Dark Days bl-6

by Caitlin Kittredge

  The visions of the future would end him sooner than that, though, so he bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood and kept his eyes open.

  He no longer saw the tip, but a street deep in the City in Hell. A long black car, belching smoke from its exhaust pipes and sporting a goat-skull hood ornament, idled outside the sort of storefront church that Jack had seen by the dozens on his last trip to America. The blue neon hanging from the window was some sort of demonic sigil rather than a cross, but otherwise the feel was the same.

  Outside, a variety of lesser demons crouched. Some were missing eyes or limbs; others held themselves and rocked back and forth while they cried softly.

  They weren’t human, but Jack had seen plenty exactly like them on the streets of London. Desperate, broken, looking for solace in a made-up story gussied up with faith. When you had no hope left, faith was a strong drug. Jack felt sorry for the poor bastards, whatever this place was.

  Belial stepped from the car wearing his usual black suit and white shirt, his ruby tie pin glowing in the blue light from the storefront. The demon didn’t go inside, just stood in the street and waited.

  The sad bastards populating the pavement shrank back from him, and a few hopped or limped back into the shadows.

  “I know you’re in there.” Belial’s voice could have cut glass. Jack didn’t think he’d ever seen the demon in such a full rage, and he was indescribably grateful it wasn’t directed at him. Whoever was in that church, Jack figured they’d have a puddle to clean up when this was all over.

  “Do you?” A voice floated out from the church. “What else do you know, Belial?”

  Belial’s jaw clenched, and Jack saw the muscles in his face jump. “That you don’t want me coming in after you,” the demon said.

  The figure that emerged from the church looked entirely human. Jack didn’t know what he’d expected, exactly, but not that. The demons of the legions weren’t generally very pretty, ranging from the enormous Fenris to tiny imps that were little more than soot-smears. The two-legged, ten-fingered act, though … that was reserved for the Named.

  “I suppose I don’t,” the new face said. “You aren’t famous for minimizing collateral damage, Belial. I’d hate for my flock to be injured.”

  “Cut the shit,” Belial said. “You think it’s funny, stirring up the Fenris and getting them to betray Baal? You think convincing the Named that I’m behind it is some kind of bloody joke?”

  There it was, then. The demon had gotten under Belial’s skin, and the Prince was looking for a little payback. Jack didn’t know why he was surprised. He thought Belial’s head might actually explode if the demon tried to tell the whole truth about anything.

  “No,” said the other demon. “I don’t think anything about this is funny, Belial. And what Baal chooses to believe is his own business. Now the question you really should be asking is, why are you being distracted by a puny little rebellion in Hell?”

  Snarling came from all around them, and in the shadows, Jack saw Fenris move. Nasty creatures, at least half a head taller than a man, they had long snouts and jaws, wolf’s teeth, and clawed hands made for ripping and tearing.

  Belial’s eyes narrowed until all Jack saw was black, and his own lips peeled back from his shark’s teeth. “Is this your idea of an ambush, boy? It’s adorable.”

  “You’re so preoccupied with holding on to that Triumvirate seat tooth and claw that you don’t see I’ve already won,” the demon said. His delivery was soft and hypnotic, and Jack recognized the particular cadence of an effective cult leader. “I’ve won the human world, Belial, and you’re too stupid to realize it.”

  The Fenris approached, their heavy feet cracking the worn pavement, until they surrounded Belial and his car.

  “And how exactly did you manage that?” Belial asked. Jack was sure, as he watched the memory, that he was the only one who saw a single transparent bead of sweat work its way down the demon’s temple.

  The demon took something out of the pocket of his baggy trousers and held it up. It was a flat piece of metal, the size of a ruler, with a broken end. It looked like any old scrap you could pick up off the ground, and the only way Jack knew things had gone sideways was that Belial’s body got wire-tight.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “From the vaults, of course,” said the demon. “They’re really not all that impregnable, Belial. All it takes is enough of the rank and file who believe that something like this belongs in the right hands, and doors have a way of opening themselves.”

