Soul Trade bl-5

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “She is eternal,” Pete said. “Second verse, same as the first. Here’s a tip—if you want me to pay attention to anything that raggedy old crow has to say, tell her to change her fucking record.”

  The raven twitched, and then abruptly it took flight, a black shadow flicking across the sun, gone in the blink of an eye. Pete exhaled. Fucking gods and monsters were all the same, thinking they could just tune in on you any time they liked.

  The train window, rimed with a thin layer of raindrops, cracked in a spider web pattern directly in front of Pete’s face, with a force that pasted her back in her seat. This time, when Pete looked, it wasn’t a raven staring back at her, but the glowing gold eyes of the Morrigan herself. Her face was pale, chased with black veins, and her hair was feathery and black, flying around her head as wind and rain lashed the train car.

  Pete felt the vibration of the Black down to her bones as the Morrigan manifested herself, placing one taloned hand against the glass, leaving deep furrows as they screeched across the cracks she’d made.

  Jack can’t deny me, she hissed. What makes you think you can?

  “I helped you,” Pete said. She was quivering, and there was no hiding it, but she wasn’t going to start having a fit. “I helped you put Nergal down. And you got what you wanted—you left your mark on Jack.”

  What I wanted was my birthright, the Morrigan screeched. Lightning split the nearest tree, and Pete was momentarily blinded. When she could see again the Morrigan was inside the train car, standing before her. Her dress was a tattered shroud, stained with the blood of a hundred dead, and black blood dribbled from her lips when she spoke.

  You denied me my war, Weir. The march on the daylight world that my army will have, at the end of all things. You think you’ve saved your pathetic little slice of the cosmos, but you’ve merely granted it a stay of execution.

  Cold took over Pete’s body inch by inch—not the chill of outside air, but the final cold of death, as her body shut down and her heart ceased to beat. She could see her breath when she whispered, “You might have Jack, but you’ll never have me. You’ll never have the end of my world that you want. Not while I’m alive.”

  The Morrigan snarled. “Then perhaps we should do something about that, since you’re Hell-bent on being the heroine of this story.”

  She reached for Pete, bloody talons wrapping around her throat, searing Pete with her cold touch, talons ripping through her skin, into her jugular vein. Pete felt hot blood gush forth, and the last thought she had was that she wouldn’t even have time to scream, wouldn’t have time to tell Lily one last time that she loved her …

  She woke up with a thrash and a scream, and Jack turned to stare at her, taking off his padded headphones and narrowing his eyes. From his MP3 player, Pete heard the strains of the Runaways.

  “Sorry,” she said. Her heart thudded so violently that her breastbone ached. “Bad dream.”

  Jack grimaced. “That sounded like a little more than a nightmare.”

  People were staring, and Pete shrank back into her seat, looking out again at the low gray land passing all around them.

  “You really can’t tell me anything else about these Prometheus Club bastards?” she asked. Jack huffed at her abrupt change of subject, but there was no way in any Hell that Pete was telling him what she’d seen.

  The Morrigan could try to scare her, but she could only reach Pete in her dreams. In the daylight world, at least for now, she was powerless.

  Jack shifted in his seat, and Pete caught sight of the tattoos along his wrist. She wondered just how long the Morrigan would remain in her dreams.

  She realized she was glad for the more pressing problem of the geas. The Morrigan able to reach into the larger world via Jack was a horror that didn’t bear contemplation.

  “I’m not holding out on you, if that’s what you mean to say,” Jack said. “Nobody knows about the club except the members of the club, and nobody knows the members.” He shoved his MP3 player back into his bag and leaned his head back against the seat, rubbing his forehead.

  “Supposedly,” he said, “they’re a sort of ruling council of the UK, all the big muckety-mucks from this side of the Black and the other gathering together to rule from the shadows, punish the little people who get out of line, all sorts of fun activities for the rich and wanky.” He played with the cord of his headphones. “I could tell you the exact weight and measure of the load of bollocks I think that is, but I bet you can guess.”

