Black London 05 - Soul Trade

path Pete’d followed twice now, one asleep and once in memory.
    The black rocks poked up all around them, but Pete saw tire tracks in the grass now, and a cluster of figures at the top of the hill.
    Silver shapes flitted about, too, a pale counterpoint to the ravens that perched in a loose ring on rocks and twisted trees, and the occasional bloated corpse.
    “Shit,” Jack muttered, scrubbing his thumb across his forehead. “He’s brought those fucking monsters with him.”
    “Let me handle this,” Pete murmured. “Keep Margaret safe. That’s your job.”
    “Pete…” he started, but she cut him off with alook, and then raised her voice toward the Prometheans.
    “Oi!” she shouted from what she judged to be a safe distance. The wraiths turned to her as one, and their fangs glowed in the mist.
    “If you want your precious little rock back, you’re going to call off your low-rent Dementors and speak to me, Donovan!” Pete bellowed.
    Faster than she’d give his a man his age credit for moving, he appearedfrom the clot of the ground, trailed hotly by Morwenna. They slowed, and the wraiths withdrew as he got close to Pete. Donovan sneered through the scratches and bandages on his face. “You’re like a cockroach, aren’t you?”
    Pete pulled the soul cage from her pocket. “I believe you’re looking for this.”
    Donovan’s eyes lit up, and he snatched for the soul cage, but Pete whipped it out of reach.“Ah-ah. You promise us safe passage out of here—a real promise, this time, and then we’ll talk.”
    “How about I let my friends here drink you dry and take it from your corpse?” Donovan snapped.
    Pete dropped the soul cage to the ground and positioned her boot over it. “I’ll smash this thing to bits before they even get a drop.”
    Morwenna gave an involuntary cry, and Pete pinned her with her worstglare. “I want out of here, Morwenna. I didn’t ask to be any part of this, and I’m done. You do what you want with the soul cage, but before you get it, you do what I say for once.”
    Morwenna pursed her lips, as if all this were a minor annoyance. Donovan, on the other hand, looked ready to pop.
    “I’m going to clean your mind out, you little bitch,” he snarled. “Give it over, or the last thingyou’ll remember will be your daughter dying in your arms, over and over again.”
    “You so much as breathe on her and I’ll kill you,” Jack snarled. “I was ready to let you go—not forgive you, but at least get on with me life—but you just made my shit list all over again, boyo.” He toed up to Donovan, and Pete realized with a start that Jack was taller than his father, by a good few inches, and whenhe was angry he blew Donovan out of the water in terms of the hard man act. “I would like nothing better than to wring the life from your carcass by inches for every miserable fucking day of me life since you left but especially for this one, so please— fucking talk to my wife again.”
    “Enough!” Morwenna shouted. She extended her hand to Pete. “I’ll take you out of here after I finish the ritual.”

    “Not good enough.” Pete shook her head. “Now or never.”
    “Then I might as well just have Victor shoot you—if he has the stones ,” she tossed at Victor over her shoulder, “because I’m not leaving until I get what I came for. You can either leave with me at that time or not at all.”
    Pete felt a grimace of pure irritation at how thoroughly Morwenna could take control of a situtation, but she movedher boot. Donovan swooped in and scooped up the soul cage, shoving her back so she would have gone on her arse in the mud if Jack hadn’t been there to catch her.
    Morwenna nodded. “Good. Victor, take them up the hill and keep them quiet while we do what needs doing.”
    Victor prodded all three of them into a loose knot at the edge of the black rocks. Pete watched the cairn rise from the mist. Thepull was so strong she could feel it like a second heartbeat, and it was clear Morwenna was wallowing in it like a pig in a sty as she placed the soul cage at the apex of the black rocks.
    Most rituals weren’t all chanting and incense, wearing robes and scribing ancient symbols. All you really needed for a ritual was a little chalk, some talent, and an intent.
    The Prometheans moved into a circle,leaving Morwenna at the center. Donovan smirked at Pete over his shoulder.
    “Can’t say I ever pegged you as a quitter, sweetheart,” he told her.