Bone Gods

calm the hostage taker, win/win situation shite had never been her forté. If she wanted insanity and confused rambling, she’d call her sister.
    “Gun’s a bit pedestrian, don’t you think?” she said to Irina. The old woman grinned at her.
    “You’re not made of stone. Or Kevlar.”
    “That I’m not,” Pete had to agree. “Look, why don’t we just back this up, you’ll listen this time when I tell you this orchid is not Jack’s doing, and we’ll part ways with no harm done?”
    Irina sneered. Her wrinkled forearm was bare from holding out the gun, and Pete saw an Orthodox cross tattooed to the inside. It rippled when her wasted muscles flexed. “The harm’s already done.” She took the safety off the pistol. It was a nickle-plated .22 with a mother of pearl grip, a lady’s gun. Exactly the sort of piece Pete would expect from a crazy old woman running a magic shop.
    “I don’t know what you think you know,” she told Irina, keeping her voice calm and steady, just like in her training. “But it was my idea to get the orchid, and my idea to go to the Underworld. Jack’s innocent.”
    “Jack Winter is not innocent,” Irina told her. She looked as if a gust of wind would snap her in half, but her grip on the gun never slackened and her aim never wavered.
    “Who among us is?” Pete said. This had all gone pear-shaped. Irina wasn’t budging, and the utter lack of feeling in her face told Pete she’d shoot her if it came to that. Irina was a hard old bitch, and whatever dusty Russian mafia uncle had taught her had done a bang-up job.
    Pete made the decision to finish this at almost the same moment the hex was on her lips, and she felt the peculiar tug in her gut as it sprang across the space between her and Irina. “ Sciotha. ”
    It didn’t work like it had with the zombie. Nor like when Jack did it, flinging his talent in a wide, sharp arc to wrap around his target and take them to ground. Irina’s own magic, or perhaps the Fae writing all around them, caused the hex to run wild, smashing a row of the apothecary jars behind Irina’s head. It did snatch at the woman’s gun arm, though, and Pete relied on the fact that she wasn’t eighty and a raving nutter to do the rest.
    She jumped the counter, knocked the pistol down to Irina’s side, and put her fist hard into the old woman’s face. Cartilage crushed under her knuckles and the small, gravelly crunch was nearly drowned out by Irina’s scream.
    Pete tried to shake the pain from her fist as she watched Irina roll around on the floor behind the counter. She went for the pistol again, but Pete kicked it out of the way. “Give me the fucking orchid,” she said. “And I’ll be going.”
    Irina stopped thrashing about and went limp. Blood dribbled from her nose. Pete crouched and twisted her head to the left. “Don’t choke on your own blood, you stupid bitch,” she sighed. Irina curled into a ball, spitting more Russian curses. Pete left her where she was and plucked the orchid from the countertop, shoving it inside her jacket. Ollie better appreciate what she was going through for him. Punching old ladies in the face was above and beyond the fucking call of friendship and cameraderie.
    She was nearly to the door when Irina spoke up. “His living again has made things so much worse. We thought we might be safe when Belial took him, but now … you have no idea.”
    Pete rubbed her forehead. The stuffy shop and the flower smell were coming at her in waves, urging her to simply lie down and sleep for about a decade. “And what are you? Fucking Batman?”
    “The Fae see things that mortals never will,” Irina rasped. “I keep my company with them, with other things older and wiser than humans, and all said the same—it’s a blessing the crow-mage is dead. And when he came back they told me something else.”
    “What did they tell you?” Pete asked, though the knot in her stomach knew the answer.
    “They told me that the end times are coming,” Irina said, voice thick with blood. “And that the crow-mage and his Weir the cause.”

CHAPTER 26
    Pete shut the door softly behind her when she exited Irina’s shop. Her fist hurt, and her head was throbbing. How many hours had she been awake? Too bloody many to bother counting. It would only depress her.
    Jack flicked away his fag when he saw her and lifted himself from the spot where he’d leaned against the derelict flats, the half-wall behind him showing a little bit of