“Tell me, crow-mage.” Beelzebub folded his delicate, multi-jointed fingers. “What makes you think you’re such an expert on this Legion problem?”
“I dunno,” Jack said. “Maybe because you set me up as your hard man and used me to track him down, and now my arse is on the line while you’re sitting tucked up here in your magical pitchfork palace?”
Belial coughed, letting him know he’d gone too far, but Jack rolled on. He was beyond caring what the Princes might do to him. They’d ceased to be the boogeyman under his bed long ago.
“Look,” Jack said. “According to him, he’s lined up at least one of the rulers of Faerie on his side. He’s got enough mages to turn all of London into tinder. He’s got zombies, lycanthropes, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. What more do you need to realize that this entire thing is fucked and you need to take drastic action?”
Baal flared his nostrils. “If what you say is true, that drastic action could provoke a war with Faerie. Or with the human necromancers. Hell’s numbers are diminished, as Legion counts so many among his followers. Would you see Hell fall, crow-mage? Is your game revenge for what was done to you at Belial’s hand?”
The demon cleared his throat at Jack’s shoulder. “Baal, I assure you…”
“Shut up, Belial,” Baal snapped. “The offensive was your plan, and it hasn’t worked. Now it’s down to us. The fact is, Legion commands the artificer, and so we are at a disadvantage. If you were not so young you would see that.”
“Nice name for something that can flip the cosmos like a pancake,” Jack said. “Why on earth would you even leave something like that lying around?”
“Azrael was the only one who knew of it,” Baal sighed. “He had many secrets. This one, he shared with the wrong demon.”
“Yeah, about that,” Jack said. “Who is Legion? I mean, I heard the stories. But who is he, really? How can a regular bloke grab the one thing in all of Hell guaranteed to twist the Triumvirate’s panties and run off with it?”
“Because they all trusted Azrael to keep them safe from the bad men,” Belial said, acid eating at each word. “But when Daddy turned out to be a twat who’d fiddle while Abbadon and his pals turned us into sausage meat, they were left scrambling, and now they’re a bit red in the face.”
Beelzebub shot to his feet, chair knocking backward. “You never did know when to just shut up, did you?”
“Oi!” Jack stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The sound cut through the small space, taking the wind out of Beelzebub’s sails. “Look, you don’t want to tell me who Legion really is, fine. Guarantee I’ll find out before this is all over. The point is, he’s got this artificer, he’s using it to reenact the plot of every shit episode of Doctor Who there is, and we need to do something about it.” He folded his arms and bestowed the Princes with the same look he gave Margaret when she was being a brat. “So what’s that going to be? Because the dragging him to Hell bit is off the table, I’ll tell you right now. No way am I getting within spitting distance of that bastard again.”
Legion’s face, his real one, crept into Jack’s mind, and he shivered. There was something alien about it—as if Legion were not just a creature of Hell but a black hole, consuming all it touched.
“That won’t be necessary,” Baal said. “We are going to take over the operation from here, crow-mage, and rest assured, Legion will no longer be your problem.”
Jack had expected some threats, maybe a kick to the ribs or a slam in the skull, or perhaps just the invitation from the Princes to jump up his own arse, but this wasn’t right. Demons never gave up, never smoothed things over and told you everything was going to be all right. Demons lived to get the upper hand, and to watch you squirm while they did it.
And he’d failed, rather spectacularly. That should at least merit a few pokes verbally or with a hot poker.
“Oh, fuck me,” Jack said as the truth slammed into him like a lorry. “You’re going to make a deal with him, aren’t you?”
Belial gave a grunt from beside him, but the two other Princes remained unmoved. Beelzebub spread his hands. “Bargains are what built Hell, and they are what will continue to keep it running. Legion will be given certain … concessions in return for giving back the artificer.”
