with a BatmanGambit of his own, [[spoiler: as after getting his main plan foiled, he waits in the street behind the backyard of the Carpenter House, and tosses in a Denarian coin where the children are playing, forcing Harry to pick up the coin before they do to pick it up to protect them fron being protected and thus being infected by a part of the essence of the Fallen Angel within]].

** Shiro also got in a StealthInsult that way without even saying a word. [[spoiler: Nicodemus kept going on about his superiority to humans. By letting someone as versatile as Harry go in order to get at Shiro, Nicodemus proved that he was no better than any human]].

* Nicodemus' entrance into the room Harry and Anna Valmont were in where she had the Shroud after she says that the people who killed her friends can't hurt her any further and he smashes the door open and quips "Cannot hurt you any further? No matter how many times I hear that, it's a fresh challenge."

** Even better, [[spoiler:as far as Harry knows, he's the first one to realize that the noose won't protect Nicodemus from itself. [[WordOfGod And that means Nicodemus, leader of the Denarians and arguably the smartest and deadliest of all thirty, is afraid of Harry Dresden.]]]]

--> "Fortunately for you, [[KnightInShiningArmor they [the Knights] are good men]]. Unfortunately for you, [[Film/DirtyHarry I]] [[AntiHero am not]]."

** Let's talk a bit more about the "physical feats of badassery": there are four people facing Nicodemus and his goons, two of them are Knights of the Cross, one his a quite powerful wizard and the last one is our plain, vanilla Marcone. [[spoiler: Marcone is the only one who ends the fight unscathed, and not for lack of action.]] His impressive shooting has already been mentioned, but after that he finds himself fighting Nicodemus from close distance and he ducks his swords, throws a knife at his face, then produces another one and starsts a short fight [[spoiler: ending with Marcone taking the Shroud from Nicodemus and jumping off ''a running train'' without even blinking.]] BadassNormal indeed.

* How about Marcone, Harry and the gang riding in to save the day in Marcone's helicopter? "All we need now is some Wagner..." and Gard presses a button and Ride of The Valkyries starts playing. Definitely awesome. [[spoiler: Made HilariousInHindsight when we find out that Gard actually IS a Valkyrie.]] That and the other helicopters Marcone provides must be from Monoc security, because the "Ride of The Valkyries" button seems to be a standard feature in all of them.

* Shiro's [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice. He peacefully surrended himself to his worst enemy, accepting to be viciously tortured, to save another's life. Also, the fact that he survived a torture so bad ''Nicodemus'' thought him to be dead, silently enduring all that pain just to give one last advice to Harry and the others.]]

* Michael throws down with not one, but ''two'' of the most deadly Denarians, and not only survives, but drives off Deirdre and survives a swordfight with Nicodemus, who is said to have killed ''hundreds'' of Knights in the past.

** And not just any Denarian, but ''Deirdre'', probably the most out-and-out lethal fighter they have.