Caitlin Kittredge - Soul Trade

“You’re Petunia Caldecott,” he said without preamble. “The Weir.”

“On my better days,” Pete agreed. “Nobody calls me Petunia, by the way. It’s Pete.”

“I need to ask you something,” said Purple Coat. He shifted, fists shoved into his pockets, and Pete tensed again. This gent could very well be a nutter. He certainly looked the part. She and Jack didn’t have many fans in the UK these days, though assassins usually went directly for their target.

Mentally, she cataloged her options. She could run, thump him with her police baton, scream, or try to sling a hex, which was about as reliable as closing your eyes and hoping the other bloke missed. Physical magic was Jack’s game. She was just a beginner.

Purple Coat drew out a crumpled object wrapped in newspaper, and Pete started breathing again. “Ask, then,” she said. “Haven’t got all day, have I? We’ve somewhere to be.”

“I know,” he said. “The Prometheus Club.”

Of course you do, Pete thought, because nothing since those odd, pale creatures had shown up in the graveyard had been a coincidence.

“You going to warn me away?” she asked Purple Coat. “Threaten me? Whatever it is, kick on.”

“From what I’ve heard, neither of those will have any discernible effect on you,” said Purple Coat. “I just needed to reach you. To talk to you before you disappeared into that den of vipers.”

Pete held up her hand, exposing the twin circles of the geas. “It’s a little late for that, mate. They’ve got their hooks in good and tight.” She cocked her head, taking his measure. He was dirty, up close, and had the sour smell of the infrequent bather. His eyes were bloodshot and even though he was still a fat bastard, his skin sagged from weight loss. He looked sick, and exhausted, and his eyes kept roaming the train station even as he bit back a yawn. “Who are you, anyway?” Pete asked him. “When was the last time you slept?”

“My name is Preston, Preston Mayflower,” he said. “I used to be a Member.” Pete could hear the capital letter in his voice. “I’m sorry for the state I’m in, Miss Caldecott, but I can’t rest. They have members who can reach you in your dreams, get inside your head. I can’t allow that to happen.”

He twitched as a businessman passed too close and tucked himself inside his windcheater. Pete had dealt with plenty of paranoids as a copper, and she knew the difference between drug-induced insanity, genuine mental illness, and fear.

This was the latter. “What’s wrong, Preston?” she asked, employing her best soothing tone. “What’s so important that you came here?”

“Listen.” Preston grabbed her wrist, abruptly, and Pete jerked in reflex. She didn’t get much feedback from Preston, though, just a jumbled buzz of magic, like the last bit of static electricity when she brushed against metal in winter. The raw nerve of Manchester’s Black was stifling her ability to sense anything more.

“Please don’t touch me,” she said gently, removing Preston’s hand from her. “I don’t want Jack to get the wrong idea.”

The threat of Jack Winter made Preston recoil like a spring, which would have amused Pete if the poor man hadn’t looked so terrified. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” He swiped a hand across his eyes. “I used to have a normal life, Miss Caldecott. They’re going to say things about me—that I’m a nutter, that I went off the rails and betrayed them, that I’ve always been crazy and unstable. But I’m not .” He shuddered. “I was a geomancer—someone who could consecrate and bind the earth, find holy sites, tears between the Black and the daylight, that sort of thing. Made a nice living as an estate agent, when I wasn’t searching out trouble spots and places of power for them. ”

“Okay,” Pete said. “I believe you, Preston.” She didn’t know what she actually believed, but he needed to hear it and she needed him to get to the point.

“When I found it, they tried to take it, tried to lock me up,” said Preston. “They tried to take it for themselves. I saw it then, what the tenth gathering was really about, and I’m here to warn you, Miss Caldecott. Break the geas. Don’t get anywhere near the Prometheans, and if you must do so…” Preston shot a bug-eyed glance into the crowd, eyes roving over every face as his sallow cheeks flushed. “Don’t take the crow-mage with you.”

Pete started at that. “I don’t know what you mean, Preston. I want to understand, but you’re not making much sense, luv.” To warn her away was one thing, but to suggest that the Prometheans had unsavory designs on Jack was much worse. Nobody who wanted to use him for their own ends was on the side of good, justice, and happy kittens.

“They’ll pour honey in your ear,” Preston whispered. “They’ll make me out to be the villain, and they’ll send you in my stead. But they’re ignorant at best, and liars at worst. They don’t realize how things have changed because of what Nergal did.” He swallowed and coughed—a wet, contagious sound that came from deep in his lungs.

“If I had a pound for every time somebody told me that,” Pete said. She didn’t mean to be flip, but Preston looked near tears at the thought that she wasn’t taking his rant at face value. He thrust the bundle at her with a sharp, violent motion.

“I know you don’t believe me, and I wouldn’t either, but you have to take this. Take it and don’t show it to them .” When Pete took a step back, Preston snatched her hand and pressed the paper-wrapped object into it. “Take it,” he said. “Keep it safe. Maybe it can help you where it couldn’t help me.”

Jack came up behind her, and Pete nearly jumped out of her skin when he spoke. “This fuckwit bothering you?”

“No…” Pete started, but Preston was already off and running toward the taxi line and the street beyond.

“Who was that?” Jack said.

“He was … I don’t know. Random nutter, I think,” Pete said, though the thought nagged at her that Preston had been entirely too frightened to have made what he said up out of the ether. “Told me the Prometheans weren’t what they seem.”

Jack snorted. “In other news, water is wet, Arsenal’s defence is shit, and the Pope wears a silly hat.”

“That’s how I felt,” Pete agreed. She told herself to shake the vague feeling of unease as they made their way to the end of the taxi line. Preston Mayflower didn’t have to be a portent of certain doom. He could be crazy or, worse, he could have been sent by the Prometheans themselves as a test, to see if Pete would be a good little soldier if faced with an excuse to try to slip her geas and get away.

Whatever the reason, she didn’t have the energy to play games with yet another set of shadowy intrigues. She barely had the energy to drag her bag along the curb.

The ache of exhaustion was the excuse she gave herself afterward for seeing a streak of purple from the corner of her eye but not realizing what was happening until it was far too late. Preston Mayflower shoved his way through the throng at the curb, broke through the taxi line ahead of them, and cast a frantic look over his shoulder. His face was nearly the same color as his windcheater, and sweat flew in a sparkling arc from his balding head.

Pete followed his line of sight, her mouth forming into a shout, and saw two people pressing through the crowd behind him, the sort of nondescript that usually lent itself to undercover cops. One man and one woman, beige coats, dark hair, nothing remarkable about them. Except the look of fear they elicited from Preston Mayflower.

A taxi slammed on its brakes, tires screeching, and the driver leaned out his window to scream a curse. The woman of the pair got nearly close enough to touch Preston as he dodged into traffic, but he took another loping step forward, eyes bugging out in terror and seeing nothing in front of him.