Black London 05 - Soul Trade

rushed in a gout toward the house.Windows shattered and anything not brick went up with a roar of displaced air.
    The rose bushes were ash, drifting through the damp air like snow.
    Almost as if the land around her, the Black itself, were responding to the inferno, it began to rain.
    Pete collapsed to her knees in the mud, her heart thudding. The insidious whisper of her talent was gone, and in its place was just a ragged hole.

    In the flames, she saw three small white figures, untouched, emerge from the hulk of the Killigan house and start toward them across the scorched grass. Pete was having a hard time seeing straight through the heat, but she perceived a tall figure in front of her, dressed in a dark coat and holding out his hand. “Now that was damn impressive,” he said. “But it’s not quite pie-and-a-pint time yet.Let’s get out of here before those worms get their hooks into you.”
    “Yeah,” Pete said, ignoring the hand and levering herself to her feet. Just because she’d cast a spell that would normally take four mages and a quart of whiskey to accomplish didn’t mean she was going to get sloppy about touching strangers. “Let’s go, Jack. I don’t want to get near those things again if I can help it.”
    He didn’tanswer, and she turned to look at him. You burned him up, her traitorous inner voice screamed before she really got a look at him in all the smoke and ash. You burned up everything, including Jack!
    But he was fine, only still. Jack stared at the man in black, eyes fixed and mouth slightly open, as if the man were more terrifying than anything the three children could do to him. “Is it reallyyou?” he finally rasped. “You’re really fucking here after all this time?”
    The man in black canted his head, as if the question puzzled him. “Of course it’s me, Jackie. Who else would I be?”
    “Jack?” Pete said again. The expression on Jack’s face had gone from shocked, the only bit of vulnerability she’d ever seen him display in public, to something hard and carved from ice. Pete knew that face,too. It meant things with Jack were about to get ugly.
    She shifted away from the man in black, regarding him now through her pounding headache as an interloper. “What’s going on here?” she asked. “Who is this bloke, Jack?”
    “Petunia,” Jack said with a weary sigh, passing a hand across his face. “This is Donovan Winter. My father.”

 
    18.
    Pete stared at Donovan, unable to think of a single thing to say, while he nodded to her. “Good to meet you. Now can we get the fuck away from the worms before they turn us into more of what your bird here just burnt up?”
    That seemed to stir Jack into motion. He got up, though he grunted when he put weight on his ankle.
    “Here.” Donovan grabbed Jack under one arm. “Double time, boy. Makeme proud.”
    Jack grunted. “Fuck off.”
    “That’s no way to talk to your old man,” Donovan said, veering to the side of the hill. Pete percieved a path, nearly overgrown, worn into the skin of the earth. Stones caused her to stumble. Even with short children’s legs, it wouldn’t take the three things long to close the distance. Panic climbed her throat, burning and sour.
    “Just over this ridge,” saidDonovan. “Come on, luv, you can manage it.”
    A low stone wall grew out of the mist like the spine of a lizard, and Donovan hopped over it at a set of rotted wooden steps. On the other side, held in the hollow of the valley, Pete saw a collection of small stone buildings, scattered and leaning as if a hand had dropped them on the grass.
    Tombs.
    Jack balked, breath coming in a rusty wheeze, andDonovan tugged on him. “Now, now. I know it seems crazy, but they’re not going to follow us if we can make it to the fence.”
    “No…” Jack mumbled, eyes clouding over. Pete made it to his side as he swayed and started to fall.
    “Shit,” she grunted as his full weight hit her. “Jack, it’s all right. Stay calm.”
    “What on earth is wrong with him?” Donovan demanded, glaring at Pete as if it were herfault. Behind them, the three figures started down the back side of the hill, Patrick helping Bridget and Diana over the wall. They didn’t even have to run. They could take their time, let their prey see them coming.
    “He has second sight,” Pete said to Donovan. “Cemeteries are bad news for him. He can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”
    Jack’s breath was shallow, and he clung to Pete,