Bone Gods

she could give. She was too wrung to cry, too spent to even try. A doctor in pink scrubs loomed over her, flashed a light in her eyes, checked her neck.
    “You hurt, love?” she said. Pete managed to shake her head. The doctor helped her up.
    “Let’s get you down to A&E,” she said. “Stand up, there’s a good girl. The hospital’s going to have some forms it’ll want you to sign about the patient who got out.”
    An orderly came up on her left side and took her arm. “I’ll escort Miss Caldecott, Doctor. You tend the wounded.”
    The doctor ran back inside the cell, where the other orderly shocked Jack again. She leaned over his chest and then shook her head. “Jolt him again. He’s not going to bleed out just yet, but it won’t do a bit of good if he’s brain-dead, will it?”
    Psychic death. Would stop your heart surely as plunging onto concrete. Pete tugged against the orderly’s grasp, trying to be somewhere she didn’t have to look.
    Don’t be.
    He’d told her to. Told her to let him go. Pete saw the owl again, on the sill as if it had never left, gray and unremarkable in the sun. “Leave me alone,” she whispered. “I did what you wanted. Tell your bitch that.”
    He was gone this time. Gone, to the land of the dead. She would never see him, talk to him, touch him. He was gone, and she was still here, and he wasn’t coming back.
    The owl blinked, tilted its head, then took flight, as if it had suddenly remembered there was no need to hang about.
    In the next moment, one of the machines working over Jack pipped. “I’ve got a rhythm,” the orderly shouted. The doctor took over the bag and pointed out the cell door. “Call trauma and get a surgery prepped. Get me some blood and a fucking surgeon. Fucking git, tries to kill two people and kick himself off. Doesn’t bloody deserve the fuss.”
    Pete did sag then, against the orderly who grabbed her. “Best we be going,” Belial said in her ear.
    “You’re all right,” she said as he dragged her to the lift. She was flat. Jack was alive. At least for the moment, and she was being dragged from the hospital by a demon.
    “I’ve had better days,” Belial said. “Bitch walloped me a good one, tried to push me right out of my skin and back to the pit like a tube of toothpaste. But fortunately she’s only good at swanning about and looking terrifying. Piss-poor exorcist.” The demon cackled.
    “I saw him,” Pete said, as they wound through the packed A&E lobby. “Nergal. I saw the dragon.”
    They came out the door, and the scent of smoke went up Pete’s nose and choked her. She saw a motor accident in the street, ambulance versus taxi, and people sitting on the sidewalk, staring, some walking in circles. She heard screams over the klaxons that were no longer in her imagination. Saw two youths in hoodies pick up a rolling garbage can and toss it through a shop window, grabbing handfuls of pocket cameras and MP3 players.
    “What the fuck…” Pete started. She was having a hard time standing, her eyes going unfocused in slow, rolling waves.
    “The dragon,” Belial said. “Creeping up through the layers. It’ll die down.” He put her off and stood at arm’s length, looking at her. “It’s been fun, Petunia Caldecott,” he said. “And I’ll be dropping by, sooner or later, to collect my end. But until then…” Belial dropped her a wink. “You and Winter have a nice little life.”
    “You’re not…” Pete breathed in, out, tried to keep on her feet. “You won’t try for Jack?”
    “Winter gave me his soul,” Belial said. “I lost it because I was a stupid twat, and that winged bitch is stronger. For now.” He tipped his head back at the hospital. “Not to worry. I’ll have another try at the crow-mage’s soul, Petunia. You just wait and see.”
    Belial faded away into the roiling crowd, and Pete sat down on the curb, holding her head. Jack was alive. The dragon was free, but Nergal was still in whatever hole the old gods had stuffed him in. The Black was shredded—she could feel it rolling and pulsing in her skull even now. She still owed Naughton, Ethan, still had McCorkle’s death hanging over her head.
    It was a bad world, sooty and broken and hard. Full of nothing but trouble, if you listened to Jack. But Jack didn’t speak for her.
    Pete stood up, and started for the tube. Whatever world she was in now, she reasoned, she would adapt and so would Jack. They would be survivors, together. The way