Soul Trade bl-5

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “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.”

  She pointed back down the road. “I need you to go get Jack and Margaret and meet me in the village square. You better hurry, too—if you’re not about when Morwenna shows up, I’d say it’s time we bought a cottage and settled down in Overton to enjoy the zombie apocalypse.”

  “I did not agree to this,” he snarled. “I told you the Prometheans don’t care about you one way or the other, but you didn’t want to listen.” He spread his hands. “I’ll get Jack to you, but then I’ve got to light out. You brought Morwenna down on us, you take your chances. I’m sorry—I didn’t want to, but you pushed me.”

  “But you did,” Pete said, surprised at how calm she sounded, given how slagged off Donovan looked. “You didn’t want to abandon Jack, but you did. Didn’t want to get him involved in this, but he is. Your son needs you and you’re running. You’re in this for yourself, Donovan. That’s obvious. So if you want to save your arse, stop with the indignation and do as I say. Morwenna is the only one strong enough to stop this spell.”

  He stared at her, eyes burning, mouth working with too many curses to actually articulate. Then he stomped to the center of the road and threw up his hands. “Fine! I’ll meet you back in the square. If you haven’t been chewed to bits by then.”

  Without another word, Donovan turned and stormed off. Pete started to walk back to the village as well, but she caught the raven gliding across her vision like a flicking across the sun. As quickly as it came, it was gone, but Pete wrapped her arms around herself and jogged the rest of the way, keeping her eye out for wayward villagers. Many lay on the pavement and in their gardens as bloated corpses, not moving. A few reached lamely for her as she jogged past, but they were sluggish in daylight, even the diffuse, gray light of the half-day that dawned on Overton.

  The square was as deserted as when she’d first arrived in the village, and Pete sat on the edge of the St. Francis statue, keeping the bronze monk’s feet at her back. She had a good view from the small hump of earth, and she watched white shapes wander to and fro in the fog.

  No sign of the worms, for now, but at least two of them were still out there. The thought of touching them again, of seeing that place of nothing from which they came, made Pete want to scream.

  She sat, perfectly still and quiet, counting off the seconds in her head, and that worked for a few minutes, before her eyes started roaming again and her nerves started pinging. The pull of the void was stronger than it had been even this morning.

  How long before it spread beyond Overton? How long before it reached Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, London?

  Movement stalled her wondering, and Pete was almost thankful for it. It wasn’t the slow rolling gait of a spirit-poisoned villager, and it wasn’t the quick flicker of a raven. This was a deliberate gesture, and as a slim figure appeared in the door of the inn across the square, it grinned and beckoned to her.

  Pete’s stomach plummeted. She’d know the trim suit, the dark hair, and the permanent sneer anywhere. Of all the fucking things in existence, this was the one bastard who could make her day even worse.

  Still, she got up and walked, because to ignore him would invite even worse consequences.

  “Hello, Petunia,” Belial said when she was close enough. “Thought it was about time you and I had a heart-to-heart.”

  22.

  “Look at you,” Pete said, staying out of reach of Belial’s black nails and shark’s teeth. “Swanning about England, and nobody even had to summon you. You’ve come up in the world, Belial.”

  “I don’t mean to brag,” he purred as the door of the inn shut behind Pete, “but I am a prince now.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t go weak in the knees,” Pete said. The front room of the inn was like every other sad pub in every other tiny village she’d ever seen—a few sticky tables, video poker, and dusty signs advertising lager on the walls. “I’ve got more pressing matters to deal with than you.”

  Belial’s eyebrows went up. He could pass for a man, if you didn’t look too closely. Black hair, black eyes, pale skin, and a funeral suit. The thin man who held out his hand and offered you bargains beyond your wildest dreams—all he wanted in exchange was everything.

  But Pete had encountered him far too often to feel the swell of terror that should accompany confronting a Prince of Hell.

  “You’re rather less pleasant than the last time we met,” he said. “I don’t know as I like it.”

