Black London 05 - Soul Trade

him, and pushed open the door. Donovan hauled her back by the arm.
    “You go out there, I can’t protect you,” he snarled. He was strong, stronger than Jack by a long way.
    “You just showed up, so maybe you don’t know,” she told him. “ButI’m not the one needs protecting.”
    “I have a hard time believing you’re seriously willing to die for some snot-nosed kid that’s not even yours,” Donovan said. “That’s not human nature. ’Least not any I understand.”
    “There’s a lot you don’t understand, then,” Pete said. Donovan relaxed his grip, giving a sigh.
    “I’ll come with you, then.”
    “And leave Jack by himself?” Pete said. “I don’t bloodythink so.”
    “If you want to see either of us in one piece again,” Jack said, “ please do not leave me alone with this arsehole.”
    “I set up protection barriers around the tomb,” Donovan said. “They’ll hold the wraiths off while we go get your brat.”
    “Margaret,” Pete said. “Her name is Margaret.”
    “I could not care less what her name is,” Donovan said. “But if this’ll get you to listen, then sobe it.” He swept his arm toward the door, black coat flapping like the wing of a dire bird. “After you, Milady.”
    Pete looked back at Jack, who leaned his head against the stone, swiping at the sweat on his face. It was painfully clear he couldn’t stay here much longer, but Margaret was in more immediate danger. Pete just hoped she wasn’t making the sort of choice she’d have nightmares about inthe years to come.
    “While we’re young,” Donovan said, as Pete hesitated on the steps of the tomb. Watching the wraiths flit among the tombstones was surreal, like watching a group of panthers strolling along Oxford Street.
    “That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you,” Pete muttered. Donovan chuckled, dry as kindling.
    “I can see why my boy likes you. That mouth good for anything except cleverquips?”
    “Keep it up and you’ll find out what my foot is good for,” Pete told him. “If it’s this or silence, then let’s agree to shut the fuck up.”
    They passed the iron fence on the other side from the Killigan house, and Pete found a dirt road winding back toward the village. The mist pressed in, keeping them hidden from all eyes, trailing spectral trails of moisture across Pete’s face and hair.

    She walked quickly to keep pace with Donovan’s lanky city-dweller stride, praying silently that she wouldn’t be too late to keep Margaret from become just another white-eyed dead girl.

 
    19.
    “So, you and my son,” Donovan said, having kept quiet, by Pete’s count, for precisely two and a half minutes. “What’s happening there?”
    Pete concentrated on her footsteps, digging the steel toes of her boots into the mud and gravel as hard as she could, pretending they were Donovan’s face. “Why don’t you ask him?”
    “Not the sort of conversation you have during the first hour you see yourkid,” Donovan said. “So I’ll ask you instead, gorgeous: Are you two sleeping together, or is it an adorable sort of telly-friendly unresolved sexual tension gambit?”
    Pete decided that she could see, after less than an hour with Donovan, why Jack’s mother had chosen to get stoned out of her mind while they were together. “I’ve got a better hideously rude non sequitur for you: After thirty-fiveyears, you show up now?” she countered. “What prompted you, exactly? Need a kidney?”
    Donovan smirked at her. “Not hardly. I’d wager I’m in better shape than a man who spent half his adult life slamming smack into his bloodstream, even if he is my son.”
    Pete went quiet at that. She hadn’t been sure how much Donovan knew. He didn’t seem aware of her talent, or the extent of Jack’s, and she washappy to keep it that way.
    “It was the sight,” Pete said. “The heroin helped keep it manageable. He thought it was the only way.”
    “Until you came along?” Donovan said. “Love of a good woman and all that rot?”
    Pete gave an involuntary snort of mirth. “Not hardly.”
    The B road merged with the wider road into the village, and Donovan stopped walking, regarding the shifting mists before them.
    “You’re observant, whatever else you are. Been here for a week and you’re right—I do know a little. Not much, but a little.”
    “They’re not demons,” Pete said, and Donovan nodded.
    “So what are they?” she asked.
    He laughed. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t still