Black London 05 - Soul Trade

was something to behold. It could pin her to the spot, for good or for ill, and she knew without a doubt that she was being looked through, inside and out. He didn’t use it often, but now Pete felt her breath catch. His eyes were one ofthe things that had made Pete fall for him in the first place. She’d been young and dumb, for sure, but even now she couldn’t deny that Jack’s gaze still mesmerized and drew her in.
    “I don’t know,” she said in a whisper, and left it at that. She never understood why other people expected her to rescue them, to save the world and avert disaster. She was just Petunia Caldecott. An ordinary womanwho happened to be able to do one extraordinary thing. She certainly wasn’t a mage of Jack’s caliber.
    Jack sat back and sucked on his lower lip. “Damned if I know why, either.”
    “I know you didn’t want to come back here,” Pete said. “And I’m sorry about this stupid geas, and I’m so grateful that you’re here with me.”
    The soul cage couldn’t lead to anything good. Prometheus Club or not, why thefuck had Preston given it to her? How could he be sure she wouldn’t simply flip it back to the Prometheans to get on their good side?
    Not that she would. She didn’t like people who assumed she’d toe the line just because they put on a good show of force. Her da had taught her better than to knuckle down to bullies.
    And there was Jack to consider. Preston’s own words were on a repeat she couldn’tstop: If you must go, don’t take the crow-mage with you.
    But the Prometheus Club hadn’t given her a choice. Attend or die. It didn’t get more clear-cut than that.
    So she’d have to do what she always did when life in the Black threatened to eat her alive—she’d keep her eyes open and her instincts sharp, and whoever wanted to do Jack harm or use him for their own ends would have to go throughher.
    She put the soul cage back into her coat, deep in a zippered pocket, and let Jack pay the check. “Let’s go,” he sighed. “Maybe Manchester will seem a little more hospitable now that ’m pissed.”
    He leaned on her on the way out of the bar, and Pete let them walk in silence, enjoying the closeness and the warmth of his body. It lasted for half a block, until Pete heard echoing footsteps andfelt a prickle in the Black, one that wasn’t hard to decipher.
    “Someone’s following us,” she told Jack. “Keep walking, don’t look back, don’t act different.”
    He tensed, some of the muzziness disappearing from his expression. “Black’s going crazy,” he said. He gave a shiver, and Pete could only imagine what he was seeing.
    “I know,” she said as Jack gave a low grunt of pain, the assault on hissight making him shiver against the length of Pete’s body. “I know, but just keep walking when I let go of you. Get back to Wendy’s and I’ll meet you there.”
    “Why?” Jack demanded, balking. “What are you going to do?”
    Pete let go of him, taking advantage of his slowed reactions to shove him forward. She wheeled around. “I have no idea,” she said, mostly to herself.
    Jack, to his credit, didn’ttry to white-knight it. He just kept going, melting into the shadows quick as a black cat.
    Alone in the street, Pete was only half surprised to see the man and woman from the train station. The woman pointed a crimson-nailed finger at her. “Petunia Caldecott,” she said. “You’ve been avoiding us.”
    “I’m sorry, do I know you?” Pete said. She swiveled to the left and to the right. Alexandra Parkhad plenty of nooks and crannies for more assassins to hide in, but it appeared to be just the three of them.
    “Not yet,” said the woman, “but I know you. And I know what that ink stain on your hand means.”
    The geas flared, and the pain returned tenfold when the woman spoke. Pete forced herself to keep her expression neutral and not flinch. She was good at not flinching, no matter how much ithurt. The Prometheans looked far more ordinary than she would have expected, a bit posh, even. Magicians weren’t supposed to be posh. The ones with actual talent usually looked more like either vagrants or escapees from an old Dracula film. Even Nicholas Naughton, the necromancer whose help nearly wiped London off the map with Nergal, had looked like a slightly scruffy country gent, all turtlenecksweaters and scuffed boots.
    “I should have known you two were Prometheans, what with all the skulking and talking in circles,” Pete told