  “Then fuck off and leave me alone,” Pete said. “I don’t owe you anything this time. We’re square—we got rid of Abbadon and you cleared my note. Mine and Jack’s. I believe the phrase ‘Never darken my doorway again’ might have been used.”

  Belila inhaled, narrow nostrils flaring. “Did it ever occur to you that I simply missed you, Petunia?”

  “Bollocks,” Pete said. “Spit it out, Belial.”

  He grinned at her, tongue flicking between his pointed teeth. “I do see what you mean by pressing matters. What sort of place have we come to? Something about the way the air tastes … I haven’t gotten a whiff of magic this black for a thousand years.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Pete sighed. “Something about a void in the Black leading to an in-between place like nothing anyone has ever seen, unlimited power, big bad evil, blah blah blah.”

  Belial clicked his black nails on the tabletop. “Soul well,” he purred. “Well, well. That is worth rolling out of bed for.”

  “You’ve dealt with these things?” Pete asked. Absurdly, she felt relief. What had it come to when Belial, once the specter of her nightmares, made her feel safer?

  “No,” Belial said, and laughed. “I look stupid? I stay the fuck out of the in-between, Pete. It’s the place for lost souls, lost things. I’m a creature of Hell. They’d love to pick my bones clean over there.”

  “The worms,” Pete said, fishing to see if Belial actually knew anything or if he was just fucking with her head, which was probably the demon’s favorite hobby after showing up where he wasn’t wanted and ruining her day.

  “That’s cute,” he said. “That you give them little nicknames. They’re Ba’tsubuota b’ad la d’anasha.”

  “Bless you,” Pete said, curling her lip in what she felt was a fair impression of Jack. “Need a tissue?”

  “That’s the closest I can get in a human language, you insufferable brat,” Belial said. “Aramaic—literally, a thing that is not a man. The antithesis of a living person. Nothingness. In Hell, we call them the Undone—pieces of a human soul that got lost either coming or going, and ended up in the nothingness that lies between everything.”

  He sat back and folded his arms, regarding Pete. “If a piece of their place is spilling into the daylight world, you’ve got your delicate little hands full. Touching Purgatory throws everything off kilter.”

  “I know all that,” Pete said. “Out of balance, unnatural, et cetera.”

  “Not just unnatural,” Belial said. He cocked his head at her. “You don’t know anything at all, you realize that? You’re so blissfully ignorant that sometimes it hurts my back teeth.”

  “Fuck off,” Pete said. “I’m not in the mood for witty banter with you of all people.”

  “But I’m not a person.” Belial grinned. “Not by a long shot.” He cracked his knuckles. “Sweet little Petunia, I came here to chat with you about another matter entirely, but this is far more interesting.”

  “Just tell me,” Pete sighed. You could never shut a demon up—they loved the sound of their own voices more than any creature Pete had ever encountered. “And if you have any advice for shutting this leak down and getting rid of the zombies in the bargain, I’m all ears.
”

  “Did you say bargain?” Belial gave a low growl and Pete hitched back reflexively. “My favorite word, dear Petunia. You know that.”

  “Forget it,” Pete said. “I’ll clean up this mess on my own, just like always.”

  “Ah, yes,” Belial said. “Always so ready to rush into the fire, aren’t you, Petunia? Always so ready to die a bloody, heroic, pointless death. It’s not an attractive habit, you know. I much prefer your Jack’s inclination toward inveterate cowardice. He’s going to far outlive you if this keeps up.” His red tongue flicked again. “Tell me, do you think he’ll fare well as a single daddy?”

  “Fuck you,” Pete snapped. “You had a few inches with me, but that’s it. Get lost. I didn’t summon you, so just go away and bother some other poor sod.”

  She got up and stormed back outside, slamming the door after her. Her heart was thudding and her breath was short, as if she’d just run a long, long way.

  After far too short a time for Pete to feel any semblance of calm, the door creaked open again. Belial’s thin white hand, tipped with black nails, extended a blank pack of cigarettes and shook it. “Not very smart,” he said as Pete grabbed one and lit it, inhaling viciously. “Taking favors from a demon.”