  Belial took a breath in and out, smoothing a hand over his tie. Jack waited, watching the whole tension-strung scene play out, and thought, It figures. Jack had something from the vaults, but Belial had only told him half the story. He’d sent Jack flying in blind, and for once, Jack didn’t know why. Belial clearly knew this was serious. What possible motive could he have to not tell Jack his rogue demon possessed an artifact that had a Prince of Hell piss-scared?

  “You don’t know how to use that,” he said. “None of us do. And if you try, you’re going to end things.”

  “That’s what you’d like to tell yourself,” said the demon. “But I know how to use this, Belial. I, a rank-and-file member, have bested you. I’ve gone to the human world. I’ve set things in motion. I’ve destroyed your credibility, because you’re the only Prince who could possibly have the stones to stop me. And now…”

  Belial started to laugh. “And now you kill me? You have any idea how many times I’ve heard that line from pissants like you?”

  The demon shook his head. The Fenris snarled, their breath misting in the cool air.

  “Now I leave you here,” the demon said. “To see what focusing only on your pride has wrought. Enjoy ruling what’s left of Hell, Belial. It won’t be around much longer.”

  The demon withdrew into the church, and the Fenris followed, forming a protective barrier that even Belial would have to be a nutter to try to penetrate.

  Silence reigned again, except for Belial’s own hard, rasping breaths as the street went still, bathed in blue.

  CHAPTER 10

  Jack came out of his psychic wormhole with a start, finding himself on the floor, grit and glass shards clinging to the side of his face.

  He choked and spat out a little bile, and he felt a wet dribble work its way from his nose over his upper lip.

  “Fuck you, Belial,” he muttered. His body felt like he’d tangled with a lycanthrope and lost badly, but he forced himself up. His skull was throbbing so hard that bright light collected at the corners of his vision.

  Jack couldn’t decide what was worse—the post-sight migraine his talent left him as a gift, or the fact that Belial had only told him half the story. Headache, he thought. Thinking that for once he was getting the straight truth out of a demon was just foolishness on his part.

  And there was the object the demon had stolen from the vaults. Jack had only seen Belial afraid once, when he’d realized that Abbadon, one of the primordial beings in Hell, had escaped his prison and was about to turn Earth into his own private amusement park.

  Abbadon could have easily killed Belial. He almost had, in fact; Jack had seen the fight between the leather tosser and Belial in his true, demonic body. It wasn’t something you forgot. But more than that, Jack remembered the fear in the demon’s eyes. What he’d seen then was nothing compared to now.

  Whoever this demon was, whatever he’d taken, Belial hadn’t been kidding. This was the last act, the end of the line. And he’d trusted Jack to stop the curtain from falling.

  Which makes Belial an idiot, Jack thought as he stumbled down the rickety stairs and out into the fresh air, and me an even bigger one for agreeing to do it.

  CHAPTER 11

  Margaret was playing with Lily on the floor of the sitting room when Jack made it home, and she gave him a smile before pointing out to their fire stairs. “Pete is slagged at you,” she said.

  “Yeah, I figured that bit ou
t on my own, thanks,” he said. He stopped to give Lily a kiss on the top of her head before he opened the window and stuck his head out. “Luv?”

  “Go away.” Pete had a cigarette in her hand, which told Jack exactly how black a mood she was in. She’d been much more successful at quitting than he had after she got pregnant, and now she only smoked when she was truly angry, dragging viciously so the tip of her Parliament looked like a tiny forest fire.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve had a hell of a day. Can I at least explain?”

  “You know, we haven’t had a fantastic day here, either,” Pete snapped. “Starting with you cutting yourself and then running out of the hospital like you should be fitted for the rubber room. I had to do a lot of fucking tap-dancing to convince the doctor and the nurses you weren’t a psychopath, I’ll tell you.”

