“Possibly twice.” He tapped a fag out of his pack and offered the last to Pete.
“I’m pregnant, you tit,” she said. “What exactly am I supposed to do with that?”
Jack touched his finger to the end of the fag. It took a few tries, in this zone where the Black twisted back on itself, but he got the fag lit and took a long drag. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, Pete,” he said. Once it was out, it seemed silly he hadn’t said it sooner. Nothing caught on fire. No one slapped him. The sun was up, and he heard some sort of wild bird scream, off in the brush.
“You think I do?” she said.
Jack watched the end of his fag, smoke curling. “I’m not going to be a decent sort of father,” he said. “I’ll try, yeah, but I’ll cock up, and you were right. This kid has no idea what it’s in for. Everyone will want it, both sides. And if it has a talent … I can’t quit, Pete. I can try, but it’ll always find me, so it’s best if I just bow out now, because I can’t be what you need or want.”
“It’s a girl,” Pete said. “I had a new ultrasound right before we left the UK.” She exhaled, as if she’d just confessed something. “So not an it. A girl.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Jack said. Christ, a girl. This was going to be even worse than he’d imagined. He didn’t know what the fuck he’d do with a baby girl.
“I didn’t know if I should,” Pete said. “Didn’t think you’d be sticking around.”
“About that,” Jack said. “It’s pretty fucking clear that I need to. For the kid.”
“I don’t want you to stick around because of some cockeyed obligation,” Pete said. “I can stay with Lawrence, with Ian Mosswood. Hell, even with my mum and the fucking Order. They can keep her safe.”
“Why not?” Jack snapped. Suddenly he was fed up. Through dancing. If he stepped on feet, so be it, but he was too tired to be subtle any longer. “Why can’t I be obligated to stay around? ’S more than my fucking father ever offered.”
“Because I don’t want you to hate me,” Pete said softly. “Jack, I don’t want you retired, but I don’t want you gone, either. You were gone for so long, and when you were in Hell … but I won’t trap you. I won’t be that woman. I just fucking won’t.”
The sunrises in California were magnificent. Jack had heard somewhere that it was from all the pollution. A pink rind of cloud sat below the glowing half-orb, white flashes chasing away the velvety night sky, while the moon and stars clung, far off beyond the mountains.
“You’re not,” he said at last. He could be scared—could be fucking terrified—but that didn’t mean he had to run. “I can’t see hating you, luv,” he said. “Thought I did, for a long while, but I don’t, and I won’t, and I won’t be my fucking cunt of a father, either. I’ll be there for the girl, until you won’t have me.”
Pete placed her hand over his knee, gave a squeeze. Her touch set off a series of aches and pains, and Jack grimaced.
“You all right?” Pete said.
“I’m old, luv,” Jack said. “This baby is going to run me fucking ragged, I hope you know.”
Pete leaned her head against his shoulder. “I think you’ll manage. We will, somehow.”
Jack sat quietly with Pete for some time, while the sun rose. He could tell her later about the Morrigan’s marks, her visitation, the strange new thing living under his skin. About the Princes of Hell and how Belial had picked him, all those years ago, to be one of their legion. About how the slow fracture and dissolution of the Black hadn’t stopped with Nergal, would never stop, and things back in London would likely never be all right for the crow-mage and the Weir again. He could tell her all that later, Jack thought as he slipped his arm around Pete’s thin shoulders.
He had the time.
EPILOGUE
REVELATION
CHAPTER 31
He’d been back in London nearly a month, and Jack was beginning to feel almost right with things again. Aside from the occasional dirty look down the Lament pub or a dead bird nailed to his door, the magic sector of London had seemed to accept that he was back and he wasn’t going anywhere.
Pete hadn’t taken the news about the Morrigan well. He hadn’t been able to tell her what it meant, furnish specifics that she could quantify and assess. Hell,
At least Pete hadn’t run off. Jack looked over to where she was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, tapping away at her laptop. He’d still been able to find jobs outside of London, mostly small villages without any local talent. The locals in big cities—Liverpool, Newcastle, Cardiff—all talked among themselves, and none of them were overly welcoming.
Pete turned her eyes on him. “What?”
“Nothing,” Jack said. He levered himself off the sofa and went into the loo. They talked, but not about anything below the surface. Jack didn’t know if Pete was afraid of him. He was, if he was honest. The markings called up power he’d never even come close to touching. Human beings weren’t meant to channel that much of the Black, and Jack had to wonder how long before his head popped off like a gasket.
Sleep was nonexistent, and he was still sporting bruises from the beating Abbadon had given him in LA. Pete had fed Shavers some poppycock story about cults and serial killers and he’d gotten himself in the paper and hadn’t dug too deeply. Probably got a promotion out of it, the twat.
“Jesus, Winter,” Jack muttered as he pissed and washed his hands. His reflection looked old, eyes bagged and face grey. “Pull it together.”
“Talking to yourself again?”
Jack jerked and knocked the mug containing his and Pete’s toothbrushes off the vanity. The ceramic smashed on the tile. “Fuck!”
Belial grinned at him in the mirror. “Jumpy. Perhaps you should cut out the caffeine.”
Jack spun and jabbed his finger into the demon’s face. “You don’t get to show up in my flat and talk shit. You bloody left me.”
“I saved your life, Winter, and you’ll do well to remember that,” Belial said. “Anyway, I didn’t just pop in for a chat.”
Pete knocked on the door. “Jack? Who’s in there with you?”
Jack opened the door and Pete locked eyes with Belial, then glared. “Oh,” she said. “You.”
“Me,” Belial agreed. “Again. Aren’t you positively glowing, little Petunia?”
“I’ll put my fist through your fucking shark teeth, you cunt,” Pete said. “Get the hell out of my loo.”
“Relax.” Belial held up his hands. “I’m just here to talk to your loving man.” He inclined his head at Jack. “Is there somewhere…”
Jack shook his head. “Whatever you have to say to me, say it here.”
“Fine,” Belial said. “Azrael is out, mate. The Triumverate is short a member. Or was.”
Jack stayed quiet. Azrael was one of the oldest names in most demonic grimoires. If Baal and Beelzebub had sent him the way of Abbadon, it meant very few things, none of them wholesome for the rest of the Black.
“Seems he and Abbadon got to talking all those millenia down in his pit,” Belial said. “Seems that he became sympathetic to their cause, and when Nergal busted out that was the cover he needed.”
Jack shrugged. “Can’t say I’m surprised,” he said. “What’s this got to do with me?”
