Part 20 (2/2)

”Do you know there's a bounty out on your pretty little Billy Idol head?” Arty slurred.

”Why, son?” Jack said. He curled his lip slightly, carrying on with the reference. ”Are you going to collect?”

”Oh, don't don't mind him,” the girl gushed, dealing Arty a shot to the ribs. ”My brother's a b.l.o.o.d.y idiot when he's in his cups. I'm Absithium, and he's Artem, but you can call us Arty and Abby.” She extended her hand palm down, as though she expected Jack to kiss it, and he did. Hattie grunted at the gesture, her blotchy forehead crinkling. mind him,” the girl gushed, dealing Arty a shot to the ribs. ”My brother's a b.l.o.o.d.y idiot when he's in his cups. I'm Absithium, and he's Artem, but you can call us Arty and Abby.” She extended her hand palm down, as though she expected Jack to kiss it, and he did. Hattie grunted at the gesture, her blotchy forehead crinkling.

”Jack Winter,” Jack told Abby, ignoring Hattie as if she were a lamp or a hatstand.

”I knew knew it was you,” Abby simpered. ”Arty and I& we're twins, but I'm an intuitive and he's got other talents.” it was you,” Abby simpered. ”Arty and I& we're twins, but I'm an intuitive and he's got other talents.”

Pete noticed a ripple in the crowd around them. A s.h.i.+fting of heads and eyes, when Jack said his name. ”Chumming the b.l.o.o.d.y waters,” she muttered, taking Hattie's fresh gla.s.s of whisky and draining it herself.

Abby jerked her chin at Hattie. ”I've seen you before, too. At Millie Child's?”

”Yeah, whatever,” said Hattie. ”I spent a few nights there last month.”

”The new moon s.e.x rituals,” said Abby sagely. She looked Pete over and dismissed her in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. ”May I ask you a question?” she demanded of Jack, tilting her heavy black beehive to one side in an expression that Pete supposed would be coquettish if Abby hadn't been made up like a dead porcelain doll.

”Anything, my dear,” Jack said.

”Where have you been been, all this time?” Abby chewed on her thin lower lip. ”I mean, we all,” all,”she gestured at the dancers”have our theories.”

”And wagers,” said Arty with a s.h.i.+ft of interest. ”Personally, I say you were pinched by the common police and spent the last dozen years being b.u.g.g.e.red over at Pentonville.” He took a swig of his pint, face k.n.o.bby with belligerence. ”So where'ye been, Winter?”

Jack leaned close to Arty, meeting the boy's kohled eyes. He held there, his lips parted and barely an inch from Arty's ear, until Arty stilled completely.

Then Jack breathed, ”h.e.l.l.”

He slung his arm around Hattie, picked up Arty's pint and drained the remains. ”But now I'm back, and I'm bound to raise a little infernal noise of my own.” He kissed Hattie, hard, smearing her lips apart and probing with his tongue. Hattie yielded like an understaffed doll.

Pete became aware that the music had faded to the end of the track and the club was largely silent, everyone waiting to see what Jack would do next.

Arty cast his eyes at a few fellows of comparable size and thickness. ”Sure, Winter. Play your set. Let all of them see what a bad man you are.” He slid from his stool like a small mountain moving. ”h.e.l.l or not, hasn't helped you much. You look b.l.o.o.d.y wasted.” The other boys came to his shoulders.

Pete pointed her finger at Arty. ”Don't,” she warned.

”What are you going to do, curse me?” he sneered.

Pete looked to Jack, who was fondling Hattie with a bored expression as he glared at Arty. His eyes flicked to hers for a second, and he was still Jack. Make an impression Make an impression.

Arty grabbed the lapel of Pete's jacket. ”I asked you a question, you slag.”

The DJ began another song, and Pete hit Arty in the jaw, in the soft spot just above the bone that snaps the head around and brings unconsciousness.

She raised her eyes to the other boys. ”Jack doesn't need your meddling and I don't want you breathing my air. p.i.s.s off.”

Abby jumped in between Pete and the boys. ”They didn't mean mean it!” she cried. Arty groaned and sat up, shaking his head. ”How could you?” she hissed at him. it!” she cried. Arty groaned and sat up, shaking his head. ”How could you?” she hissed at him.

”Winter's not a sorcerer!” he said defensively. ”How's I supposed to know he practices b.l.o.o.d.y black magic?”

”I practice whatever I b.l.o.o.d.y want,” Jack said. He slung his other arm around Abby. ”Let's leave off these c.u.n.ts and find someplace private, eh, luv?”

Abby fairly glowed. ”Of course! I know just the place.”

Jack, Hattie, and Abby walked through the room, dancers parting like a furrow, and Pete followed before the pa.s.sageway closed and she was trapped. Every set of eyes in the room bored holes in her back until the door boomed shut behind her.

Chapter Thirty-six

Abby took them to a turreted Victorian, black with red light s.h.i.+ning from every window. She lifted the iron knocker, a fanged nymph's head, and let it fall once.

”What is this place?” Pete stopped at the foot of the steps.

”Mad Chen's,” muttered Hattie. She let Jack half drag her up to the door. Pete looked up and down the street. Dead trees and dead leaves bent and scuttled toward her, a winter wind pus.h.i.+ng behind.

”Pete.” Jack jerked his head at her as the door opened and a hooligan in a silk jacket peered out. He looked at Abby, nodded, and then stepped back.

Mad Chen's was lit by gaslight, red as new blood spilling, burning some sort of alien fuel. Thick wispy smoke drifted toward the tin ceilings, painted over with spray-can slogans, and under the smoke a garden of beds lay scattered across the wide rooms.

The beds were of every descriptionday lounges and iron inst.i.tutional frames. All made up in silk or satin, no filthy mattresses like where Pete had found Jack.

Most of the beds were occupied, and slow-moving, doe-eyed women pa.s.sed among them holding long boxes and trays with pipes and small sticky globs of pungent brown in wooden boxes. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and nipples, ringed or studded or tattooed, gleamed in the low red light.

”Up here,” said Abby as they pa.s.sed through the main part of the den, and she led them up a spiral staircase and into a narrow hallway.

Some of the doors had a key sticking out, and some were locked, with cries or silence coming from behind. Abby turned a key in the second door on the left and went in, slouching down on a sofa. ”f.u.c.k, I'm bored. Should we ring Mad Chen to bring up some poppy and absinthe?”

Hattie flopped next to her. ”I'd murder a hit of anything right now.”

Pete remained standing. ”I have to go to the loo.” She narrowed her eyes at Jack before she slipped back out the door and went down the hall, trying doors until she found a narrow closet with a toilet and a bulb on a pull chain.

She shut the door and leaned against the wall, and realized once she was still that her legs were shaking. The Black pulsed against her, and she swore she could feel it on her skin, like the opium resin, sticky and visceral.

”It never really gets better.”

Jack opened the door and slid into the closet with her. Pete had to turn sideways to accommodate him.

”Jack, what in all h.e.l.l are we doing here?”

He leaned his head back against the wall and produced a f.a.g, lit it, and took a deep drag. ”Abby and her twit of a brother are sorcerers. If they don't go blabbing to Whoever's trying to get rid of me before this f.a.g's gone, I've no sort of currency left with this lot at all and I might as well chuck myself off of Tower Bridge and be done with it.”

<script>