Caitlin Kittredge - Devil's Business

Jack grabbed Pete by the hand and pulled her into the circle. The Black here was strong. He was the Black, inside Locke’s doorway, atoms spread from one end of the universe to the other. Pete’s Weir talent flowed through him, except this time it wasn’t an onrushing storm, a flood that could drown him. Here they were two halves, and they fit together. Weir and mage, floating on the time stream of magic, outside the realm of anything usual.

Jack put one hand on Pete’s stomach, used the Weir to widen his sight. His skull didn’t hurt—it merely felt as if the top had come off and an avalanche of foreign sensation had poured in.

The child was vague—not really thoughts so much as impulses, impulses of hunger and curiosity and fright. It wasn’t formed yet, didn’t really exist in the psychic space.

Abbadon’s magic rode it like a caul over its psychic presence, like an oil spill in cool water. He’d slipped inside Pete’s talent, inside her physical body, and planted a seed amid the psychic DNA of his child so that when it formed, it would form in his image.

Jack drew the darkness out, drew out the spark of Abbadon that still lived, inside Pete.

He saw the glass sands of Hell and smelled the hot wind. It wasn’t a dream, now. He was here, could taste the ashes, hear the screams and the clink of the soul bottles, smell the acrid roast of human flesh borne on the air.

Pete stared, turning in a slow circle. “This is Hell.”

“You are smart, luv,” Jack said. “I do love that about you.”

Pete pointed over his shoulder. “Another time, Jack.”

Abbadon stood there. He wasn’t the dragon that Jack had faced in the graveyard, not the slick-faced human. He was a shadow, all teeth and screams. “You think you’re so fucking smart,” he snarled.

“Smarter than you,” Jack said. “You decided to use my fucking child as your next ride into the daylight world. Not your brightest move, mate. Not even on a slow day.”

“You think you put me in Hell and I’ll stay?” Abbadon snapped. “I got out of this place once, Jack. I can do it again.”

“About that,” Jack said. “See, I don’t peg old Nergal as the generous sort. He may have weakened the bars, but I think you had help crawling out the first time. Whether it was a general, or one of the Princes, or a rat you trained to gnaw through the bars—it doesn’t matter. Belial knows your tricks now. I think this time, you’ll stay right where I put you.”

He pulled the bottle from his coat and held it up to Abbadon. “You’re bound, by the laws of Hell and by my will, Abbadon. Bound to stay in this place, until Hell ends or you do. So fuck off, and leave us alone.”

Abbadon’s shadow flickered once, twice, like faulty film, and then he disappeared, a curl of black smoke at the bottom of a manky bottle, sharing space with a half-centimeter of beer and two dead fag-ends.

Jack shook the bottle a bit, watched the smoke swirl. “Reckon he’s very angry?”

“Who bloody cares?” Pete said. “Trying to get at my kid. Twat.”

“You said it, luv,” Jack said. He walked to where the world dropped off, at the edge of the iron ravine. “Oi!” he shouted. “The prodigal son returns. Enjoy it, you coldblooded sons of bitches.”

Pete caught his arm. “Let me,” she said. Jack handed her the bottle. Just a sad scrap of soul. Just like everyone, no matter how evil or how much they wanted to stay alive, ended up eventually.

“Go on,” he said.

Pete cocked her arm back and flung the bottle hard as she could. It arced out over the ravine and flashed in the harsh white light before it fell from sight and disappeared.

She looked up at Jack. “That’s done, then?”

Jack looked down into the ravine. “For now.” Without Abbadon, Belial and his ilk would make short work of the other three. Jack stepped back, let go of the threads of Locke’s gateway spell, and watched as the daylight world slowly blended back together, and the laws of physics righted themselves.

Pete grimaced. “Awful. Feel like I’m going to puke now.”

“I’ll join you,” Jack said. Nothing else stirred in the farmhouse. Teddy’s corpse hung silently, bloodless and still. In the hallway, the little girl lay staring at the water-spot continents on the ceiling, unblinking.

Pete flinched. “Christ, she was creepy, wasn’t she?”

Jack shivered. “Adorable ones usually are.”

Outside, he saw a line of light on the horizon. It was nearly dawn. Pete sat down on the steps, inhaling a deep breath of air. “Don’t suppose we’ve got a ride out of here.”

“I came with that twat Mayhew and with Sliver,” Jack said. “But I imagine after that light show, Sliver got smart and fucked off back to Angel City. And Mayhew is just fucking useless.”

“He really was a twat,” Pete said. “I’m sorry, you know. You told me it was bad business and I went anyway.”

“Luv, if you lined up all the bad business I’ve followed up on in me life, you’d circle the earth,” Jack said. “Possibly twice.” He tapped a fag out of his pack and offered the last to Pete.

“I’m pregnant, you tit,” she said. “What exactly am I supposed to do with that?”

Jack touched his finger to the end of the fag. It took a few tries, in this zone where the Black twisted back on itself, but he got the fag lit and took a long drag. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, Pete,” he said. Once it was out, it seemed silly he hadn’t said it sooner. Nothing caught on fire. No one slapped him. The sun was up, and he heard some sort of wild bird scream, off in the brush.

“You think I do?” she said.

Jack watched the end of his fag, smoke curling. “I’m not going to be a decent sort of father,” he said. “I’ll try, yeah, but I’ll cock up, and you were right. This kid has no idea what it’s in for. Everyone will want it, both sides. And if it has a talent … I can’t quit, Pete. I can try, but it’ll always find me, so it’s best if I just bow out now, because I can’t be what you need or want.”

“It’s a girl,” Pete said. “I had a new ultrasound right before we left the UK.” She exhaled, as if she’d just confessed something. “So not an it. A girl.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Jack said. Christ, a girl. This was going to be even worse than he’d imagined. He didn’t know what the fuck he’d do with a baby girl.

“I didn’t know if I should,” Pete said. “Didn’t think you’d be sticking around.”

“About that,” Jack said. “It’s pretty fucking clear that I need to. For the kid.”

“I don’t want you to stick around because of some cockeyed obligation,” Pete said. “I can stay with Lawrence, with Ian Mosswood. Hell, even with my mum and the fucking Order. They can keep her safe.”

“Why not?” Jack snapped. Suddenly he was fed up. Through dancing. If he stepped on feet, so be it, but he was too tired to be subtle any longer. “Why can’t I be obligated to stay around? ’S more than my fucking father ever offered.”

“Because I don’t want you to hate me,” Pete said softly. “Jack, I don’t want you retired, but I don’t want you gone, either. You were gone for so long, and when you were in Hell … but I won’t trap you. I won’t be that woman. I just fucking won’t.”

The sunrises in California were magnificent. Jack had heard somewhere that it was from all the pollution. A pink rind of cloud sat below the glowing half-orb, white flashes chasing away the velvety night sky, while the moon and stars clung, far off beyond the mountains.

“You’re not,” he said at last. He could be scared—could be fucking terrified—but that didn’t mean he had to run. “I can’t see hating you, luv,” he said. “Thought I did, for a long while, but I don’t, and I won’t, and I won’t be my fucking cunt of a father, either. I’ll be there for the girl, until you won’t have me.”