Pete nearly knocked into a uniformed plod before she managed to exit the museum by the service entrance, where her red Mini Cooper was parked behind a phalanx of Met vehicles, Ollie’s nondescript Vauxhall, and Nasiri’s van.
She got in and turned the arthritic engine over—the car was older than she by an order of a decade. Her mum had left it behind when she’d done a runner, and Pete had been driving it since she’d convinced her da, DI Caldecott the elder, she was to be trusted with the keys. Mistakenly, of course—she’d used it to go tooling around country roads during weekends at university, and still had a sheaf of speeding tickets from local police she’d never told him about.
Too late now. Connor Caldecott was in the ground, just like Gerard Carver shortly would be. Just like …
Pete shut the engine off again and closed her eyes. She couldn’t cry here. Not where the uniforms, Ollie, even that bloody scrubbed-faced McCorkle could see.
Her tears didn’t care, and they still squeezed down her face. Pete had never believed that crying did a bit of good other than to waste time and give her bags under her eyes, but lately the tears had simply come, like blood comes when you slice skin with a blade.
Being on a consulting job, with magic flowing close to the surface in a way that it hadn’t in months, not since Jack had disappeared, was too hard. She should have been smart enough to realize she wasn’t ready for the feeling. Should have waited, until his disappearance was less raw.…
Except he didn’t disappear, did he? Didn’t pop out for fags and not come back. You know exactly where he went. Jack was gone, but it wasn’t as if he’d slipped away in the middle of the night.
And she had to stop expecting him to appear and solve every problem, furnish every solution she didn’t have herself, work over every job that she couldn’t finish on her own. She’d thrown herself into this shadow-life, where magic was real and you saw waking nightmares every day. She’d made the choice. With or without Jack, it was done.
She had to stop looking for him, and she had to stop seeing him. Had to get a grip on herself and make the empty spots inside stop stinging whenever she saw a familiar silhouette or heard the broad tone of a Manchester accent.
Had to face the truth.
She couldn’t go to him when things got too hard.
Because Jack was in Hell, and he wasn’t coming back.
CHAPTER 3
People who didn’t feel and taste the ley lines of power running through it didn’t realize London was a city of tides. The Thames Estuary swept seawater in and out, back and forth along the embankments and bridge pilings and bricked-over, secret places beneath the city. Underground rivers trickled through ancient waterways, and Joseph Bazalgette’s Victorian marvel of modern sewage still crawled underfoot, sharing space with everything from medieval crypts to secret Cabinet rooms and bomb shelters from the Great War.
Beneath everything, the Black rose and fell the same way, ebbed and flowed against Pete’s mind while she drove east, the current of life force as old as the first bricks the Romans had laid down in the city walls. Older. Older than brick, older than blood spilled upon this patch of ground just inland where the Thames finally turned calm. Old as earth.
But not of it.
At the places of low tide, the Black and the waking world sometimes intersected, creating spots where if you turned your head just right you’d swear you saw a thin alley, an iron gate, or a shadowed doorway out of the corner of your eye, a thing that vanished when you looked straight on.
Jack had showed Pete that such places existed, but he hadn’t been particularly strict as to how one found them. She’d spent a memorable three hours wandering up and down Covent Garden in the rain, trying to find the break she knew was there. Magic vibrated on a frequency just like sight or heat or sound; it just wasn’t a station most human receivers could tune in. Pete had heard all of the theories: magic was just another notch on the spectrum, beyond infrared and under ultraviolet. Ghosts were just electrons. Demons were just quantum disturbances that molded themselves into flesh.
That was where it fell down for her. Demons were real. She’d met a demon in its borrowed flesh and stood close enough to feel his hot, sour breath on her face.
She’d looked the demon in the eye before he’d taken Jack’s soul, ripped it free of his body, and crawled with it in his teeth, straight back to Hell.
She found parking in Limehouse, and reluctantly left the Mini. Nobody drove in the city if they could help it, but Pete enjoyed it, being encapsulated in her own small world, with only shifting gears and red lights to mind, at least until she got where she was going.
