Black London 05 - Soul Trade

here.” The steel toe of her boot dislodgedDexter’s nose, turning it to the side, but he paid less attention than if a mosquito had bitten him.
    Jack grabbed up a brick from the cellar floor and smashed it across Dexter’s face. The rotten flesh collapsed, revealing the skull beneath. For somebody who’d been alive less than a day ago, Dexter was going quick. Whatever magic kept him slavering after them like an undead guard dog was rapidlyturning him to compost.
    Dexter fell back, one of his milky eyes dangling out of the bony socket, and Jack shoved Pete. “Go.”
    She scaled the ladder and yanked him up after her, adrenaline making him weigh no more than a heavy sack. Pete collapsed, panting, as Dexter moaned and snarled in the cellar, lacking the motor skills to chase them.
    After he went quiet, and the blood roaring through herhead was the only sound Pete heard, the three children came to the edge of the ladder, turning their faces up, and bared their teeth. Their gums were starting to go black, and they hissed in the language that Pete had heard inside her head when she’d touched Bridget.
    “Never seen a demon that can reanimate the dead,” Jack panted. “Clever little bastards, aren’t they?”
    “They’re not…” Pete started,but before she could say more Dexter Killigan crested the cellar ledge with a single leap, staggering toward them. He snatched up a carving knife from the block on the countertop and came for Pete.
    “Shit!” Jack yelped, yanking her out of the way. Pete still felt muzzy—the smack on the head had definitely slowed her down, and that wasn’t acceptable in this situation. She dashed through the kitchendoor and shut it, hearing Dexter’s body hit the other side. She threw the bolt and stumbled after Jack to the front door.
    “This way,” Jack panted, pushing her toward the hill. “We can find some cover up here.”
    “You know how to kill a zombie?” Pete asked. She wanted to vomit, or possibly just lie down on the ground and curl up in a ball, but she kept moving.
    “’Course I know how to kill a zombie,”Jack growled. “I told you: that back there ain’t a fuckin’ zombie, any more than I’m a ballet dancer.”
    Pete tried to catch her breath, beyond the ragged panting that sawed at her lungs. Dexter’s kick had knocked the wind from her as well as the sense.
    At least the magic she’d pulled down had dissipated a bit. It was still there, vibrating in her, but she wouldn’t know how to release it now withoutkilling someone innocent. She was crap at offensive magic, and always had been. The spell-slinging was Jack’s thing.
    Glass shattered behind her, and Dexter Killigan burst from his home’s sunroom window, landing on the grass, finding his feet, and charging after them with his knife. He was fast, faster than they could move, and his lips drew back in a feral grin, the kind Pete had only seen onPCP addicts or the profoundly insane.
    “Shit!” Jack said. They ran, but Pete could already see it would have the same effect as trying to outrun a pack of wolves. Sooner or later they’d get tired, and slow, and Killigan was so bloody fast …
    He was going to catch them, and he was going to kill them unless she came up with a plan.
    You know you want to, the Weir cackled. Burn it down, Petunia.What’s the worst that could happen?
    Beside her, Jack caught his foot in a rabbit hole hidden by dry grass and went down, cursing. Pete swayed, but she forced herself to stay up. She braced herself against the muddy ground, watched the blade of the knife, impossibly sharp and shiny for something that had come from the filthy house, grow larger and larger in her vision. She was going to take theknife, either by disarming Dexter or getting him to stab her instead of Jack, but just before he drew back his arm to make the kill shot, a voice rang across the hillside.
    “ Sciotha! ”
    Dexter lurched and jerked to one side, falling in a heap as his legs became useless logs. Pete swayed uncertainly, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
    Dexter Killigan moaned and squirmed, reaching forhis knife and shimmying across the grass toward her like a snake.
    Pete let the spell fly before she even realized it had left her lips, the only flashy spell she knew.
    “ Aithinne. ” Such a simple word, not shouted or cried out but whispered. Still, the Weir heard, and her talent responded. Bright white flames engulfed Dexter Killigan and the grass around him, then