Part 10 (1/2)
Pete's gaze was drawn to the back corner of the pub, where roof beams and lamplight conspired to create a slice of shadow. A solitary figure sat, fragrant green-tinged smoke from his pipe rising to create the shape of a crown of young spring leaves before dissipating.
Jack nudged her arm. ”Come on.” He picked up the two pints of Newcastle Brown and started toward the table with a measured step. If Pete didn't know better she'd call it reluctance, or a sort of respect.
The man seated alone and smoking was unremarkable, as far as men went. Pete would pa.s.s him boarding the tube or in a queue at the news agent's without a glance, although he did have lines of mischief at the corners of his mouth and eyes, and they glowed pleasantly brown. He was older than Jack, wearing a well-trimmed black beard and a soft sport coat patched at the elbows.
Jack set the pints down on his table and grinned. ”Been a long time, Knight.”
When the man turned to look at them, Pete heard a rus.h.i.+ng sound, as if a spring wind had disturbed a sacred grove, and with great clarity she saw a tree, ancient, branches piercing the sky while the roots reached down and grasped the heart of the earth.
”Well,” said the man. ”Jack Winter. I next expected to see you lying in state at your premature funeral, yet here you are disturbing my evening. Well done.”
Shaking his head, Jack gestured between the man and Pete. ”Detective Inspector Caldecott, Ian Mosswood. Moss-wood, this is Pete.”
Mosswood raised one eyebrow in an arch so critical Pete felt the urge to stand up straight and comb her hair. ”Pete. How frightfully unusual.”
”You know, Mosswood,” said Jack, slapping his shoulder, ”in this ever-changing world, it's good to know you're still&” He gestured to encompa.s.s Mosswood's jacket. ”Tweed.”
”I presume,” said Mosswood, eyeing the pint of ale, ”that since you came over here and bothered me you have some reason.” He turned his pipe over and tapped it out against the table's edge. Fragrances of gra.s.s and cut wheat filled Pete's nostrils.
”b.l.o.o.d.y right,” said Jack, pulling out a chair and straddling it backward. ”I need to pick your leafy brain, Mosswood. Brought you the requisite offering and everything, just like a proper druid. Sorry for the lack of white robe and virgin, but Pete's sheets are all striped and I wouldn't presume to guess as to her eligibility for virgin.”
”Sod you,” Pete responded, flicking Jack the bird.
Mosswood picked up the ale and sniffed it with distaste, his prominent nose crinkling.
”Get off it,” said Jack. ”You know it's your favorite.”
”It is a sad day when a Green Man's allegiance can be bought for an inadequately washed pint gla.s.s of malted hops and stale yeast,” said Mosswood with a disapproving curl of his lip. ”But such is the way of the world, sadly. I accept your offering. What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l are you bothering me over, Jack?”
”Problems,” said Jack. ”Got a nasty, nasty ghost or hungry beastie on the prowlsome misty t.o.s.s.e.r with an appet.i.te for little children. I need to find him, and find a way to hurt him bad before I exorcise the b.a.s.t.a.r.d back to the Inquisition.”
Mosswood looked up at Pete, who stood awkwardly by his elbow, not sure she was invited into a conversation that had obviously picked up just where it left off the last time the two men had seen each other.
”Sit down, my dear,” he said with a small smile. ”Don't let this foolish mage's ramblings inhibit you.”
”Oh,” said Pete, ”I don't.” She pulled out the remaining chair and sat. ”Thank you.”
”She is considerably lovely,” Mosswood told Jack. ”And polite. What in the world is she doing with you?”
”Funny, you git,” said Jack with a humorless smirk. ”How about telling me what I need to do to flush out this b.u.g.g.e.r?”
Mosswood relit his pipe, taking tobacco that smelled like shaved bark from a leather pouch and tamping it down carefully with his thumb. The pipe was carved from a black wood, slightly glossy, the nicks from the knife that had wrought it visible, a tiny story along the well-rubbed stem and barrel. ”What you want to begin your search is a Trifold Focus. I do not know of any in existence, but I'm sure one of your other& sources will be more than happy to oblige the information for the price of an immortal soul or two.”
Jack drained his Newcastle and gave Pete a satisfied grin. ”I told you he'd come through.”
