When Donovan stumbled and fell, Pete fought the urge to shout at him and instead let go of Margaret’s hand. “Keep running,” she said. “Straight into the graveyard, and into the biggest tomb. Jack’s there. He’ll take care of you.”
Margaret hesitated, and Pete gave her a none too gentle shove. The time for coddling was long past. “Go!” she shouted. “Fast as you can!”
She ran back to Donovan, giving the lead villager a shove backward and causing him to tumble while she pulled Jack’s father up with her other arm. “Move,” she snarled at him. “If you die out here before Jack gets to kick you in the teeth for all those miserable years you weren’t around, I’ll find a necromancer to raise you up and kick your arse myself.”
Donovan ran, panting, his face a dangerous shade of cardiac-arrest crimson. “Bossy little bitch on top of it all. Hate to tell you this, luv, but you’re a tailor-made Prospero.”
Pete felt hands snatch at her hair and the back of her jacket, but then they were through the graveyard fence and the crowd clustered outside, moaning and pawing at one another as they fought not to get pushed through the iron. One of the wraiths drifted over, its mouth opening into a fathomless maw, and quicker than a hawk strike, it snatched one of the punters from the front of the crowed, wrapping him in silvery tendrils. The rest of the crowd drew back.
The punter thrashed and screamed until he went still, skin taking on a blue cast and frost growing on his eyebrows and in his hair. A black shape writhed inside the wraith’s silvery body, then disspated like ink in water.
Pete looked next to her, to where Donovan stood, eyes intent and lips moving. “Power of persuasion, luv,” he said, and turned to head for the mausoleum.
Pete watched the figures fade into the mist until a wraith brushed by her, and she hurried after Donovan.
20.
Inside the mausoleum, Margaret crouched next to Jack, brushing hair back from his forehead. “I think he’s sick,” she told Pete when she came in.
“He’ll live.” Donovan slumped, sucking in a deep breath. “And so will you, thanks to us. Hope you’re grateful.”
“Will you shut your gob for ten seconds?” Pete said, crouching beside Margaret. “You all right, luv?”
Margaret nodded. Her face was streaked with dirt, the river tracks of tears cutting through, but she took a deep breath, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I’m all right. I feel bad for poor Miss Carrie, though. She only ever tried to help me, ever since my da brought us to this stupid place.”
“I do, too,” Pete said, stroking Margaret’s hair. “I’m so sorry you had to see that, luv.”
Margaret shrugged. “It’s all right. I’m with you lot now.”
Pete wondered what exactly the Smythes had done to their daughter in the intervening years to make her this flat and closed off. She’d want to murder them a lot more if she didn’t think the mob outside would take care of the pair soon enough. Not that mindless living zombie would be a great leap for either Philip or Norma Smythe.
Pete stripped off her jacket and wrapped it around Margaret, who sank into it with a sigh. “Thanks. It’s so cold here. Never gets any warmer.”
“Stay put, luv, all right?” Pete said, guiding her to the small prayer bench under the stained glass window. “Don’t go outside, whatever you do.”
“You kidding?” Margaret said. “I’m not going anywhere with those things about.”
“Smart girl,” Pete said, patting her leg. She looked back at Jack, still prone on the ground. Donovan was bent from the waist, looking him over.
“So far, I can’t say I’m very impressed,” he said. “Your reputation is a lot worse than your reality, son.”
“Up yours,” Jack grumbled, and Donovan chuckled, the round low sound echoing in the tomb.
“That’s more like it,” he said. “That’s the Jack Winter I was expecting to meet.” He poked at Jack with his toe. “You could stand to have a little more spine, Jackie. Maybe that’s my fault, leaving you to be raised by your mum.”
Jack’s cheeks colored, and he started to lever himself up, but fell back with a groan, pressing his hands over his eyes.
“I never wanted to leave you,” Donovan said, “but I was foolish. I thought you had my blood, and you’d manage to grow some stones on your own. Guess I was wrong.”
