Black London 05 - Soul Trade

up?”
    Donovan pursed his lips. “You know, I’d likeyou much more if you didn’t frown.”
    “And I fancy I’d like you much more with a mute button,” Pete snapped back.
    “For the love of all that’s fucking sacred,” Jack groaned. “Will the both of you shut it? Me head hurts enough as it is.”
    Pete crouched at Jack’s side, examining him for signs that the sight was eating into his mind, permanently altering the pathways, making him unable to tell thedead from the living.
    The mausoleum was dim, the only light coming from the small, smeared window above the sarcophagus, but she could see that Jack’s skin had taken on a sick pallor, with spots of red on his cheeks and forehead. His eyes, though, were mostly clear, only rims of white encroaching on the blue. “This is not fucking comfortable,” he told Pete. “Help me up.”
    She got him up and helpedhim sit on the small rickety bench under the window. His ankle had swollen, and he favored it badly. Pete cursed to herself. You couldn’t run with a bum ankle, even if you had a place to run to.
    “You all right?” she asked softly, tilting her head at Donovan. Jack’s father looked like an older, paler version of his photo, long dark hair replaced by a short salt-and-pepper crop. He still carriedhimself ramrod straight, though, and still looked, in Pete’s estimation, like the world’s champion tosser.
    “’Course I’m not bloody all right,” Jack said. “Are you?” His brows drew together. “That Killigan bastard knocked you pretty bad.”
    “I’ll be fine,” Pete said. “He just jostled my head a bit.”
    “Not her vulnerable area, fortunately for you and I,” Donovan said, looking out the door of thetomb before shutting it tight. “I hope she’s magnificent in the sack, Jackie, because so far all I’ve heard is mouth, mouth, mouth.”
    Jack didn’t speak the word of power fully—it was more of a hiss of air and anger—but the hex smacked Donovan like a fly swatter and flung him backward into the wall of the tomb. Mortar and loose dirt rained down around him as he crumpled to the floor.
    “Good boy!”Donovan said, clambering back up with a wince. “I see somebody managed to teach you a few tricks.”
    “You talk to her again and the last trick you learn will be how to swallow your own teeth,” Jack said, trying to stand. He didn’t make it, and he sank back down hard.
    “By all means, let it out,” Donovan said. “Got a lot of feelings pent up in that bleached blond head, Jackie? Let me have it, son.Let’s get all the daddy issues on the table, since you clearly didn’t learn to let bygones be bygones from that hysterical mess of a mother. Knew I never should have left you with her.”
    “You’re right,” Jack snarled. “You shouldn’t have. But I always assumed you knew you were leaving me in a miserable shithole with a pill-popping teenage mother to be smacked about and forgotten and not fed. Alwaysthought you just didn’t give a shit.”
    Pete stayed quiet, watching Donovan carefully to make sure he didn’t return the hex, ready to leap on him and kill him with her bare hands, if necessary, if he made a move on Jack.
    Not just for the threat he posed now. For everything that was on Jack’s face as he looked at his father. The resemblance was stronger the more she looked, but Pete thought theeyes were what arrested her the most. Donovan’s eyes were Jack’s eyes, crystal blue with the same cold depths that could never be plumbed.
    “You’re a grown man,” Donovan said. “So I’m going to skip explaining myself, you’re going to skip the daytime talk show crying bit, and we’re going to get straight to the apology.” He drew himself up. He was broad where Jack was skinny, but their height andbuild were similar. Pete squeezed Jack’s hand as Jack growled something obscene under his breath.
    “I’m sorry, Jackie,” Donovan said. “I didn’t do right by you. But I’m here now and we’ve got a situation, so what say we both act like the adults we are and fix this mess?”
    “I say take the apology and shove it up your arse until it squeaks,” Jack shot back. “This working out like you hoped? Do allyour families welcome this load of shit? What number am I?”
    “First and last,” said Donovan. He sat down on the edge of the sarcophagus with a sigh and rubbed a hand over his chin. Pete watched all the arrogance ran out of him like used dishwater. “You’re me only son, Jack. Your