Faith was bullshit of the highest order.
But he still covered his head as the ground shook and dust rained down, and he let himself believe, for just a moment, that Pete was all right. If he was going to have faith in anyone, Pete made more sense than any fairy tale humans made up to feel better about not being able to see what was waiting out there in the dark beyond the campfire.
The miniature earthquake trailed off, and Jack watched the door, which had come loose and hung crookedly off its hinges. Blood rushed through his ears, but after a moment the door fell and drowned it out with a clang, narrowly missing the toes of his boots.
Pete supported herself against the wall, her thin arm shaking. “Did you get it?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse from screaming, and she was as pale as a corpse, but she straightened up and swiped the dust off her cheeks, leaving dark runnels from her sweat and tears.
Jack pulled the box from his coat. “Got it,” he said. “Are you…”
Pete waved her hands. “Later. They must have felt that from their head to their arse—we have to go. Now.”
Jack didn’t say anything, but he did reach out and shoulder her weight, even though his leg twinged like he’d taken to it with a cattle prod. “You know the way back?” he said.
Pete nodded. Her hair was lank with sweat, but her breathing had calmed down and she was no longer emanating magic like a loose high-tension cable, snapping sparks at anyone unfortunate enough to get close.
“Wait,” she said as they started to move. “Check the box. Make sure Belial’s not fucking with us.”
Jack pulled out the box with his free hand and flipped the latch, his stomach doing a somersault. It could so easily be empty. Then he’d be right back where he was when the whole mess started.
The blade sat on a nest of black straw, a film of dried blood still resting in the groove. The broken edge shimmered as Jack tilted the box for Pete to see. “Looks like you could stab someone with it,” he said.
Pete nodded. “Good. I’ve got someone in mind.”
CHAPTER 31
Jack had half expected Belial to be gone when they reached the main vault doors, but the demon was leaning against the doors, examining his nails. The only sign he’d even been a part of the break-in was the trickle of blood staining the cuff of his shirt.
“You two don’t know the meaning of the word subtle, do you?” he drawled when they limped into sight. “Discretion is a foreign fucking country.”
“Shut up,” Jack said, giving Belial a glare that he hoped would make the demon’s head explode in a puff of smoke. “Just shut up and get us out of here.”
Belial twitched at his tie and his cuffs, making sure his tie pin was straightened just so.
“Hey!” Jack shouted, loud enough to rattle his own eardrums. “You do realize that when the Princes get down here, they’re going to find you as well?”
Belial rolled his eyes upward, tapping one finger against his teeth. “Give me the blade, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “I knew it. I knew you had some other angle.”
Belial shrugged. “I said I’d help you get the blade. I didn’t mention anything about free rides back to London.”
“What do you think you’re going to do with the blade?” Pete spoke up. She still clung to Jack, one hand on his ribs inside his coat, one around his waist. He tightened his grip on her in response, trying to signal in a small way that somehow, this would be all right.
“Oh, I thought I’d donate it to the British Museum and take a nice little break on my taxes while simultaneously swelling with generosity toward my fellow man,” Belial said. “I’m going to kill Legion, you little twit. What do you think?”
“You really think the Princes will welcome you back with open arms if you’re the one to off him?” Jack said.
Belial curled his lip at Jack. “Let me think about this: yes. Yes, I do. I wager they’ll be so grateful, in fact, that when this is all over there will only be one Prince of Hell. Who will be me, in case that was too cryptic for your small mammal brain.”
“You’re an idiot,” Jack said. “But fine, here.” He passed over the box, despite Pete’s murmur of protest. “Now that I’ve bought and paid for it, I do want my ride back to London.”
Belial gave him a wide grin as he stuck the box in the inside pocket of his suit coat. “Anything for a satisfied customer.”
CHAPTER 32
They emerged into London near the pavilion opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum. Pete sat down heavily on the carved steps, and Jack’s body decided that sounded like a wonderful idea and followed suit. He didn’t fight it.