  “I was going to tell you what happened after they fixed me up,” Jack said. He felt the tight, wounded expression on Pete’s face and felt it in his gut. He’d almost lost her more than once by keeping things secret—his deal with Belial, the fact that the Morrigan was after him now more than ever—and he’d be damned if it would happen this time.

  He told Pete straight through, not leaving anything out, from his cut hand to the fact that his dreams weren’t dreams at all, to the side trip to Belial’s neck of the woods.

  “Jesus,” Pete said when he’d finished.

  “He’d be useful right about now, what with the levitating and the rising from the dead,” Jack said, “but yeah, things are fucked.”

  “So this demon managed to fuck up Hell with a few Fenris and something he nicked from the Princes, and Belial has no idea where he is?” Pete asked. “Fantastic outlook for the rest of us, innit?”

  “Oh yeah,” Jack agreed. “’M filled with hope, myself.”

  Pete stubbed out her fag and rolled the butt between her fingers, her brow crinkling. “Maybe it’s not that bad. Who do we know who has their nose in everyone’s business and could definitely tell us if there was some kind of rogue demon cult operating on British soil?”

  Jack cast a look through the window at Margaret. “Pete, no,” he said, the very thought of her suggestion making him want to beat his head against the wall.

  “It’s going to be the fastest way,” she said. “Otherwise, we’re just going to run around in the dark until somebody tries to destroy the world and—oh wait, that’s already happening.”

  Jack scrubbed his hands over his face. He was exhausted, wanted nothing more than to knock back a shot of whiskey and shut his eyes for an hour or sixty, but he knew Pete was right. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll put on me best arse-kissing suit, and you and I will go have a talk with the Prometheus Club.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Jack could think of few things more unpleasant than the Prometheus Club, but breaking the news to Margaret came close.

  “Come with me, luv,” he said. “Need to run down to the shop.”

  When they were on the street, Jack let Margaret lead the way, stopping here and there to examine jewelry in the street stalls, before she cocked her head and looked up at Jack. “You didn’t really bring me out here to pick up some tea and fags, did you?”

  Jack shook his head. “Can’t put much past you, can I?”

  Magaret picked up a fake purse from one of the stalls and turned it over in her hands. “You know, my dad was in jail for most of my life, and when he did come back my parents almost got me killed because they were fuckwits.”

  Jack figured he probably should have told Margaret that those were her parents, and for all their mistakes they did the best they could. But he wasn’t that sort of parent himself, so he just nodded.

  “You and Pete are the only people who ever made me feel as if things might be all right,” Margaret said. “Like, you don’t care that I’m weird or that my real parents are freaks. You’re good to me.” She put the purse back and faced Jack. “So I figure whatever it is you want from me, you can ask it. I want to help you, Jack. You’re not like my dad.”

  “You want to be careful agreeing to help me like that,” Jack said. “Good kids like you have a tendency to wind up dead when they get mixed up with bad people like me.”

  “You’re not bad.” Margaret crinkled her nose as if the very notion was ridiculous. “You’re a bit rough and mean, sure, but you’re good. Everyone can see it.”

  “Luv, if everyone could see that, I’d have been punched out a lot less in my youth,” Jack said, giving her shoulder a nudge. Margaret wasn’t one of those girls who flitted and darted, smiled at everything and giggled when she was nervous. She was so serious he sometimes wondered if on the inside, she was a brittle old pensioner. She had a thousand-yard stare that could back down a demon. She reminded Jack of himself at that age, when he was just starting to realize that not everyone could speak to the dead, conjure hexes, or feel the inexorable tide pulsing under the skin of everything that was safe, normal, and daylight.

  “I can see it,” Margaret said. “I can see people, and when I see you, you’re good. So is Pete, and Lily. There are more good people in the world than bad, Jack. I’m sorry it’s hard for you to see.”

  “Curse of getting older, Margaret,” Jack said, the urge to joke with her gone. “Your opinion on that might change the first time some nutter comes at you with a sacrificial knife, just because you looked at him wrong.”

