Bone Gods

pinkish London night sky. “Old woman talk your ear off?” he said.
    “We had a difference of opinion,” Pete told him. She shoved her scraped knuckles into her pocket.
    “We should go,” Mosswood said. “Having that bag of Fae foulness is like having a duffle full of hundred-pound notes. Every thieving thing in the Black will be down on us.” He walked to the end of the close and ducked through a ruined doorway.
    They emerged from the Black across the road from the Smithfield Market, its ornate tri-colored iron gates shut, streetlamps on either side spitting in the mist. The Smithfield Market was a working meat market, and if you were an early riser or a tourist, you could wander among the bloody slabs of beef and barking vendors in the predawn light, the scent of blood and flesh curling up in your nose along with fog and damp. Pete saw a shadow detach from the gates as she, Jack, and Mosswood turned toward the Farringdon tube station, long coat and slouched hat making him little more than a memory of a shape in the fog. She flicked two fingers at the Order thug and kept walking.
    Jack and Mosswood had two topics of conversation on the tube ride and the walk to the flat—whether Mosswood was a twat and whether Jack knew what he was doing. “You’re really going through with this?” Mosswood asked Jack for what had to be the tenth time.
    “Fuck me, again?” Jack said. “Ian, I’ve had experience with both tripping and dying, so please, just sit yourself over there and make sure nothing hideously violates my comatose body.”
    Mosswood settled himself on the sofa with a grunt. “For the one who dragged me into this, you’re not being very hospitable.”
    Pete caught Jack’s eye over Mosswood’s head and said, “Tea, Ian?” When Mosswood nodded, Pete gestured Jack into the kitchen. He wasn’t going to like her question, had dismissed her before, but Pete had begun to feel a weight on her, the sort she’d get at the Met when a case was about to go sideways. She’d spent enough time among liars to realize when she was being lied to, and she lit the burner under the kettle and then faced Jack. “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?”
    Jack shrugged. “Is something?”
    Pete slammed the mugs onto the countertop. “You know damn well, Jack. Ever since you rose from the fucking grave my life has been nothing except death threats and sinister figures nipping at my heels.” She met his eyes. Jack’s eyes were devoid of life, flat as a stagnant pond, as they’d been ever since he had returned. They were victim’s eyes, soldier’s eyes, witnessing the same trauma over and over again, knowing it was coming but unable to look away.
    “What happened?” Pete said. “I know I said I wouldn’t ask, but if we’re doing this, we might not make it back. At least not me. I need to know if you really don’t remember, Jack. How you came back.” Why you came back. What happened in Hell to make the Hecate order me to murder you on sight.
    “I’m not talking about this.” Jack picked up a mug and rooted in the cabinets for the tea. “Not now and not ever. Not with you.”
    Pete grabbed his arm, and turned him to face her. “No. You tell me what the fuck is going on.” She voiced what she’d seen in his face. “Something that you’re not telling me is under there, and whatever it is, I want to know. Now, please.”
    Jack looked down at her hand, back at her face. “Unless you’re planning a quick jerk before the festivities, get your hands off me.”
    His voice was cold, and Pete felt a stab low in her gut at the fact that his expression never even changed. Jack Winter is not the man you knew.
    “What happened to you, Jack?” Pete whispered. “Who are you?”
    He put his hand against her face, tender for a split second and then his thumb and fingers tightened along her jaw, pulled her close enough to almost brush his lips with hers, and Pete felt her flesh twinge where his finger-pads would leave marks come the morning. “You don’t want to know,” Jack whispered, as the shriek of the kettle overtook Pete’s senses. “So for your own continued good health, stop asking.”
    After a moment of sharing breath, Pete brought her hand up and smacked Jack hard on the cheek. “You arse. Let go of me.” He did, and Pete felt her cheek where she’d have finger-shaped marks. “That really hurt.”
    “Life hurts,” Jack said. “Surprised you haven’t figured that out by now. Or do