Bone Gods

was crying and pissing blood when I came by his little summoning circle.”
    “Jack was dying,” Pete snapped. “And I’m not afraid of you.”
    “Oh yes,” Belial said. “You are.” He pressed his cheek against hers, inhaled her scent. This close, Pete could sense a glimmering of the thing beneath the skin—writhing, many eyed, many-voiced, screaming and clawing to be free. “I knew there was a reason Winter liked you,” Belial murmured. “You still smell sweet, no matter how many miles he puts on.”
    Pete shoved him back, hard. The demon only laughed. “What, are you embarrassed to admit you shagged a wrung-out junkie like Winter? I would be, too, were I a put-together little thing like you. I bet you keep your nightie on.”
    “Why don’t you just simmer down before I knock every one of those creepy teeth down your throat?” Pete suggested.
    Belial frowned. “You just summoned me out of the blackest pits of Hell to chat, then?” He wagged a finger at her. “No, you’re desperate. But not for the same reasons as Winter. Your reasons aren’t petty and reeking of cowardice. ’S why I’m interested.” He twitched his cuffs and examined the ruby ring on his left hand, breathing on it and rubbing it on his suit. “Spit it out, luv. I’m getting bored.”
    “About a dozen people want me dead, another dozen want Jack, and I’ve been locked in a fucking freezer by a pack of necromancers,” Pete said. “That enough for you, you fucking bastard?”
    Belial cocked his head. “Lot of trouble for one little woman to get into. Prolific Petunia, harbinger of death and destruction.”
    “I need help,” Pete admitted. “I need the sort of help a demon can give.”
    “Surely you and Winter have a foolhardy little plan,” the demon said. “Some last ditch attempt to save the day and send the guilty to their judgement and the righteous to their reward?”
    “No,” Pete said. “Besides, you know exactly what happened to Jack. You’re the one who lost custody, after all.”
    “Winter licking the boots of the Hag and the rest of the Black beset by necromancy and terror?” Belial grinned. “Sounds like a Saturday night to me, Petunia. I don’t think you’re going to convince me otherwise.” His black glass eyes flicked up and down her body. “ ’Less, of course, you want to use that fine firm mouth of yours for something other than talking.”
    “I thought demons loved a deal,” Pete said. Her head hurt so much her vision was doubling, and her voice sounded unreasonably loud in her ears. She wasn’t going to be able to hold the thin, slippery strings of power that girded the circle much longer. “I thought they loved bargains more than anything. I didn’t think they were quite so interested in flesh.”
    “Me? I’m very interested,” Belial said. “You know what Hell is, Petunia? It’s fucking boring. We’ve got fleshpots and opium dens, torture chambers and souls to rip apart over and over again, to fuck and taste and deform to our pleasure.” He sighed, and felt his body over as if it were quite new. “You don’t have a fag, do you?”
    “I’m out,” Pete said. “And you wouldn’t get one anyway.”
    “Pity,” Belial said. “We have all of that, and I’m still bored out of my fucking skull. What I love is not the deal but when the deal comes due. And the sweeter the bargaining, the better it is for me. But you, Pete—you’re entirely too good to make that kind of bargaining. Your lily-white soul is just going to wilt and die in Hell.” He sniffed. “No fire in you. Just a misplaced need to run about playing savior.” Belial yawned. “Snore. Think I’m going to push down your little spellwork here and head off. I am sorry if I cause you a brain aneurysm or something when I break the circle.”
    Pete wanted nothing so much as to punch Belial in his smug gob. She’d thought he would salivate at the idea of getting his hands on even the possibility of a bargain with her, and he was acting as if she were an unattractive girl in a chavvy nightclub. Fucking demons. “I’m not saving anything,” she said. “I’m just trying to keep Nergal’s fucking dragon in his place, so that all the Black, including your charming existence, can carry on.”
    He paused with his shiny black shoe just short of the chalk, then turned to look at her. “What about a dragon?”
    “Oh yeah, you know all about Nergal,” Pete said. “The Hecate told me. The biggest, baddest