“And by concessions, you mean Earth as his merry stomping ground,” Jack said. The rage was boiling again, hot and fast up his throat. “You bastards,” he whispered. “He doesn’t want a consolation prize. He doesn’t want anything except to watch you burn. Let me give you a tip: When he kills you, and you’re rotting in the Land of the Dead, and you feel a drip on your head, that’ll be Legion, pissing on your graves.”
Belial shoved him aside, gripping the edge of the table with his black-nailed hands. “You two geriatric morons can’t be serious.”
“Way to go,” Jack said. “That’ll win ’em to your side.”
“You got a seat at this table by subterfuge and backstabbing,” Baal told Belial. “Don’t act so shocked that you lost it the same way.”
“I’ve seen what this bastard can do,” Belial growled. “Much as it pains me to agree with anything that comes out of Jack Winter’s mouth, the little bastard is right. Legion won’t bargain with you. He’ll use you to tear down Hell, and then it’ll be so long and thanks for all the Hellspawn for the both of you. Are you mad?”
The Princes stood in unison, monsters in slick black undertaker suits, and Jack instinctively backed off a step. If Belial was about to lose his head, he didn’t want the spatter on him.
“Your services as the third in this Triumvirate are no longer required,” Beelzebub said. “I suggest you get the fuck out of Hell before our good mood turns sour.”
“I hope the two of you end up just like Azrael,” Belial snarled. “You deserve it, both of you.”
Jack put his hand on Belial’s shoulder, scarcely believing he was touching a demon voluntarily. “Come on, mate,” he said. “Before they call security to cart your stuff out in a box.”
Belial came with him as far as the door before he wheeled around. “Legion may have stolen the artificer and started this war, but the two of you brought down the walls of Hell. Soon, there will be nothing left, and you’ll be kings of the wasteland. So fucking enjoy it, the both of you. I always thought you were twats.”
He threw the doors wide, knocking one of the Fenris on guard off balance with the violence of the swing.
“Good luck with that whole deal-with-the-devil thing,” Jack told the Princes. “Hope it bites you right on the arse.”
He turned without waiting for the Princes’ reaction, and ran after Belial before anyone in Hell could decide they wanted to keep him there.
CHAPTER 22
They emerged back into the daylight in Kensington, not far from the City Line stop, and Belial sat down on the curb and pulled out a black cigarette, sucking on the foul smoke until he’d completely enveloped his head in the cloud.
Jack waited and watched, not wanting to be the one who set the demon off.
“You know, I put in my time,” Belial snarled. “I was small change for a thousand years, collecting souls and doing deals and keeping my legions in order. I kissed the boot of plenty of Named jockeying for position with the Princes. Watched them eat each other. Then one day I pop up because some idiot mage has cast a summoning and wants to trade his soul for thirteen more years of life, and after a millennium of careful watching and waiting for my time, you fuck everything up in thirteen short years.”
Belial exhaled. “Life was so simple before I met you, Jack. You’re poison to anyone who plans to have things go their way.”
“Sorry I fucked up your winning streak of torture and mayhem there, mate,” Jack said. “Now how are we going to kill Legion?”
Belial glared at him, a look so withering Jack felt sure that his head should be catching on fire. “I can’t do anything, you twat. I have no more connection to Hell. All of my talents, all of my power, it’s cut off. My credit’s no good anymore. I can’t even
shift out of this wretched two-legged body.”
The petty, cruel part of Jack, the part of him that kept him from staying entirely in the white light of untainted magic, the kind that whispered that if he’d just let go he could sweep away so many of his problems, whispered that there was never going to be a better time than this one to hand Belial some payback.
Jack shut it up. That side of him was the one that went looking for power, and trouble, the one that got him wrapped up with demons in the first place. That side of him was a fucking coward that could only be counted on to look out for itself.
“Do you want to cry, or do you want to figure out how to get back in the driver’s seat?” he asked.
Belial viciously ground out his foul cigarette and stood up. “I want you to leave me alone, Jack. I’m not your friend. Just because I can’t turn you to vapor any longer doesn’t mean I need your help. You’re done enough.”
