Bone Gods

scream. “I can’t imagine what happened to you there,” she said. “But you didn’t even fight. You just let him take you, and…”
    The wet on her face wasn’t blood, and her eye stung. The room blurred around her. “You didn’t let me help you,” Pete said desperately. “You didn’t do anything…”
    Jack grabbed her again, by her upper arms, and Pete didn’t fight him this time. Jack pressed his lips against hers, hard enough to pulp her own lips, and Pete’s hands clutched his shirt. She tasted Jack’s blood, and shared his breath as he reached up and grabbed the back of her head with one hand, tangling her hair.
    “Pete,” he said finally, barely a rasp of air. “Pete…”
    She broke it off, knowing if she touched him for one more second, she could never stop. Would never be able to survive if he were gone again.
    Jack let go and pushed a hand through his hair. “What could I have done, you know? I’m just a man, Pete. And not even a very good one.”
    Pete smoothed her shirt where Jack had popped a button off. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
    Jack got a handful of tissue from the box on Nasiri’s desk and pressed it against his nose, red still flowing. “Suppose I had that coming,” he said through the baffle.
    “What happened to you?” Pete blurted. “How did you come back?”
    Jack pitched the bloody wad into the bin. “Pete. We’ve been over this.”
    “I meant in Hell,” she said, not wanting to look at him. If she looked at him, she could never ask the question. “Before you came back. What did Belial do?”
    “We’re on to you now,” Jack said, and Pete didn’t miss the stiffness in his voice and body. “I’m telling you, you don’t want any part of some noble scheme to save the fucking world. Not now. Just give them Carver, get Heath out of hock, and walk away.”
    “I can’t,” she told Jack, and he threw out his hands.
    “Of course you can’t. Because you’re Pete fucking Caldecott, defender of all that’s good and true. Dragonslayer to the last.”
    “I’m not any of those things,” Pete said. “But if you think I’d let a sweatstain like Naughton get exactly what he wants by threatening my life and my friends, you really have forgotten a lot about me, Jack.”
    He sniffed blood, some catching on his upper lip when he smiled. “I never forgot you, Pete. Not once, in all the time I was in Hell.”
    Pete felt the same pain she’d get, just above her gut, when she’d see something that unexpectedly reminded her of Jack these six months past. The difference was, he was here and it still hurt. And the Hecate’s voice was in her head, always, unceasing as a tape loop. Kill the crow-mage.
    She couldn’t do it. Jack might not be Jack, and the Hecate might do terrible things to her when refused, but if she could foil Naughton, she could at least go with her head up.
    Jack wiped the last of the blood off on his jeans and tilted his head toward her. “Suppose you’ll need some help dispensing justice and protecting damsels, then,” he said.
    Pete squeezed his hand. Jack squeezed it in return, and for the first time since he’d pulled her from the pit, he looked like the man she’d watched walk away from her. “Thought you’d never ask.”

CHAPTER 23
    “I hope you’re happy,” Pete said as they left the police station. “I’m never going to get a lick of help out of the medical examiner’s office, ever again. Nasiri will blackball me from here to Liverpool.”
    “Eh,” Jack said. “Ifrit are touchy. Territorial. Plus, I think she fancies me a bit. She’ll get over her bashed kneecap.”
    “That’s what she is?” Pete headed for the tube station, taking them through the gates and to the platform.
    “Yup.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “Nasty little soul-suckers. Good thing she’s got some human blood. Otherwise she probably would’ve just gnawed on our limbs until she felt better about her life.”
    “Better question,” Pete said. “What are we going to do about Gerard Carver? Seeing as we don’t actually have him?”
    “That corpse isn’t what Naughton’s after,” Jack said. “I’d bet you a quid.”
    “Carver’s soul,” Pete said.
    “The one that should still be with his body, but is not,” Jack said. “It’s a mystery. Let’s call Scooby Doo and have done.”
    “Naughton could raise him,” Pete said. She didn’t know why she even gave the idea voice, because it was insane. “Why couldn’t