Bone Gods

said. “You’re bleeding like a pig and the crows’ll be thick as flies.”
    Pete shrugged free of his grasp and stopped walking. She knew that McCorkle hadn’t been lying, at least not completely. She knew with the certainty that her talent gave her, that certain events were inexorable and fixed, and that the truth couldn’t be buried. “Are you?”
    “I’m not running on demon fuel,” Jack said, too quickly. “I’m still flesh and blood. You should know after what we did.”
    Pete shut her eyes. Don’t look. Don’t let him put the lie in your mind. “Are you who you were, Jack? Did the Morrigan do something for you? To you?”
    Jack didn’t answer her. He only started walking again, and Pete was left to either follow or be left alone in crumbling, poisoned London.

CHAPTER 30
    In Pete’s waking life, Blackfriars Bridge was a cluttered span of taxis and people, the red wrought iron appearing too delicate and lacy to support the load of London’s populace. Now it was sooty black and canted to one side, pilings groaning as the black tide of the Thames rushed around it.
    At the center, where the river ran deepest, a single lamp was still lit, flickering like a firefly in a jar. Under the lamp waited a man, or at least a man-shaped shadow.
    “Spirit,” Jack said, rubbing his index finger against his temple as if his brain itched. “Not a ghost. That’s a soul. At least that McCorkle wasn’t a liar on top of a great pasty twat.”
    “Carver?” Pete called, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Gerard Carver?”
    The shadow didn’t move, except to raise a hand and lower it again.
    “Careful,” Jack said. “You stay here long enough when you’re not all the way dead, you get as crazy and vicious as those scavenger souls.”
    “I think I’m tipping over,” Pete said. She could feel the mist now, the cold on her skin, every inch of her nerves and blood, as if she were really here as opposed to only visiting. “I’m smaller and I took the same dose. We need him before Mosswood pulls us out.”
    “Fine, then,” Jack said. “What was that? Go big or go home?” He started straight for Carver, paying no mind to the holes in the road bed.
    Carver looked better than he had in life, wearing a tweed suit and a midly interested expression, ginger beard neatly trimmed. “I knew someone would come,” he said. “You’re not any of Naughton’s.”
    “Should bloody hope not,” Jack said.
    “He did send us,” Pete said. “He wants you back. You cocked up his ritual.”
    “Nicholas cocked up his own ritual,” Carver said viciously. “Tried it without the reliquary, in what might as well have been broad fucking daylight. Hated that arrogant bastard.”
    “Yeah,” Pete said. “Ethan Morningstar is big into the hatred, from what I’ve seen.”
    Carver blinked at her from behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. “I might have known Ethan would hire on sorcerers. Always did have more drive than sense, God bless him.”
    “Oi, you ginger cunt,” Jack said. “God’s not here. Never has been.”
    “You cannot return me to my flesh,” Carver said, expression slipping into terror. “You don’t know what Naughton’s tried to do.”
    “Reliquary, necromantic ritual, human sacrifice,” Pete said. “It’s a summoning, isn’t it? Some big nasty burrowed down in the muck of the Underworld.”
    “So much worse,” Carver said with a laugh that sounded like ashes. “I’m not going back. I’ll stand here until the ashes have burned down and the dragon has wrapped himself around the world. That will be my final service to the Order. I’ll repent for all my necessary sins at last.”
    Pete cut a glance at Jack, who rolled his eyes heavenward. “Madness sets in quicker for some,” she said.
    “He’s not mad,” Jack said. “He’s just spouting that thirdhand apocalyptic crap. Jesus freaks and necromancers, I told you. And this bright lad is both.”
    “Crow-mage,” Carver said, “you of all people should know that I’m speaking the truth. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
    “He’s here with me,” Pete said. “We’re taking you with us, so I suggest you don’t kick up a fuss.”
    Carver smiled, and his mouth was a black slice in his pale face, his skin pulling back into a wide mockery of joy. “Winter’s not here with you, little one.”
    “Shut up,” Pete told him. “I don’t need to be riddled by dead men.”
    Carver stepped into the light. His eyes were pure