Part 17 (1/2)
”Trust me,” said Jack, tightening his hold on the clerk's ponytail. ”If you knew him you wouldn't be the least bit surprised. Now where is he, you sodding little piece of worms.h.i.+t?”
The clerk sighed in an almost resigned manner. ”He's on the set, in the back.”
Jack released him with a little push. ”Obliged.”
”What's gotten into you?” Pete muttered as she followed Jack through the musty rows of dirty books and bins of toys. ”Is your sight channeling Guy Ritchie?”
”You'll see,” Jack murmured. His eyes glinted like winter sun on a glacier. ”Now if you value your dignity, keep your mouth shut and stay close to me in here. And for the sake of whatever G.o.d you believe in, don't try to be Miss Detective Inspector Caldecott of the Metropolitan Police. It'll just get us both beat to s.h.i.+t and dumped in some gutter.”
Pete started to ask what, exactly, the history between Jack and Towne entailed, but Jack banged through a fire door and shouted, ”Melvin! Look who's back from the dead!”
A heavyset redhead in ill-fitting PVC squealed and covered herself with a sheet, and a voice from Pete's left shouted, ”f.u.c.k! Cut!”
Melvin Towne was nearing Pete's height, which put his eyes roughly even with Jack's chin. He had run to fat but his hands were large and soft, arms straining the pristine white T-s.h.i.+rt he wore. At one time, Pete would have hesitated to attempt an arrest on him by herselfTowne was powerful still and the creases on his brow and at the edge of his expressive hazel eyes leaked violence like a ruptured chemical drum. ”Jack Winter,” he rasped. ”Don't you ever stay dead?”
”Not as of yet, you great c.u.mstain,” Jack replied genially. ”I've come for the limb.”
Towne crossed his twin hams of forearm. ”Threw the sodding thing away.”
”You're a liar, Melvin,” Jack said easily. ”Not only a liar, but a filthy liar, a dog-f.u.c.king liar even.”
Melvin sniffed, deep and wet like he had a bad cold, or put roughly a gram of c.o.ke up his nose on a regular basis. Pete bet firmly on the latter.
”I don't have your b.l.o.o.d.y limb,” he said again. He walked over to the redhead and jerked the sheet away from her. ”I don't f.u.c.king pay you to sit on your fat a.r.s.e with your legs crossed.” The girl obligingly resumed the pose she'd been in when Pete and Jack interrupted, wrapping a silk noose hanging from the sprinkler pipes above around her neck and posing on a battered metal dinette chair.
”Choke,” Melvin directed. ”I want to see the eyes popping out of your fat head when you come, b.i.t.c.h.”
Pete would have hesitated, alone, but she wasn't alone now.
She walked over to Towne, picked up his high-end digital camera, and dropped it hard on the cement floor. ”Jack asked you a question,” she said calmly, making herself look Towne in his pockmarked moon face.
”You f.u.c.king c.u.n.t!” he exclaimed. ”I ought to ram that camera up your a.r.s.e until I've shot three grand worth of video, because that's what it'll cost to replace!”
Pete pulled out the Dead Man's Snare and wrapped it around Towne's neck, less gracefully than Grinchley had managed, but the effect was the same. ”You are wasting our time,” she snarled. ”Give Jack his f.u.c.king limb before I use my other hand to tear your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks off, c.u.n.t c.u.n.t.”
”She'll do it, mate,” Jack said, fis.h.i.+ng a packet of Parliaments out of his jacket. He offered one to the plump girl, who silently shook her head.
”Bad for your health.”
”Speaking of which.” Pete grinned at Towne and dug her nails into his sweaty chin, forcing him to look at her as he wheezed. ”Ever shot a brain aneurysm in one of your little faux-death films? I wonder, will you be a twitcher? I think you're too fat. You'll probably just gurgle, s.h.i.+t yourself, and die.”
”In the lockbox!” Towne shouted. ”For f.u.c.k's sake! The key's in my pocket.”
Pete tugged at the Snare, and it uncoiled, folding back into her hand. She smiled at her feet, unaccountably pleased. To Towne she said, ”Good man.” To Jack, ”You are getting the key.” getting the key.”
