“Fan-fucking-tastic,” she said. “Only been vomiting more than that bloody child from
It didn’t mean anything, and fussing over Pete would just make her chuck something at his head. Maybe if he repeated it enough times in his own head he’d believe it. Pete would be all right. The kid would be all right. He just had to play the game a bit longer, and he’d no longer be in any danger of fucking either of them up.
And that was the way it should be. The way it had to be, unless he wanted to raise another Winter to get nicked by the cops, slam handfuls of smack, and drift through the Black as useless flotsam.
“Here,” Pete said. “Sixth floor. Said the key would be on the jamb.”
The hallway of the flat wasn’t much better—someone had made an attempt to cover the stained diamond- shaped tiles with green lino, but most of it had been ripped back up, leaving jagged continents. The wood paneling and sooty lamps had probably once been grand, but that had been decades, if not centuries, ago. The high ceiling merely served to create a smog layer inside, a miniature of the outdoors, made of cigarette smoke and stale stench from cooking oil.
A pair of junkies crouched by the elevator, a gated type with a hand-scribbled sign reading OUT OF ORDER. The pasteboard was yellowed and a variety of creative and obscene graffiti covered the black letters.
The girl, one half of her head shaved and one covered in blue dreadlocks, stretched out her hand. “Got any change, brother?”
“None you could spend in this country, sorry,” Jack told her.
“Oh, you’re British,” she said, and gave him a dreamy smile. “That’s cool.”
The boy nodded, skinny arms quivering as they wrapped around his knees. The bare flesh poking through his pants was scraped raw, concentric lines making hash marks in the skin. His arms were in the same condition. Ice could make you scratch that way, think there were insects and demons crawling in and out of your flesh.
“Down here.” Pete fitted a key into the last flat in the hall and stepped inside.
Jack paused on the threshold, but there were no hexes on the flat, just the swirling ankle-deep tide of the Black. He’d need to fix that.
The flat smelled of ammonia and stale fag smoke. A roach scuttled along the back of the kitchen sink, and the walls were the yellow of stained teeth. A broken shade let in a little light, but otherwise, except for a stained mattress, the single room was empty.
“Home sweet fucking home,” Jack muttered. Pete sat down on the mattress and put her head between her knees. Jack dropped the box and sat next to her.
“All right, luv?” he said. He weighed his risk, and then put a hand on the center of her back. Touching Pete was usually like putting your hand in something warm and sweet, a blissful hit of the best narcotic his brain could imagine. Now it was like grabbing a high-voltage wire with his bare hand. A rush of her talent fed into his and tried to convince him to expel the cloud of power as a hex or a spell that could blow a hole through the flat’s wall.
He hadn’t really touched her since the pregnancy—he’d brushed her hands, sure, or put his arm around her while they watched telly if she was in a good mood, but there hadn’t been any close contact, and he certainly hadn’t tried to fuck her. That would be a fast ticket to the A&E, considering Pete’s usual mood. He hadn’t expected to feel the touch of the Weir so strongly—stronger than it had ever been.
Pete surprised him by leaning her weight on his chest, nestling her head in the crook of his shoulder. “We ever going to make it back?” she said.
“Don’t know.” Jack didn’t have the heart to lie to her. She would’ve known, anyway. “Doesn’t look good,” he said.
“You going to tell me what happened now?” Pete said.
He should move his hand. Move it before Pete’s talent overwhelmed him, made him drunk on the rush of the Black through his brain, and he did something stupid. But she was warm, and small under his hand, and he could feel her ribs move when she breathed.
Jack kept his hand on Pete while he gave her the short version of meeting Abbadon. “Fucking nutter,” he finished. “Thinks he can take on Belial and the rest of Hell. Probably wants to grab his He-Man sword and go toe to toe with the Princes, stupid git.”
“Why is that so stupid?” Pete got up and ran water into her hand from the rusted tap. She swiped the sweat from her face and drank another fistful.
“Because he’s talking about destroying Hell?” Jack spread his hands. “Nobody can go up against demons, Pete. A demon, maybe. But not all of them. Besides the six hundred and sixty-six, there’s their legions. Berserkers, Phantoms, Fenris. Millions of them, Pete. It’s like a hobo shouting at taxis—funny to watch, but completely ineffective.”
“I don’t think you’d need to take on millions,” Pete shrugged. “Just the ones who control the millons. Even the Named would fall into line. They’re demons, Jack. You told me they follow the leader. They value the rank and file. If someone were to knock down the Princes, I bet all but a few would fall in.”
Jack massaged his forehead. If he was honest, he’d had the same thought. “Abbadon’s too crazy to be organized,” he said. “Too much time in solitary. His mind is porridge.”
“He was the first thing in Hell, Jack,” Pete said. “To be only one of four survivors, over countless millennia— he might be crazy, but he’s a hard man. If he was a human, he’d be the worst kind of bastard. Seen them time and again in the prisons when I was on the Met.”
“Even so,” Jack said. “’M not being his errand boy. I got enough of that with Belial.”
Pete sat back beside him, mattress bowing under her weight. Her shirt was loose—one of his; he recognized the faded SUSPECT DEVICE lettering across the front—and if he hadn’t known, he wouldn’t have been able to detect the slight swell of her stomach. It was there, though, and she let out a small sound as she sat back down.
“Can’t wait to swell up and have to visit the loo every ten seconds,” she said. “My mum was all, ‘childbirth is a miracle and a beautiful gift from the unicorn faeries,’ but all my sister could talk about was how big Mum’s feet got when she was ready to pop with me.”
“Your feet look fine to me,” Jack said. “You’re not your mum.”
“Thank fuck for small favors,” Pete muttered. She flipped open the top of the cardboard box. “So, Abbadon. You manage to figure out why he’s after these families?”
Jack had been actively trying not to think about that, but after seeing things like Teddy, he couldn’t very well ignore what his eyes and his logical mind were both shouting at him. “Got an idea, yeah.”
Pete pulled out the stack of files Jack had first seen on Mayhew’s desk. “Good, because I’ve gone over these fucking police reports ten times apiece and I still can’t see any reason behind the murders.”
“I think Abbadon and his pals are trying to grow themselves new bodies,” Jack said. “Saw one out at his little ranch of horrors that had gone wrong. Horribly wrong.”
“But they’re corporeal creatures,” Pete said. “Don’t they have flesh of their own?”
“I think they can’t pass out of Hell,” Jack said. “When they were born, there was no here. There was just Hell, and a void. At least if I understand his ramblings correctly.”
Abbadon’s flesh was working all right, but the others were falling apart. Teddy was the worst, but there was nothing normal about the way Levi’s and the girl’s flesh had reacted to the intrusion of something ancient and malicious beyond measure.
“The kids,” Pete said. Jack nodded.
“I don’t think either the Case baby or this recent one are dead,” he said. “I think they’re being used as vessels.”
Pete’s face went pale, and she swallowed hard. “Christ.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Not exactly an acceptable hobby.”
“To have something like that, randomly deciding to slaughter you to get at your kid…” Pete trailed off, and
