Dark Days

EPILOGUE

Two weeks to the day later, Jack stood glaring at Morwenna Morgenstern over the bonnet of her Bentley. “Keep staring,” she said, curling her lip at Jack. “Maybe I’ll do a trick.”

“That would be far too much to hope for,” Jack said. He watched Margaret give Pete a hard hug and kiss Lily on the forehead before she picked up her backpack and suitcase and slumped toward the car.

“Do I really have to go back with them?” she asked Jack. Jack sighed.

“You need real traning, luv, and after what happened it’s too much of a mess here. You need to be safe, and much as I hate to admit it, these tossers will do a decent job of that.” He returned to glaring at Morwenna. “Or they better, if they don’t want me foot up their arses from here to eternity.”

Morwenna gave a delicate shudder. “That literally sounds worse than actually going to Hell and being tormented by demons, Jack.”

Jack grinned. “Going to Hell isn’t so difficult these days. One could arrange it.…”

Morwenna jerked the back door of the Bentley open. “Get in, dear,” she said. Margaret rolled her eyes, but she hugged Jack and climbed aboard while Victor loaded her bags.

“I won’t let them turn me into a posh twat like her,” she whispered before the car pulled away. Jack patted her on the shoulder.

“You’re going to lead all of us some day, kid. Stay in school, drugs are rubbish, they’ll tell you dabbling in black magic isn’t allowed, but it can be a lot of—”

Morwenna cut him off. “That’s quite enough goodbye from you, Jack.”

Margaret gave Jack one more wave before the Bentley pulled away, and Jack felt a pang deep in his gut. “Please tell me we’re doing the right thing,” he said to Pete, where she sat with Lily on the stoop.

“Sending the future Merlin to a place where she can’t be kidnapped, eaten by zombies, or possessed by a demon? Yeah, just a bit,” Pete said. “It’s the best thing, Jack. Grandmother on my mum’s side was sent to the country during the Blitz. This is the same principle.”

Jack watched the Bentley disappear around the corner, zigzagging to avoid potholes and police cordons, and tried to tamp down his misgivings. Margaret needed a real teacher, not someone like him.

“Come on,” Pete said. “Let’s go inside. I’ll put the kettle on, assuming we have power today.”

Jack followed her upstairs and settled on the sofa with Lily while Pete bustled around the kitchen. His daughter cooed, smiling up at him. “Look at that face,” Jack said to Pete. “Going to be a heartbreaker, just like her mum.”

“And a hellion, no doubt, like her da,” Pete said.

“No possible way,” Jack said. “Our Lily is going to be an angel.” He grinned at his daughter as she grabbed for his hands and whispered. “Be a bit of a hellion if you can. Life’s more fun that way.”

“Oi, I hear you filling her head with ideas,” Pete said. “Don’t you go thinking just because I was law and order I’m going to be the bad cop.” She brought them tea and put on a Miles Davis record that had belonged to Connor. Jack let the music play uninterrupted as the sun went down and spits of rain coated the window glass.

The flat had mostly survived the riots and the subsequent cleanup unscathed. He’d boarded over a few of the windowpanes, and there had been some smoke damage from a fire next door, but they’d been able to go home within a week when half of London was still largely homeless.

“You know,” Pete said, taking Lily from him as she began to fuss. “You’d think it would be more different.”

“More how?” Jack said, raising his eyebrow.

“I mean, worlds literally merged,” Pete said. “The Black fell on top of the daylight, and Hell floated up to the surface like some bloated corpse in the Thames. Magic exists now, in the world as everyone knows it. But everything out there is just a bit mussed. I don’t understand it.”

Jack shrugged. “Humans are survivors, luv. I mean, plagues, fires, wars, disco music—they can stand up to a fuck of a lot of punishment and carry on.”

Pete looked out the window, rocking Lily gently. “What do you think is going to happen?”

Jack had given that a lot of thought since he’d gotten out of the hospital. The Black was still there, ever present against his skin, but it felt less menacing somehow, like a monster that’s terrifying as a shadow on the wall but only mildly bothersome when you drag it into the harsh light of day.

He could still do magic, but then again so could about ten thousand other blokes in London who’d suddenly discovered a scrap of latent talent that hadn’t been able to cross the old barrier. Which might be a good thing, since 666 demons and their assorted rent boys were waiting just out of sight beyond the Gates to surge up and turn the world into their buffet. That is, Jack thought, if they ever stopped fighting each other in the chaos wrought by Legion.

“You know,” he said, “for the first time in a long time, Pete, I think we’ll be all right. Life rolls on, is what happens. It’ll be interesting, and sometimes I think it’ll be fucking awful in a way it’s never been before, but it’ll be life.”

Pete considered this and then nodded. “I can live with that,” she said, giving Lily a kiss and standing up to take her to her crib.

Jack heard a thump on the sill and hurried to the glass, opening the pane and looking out into the rain. He locked eyes with the Fae balanced on the top of the burned-out flat block across the alley for just a moment before the thing flitted away.

The noise had come from a smooth, flat piece of stone etched with the tri-horned sign of the Faerie King, and below it a sprig of rowan bound in black thread.

“What is that?” Pete said, and Jack jumped. Sometimes he really wished the Morrigan had left him that handy unflappability that came with being dead to human feeling.

He shut the glass and showed her the tablet. “It’s a death note,” he said, running his thumb along the rough edge of the stone. “The Faerie King has put a price on my head. This is their way of being polite and giving me a day to get out of town.”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “Fae? Threatening us?”

Jack nodded. “I’m guessing he’s not too happy about me spoiling his little alliance by killing his best pal Legion and, you know, dropping the barriers so any old human can find himself trespassing in Faerie.”

“After all this,” Pete sighed. “You’d think we’d get a break. Just for a moment.”

Jack dropped the death threat on the side table and put his arms around Pete. She smiled at him, sliding her arms around his waist in turn, slotting them together like they’d been made for that purpose. “Like you said: interesting life we’re going to have.”

Jack dropped a kiss on Pete’s forehead. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”