The thin space called, even if she would have rather kept driving, straight out of London, onto the M-25, east until she got to the edge of the country at Dover. The Black couldn’t be left behind, though. It simply was, and once you’d seen it, you couldn’t look away.
Pete stepped into a gap between a newsagent’s and a pizza shop, and emerged into a Victorian street. In London, mid-morning approached, but here there was soft, fog-draped night. Gaslamps lit the way to the red door of a pub, through which drifted music and the occasional bout of laughter that dopplered from the brick row houses across the cobbles and back to her.
A black carriage thundered past, four horses with steam for breath and glowing red coals for eyes towing it on clockwork legs. The citizens of the carriage hid behind a red curtain, but Pete tasted black smoke on the back of her tongue as it passed, the taste of sorcery. She flipped the retreating end of the carriage the bird. Hadn’t she had enough of fucking black magic for one day?
Once it was out of sight, she pushed through the red door and into the Lament pub, the one spot she could reliably locate when crossing. Time and place worked differently in the Black, and in many ways the whole of hidden London was as the East End under Victoria—dangerous, violent, and full of things that would gut you from stomach to neck for a shilling, or simply because they were hungry.
Except at the Lament. It was neutral ground. No fighting, no gambling, and no magic. Anyone who violated the rules found themselves promptly tossed arse over teakettle into the street by a brigade of immovable bouncers, who ranged from Takeshi the former karate champion to Dougie the bridge troll.
Dougie was on tonight, and Pete smiled at him. Dougie had lived under London Bridge until the early 1700s, when increasingly wheeled methods of transport made his habit of snatching livestock, stray cats, and wandering children and ingesting them somewhat impractical.
“Oi,” he said to her, in a voice that was both high and soothing, for a towering, rock-skinned, web-fingered carnivore. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Pete tried to return the troll’s smile. It wasn’t Dougie’s fault that she could barely stand to come here without Jack. “ ’M looking for the Green Knight,” she said. “Is he here?”
“Came in about an hour ago,” Dougie grunted. “Champion mood, as usual.”
“Wonderful,” Pete muttered. She hung her jacket on a hook, because the Lament was always warm and close, and because she didn’t want the punters getting the idea that she had something to hide, and went to the bar. “Newcastle,” she sighed. “And could I talk you out of a glass of water?”
“Sure, luv,” said the bartender. She was tall, steel eyed, golden haired, and tattooed within an inch of her life. Valkyrie, Pete guessed. Or just a very, very fit former table dancer.
“Business not so great in Valhalla, then?” Pete said. She lit a cigarette while the publican poured out the ale.
“Your jokes need work,” said the barwoman. “Or maybe a defibrillator.” She set the Newcastle on the bar and leaned in to Pete, resting on her elbow. “Fair warning, Weir. I know who you are, and so did the gents who came in looking for you about half an hour ago.”
Pete kept her expression blandly pleasant while she digested the information. She knew the Black at large gossiped about her—she’d be shocked if they didn’t, really. She’d gossip about her, were she someone else. Pete C
aldecott, Weir. The speaker for the old gods, one of the few of her kind still in existence. Jack Winter’s woman, who could transform his not inconsiderable power into something that could turn the Black into ashes. Still, she didn’t know that she’d ever get used to being openly stared at and recognized while she was buying a drink.
“They still about?” was all she decided to say. She felt the acute lightness of her belt, which used to hold pepper spray, a flexible baton, and sometimes a 9mm pistol. Right then she missed the pistol most of all.
“One went to the loo,” the bartender said. “One’s at the corner table, drinking coffee and taking up space.” She sneered. “Won’t even order a real bloody drink.”
“I’m not here to start trouble,” Pete said.
“They are,” said the bartender. “I know nasty gits when I put eyes on them.”
“Thanks,” Pete said. “But I didn’t come here for the nasty gits, even if they came here for me.” She took the Newcastle and made her way to a round table in the center of the pub. She set the pint in front of the bearded man in a soft, dingy tweed jacket sitting there, smoking a pipe that would have given Gandalf a complex, and took the free chair. “Hello, Ian.”
