Dark Days

CHAPTER 11

Margaret was playing with Lily on the floor of the sitting room when Jack made it home, and she gave him a smile before pointing out to their fire stairs. “Pete is slagged at you,” she said.

“Yeah, I figured that bit out on my own, thanks,” he said. He stopped to give Lily a kiss on the top of her head before he opened the window and stuck his head out. “Luv?”

“Go away.” Pete had a cigarette in her hand, which told Jack exactly how black a mood she was in. She’d been much more successful at quitting than he had after she got pregnant, and now she only smoked when she was truly angry, dragging viciously so the tip of her Parliament looked like a tiny forest fire.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve had a hell of a day. Can I at least explain?”

“You know, we haven’t had a fantastic day here, either,” Pete snapped. “Starting with you cutting yourself and then running out of the hospital like you should be fitted for the rubber room. I had to do a lot of fucking tap-dancing to convince the doctor and the nurses you weren’t a psychopath, I’ll tell you.”

“I was going to tell you what happened after they fixed me up,” Jack said. He felt the tight, wounded expression on Pete’s face and felt it in his gut. He’d almost lost her more than once by keeping things secret—his deal with Belial, the fact that the Morrigan was after him now more than ever—and he’d be damned if it would happen this time.

He told Pete straight through, not leaving anything out, from his cut hand to the fact that his dreams weren’t dreams at all, to the side trip to Belial’s neck of the woods.

“Jesus,” Pete said when he’d finished.

“He’d be useful right about now, what with the levitating and the rising from the dead,” Jack said, “but yeah, things are fucked.”

“So this demon managed to fuck up Hell with a few Fenris and something he nicked from the Princes, and Belial has no idea where he is?” Pete asked. “Fantastic outlook for the rest of us, innit?”

“Oh yeah,” Jack agreed. “’M filled with hope, myself.”

Pete stubbed out her fag and rolled the butt between her fingers, her brow crinkling. “Maybe it’s not that bad. Who do we know who has their nose in everyone’s business and could definitely tell us if there was some kind of rogue demon cult operating on British soil?”

Jack cast a look through the window at Margaret. “Pete, no,” he said, the very thought of her suggestion making him want to beat his head against the wall.

“It’s going to be the fastest way,” she said. “Otherwise, we’re just going to run around in the dark until somebody tries to destroy the world and—oh wait, that’s already happening.”

Jack scrubbed his hands over his face. He was exhausted, wanted nothing more than to knock back a shot of whiskey and shut his eyes for an hour or sixty, but he knew Pete was right. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll put on me best arse-kissing suit, and you and I will go have a talk with the Prometheus Club.”