Throws knife at rope

There were shouts from above, and we looked up to see Marcone swing out from the edge of the pit. He hung limply from a rope. His eyes were closed. I watched as he was drawn up in a series of short jerks until his bowed head bumped the bottom of the hunter's platform above and then was left there.

Fool Moon Chapter 31, Page 358


My eyes went up. Straight up.
"Marcone!" I shouted. "John Marcone! Can you hear me?"
The limp figure suspended above me stirred weakly. "What do you want, Mr. Dresden?"
"Can you move?" I asked. The loup-garou growled, low, and started pacing a circuit of the pit, glowing eyes flashing between us down at the bottom and Marcone, trying to decide who to rip apart first.
"An arm," Marcone confirmed a few seconds later.
"Do you still keep that knife on you? The one I saw at the garage?"
"Denton and his associates searched me and found it, I am afraid," came Marcone's voice.
"Dammit all. You're a miserable, stupid bastard for making a deal with Denton, Marcone. Now do you believe he wanted to kill you all along?"
The figure above me wiggled and writhed, swinging from the ropes that held him trussed up there. "Yes, do tell me that you told me so with your last breath, Mr. Dresden. I was already rather acutely aware of that," Marcone said, his voice dry. "But perhaps I'll yet have a chance to make amends."
"What are you doing?" I asked. I kept my eyes on the loup-garou, as it circled the pit, and kept myself opposite the creature, where I could see it.
"Reaching for the knife they didn't find," Marcone replied. He grunted, and then I saw a flicker of light on something shiny up above me.
"Forget it," Murphy said quietly, stepping close to my side as she watched Marcone. "He's just going to cut himself loose and leave us to rot here."
"We won't get the chance to rot," I pointed out. But I thought she was right.
Marcone started to spin slowly on his rope, wriggling around until his whole body was rotating on the end of it. He began to speak, his voice calm. "Ironic, isn't it? I'd planned to wait for the creature on the platform and tempt it into the pit. There are some nets ready to drop on it, after that. I would have held it until morning."
"You do know that it's right beneath you now, don't you, John?" I asked.
"Mr. Dresden," Marcone said crossly. "I've asked you not to call me that."
"Whatever," I said, but I had to admire the raw courage of the man to banter while dangling up there like a ripe peach.
"I use this place to conduct noisy business," Marcone said. "The trees muffle the sound, you see. You can barely hear even shotgun blasts on the other side of the wall." He continued to spin on the rope, slow and lazy, a shadow against the moon and the stars.
"Well. That's nice," I said, "and despicable." The loup-garou looked down at me and snarled, and I took an involuntary step back from it. The mud wall of the pit stopped me.
"Oh, quite," Marcone agreed. "But necessary."
"Is there anything you're not shameless about, Marcone?" I asked.
"Of course. But you don't think I'm going to tell you, do you? Now, be quiet if you please. I don't need the distraction." And then I saw Marcone's arm curl in and straighten outward. There was a flutter of metallic motion in the air, and a snapping sound from the base of one of the ropes that held the platform suspended, at its far end where it was secured to one of the pine trees.
The rope abruptly sagged, and the platform - and Marcone with it - swayed drunkenly. Marcone grunted, and bounced against his ropes a few times, making the whole affair of ropes lurch about - and then the damaged line snapped and came entirely free. It whipped out toward Marcone, lost momentum, and then fell through the evening air.
Straight down into the pit in front of me. One end was still attached to the platform above, now off center from the pit and listing to one side.
I blinked at it for a moment, and Murphy said, "Holy shit. He did it."

Fool Moon Chapter 32, Page 365-368