Part 23 (1/2)
”Mage groupie? I know know you aren't worthy,” said the sorcerer. Pete sighed. you aren't worthy,” said the sorcerer. Pete sighed.
”You're wrong. So very wrong.” Before the sorcerer could puzzle that, she kicked out and drove her heel into the man's knee.
The sorcerer crumpled over, dropping the baton, and the other three hurled cl.u.s.ters of the foul-smelling offensive magic at her, giving distance in the face of their cursing, crying compatriot. Pete took a dive, landed elbows first on the parquet floor, and slid out of range, ignoring the pain that returned all through her when she hit.
She could barely see Jack any longer, obscured as he and Roddy were by the writhing ma.s.s of the spell. ”Jack,” she moaned, for just a moment not able to contemplate anything but the sight of his newly dead body. Toerag that he was, as much as he'd made her life a pit of misery over the week he'd come back, Jack being dead again was something that Pete knew would send her straight around the bend.
The spell hissed at her when she drew close, and a th.o.r.n.y limb lashed out to slice her flesh. Shaper of magic. I am a shaper of magic Shaper of magic. I am a shaper of magic.
Then Jack's echo, Mosswood doesn't know b.l.o.o.d.y everything Mosswood doesn't know b.l.o.o.d.y everything.
”He'd sodding better on this count,” Pete whispered, and then inhaled, held out her hand, and pushed pushed against the ma.s.s of the Black around the spell. She pushed like she'd push on a thousand-pound beam across her chest, like she'd push to go through a door with something terrible but necessary on the other side. Feeling as if every blood vessel in her would burst with the effort, Pete held against the tide of black magic that kept the spell alive, moving it, shaping against it until with a great groan of defeat a hole appeared, pinpoint at first but tearing open to body size. against the ma.s.s of the Black around the spell. She pushed like she'd push on a thousand-pound beam across her chest, like she'd push to go through a door with something terrible but necessary on the other side. Feeling as if every blood vessel in her would burst with the effort, Pete held against the tide of black magic that kept the spell alive, moving it, shaping against it until with a great groan of defeat a hole appeared, pinpoint at first but tearing open to body size.
Jack's face, plus a few hundred scratches and a smearing of ash materialized, his expression genuinely shocked. Pete stuck out her hand.
”I can't hold this!” She could already feel herself begin to tremble under the strain of pus.h.i.+ng back the spell, and another ball of energy lanced by her head to remind her that her troubles were far from over.
Jack's own hand, slicked with his blood, lanced out through the magic's gap and grabbed on to her, and Pete hauled him out, inch by inch. Roddy's hand latched on to Jack's ankle in turn, half skeletal and locked in a dead man's grasp. Jack brought his other heel down, the steel of his jackboot snapping off the encrusted bones.
Roddy gave a scream like Death itself had just wrapped a hand around his heart and yanked it free, and the spell collapsed in on him, enraged and starving and consuming.
Jack patted himself over frantically. ”Ah, t.i.ts. I lost me flick-knife.”
”Forget the b.l.o.o.d.y knife. Are you all right?” Pete demanded.
”No,” said Jack insistently, as the sorcerers began to get closer with their spells. ”I need blood . . .fresh .fresh blood,” he snapped when Pete started to point out the thousands of shallow cuts all over his exposed skin. blood,” he snapped when Pete started to point out the thousands of shallow cuts all over his exposed skin.
Pete found her pocket knife in an obscure corner of her jacket and grabbed Jack's palm, slicing it deeply as she dared. He yelped. ”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, woman! When did you get so violent?”
”That should be sufficient, yeah?” Pete said, indicating the warm crimson stream that flowed freely over Jack's palm.
”Good G.o.ds G.o.ds, yes, quite quite sufficient if you want me to sufficient if you want me to die!” die!” Jack said. Jack said.
”Give over with your drama and do something about these c.u.n.ts before they finally manage to aim!” Pete shouted, ducking another blast.
Jack swore at her, but smeared the blood on the floor in front of him and said, ”An't-ok, tabhair do dhroim.”
