Dark Days

CHAPTER 38

The thing that surprised Jack most about dying again was the cold. All his pain vanished and he felt nothing. His body was just an object, abused and discarded, and he was behind the eyes but not a resident.

Ravens and crows soared overhead, so numerous that they blacked out the sun, and behind them Jack felt a pulse that vibrated through the Black all the way up to the sky. Not a ripple or a tear, like he’d felt when Nergal and Abbadon had tried to break through or open doorways between places that were too large to sustain.

This was a fundamental fracture, something that made him feel as if half of the power that he relied on as part of his talent, part of him, had disappeared. A skip in the record, a break in the transmission, a void filled with nothing but static.

The ravens had obscured everything, and Jack’s vision was filled with roaring blackness. He couldn’t breathe much at all any longer.

He’d thought the end of the line had come before, so it wasn’t as if he hadn’t expected it. Really, from the moment Belial pulled him in, he’d half expected to end up dead.

Then, as his vision started to swim toward that final blackness, Pete was there. Her expression was frantic, and she grabbed at him, checking his pulse and breath and touching the knife but not pulling it from his chest.

“No, Jack,” she said, her face shattering from horror into an agonized sob. “No … not this…”

“I’m sorry,” Jack managed. “I wanted…”

Pete shook her head. “Don’t talk.” She was pulling out her mobile, calling for 999, cursing and throwing the mobile to the ground as the operator squawked that all circuits were busy.

Jack fumbled for her hand, managed to grab at her wrist. “Pete, listen,” he said. “I don’t have long.”

The rush of wings crescendoed and he saw her, standing behind Pete, her raven feathers gleaming blue-black and slick in the sunlight.

Poor Jack. Poor dead Jack, the Morrigan sighed. Pete paid her no attention, and Jack kept his hand on her wrist.

She can’t see me, the Morrigan said. Not this time. I told you that it would be this, Jack. That at last, there would be a day when you could no longer refuse me.

Pete was crying, holding his hand, tears sliding down her face as she pressed her cheek to his.

“I’m fine with dying,” Jack said to the Morrigan. His voice sounded fine again, which told him he’d slipped into that place where he was closer to the Land of the Dead than life. His soul was only tangentially attached to his body. One way or another, he’d belong to the Morrigan soon.

Ah, but dying would accomplish nothing, the Morrigan purred. If you accept your place at my side, you will have what brought you to death today.

Jack blinked at her. His vision was no longer clouded, and though his body had shut down, his talent was alive and burning with power as another shudder passed through the Black. Beyond the Morrigan, he saw a plume of smoke rise from the center of London. He was too late. Legion had kicked over the first domino, and there was nothing to reverse it. “Spit it out,” he said. “I’m not coming over to you on some vague promise.”

Come to me, Jack. The Morrigan held out her clawed hand. Come to me. Lead my army of the dead, and you will have the prize you most desire. I will feast on Legion’s beating heart, and he will no longer exist as anything but a memory.

She, too, looked back toward the city, and at the vortex of ravens circling overhead. But you must choose. Now. This world you love so much, where your wife and your child can live on, or you. One of the unshackled dead, drifting for eternity through a ruined universe that is nothing but a memory of life.

Jack lifted his head. “Swear to me,” he said. “Swear to me that Legion will die and I’ll go with you willingly. You’ll have what you’ve wanted all these years.”

I have wanted you far longer than years, Jack, the Morrigan said. You were always my child. The living man touched by Death. But yes—join me and Legion’s death will be yours, to bring to him in any fashion you desire.

“And Pete,” Jack said, looking back at Pete as she held his body and shook with sobs. “She and Lily and Margaret will be safe?”

The Morrigan nodded, her yellow eyes aglow with anticipation. She will be watched until her time of death, and taken into my bosom as my most favored citizen.

Jack thought about Seth walking away from him. The mage had known something he hadn’t. Jack could run, but he was always meant to end up right here.

There was no point in fighting it. He belonged to the Morrigan. He had always been a walking dead man, ever since he first saw the Morrigan on the altar twenty years ago. He could pretend things could be different, but Seth couldn’t change it. Not even dying and going to Hell could change this.

This was the end, the period on his sentence. And this time, there was no way to pretend he was going to live out the life he’d pretended he could have.

Jack looked up at Pete, reached up with the last of his air to touch her cheek. “It will be all right,” he said. “I promise I’ll see you again.”

Pete choked, but she put her hand over his. “You don’t get to go leaving me,” she managed, squeezing his fingers as tight as she could. “That’s not on, I hope you know.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jack whispered. He gave her hand a squeeze in return. “You’re stronger than I ever was, Pete. Don’t change that.”

Pete lowered his hand gently to his chest, and put her hand against his cheek. “I love you, Jack Winter.”

Jack gave her a smile as the ravens landed all around them, and the Morrigan advanced, and he could see that Pete saw her now, but she raised her chin and refused to show any fear. “I love you,” she repeated, looking only at Jack.

He stood and joined the Morrigan, the ravens surrounding them. He looked back at Pete and gave her a nod. “I know, luv.”

The ravens surrounded him, the Morrigan’s feathers blending with the flock, the darkness sweeping in, and Jack found himself surprised that death didn’t feel like coldness, like hotness, like pain, like a release. Death didn’t feel like anything. He just felt his connection to Pete sever as the Black spasmed for a third time, and then everything was gone.