Ian Mosswood raised one eyebrow, and exhaled a stream of blue-green smoke. “If it isn’t Petunia Caldecott. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?”
Pete rolled her eyes. “I’ve kicked men square in the business for slinging that name about, you know.”
Mosswood gave a snort. “I’d wager you’ve kicked them for far less. You’ve a changeable temperament, Petunia.”
“Look,” Pete said, shoving the lager at him. “I don’t want to spend one more fucking second in this place than I must, and I’ve brought you an offering and everything, and I’m not even a druid. You don’t have to be a cunt about it.”
Mosswood raised the glass to his lips and took a healthy sip. “No. But I do have more fun this way.”
Pete sighed. “Tosser.”
Ian gave a small smile, more of a lip twitch, but with a being as capricious and powerful as a Green Man, you took what you could get. “What can I do for you, oh gracious and most serene Miss Caldecott?”
Pete pulled up the picture of Gerard Carver’s torso and slid her mobile across the table. “You ever seen anything like this?”
Mosswood’s pleasant expression bled away, as if a downpour had stripped all the leaves from a sapling. “Where did you get this?”
“A dead bloke in the British Museum,” Pete said. Out of the corner of her eye, one of the gits the barwoman had pointed out got up from his table and joined his partner coming out of the gents’. They were a matched pair—dour, black coats and trousers, natty black hats of a style that was several generations out of date for the world Pete had come from, but perhaps not for theirs. They moved smooth and well, used to one another and used to violence, by the curve of their fists and the stamp of their boots. Mosswood’s ale rippled as they approached. Pete weighed her chance of running and found it shite. The first move in a fight wouldn’t land her any more favorably. Staying put was the winner, then. Maybe they simply wanted to chat.
Maybe she was Queen fucking Elizabeth.
“You must listen to me.” Mosswood had carried on talking while she’d been distracted. “If this is what it appears to be, you must leave it—”
Pete felt a hand descend on her shoulder, then two hands, one for each git. “Petunia Caldecott,” said the one who’d come from the gents’. “We wonder if you’d be so kind as to accompany us outside for a wee chat.”
Pete rolled her eyes at Ian. “You see what you’ve done? Got every bastard in the place using that name.”
“Please,” said the other. His voice was posh, but he spoke English like he was kicking the hard consonants in the gut—German, Pete guessed, or from some other place where the whole language sounded like shouting and they ate a lot of sausage.
“This is a lovely pub,” he continued. “I would hate for blood to get all over the floors and walls. Very unsanitary.”
Mosswood inclined his head slightly in question, but Pete answered with a shake. She didn’t need one of the oldest creatures in the Black to stand in her stead for a pair of knuckle-draggers.
“Very,” she agreed, and stood, shrugging off Wee Chat and German Boy as she did so. They wanted her quiet and some place out of view, which didn’t bode well, but when they touched her they didn’t ping her radar as more than human, which did. Humans were low on the totem pole—breakable and fragile in all the usual ways, even with a talent behind them.
“Out the back, if you please,” said German Boy, and he made a courtly after-you gesture that caused his long black coat to swirl.
Pete walked ahead of them, feeling the eyes of Mosswood and the barwoman and everyone else in the pub on her. Watching to see how Jack Winter’s left-behind girlfriend handled herself. Watching to see if she showed them fear. Pete thrust her chin out and kept her face blank as she pushed through the kitchen door, past the loo and the storage closet, and out into the back alley, where it was still night and still foggy. At least out here, nobody was staring.
CHAPTER 4
“Right,” Pete said, turning to face the twin gits as the pub door swung shut behind them. “You two from the Van Helsing fan club, or did your mums dress you like that?”
Wee Chat’s mouth twitched. “I’m Abbot. This is Dreisden. And you, Miss Caldecott, need to come with us.”
They wanted her to go somewhere, preferably in one piece. Things were looking positively sunny. Pete shook her head to Abbot’s request. “I don’t think so. You’ve got something to tell me, you can do it now or not at all, because I’ve had my quota of shadowy errands for the day.”