The spell began to expand, revealing the ashy bones of Roddy, and lit across the flat, over the walls and the floor, digging in to every crevice and engulfing the three remaining sorcerers before they could react to the ma.s.s of magic that slammed them backward into the walls. The air filled with ash and the floor tilted crazily as Jack's magic met the spells living in the bones of the flat, the concussion jolting Pete down to her marrow.
Jack grabbed her arm. ”Time to run again, luv, I'm afraid.”
”I agree,” Pete said as a ma.s.sive section of the outer stone wall fell away, exposing the skyline of London, twinkling serenely in the late night. ”f.u.c.king move!”
She and Jack ended up having to jump for it as the front room of the flat collapsed, roaring in on itself with beams and stone, making an abattoir for the four men within.
Pete rolled over and sat up, dizzy, Jack swimming back into focus above her. A warm nettle of pain cut across one cheek and she touched blood. ”I felt it,” she said. ”Before Roddy pushed you through the door.” Her voice was thick and far away.
”I know you did, luv,” Jack said, dabbing at her cheek with his sleeve. He glanced back at the ruin. Two of the bodies were half out of the rubble, frozen in tableau. Their eyes stared at Pete with the stony hatred of the dead.
”He played it very well,” said Jack. ”Didn't tip off.”
Pete glared back at the bodies. ”Broken knuckles don't hurt that that much.” much.”
”I don't know about you,” said Jack, helping Pete to her feet and offering her a Parliament, which she accepted, ”but I'm about through playing with these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”
”Through, and thoroughly bored of this Sturm und Drang,” said Pete. ”We need a new plan, Winter.”
Jack worried his thumbnail as he exhaled a cloud of smoke, and then said, ”First thing we need to do is find a set of pliers.”
The Arkanum's kitchen was largely intact except for cracks in the floor that let Pete look through clear to the ground story, and half the cabinets gone. Pete located a toolbox under the sink and gave Jack a pair of needle-nosed pliers, while he went to an overturned apothecary desk and rooted in the cubbies until he came up with a black bottle of liquid.
”Let me guessthe blood of virgin brides and plump, innocent babies,” Pete said.
”Ink,” said Jack. ”Black number ten. You've become very morbid.” He took a shallow stone dish, the pliers, and the ink and went to the nearest body, gripping the sorcerer's index finger and working the pliers under the nail.
”Mage's manicure, then?” Pete asked. Jack grunted and yanked, and with a wet sound of torn paper the man's nail came off. Jack examined it.
”A bit sticky, but it will do,” he p.r.o.nounced. He set the bowl on the floor and told Pete, ”Find north.”
Pete peered out the ma.s.sive gap where the wall once was and located the Thames. ”That way.” She pointed out a rough north, over her shoulder.
Jack oriented himself and poured the ink into the bowl, then dropped in the nail. It floated, tiny tendrils of sundered flesh disappearing into the black viscous pool.
He blew on the ink and muttered, ”Amharc.” Jack's breath made ripples in the ink. The nail began to spin, lazily at first and then faster and faster, carving a trough in the liquid.
”The Black sees him,” Jack muttered, ink from the center of his eye spilling across the blue. Pete felt that electric p.r.i.c.kle on her skin as magic took hold.
”The ghost?”
Jack nodded grimly. ”He's touched this bloke. Touched all of them, if what Abby said held any truth at all. It's tied to them, and now I can see it right back.”
Abruptly, the fingernail stopped spinning and sat deathly still, pointing directly northeast. The surface of the ink quivered ever so slightly as the magic pulsed.
”You know what's northeast, don't you?” Jack asked as he stood, his eyes flickering plain again.
Pete nodded once, over an icy knot in her gut. ”Highgate Cemetery.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Pete had never walked through the cemetery gates again after the emergency responders had taken her out through the small stone arch on the day of the ritual. She'd pa.s.sed them hundreds of times, though, always aware.
But she'd stayed on the outside. Never walked in. Never broken that unspoken barrier between her nightmares and the reality she'd constructed after Jack's death and her break with feeling anything, believing anything except what the light showed her.