Pete felt her stomach clench, a sensation that was all too familiar to her. It felt good to have a target for her rage, though. She could gather all the pain and confusion and fear of the past few days and turn it on Donovan. She grabbed him by the arm and jerked him away from Jack. “Outside,” she snapped when he started to protest. “No more spewing your crap in front of Jack.”
Donovan followed her out, stumbling slightly when she pulled him down the steps. “My son might be into the kinky stuff, but don’t think I won’t smack you if you get too touchy-feely.”
“I would love to see you try that with me,” Pete told him. “I’ll tell you right now, I’m not Jack’s mum. I hit back.”
Donovan rocked back on his heels. “Oh, calm your self-righteous little soul. I never raised my hand to Hannah. I’m not in the habit of knocking women around. Or abandoning my children, though I don’t expect you to believe me.”
“Good, because I think that’s a load of bollocks,” Pete said. “You admitted to me your entire talent is based around lying. Got to tell you, Donovan—I’m not your biggest fan.”
He spat an impatient sigh and then pressed his hands together, as if she were a small child who was being willfully obtuse. “I don’t have to explain myself, but would it help you to know I tried to take Jack with me when I had to leave Manchester and Hannah pitched such a fit I backed off? She threatened to have the council round, and then the police. And I wasn’t exactly on the straight and narrow back then. Would I have been any use to Jack in prison?”
“Here’s a thought—you could have stayed put and fucking raised your kid,” Pete said. “But that’s hard work and I get the feeling you’re allergic.”
“I told you, I was stupid,” Donovan said. “I was doing a lot of work back then for a gangster named Harold Combs—Hatchet Harry, to his mates—and being the pet mind-bender of a man who chopped people’s thumbs off for fun had gotten me into hot water. There were threats.”
“Imagine that,” Pete said. She folded her arms, but at least Donovan wasn’t trying to shine her on with his talent. He looked tired, as if the words put a weight on him with each sentence he spoke.
“Before you come at me again with those terrier teeth, by the time I made it back to Manchester Jackie had lit out, and the next I heard, he was in shit up to his arse with the Fiach Dubh. Now, you might have the juice to toe up against the crow brothers, but I’d learned my lesson. Jack was fine, and he didn’t need me.”
“He wasn’t fine,” Pete said softly. She thought about the first time she’d seen Jack after he’d vanished on her when she was sixteen, thirty pounds lighter, hollow eyed, haunted. “He was killing himself as fast as he could.”
How much of that could Donovan had prevented, if he’d just shown up? How many nights spent sleeping in doorways, how many doses of skag, how many years of a black hole inside her where Jack should be?
“I can’t change the past,” Donovan said. “Not even the gods themselves can do that. But now we’re all in trouble, and for once I can be on my son’s side when he needs me. I’m sorry you don’t like my methods, but I’m doing what I can.”
Pete felt the fight drain out of her. The rage swirled away like the mist around them, drifted up among the wraiths and was lost. “Don’t think I don’t know that you tried to lay the sodding mojo on me back there,” she said as a parting shot. “And don’t think this has changed my opinion of you. I think you’re a piece of shit, and I’ll be watching you every second until we get out of this horrid place.”
“Fair enough,” Donovan said. “You think what you like, dearie.”
“I always do,” Pete said, and they glared at
each other for a moment until she decided she’d played the hard act enough and dropped her arms down, sitting on the steps of the tomb. “So what now? You’ve been here, what’s your bright idea for getting past the zombie horde?”
“They’re not…” Donovan started, but Pete flipped up her hand.
“Whatever. Talk.”
Donovan heaved a sigh and sat next to her, patting his pockets. “Got a cigarette?”
Pete shook her head. “I’m off them since I had the baby.”
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Too good and pure for words, aren’t you?”
“Talk,” Pete reminded him. Around them, the wraiths flitted, clustering over an old corner of the graveyard. Several of them converged on one grave, and Pete sighed as she saw a flash of silver spirit energy and felt rather than heard a spectral scream rake over her mind. Another poor ghost, caught up in the feeding frenzy.
“This isn’t normal,” Donovan said. “You felt it in the village, how the Black stops flowing. All of this, with the wraiths and the creepy village and Hell, even the fog.” He swatted at a tendril of mist. “Do you know where we are?”
