Bone Gods

history of the Thames patrol and the modern marine support building. Jack followed her.
    “Are we actually going to give this dead bloke to Naughton? Because I have to say, I don’t fancy it.”
    Pete jiggled the handle of the delivery entrance, keeping her face shy of the CCTV camera. Locked. “You’re actually asking for my opinion? You really have changed.”
    “Heath’s your friend,” Jack said. “And in spite of being a rotten, nasty pig, he’s not a bad sort. I won’t kick up a fuss if you do exactly as Naughton asks, but I’m on record as saying it’s a shite idea. Your call, Petunia.”
    “We’ll have a better chance during the day,” Pete said. Ollie wasn’t going to stay in one piece if she got rash and found herself locked up by Patel, who’d think Christmas had come bloody early if he nicked her absconding with evidence.
    Jack nodded. “Morning, then.”
    “Don’t be too overjoyed,” Pete warned. “Because when we get home you’re going to tell me why you’re really back here.”

CHAPTER 21
    When he stepped into the flat, Jack paused with one toe over the threshold and one still in the hall. “Protection hex is shot. Lawrence should have laid it again.”
    “He’s not on call for me.” Pete tried taking off her jacket and immediately regretted the attempt, all the way down to her bones. Her shoulder throbbed and there were ink-blot bruises already turning purple up and down her arm. She’d have them on her stomach, too, and felt a dull twinge every time she breathed. Her cracked rib chimed in with a gleeful jab.
    “Fucking layabout, is what he is,” Jack muttered. He went into the kitchen and rattled around in drawers, returning with a black zip-up bag. “Where’s me chalk? Used to have enough to run a school.”
    Pete spread her hands. “Do we really have to do this now?”
    “In case you haven’t noticed…,” Jack said, curling his lip in the way Pete hated. It meant he was about to impart Great Knowledge to her, the mundane who knew fuck-all about magic. “The Black isn’t the friendliest of places these days.”
    “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pete said. “Since you’ve been gone, it’s been a regular tea party.”
    Jack flopped down on the sofa, dropping the bag. “I’m done in, Pete. Fucking wrung out. I don’t want to argue or have a meaningful conversation. I just want to clean up the mess and then get pissed and go to sleep for about a month.”
    “Oh, it’s my mess, is it?” Pete said. “All of this shit cropped up like flowers in horse manure after you made your little devil’s bargain and left me to fend for myself?”
    “Pete…” Jack warned, but she cut him off.
    “Sod you, Jack. It’s your flat, and you’re welcome to stay here, but you can sleep on the sofa and I don’t need your fucking condescension disguised as a helping hand.”
    She slammed and latched the bedroom door, but the force wasn’t enough. Pete unlaced her boots and chucked them against the far wall. They chipped the plaster with a satisfying crash, but the noise didn’t lessen the aches in Pete’s chest. At least not the ache that wasn’t from a boot landing in her flesh.
    Jack was the one person who could assure her that everything was going to be all right. Except he wasn’t doing it, and Pete wouldn’t have believed him now if he did. She dropped backward on the bed and pressed a pillow over her face, letting out a scream. She couldn’t give Naughton Carver’s body, in spite of Ollie’s bind, and she couldn’t expect Jack to pull her out of the oncoming freight train’s path. Not this time.
    He had to be finishing the spell. That was the only reason. Carver had tried to go freelance, and now Naughton was back in the game. He couldn’t have Carver’s corpse. Nicholas Naughton was an evil man, and evil from men was the most insidious sort. Whatever Naughton was playing at, she couldn’t let him get to the endgame. She had to at least try and pretend she had a spine and a plan to make everyone and everything she’d set into the sights of Naughton’s wrath all right.
    The owl landed outside the bedroom window with a thump, staring at her with gold, unblinking eyes. Pete shoved the pillow under her head and turned her back on it. “Leave me alone,” she muttered.
    You know I can’t do that, Weir.
    Pete felt her breath stop. In the place of the owl sat the woman, small and clad in white, gold eyes and dark hair, skin the same shade