Black London 05 - Soul Trade

feathers for hair and obsidian eyes.
    “You again,” the Morrigan sighed. “Can’t get rid of you, can I?” She grinned, blood dribbling from her pointed teeth.“Besides, I thought you belonged to my sister.”
    “The Hecate washed her hands of me,” Pete said. “Wouldn’t do what she wanted.”
    “She’s mercurial, that one,” said the Morrigan. “What a marvelous word, mercurial. Like mercury. Ever-changing, never still. Much like me.”
    “Not the word I’d use,” said Pete.
    The Morrigan laughed. “Here you are, trapped in Purgatory, faced with the gods, and you’vestill got a mouth.” She moved to Pete and stroked her cheek. “How rare you are, Pete.”
    “I’m not trying to trifle with you,” Pete said. “I’m trying to shut the door that’s been opened from here to the daylight world.”
    “Yeah,” the Morrigan said. “And I come here, at great personal risk, to tell you there’s only one way to do that.”
    “I already know the price,” Pete sighed. “I’m not afraid of dying.”

    The Morrigan shook her head. “You’re afraid of leaving him behind, though. Your Jack.” She made a spiteful sound. “You’re not the one he’s meant for, Petunia. I am. And I’ll have him, make no mistake.”
    “Then why not just let me die, any number of times you could have?” Pete snarled. “Why keep fucking up my life, instead of just ending it? You’ve made it clear you have that power.” She jabbedher finger into the Morrigan’s chest. All her fear was gone now. When she had decided this was the end of the line, her fear had released her.
    Nothing the Morrigan could do now would make anything worse.
    “If I killed you, Jack would never help me,” the Morrigan said. “He’d spend eternity in Hell first, and you know it.” She spread her arms and feathers bloomed, wings forming from her fingers.Her eyes turned yellow, and the feathers spread over the rest of her body, covering her face as it elongated. “But if you’re lost in a noble fight I help you with, only to just barely let victory slip away, then Jack owes me his allegiance. And I’ll have it, Pete. Make no mistake.”
    “I know all I have to do is channel the soul well. Let the Weir take it,” Pete said. “You’re not going to tell meanything I don’t know.”
    “Is that what you think? How simple a creature you are,” the Morrigan said, laughing. Her feathers rustled, and her eyes narrowed in pleasure.
    Pete set her jaw. “Tell me, then, since you’re so keen to see me fail.”
    “You can’t close a well by channeling it,” the Morrigan said. “There’s more power in Purgatory than a hundred Weirs could absorb in a lifetime, never mindthat woman who started this mess. No, you’ve crossed over with that sacrificial soul, and now you have to find a way back. Pull the well after you and collapse it.”
    She grinned, and the blood rivulets on her chin gleamed crimson in the harsh white light of this empty place. “But you won’t make it. No one who enters Purgatory makes an exit. That’s why they call it Purgatory, Petunia. I’m afraid,as your dear Jack put it, that you’re worm food.”
    The Morrigan spread her wings. “And now, he’s all mine. Enjoy eternity, Petunia. It’s going to be a much easier road now that you’re not standing in it.”
    Pete’s hand flashed out, before she even really thought about what a horrible, suicidal idea it was, and latched on to the Morrigan’s arm. “You’re wrong about one thing,” she said.
    The Morrigangave a crow’s cry, struggling.
    “One thing did make it out of here at least once,” Pete said. “You.”
    She opened her talent, with no hesitation, let the power of the goddess she held flow into her. “Maybe I don’t have to drain Purgatory,” Pete hissed in the Morrigan’s ear, so close their bodies shared a heartbeat. “Maybe I just have to drain you.”
    “Bitch!” the Morrigan screamed, but Pete wasbeyond caring. The power was vast and cold, the power of death carried across every war, every plague, every place from the beginning, when death had taken root in bloody soil and spread its pall across the world.
    Her body convulsed, the pain warning Pete that wherever her physical form was, she was burning from the inside out. The pain worked as an anchor, keeping her focused as the magic flowedfrom the Morrigan to her, more and more even as the Morrigan screamed and took flight with Pete still wrapping her in a tight embrace.
    As