  It sounded like a load to Pete, too. Nobody could hope to control the Black. Nobody could even hope to control the mages and other magic-workers of the UK, never mind the demons, Fae, and other, less visible creatures skulking around the Black.

  If the Prometheus Club thought they were going to control her, they were in for a rude surprise.

  5.

  The train ride to Manchester was only a bit over two hours, but when Pete stepped off the carriage she felt as if she’d stepped onto the surface of another planet. The ever-present tide of the Black was gone, replaced by something that felt more akin to a brick wall, something you could scrape the back of your knuckles against and leave skin behind.

  Jack massaged the spot between his eyes. “Fucking hate this place,” he grumbled.

  Pete hefted her bag and joined the tide of people heading for the taxis and public transport. Jack lagged a few steps behind, squinting as if he’d just stepped into bright sun from total darkness. “I don’t think we should check into a hotel,” she said, falling back to walk with him. “Too easy to track us that way. Besides, we’re broke.”

  “Yeah. If you’re interested, I do know a couple of viaducts that are decent to sleep under,” Jack said. He tried to smile, but the expression looked like it hurt, and Pete winced.

  It was easy to forget, with the flat and Lily and the normal life they had when they weren’t doing this sort of thing, that Jack had started life as a poor kid from a bad council estate in the worst part of Thatcher’s Manchester. He’d slept rough, done drugs, and fought tooth and nail to survive on the streets before one of the Morrigan’s other shadows, Seth McBride, had recognized what he was and trained him to be a mage.

  Pete could have slapped herself for making Jack bring that part of his life up again. He never talked about it, beyond the vaguest generalities. What little Pete knew had all come from other people or the one dip she’d taken inside Jack’s memories via her talent, which had been enough for ten lifetimes.

  “I don’t think we’ve resorted to a carboard box just yet,” she said. Trying to keep up the smile, keep it light. Pretend it would all be fine. If she had no other skills, she had that one.

  “I’ll look up a few old friends, if they’re still aboveground,” Jack said. “’Least there are plenty of holes to crawl into in this town, if you need to stay low.”

  Pete nodded, deciding that even though Jack’s “friends” usually turned out to be lowlifes of the highest order, staying unseen was definitely top of her list.

  “I’ll make a call,” Jack said, heading for a bank of payphones.

  While he fished for change and dialed, Pete scanned the crowd. She’d felt the prick of eyes on her back since they’d left the train. Not a magical feeling, a copper feeling. The crowds weren’t as thick as they had been in Victoria, and her tail didn’t have many places to hide.

  A few likely suspects—a young kid with a backpacking kit, an Indian woman in a business suit—passed her by when she stopped in the center of the sidewalk and pretended to check out her mobile.

  An older gent, chubby and balding, stumbled when she stopped short and cut an abrupt left to the newsagent’s stand, pretending that had been his destination the entire time. Amateur hour, for sure. Probably not the Prometheans, then. They could at least afford a tail who wasn’t fifty pounds overweight and wearing an eggplant purple windcheater, red-faced and panting with his attempt to keep her in sight.

  Pete took a step toward him, and they locked eyes. Purple C
oat surprised her then—rather than look away and pretend to be busy buying a newspaper, he nodded to her and then gestured with his chin for her to come over.

  Pete cast a look back at Jack, who was chatting away on a pay telephone. She caught a snatch of conversation, including “Fuck off, you old bastard.” He was within screaming distance if she needed him, so she cut through the new stream of people coming off a Cardiff train and approached the fat man.

  “You’re Petunia Caldecott,” he said without preamble. “The Weir.”

  “On my better days,” Pete agreed. “Nobody calls me Petunia, by the way. It’s Pete.”

  “I need to ask you something,” said Purple Coat. He shifted, fists shoved into his pockets, and Pete tensed again. This gent could very well be a nutter. He certainly looked the part. She and Jack didn’t have many fans in the UK these days, though assassins usually went directly for their target.

  Mentally, she cataloged her options. She could run, thump him with her police baton, scream, or try to sling a hex, which was about as reliable as closing your eyes and hoping the other bloke missed. Physical magic was Jack’s game. She was just a beginner.