Chapter Twenty-one
They walked out of the fog and found the Mini waiting. Big Ben chimed midnight once more and Pete said a silent thank-you to be away from places where the air was not the same and she could feel invisible eyes on her all the time.
Jack sat closemouthed during the ride and he was chalk colored by the time they reached Pete's flat. ”You all right?” she inquired when he stumbled and fetched against the wall just inside her door.
”Yeah&” Jack's jaw set. ”No. No, I'm not.” He made a run for the bathroom and Pete heard him retching miserably.
It was so easy to forget, when Jack was sarcastic and smoking a Parliament, throwing out smiles and pinning her with his hard eyes, how she'd found him less than a week ago. Skinny, wasted, and his body still screamed for a fix even now.
Pete hesitated for a few more seconds, listening to Jack choke, then nudged the bathroom door open with her toe and crouched beside him, placing a hand on the back of his neck. Jack's skin was cold and slick, like he'd just been pulled from a pool of oily, lifeless water.
”Don't& don't&” he gasped, finally managing to draw a breath. The loo stank of old ale and sweat with an undertone of something darker, burned from crossing a barrier that flesh was not meant to. ”I'm all right,” Jack muttered, sitting back on his heels and wiping the sweat away with the flats of his palms from his face. ”It takes a lot out of you. Crossing to and from the Black. I'd forgotten how f.u.c.king difficult that is.”
”I feel fine,” said Pete quietly.
”Well, aren't you b.l.o.o.d.y well special,” Jack snapped. Pete stood and held out her right hand, trying not to let it shake with anger that Jack might take for timidity.
”Give it to me.”
”Give what to you?” Jack muttered, leaning his head back against the tile wall and breathing through his nose. He hadn't stopped sweating even though rain was was.h.i.+ng the windows of the flat with intermittent sleet and Pete's fingers were cold because the radiators were turned down.
”Your G.o.dd.a.m.ned stash, Jack!” Pete bellowed, picking up her container of hairbrushes and clips off the basin and flinging it at him. Her anger rushed up from the iron-banded box where she kept it through her workdays and ever since Connor had died. Really, since Jack had died for the first time. She threw the pink ceramic cup at his lying face and felt relief, like she had just destroyed the visage of an oppressive stone idol.
Jack ducked and was pelted with clips and pins. ”Oi!” he shouted. ”What the in the seven bleeding h.e.l.ls is your problem, woman?”
”You're my problem!” Pete shouted. ”You're a f.u.c.king junkie liar is my problem!” She grabbed his jacket from where it lay on the floor and dug into the pockets, her fingers shaking and still slicked with Jack's sweat.
Pete prayed again. She prayed to find nothing, to be irrational and tired and overloaded from the graveyard and the blind children and walking down the cobble street where it was always midnight.
Her fingers closed around an empty cellophane bag, gritty with a powder that felt like ground gla.s.s and a capped syringe, full of cloudy cooked heroin that three long years as a PC pulling junkies off the street prophesied she would find. Pete dropped the baggie on the tiles next to Jack. ”G.o.d d.a.m.n you,” she said quietly. ”You've been fixing the entire time.”
”No,” said Jack, pulling himself up and bracing one arm against the wall. Fine purple webs traveled up his forearm, spread out from red-black pinp.r.i.c.ks, b.l.o.o.d.y spiders living under the skin. ”No,” Jack repeated. ”That was my last dose, and my first shot in five days, which is why I'm vomiting my f.u.c.king guts out now and could do without you screaming at me. Harpy.”
Pete poked Jack in the chest with her index finger. Fever heat rolled off him in a whisky-scented wave. ”Don't you ever sodding lie to me again, Jack, or I will jam my boot in your a.r.s.e so far I'll knock out your back teeth.”
Jack dropped his head. ”You asked me to see see, Pete, and if you knew what crossing the Black without something to dampen my sight meant, you wouldn't have asked me. You wouldn't make me nip off to a dodgy pub loo to shoot up. You'd prime the needle and put it in my b.l.o.o.d.y arm.”
”I don't want to hear your sodding excuses,” said Pete. She put the tips of her fingers under Jack's chin. ”Have you told me anything that's true? Anything?”
”Doubtful, luv,” Jack said. He tried to smile but Pete saw a death mask. ”That's all I am, a liar and a sinner.”
”Did you know what would happen in that tomb?” Pete asked quietly.