  “You’ve never done a favor for me in your life,” Pete retorted. “You just keep me around because it amuses you to see me suffer.”

  Belial tsked. “That right there proves you don’t get it. You and I have a far more beneficial relationship, Pete, and you know it. Now do you want to hear why I traipsed up from the Pit or not?”

  The fag tasted sour, like burnt rubber on the back of her tongue. Her throat wasn’t used to the harshness, and whatever noxious unfiltered thing Belial was smoking made her gag. She threw it down and stamped on it. “What you said back there, about me needing to be a hero. Isn’t true. I just want to stay alive and keep Jack and Lily safe. I just want to get out of here and go home.”

  “Then hear me out,” Belial said. “And instead of kicking and screaming against what’s happening, use your head. Unlike the crow-mage, you do have a brain. ’S why I’ve always preferred dealing with you.”

  Pete shivered at the thought that she was the preferred company of a demon. How sick was that? “Don’t see why,” she said. “Jack’s got far more to offer.”

  “And he gives it so easily,” Belial scoffed. “What’s the saying—never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent? Jack has his uses, Petunia, but when it comes to the bargain I know if I can get over on you, I’m doing my job.”

  “Is your job today to annoy the piss out of me?” Pete said. “Because you’re blabbing circles and not saying anything useful.”

  “Demons exist to keep humans in check,” Belial said. “To feed on their baser impulses. We’re the carrion eaters of the Black, Petunia. We keep sin, stupidity, and evil from spreading too far. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.”

  “You have ten seconds before I well and truly leave,” Pete said. “You got something useful to tell me about how to get rid of this void in the Black?”

  “Think about it, Petunia.” Belial’s voice was dark and silky as the mist, and his fag smoke smelled like crematory ash.

  “Think about what?” she sighed.

  “Everything,” Belial said. “Your whole sad little human life.”

  “Right, then,” Pete said. “I’ve had my quota of riddles for, well, ever, so I’m done now, thank you.”

  “You act like everything that happens is some mystical hand of fate,” said Belial, and the playful tone was gone from his voice. It was harsh and commanding, befitting a Prince of Hell. “Like all you’re trying to do is make the world safe for the queen to sit in Buckingham Palace, the punters to drink in the pubs, and that sad waste of skin Jack Winter to stumble from one disaster to the next.” Belial held up his hands to preempt Pete’s wringing his neck, or so she supposed. “How many times can you save him before you accept that you’re a bigger piece of this than Jack ever was, Pete?” He turned his black, black eyes on Pete, and she stopped breathing. The demon was arresting, even in his human form, enough to stop a person’s heart for a split second.

  “You’re the last of your kind,” Belial whispered, reaching out to brush his pointed nails down Pete’s cheek. Mere contact triggered visions in her, of vast plains of shimmering sand covered with crucifixtions like pins in a pinboard, of a vast city with triple smokestacks spewing waste from crematory furnaces into the sky, of the bone fields that stretched on forever, bleached white skulls of the dead staring endlessly into the bloodred skies of Hell.

  “So I’ve heard,” Pete murmured, sick and dizzy on the glimpse of the demon’s psyche her talent triggered.

  “The last of your kind, and you fight and you fight to stop what’s coming, but you can’t avoid it, Petunia,” Belial said. “You can only take your place, the one you like to pretend doesn’t exist.” He moved his hand away and smiled at her, thin and entirely too knowing. “But it does. Nergal tried and the Morrigan tried and Abbadon himself tried to use you, and it. But it wasn’t theirs to begin, was it? It’s always belonged to you. The last Weir, the one who will stand at the eye of the storm when it finally comes.”

  Pete could barely get the words out, her throat raw and swollen as if she’d been screaming for hours. “What storm? What are you talking about?”

  “The end.” Belial shrugged. “Demons are pragmatic, Pete. Worlds rise, worlds fall. Things end. And all of this, what’s happened here in this nasty little village, the old gods stirring, the bleeding of the Black into everything else, it’s all a signal that the countdown has started flipping over. I’m not upset by it, but I am bemused that you refuse to see the truth.”

