Bone Gods

answered with his shark’s grin. “I like things the way they are,” he said. “The dead should stay dead. So why don’t you hop on your broomstick and leave the world as it is?”
    Pete crouched next to Jack, pulling him to his feet. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going.”
    The Morrigan turned on them, and Pete put her body between the raven woman and Jack. This changes nothing, the Morrigan snarled. You think I fear a maggot feasting on the flesh of lost souls? I am death. I am the maiden of war and the bride of blood since Nergal’s dragon first crept forth from the old places, the lost places. You won’t stop me.
    Belial moved, but the Morrigan was quicker, and she raised her arms. Behind her, Pete saw the great wings rise, the wings that carried souls to the Underworld, and death from it.
    The demon flew back into the corridor and slammed the wall. The body he rode let off a small wheeze, and Belial curled into a ball, blood coming from between his lips. Fat drops landed on the gray tile.
    The Morrigan stretched out her hand to Jack. Give him to me. Or you go back to how I found you, alone and in Hell. And I will take your Weir to the Bleak Gates, and I will ensure she never sees the daylight world again, until everything goes to ashes.
    Jack grabbed his skull, moaning, and then quickly as he’d convulsed, he went limp. Pete saw the symbols on the walls of the cell blur, fall away as the Black pushed through. Gerard Carver’s spirit stood before her, and behind him Pete saw the London of the in-between, burnt and blacked, its back broken.
    The shadow she’d seen with the Hecate unfurled, and she became aware the Morrigan was speaking, and that this wasn’t the Black, but somewhere else. Older, buried down deep before the first human or thing that would become human had ever drawn breath.
    Son of Nergal, serpent of the world. Eater of death and life, darkness and day, be free. The Morrigan didn’t raise her hands, or even chant. Her lips barely moved as she watched, reverent.
    The dragon wasn’t a dragon in the sense of scales, but a shadow that wrapped London around and around, spilling forth from the place Gerard Carver’s ghost connected the hospital cell with. Pete felt it unfurl, saw that it was a prison, this place where the dragon had lain, and heard it scream as it came barreling toward Gerard Carver.
    Pete tried to reach for Jack, but she wasn’t near him any longer, wasn’t anywhere. The dragon came, and it swallowed Carver, jerked as the soul cage tugged at it, pulling it down and holding over the burning city, as the spotlights roaming the sky winked out one by one.
    Go, child, the Morrigan whispered to it. You have come to me, and because you have come, I offer you the chance to be free.
    The dragon howled again, and the Morrigan passed her hand across Jack’s face. He will lead the way. And you will lead the dead, the armies of the Underworld, and the Black will be clean and new. She stroked his hair, ran her claws through it, and Jack shivered under her touch, leaning into it. None of the throbbing masses. None of the filth and sweat and blood. Clean and cold and free of what troubles you. You, crow-mage. You brought this dawn, and I thank you.
    Pete watched as Jack stood, and the Morrigan drew something from her great dress of feathers and blackness. She handed Jack a black blade, and pressed her thumb to his forehead. All over Jack’s naked form new markings blossomed, tattoos that painted themselves onto his skin, burst to the surface like shattered veins. Jack screamed, going to his knees, clutching the blade so that blood flowed from his palms.
    Belial was not stirring, and Pete tried to reach for him, but the Black was whirling, colliding with the daylight world. The London outside was burning, and Pete could hear screams and klaxons.
    The dragon fed. Unwinding, devouring Carver’s soul, it fed and Pete felt the swell of all the things Belial had spoken of—the plagues of rage and greed and base human nature.
    Give them permission to do what they like, and they’re like animals.
    Jack’s ink became wings, claws, agonized faces of spirits frozen against his skin. He stood before the Morrigan naked, blood flowing over his hands, and watched as the dragon laid its coils over the city, a darkness so complete not even sound could pierce it.
    “Jack,” Pete said. “Please don’t. Remember why you came here.”
    “I am,” Jack mumured. “It’s like I told you,