  He was stalling, and he felt a prick of disgust from the part of himself that was still the boy who thought his talent was a weapon rather than a vast cataclysm he couldn’t control. The younger Jack who threw punches, drank whiskey, and dove into the pit during stage shows just because it was fun to taste his own blood.

  That boy hadn’t seen half the shit adult Jack had, though, so he could fuck right off. He’d never known what it was like to be a living thing in the Land of the Dead. To feel his own brain turn against him because of magic it couldn’t contain. To be shivering and starving on the street in the dead of winter, needing heroin so badly that his burning blood was all that kept him moving.

  Margaret moved on, out of the passage of traffic, pausing to hoist herself onto the iron fence of a council estate. “What is it you don’t want to tell me, Jack?”

  Jack watched a couple of hoodies kicking a half-deflated football on the graffiti-stained pavement, blowing out a lungful of air he dearly wished was nicotine. “You know those yobs that came after you when your parents got mixed up with the zombies in Herefordshire?”

  “Yeah.” Margaret’s lip twitched in disgust. “They were lame. Totally naff.”

  “That they are,” Jack said. “But they have something Pete and I need, only we’re not exactly welcome in their little club anymore.”

  “And I am.” Margaret’s voice was flat. She wasn’t a stupid child by a long shot, and Jack had wished more than once that it was easier to put things past her, to cushion her from her talent for just a little longer. He wished she didn’t have to go through what he had, the birth spasms of a life no human should have to live.

  “Yeah, luv,” he said. “You’re the Merlin.”

  “I’m like a nuclear bomb,” Margaret said. “And they want to aim me at whoever they don’t like.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Jack said. “The Prometheus Club never has anything but their own best interest at heart.”

  “So am I supposed to let them?” Margaret turned to face him, her eyes wide and unsure for the first time. “I’m the Merlin. Not them. You said it was my choice.”

  She was still a teenager, Jack reminded himself, and her mood could flip faster than a stoplight. Beyond that, she was a teenager with latent talents that would make her the most powerful mage in all of Britain, if not the world, when she came into them. The Merlin, the mage those nutters in the Prometheus Club thought would unite all the squabbling groups and sects under the banner of human magicians against … whoever they were slagged off at that week.

  Which was complete and utter ripe bullshit, Jack knew. You co
uld no more get mages to agree on anything than you could teach cats to do a hula dance. But for what he needed now, he was content to feed the Prometheans’ delusion.

  “It is,” Jack said. “Say no, we’ll go home, get some chips in for tea, and never speak of this again. I’m not going to force you into anything, Margaret. What you do with your talent is your choice, and that’s more important than anything else, because it’s a choice nobody gave me when I was your age.”

  She chewed on her lip for a moment, a gesture she’d adopted from Pete. “Okay,” she said. “If I just have to lie to them a bit, that’s fine. What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell them you’re not ready to come to them and be the Merlin, not yet,” Jack said. “But that you do want to receive training.”

  Margaret wrinkled her nose. “But you and Pete are better than any of them. They’re rubbish at magic.”

  “Of course they are,” Jack said. “And like most arrogant pricks, they’ve got tiny talents and big egos. I just need to talk to one woman in particular, and the only way we’re getting in is to show up with you.”

  Margaret hopped off the fence and gave him a sly smile. “Sounds fun. Sort of James Bond.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “If James Bond was a nutter who consorted with dark magic, that’s exactly what it is.”

  Margaret started back toward the flat, and Jack followed her. He wasn’t hungry any longer, anyway. Even though she’d agreed, there was still a chance the Prometheans could pull something and take Margaret against her will, as they’d tried to in Herefordshire, and Jack could do fuck-all on his own against a full complement of them.

  The thought of Margaret living with those people turned his stomach, even more than the thought of her on her own, sleeping rough and trying to figure out what the hell this brave new world of demons and the dead was, as he had.