Part 8 (1/2)
Pete bit her own lip hard enough to bleed it, steeled herself for the sight and turned back to the blinded children. ”No. Not until someone brings the bolt cutters.”
Chapter Seventeen
”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,” said Ollie Heath. He pa.s.sed a hand protectively over his thinning crop of hair and regarded Pete with pity. ”We're not having much luck with this, are we, Calde-cott?”
The ambulance carrying Patrick and Diana to A&E had long since pulled away, leaving police and forensics to go about their grim business. Pete patted herself down for a f.a.g. The packet was empty. She cursed.
”Er, don't take this wrong,” said Ollie, lowering his voice, ”but who's the dodgy bloke you were with when you called in?” He inclined his head toward Jack. Jack was slouched against the outside of the graveyard gate, under the arch with the last of Pete's Parliaments in his mouth, eyes closed. Smoke drifted up and wreathed his face. He might have been a ghost himself.
”He's the tip,” said Pete. Ollie's eyebrows crinkled his expansive forehead.
”Thought you said that was nothing.”
”It turned into something.”
”Not like you to hang about with an informant, Calde-cott,” said Ollie with concern.
”I know him,” Pete admitted. ”He's an all-right bloke.” A lie, one that came without thinking. n.o.body had asked probing questions about the dead sorcerer yet, and Pete intended to be the one to have the first attempt at Jack on that score. For all of Jack's hostility, she'd thought him harmless, and now the sorcerer's blood was on her.
”Listen, I'll finish up here if you'd like,” said Ollie, laying a hand on her shoulder. Jack's eyes, hooded and black under the sodium light, focused on Ollie and Pete felt a distinct vibration, like a spirit had just breathed on the back of her neck.
”Thanks, Ollie,” she said, ducking out from under his hand. Ollie Heath was truly harmless, slow and dedicated to the job. Pete wouldn't be unleas.h.i.+ng Jack on him. ”Ring me as soon as the hospital will let us talk to the kids, yeah?”
”Right,” Ollie agreed. ”Go get some sleep, Caldecott-you're chalky.”
I just saw a ghost, Pete thought. She smiled at Ollie for appearances, and went to collect Jack.
”No one's yet asked about the dead man,” she told him. He shrugged.
”I'll just tell 'em you did it. You're allowed to do stuff like that. Line of duty and all that s.h.i.+t, yeah?”
Pete pressed her lips into a line. ”You won't be telling anyone anything, because we're going home.” For once, Jack was silent and he slouched obediently back to the Mini. Pete couldn't decide if it was providence or bad luck that Jack was staying with her a time longer.
They drove through Chelsea's midnight streets in silence. The Mini's lights barely sliced the fog, and more than once Pete saw black shapes move among the swirling gloom. Her spine danced as the Mini bounced over cobbles in the old, walled part of the city, the cold heart hushed and damp as a shallow grave.
”There's something out there,” she said aloud, not really knowing why the words came, but knowing she was right.
”Yeah,” said Jack, leaning his forehead against the gla.s.s. ”There is.”
”You killed someone tonight,” said Pete. ”We should get it clear nowdon't you dare do a thing like that again while you're on my watch. Do you want to land us both in jail?”
Jack sighed and managed to look mightily annoyed with his eyes closed and his head tilted back. ”Anyone ever mention you're a terrible nag? You're going to put a husband straight into an early grave.”
”I b.l.o.o.d.y well mean it, Jack!” Pete cried. ”What gives you the right to be executioner?”
Jack opened his eyes and sat up. ”Pull over.”
”You all right?” asked Pete. The Mini's headlights illuminated windowless flat blocks and closed-down shops. She wasn't stopping unless there was a dire emergency.
”Just pull over and don't argue!” Jack snapped. Pete jerked the Mini to the curb and set the brake with a squeal.
”What?”
Jack pointed to a tumbledown doorway with an una.s.suming lit sign over the frame: royal oaks public house. ”If you insist on moralizing at me about the dead toerag, I need a drink.” He unfolded his skeleton from the Mini's pa.s.senger seat and stepped into the street, crossing in front of the car. Pete felt the pa.s.sing urge to press on the gas and run him over, but instead she shut off the engine and dogged his heels into the pub.