Back on the street, Pete s.n.a.t.c.hed the brown-wrapped parcel out of Jack's hands and tore it open. ”Oi!” he shouted. ”That's me personal property, I'll have you know.”
The parcel contained a plastic box, sealed with packing tape. The box was clear and inside& Pete nearly dropped the box on the pavement. ”Jack, this is a human hand. A mummified mummified human hand.” human hand.”
”Towne's wife,” he agreed. ”Caught her cheating about fifteen or twenty years ago and chopped off bits and pieces until she was sorry. Filmed it all. Was his first big hit, as I recall.”
Pete stopped walking and thrust the box back into Jack's hands. ”Is this your way of telling me you enjoy enjoy the company of people like Towne?” the company of people like Towne?”
”I'm not that oblique, luv.” He grinned. ”Saw the video, noticed with my sight Towne had an Egregor, a demon of rage, hanging around him. I bargained the Egregor back into the Black and compelled Towne to give me this as payment.”
”But it's a hand hand,” Pete reminded him.
”It's desire,” said Jack. ”Desire for pain and desire for revenge and desire for love so powerful that it destroyed what it touched. This is a powerful temptation for any demon, Pete. They trade in desirebreathe it. I'm sure every infernal thing in the greater London area has got a hard-on already.”
”How rea.s.suring,” Pete muttered. Jack turned into the Fulham Broadway tube station.
”We can go home now. We've got everything we need.”
Chapter Thirty-one
At home in the sitting room, Pete watched Jack lay copper wire out in a circle and nail it down at the four corners with the iron nails. He chalked symbols at the four points, punctuating the northernmost with a black candle. He drew another, seemingly random set of symbols inside the wire and then said to Pete, ”Be a love and get me the table salt.”
Pete handed him the carton they'd bought at Tesco and Jack scattered a liberal handful inside the copper. ”Earth,” he said, and then took out his flick-knife and cut the tip of his finger. He squeezed a few fat blood droplets into the circle, as well. ”And spirit.”
Jack opened Grinchley's lacquer box and took out the Trifold Focus, holding it in the palm of his hand as if it were a dead, dried b.u.t.terfly. ”The best thing for you would be to go in the other room, Pete,” he said without taking his eyes off it. ”This probably isn't going to be pretty.”
”If I wanted pretty I would have become a b.l.o.o.d.y decorator,” said Pete, crossing her arms. ”I'm staying.”
Jack wanted to object, she could tell, but he pressed his lips together and then said, ”Fine. But you stand against that wall. No talking. No matter what happens, no flying off the handle and threatening to rip someone's b.o.l.l.o.c.ks off. Got that?”
”Towne deserved to have them ripped off,” Pete muttered.
”That he did,” Jack agreed. ”I've never seen you so fiery, Pete. I rather enjoyed it.” His grin suggested exactly how much.
”Shut up and get on with this,” Pete snapped. ”This thing has had Margaret Smythe for nearly three days, and your reputation in the Black isn't getting any better.”
”Your wish is my command, or some rot,” said Jack. He placed the box containing the late Mrs. Towne's hand near his feet and stood at the bottom edge of the circle. He gripped the Focus and Pete heard the slide of metal on flesh as twin spikes flashed out from the bottom of the flat metal disc and drove into Jack's palms.
He didn't make a sound. Milky pale rolled across his eyes and they slowly went back in his head, exposing tiny crimson veins like spiderwebs inside his skull.
”Jack?” Pete said, alarmed. She started to go toward him but a shriek cut the air and went straight through her, all the way to the bone, and Pete stumbled back, crying out. ”f.u.c.k!”
The shriek crested and stabilized into a low whine and then with a strained pop pop Pete felt a Pete felt a give give in the air, the s.h.i.+fting of something from one world to another. in the air, the s.h.i.+fting of something from one world to another.
”Jack Winter,” said the demon. ”Why do you call upon me?”
After a heartbeat Jack's eyes flicked back to blue faster than Pete could see. He shook himself and spoke. ”To seek that which is lost.” There was ritual behind the words the demon and Jack were speaking, and the demon gave a pleasurable shudder when Jack answered correctly.