Belial took the box from his jacket and used it to give Jack a salute. “I do like you, Jack. Much as I like anything made of meat. I’ll be in touch. Knowing a Prince is going to be a good thing in the long run. You’ll see.”
He turned and walked away into the shadows, and Pete nudged Jack. “You’re not even going to try to hex him?”
“First off, any hex I can sling is going to bounce right off that beast’s scaly hide,” Jack said. He could barely keep his eyes open, and his leg had started hurting in earnest, each beat of his heart sending a fresh throb of molten fire through his thigh. “Second, I’m too tired to go after him for a petty squabble.”
Pete snorted. “I almost died, and he stole the blade from you. That’s not exactly petty.”
“I’m truly sorry for what you had to do,” Jack said. “But as to the second part…” He reached into Pete’s jacket and drew forth the blade, which looked smaller and older, less threatening, out in the fading sunlight of the real world.
Pete’s mouth opened, then shut again, and she managed a grin. “Dammit, Jack Winter. Just when I think I’ve seen all your tricks.”
“That one’s nothing special,” Jack said. “Seth and I practiced lift and drop about ten thousand times when he took me in. Bought me dinner and a roof over my head more than a few times when things were thin.”
“And now it’s got us a way to kill Legion,” Pete said. She looked down at his leg and grimaced. “After we get that looked at, of course.”
“I’m fine,” Jack said, although the pain in his leg insisted differently. “Just run by a pharmacy with me and grab some first aid, then we need to find out where Legion is and how we can get to him.”
Pete stood. She was already steadier, and her color was coming back. Jack was glad that at least one of them didn’t look like they were two steps from kicking off. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
Jack clambered up and tried to reply, but his leg sent such an electric charge through him that his chest seized up and his words came out as a moan.
He tried to tell Pete he was fine, some disinfectant and a pressure bandage would make him right as rain, but that blackness came up again, the one that had nothing to do with his sight, and he passed out before he hit the pavement.
CHAPTER 33
Usually when his sight was so bothered, Jack dreamed—vivid, terrible dreams informed by the psychic residue of whatever space he was in when he blacked out. This time, though, he had a real dream. Seth had taken him to his summer cottage when he was fifteen, the night before his birthday.
“Thought we might spend the weekend here, and I could show you a few hexes,” he said. “You don’t need to spend your birthday listening to Wallace yell at the news channel.”
It was August, and the green lay over the countryside like a fog, making everything appear smeared and unreal, bringing the heavy scent of cut grass and sheep manure, tinged with the nearby ocean spray, to his nostrils.
Seth looked at Jack sideways while he regarded the mage’s small tumbledown cottage. “You ever had a proper birthday before?”
“Once,” he said. “When I was five, me mum got a clown.”
“Christ, that’s horrible,” Seth said. “Had I known, I would have bought you a few sessions on the couch as a gift for this particular anniversary.”
&n
bsp; Jack watched as one crow, and then another, landed on the ridgeline of Seth’s thatched roof. “I think I’m way beyond that,” he said, getting out of the car. Seth did as well, also watching the birds. Nothing escaped his gaze. He took the cigarette from behind his ear, making it disappear in his right hand and reappear in his left.
Jack remembered thinking that was odd. Seth only did his sleight of hand tricks when he was nervous.
“Listen, kiddo,” he said. “You’re going to hear this sooner or later, so I’m just going to tell you. One day soon, you’re going to hear some things about yourself that are going to be hard to take. I don’t want you to get upset, though. I want you to know how I saw you when we met, and know that won’t change.”
Jack watched another crow join the two staring at him. They seemed awfully tame, but he’d spent his entire life in cities, surrounded by nothing but pigeons. What did he know about wild birds?
Seth thumped the top of the car. “You listening to me, boyo?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said. He could hear the sea roaring at the foot of the cliffs beyond Seth’s front yard. It was the only sound aside from their voices. He’d never been anywhere so quiet.
