Caitlin Kittredge - Dark Days

She would outdo either of them, if she lived long enough. Sure, Jack had some muddy, bloody talent the Morrigan wanted, and Pete was still stronger than him because she could take on other mages’ gifts and magnify them from a stray cloud to a storm that could sweep the whole of the Black clean if she let it. But Margaret was going to be stronger still than Pete, a force unlike anything the world had seen in ten centuries. The Merlin, the hawk on high who saw everything, top of the food chain.

Jack was just glad as fuck she’d gone light-side and hadn’t turned out like him. Because then the world really would be fucked, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

The car pulled into a round drive, gravel crunched, scary blokes in cheap suits patted them all down, and finally they were granted entrance into the Prometheans’ posh den of idiocy.

It looked like any other posh country house Jack had had the misfortune to find himself in—lots of dark wood, ugly oil paintings, and hushed tones. Margaret gave everything an appraising glance, and then her high forehead crinkled. “My magic’s gone.”

She insisted on calling it magic, no matter how many times Jack told her that she’d be laughed out of any mage gathering in the UK with that sort of language.

“They keep the whole place cut off,” he said. “No service in this area, luv. Sorry.”

Pete fidgeted next to him. “I hate this. I fucking hate this.”

“You think I feel any different?” he muttered. “Take away my talent, and what am I?”

“A man who is rather poor at following through on his promises.” Morwenna Morgenstern glided from a set of double doors at the far end of the entry. She was still doing her slick City getup: slim skirts, perfect hair, and lips like a fresh wound.

“Morwenna,” Jack greeted her. “You’re looking particularly constipated this evening. I’d think the Prometheans all indulged in monthly group colonics.”

Her face wasn’t as pretty as she’d probably been told it was her entire life, but it wasn’t bad, and she managed to give only a twitch of her cheek muscles at Jack’s jab. “The last I recall, Mr. Winter, you were leveling some extremely vulgar and insubstantial accusations at me before promising never to step foot within a mile of me again.”

“Oh, that wasn’t a promise,” Jack said. “That was a threat. I never would have let your merry band of psychopaths within spitting distance of Margaret if we weren’t desperate.”

Morwenna made a show of turning her back on him before she extended her hands to Margaret. He was nothing, over, a speck on her shoe. Jack tried not to feel a prick of offense, despite hating the woman’s fucking guts. He could do these people some damage. They should at least be smart enough to treat him like he was dangerous.

“My dear, dear girl,” Morwenna intoned with a voice that could have given a pixie a toothache. “I am so glad you reconsidered.”

“Fuck off,” Margaret said when Morwenna tried to take her hands. “I’m only here because Jack asked me to help him.”

Jack gave Morwenna a wide grin when she whipped her head back around. “Sorry. Looks like you’re going to have to deal with the unwashed peasants a bit longer.”

Pete gave a small shoulder-shrug of a laugh, which he took as a good sign. If she was calm enough to appreciate winding up Morwenna, this all might just go the way they’d planned. Pete was his barometer for calm. She never lost her head, never wavered, until it was well and truly time to go off the rails. He didn’t have that built-in stabilizer, didn’t trust himself not to ignore danger signs and still, after all his fuck-ups, think he could smile and charm his way out of something. Just one more time.

“You seem to be laboring under the misconception that you can bargain,” Morwenna said. “Let me make this very clear, Jack—you have no leverage here. Margaret is meant to be among her own kind, and by taking that from her you’re making her life very difficult. If you think I’m letting her walk back out that door, to the gods know what sort of life, you must be fucking delusional.”

There was the Morwenna Morgenstern he knew, all hard eyes and flashing teeth as she bit and raked at you with her words, leaving you a flayed mess too cowed to argue.

“Fine.” That was Pete. “Try and keep her here, then. Ignore the fact that if we came to you voluntarily, things are already sideways and spinning into the ground. Be a stupid self-righteous cunt like always, Morwenna, because that worked out so well the last time the world was ending.”

Pete ended her speech less than a foot from Morwenna’s nose, between the woman and Margaret. It was Jack’s turn to grin. Even-keeled and cool-headed as Pete was, it was terrifying to see her slagged off.

“We only came here because things are so bad we couldn’t go anywhere else,” Pete continued. “That ought to scare you, and if it doesn’t, consider this: If you try to keep this girl against her will—a girl I consider my child— I will burn this pile of bricks to the ground with your carcass inside it, and make it my personal mission to fuck up your little club’s agenda from here to kingdom come.”

Morwenna swallowed hard, cheeks flushed and hands fluttering ever so slightly with nerves. Jack caught Pete’s eye and nodded. Shock and awe were the only things mages like the Prometheans understood. You can think you’re top of the heap, until one of your herd is ripped apart in front of you, and then you’re off balance and scared.

Good, Jack thought. He wanted Morwenna Morgenstern scared.

“If you help Pete and Jack, I’ll consider coming here once a month to be trained,” Margaret said. They’d gone over this part carefully before the call. “But only once a month, and only if Jack or Pete is with me. And if I don’t like it, I’m quitting. You lot don’t have one tiny say in what I do or don’t do with my talent.”

Morwenna straightened her spine, a boxer shaking off a bad round, spitting out the blood and putting her defenses back up. “What sort of help do you require? A catastrophe of your own making, no doubt.”

Jack tried not to let the accusation smart. It figured, the one time he hadn’t backed himself into a corner with a demon deal or a slagged-off primal creature of Hell on his arse, and Morwenna assumed he’d caused the whole mess.

“The Black and the daylight world,” he said. “Barrier’s going to rupture unless we find the bloke who set things in motion and send him back downstairs for a spanking and no supper from the Princes.”

And I’m having visions of the apocalypse that may have already been triggered. Even if I do what Belial wants, there may be no way to stop it.

He pushed the thoughts down. They weren’t any that Morwenna or whatever pet mind reader she had eavesdropping needed to hear.

“And that’s all you have?” Morwenna said, mouth crimping in the cruel smile of a girl who’s just realized her rival came to school with her skirt tucked into her tights. “‘A bloke’? Care to be a bit more specific?”

Jack thought of Belial confronting the demon, of how easily the demon had turned the Fenris, and took out his pen. “He’s been kicking this symbol around,” he said, grabbing up a pad from next to an old-fashioned rotary phone to sketch on. “Doesn’t mean anything to me. Also, he’s not a Named—he’s an elemental who got too big for his britches. Thought maybe with all your vast high and mighty anointed-one mage knowledge, you might’ve run across the symbol somewhere.”

Morwenna reached for the pad, but Jack held it back. “Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “Not until you promise me—a real promise, none of that crap where you use some clever language loophole—to abide by Margaret’s terms.”