Dark Days

CHAPTER 36

Jack put the word out to Mosswood for the materials he couldn’t pick up from his own supplies, and he and Pete stopped at the flat just long enough to grab his kit. The clock was running on when Belial would figure out that Jack hadn’t given over the blade, and the last thing he wanted was not one slagged-off demon but a pair, both gunning for him.

“We need a place to do this other than a flat in the middle of a block with a thousand people,” he said to Pete as they packed up a pair of canvas bags.

Pete pulled out her mobile. “I can probably find a place. I need to check on Margaret and Lily anyway.”

She walked away while she called Ollie Heath, and Jack took a moment to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything he couldn’t live without.

The flat wasn’t much, but it had been home ever since he’d come back from Ireland. Sure, he’d gotten the deed by convincing a senile sorcerer to sign it over, the walls were stained, the windows let in every draft that blew by, and the furniture was mostly picked off various surburban curbs in early mornings before the trash brigade came along, but it was as much a home as any place he’d ever slept.

Pete was here, Lily was here. Most of the good memories of his life wound back to here.

He sat down on their rickety sofa for a moment and looked out the sooty windows, over the rooftop of the place next door. The sky was already fading into dawn. Putting together supplies for the summoning had taken most of the night, but he didn’t feel tired anymore. He found the last of the Percocet that Pete had cadged from Morwenna and dry-swallowed the pills. Just a few more hours, and one way or the other, this would all be over.

He wasn’t sure if the thought was a comfort or a terror.

Pete came in from the kitchen, holding out her mobile so he could see mapped directions to an address. “Ollie says this place is still in limbo with the city government,” she said. “We shouldn’t have any company, and all that’s around it are warehouses and self-storage setups. Nobody in range if something happens.”

Jack nodded. “Good enough,” he said. Pete hefted her bag.

“Ready?”

“No, but that’s never stopped me before,” Jack told her. Pete went out, and he looked around the flat one more time, acutely aware that it might be the last time he did so, then he shut the door behind him.