Bone Gods

Carver’s killer to us. Bad Catholic that you are, I wouldn’t expect you to recall, but God has a way of dealing with those who ignore His summons, Petunia.”
    “Oh, sod off,” Pete sighed. “Take your little sorcerous intervention and shove it straight up your arse.”
    “Oh, Petunia,” Juniper hissed. “Honestly.”
    “You don’t matter to me one drop,” Morningstar told her. “I respect and care for your mother, and I’d prefer not to harm you, but you have knowledge and contacts that we don’t, and you can either use them to deliver us Carver’s murderer, or we will use further measures to show you the error of your ways in choosing to sin against God with your witchery.”
    Pete folded her arms, partly to hide her freely bleeding hand and partly to show Morningstar he didn’t frighten her. “I would love to see you try, Ethan. ”
    “You live at Number forty-six in the Mile End Road,” Morningstar said with maddening calm. “Fourth floor, front corner flat. Your laundry is sent out once a week and you shop for essentials on Saturday morning at the Tesco Express several blocks away. Your associate Oliver Heath could probably tell me even more, if I asked the right questions.” He tilted his head, hat brim shadowing his stony eyes. “Need I continue, Petunia?”
    “No,” Pete said, throat tight and heart jumping. “You’ve made your point.” Do as we say or we’ll hurt you and then move on to your nearest and dearest. Not a particularly original threat, as threats went, but a damned effective one. Pete wished she’d hit Morningstar much harder when she’d had the chance.
    “Good. I’ll wish you a pleasant evening, then, and look forward to your findings on the death of the unfortunate Mr. Carver,” Morningstar said, turning and going to his car.
    “Mum,” Pete said, grabbing at her sleeve when Juniper made to follow him. “What the Hell are you doing with those people? Do you know what they do to people like me? They’ve killed friends of Jack’s, Mum. And done things so much worse it’d turn your guts inside out. They’re the fucking BNP of the Black and you’re in their fan club?”
    “They saved me,” Juniper sighed sadly. “They could save you too, Petunia. If you’d only let them in.” She pressed a card into Pete’s hand. “That’s where I’m staying. I know you’re as stubborn as your father, but if you ever want to have a real chat, I’d love it.”
    “I’ll pencil it in!” Pete shouted as Juniper walked away. “Set a date for it in that alternate reality where Pete has a mother who’s both sane and a gives a rat’s arse!”
    The BMW revved up its engine and screeched away in response, and Pete slumped against the alley wall, finding a Parliament and lighting it with shaking hands. She exhaled three times before she was able to bring her heart rate down to Regular from I’ll Bloody Kill You.
    Dead men in museums, dead men made that way by black magic, and now her mother, demanding she bring the Order’s brand of justice.
    “Bloody wonderful,” Pete said, stomping on her cigarette butt hard enough to kill it, had it been alive.
    After she’d lit, dragged, and killed another Parliament, the door swung open. Mosswood stuck his head out. “There you are. I was beginning to wonder if it was time to drag the river.”
    “I’d be better off, probably,” Pete muttered, watching the blue halo of smoke drift into the gaslamp light, dissolving like a ghost.
    Mosswood cocked his eyebrow as he looked her over. “Your hand is bleeding.”
    Pete examined her knuckles. They were skinned, bruised from Ethan Morningstar’s teeth, but not swollen, and she could move her hand with little enough effort that likely nothing was broken. “I’ll muddle through,” she said.
    Mosswood took his pipe and a box of matches from his jacket, striking one on the brick wall. He sucked on the pipe, coaxing fragrant greenish smoke from it. “Care to talk about it?”
    “No,” Pete said, rubbing her second smoke out on the brick next to the scratch from Mosswood’s match.
    “Very well. As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted,” Mosswood said. “That photograph you showed me is disturbing.”
    “Yeah?” Pete felt a renewed interest in the idiot Gerard Carver. If Morningstar and the Order were searching for the killer of one of their own, she’d only be their first stop. Someone with more talent and less ability to defend themselves would be next, on