  Pete glared up at the demon. “I’m sure you’ll tell me, so out with it.”

  “The truth is that you have always been the beginning of the end,” Belial said. “The one who’ll finally bring wrath and ruin to the Black. You can pretend every one of these things is coincidence, that you’re an ignorant pawn, that you don’t understand your talent, but you’re lying to yourself.” Belial lit another cigarette, drew long and hard, and exhaled a cloud of blue-tinged smoke. “The truth is, you were always meant to end up right here, Pete. The moment you were born, everything you’ve done since, has all led to right here. And you are the beginning of the end of all things. You always have been, and when it happens, all you can really do is be ready.”

  He put out his cigarette and straightened his tie. “So the only advice I have for you is don’t stop it. Don’t fight it. Let Purgatory spread. And be ready to rise to your rightful place in the aftermath.”

  He craned his neck and grinned at Pete as she felt her cheeks grow hot with rage. “I really came here to talk to you about Jack, but it looks as if your little rescue party has arrived, and as I have no truck with demon hunters, I’m going to make myself scarce.”

  “Wait!” Pete shouted, grabbing for him and finding only smoke. “What about Jack?”

  “If you survive this, we’ll talk again,” Belial said. “I did like this world, but there’s no stopping it now. Good-bye, Pete.”

  Before she could blink, he was gone, leaving only the tinge of cigarettes and black magic behind.

  “Fucking demons,” Pete hissed, as Donovan, Jack, and Margaret appeared from one street, while Morwenna’s fleet of black cars appeared from the other, screeching to a stop in the square.

  Pete looked between them, then took a deep breath of cold air that burned her lungs all the way down. Caught in the middle, and no help for it.

  As usual.

  23.

  Morwenna stepped from her black Mercedes, trailed by Victor, and clacked across the square on her heels to Pete. “Is that him?” she asked, pointing at Donovan.

  “That’s him,” Pete confirmed. Morwenna started to brush her aside, but Pete put her hand on Morwenna’s shoulder.

  “There’s just a few things we need to get straight,” Pete said.r />
  Morwenna looked at Pete’s hand as if it had turned into a spider. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We did what you asked,” Pete said. She cast a look back at Jack and Donovan. Jack stood with Margaret, keeping himself between the Prometheans and the girl. Donovan fidgeted next to them, shooting Pete a glare that she felt could have melted her on the spot.

  “And I’m glad I was able to put my faith in you,” Morwenna said, trying to shove past Pete again.

  “That’s not it,” Pete said. “Before you go after Donovan, I want your promise that nothing will happen to Jack or Margaret, or Lily. That you’ll get us all out of here.”

  Morwenna gave her a condescending smile. “We’re not mobsters, Pete. We’ll take care of this.”

  Pete gripped Morwenna’s suit jacket, the soft wool prickling under her fingers. “Promise me,” she said. “None of us alone can break the hold this place has, so you promise me you’ll get us out of here, or he’s going to run, and I’m going to help him. Then you’ll never know how far the Prospero Society has gotten into your ranks, and you’ll still have a soul well spreading all over the UK.”

  Victor started to move for her, to separate Pete from Morwenna, but Morwenna waved him off. “Fine,” she told Pete. “You have my word. Now get out of my bloody way.”

  Pete lifted her hand from Morwenna and retreated to stand with Jack and Margaret. “I think we’re all right now,” she said to Jack under her breath. “Donovan’s not going to let himself be taken, so get ready to duck.”

  “Miss Caldecott,” Margaret said, tapping her. Pete shushed her.

  “It’ll be all right, luv. Just stand by me.”

  “And that’s my cue,” Donovan said. “It’s been fun, but I’m off.”

  “What a shock,” Jack mumbled as Morwenna and Victor drew closer, forming a loose line to keep Donovan from rushing them. Pete thought that was a supreme display of overconfidence—she would have brought a lot more men.

  “Jackie, believe me when I say that this isn’t how I wanted to end things,” Donovan said. “Now I’d best be going. You take care, boy.”