“Herefordshire,” Pete said. “Village of Overton.”
Donovan nodded. “Too right. And just over the border in Wales is where a lot of the airy-fairy types think Camelot used to lie.”
“You are joking?” Pete said. “I mean, Camelot? That’s a story.” Morwenna’s idiotic story about the Merlin and the thousand-year cycle came back to her, but what were the odds that was anything except a load of crap, designed to make Pete more willing to work with her?
“You may have heard another story,” Donovan said. “Of a lady in the lake who gave a mage unimaginable power, the power to live for a thousand years, to return when the end of the world was near.”
“Second verse, same as the first,” Pete said. “Have you got a theory about what’s going on here, at this moment, or do you want to spin me the same tale as Morwenna Morgenstern did back at the Prometheus Club?”
“Herefordshire is riddled with holy wells,” Donovan said. “Pilgrims been coming since the lion-baiting days to drink from the water. Curative properties and all that.” He leaned forward, eyes bright with a fever light. Droplets of moisture hung from his skin, and he couldn’t keep his hands still. “But there’s another sort of lake that occurs, in the fabric of the Black. I think you’ve felt it before, when you and my boy ran up against Abbadon. All that old boy wanted was Hell on earth, but the principle is the same—a tear, a void in the Black leading to another place.”
Pete thought of the white place, the bleeding sky, the feeling of endless nothing that was worse than any torture Belial and all his legions in Hell could dream up.
“That’s your theory?” she said. “We’ve run into the magic porthole to nowhere?”
“I think we’ve run into what could give a mage the power to unite the Black, at least for a short time,” Donovan said. “Power so thick it’s corrupting everything in range. But that’s only my theory, and I can’t check it with the higher ups.”
“And why not?” Pete said. “Afraid they’ll think you’re as far around the bend as I do?” She didn’t trust Donovan, but she couldn’t come up with a better explanation for the creeping wrongness that was spreading across the hills and through the people of Overton.
“No,” Donovan said, ducking his head sheepishly, not meeting Pete’s eyes. “I can’t check in because I can’t leave.”
Pete felt as if the air were touching her bare skin, all at once, all over her body. The deep sort of cold she only felt when making contact with something from the Land of the Dead shot through her, deep down and straight to her core. “What do you mean, can’t?” she whispered.
“I mean I walk to where the motorway should be, and I find myself back here,” Donovan said. “I try to make a call, and my mobile battery goes dead. I’ve walked tens of miles away from this bloody village and I always end up right back here. It’s the void, wherever the worms come from—it’s fucking with the Black, and once you’re in it you don’t get out.”
Pete felt panic rising on a tide of bile in her throat and swallowed hard to keep from screaming. “There’s got to be something you haven’t tried.”
“I’ve tried locator spells, scrying—hell, I even broke into the pub and tried to dial out collect. I’m stuck. It’s all chaos and rude magic writhing around this place from the tear. Imagine what’ll happen if it spreads. It’ll infect the earth. Infect the spirit of anyone nearby. Allow all sorts of dark-dwelling monsters like the worms to run free.” Donovan rubbed a hand over his face, dislodging the mist. “It poisons everything, and it will just keep coming. Preston must have stumbled onto it, and that idiot Crotherton couldn’t see that they weren’t dealing with a demon but with something like Purgatory itself, the way Dante understood it.”
“That’s a lot of shit and you know it.”
Pete and Donovan both whirled and gaped at Jack, standing unsteadily in the door of the tomb, supporting himself against the jamb on one side and a hand on Margaret’s shoulder on the other.
“Jack!” Pete went to him and examined him, even though he tried to wave her off.
“Don’t fuss,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“You look like a pile of entrails shat out on a sidewalk,” Pete told him. “But I’m just glad you’re awake. Try to stay that way.”
“I hardly think I made up something that’s happening in front of your eyes for my own amusement, boy,” Donovan said. “I’m only telling you based on what I’ve seen.”
