Black London 05 - Soul Trade

what might really be happening.
    “I need you tokeep Margaret someplace out of the way,” Pete said to Carrie. “Jack and I are going to the Killigans’ to look around.”
    Carrie chewed on her lower lip. “You don’t know what they’re capable of, Miss Caldecott. They’ll be so angry that you’ve interfered…”
    “It’s all right,” Pete told her. “At this point, I guarantee I’m angrier than they are.”

 
    17.
    The Killigan house sat at the end of a road at the top of the village, tucked among the hills. A wide yard full of trimmed rosebushes put the scent of rotting flowers and manure into the air. The house was shut up tight, windows blindfolded with thick blackout curtains, and a shiny new top-end deadbolt sat in the mildewed wood of the front door.
    Jack crouched and examined the lock. “Badnews,” he said, grimacing.
    Pete sighed. “Hoped you wouldn’t say that, given your talent for unlocking locked doors whether they like it or not. Can’t you pick it?”
    “This thing?” Jack yelped a laugh. “Not on me best day. This is designed to knock out professional thieves. I can’t even hex it open. It’s got protection charms on it. The whole house does.”
    Pete regarded the white-painted brick,flaked and chipping like cheap makeup on the tail end of a long night. “So Killigan knows enough to protect his house. More than the others can manage,” she said.
    “Not exactly A-level work,” Jack said. “But they’ll do for anything this side of a demon.”
    “That’s the problem,” Pete said, regarding the Killigan house as the moon slipped from behind a cloud and made the white hulk glow. “A demonis what Killigan’s dealing with.”
    “About that,” Jack said. He sat on the stoop and lit a fag, carefully blowing the smoke away from her. “This Crotherton fella was all hot that demon summoning was going on in the back of beyond, but none of these cunts have the talent the gods gave a stray cat.”
    “So what are you saying?” Pete said. “They didn’t summon the demon, they were just victims? Figuredthat much out for myself, thanks.” She nudged his arm. “I used to be a cop, you know.”
    “If you do it right, your demon doesn’t go fleeing into the extras from Village of the Damned, ” Jack said. “It stays right where you put it and does your bidding, until you fuck up and it eats your face whole. So either whoever summoned this thing fucked up…”
    “Or this is the summoner’s bidding,” Pete said.All at once the low-level craving for a fag vanished. She’d seen sorcerers do plenty of sick and twisted shite in her time with Jack, but siccing a demon on kids was a new low.
    “I think it’s a possiblity we have to consider,” Jack said. “What they have to gain by making spooky soothsaying kidlets, I have no fucking idea. But this sort of thing doesn’t happen by accident. I think Crotherton washalf right, about the summoning. I just think his nose was so far up Morwenna Morgenstern’s shapely arse he couldn’t look for bits of the bigger picture.”
    “Oi,” Pete said, turning her nudge into a jab. “You’re not supposed to look at anyone’s arse but mine.”
    “And yours is definitely tip-top in my book, darling,” he said. “This does leave us with the matter of being exactly where Crotherton wasbefore he buggered off—nowhere.”
    Morwenna wasn’t going to like nowhere. Pete was fairly sure she’d have a fit, one that ended with more threats and more shite tossed on Pete’s doorstep.
    She stood up, regarding the Killigans’ door. “Then we go inside. I’m fairly sure Crotherton never got this far.”
    Jack shrugged. “I’m all for a bit of B and E, luv, but unless you’re going to shimmy up the drainpipe like Catwoman, we’re out of luck.”
    Pete sucked in a breath as the wild energy of the Black surged around her. Here, on the outskirts of Overton, it was less tainted and strangled. The farther from town she got, the easier the magic came.
    “I have an idea,” she said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
    Before Jack could protest or even question, Pete stepped into the Killigans’ ragged rosebushes, the thorns grabbing at her jacket, flesh, and hair. Pete levered herself up onto the raised bed next to the front window, then turned her back and smashed her elbow through the glass. The wavy single pane shattered on impact, and Pete felt the charms Dexter Killigan had set about the place grab hold of her.
    The magic