Black London 05 - Soul Trade

same now as it was then: Fuck off and leave me alone.”

    “I wish we had that luxury, believe me,” Morwenna sighed. She drained her coffee and set the cup down with a clack . “We’re not in the habit of coercing those who don’t carry the same values as the Prometheans.”
    Pete gave a small, involuntary snort. “Yeah, I see how not in the habit you are.”
    “I took the geas off,” Morwenna said. “And I promise you, this will be a lot easier for all of us toget through if we resolve to be civil.”
    “Sorry,” Jack said, putting his feet on the table and knocking aside several small decorative figurines. “Civil’s never really been my bent.”
    He was showing off, and in that moment Pete didn’t know who she was more irritated with. Morwenna made her choice swiftly, though, and moved to Jack, standing over him like a teacher catching a pupil texting dirtynotes. She stared him down until he looked up at her and moved his feet off the table with an elaborate sigh.
    “We’re wasting time,” Victor spoke up. “If you can’t lay it out, Morwenna, then I’m going to do what we should have done in the first place—compel them to do what needs to be done and dispose of them when it’s over.”
    “Here’s a tip,” Pete said. “If you want my help, don’t imply that’dyou’d rather murder me, all right?”
    “Both of you shut up,” Morwenna snapped, never taking her eyes from Jack. Pete had to admire her intensity—she never blinked, like a shark in expensive shoes. “You know that the Black is in turmoil, Mr. Winter.”
    He smiled up at her. “We’re trading threats, might as well call me Jack, luv.”
    Pete watched the muscles of Morwenna’s face tighten and relax. Shewas good at hiding things—almost as good as Pete herself.
    “Hell,” Morwenna continued, “most of it is turmoil you caused. Because of your inability to toe the line and play the role you’re going to fill, one way or another. Instead you fight it, and the rest of us suffer.”
    “Got a question for you, luv,” Jack said, lacing his fingers behind his head. Only Pete saw the wire tension in his limbs.“What makes you think I give a shit about anyone but meself?”
    “If not us, very well,” Morwenna shot back. “But somehow I think even a stone-hearted bastard like you might care when his daughter is a demon’s slave and his wife is a corpse roasting on a spit in Hell.”
    Pete started to move, the reflexive rage at the mention of Lily moving her before her higher brain realized what was going on.The lizard one knew what it wanted to do, though—slap the smirk off Morwenna’s face.
    Victor had his hands on her before she could blink, and she gasped as his hand closed around her throat, bony fingers digging into her windpipe as his other hand pulled her left wrist into a submission hold common to cops and soliders. Pete could feel that he was faster and stronger than she was, and in a purephysical match he’d shred her. Though her animal instinct rebelled when she did it, she relaxed under Victor’s grip.
    “You’re a cunt,” she muttered.
    “You have no idea,” Victor murmured against her hair. “Be still now, girl. I’d hate to have to hurt you.”
    “Listen, miss,” Jack drawled, crossing one booted foot over his thigh and looking up at Morwenna, seemingly ignorant of the struggle goingon between Pete and Victor. “You seem to have forgotten that I was the one put Abbadon back in the box, and Nergal, too, if we’re counting. Wasn’t my fault they got prison-broke in the first place, was it?”
    “If you’re looking for a pat on the back, you’re barking up the wrong fucking tree,” Morwenna said. “You have a destiny, Jack, just like we all do, and the longer you fight it the more situationslike Abbadon appear. You muck about with demons like they’ll protect you, but they can’t. Not from the Morrigan. Not from what you were born to do for her, and by extension for us.”
    Pete saw Jack’s expression slip, just for a moment. If there was one thing he was afraid of, Morwenna had just ripped off the lid and exposed it to the light of day.
    Jack met her eyes for a moment, and Pete raisedher eyebrow. She’d toe up against Victor if he needed a distraction, odds be damned. But Jack shook his head minutely. He looked back at Morwenna and forced a smile that was as cheerful as rigor mortis.
    “Don’t know if your memory is shoddy or just selective, luv, but the Hag was the reason