Dark Days

CHAPTER 25

The ferry ride was almost nine hours, but if it meant a reprieve from the threat of a Fae attack, Jack would have gladly made the crossing of the Irish Sea in a leaky rowboat.

Pete managed to get Declan to quiet down and sleep with the application of hot tea laced with one of the Valium pills Jack kept on him in case he got beaten up or had to put himself under—trance states were remarkably easy when you had the best opiates the black market had to offer.

Pete offered Jack a paper cup of black coffee, and shoved it into his hands when he tried to wave it off. “You need it. You feel awake now, but the adrenaline is going to wear off and you’ll crash.”

Jack emptied the cup down his throat. His stomach growled at the influx of bitterness, but it couldn’t make him feel any worse than he already did. “Legion used me to get to them. He had them slaughtered just to make a point.”

“He’s trying to get to you,” Pete said. “If he’s trying to get to you, it means you can actually hurt him. You have something, and he’s doing his damndest to put you off the scent.”

“By killing four innocent people?” Jack said. “That’s a hell of a distraction.” He didn’t think Legion was afraid. He thought the demon was having fun, batting him around with his paw before he went in for the kill.

“I’m sorry about them,” Pete said. “Really. I know they helped you a lot when you were younger.”

“Yeah, it was a long time ago,” Jack muttered. “I don’t even recognize the order anymore. They didn’t used to be that fatalistic. Two fingers up at the rest of the world was more their style.”

“End times make a lot of folks doom and gloom,” Pete said. “I saw it all the time when I was with the Met. Any time something in the world got bad—economy, elections, terrorists, volcanoes—the nutters would come out of the woodwork, shooting up their corner off-license and putting their heads in the oven. Thinking about the future drives some people over the edge.”

“Try seeing the future,” Jack muttered. Pete jerked her thumb at Declan.

“If you end up like that, please don’t expect me to wipe up your drool and change your diapers.”

“Luv, don’t be silly,” Jack said. “You know you’d never get me to wear a diaper.”

Pete reached out and patted his knee. “You’ll figure it out. You do have your clever moments.”

Jack let the silence fall. Pete was good at calming people down, getting them to focus on the moment and think things through. She’d spent a good chunk of her adult life meeting people on the worst day of theirs, getting them to describe their attackers, talk about the moments when they thought they might die. Her greatest gift, though, was knowing when to be quiet and let people work things through for themselves.

He tried to think like Pete. He had no allies, nobody who would help him. There was no way to simply deport Legion back to the Pit. So why was the demon even bothering with him, other than pure spite? Even Belial had walked away from him as a bad job when the Princes turned on them.

Jack stared up at the buzzing light fixture above his head. “I’ll be back,” he told Pete, standing and fumbling in his pocket for a piece of chalk.

She pointed at the salt-streaked windows. Morning sun turned the horizon gold, but the waves of the Irish Sea were still deep gray.

“Where are you going? We’re in the middle of the fucking ocean.”

Jack pushed open the door to the car deck. “Just going to get some air.”

He went up the steps rather than down, ignoring the CREW ONLY sign painted on the heavy watertight door. The top deck of the ferry was small, damp, and freezing. Wind slicked his hair back against his skull and wrung tears from the corner of his eyes as soon as he stepped out.

Jack ignored the elements as best he could—it was poor form to conduct summonings where just anyone could pop in. Besides, he wanted Belial off-balance and listening when he said what he had to say.

A wash of spray passed over the deck, filling Jack’s eyes with salt, and when he swiped at them Belial stood in front of him, arms folded. The rolling of the ship didn’t move him in the slightest, and his black eyes bored into Jack with all the force and intensity of a hurricane.

“You know, twice is pushing it,” Belial said. “Three times in less than a week, I’m thinking you want me to kick your arse from here to Liverpool and back.”

“They do say the third time’s the charm,” Jack said. Belial scowled.

“They can kiss my lily white arse. What do you want from me, Jack? I don’t have any more bright shiny favors to do you, no more deals to make. I told you I’m out.”

“I know,” Jack said. “And I wanted to say, for my part in it, I’m sorry.” In all his life, he never would have imagined he’d be standing in front of the demon who’d taken his soul, apologizing. Then again, he’d never imagined that he’d ever have the upper hand with Belial, either.

Belial gave a weary sigh. “I’m not going to kiss your bum and make it all better. Stop bothering me. I just want to spend what little time this miserable human world has left in peace, and preferably very drunk.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Jack said. “You and I both know that Legion is only one demon, one pissant with a big mouth and a bigger ego. You had an idea how to get rid of him when you brought me into this, and I know you, Belial. You always have a plan B.”

Belial sat down on a container of life vests and sighed. “He’s a lot more than that, Jack. Fuck me, I don’t know what he is. I’m not even certain he’s a demon; he’s got a demon’s name, but you and I both know there’s no way an elemental could pull off this kind of thing. And the ancients are locked down—they only made a finite number of those, fortunately.”

“Whatever he is—demon, old god, unicorn,” Jack said. “You’re a survivor, Belial. Survivors always cover their own, and they always know everyone’s weak spot. You knew mine. You knew I was a coward and that I’d do anything to stay alive and out of Hell. You manipulated me for close to ten years with that. So what’s Legion’s sticking point?”

“You said it,” Belial said. “He’s as arrogant and vain as Lucifer supposedly was. Thinks the sun sets and the moon rises out of his bum. He thinks he’s unkillable, and I’ve been around long enough to know that’s just not true.”

Jack felt for the first time in days like there wasn’t a hundred pound weight sitting on his chest. “And?”

“And there’s plenty of things in the vaults back home that will kill things in ways that keep them dead,” Belial said. “Azrael supposedly had a blade taken from the Morrigan herself—the hand of death. I’d imagine that’ll put down anything that draws breath.”

“Azrael had a lot of toys, didn’t he?” Jack muttered.

“It’s beside the point,” Belial said. “I can’t go back there, and even if I could, I wouldn’t even know where in the vaults to look. Azrael wasn’t exactly the warm, welcoming type even before he started making backroom deals with things like Abbadon.”

“He must’ve talked to someone,” Jack said. Belial shrugged.

“Azrael didn’t have a fondness for human conversation like I do. He did, however, have a fondness for torture and classical music, so there’s that.”

“There is something in those vaults that could find the blade,” Jack said, remembering the things creeping about in the cases that Belial had shown him. “That eye.”

“To use the Allfather’s Eye requires a capacity for magic that even I don’t have,” Belial said. “And forget you, scarecrow. You’d turn into tinder if you so much as touched that thing.”

Jack rubbed out the chalk line with his foot. “Then it’s a good job I know somebody who can handle it just fine.”