Bone Gods

there when she woke.
    Jack didn’t say anything else to her before he fell asleep.

CHAPTER 22
    She only slept, really slept, for a few hours—it was six a.m., glowing and red in her face, when her eyes snapped open. Jack’s breathing quickened almost as soon as hers did, and he opened his eyes. “Back to the bone-shaker’s errand, then?” he said, voice husky from smoke and sleep.
    Pete sat up and tried to work the kinks from her neck. “Suppose we have to.” Despite her resolve not to give Naughton more ammunition for whatever sort of wickedness he was up to, she couldn’t think of another way to keep Ollie from ending up like poor McCorkle.
    “You hungry?” Jack asked. “Stealing on a empty stomach’s no good.”
    Pete shook her head. “I haven’t been hungry since Naughton showed up here and gave me the hard line, like the scary bastard he is.” She found her shirt and panties and slipped them on, feeling her skin prickle when the air hit it. A scrim of frost lay on the window and the street outside, just starting to stir and growl at this hour of the morning. The radiator in the corner of the bedroom kicked on with a hiss and a clang.
    “How about you?” she said after Jack spent a quiet few moments both getting dressed and studiously avoiding her eyeline. “Hungry? We could stop on the way.”
    Jack dug in the wardrobe and pulled out a clean shirt, rolling it over his torso. “Nah. ’M fine, luv. No appetite. Let’s go.”
    Pete pulled her jeans on and took the hint. He wasn’t talking about the sex and she wasn’t going to be that sort of woman, the one who interrogated everyone she happened to take a tumble with.
    She got her bag and added the usual inventory—mobile, lighter, wallet. “I’d just gotten that pistol,” she told Jack. “Hope Naughton’s enjoying running about like he’s in MI6.”
    “Meant to ask you about that,” Jack said. He pulled on his old leather and let out a sigh. “Hello, gorgeous.”
    “You weren’t here.” Pete went to the lift. “It’s not as if I can shoot fire from my fingertips.” She started to tell him about the zombie and the paralyzer hex, then thought better of it. Best case, Jack would laugh at her. Worst case, this Jack with no memory and no marks on him would know she could throw hexes. Pete couldn’t be that kind of lovesick fool, even when she wished she could. When Jack came up with more than a blank spot in his memory about walking out of Hell, she’d tell him about the hexes.
    “Don’t think we’ll need a gun, though,” Pete said. “Assuming she hasn’t changed her mind, the ME’s a friend.”
    “Always did like the bossy detective side of you, luv,” Jack said. He placed his hands on her waist, swaying slightly as they waited for the lift. “Are you sure we have to go poach Carver right this minute?”
    Pete lifted his hands away from her. “Jack, that is not going to work.”
    “No?” His bottom lip protruded. “Not even a quick tumble? Take pity on me—being locked in Hell makes a bloke horny.”
    “Keep your pants on,” Pete said, walking ahead of him to the lift. “I mean it.” Jack didn’t get to pretend everything was normal between them, normal in bed and normal as they walked to the tube, and find his way into her knickers any time he liked. Pete could admit that she’d made a mistake ever letting him touch her, at least with so many uncertainties. That Jack was all right. That he’d really forgotten how he’d clawed free of Belial’s bargain.
    That he was still Jack.
    Pete let the tube ride pass without saying a word, and when they reached the station, waited across the street under the awning of a café until a familiar curly-haired form entered the front door, messenger bag slung over her shoulder. “That’s Dr. Nasiri. Let’s go.”
    Nasiri had disappeared down the hall to the autopsy theater by the time Pete caught up with her, but she walked on, ignoring the NO PUBLIC BEYOND THIS POINT sign and nudging open doors until she saw Nasiri shrugging into a lab coat in front of a locker stuffed with street clothes.
    She spun when Pete stepped into the room, her eyes widening at the sight of Jack. “What in the—this is the women’s changing room, Ms. Caldecott.”
    “Yeah,” Pete said. “Sorry about this.”
    Nasiri simply stared at her. “Never thought it’d be you,” she murmured. “Wanted to think you were better than that. Stupid.”
    “Look,” Jack said, flexing his fists