“You’re a good lad,” Seth said. “Whatever happens, don’t you go and forget that.”
The crows took flight, screaming, and Seth didn’t move until they were out of sight, black dots on the gray sky that eventually faded away into nothing.
The light of the sky turned into the bare bulb of a hanging lamp glowering down at him, and Jack squinted into it. “If this is the afterlife, the ambience is shit,” he said to whomever might be listening.
Pete’s face slid into his vision, slightly blurred at the edges. Jack took inventory of his parts and felt slow and dopey, the warm caress of opiates warming his bloodstream.
“I’m sorry,” Pete said. Her voice was full of vibration, and it came to him as if through a pane of wavy glass, distorted and high. “You were screaming. They had to give you a shot.”
“They?” Jack said. His throat was sore when he talked, and he could barely make out his own words.
“Relax, Mr. Winter,” said Morwenna Morgenstern, coming to stand next to Pete. “You’re in good hands.”
“Fuck me,” Jack groaned at the sight of her. “Pete, what’d you do?”
“Called some people who could help,” she said. “Now, relax. They didn’t undress you or anything. They’re just giving us a safe place to fix you up.”
Even in his excessively drugged state, Jack picked up the signal. The Prometheans hadn’t searched him. They didn’t have the blade.
That helped the screaming inside his mind quiet down a bit. To come this far, only to be foiled by the Dudley Do-Rights of the Black, would sting more than any betrayal from Belial.
Which made him remember that he owed Belial a kick in the balls, and he tried to sit up and get off the table.
“Whoa, whoa,” Morwenna said, shoving him back down. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere, Mr. Winter.” She turned away, out of Jack’s line of sight. “Victor, we need another shot over here! Now.”
“Bad girl,” Jack said, a giggle bubbling out of him unbidden. “You know I was a drug addict?”
“Believe me, Mr. Winter,” Morwenna sighed. “I know more about you than I ever wanted to.”
“You lie,” Jack said, giving her a wide smile. “You know you can’t get enough of me, luv. Uptight broads like you always fall for the dark, dangerous types.…”
“All right,” Pete said as Morwenna’s shambling horror, Victor, came into view with a syringe. “If you don’t knock him out with that I’m going to do it with my foot.”
“Calm down,” Morwenna said. “He’ll be dreaming, Ms. Caldecott. Don’t you worry.”
CHAPTER 34
Seth had tried to keep him calm before the initiation, but Jack remembered feeling his heart slam like it hadn’t since he’d come to Ireland and stopped sleeping rough and looking over his shoulder. He’d been in plenty of bad situations since, thanks either to his own penchant for finding trouble or because of messes that Seth brought upon them.
Seth never fled, though. He was always there, always had a plan and a backup to the plan. When Jack fucked up, Seth got him out of it. When Jack couldn’t con or fight his way out of a bad situation with the numerous enemies the Fiach Dubh counted, Seth always had a bright idea.
But now Seth stood in the door of the caravan, staring out into the field, toward the orange glow of the torchlight.
“Just remember, Jack … whatever happens…”
“I promise not to make you look bad,” Jack said. “I’ve got it, all right? It’s an initiation, not a party. I will conduct myself with the utmost dignity.”
“Please.” Seth conjured a lit cigarette and dragged on it. “You wouldn’t know dignity if it jumped up and bit you on the testes, boy.” He passed the cigarette, and Jack took a pull, blue smoke filling the small interior of the caravan.
“I promise,” he said, softer. “I know I fuck up a lot, Seth, but I won’t tonight. I get that this is important to you.”
He was eighteen, and he could join Seth as a full member of the crow brothers, privy to their archives, their secrets, and the bad blood with most other mage sects.
If Jack was honest, he couldn’t fucking wait. He could sling hexes and do simple spells and summonings, but this was the big show. He could learn real showstoppers, have real power. Maybe even find a way to keep his sight from hitting him upside the skull whenever he got within spitting distance of a ghost.
