Bone Gods

simply was, and once you’d seen it, you couldn’t look away.
    Pete stepped into a gap between a newsagent’s and a pizza shop, and emerged into a Victorian street. In London, mid-morning approached, but here there was soft, fog-draped night. Gaslamps lit the way to the red door of a pub, through which drifted music and the occasional bout of laughter that dopplered from the brick row houses across the cobbles and back to her.
    A black carriage thundered past, four horses with steam for breath and glowing red coals for eyes towing it on clockwork legs. The citizens of the carriage hid behind a red curtain, but Pete tasted black smoke on the back of her tongue as it passed, the taste of sorcery. She flipped the retreating end of the carriage the bird. Hadn’t she had enough of fucking black magic for one day?
    Once it was out of sight, she pushed through the red door and into the Lament pub, the one spot she could reliably locate when crossing. Time and place worked differently in the Black, and in many ways the whole of hidden London was as the East End under Victoria—dangerous, violent, and full of things that would gut you from stomach to neck for a shilling, or simply because they were hungry.
    Except at the Lament. It was neutral ground. No fighting, no gambling, and no magic. Anyone who violated the rules found themselves promptly tossed arse over teakettle into the street by a brigade of immovable bouncers, who ranged from Takeshi the former karate champion to Dougie the bridge troll.
    Dougie was on tonight, and Pete smiled at him. Dougie had lived under London Bridge until the early 1700s, when increasingly wheeled methods of transport made his habit of snatching livestock, stray cats, and wandering children and ingesting them somewhat impractical.
    “Oi,” he said to her, in a voice that was both high and soothing, for a towering, rock-skinned, web-fingered carnivore. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
    Pete tried to return the troll’s smile. It wasn’t Dougie’s fault that she could barely stand to come here without Jack. “ ’M looking for the Green Knight,” she said. “Is he here?”
    “Came in about an hour ago,” Dougie grunted. “Champion mood, as usual.”
    “Wonderful,” Pete muttered. She hung her jacket on a hook, because the Lament was always warm and close, and because she didn’t want the punters getting the idea that she had something to hide, and went to the bar. “Newcastle,” she sighed. “And could I talk you out of a glass of water?”
    “Sure, luv,” said the bartender. She was tall, steel eyed, golden haired, and tattooed within an inch of her life. Valkyrie, Pete guessed. Or just a very, very fit former table dancer.
    “Business not so great in Valhalla, then?” Pete said. She lit a cigarette while the publican poured out the ale.
    “Your jokes need work,” said the barwoman. “Or maybe a defibrillator.” She set the Newcastle on the bar and leaned in to Pete, resting on her elbow. “Fair warning, Weir. I know who you are, and so did the gents who came in looking for you about half an hour ago.”
    Pete kept her expression blandly pleasant while she digested the information. She knew the Black at large gossiped about her—she’d be shocked if they didn’t, really. She’d gossip about her, were she someone else. Pete Caldecott, Weir. The speaker for the old gods, one of the few of her kind still in existence. Jack Winter’s woman, who could transform his not inconsiderable power into something that could turn the Black into ashes. Still, she didn’t know that she’d ever get used to being openly stared at and recognized while she was buying a drink.
    “They still about?” was all she decided to say. She felt the acute lightness of her belt, which used to hold pepper spray, a flexible baton, and sometimes a 9mm pistol. Right then she missed the pistol most of all.
    “One went to the loo,” the bartender said. “One’s at the corner table, drinking coffee and taking up space.” She sneered. “Won’t even order a real bloody drink.”
    “I’m not here to start trouble,” Pete said.
    “They are,” said the bartender. “I know nasty gits when I put eyes on them.”
    “Thanks,” Pete said. “But I didn’t come here for the nasty gits, even if they came here for me.” She took the Newcastle and made her way to a round table in the center of the pub. She set the pint in front of the bearded man in a soft, dingy tweed jacket sitting