Bone Gods

If Lawrence could help her push back, so much the better.
    * * *
    The Order of the Malleus didn’t reside in any sort of posh modern flat near Canary Wharf, or a sinister, brooding Victorian narrow house watched over by iron gates crawling with ivy and Gothic sensibility. The address was on one of the side streets running up to the south side of Regent’s Park in Marylebone, a nondescript row house with a blue door and two small granite Chinese dogs guarding the steps.
    Pete ignored the devil’s-head knocker, slamming on the wood with the flat of her hand. “Open this fucking door!” She used her best copper voice, and it rattled back from the row of flats opposite. Curtains twitched aside up and down the street.
    Five seconds, then ten, then thirty went by without a response. “Oi!” Pete resorted to kicking, the steel of her boot leaving an ugly black wound in the door. “Morningstar! You know why I’m here, you creepy bastard!”
    “Maybe we should … do something that isn’t this,” Lawrence suggested, from where he stood on the pavement. Pete cast around, then picked up one of the dog statues and walked back to the shiny black BMW parked in front of the row house. She swung hard and deliberate, letting the weight of the stone carry itself.
    Windscreen glass exploded into the street, and the car’s alarm began to whoop. “Ethan,” Pete shouted. “Get your arse out here!”
    The car alarm cut off, and the door of the house opened up. “Petunia Caldecott!” Her mother appeared on the stoop, arms crossed. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
    Pete tossed the statue aside. “Nothing that concerns you, Mother.” She pointed at the house. “I know he’s in there. What’s wrong, he can’t come himself? Has to send his overdressed rent boys to be the hard men?”
    Juniper threw up her hands. “Oh, Petunia. You always had a flair for being overdramatic.”
    “You’d know about dramatic entrances and exits,” Pete said. “Listen, Mum, you can prance about with these fuckwits all day long, but I want to talk to Ethan and I’m going to carry on smashing things that belong to him until he comes out.” She folded her arms. “Is that dramatic enough for your taste, Mother?”
    “You’d think somebody nearly thirty would have learned not to be such a disagreeable little brat,” Juniper snapped, her serene Mother Superior composure finally wearing thin. Pete was gratified that she still had the temper that had caused her to bawl out MG for staying away all night and chuck the occasional lager bottle in Connor’s direction when he snapped at them once too often because of his job.
    “It’s all right, Junie,” said a voice from the dark of the doorway. Morningstar appeared, a deal less imposing without the vampire coat and hat, but still with a glare and craggy hands that could crush Pete’s skull into shards. “We weren’t expecting you so soon, Miss Caldecott,” he said. His eye drifted to the smashed car and he sighed. “You know, you might have simply rung.”
    Pete gave him a tight smile. “I don’t work for you, Ethan. We had this talk.”
    Morningstar guided Juniper back over the threshold. “Go inside, dear.” He came into the street, picked up the statue, and set it back on its pedestal. “As I recall that conversation, we agreed you did want to do something for me, Miss Caldecott. If not for your sake than for your dear friends.” He tipped a salute to Lawrence. “Here’s one of them now.”
    Lawrence made a move to Pete’s shoulder, but she waved him off. “He’s a bigot with fancy dress,” she told Lawrence. “This, I can handle.”
    “Not him I’m worried about,” Lawrence muttered. “Your mum’s a lot scarier.”
    “Fuck off,” Pete said, and mounted the steps. Morningstar gave her one of his knife-edged smiles.
    “So kind of you to stop by.”
    “Believe me,” Pete said. “I’m not having kind thoughts, Mr. Morningstar.”
    “Ethan,” he said, shutting the door behind her. “Call me Ethan.”
    Morningstar’s house was furnished in the same bland, vaguely classical style as the outside. Persian rugs muffling the floors, furniture with feet, and dour portraits of a man who looked like the genuine witch-burning article hanging in the front hall. Morningstar flicked a finger at one. “Sir Percival Morningstar, a several times great-grandfather of mine. Disposed of seven sorcerers in his day.”
    “Must have been the toast of his