“Not me,” Seth said, gesturing Jack out of the caravan, where a knot of other crow brothers waited. “You, Jack. This night is all about you.”
The brothers stripped him to the waist and painted his torso with blue woad, the symbols signifying that he belonged to the Fiach Dubh, skin and bone and everything in between. Seth had told him to expect a lot of bullshit druid pomp and ceremony, but he’d also warned him that things went wrong all the time at these things. The patron goddess of the crow brothers was mercurial, to say the least, and if she took a dislike to an initiate, they were hamburger.
The brothers led him to the stone circle, into the ring of torchlight. Jack lay on the stone slab in the center, trying to ignore the blood grooves and the stained earth around the altar.
He turned his head and caught sight of Seth, standing outside the circle, his white shirt gleaming in the low light.
The crow bothers circled him. Their robes were cascades of gleaming black feathers, their hoods crowned with silver beaks that hung low, shadowing their brows.
The smoke from the torches was pungent, and that was how he explained it later. A bad trip, brought on by nerves and fear and too much hallucinogenic smoke.
Because behind the crow brothers, a figure moved. Golden-eyed, mouth dripping blood. The Morrigan approached him, and Jack remembered from Seth’s pep talk that she’d either accept or reject him, and that rejection was very fucking bad indeed.
He wasn’t sure how it worked—if she’d drink his blood, look into his head, or ask him the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
What she did, though, he couldn’t have planned for. She came to him, climbed the altar, and stood over him. Then she reached into his chest with her talons, his blood spurting far enough to hit some of the crow brothers, putting her hand around his heart. Putting her mark on him, on the inside where he would always feel it, even if no one could see.
She marked him as her own, and when he woke it was daylight and everyone except Seth had gone. He sat at the base of a stone pillar, surrounded by fag-ends and the ash from the torches, shaking, his eyes sunken and his fingers twitching.
He stood up and came over to Jack, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder as he examined his bare chest. The blue paint was smeared, but his body was intact, heart beating, ribs where they should be. There was no sign of anything he’d experienced in the night.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked
Seth, and the mage shook his head.
“You belong to her now, Jack,” he said, lighting the last cigarette in his pack. He dragged hard on it, the cherry flaring, and he didn’t offer to share. “I guess in a way I should have known—with that talent of yours, and all that power you can pull on command, you were never long for this world.”
“Seth…,” Jack started, trying to stand. It didn’t work out so well, and he slid to the muddy ground.
“I’m sorry,” Seth said, backing away from him. “But you’re the crow-mage now. You’ve gone beyond my pay grade. I stay away from the Hag, and she stays away from me.”
“Seth, please…” It hurt to talk. Jack felt as if his limbs were no longer his own, as if there had been some fundamental violation of his body and mind, something he couldn’t remember in detail but felt all the same, right down to his bones.
“I’m sorry,” Seth said again, with more urgency. “But I can never see you again.”
He walked away, Jack would always remember, without any hesitation. Straight back to his car, never once turning back. And he did see Seth again, after his suicide attempt, after he understood what being the crow-mage meant. Saw him more than once, but it was never the same. The Seth McBride he trusted, thought of as a brother, walked away from him that morning, and Jack had never met him again.
That Seth had walked away and left Jack there, broken and alone.
When he woke again it was gentler, floating back down into his mind on the puffy cloud of copious amounts of prescription drugs.
“Whatever they’re giving me, see if you can get some to go,” he said when he saw Pete sitting next to his bed. “Be great to bring out at parties.”
“It’s just some Percocet to tide you over,” Pete said. She pointed at his leg, which was swathed in tight, bloody bandages. More lay in a trash bin near the foot of his bed. “Morwenna says you’re lucky. Your leg looked like the zombie apocalypse after their doctor got the glass out.”
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