  Purple Coat drew out a crumpled object wrapped in newspaper, and Pete started breathing again. “Ask, then,” she said. “Haven’t got all day, have I? We’ve somewhere to be.”

  “I know,” he said. “The Prometheus Club.”

  Of course you do, Pete thought, because nothing since those odd, pale creatures had shown up in the graveyard had been a coincidence.

  “You going to warn me away?” she asked Purple Coat. “Threaten me? Whatever it is, kick on.”

  “From what I’ve heard, neither of those will have any discernible effect on you,” said Purple Coat. “I just needed to reach you. To talk to you before you disappeared into that den of vipers.”

  Pete held up her hand, exposing the twin circles of the geas. “It’s a little late for that, mate. They’ve got their hooks in good and tight.” She cocked her head, taking his measure. He was dirty, up close, and had the sour smell of the infrequent bather. His eyes were bloodshot and even though he was still a fat bastard, his skin sagged from weight loss. He looked sick, and exhausted, and his eyes kept roaming the train station even as he bit back a yawn. “Who are you, anyway?” Pete asked him. “When was the last time you slept?”

  “My name is Preston, Preston Mayflower,” he said. “I used to be a Member.” Pete could hear the capital letter in his voice. “I’m sorry for the state I’m in, Miss Caldecott, but I can’t rest. They have members who can reach you in your dreams, get inside your head. I can’t allow that to happen.”

  He twitched as a businessman passed too close and tucked himself inside his windcheater. Pete had dealt with plenty of paranoids as a copper, and she knew the difference between drug-induced insanity, genuine mental illness, and fear.

  This was the latter. “What’s wrong, Preston?” she asked, employing her best soothing tone. “What’s so important that you came here?”

  “Listen.” Preston grabbed her wrist, abruptly, and Pete jerked in reflex. She didn’t get much feedback from Preston, though, just a jumbled buzz of magic, like the last bit of static electricity when she brushed against metal in winter. The raw nerve of Manchester’s Black was stifling her ability to sense anything more.

  “Please don’t touch me,” she said gently, removing Preston’s hand from her. “I don’t want Jack to get the wrong idea.”

  The threat of Jack Winter made Preston recoil like a spring, which would have amused Pete if the poor man hadn’t looked so terrified. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” He swiped a hand across his eyes. “I used to have a normal life, Miss Caldecott. They’re going to say things about me—that I’m a nutter, that I went off the rails and betrayed them, that I’ve always been crazy and unstable. But I’m not.” He shuddered. “I was a geomancer—someone who could consecrate and bind the earth, find holy sites, tears between the Black and the daylight, that sort of thing. Made a nice living as an estate agent, when I wasn’t searching out trouble spots and places of power for them.”

  “Okay,” Pete said. “I believe you, Preston.” She didn’t know what she actually believed, but he needed to hear it and she needed him to get to the point.

  “When I found it, they tried to take it, tried to lock me up,” said Preston. “They tried to take it for themselves. I saw it then, what the tenth gathering was really about, and I’m here to warn you, Miss Caldecott. Break the geas. Don’t get anywhere near the Prometheans, and if you must do so…” Preston shot a bug-eyed glance into the crowd, eyes roving over every face as his sallow cheeks flushed. “Don’t take the crow-mage with you.”

  Pete started at that. “I don’t know what you mean, Preston. I want to understand, but you’re not making much sense, luv.” To warn her away was one thing, but to suggest that the Prometheans had unsavory designs on Jack was much worse. Nobody who wanted to use him for their own ends was on the side of good, justice, and happy kittens.

  “They’ll pour honey in your ear,” Preston whispered. “They’ll make me out to be the villain, and they’ll send you in my stead. But they’re ignorant at best, and liars at worst. They don’t realize how things have changed because of what Nergal did.” He swallowed and coughed—a wet, contagious sound that came from deep in his lungs.

  “If I had a pound for every time somebody told me that,” Pete said. She didn’t mean to be flip, but Preston looked near tears at the thought that she wasn’t taking his rant at face value. He thrust the bundle at her with a sharp, violent motion.

