Black London 05 - Soul Trade

they fell through Purgatory, Pete saw the place for what it was as her talent amplified her connection to the Black—not a block of flats but a blank place, a place of stone and ash dropping endlessly into a screaming void absent of stars, the cold of spaceencroaching. White things wriggled in the darkness like maggots in rot, reaching for her, so close that Pete knew that in another few seconds, she’d have been consumed by the worms and the Morrigan would have had Jack all to herself.
    “You keep this up and you die!” the Morrigan screamed. “I’ll have your soul, and it will be tormented in my army for eternity!”
    Pete watched the Morrigan’s inhumangold eyes as they fell, never blinking. “You didn’t believe me,” she said, “but I was telling the truth. I’m not afraid of you. Or death. I’m afraid of leaving the world to people like the Prometheans. I’m afraid of letting Jack down, and I’m afraid my daughter will forget me.”
    She dug her fingernails into the Morrigan’s flesh, and at the touch of the goddess’s blood, Pete’s vision was filledonly with magic, only with the power that was pouring into her so quickly it was a wonder she wasn’t turning to ash.
    “But you, Hag?” she hissed. “You don’t scare me one fucking bit.”
    The Morrigan screeched, a sound so inhuman it echoed off everything in Purgatory, and then the white flashed away and Pete heard other sounds, sounds of the world she knew.
    “Pete?” Jack’s voice echoed as if froma tunnel. Like breaking the surface of a frozen pond, her eyes flew open and she saw a spotty gray sky, clouds drifting, felt a thumping on her chest like a hammer.
    “Fuck off!” she shouted at Jack, who stopped using his clubbed fists to pump at her chest. “What the Hell are you doing?”
    “CPR,” he panted. “You stopped breathing.”
    “You’re doing it all wrong,” Pete said. The pain wasn’t from theCPR, though. It was the power, burning her from the inside. The Morrigan was gone, but an eternity of power harvested from the dead still rode Pete’s mind. Her vision blurred, her heart stuttered, and she felt her muscles go rigid and spastic with convulsions.
    All at once Jack disappeared, shoved bodily out of the way by Donovan, and Morwenna was bending over her.
    “She channeled it right intoher,” Morwenna breathed. “I can’t believe it. Donovan, we can still do it. She’s got enough juice to light up Manchester.”
    “Hurry up,” he said. “And Victor, will you please fucking keep control of my son? He almost smashed her ribcage to bits.”
    Morwenna grabbed Pete’s face between her thumb and forefinger, squeezing hard enough to carve half-moons into Pete’s flesh. “I don’t care what happensto her body, Donovan. I just want what’s riding it. Winter’s far too much of a weakling to carry this kind of power. It’s evident that I’ll be taking up the mantle of the Merlin. Look how the power responds to me.”
    She placed her fingers on Pete’s forehead and inhaled. “Give the power to me, old ones,” she murmured. “I await you, your worthy servant, worthy of the gift first given one hundredgenerations past.”
    It was as if someone had placed a magnet against her. Pete felt all the power rush to the surface of her mind and travel through the pathways of her neurons toward Morwenna’s voice. In the woman’s clenched fist she saw the soul cage, still coaxing the vast energies of the emptiness toward the pain and suffering of the mage soul inside.
    Well, she thought absently. At leastI’m not going to die in the mud. Might even make it to a hospital if I’m lucky.
    Beyond the roaring of the Morrigan’s magic, she heard a scream. At first she thought it was Margaret, but it was Morwenna, mouth open wide as it would go, a grotesque red slash of rage and disbelief.
    The power left Pete as abruptly as it had come, and she fell back into the mud, that hit-by-a-lorry feeling worsethan ever.
    Beyond the circle of mages, Margaret gave a small shudder, a jolt, and then passed her hands over her face.
    “What the fuck just happened?” she asked Jack.
    “It’s her,” Victor said, his voice soft and full of awe. “The magic chose her.”
    “No!” Morwenna screamed, starting for Margaret. “It’s mine! I made the offering! I said the words! I’m the one who bloody stepped up when it counted!”

    Victor put an arm out and stopped her as easily as you’d stop a small child throwing a fit. “I’m