“Voids of magic that grant you eternal life and power?” Jack grumbled. “Yeah, tell me another.”
“How long exactly were you eavesdropping?” Donovan demanded. Pete felt a smile twitch over her face.
“Long enough,” Jack said. “Just because you’re stuck doesn’t mean we have to hang around here.” He looked at Pete. “We did what Morgenstern wanted. Now we’re leaving. Aren’t we, Margaret?”
Margaret looked between Pete and Jack with wide eyes, and Pete soothed her with a hand. “Don’t put her in the middle of your fight with Donovan, Jack.”
Jack’s jaw knotted up, and his hands twitched. “Donovan, is it? Haven’t you two gotten cozy.”
“Enough,” Pete said. “You know it’s not like that, so stop trying to pick a fight with me. You’re going to stay with Margaret, and I’m going to try to find a way to get in touch with Morwenna.”
She grabbed Donovan’s arm and drew him close. “You need to say to Jack what you said to me. And don’t start anything while I’m gone.”
“Your wish is my command, my dear,” he purred, and Pete shoved him away before she could get any of Donovan’s slime on her.
“No,” Jack said, causing Pete to pause in mid-stride.
“What d’you mean, no?” she said.
“No, you’re not running out there by yourself,” Jack said. He pointed at his father. “Go with her.”
Judging by his expression, Donovan was at least as surprised as Pete at his son’s pronouncement. “I don’t think she’ll have me, Jackie,” he said. “She’s only got eyes for you, and being the hero of the hour.”
“Fuck off,” Pete said. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have another body around. At least Donovan could keep the villagers off her arse long enough to figure out how to get in touch with Morwenna. “You better keep up,” she told Donovan. “If you fall behind, that’s where you’re staying.”
“Mercenary and cold, just like I like my women,” Donovan said. “Lead the way then, Ice Princess. I’ll follow you anywhere.”
21.
Pete decided to skirt the village, staying to the side streets, and she walked in silence with Donovan until they reached the police call box she’d spotted on her way into Overton. It felt like months ago. Had it really been less than three days since she’d come to this place?
A dial tone buzzed encouragingly in her ear when she picked up, and she used her old cod
e from the Met to bypass the direct line and dial out. Whatever was fouling the lines in town had missed the rickety call box. Morwenna picked up before the phone had even completed one ring.
“I trust you’re calling with good news, Petunia.”
Pete cast a look at Donovan and forced a smile into her voice. “Would I be calling with bad, Morwenna?”
Donovan lunged forward at the mention of Morwenna’s name, but Pete knocked him back with the force of her glare. Trust me, she mouthed, though at this moment she couldn’t care less what happened to Jack’s father. He was in bed with black magic, and he deserved what he got. Much as she resented calling in the cavalry, she wasn’t leaving Margaret and Jack to be consumed by the infection spreading through the village.
“That depends on if you’re going to tell me you found Crotherton,” Morwenna said.
“Oh,” Pete said, gripping the phone at the memory of the Killigans’ basement. “I found him, all right. There’s much more, Morwenna—”
“And the Prospero Society’s agent?” Morwenna snapped. Pete sighed.
“Right next to me,” she said.
“Excellent. We’ll be there shortly,” Morwenna said.
“I don’t think you understand…” Pete started again, but Morwenna cut her off.
“You can explain it all to me in person. Now go to the village square and wait for me with the Prospero Society’s agent. And Pete?”
Pete gave up on warning Morwenna. If she and the Prometheans wanted to rush in blind, that was their problem. “Yes, Morwenna?” she said with exaggerated politeness.
“He better be there,” she said. “If you tip him off, it’s your arse.”
Morwenna hung up, leaving the phone buzzing once again in Pete’s ear. Donovan was staring at her, face red and hands quivering with rage.
“You,” he spat. “You treacherous little bitch. You dimed me out.”
Pete spread her hands. “How else exactly am I supposed to get her here, Donovan? Like it or not, the Prometheans are probably the only ones who can get us away from here. You two can duke it out all you like when she arrives. It’s no skin off my nose either way.”
Soul Trade Page 17