Caitlin Kittredge: Soul Trade

The constable’s mouth turned down at the edges, and she glared at Pete. “You know, them up in the squad was right about you.”

“What, that I’m a nutter?” Pete shrugged and immediately regretted it, feeling the twinge of battered tendons.

“No,” Wolcott said. “That you can be a bit of a bitch.” She made her way through the churchyard and out the gate, not looking back.

“No argument from me on that score,” Pete muttered, feeling for the keys to her battered red Mini Cooper. They’d fallen from her pocket in the struggle, along with her wallet and her mobile, scattered across the grass. Pete collected everything, and then gave a fresh yelp as she straightened up and almost bumped foreheads with a tall figure in a black coat and hat.

Her first thought was Shit, shit, shit as she braced herself to come face to face with a squad of witchfinders, the only sort of gits who favored the “Orson Welles circa The Third Man ” look.

When the figures merely stood impassively, however, she got a second look. Their hat brims were pulled low, and what faces she could see had the corpselike pallor and waxy, unhealthy skin that normally only cropped up on zombies. Their mouths were free of red stitching, though, and the way they’d appeared out of thin air wasn’t terribly zombielike. Zombies were brutes, and they were generally no good at sneaking about.

“Petunia Caldecott,” said the leader. His voice didn’t make her name a question. The other four stared at her, motionless as the headstones all around.

Pete figured there was no point in arguing. “Yeah?”

The figure extended a hand. His fingers were long, the nails nonexistent, pulled out by the root, gnarled scar tissue in their place. Pete gingerly took the black envelope offered, being careful not to touch the thing. Skin-to-skin contact in the Black was often worse than grabbing a live wire—and there was plenty of black magic that could be passed with only a touch. After the scene with the wraith that ate Mickey Martin, she wasn’t about to take any more stupid chances tonight.

“You are cordially invited to attend the tenth full gathering of the Prometheus Club,” said the figure. His voice was oddly high and reedy, as if he were on the verge of having his vocal cords wriggle their way out through his throat.

“I … have no clue what you’re on about,” Pete said, holding the envelope by the corner. In any other place, on any other night, this would smack of bad live theater, but she was rattled enough not to antagonize the waxen men. There was something about their mannerisms and the way they’d just appeared out of thin air that hinted to Pete that they were dead serious.

“The patrons of the Prometheus Club do hope you will choose to attend, Weir,” said the lead figure.

“It took five of you to tell me that?” Pete asked, flicking her gaze quickly between the pale men. It wasn’t exactly a secret that she was a Weir, but those in the Black were usually a bit more circumspect about saying it to her face. She scared people, and she wished she didn’t, but the Weir was something to be afraid of. Hell, she was afraid of it.

“We are messengers,” said the lead figure. “We have delivered our message.”

“Yeah, well,” Pete said. “Tell your club to shove it. I don’t particularly cotton to shadowy errands, especially ones that come with an implied threat.”

“That is a pity,” said the figure, and he tilted his head so that Pete caught a bit more of his face and a flash of his eyes. Or where his eyes should have been. The thing didn’t have any sockets, just divots in the skull, covered over with that same waxy, unnatural flesh. Pete swallowed a roll of nausea. She’d seen worse. Crime scenes had been worse. She kept her face still. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t come face to face before with things that weren’t strictly human. Or strictly alive.

“I never considered it a pity to miss a fancy party full of twats who think scenes like this are funny,” she said.

“The penalty for refusing the Prometheus Club is dire,” said the figure. He gestured woodenly at the envelope still pinched between Pete’s fingers. “Would you care to reconsider?”

“No,” Pete said instantly. The type who’d send heavies for a simple invite were the type you wanted to avoid. “No, I will not reconsider. And now I’m tired, so kindly fuck off and let me go on home.”

“Your choice,” said the figure, and all five turned and marched, single file, through the churchyard gate and into the inscrutable fog.

The midnight streets were as deserted as they ever got in central London, and Pete made it home on autopilot, still trying to take off the chill engendered by the wraith. The church bells on Bow Street were tolling half-twelve when she parked the Mini in the alley behind Jack’s flat.

Each step up the four flights to the flat hurt, and she leaned against the wall inside the door, collecting herself before she saw Jack and Lily. She didn’t want him kicking up a fuss about her going on jobs alone. The prewar light fixture in the hall buzzed, and Pete made a mental note for the dozenth time that they needed to get the wiring in the place checked out.

Before she’d had to look at the flat through the eyes of a responsible parent, it had been more than fine. Now, though, she couldn’t help but see the nicotine stains on the ceiling and the lead paint on the windowsills, the stove that emitted strange and dizzying odors anytime she or Jack tried to do more than heat up takeaway, and she realized that they’d never make enough money to move someplace more conducive to raising Lily. Not that Jack would go for it, if she suddenly found thousands of pounds lying in the street. He’d been living in Whitechapel since the eighties, and Pete couldn’t imagine someone like him moving to the country, surrounded by flat motorways, flatter fields, Tesco superstores, and normal people.

The protection hexes that wrapped the flat like spider silk slithered away from her as she advanced into the sitting room. There might be a pile of clean clothes on the floor and a sink full of filthy dishes, but at least Jack hadn’t let the hexes slide.

He sat on the sofa, Lily cradled in one arm, watching a film with no sound on Pete’s laptop. He’d never kick in for a TV, but he’d finally given in to the allure of the internet. Lots of mages were technophobes—and lots tended to fry whatever electronics were in their range—so Pete counted herself lucky that she didn’t live with a walking electromagnet, and that Jack had decided having an endless supply of Lucio Fulci films and spaghetti westerns was worth the extra bill.

“She’s been asleep for a few hours,” Jack said softly. He shifted, almost imperceptibly, and reached for his glass of whiskey. “I was afraid to move her.”

Pete let herself drop down beside him, coat, bag and all. She was weary from top to bottom and still chilled to the bone. “I’ll put her down in a few minutes.”

Jack regarded her in the blue light of the screen. Clint Eastwood stalked across a dusty town square, merciless sun beating down on cheap plaster sets. “You look like shit,” he said presently.

“I love you, too,” Pete grumbled. Her attempt to pull herself together had been useless. Why did she even try to hide things from a psychic?

Jack tilted his head. “Did something happen?” he said. Pete scooped Lily into her arms.

“You might say that,” she murmured. The baby grizzled a bit but settled down. Pete got up and put her in her cot in the corner of the sitting room near the disused fireplace, then switched on the baby monitor.

“You and Clint finishing up?” she asked Jack. Usually he stayed awake until near sunrise, which meant they rarely slept at the same time, but then again, it meant he was the one awake for Lily’s dawn feedings. The part of Pete that wanted to spend time with Jack like they used to hated it, but the sleep-deprived mother in her thought it was a fantastic idea, and these days, sleep always won.