“Hey!” Jack scrambled up as well. “You were the one who pulled me into this. You can’t just crawl off to lick your wounds and leave the entire world to be Legion’s buffet.”
“I wish it were different,” Belial said. “But I’m in no shape to do anything. Don’t you have any other friends, Jack? Anyone who hates you, even, who hates demons more? Because I am no longer your sensei. I do not have all the answers, or even any of the fucking answers, so I wish you good luck, but I’m well and truly out of it.”
Jack started to yell at him, but Belial walked through a patch of shadow and was gone. “Of course,” Jack shouted at the spot. “You lose every trick except that one, don’t you, you fucking knob?”
People had started staring, so Jack reined himself in and found a phone to call Pete. He was seething over what Belial had said. As if the demon had ever been anything but a pain in his arse at best, and a shadow over his entire life the rest of the time. They weren’t friends. They were different species, and for Belial to prove it, cutting and running to survive like demons always did, made Jack so angry he could barely think straight.
He had to, though, because if Belial was checked out, then it was up to him and Pete to do something about Legion.
Pete picked him up in the Mini before too long, and she had the grace not to ask what had happened since he’d gone out to see Mosswood.
“I fucked up,” Jack finally said.
Pete gave him a wan smile. “I figured when there was no victory dance maybe things didn’t go as planned.”
“About as far opposite as you can get,” Jack said.
Pete tapped her fingers on the wheel as they waited at a stoplight. “So what next?”
Jack shrugged, and she reached over and gave him a light shove. “Come on. This didn’t work—what’s your next idea? Legion is still roaming around out there, and you and I are going to shut him down, so even if it’s unpleasant, tell me what you’re going to do next, and ‘I dunno’ is going to get you such a smack, I’m warning you now.”
Jack grimaced. “You always did know how to motivate a bloke.”
“One of my many talents,” Pete said. “Now start thinking like you’ve got a brain instead of just a pickled mess between your ears.”
Jack watched the parade of posh row houses, pocket parks, and high-end shops that made up Kensington roll past, and then frowned as Pete turned her car toward the river, crossing at Vauxhall Road and finally pulling into Battersea Park.
“What’s this?” Jack said. The morning crowd of joggers, walkers, and bird feeders had turned out, and Pete got out of the car and motioned to him to follow.
“I used to come here a lot,” she said. “When I had a case I couldn’t unstick, or I’d had a bad day, was missing my dad. Things like that.”
Jack stayed quiet. Pete didn’t talk much about her father, a formidable police detective who’d never met a villain he couldn’t pin with his hard green stare. Connor Caldecott had found a mass in his left lung and was gone inside a year.
Pete led Jack away from the noise, down one of the bridle paths that wound a leisurely route back toward the Thames. “I came here when I was trying to decide if I was going to help you or run the other way, actually. Right after we met up again.”
Jack shouldn’t have been surprised, but he didn’t feel angry at the revelation Pete had considered leaving him and his problems in the lurch. She was smart, and you’d have to have been a simpering fool to think he was a good bet when Pete had found him again.
He found a patch of ground that didn’t look overly damp and sat down, looking across the river at the Chelsea embankment. On days like this, with just a few clouds, the sun glittering off the towers of the City, it was hard to imagine that he’d ever glimpsed a future like the one his sight had shown him.
“I’m glad you stuck around,” he told Pete, who sat next to him, legs stretched in front of her.
“Me, too, most days,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Now, my question still stands. What are we going to do about all this?”
Jack stroked her hair absently, the dark strands rippling through his fingers. “I burned most of my contacts in the Black during that mess with Nergal. Your copper friends will get shredded if they try to shut down Legion’s little foster home for sorcerers through daylight channels, and he’s got the Fae on his side, as well as a fuck-ton of elemental demons just waiting to boil up out of Hell like someone chucking up a bad curry.”
He looked back at the river as a cloud passed over the City, shadowing everything on the north side for a moment. Beside him, Pete stiffened. “What the fuck is that?”