It was low and smoky inside, but older than Pete realizedthe long bartop was carved from the trunk of a single tree, all the knots and scars, and mellowed paneling held in ancient cigarette smoke. Concentric rings stained the plaster ceiling and a jukebox that looked like it had weathered the Blitz burbled out Elvis Costello. The ba.s.so bounce of ”Watching the Detectives” blanketed conversation in secrecy.
Jack landed on the nearest stool with a clatter of feet and bony elbows. ”Pint of bitters,” he told the publican, ”and a whisky.”
”Just the whisky,” Pete said, digging for her wallet. The publican was big and shave-headed, Latin phrases in ink cascading up both of his arms under his cutoff s.h.i.+rt. He grunted when he caught sight of Pete's warrant card as she paid the bill.
”Mother's milk.” Jack sighed as he downed the whisky.
”Don't think you can get p.i.s.sed enough to avoid talking to me,” Pete warned.
”f.u.c.king h.e.l.l!” Jack said, slamming his gla.s.s on the bar. ”What d'you want me to do, Pete, rush up to midnight ma.s.s and confess my sins? Would it help if I sent a tin of biscuits to the wake? What?”
”I'm not saying he didn't deserve it.” Pete sighed. ”He kidnapped those two children, and he was going to give us a bad time. Jack, I can't tell you how often I've wanted to do just what you did, to some w.a.n.kstick or other I find on the job. But you can't”
Jack's hand snaked out and wrapped around Pete's wrist, drawing her in until she could smell the old Parliaments and the new whisky that drifted off his skin. He squeezed until her bones grated and Pete cried out, attempting to pull free. But for that second, Jack was strong again, his eyes burning with the fire that consumed whatever it touched.
”Can't what, Pete?” he whispered with a snarl. ”Can't go around killing people? Can't because that's what's good and right and proper? Well, Pete, I'll tell you a secret.” And his eyes went from flaming to the deepest dark, inky and wicked. ”We're not dealing with everyday thieves and killers any longer. This is the world of magic. People murder in this world, and people die, and it's the b.l.o.o.d.y way of things. I'm not sorry for putting a cold fist around that git's heart and he wouldn't be sorry if it were the reverse. Magic kills, Pete. Get used to it Get used to it.”
After a long moment when all she heard was her heartbeat, Pete said, ”You're hurting me.”
Jack made a disgusted noise and released her. '”Sides, was I supposed to let those t.o.s.s.e.rs laugh at me and do nothing? My name used to mean mean something to those demon-b.u.g.g.e.ring gits. b.l.o.o.d.y kids should learn some b.l.o.o.d.y respect.” something to those demon-b.u.g.g.e.ring gits. b.l.o.o.d.y kids should learn some b.l.o.o.d.y respect.”
Pete's hands still shook from the memory of the boy's face. She wrapped them around the whisky gla.s.s and downed her drink in a swallow. ”Bit late for that, seeing as how one is on his way to the morgue.”
”I mean,” Jack continued, speaking more to his pint than to Pete, ”in a way they were doing me a favorI didn't realize until tonight how bad of a state things were in. I've been sodding forgotten forgotten, Pete! Do you have any idea what that means?”
”No fans accosting you in lifts?” Pete ventured. The whisky spread warm fingers through her and she was able to tamp down the tangle of fear and incomprehension that Jack's actions of the night had birthed.
Jack's mouth twisted upward on the left side. ”You really had no idea, did you? About what I did before.”
”No,” said Pete honestly. Vaguely, she'd been aware that a lot of Jack's friends were older and more serious than one would typically suspect fans of the Poor Dead b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to be. And that Jack's tattoos never seemed exactly the same twice, and that when he was around the air tasted different, like just before a lightning storm.
”Makes no difference now, apparently,” Jack grumbled in disgust.
”I'm just having a b.l.o.o.d.y hard time believing those two kids arranged this entire thing, and had the stomach to blind three children,” said Pete.
”They didn't,” said Jack. ”Sorcerers are the outsourced labor of magicwhere there's a sorcerer, there's something jerking the strings and often as not it's something hungry and not human.”