Black London 05 - Soul Trade

ducked at the last second, pulling Margaret with her as the raven fell on Donovan, black wings frenziedas it raked and pecked at his face.
    Donovan screamed, and in the sky Pete saw a dozen dark shadows, the rest of the ravens she’d seen in the village, watching over the people and the graveyard.
    Pete took the opportunity. She hooked Donovan’s leg with her foot and shoved, sending him tumbling into the loamy earth. The ravens covered him, black and shiny, rippling backs like oily water. One lookedPete in the eye.
    Go. Find the edge of the village.
    “What about Jack and Margaret?” she asked.
    Jack is the Morrigan’s favored son, the raven said. He and the girl have the same protection offered to you. Now run.
    “Bitch,” Donovan gasped from the ground, but Pete ran without looking back. She couldn’t care less what sort of fate befell Donovan.
    “Go,” she snapped at Margaret as more and moreravens descended, alighting on Morwenna and Victor as well, spreading out to follow the other agents of the Prometheus Club, who shouted and ran for cover as the fog filled up with black bodies and the birds’ guttural cries.
    Jack paused at the edge of the square, watching the rippling mass of birds that covered Donovan. Pete grabbed his arm and yanked, not being gentle. “Don’t tell me this isthe time you pick to get sentimental,” she said.
    “No,” Jack said after a heartbeat. “Fuck ’im.”
    They ran, all three, and Pete didn’t look back again until the low cottages of Overton were out of sight in the fog.

 
    Part Three
    Wasteland
    There’s not much more to be said
    It’s the top of the end.
    —Bob Dylan

 
    25.
    After they all ran until Margaret’s short legs and Jack’s abused lungs couldn’t take it any more, Pete found a small cottage tucked into the hills, locked up long enough that leaves had piled against the front door and moss had grown on the sills.
    “Thank Christ for posh twats and their vacation cottages,” she said, peering in the window.
    “Odd person to thank,” Jack said. He was stillbreathing hard and heavy, and Pete didn’t know if it was from the running or the burden of Donovan stabbing him in the kidney when his back was turned.
    “Let’s get inside,” she said, as mumbles and moans echoed through the fog. “Hills are lousy with folks gone George Romero.”
    Jack got the door open with a few words, and Pete locked it again when they were all inside and slid the ancient sofain front of it. She pulled a chair close to the fireplace and put Margaret in it, wrapping a blanket around her thin shoulders. “You all right, luv?”
    She shook her head without a word, and Pete sighed. Stupid question. Margaret might never be all right again.
    Jack opened the damper and piled some wood in the grate, muttering “ Aithinne ” to get it going.
    “Thought we were fucking dead,” Margaretsaid at last.
    “Not yet,” Pete said, trying to paste on a cheerful face. Margaret’s baleful expression told her she’d failed miserably.
    “Can’t say I’m surprised every last one of those Prometheus Club cunts was holding out on us,” Jack said. “But I do think a fucking-over as deep and thorough as this one is pretty impressive. Once they manage to harness the soul well, we might as well just throwopen the door and welcome the apocalypse.”
    “I thought you said that ritual was bunk,” Pete said, casting a meaningful look at Margaret.
    “’Course it’s not bunk,” Jack said. “That Morgenstern bitch knows what she’s doing, much as I hate to pay her any kind of compliment. All she needs to get things kicking off is that soul cage.”
    “Speaking of,” Pete said, feeling in the pocket of her jacket.“I’m so sorry I made you responsible for this, Margaret. I never meant to.”
    In the low firelight the soul cage danced, as if the interior were alive and moving, trying to find any egress to the larger world. “Who d’you think it is?” Pete said, turning it in her hands.
    “Crotherton, probably,” Jack said. “He seems like a patsy type, all Dudley Do-Right and noble.”
    “Preston gave me this,” Petesaid. “Out of everyone, he trusted me, and I walked right back into Morwenna’s grasp and practically gift-wrapped the thing for her.”
    “All that tells you is that he had shite for brains,” Jack said. “Probably so buggered from being close to the soul well he didn’t know his own name.”
    “He tried to warn me,” Pete said. The soul cage’s