opens. I am released.”
“You forgot something,” Jack told him. He knelt on the floor, smearing the small spot into a symbol. The demon blood caused feedback all through his body, into his sight, but he ignored it.
“What’s that?” Abbadon said.
Jack licked the crimson spots from his fingers and stood. “You’re not the only clever bastard who can do blood magic.”
Banishment was much more difficult than summoning. To call something to you was simple—demons wanted to be called, wanted you to be desperate enough to need them. Getting rid of them once they had a foothold was much harder. Something like Abbadon, vastly powerful and strong-willed, would be impossible with his own blood, but with Belial’s, it was like hitting the bastard with a tank.
Abbadon screamed, just once, and then vanished, leaving only a pop of air in his place. Belial grinned down at Jack. “If I ever had doubts about you, boy … no longer.” He flexed his wrists, starting a fresh spatter of blood. “Care to get me down from here?”
“Piss off,” Jack told him. “You can rot there for all I care.”
“You should care,” Belial said.
Jack stopped on his way out and looked back. Belial was grinning. Somebody in his position, demon or not, shouldn’t grin. It meant he knew something Jack didn’t, which was never the situation he wanted to be in. “Yeah?” he said. “Why? Out of the goodness of my heart?”
“Please,” Belial said. “You’ve got less goodness in that shriveled lump of coal than I have appreciation for the music of Hall and Oates. No, Jack, you should care because that Sanford bloke wasn’t talking bollocks.” He shifted, trying to extricate himself from the spikes, and then grimaced. “Come on, get me down. Even I can’t poof my way out of a cold iron torture rack.”
“Poof being the operative word,” Jack muttered. He could keep walking and leave Belial to think about things, or he could cut him down and have a demon in his debt. Not a difficult choice.
The chandelier was heavy, and Belial crashed to the ground. “Fuck me,” he said, extricating himself from the spikes. “You’re not much of a big strong sort, are you?”
His white shirt was stained with continents of blood, and his natty suit was shredded across the thighs, arms, and chest. The demon straightened his tie. “Obliged, Jack. You always were a stand-up sort in a pinch.” He gestured at the circle. “You mind? I am rather indisposed at the moment.”
Jack scuffed his boot across the chalk and blood, and Belial stepped out, letting out a long breath. “Can’t wait to see the back of this place. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Jack told him. He bent down beside Sanford, who was still sucking air despite the hole in his guts. “Where is she?” he asked.
Sanford wheezed, what might have been a laugh before Abbadon had rearranged his innards. “Really? She’s … all you want?”
Jack plunged his hand into Sanford’s wound, grabbed a handful of something soft and warm, and squeezed it. Sanford howled, body jerking. “Where’s Pete?” Jack said. “You’re on the way out, mate. You don’t get to make the rules.”
“No,” Sanford croaked. “I know where I’m going. Same place you are. See you around…” He gurgled, and died, without further comment.
“Shit.” Jack straightened up and swiped Sanford’s blood and guts onto his denim. “They still have her,” he told Belial.
“I’m sure this is a cause for alarm in your small rodent brain,” Belial said. “But Abbadon is going to come roaring back here like a freight train any moment, and he’s not going to be in a charming mood. Might I suggest we not be here?”
“Fine,” Jack said. “Do your
Belial coughed and swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “When I’m healthy, moving through space-time isn’t easy with a human in tow. I’m barely standing, you git. I’m not going to perform tricks.”
Jack sighed. “There’s a car outside, but I can’t drive and that bloke I ran off had the keys.”
“Capital.” Belial coughed again. “What do humans do in this situation, then? Call for a taxi?”
“I usually call Pete,” Jack said. “But Sanford has her. And now that he’s dead, fuck knows what’ll happen.” Couldn’t think about that now. Had to stay calm, had to stay clever, if he ever wanted to see her again.
“She’s a lot smarter than you,” Belial said. “I wouldn’t be overly concerned.”
The night outside was warm, and a wind brushed across Jack’s face and moved the trees along the drive. Belial inhaled. “I’m not going to last much longer up here. Unless you want a dead demon on your hands, Jack—and before you ask, yes, I can kick just like your kind can—then we need to be gone from this place.”
Jack spread his arms. “And where do you suggest we go?”
Belial smiled. “Where poor little lost Abbadon wants to go. Home.”
CHAPTER 24
He had to be mad, Jack decided. That was the only explanation for allowing Belial to talk him into going back to the place he’d tried with everything he had to avoid, had agreed to let the Morrigan change him to escape.
He was changed. That was a fact he couldn’t ignore anymore. The scene with Parker proved it, and more than that, the new life he felt crawling under his skin. The Morrigan had what she wanted. She had him, body and soul, because he owed her his life. If it wasn’t for her, he’d still be languishing in Hell.
His vision cleared, like coming back from a sharp blow to the head, and he saw that he and Belial stood in a street, slimy cobbles under their feet and orange gaslights spitting pollution into the air.
“Where are we?” he said.
“Hell, of course,” Belial said, and coughed up a few droplets of black blood onto his rumpled shirt.
“Not any part of Hell I’ve seen,” Jack muttered. “Looks more like Sweeney Todd’s back garden.”
“You don’t let the prisoners walk into the warden’s sitting room and put their boots on his furniture,” Belial said. “The souls in Hell are in torment, Jack. The demons live here.”
He mounted the steps to a narrow stone house with a door shaped like a keyhole that swung open at his approach. “Well, come in,” he said. “You stand out there on the street, you’re liable to end up as an attraction at the next Carnival of Souls.”
Jack followed Belial up the steps. If he’d been told that he’d be following a demon into his nest, that the demon would be the one inviting him in, he’d have laughed in the teller’s face, and then probably hit them for good measure, to knock some sense back into them.
“All of you live in snug little houses, then?” Jack said. Belial mounted the stairs and Jack followed. The house inside was done in shades of black and red, all very smooth and masculine, the sort of flat a banker or a lawyer in the City would own.
“Some live in houses,” Belial said. “Some live in abbatoirs and some prefer to float in a void of nothing, listening to the screams of souls when they’re in their private space.” He shrugged. “Takes all kinds.” He opened a wardrobe and took out a clean shirt and tie, shedding the ruined pair.
Jack wandered to the window, looking over the chimney pots of the street to the great black towers of Hell, billowing smoke in the distance. The Princes lived there, was the rumor, watched over their domain of ruined souls, high and inscrutable, just like the fictional God Jack’s mum had tried to frighten him with.
He watched Belial, too, in the reflection. The demon had twin black marks down his back, curved like scythe blades, but the wounds he’d suffered at Abbadon’s hands had already faded. “This isn’t my real body,” Belial said. “I figured I shouldn’t overload you with all the sights at once.”
“Didn’t think you’d choose a pasty little midget voluntarily,” Jack said. Belial put on his fresh shirt and twitched his cuffs.
“They aren’t wings, either.” He turned to Jack and showed his pointed teeth. “Saw you peeking.”
“I wouldn’t care if they were,” Jack said.
“No angels,” Belial said. “No God.”
“Amen,” Jack said.