Jack looked up and saw that the cloud was not a cloud but the gang of crows and ravens he’d seen when Legion had walloped his sight. They were real, though, no doubt about it. Tourists standing on the terrace overlooking the Thames cried out, and groups of people ran for the pagoda to get under cover.
Pete yanked at his arm. “Up,” she snapped, and Jack stood, but he shook her off when she tried to drag him to cover. There were so many birds, more than he would have thought existed in the whole of the British Isles.
The darkness, Mosswood whispered in his memory. The darkness that’s coming to cover everything.
“Jack!” Pete screamed in his ear, close enough to rattle his skull, but she was too late. Jack could feel his sight gripping him, all the meters of his senses screaming into the red. Something was here, something that wasn’t demon or Fae, the figure that walked in the wake of the darkness to collect the dead it left behind.
You’ve been avoiding me, Jack.
The Morrigan glided across the grass, leaving a trail of blackened, dead earth in her wake that oozed blood as she came toward him.
There was a time when his brain gave up and recognized that the fight or flight instinct was useless—that no matter what he did, the predator had her jaws around him. Jack felt himself go limp as everything real faded, and he had a sense that he’d probably fallen, back in his body, and would wake up with a lump on his head the size of the Twickenham pitch.
“Like the plague, luv,” he said. There might be no escape for him, but that didn’t mean he had to go the crying, begging route.
I’m not here for pleasantries, the Morrigan said. He didn’t know how she talked, as she had a mouth full of bloody fangs, hair made of feathers, and the eyes of a bird. Feathers sprouted from her body, and she was wrapped in the shredded ends of a shroud, soaked in the blood, so the tales said, of the first man to raise his sword against another.
“Just dropping in to ask after the kids, then? They’re fine, thanks. Can’t chat, love to your mum, see you later,” Jack said.
The Morrigan closed the space between them. Her breath was cold and oily on his face, and it smelled of turned earth with a tinge of rotting meat. The scent of battlefields and mass graves, the cold of a tomb closed up so long only the dead remembered it.
Your games are diverting, but not today. Today, we speak of grave matters.
“I know the world’s a tip,” Jack said, “and that things ar
e sideways. I’ve gotten this speech about five times now. Legion is the hammer, we’re the nail, and all of us are scrambling to convince him he doesn’t really want to shatter the world into a million pieces.”
I care nothing for the creature of mud who would break the world, the Morrigan snarled. I care only to maintain the balance as it must be.
“Funny, coming from a hag who was ready to wipe humans off the map to raise her zombie army when she had the chance,” Jack said. “You’re not on the side of the angels here. Don’t think I’ll forget that.”
I have my motives, the Morrigan said. In the end, death will be the only resident of this lonely planet. But I was foolish, and I contributed to a fissure that will become a fracture, and if it cracks there will be no world to inhabit.
This was the first time, in all the decades he’d been seeing her, that Jack had heard the Morrigan utter anything except threats. She’d appeared to him, to Pete, and every time it was the same litany. I’ll own your soul, Jackie-boy, so know that every breath you have in you is just a temporary reprieve.
But now, she’d said it. She’d admitted a mistake. After everything he’d seen since Belial had popped up, this was the first time Jack had felt genuine fear take up residence in his belly. The Morrigan was ancient, one of the old gods worshipped by the old races, things millennia older than humans. Only the proto-demons like Nergal and Abbadon were her contemporaries, and even that was debatable.
“What are you saying?” Jack said. “That you’re actually requesting my help for once, instead of flapping in here to throw your weight around? What makes you think I’d listen to you for one second longer than I listen to something like Belial?”
Because you consort with demons, the Morrigan hissed. But they cannot stem the tide. Only death can combat death, Jack. I am not asking. I am telling. If you wish to stop the march of Legion’s soldiers across the face of the universe, you will do what you were born to do and stand at my side.
“There it is,” Jack muttered. “Carrot and fucking stick.”
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