  “I know you don’t believe me, and I wouldn’t either, but you have to take this. Take it and don’t show it to them.” When Pete took a step back, Preston snatched her hand and pressed the paper-wrapped object into it. “Take it,” he said. “Keep it safe. Maybe it can help you where it couldn’t help me.”

  Jack came up behind her, and Pete nearly jumped out of her skin when he spoke. “This fuckwit bothering you?”

  “No…” Pete started, but Preston was already off and running toward the taxi line and the street beyond.

  “Who was that?” Jack said.

  “He was … I don’t know. Random nutter, I think,” Pete said, though the thought nagged at her that Preston had been entirely too frightened to have made what he said up out of the ether. “Told me the Prometheans weren’t what they seem.”

  Jack snorted. “In other news, water is wet, Arsenal’s defence is shit, and the Pope wears a silly hat.”

  “That’s how I felt,” Pete agreed. She told herself to shake the vague feeling of unease as they made their way to the end of the taxi line. Preston Mayflower didn’t have to be a portent of certain doom. He could be crazy or, worse, he could have been sent by the Prometheans themselves as a test, to see if Pete would be a good little soldier if faced with an excuse to try to slip her geas and get away.

  Whatever the reason, she didn’t have the energy to play games with yet another set of shadowy intrigues. She barely had the energy to drag her bag along the curb.

  The ache of exhaustion was the excuse she gave herself afterward for seeing a streak of purple from the corner of her eye but not realizing what was happening until it was far too late. Preston Mayflower shoved his way through the throng at the curb, broke through the taxi line ahead of them, and cast a frantic look over his shoulder. His face was nearly the same color as his windcheater, and sweat flew in a sparkling arc from his balding head.

  Pete followed his line of sight, her mouth forming into a shout, and saw two people pressing through the crowd behind him, the sort of nondescript that usually lent itself to undercover cops. One man and one woman, beige coats, dark hair, nothing remarkable about them. Except the look of fear they elicited from Preston Mayflower.

  A taxi slammed on its brakes, tires screeching, and the driver leaned out his window to scream a curse. The woman of the pair got nearly close enough to touch Preston as he dodged into traffic, but he took another loping st
ep forward, eyes bugging out in terror and seeing nothing in front of him.

  All of it happened in the space of two heartbeats, from her first view of Preston to the squeal of hydraulic brakes and the sickening, final impact of a body making contact with a Manchester city bus.

  Cries went up from the taxi line and the bystanders. A transit copper came running, yelling into his radio, while the bus driver dismounted his vehicle, face ashen and hands shaking.

  “He was just there…” the driver cried. “Nothing and then there…”

  The woman of the pair reached Preston’s body and bent down, rolling him onto his back. One leg and one arm were twisted behind him, and the body made a sound like a sack of apples being tossed about. To any casual observer, the woman was administering aid, checking a pulse and pulling at Preston’s eyelid, but Pete watched her other hand creep across the windcheater, inside the pockets, and feel around the waistband of his stained trousers. She looked at her companion and shook her head imperceptibly, and by the time the copper reached the scene, they had melted into the crowd, two beige vapors gone on the wind.

  Pete swallowed the scream that had never gotten further than the back of her throat as Jack stared at the body. He asked, “Holy Hell, did you see that bastard leap?” but she didn’t really hear him.

  She felt the weight of the wrapped parcel Preston had forced on her inside her own pocket, and a chill crept over her exposed skin, all the way down to her bones.

  Whatever was inside the parcel, Preston Mayflower had just died to give it to her.

  Jack gripped her arm before she could pull out the object and open the paper. His touch created a warm spot on her frozen skin. “Come on,” he said in her ear. “Rest of the cavalry’ll be here soon. No point in still hanging about when they show up.”

  Pete allowed herself to be led away, and soon the crowd had shut them off from the scene in the street. She could still hear the sick impact of the body and the squeal of tires, though, and see the panicked expression in Preston Mayflower’s eyes. If that had even been his real name.