Abbot sneered. “I wasn’t offering you a choice, miss.” He pulled aside his coat to showcase a truly impressive knife sheathed on his belt. Abbot made his point by pulling it an inch out of its leather casing, the pure liquid gleam of the silver blade catching the low light. Pete had seen knives like that before—silver over a cold iron core, repellent to Fae and to most other things roaming the Black that would require a stab in the first place. Jack’s old flick knife had been similar, if a fuck of a lot subtler.
She called up Jack’s face in response to Abbot’s show, in her mind’s eye, his sneer and his screen of contempt that let the rest of the world bounce off. Hoping her expression at least managed to be unimpressed, she shrugged. “I guess you don’t care if everyone and their mum knows you’re compensating, then?”
Abbot pulled the full length of the blade. It was wickedly sharp, curved at the end to more effectively hook on to flesh and organs, and wrought all over with thread-fine engraving that danced and swirled under Pete’s gaze before settling.
Whoever they were, the Git Brothers knew their way around spellcraft, and that negated all the positives Pete could find to her situation. Nobody was going to stop Abbot from using her as a replacement sheath for his great pigsticker, if he took the notion into his head. Nobody but her.
“Look,” she said, trying one last time to do as Jack would have done and talk her way free. “I’m sure you’ve got me wrong. I don’t have anything you want, and if I do, I’m sure we can work it so no one ends up in hospital.”
“Oh no, Miss Caldecott,” said Dreisden, as Abbot advanced, waving the knife like he was a small boy who’d just discovered his own penis, “we know exactly who you are, Weir. Whore of the crow-mage.”
Fuck. They did know who she was. And didn’t seem very happy about it.
“As to your condition, orders are to deliver you alive,” piped up Abbot. “Beyond that, we have no further instructions.”
So much for silver tongues. Pete managed half a heartbeat before Abbot lunged at her. He grabbed the front of her blouse and shoved her against the wall of the pub. Pete felt buttons give way.
“There you are. There’s a good girl.” The knife stroked the side of her cheek, perilously close to her ear. “Don’t scream,” Abbo
t hissed. “Be sweet to me and I’ll be sweet to you.”
He trailed off when Pete grabbed the hand holding her shirt and bent it backward, applying pressure to the wrist and the heel of the hand with her thumb and forefingers. She’d found the threat of a broken wrist at least made men, no matter how large, drunk, or enraged, reconsider whatever they were holding on to. Winning a fight wasn’t about being big. It was about being mean, and Pete had no doubt that when it came to her bad day versus the Git Brothers, she cornered the market on meanness.
Abbot let go of her as Pete forced him loose. For good measure and perhaps a bit, she admitted, from spite, she put a knee into his bollocks. Abbot collapsed, and Pete kicked his knife out of reach before she turned on Dreisden. He was faster and less interested in her tits, and silver and iron appeared in his hand without missing a step. This time it was a straight razor with an ebony handle, more of the liquid spellcraft wrought into it. Dreisden clearly knew this dance, and he came in with a backhand slash that would have opened Pete from crotch to neck if she’d been any slower.
She was small, had always been the smallest in any given class or training during her Met days, and she used her size to duck inside Dreisden’s reach, safe from the razor, pushing her arm into his elbow joint to break his stance and throw him off balance. Pete hit Dreisden one sharp, short punch just under his sternum with her other hand, angling her fist up, and he let out a wheeze like she’d stepped on him.
She jabbed him once more in the hollow of his throat, and that was that. Dreisden fell to his knees, dropping the razor to attend to the pressing matter of not breathing. He looked up at Pete with bulging, accusing eyes as his mouth flapped like a trout’s.
“Oh, calm down,” she sighed. “You’ll live.”
Dreiden swiped at her with one hand, and Pete jumped back, out of reach. She raised her boot to put it into Dreisden’s skull and convince him to stay down. Too late she felt the wind of movement on her back, and something cold and round and utterly too familiar press against the back of her neck.
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